Women Prisoners at the Dawn of the 21st Century

Abstract

The contemporary experiences of women in prison at the beginning of the 21st century must be understood within the context of the monumental increase in incarceration of specific U.S. populations in the last three decades of the 20th century, a truly unique period in history. How race and class impact on the increase of women in U.S. prisons attests to the importance of an intersectional and structural analysis (of race, class, and gender) in explaining the huge number of poor, heavily Black and Latina women incarcerated today. Women are criminalized for the same kinds of crimes today as in the past (nonviolent larceny-theft, forgery, and prostitution)-with the critical addition of drugs (and the “net widening” of previously noncriminal or nonviolent behaviors). And with drugs, the racialized impacts are even more profound. The socially structured conditions of class, race, and gender in the context of globalization, unemployment, and the prison industrial complex help to explain these findings.     

Diplomacy,terrorism, and national narratives in the United States–Iran relationship

The United States and Iran have failed repeatedly in the last thirty years to normalise diplomatic relations. Each attempt to open a dialogue has been set back by acts of terrorism or perceptions thereof, and the small openings for diplomacy were quickly shut. The difficulties of normal diplomacy should be understood in light of the national narratives that guide each country's international behaviour, narratives that include strong admonitions on terrorism and sow distrust. One method to overcome the obstacles thrown up by these national narratives is to explore their dynamics and attempt to write a new, common narrative.     

Introduction to special issue: contradictory interests of offspring and parents, 1500–2000

Conflicts between parents and offspring at home are not a popular issue, at least not in the field of the history of the family. Nevertheless do they occur and it might be rewarding to study these phenomena, although historical sources are scarce. They can be an expression of more general social tensions and they might provoke social changes. This Special Issue presents four contributions in which the central focus is about tensions between parents and grown-up offspring that is still at home. Three topics will be dealt with: marriage, earnings of children working elsewhere, and the threat of leaving home. Factors that seem to affect the balance of interests between parents and offspring include parental power, family needs, public authority and interests taken by children in the outside world.     

Strategies of inheritance among Kentish fishing communities in the later Middle Ages

Anthropologists and historians have long been interested in the subject of inheritance. One area that has received considerable attention is the connections between property, production and the family. Researchers have noted the complexity of the systems used by donors and recipients whereby assets are transmitted, including matters of timing, life cycle stage and the formation of relationships. One of the most significant times is death. For the family, the death of a spouse often has severe implications for its production and reproduction, and the strategies of inheritance employed affect its subsequent history. Studies of post-mortem inheritance have primarily investigated agricultural communities. This article seeks to test their findings by exploring the links between occupation and inheritance, and between identity and inheritance with respect to the fishing families from two small late medieval Kentish towns. The exceptionally good testamentary materials for the fishermen of Lydd and Folkestone reveal the deployment of a number of post-mortem inheritance strategies. By indicating the importance of significant relations in the transference of material and symbolic capital at this critical time, the study provides a greater understanding of the role of inheritance in familial and communal replication.     

Population and households dynamics: A mountainous district in northern Japan in the Shûmon Aratame Chô of Aizu, 1750–1850

The authors examine population trends, demographic characteristics, and the family reproduction system in a highland area of Japan. Aizu district is located in northeastern Japan and has both a mountainous area and a narrow plain. The study is based on Shûmon Aratame Chô (SAC), population registers of four villages between 1750 and 1850 and focuses on the mountainous sector. Demographically, this area stagnated because of its isolation and remoteness. There were few migrations in or out. The peasants married early but bore few children. The authors show how demographic patterns are interrelated with family and household patterns. The most frequent family type was the stem family household, traditionally considered as characteristic of Japan, where the ie (house) was usually transmitted to a single heir. Family transmissions of the rural estate are observed in detail. A household cycle took about 30–35 years to complete. Major differences were seen among social classes, but, overall, Aizu families possessed ideals of ie and were incorporated into ie systems, particularly in the upper classes.     

Italian women after development

The highly successful economic development over the past 30 years of central and northeastern Italy, commonly referred to as the Third Italy, has created significant economic and social gains for the regions' women. The high historical prevalence of extended and multiple households among agricultural sharecroppers provided the social materials necessary for constructing a rapid and efficient engine of accumulation in the area's dynamic, small-firm-based economy. Though women have achieved some economic autonomy through employment and entrepreneurial activities, their achievement of greater economic equity is impeded by the continuing double burdens of employment inside and outside of the home. After examining the dimensions of women's status mobility with particular reference to the Marche region, one of the Third Italy's most economically dynamic, as well as socially conservative regions, it is argued that increasing state subsidies to families with children might increase women's options and help achieve greater equity between the sexes.     

Developments in household patterns in three towns in Navarre,Spain, 1786–1986

Contrary to what has been observed in other regions of Spain, the households of Sangüesa, Yesa, and Lesaca have undergone a set of transformation in their composition and structure in the last 200 years. These changes are closely linked to the economic changes that have taken place in Navarre during this period. The chief characteristic of the developments over the past two centuries has been the rise of the household with a simply structure (married couples with or without children), to which category most households now belong. A further noteworthy features is the fact that domestic servants have now almost completely disappeared.     

The expansion of the nuclear family unit in Great Britain between 1910 and 1920

This article deals with the evolution of the image of the individual and of family structure within every social class in Great Britain between 1910 and 1920, not only because of the influence of the Great War but also of the effect of new social legislative steps taken by the Radical Liberal government. Its essential findings are that the power of males declined in the aristocracy when they were faced, on the one hand, by the increasing attention and concern for children, and on the other hand, by the social, cultural, moral, and political part played by mothers within smaller working- and middle-class family units. Such units were regarded as the crucible for the regeneration and strengthening of the whole British society.     

“We weren't the sort that wanted intimacy every night”: Birth control and abstinence in England,c.1930–60

This article presents an exploration of qualitative evidence on the relationship between birth control and abstinence from an oral history project, which interviewed middle and working-class English men and women, who had married between the late 1920s and the early 1950s. Among the working classes the assumption that men were responsible for birth control choices and the disadvantages that contraceptive methods of all types posed, combined with the fear of pregnancy, acted as a disincentive to have sex and resulted in forms of partial abstinence. Among the middle classes, women had much more access to birth control information and as a consequence a greater range of methods was used, including more female methods. However, the reluctance of couples to discuss sexual matters, and some continued preference for male methods meant that while condoms were the most regularly used middle-class male method, both withdrawal and abstinence were also in evidence. Moreover, although partners were more likely to discuss birth control at the start of their marriages, they were less likely to agree that contraception was a male responsibility and there was greater potential for conflict over contraceptive methods, not infrequently resulting in abstinence. The evidence suggests that sexual and contraceptive practices in marriages in England at the end of the secular fertility decline do not present a picture which straightforwardly correlates with the assumptions represented by the popular thesis that this period of increased fertility control was closely associated with the rise of companionate marriage.