“I Am Not A Victim. I Am A Survivor”: Resilience as a Journey for Female Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse

ABSTRACT

This study was designed to expand our understanding of the positive aspects of coping and resilience in female survivors of child sexual abuse. Research questions focused on women’s lived experiences of being survivors of child sexual abuse and how they have experienced resilience, developed healthy intimate relationships, and viewed themselves as sexual beings. Using a qualitative research lens of phenomenology, we captured the essence of survivors’ experiences of resilience. Although each woman’s experience was unique, similar patterns of processes and outcomes emerged as meaningful in their development of resilient and healthy sexuality and relationship functioning. However, participants emphasized resilience as a process or journey—recovery from trauma, reconceptualization of self, and development of healthy sexuality included deliberate efforts occurring over time. Implications for future research and practice using a positive lens of resilience are provided.     

“I Didn't Leave Y'all on Purpose”: HIV-Infected Mothers' Videotaped Legacies for Their Children

The authors analyzed twelve videotapes made by HIV-infected women for their children. Using grounded theory methods the concept of eternal mothering provides a framework to study the interactive aspects of mothering, and the significance of impending maternal death from a stigmatizing illness. In creating these videotape legacies, the mothers drew on personal experiences of gender, class, race, ethnicity, family configurations, and other social conditions. There is tension between women's self-presentation in an attempt to control the impressions they make on their children, and their decision to disclose stigmatizing secrets with the potential consequential loss of maternal authority and children's loyalty, as well as inherited shame by association.     

‘He wants,I don't’: females' contrasting attitude about fertility intentions for a second child

Thanks to the use of household-level micro-data from the ‘Family and Social Subjects’ survey carried out by the Italian National Statistical Office in 2003, this paper aims at understanding the determinants of a woman's contrasting attitude towards her partner's positive intention for another child considering the bargaining process literature.

The econometric analysis is based on sample selection models that allow the study of this issue considering the probability of recording a couple's disagreement on higher-order fertility. The analysis finds that when within the couple the female partner is more educated, she disagrees less with her partner's positive intention for a second child. If we deal with the job-related features, the probability that the female contrasts her partner's positive fertility intention is higher when she is unemployed, when she is employed but she experiences a lack of provision of child-care, and if she perceives that another child might jeopardize her career.

The findings are coherent with the assumption that a higher consistency between the individual's and the couple's fertility intentions may be achieved; the presence of a rigid labour-market and the lack of public child-care provision and of public policies should contribute to explaining the problems in reconciling family and working life.     

“It Was Like This,I Think”: Constructing an Adoption Narrative for Chinese Adopted Children

Using qualitative survey data from 35 adoptive parents of children from China, I explore the type of narrative parents construct about their child's “abandonment.” Parents tell the story they know best—the child's adoption story—being careful to not overly burden the child with harsh abandonment realities. Most parents opt to tell a dominant narrative, portraying the child's Chinese birth parents as parents who loved their child and struggled with the decision to give up their child pressured by outside forces to do so. Any counternarrative told seems to be for the adoptive parents themselves, not for their children.     

Can I Speak and Do You Hear Me? Quest(ion)s for R/Evolution

Young people have been and will always be the vanguards and visionaries of civil rights movements and liberation-oriented communities. Young queers, however, are still struggling to be heard, even within gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender communities. The author offers the Encounter-Reaction Model as an analytical framework to explore the dynamics of power and oppression from the top-down perspective. He also raises probing questions to those in authority on their knowledge of disenfranchised communities' identities and realities, their strategies for leadership development, inclusion and accountability, and their motivations in regard to working and structuring their relationships with those at the margins. Finally, he unpacks the roots and manifestations of being silenced.     

“I saw the handwriting on the wall”: shades of meaning in reasons for early retirement

This article attempts to locate people's individual decisions to take early retirement in the particular social and economic context in which these decisions are being made. Results are presented from a phenomenological case study of a particular group of people who talked about their reasons for having taken early retirement from a particular company. The analysis indicates that the reasons people give for their decision do not always fall neatly into dichotomous explanatory categories such as “health versus wealth,” “push versus pull factors,” or “voluntary versus involuntary,” as suggested by much of the current literature. Rather, this decision is fraught with shades of ambiguity, and involves complex and multiple considerations at the personal, workplace, and societal levels.     

I See Them Everyday

Poetry has always been an important part of my creative life. Having lived in China as a university English teacher for two years, I find myself being surrounded by active, bustling life of all kinds, not just the intellectual life of the classroom. People of all ages and from all over the world cycle to and fro, throw baseballs, play tennis and badminton, practise qigong or do disco dancing. Retired professors, now proud grandparents, collec't their much-loved grandchildren from school. Stalls outside the campus repair shoes and bicycles, sell pancakes, fruit, cut keys, cook skewers of food. There is always movement, noise, something to draw the attention, alert the interest…     

解读 I LOVE YOU

I-Inject——投入L-Loyal——忠诚O-Observant——用心V-Valiant——勇敢E-Enjoyment——喜悦Y-Yes——愿意O-Obligation——责任U-Unison——和谐所以,爱就是投入、忠诚、用心、勇敢、喜悦、愿意、责任,还有和谐。I-Inject——投入投入,这个投入有很多概念,有对自己所爱的人投入自己所有的感     

The Mirror and I

The following is the speech presented by Liu Xin, who won First Prize in this year's English-Speaking Union International Public Speaking Competition.     

My Grandma and I

GRANDMA is an old house—an old tree that I grew up with. Although my grandmother is a typical rural woman with bound feet, she has a man's name—Liu Hongqing. Women from her era usually did not have their own names, but she has one and it sounds so good, because her family was rich when she was born. Her father ran a large dyehouse and all her uncles had businesses in Qingdao or Yantai. But Liu Hongqing's lot in life would be different. At the age of 16, the casting of a horoscope dictated that she marry a local blacksmith, Ni Runtai. From that point on, she lived in     

I服了YOU

猪肉涨了，电话费都要涨。 中国电信宣布，从2007年9月1日起，调整国际IP电话价格，上调幅度最高的是打往19个国家和地区的费用由每分钟4．6元升至每分钟15元，升幅226％。     

What was I thinking? A theoretical framework for analysing panel conditioning in attitudes and (response) behaviour

Though panel data are increasingly used in the social sciences, the question whether repeatedly participating in a panel survey affects respondents’ attitudes and (response) behaviour is still largely unsolved. Drawing on a model of associative networks that is extended by assumptions on survey satisficing, we present a theoretical framework that emphasizes the role of strength-related attributes of attitudes (accessibility, internal consistency, extremity) and motivation in respondents’ information processing. In particular, we argue that – depending on respondents’ predispositions – occupation with survey questions enhances attitude strength, which results in increasing attitude stability and influence on thoughts and behaviours. Against this background, we bring together hitherto unconnected results from previous research and thus contribute to a more thorough understanding of both the mechanisms and the multifaceted outcomes of panel conditioning.     

I Want to Do Something

AT the First Women and Environment Conference of China, I saw Jiang Shaozhen, conference organizer, board director and general manager of the Sino-Japan funded Beijing Kangqiao Environmental Protection Limited Company, affiliated with Qinghua University. At the conference, she was awarded the title of "National Best Woman in Environmental Protection." But when she introduced herself, she tended to say, "I used to be a teacher at Qinghua University." Indeed, Jiang is fond of the teaching     

Mom,I Understand You

To celebrate Mother's Day, the editors of Society Weekly(published by People's Daily) invited their readers to write and submit "A Sentence for Mother." This activity, which was co-sponsored by the "Program of Happiness," garnered quite an emotional response. Among the contributions we received were several from the 21 students of Class Three, Grade Two of the high school affiliated with the Beijing Institute of Clothing Technology. "Mother, you are a towering tree and I am your shadow. "—ZHANG YE "Mother, you are an umbrella, and we are the children under it. You are the pod, and we are the peas."—XU JING     

“I Was Tooken”

ABSTRACT

Little is known of how children experience removal from parents and placement into foster care. This paper presents results of a qualitative study of the experiences of 90 inner-city children, ages 8-14 years. Children's narratives portray a progression of traumatizing events ensuing from the placement process. The narrative from a wellhandled placement suggests guidelines for future interventions. Developmental and practice implications are discussed.     

I Married a Chinese Woman

He became known all over China because of his appearance on the national television competition "Foreigners Singing Chinese Songs."Dressed in traditional Chinese costume and accompanied by his Chinese wife,he Chinese Girl."In this article,Stephen Sayers tells about his marriage and his personal feelings during his five years in China,Stephen and his wife Candy just moved to Macao in July.In arecent letter he asked the editor to give the money for this article to the education-aiding"Hope project" and specified it for Guizhou.     

The Kirgiz Women I Know

With a population of 114,000, most Kirgiz people reside in the Kizilsu Kirgiz Autonomous Prefecture in the southern region of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.The Kirgiz survive by stock raising, and making handicrafts. Sideline industries include raising crops and processing livestock products. Most of the Kirgiz live a nomadic life, moving about in search of green pastures.The Kirgiz are known for their hospitality and courtesy. Any visitor, known to them or not, is always warmly received.Kirgiz men commonly wear a corduroy cap with a round top all year round. Young men wear caps of green, purple or blue, while old men sport black caps.Kirgiz women love to dress in red. Some wears short blouse and long skirt, others wear dresses. They also wear loose-fitting blouses with a tight collar. And their hair is always beautifully decorated, with embroidered strips binding the plaits and round, silver coins at the end of each plait.The main dish of the Kirgiz is horse meat, beef, lamb and dairy products.     

Marriage: for love,for money…and for time?

Married couples enjoy meaningful economies in time, often choosing to specialize where one spouse focuses on market work and the other on household production and childcare. Using data from the American Time Use Survey 2003–2008, I estimate significant marriage effects upon time use. Most married women gain 33–34 min of leisure each weekday when compared to single women. While marriage does not lead to more leisure for husbands, it allows them to allocate time away from home and towards market work. Lower-income couples work more at home and for pay, and spend less time in leisure than their single counterparts. The temporal and financial gains from marriage for most people are inconsistent with its declining prevalence.     

The Ditan Park and I

DITAN PARK (Temple of Earth) is near my home, or I live near Ditan Park. Whichever way you look at it, it seems that the park and I are destined to be close to one another. The park has been there for more than 400 years before and my family has been living near the park ever since my grandmother moved to Beijing with my father. Even though my family has moved several times over the past five