And Neither Are We Saved: Asian Americans' Elusive Quest for Racial Justice

Derrick Bell, Civil Rights activist, legal scholar, and a founder of critical race theory, dedicated much of his life and scholarship to the pursuit of racial justice. Twenty‐six years ago, in his work And We Are Not Saved, he recognized that racial progress has been stalled and racial equality would not be a reality in his lifetime. Bell passed away in October 2011, and we are reminded that there is still much work to do. He presented a conundrum that race scholars have said all there is to say about racial problems in the United States; yet, he encouraged scholars to keep moving the work forward. At the time And We Are Not Saved was written, much of the racial scholarship was centered on the Black–White paradigm. In the 26 years since Bell wrote it, there has been a growth of Asian American research. This essay surveys some critical racial analysis of Asian Americans. There have been major contributions to the literature extending racial scholarship beyond the Black–White paradigm. Additionally, intersectional scholarship extends the discussion into other systems of oppression, highlighting how racism can be veiled in different systems. Critical race scholarship is imperative to keep Bell's dream of racial equality alive.     

The Quest for Invisibility: Female Entrepreneurs and the Masculine Norm of Entrepreneurship

The emphasis in research on female entrepreneurship remains focused on the impact of gender on women’s experience of business ownership, often demonstrated through comparisons of male and female entrepreneurs. By contrast, this article explores the differences and divisions between women business owners who are silent about gender issues and those who are not. The main data drawn on in the article are e‐mails conducted through a web‐based entrepreneurial network set up to promote and support women in business, supplemented with interview material derived from an interview study of 19 women business owners. By considering the way in which some women business owners not only treat entrepreneurship as gender‐neutral, but also seek to conceal its gendered nature, we can see how some female entrepreneurs are trying to avoid being identified as different from the masculine norm of entrepreneurship.     

The Quest for Legacy in Later Life

Abstract

Anthropological fieldwork among retirees in a rural New York community revealed that a common feature in people's search for meaning was their effort to create a legacy. The results varied, and included innovative programs, the moral lessons of personal experience, and creative works. New retirees also cared about who would succeed them, either in their former positions, or by carrying on the work, stories, or sensibilities they had forged. Ethnographic vignettes relate these twin themes of legacy and succession to American ideas about debts, personal identity, and moral obligation. These stories are also compared with the way legacies are constructed in other societies.     

The Relationship Between Sexual Concordance and Orgasm Consistency in Women

Sexual concordance (the relationship between genital and self-reported sexual responses) may be associated with orgasm consistency (OC; the proportion of sexual acts leading to orgasm) during penile–vaginal intercourse (PVI) in women. We investigated the relationship between women’s sexual concordance (assessed using different stimulus modalities and self-reported sexual arousal methods) and OC during various sexual activities (assessed using different types of questions). For Study 1 (n = 51), when sexual concordance was assessed using audiovisual sexual stimuli, we did not find a statistically significant relationship between OC and poststimulus self-reports of sexual arousal or genital sensations, raw values of OC, or ranges of OC. For Study 2 (n = 44), where sexual concordance was assessed using audionarrative sexual stimuli, we did find a statistically significant relationship between PVI OC and sexual concordance using change in self-reported sexual arousal, and ranges of orgasm consistency. Two findings were inconsistent with previous research. First, OC varied significantly by activity type in both studies; masturbation yielded the highest OC. Second, PVI OC was significantly related to oral sex and masturbation OC (Study 2). We discuss the need for further research and various factors that may affect women’s orgasm consistency and sexual concordance.     

China's Experience in Population Control: The Elusive Model

Abstract

Professor Tien's review article is the first in a series of such articles on public policy documents. As we indicated in the last issue (Vol. 8, No. 1, pp. 1–2), our aim is to compile—over a period of time—a sort of overall report card on the quality of such documents by submitting them to the scrutiny of academic professionals. Our instructions to Professor Tien were two. First, he was to examine the information contained in the report. Is it the best information available? Secondly, we asked Professor Tien to assess the logical connection between the report's data and its conclusions. We think that he has tackled both points well in his comments.

Professor Tien is well qualified to write a review article on a report on techniques of family planning in China. He is the author of the recent China's Population Struggle (Ohio State University Press, 1973), as well as many articles on the same theme. [Eds.]     

Elusive public support for us child care policy

Most U.S. parents are in the paid labor force (US Department of Labor Statistics. (2014). Women in the labor force: A databook. Retrieved from http://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/cps/women-in-the-labor-force-a-databook-2014.pdf). Using a purposive non-probability sample (N?=?415) of primarily upper-middle class, married White Democratic women, this study explores support for government regulation, funding, and provision of child care and the factors and context that may shape their beliefs. Although some respondents held reservations about government involvement, over 80% indicated that government should play a role in regulating care for children in all age categories (0–3, 4–5, and 6–12). Eighty-nine percent supported some form of government financial support for child care, and 58% and 61% saw a role for provision of child care for children age 0–5 and 6–12, respectively. Both regression analyses and qualitative responses indicated that support for a government role in child care was influenced by parents’ own difficulties finding affordable and sufficiently comprehensive care, and the number of children they had. We provide recommendations for how best to target these groups of parents to support child care advocacy campaigns, tapping into their own struggles as a source of empathy for others as well as an impetus to shift toward a more universal notion of government support for child care.     

Is There a Quest for Identity?*

It is widely assumed that people today experience an imperative quest for identity, and that altruism and work have been displaced as credible routes to self-discovery by the abandonment of inhibition and the attainment of intimacy. A preliminary examination of these premises is made through questions included in a survey of adults in the Los Angeles metropolitan area and in questionnaires administered to students at UCLA, two Australian universities, and one British university. Very few adults in Los Angeles, even in the youngest and most highly educated brackets, acknowledge any preoccupation with the question, “Who am I really?,”though most university students in the four samples do. Both adults and students endorse altruism most frequently, impulse-release least frequently, and intimacy with intermediate frequency as routes to self-discovery. They differ most in their evaluation of work as a medium for self-discovery. All observations apply only to a self-conscious search for identity.     

The Quest for Family and The Mobility of Modernity in Narratives of Postwar British Emigration

In this article I focus on ways in which the postwar generation of British migrants to Canada and Australia construct their stories as epic struggles with family themes of both loss and triumph at the centre. While, during the postwar years, there is among some migrants evidence of the emergence of a more adaptable, sojourning ‘mobility of modernity’, most life stories told by the migrants suggest a more traditional pattern in which family themes dominate. In these narratives postwar migrants structure their accounts along traditional ‘epic story’ lines reminiscent of Oscar Handlin's long superseded thesis about dislocation in the old country, alienation in the new and ultimate triumph over material and cultural obstacles. But the ‘epic’ quality of these stories is deeply attached to family themes; the disruption of family networks and attempts to rescue the old or create new ones are central to the way the migration experience determines the structuring of life memories. The very act of migration focuses attention on its impact on kinship. The predominantly urban, nuclear family form of postwar British migration does contrast sharply with more traditional rural patterns based on extended family movements and ‘chain migration’. But British migrants' emphasis on the ‘quest for family’ and the refashioning of migrant identity in their narratives underlines the coexistence of traditional themes within countervailing trends towards the mobility of modernity.     

Transition from Paroxysmal Disorder in Infancy to the Masturbatory Orgasm in Childhood

ABSTRACT

Patients younger than 1 year of age may be diagnosed with paroxysmal disorder, or infantile masturbation. It remains unclear whether the paroxysmal disorder seen in infants who have yet to develop self-awareness or ideas about sex is equivalent to the masturbatory orgasm seen later on in childhood, when the patient has a clear self-awareness and sexual interest. This article details a case that may answer this question. Paroxysmal disorder was initially observed in a female patient at an age of 5 months. It presented regularly throughout her infancy and childhood, up age 8 years. She described the sensations that she experienced during episodes as pleasant as early as age 3 years. In a clinical interview, she confirmed that she experienced pleasure with the rhythmic contractions of her vagina, suggestive of episodes of masturbatory orgasm. This suggests that the paroxysmal disorder seen in infancy is most likely similar to the masturbatory orgasm seen in childhood. The scientific and clinical meaning of early paroxysmal disorder in sexual medicine is discussed.