A Fragmentary Archive: Migratory Feelings in Early Anglo-Saxon Women’s Letters

The letters by Anglo-Saxon women in the Boniface correspondence are connected by cultural practices and emotions centered on the conversion mission that functioned to maintain connections between the Anglo-Saxon diaspora. A striking recurring focus of these letters is on loss and isolation, which connects them to the Old English elegies. Many of the letters describe the writers’ traumatic experiences that result from the death or absence of kin. These are women who endured the trauma of being left behind when others migrated overseas or who, in traveling away from their homeland, found themselves isolated in an alien environment, displaced in time as well as space. This article offers an analysis of the letters, focusing on the queer temporalities they explore, the queer emotions they evoke, and the queer kinships that they forge. It argues that the women’s letters represent fragments of an early queer archive of migratory feelings.     

An International Comparative Study on Women's Pension Rights and Their Economic Risks

This article examined the theoretical meanings of pension rights and analyzed their effects on women's economic risks in developed countries. First, based on the status of a citizen, worker, parent, and spouse, this study investigated how pension benefits are guaranteed as a citizen regardless of work history, the degree to which women's disadvantageous situations in the labor market and unpaid work are compensated by public pension as workers and parents, and how marital status is treated in the different pension systems. Second, analysis of the effect of pension rights showed that individual rights is a significant factor to prevent economic risks of elderly women. Derived rights did not seem to secure the economic welfare of elderly women, at least in a comparative context. This finding suggested that developing individual rights, rather than derived rights, is the way to guarantee long‐term elderly women's economic welfare.     

Comparison of Two Psycho-Educational Interventions Aimed at Preventing HIV and Promoting Sexual Health Among Portuguese Women

This study compares the efficacy of 2 psychoeducational interventions—ACCENT skills-based and didactic information only—to prevent HIV among Portuguese women. At posttest and follow-up, participants in both intervention groups (n = 127) were more knowledgeable about HIV than at baseline. Although both intervention groups showed an increase in self-reported condom use over time, differences were marginally stronger in the ACCENT group. Both intervention groups showed more positive results than the non-intervention control group (n = 33). The study suggests that HIV prevention interventions can produce significant changes when they target a set of knowledge, social, and cognitive variables relevant to sexual behavior change.     

The “what” and “who” of co-optation: gendered racialized migrations,settler nation-states and postcolonial difference

In this article, I focus on the management of postcolonial difference and the production of belonging in a white settler nation-state in order to rethink the notion of co-optation. I first develop a theoretical framework for understanding co-optation by separating the “who” and the “what” of co-optation: actors who embody diversity in public, political debate become the “who” of co-optation, as their agency is shaped by gendered and racialized processes of subject making. The “what” of co-optation revolves around particular conceptualizations of practices, rights and freedoms, associated in this case with “gender equality,” which is rendered an empty signifier in the process. I then illustrate this framework by drawing from research on the Sharia-based arbitration debate that took place in Ontario, Canada, between late 2003 and early 2006. I focus on the claims of two Canadian Muslim women activists to show that co-optation occurs as attempts to further liberation instead advance illiberal practices.     

Demands and Devotion: Cultural Meanings of Work and Overload Among Women Researchers and Professionals in Science and Technology Industries

How do cultural meanings influence how people experience work‐life demands? Much research, especially quantitative research, on the effects of structural work and family conditions does not account for employees’ cultural beliefs about the meaning of work in their lives. This article uses unique survey data to investigate the effects of employee embrace of elements of the “work devotion schema”—a cultural model that valorizes intense career commitment and organizational dedication—on their sense of “overload,” an experience that includes feeling exhausted and overloaded by all one's roles, net of actual hours on the paid job and family responsibilities. We argue that by cognitively, morally, and emotionally framing work as a valued end, the work devotion schema reduces feelings of overload. Using a case of senior women researchers and professional service providers in science and technology industries, we find that those who embrace work devotion feel less overloaded than those who reject it, net of work and family conditions. However, this effect is curtailed for mothers of young and school‐aged children. We end by discussing implications for flexibility stigma and gender inequality.     

农村女性流动打工经历对其家庭经济地位的影响

本文利用调查数据，对是否外出打工及不同类型打工地的农村女性家庭经济地位差异进行对比，考查在资源因素与文化规范变迁的多重影响下，不同的打工经历对农村女性家庭经济地位的影响及其发展变化。     

Thriving Older African American Women: Aging After Jim Crow

ABSTRACT

This paper is based on the findings of small group discussions with self-defined successful African American women age 60+ in Charlotte, North Carolina. These women, who lived through the Jim Crow era and thrived in spite of the obstacles, continue to seek meaning in their lives through the roles they play in their families, churches, and communities. They feel strongly that there is a core of key values that continue to hold meaning and struggle to impart these values to those whose lives they touch. The key values identified include education, religion, work, and giving back to the community, and illustrate the integration of both traditional and nontraditional definitions of success. Mentoring is proposed as an important concept for understanding the lives of African American women in later life.     

Abused Elders

No abstract available for this article.     

Performing Beauty: Dove's “Real Beauty” Campaign

Dove, a popular beauty brand, impressed some in the advertising world with its unique “Campaign for Real Beauty” and made others cringe. But little is known about how real women respond. “Real” beauty according to Dove means various shapes and sizes—flaws and all—and is the key to rebranding, rebuilding women's self‐esteem, and redefining beauty standards. Drawing on interviews and focus groups with sixteen Canadian women and guided by social semiotics and dramaturgy, I examine Dove's presentation of beauty and women's reactions to it from a “beauty as performance” frame. This study examines processes of interpretation and finds that expressing beauty, the self, and a public image inextricably requires elements of performance.     

“So Tell Me,Why Do Women Need Something Different?”

SUMMARY

There has been a dramatic increase in the number of women in the criminal justice system over the past two decades, creating the need for gender-specific responses and programs in jails, prisons, and community corrections. Systems must adapt to appropriately respond to women and their families. Institutions and community-based organizations must help women to deal with their histories of trauma, violence, and substance abuse. One gender-specific, strength-based, community model for support is presented.