Texting girls: images,sounds, and words in neoliberal cultures of femininity

This introductory essay provides an overview of the arguments and premises of this special issue, Texting Girls: Images, Sounds, and Words in Neoliberal Cultures of Femininity. Situated within the recent historical conjuncture in which “girls” (and all that is suggested by the term) have an unprecedented cultural visibility, the essay argues that the figure of the girl is coerced into performing forms of symbolic work within neoliberalism that displaces and contains the corrosive effects of capitalism unbound. Drawing from recent work in Girl Studies and Feminist Theory, the introduction demonstrates that this work relies upon a long-standing conflation of girls and commodification, which supports “girlphobic” constructions in both pro-capitalist stances and anti-capitalist critiques.     

Medical Marijuana Registries: A Painful Choice?

Though the medical use of marijuana is legal in thirty-three states, it remains illegal under the federal Controlled Substances Act. Any marijuana use can subject individuals to severe criminal and civil penalties under federal law. States that condition patient access and treatment on registration in a state database impose real risks on their citizens. Although many scholars have written about the tension between federal and state treatment of marijuana, this is the first article to examine marijuana patient registry privacy and fundamental rights issues. This article first reviews the relationship between marijuana use and patient treatment, with a focus on health-care and privacy rights under state and federal law. The article then explains how marijuana registries compare to broader patient registries, such as contagious disease and other medical condition patient registries, and the unique issues presented by marijuana patient registries. It then discusses the elevated risk to constitutional, privacy, and fundamental rights that may result if states do not carefully construct marijuana registries. The article concludes by proposing principles for how both states and dispensaries should approach marijuana registries in order to provide health benefits and avoid harm to patients.     

Women and Men in Jail: Attitudes Towards and Experiences of Domestic Violence

This study explores the pre-arrest domestic violence victimization and attitudes towards domestic violence reported by women and men confined in a Midwestern metropolitan jail. Results indicated that women in the jail sample had more fear for the safety of battered women than men in the jail sample. Women in jail were more likely than men in jail to view the legal system as a deterrent to domestic violence. Logistic regression models were constructed to explore associations between jail detainees’ pre-arrest experiences of domestic violence and their gender, age, education, race, parental status and other violent victimizations. The variables associated with pre-arrest domestic violence victimization were being a woman, a parent, a victim rape and a victim of threats with a deadly weapon.     

(When) Are Rights Wrong? Rights Discourses and Indeterminacy in Gay and Lesbian Parents’Custody Cases

This paper examines the paradoxical and problematic position of rights discourses in lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) parents'custody and adoption cases. In it, I analyze the ways in which different types of rights are framed by the litigants and, alternatively, by the judges, as well as how the same constitutional rights (e.g., the right to privacy) are often deployed both in defense of and in opposition to gay /lesbian parents. An in-depth analysis of judicial decisions over a 50-year period and interviews with key family law players reveal the indeterminacy and therefore complexity of rights as a strategy and a discourse in the family law context. Consistent throughout this analysis are the problematic intersection of the collective and the individual in rights-based claims, and evidence of the distinct nature of LGBT rights claims as revolutionary in both their bases and their implications. The analysis confirms in some ways, but also contradicts and complicates many assertions of the "rights critique" of the past two decades. It also suggests a more complex and less dichotomous relationship between rights, status, and contract.     

Predicting aggression in police officers using the MMPI-2

This study attempted to determine if any of four MMPI-2 scales formulated to measure various forms of hostility or aggression is useful in predicting aggressive behavior among police officers. In our analysis of 80 officers from two police departments, we found that some scales predicted supervisor ratings of officer performance in one of the departments but not in the second department. In one department, officers with higher ANG scores or HOS scores, or lower O-H scores, were judged by supervisors to be more assertive. Officers from the same department with higher HO scores or lower O-H scores received moire justified citizen complaints. We discuss the importance of predicting aggression in police officers, the difficulty of making this prediction using MMPI-2 scores, and differences between the two departments that might have impacted the outcome of this research. Authors' Note: Communications should be addressed to the authors at James Madison University, School of Psychology, MSC 7401, Harrisonburg VA 22807.