Women,writing and politics in Sonallah Ibrahim's That Smell and Notes from Prison

In That Smell and Notes from Prison, Sonallah Ibrahim engages literary and feminist discourses in his political narrative against the Nasserist regime and the culture of commitment (iltizam) of the 1960s. Ibrahim's antihero is a newly released writer who is faced with the challenges of overcoming his failure to connect with women and society, and find a motivation to write. He realizes that most readers, writers and critics are not in favour of his literature of exposé, which refuses to depict or treat the ugly reality as a beautiful one. In foreshadowing the 1967 defeat and the impotence of Arabs, That Smell and Notes from Prison warns of a prolonged cultural and literary decay should political corruption override basic human and women's rights in the Arab world.     

Naming for kin and the development of modern family structures

It is generally assumed that the conjugal family—the family that lived independently from extended kin—came into existence in the Netherlands relatively early, and that a new attitude towards children, characterized by an emphasis on the individuality of the child, developed at more or less the same time. To test whether this more narrow range of kin and the stronger emphasis on the individuality of the child translated itself also in a deviation from the traditional practice of naming newborn children for kin, the article analyzes naming patterns in a rural area of the Netherlands during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The conclusion is that the rise of the conjugal family and the new attitude that recognized the child as an autonomous individual had no impact on the degree of naming for kin. In a more general sense, the findings raise doubts about the idea that changes in family structures and mentality directly express themselves in changes in naming practices.     

Althusser's solitude ∗

Noting the prevalence of the theme of ‘solitude’ in the writings of Louis Althusser, this paper aims to capture something of Althusser's own theoretical solitude as a Communist philosopher intent upon renovating Marxist theory in order to ‘help put some substance back into the revolutionary project . . . in the West’. It argues that Althusser's singularity within the Marxist tradition consists in his effective rupture not only with orthodox dialectical and historical materialism and heterodox western Marxism, but with central tenets of classical Marxism itself; that this break derives from his utilization of key non-Marxist discourses (Spinozism, conventionalist philosophy of science, and aspects of structuralism); and that the resulting reconstruction of Marxism was highly original, yet seriously flawed. It concludes that, despite the resonance of his work in the 1960s and 1970s, for theoretical and political reasons Althusser is today once again condemned to solitude. “Communists, when they are Marxists, and Marxists when they are Communists, never cry in the wilderness. Even when they are practically alone.” (Louis Althusser, Reply to John Lewis)     

Immigrant sexual citizenship: intersectional templates among Mexican gay immigrants to the USA

Existing literature on sexual citizenship has emphasized the sexuality-related claims of de jure citizens of nation-states, generally ignoring immigrants. Conversely, the literature on immigration rarely attends to the salience of sexual issues in understanding the social incorporation of migrants. This article seeks to fill the gap by theorizing and analyzing immigrant sexual citizenship. While some scholars of sexual citizenship have focused on the rights and recognition granted formally by the nation-state and others have stressed more diffuse, cultural perceptions of community and local belonging, we argue that the lived experiences of immigrant sexual citizenship call for multiscalar scrutiny of templates and practices of citizenship that bridge national policies with local connections. Analysis of ethnographic data from a study of 76 Mexican gay and bisexual male immigrants to San Diego, California, reveals the specific citizenship templates that these men encounter as they negotiate their intersecting social statuses as gay/bisexual and as immigrants (legal or undocumented); these include an ‘asylum’ template, a ‘rights’ template, and a ‘local attachments’ template. However, the complications of their intersecting identities constrain their capacity to claim immigrant sexual citizenship. The study underscores the importance of both intersectional and multiscalar approaches in research on citizenship as social practice.     

The Politics of Child Prostitution in South Africa

This paper argues that policies, interventions and discourses pertaining to child prostitution have been guided by overarching political agendas that have masked the underlying structural basis of this phenomenon. These political agendas have shifted in accordance with the locus of power, control and resistance in South Africa since the nineteenth century. On the basis of a historical analysis this paper identifies distinct periods in which child prostitution was used to legitimate policies in favour of social control rather than social development. In the colonial period, child prostitution was used to justify stricter controls on adolescent and adult women's sexuality and movement by colonial and traditional patriarchal authorities. In the colonial and Apartheid periods, policies on child prostitution were informed by fears of miscegenation and sexually transmitted diseases, which were used to support the racist and oppressive legislation of sexual behaviour. In the 1980s and early 1990s, the issue of child prostitution was ‘discovered’ in the press both to deflect attention from the incarceration of juveniles during the 1987 State of Emergency and as the basis upon which liberals attacked the Apartheid state. In the latter half of the 1990s and 2000s, it was used by the African National Congress (ANC) government to attack the moral legacy left by the Apartheid state and in turn deflect responsibility for the root causes of this phenomenon. Furthermore, child prostitution was used to support stricter controls on adult sex workers and on the movement of undocumented migrants. This politicised and sensationalist approach has undermined detailed analysis of the root causes of this phenomenon and children's motivation for engaging in prostitution. For many children in South Africa it has been one means by which they can exercise their agency and power in order to ensure their survival in the face of high levels of socio-economic deprivation and rapid socio-cultural change. This paper therefore proposes a shift from policies and interventions centred on social control to social development, based on an in-depth understanding of children's agency, risk and resilience.     

Policing Race,Gender, and Sex: A Review of Law Enforcement Policies

Growing attention to the unique ways in which women of color’s bodies are racially profiled and policed has prompted questions concerning gender-specific impacts of law enforcement practices. Arrest statistics, patterns of enforcement, and high-profile cases of police violence against Black women and other women of color suggest that gaps in policy and implementation will disproportionately affect women of color. In the current research, the policies of 36 police departments across the country were examined to ascertain the degree to which they address profiling, police sexual misconduct, and other gendered experiences of policing. The findings reveal considerable divergence in attention to regulating police behavior in the context of interactions with women and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people, exposing important gaps in police policies, and highlight a need for further research and action specifically focused on intersectional factors at play in the context of policing women’s bodies.     

Onerous passions: colonial anti-miscegenation rhetoric and the history of sexuality

ABSTRACT

Ehlers's analysis revisits Foucauldian conceptualizations of the history of sexuality in order to map the inextricability of race, gender and sexuality as they emerged in the context of the early American colonies. The salience of such an analysis lies in its ability to extend the terrain of Foucault's history, and brings new considerations to bear regarding the specific configurations of race, gender and sexual intersections in North American history. If, as Foucault insists, sexuality is a set of effects produced in bodies, behaviours and social relations, Ehlers reorients these claims to consider how these effects were racialized within the rubric of colonial anti-miscegenation rhetoric. Through such a tracing, it becomes evident that, from the early colonial context, sexuality was deployed to produce ‘ideal’ sexuality as a bastion of whiteness: that is, to configure and maintain ‘ideal’ sexuality as white.     

Ethnicity and Sexual Orientation as PTSD Mitigators in Child Sexual Abuse Survivors

Purpose and Potential benefits: Research, to our knowledge, has not examined the effect of demographic variables on PTSD symptoms among adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse (CSA). This study explores the relationship between demographic variables and scores of CSA survivors on the Impact of Scale (IES). Participants were 257 women CSA survivors entering outpatient treatment at a university-based mental health center. All participants reported a CSA history and presented with psychological difficulties associated with CSA. The demographic variables investigated were relationship status, religious affiliation, ethnicity, educational level, spousal educational level income, and sexual orientation. Significance tests were used to examine each variable and scores on the Total IES and Avoidance and Intrusion Subscales. Total IES and Intrusion scores differed for sexual orientation and ethnicity in accord with conventional standards of significance ( < .05). Self-reported asexuals indicated fewer intrusive and total PTSD symptoms than heterosexuals, lesbians, and bisexuals. Likewise, Hispanics reported less intrusive PTSD symptoms than Non-Hispanic Caucasians. Our findings invite further exploration of the relationship between ethnicity and sexual orientation and the long-term effects of CSA. A question for empirical investigation is whether asexuality shields against the triggering of CSA memories by a sexual relationship. Another possible area of inquiry is whether particular characteristics of Hispanic culture as a whole serve to moderate the detrimental effects of CSA.     

Communication with Best Friends About Sex-Related Topics During Emerging Adulthood

During emerging adulthood, relationships with close friends may be particularly important and influential, yet most research on communication about sex-related topics focuses on emerging adults' communication with parents. Two hundred and five college students (61% female, mean age = 20.5) completed surveys about the frequency and quality of their sex-related conversations with same-sex best friends, and their sexual attitudes and behaviors. These conversations were more frequent between females, and between less religious youth. Sexually active youth discussed most topics more frequently than abstinent youth, although abstinent youth discussed abstinence more frequently. More frequent and comfortable conversations were generally associated with more liberal sexual attitudes, and more positive condom-related attitudes. Differential associations between the specific topics discussed and attitudes about sexuality, HIV, and condoms highlight the importance of examining multiple dimensions of sex-related communication rather than the unidimensional measures typically employed.     

Beyond silence and voice: gender,sexuality and antimilitarism in Turkey and Israel

Turkey and Israel project two distinct military regimes which construct gender and sexuality in specific ways as part of their respective security agendas. Despite the differences, however, both entitle women and LGBTQs to certain exemptions from the military service, and in doing so silence their antimilitarist activism. Women and LGBTQs counter this process through their acts of conscientious objection, through which they claim a voice in matters of militarism, security and war. While doing so, however, they reproduce a dichotomous conceptualisation of silence and voice, which falls short of explaining their agency as well as its outcomes. Drawing on a comparative analysis, I argue that a more nuanced understanding of agency necessitates deconstructing the dichotomy between silence and voice, each of which may have multiple meanings, connotations and consequences. Whereas silent acts of grey objection do not always point to a lack of agency and resistance, or domination, and may indeed create change; voice and visibility that follow their declared acts of objection may entail costs and loss of agency, in that not only does it come at the expense of the masculinisation/militarisation of their acts but may also result in the immediate deterioration of their rights to refuse.