Bridging cross-cultural feminisms: annie besant and women's rights in England and India, 1874-1933

Abstract

Annie Besant was a Victorian radical whose outspoken views included advocacy of women's rights and opposition to British imperial policies. In her mid-forties she went to live in India. Contesting British attempts to Westernize Indian society, Besant found herself in the seemingly anomalous position of defending traditional Indian patriarchy and resisting efforts to reform the status of Indian women. Such conservatism brought on Besant criticism not only from Western liberals and Christian missionaries, but also from many Indian social reformers. When she gradually shifted her views and voiced her support for Indian women's rights, Indian nationalists condemned her as a British imperialist. The conflict between loyalty to national heritage and opposition to traditional patriarchy is one that colonized women have commonly experienced. By examining how an anti-imperialist British feminist responded to the question of women's reform in India, this paper offers another perspective on the complexities of this dilemma.     

Why are highly informed citizens sceptical of referenda?

Past work on attitudes toward the use of referenda finds that the most politically informed citizens are more sceptical of its use than their less informed counterparts. An intriguing tension presents itself in that those citizens who may be best equipped for referendum voting, the highly informed and politically sophisticated, are the least likely to support the use of this tool of direct democracy. Using data from Canadian Election Studies, we consider three explanations for relative referenda scepticism among political sophisticates. Our analyses provide evidence to support a confidence in government explanation and a concern for minority rights explanation, but not an incompetent public explanation – a curious finding considering the centrality of citizen competence in the theoretical literature on referenda.     

Technical Management in an Age of Openness: The Political,Public, and Environmental Forest Ranger

Modern bureaucracy faces trade‐offs between public and congressional input and agency expertise. The U.S. Forest Service offers an opportunity to quantitatively analyze whether an agency that is required to be more open to the public and congressional input will be forced to ignore its technical expertise in managing resources. This study uses data on 83,000 hazardous fuels reduction activities conducted by the Forest Service from 2001 to 2011. Although the results show that managers are responsive to public and congressional considerations, this has not prevented them from utilizing their technical knowledge to restore lands most deviated from natural conditions. This suggests that managers can balance responsiveness to public and political principals with technically sound management.     

Life into art and art into life: visualising the aesthetic woman or ‘high art maiden’ of the Victorian ‘renaissance’

There has been a great deal of research concerning the effect of aestheticism on men in the late nineteenth century, especially in terms of their sexuality, but its impact on women has been largely dismissed as unnecessary, as women were naturally ‘feminine’. This article examines whether ‘the self-absorption and heightened emotional life of Aestheticism’ (J.B. Bullen, 1998 [Oxford: Oxford University Press]) was tolerable in women or if it was leading to disease, decay and corruption. Aestheticism's insistence on individuality and self-discovery were to have important consequences for women, fuelling the desire for a life of their own rather than solely service to others.     

Dr. Jekyll's waiver of Mr. Hyde's right to refuse medical treatment: Washington's new law authorizing mental health care advance directives needs additional protection

Mental health care advance directives are gaining popularity nationwide. Following a growing trend, the Washington State Legislature has recently passed a law allowing patients to draft mental health care advance directives that could be irrevocable. Patients who sign an irrevocable directive essentially waive their fundamental right to refuse treatment in the future. The United States Supreme Court has held that waivers of fundamental rights must be made knowingly, voluntarily, and intelligently. However, as passed, Washington's new law contains insufficient safeguards to guarantee such a waiver. This Comment proposes that the Washington State Legislature amend this law the require two additional protections: a "rights advocate" to explain the potential waiver of rights, and a written warning in the advance directive form. These safeguards will help ensure that patients make knowing and intelligent waivers of their fundamental right to refuse treatment.     

Human bites and the risk of human immunodeficiency virus transmission.

The risk of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) transmission following a bite injury is important to many groups of people. The first are those who are likely to be bitten as an occupational risk, such as police officers and institutional staff. Another group are represented by the victims and perpetrators of crimes involving biting, both in attack and defense situations. The possibility of these bites transmitting a potentially fatal disease is of interest to the physicians who treat such patients and the legal system which may have to deal with the repercussions of such a transmission. Bite injuries represent 1% of all emergency department admissions in the United States, and human bites are the third most common following those of dogs and cats. The worldwide epidemic of HIV and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) continues, with >5 million new cases last year and affecting 1 in 100 sexually active adults. A review of the literature concerning human bites, HIV and AIDS, HIV in saliva, and case examples was performed to examine the current opinion regarding the transmission of HIV via this route. A bite from an HIV-seropositive individual that breaks the skin or is associated with a previous injury carries a risk of infection for the bitten individual.     

Federal Aid and Economic Development in Nonmetropolitan Communities: The UDAG Program

In 1977 Congress enacted the Urban Development Action Grant(UDAG) program to help distressed communities develop economically.This article draws from case studies of ten nonmetropolitancommunities with Action Grants. It focuses on the factors thataffect the completion and benefits of projects, particularlyrelations with private developers and local management capacity.The studies show that the UDAG program has been flexible inaccommodating differences in economic development needs as perceivedlocally. However, many of the projects have not produced thenumbers of jobs originally proposed. Several communities encounteredproblems with private developers who either abandoned the projectsor failed to produce expected results. Smaller communities inthe sample tended to lack grantsmanship, management, and legalresources.