Regime change: gender, class, and the invention of dieting in post-bellum America

"Regime Change" argues against commonly held interpretations that see dieting as a practice established in the 1920s to control women at a time when they gained suffrage and greater economic independence. This article offers an alternative reading, arguing that diet advice literature arrived in the US in the 1860s and originally targeted a male, white, middle-class audience. While the hegemonic beauty ideal for the female body was at its heftiest, men started to build muscle and reduce weight. The ideal of the slender male body was associated with white superiority, social mobility and the national ambition for an American empire. When white middle-class women eventually started dieting in greater numbers in the 1890s, it was because they claimed the same mastery over their bodies as men—and demanded the same privileges as their male peers over immigrants, African Americans and working-class people, who were increasingly imagined as overweight. Revising the history of dieting to show its origins as a masculine practice appropriated by women to stake a claim to class and race privilege invites a rethinking of power and resistance in the disciplining of the female body.     

The ‘good mother’ struggles: Obstacles to the attainment of motherhood ideals among adult women formerly placed in residential care

We analysed narratives of motherhood produced by 13 women who were involved with the welfare system or the justice system during adolescence. The original contribution of our study was its focus on mothers who were turning age 30, so they were not in that period of generalized instability that characterizes the transition from care and into adulthood. This qualitative study was part of a larger study on French‐Canadian adolescents with a history of residential care. Semi‐directed interviews were conducted with 13 women, more than 15 years after their admission to residential care. Our data highlights that motherhood can contribute to the vulnerability of women who were involved with the welfare or the justice system as adolescents. Our results suggest that in order to shed a perceived deviant label and to compensate for the adverse events they experienced, they pursue internalized ideals of “good motherhood” that translate into restrictions and strain. Furthermore, they tend to refrain from allowing people into their lives and asking for help for fear of being judged. Yet, as their children are getting older and exhibiting problem behaviors of their own, the questioning of their parental practices and skills only becomes more intense.     

"Bessie done cut her old man": race, common-law marriage, and homicide in New Orleans, 1925-1945

This essay examines domestic homicide in early twentieth-century New Orleans. African-American residents killed their domestic partners at eight times the rate of white New Orleanians, and these homicides were most often committed by women, who killed their partners at fifteen times the rate of white women. Common-law marriages proved to be especially violent among African-American residents. Based on nearly two hundred cases identified in police records and other sources as partner killings between 1925 and 1945, this analysis compares lethal violence in legal marriages and in common-law unions. It also explores the social and institutional forces that buffeted common-law marriages, making this the most violent domestic arrangement and contributing to the remarkably high rate of spousal homicide by African-American women in early twentieth-century New Orleans.     

Grannies,Elders, and Friends: Aging Aboriginal Women in Toronto

Based on a research project in Toronto, Canada, this article highlights the strengths and resiliency of 12 female Aboriginal Elders and seniors as they age together. For these women, being actively involved in their families and the Aboriginal community gives them a solid grounding in who they are, what their roles are and how they contribute to the whole. Of particular significance is the support and friendship the women offer each other through their commonalities, activities, and sense of humor.     

(Un)‐blaming mothers whose partners sexually abuse children: in view of heteronormative myths,pressures and authorities

Mothers of children who have been sexually abused are often shamed, blamed and held guilty for their male partners' sexual perpetrations. These feelings are constrained by the dominant heteronormative discourses, institutions and systems that devalue women, that silence them and which subsequently blame women for the abuse as well as their silence. Paradoxically, the risks for mothers speaking out are reinforced by social criticism and professional response that draw on heteronormative discourses that accuse women for ‘failing to protect’ their children, for being ‘bad’ mothers or for making poor choices in their lovers. With these issues at the forefront, this paper illuminates how heteronormative discourses may operate to not only shame and blame women unable to leave their adult relationships and protect their children, but they also strengthen the perpetrator's power as strategic actors in concealing child sexual abuse. It is argued that the heteronormative discourses that reinforce women's sense of guilt obstruct professional intervention and make service engagement of these women difficult. In light of the power of discourse, the importance of combining an overlapping systems approach in which individualized client‐centred support is provided to each family member involved in child sexual abuse matters, including for the mothers in their own right, is discussed.     

Preface: Women and Work: Where Are We, Where Did We Come From, and Where Are We Going?

The obstacles faced by today's women in the workplace bear out the truth in the old adage that history repeats itself. The maternal wall, the ideal worker, and the ideal homemaker beliefs are current iterations of the century-old tendency to mark women as suited for the home and men as suited for the workplace ( Albee & Perry, 1998 ; Coltrane, 1996 ; Mintz, 2000 ). The belief that the sexes are vastly different—with different needs, values, and abilities—has been a hallmark throughout the history of both women and men in both the workplace and the home ( Ferree, 1990 ; Williams, 2000 ). Generally speaking, these beliefs have been detrimental to all concerned ( Barnett & Rivers, 2004 ).     

Domestic violence,housing and employment: Workers' perspectives on employment assistance in supported accommodation

In response to contemporary understanding about the association between financial security and women's ability to escape domestic violence and homelessness, this paper reports on a small scale pilot study conducted with workers from generalist homelessness services and domestic violence‐supported accommodation services in South Australia on responding to women's requests for assistance to seek employment. Workers from both accommodation service types advised that approximately one third of women at their services asked for employment‐related assistance at the point of service intake or soon after. Although relatively few women received employment support following their requests, assistance was four times more likely at the generalist homelessness services than the domestic violence services. Agency priorities, philosophies and workers' assessments of women's capacity to engage in employment were cited as reasons for not responding to women's employment requests. Women who secured employment prior to service exit, whether helped to do so or not, were perceived as more confident with the prospect of supporting their families independently following exit and more able to secure suitable housing when compared to other women. Follow‐up and outreach visits indicated that women who worked had a stronger sense of financial security, housing stability and social connectedness, but that maintaining employment following service exit was difficult.     

Women,Therapy and Dependency

A microsociological longitudinal study of 120 middle class Melbourne women who were having psychotherapy or counselling was conducted over a five year period. The relative effectiveness of four dominant kinds of psychotherapy was assessed, together with outcomes for types of individuals. The therapies were medical chemotherapy (with psychotherapeutic drugs prescribed by general practitioners), social casework counselling, human relations training and church pastoral counselling. Personal accounts of the women revealed their main concerns were to change their personal identities, and the economic, psychological and emotional aspects of dependency on significant others. After five years, only a small proportion of the total showed positive changes as represented by movement towards independence and autonomy. More than twice as many experienced a serious deterioration of circumstances and increased dependency on others, on therapists and drugs. None of the psychotherapies had much positive outcome. However the clients who felt most helped by the therapies became professional therapists themselves — a finding which suggests the perpetuation of ineffectual systems.     

A Race, Class, and Gender Analysis of Thriving

Thriving research has been dominated by a psychological perspective. Individuals are typically the unit of analysis and thriving is generally operationalized using psychological measures. This article discusses a race, class, and gender perspective that derives from feminist sociology, as well as its implications for thriving research. This perspective, which focuses on the role of race, class, and gender inequality in organizing social relations, draws attention to the need to recognize that both the likelihood that someone will face a challenge and their ability to thrive in the face of that challenge are determined largely by their location in the social hierarchy. It also demonstrates that distinctions must be made between thriving in the face of the routine challenges of daily life and thriving in the face of challenges that are an extraordinary part of life. Finally, the race, class, and gender perspective has implications for the development of interventions to promote thriving. Each of these issues is elaborated further with illustrations drawn from life history and focus group interviews with and field work conducted among drug-addicted women.     

Visiting the mentally ill: volunteer visitors at Saskatchewan hospital, Weyburn 1950-1965

This article offers a glimpse into the lives and activities of some of the patients, volunteers and staff in the Saskatchewan mental health system during the period of deinstitutionalization. Drawing on her own experience as a patient in psychiatric wards as well as ongoing research in the history of mental health, it features the role of Regina Volunteer Visitors in Saskatchewan Hospital, Weyburn and examines the importance of occupational and recreational therapies and activities in improving the lives of the patients in that institution. It emphasizes the perspectives of patients and volunteers who actively worked to develop recreational activities, with the intention of helping individuals connect with the surrounding communities. The views and perspectives presented here are drawn from a variety of historical and oral interview sources, including views from visitors to the asylum and patients who lived within its walls. The author has also been a consumer of mental health services, and spent time in the Provincial Mental Hospital in North Battleford. The article therefore makes an important contribution to enhancing our understanding of the social history of deinstitutionalization, not only for its unique source base, but also because those sources have been examined and explained to readers through the perspectives of a former patient herself. This article draws significant attention to the changing opportunities for patients as they interacted with the women's volunteer groups, as well as to how the changes brought about by the encroaching deinstitutionalization, care in the community, and decisions from "above" affected the individuals on the ground.     

‘Poor prison flowers’: convict mothers and their children in Ireland, 1853–1900

Pregnant women and mothers were among the thousands of individuals who were sentenced to at least three years’ penal servitude and admitted to the nineteenth-century Irish female convict prison. While some babies were born behind bars, others were permitted to accompany their convicted mothers into the prison after the penal practice of transportation had ceased. Other dependent children were separated from their convicted mothers for years, cared for by family members or friends, or accommodated in Ireland’s growing web of institutions. Using individual case studies, this article focuses on convict mothers and their young offspring. It draws attention to the increasing restrictions on the admission of infants that were imposed as the nineteenth century progressed, the problems that children of various ages in the penal system seemed to pose for officials, and the difficulties faced by incarcerated mothers who wished to maintain communication with their offspring. This article argues that while there were benefits to parenting within the confines of the prison, sentences of penal servitude had a significant impact on the lives of dependent offspring by dislocating families, separating siblings, or initiating institutional or other care that broke familial bonds permanently. In so doing, the article reveals attitudes towards motherhood as well as female criminality and institutionalization generally during this period and sheds light on an aspect of convict life unique to the women’s prison.     

Poverty,Partner Abuse,and Women's Mental Health: New Knowledge for Better Practice

ABSTRACT.

To better understand how poverty and poor mental health impact women who are abused by intimate partners, a convenience sample of 300 abused women using shelters or justice services for the 1st time were interviewed. The 300 women were categorized as having no income, being above poverty, and being below poverty according to U.S. Poverty Guidelines. Results indicated that no direct effect of income on poor mental health was noted; however, an interaction between type and severity of abuse and income level had an impact on poor mental health. Abused women who were above poverty with the highest incomes reported the highest levels of depression in the presence of high physical and sexual abuse. In contrast, women reporting no income reported no significant effect of severity or type of abuse on depression scores. Women just above the poverty level who experienced severe abuse were at highest risk for mental health problems. Poverty impacts the mental health of abused women according to the degree of poverty and type and severity of abuse. More research is needed to specify programs to maximize the mental health functioning and economic solvency of abused women.     

After Retrenchment: Labour Market Experiences of Women and Men

Job loss in manufacturing industry has been a marked feature of the Australian economy over the last decade but little is known about the prospects for re-employment of workers who have been retrenched. This paper reports the results of a survey of the subsequent labour market experiences of 271 workers made redundant when a whitegoods plant was closed in December 1982 at Bankstown in Sydney's western suburbs. The retrenched workers were contacted twice, ten to twelve months apart and a response rate of 80 per cent was achieved. The paper compares the labour market experiences of retrenched women and men. Does the lower labour force participation rate of women in the population at large apply to women who have previously shown a strong commitment to the labour force through their stable employment history? The paper discusses the factors which might affect retrenched women's response to unemployment, including institutional arrangements, a gender-based domestic division of labour and the nature of the jobs available to unskilled blue collar workers.     

"Killed by its mother": infanticide in Providence County, Rhode Island, 1870 to 1938

This article analyzes infanticide based on the Coroners' Records for Providence County, Rhode Island, from the 1870s to 1938 to determine doctors' and coroners' attitudes toward mothers who killed. The nineteenth century witnessed a medical discourse on the possibility of postpartum insanity as a cause of infanticide. While some women claimed temporary insanity, and some doctors and coroners legitimated this defense, its application to mothers who killed was arbitrary. They determined who deserved this diagnosis based on the woman's character, her forthrightness, and extenuating circumstances. Infanticide divided the profession nationally and at the local level and prevented doctors or coroners from speaking in a united voice on the issue. This article does not attempt to follow cases of infanticide through to jury verdicts. Instead, it provides an opportunity to analyze the circumstances women faced that led them to kill their newborns, and to analyze the responses of doctors and coroners to these mothers who killed. Unlike the findings of other studies, neither physicians nor coroners in Rhode Island were united in a claim of ignorance to save these women from guilty verdicts.     

解读耶谢巴尔《虚假的事实》中的主要女性形象

《虚假的事实》是印度著名进步作家耶谢巴尔的代表作,在印度现当代文学史上占有十分重要的地位。在这部作品中,作者重点塑造的核心人物是女性,这在印度文学中是比较少见的。因此,本文试图解读作者笔下的达拉和甘娜格这两个女性形象的典型意义,阐述作者通过她们所表现的对在婚姻问题上遭到过不幸的印度教妇女的理想。     

Women's responses to abortion: implications for post-abortion support groups

Family planning and abortion clinics are starting to recognize the importance of providing postabortion counseling as part of the overall follow-up procedure. The literature on the psychosocial consequences of abortion reveals that abortion is a positive, growth-producing experience for the majority of women. However, abortion can be a stressful and emotionally difficult experience for other women as a result of ambivalence over the pregnancy or abortion, lack of positive support from significant others, feelings of guilt and loss, and inadequate coping skills. This paper reports a model for postabortion support groups aimed at clarifying feelings, reducing alienation and isolation, facilitating appropriate mourning, increasing self-esteem, and bringing appropriate closure to the abortion experience. Since 1984, such groups have been offered by the University of Washington Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) Abortion Birth Control Referral Service in Seattle, Washington. The groups, which meet weekly for 6 sessions and include 2-8 women, use discussions, role play, art therapy techniques, and psychodrama to alleviate abortion-related stress and effect changes in problematic ideas and feelings. Plans for the group developed out of the leaders' observation that women who returned to the Service for a second abortion often had not dealt with feelings or issues from the first procedure. Nonjudgmental acceptance of abortion as an individual choice has empowered many group participants to raise their consciousness about women's social status and take a more active role in decision making about their reproductive life.     

Sense of coherence in women with a history of childhood sexual abuse

Women with a history of childhood sexual abuse experience a range of difficulties. The aim of the present study is to examine the personal resources of women with such a history measured using the SOC scale. The relationships of SOC to other factors were analysed. Eighty-one women who participated in self-help groups were questioned using the 29-item version of the SOC scale. The SOC mean score for the whole group was 104.1 (range 58–187). The women who had a more than ten-year duration of sexual abuse had a low SOC score (M = 96.8) but those who did not remember the number of years of duration had an even lower score (M = 94.4). In a first step of multiple regression analysis of childhood sexual abuse characteristics and SOC total score, only duration of sexual abuse was entered and accounted for 10.3 per cent of the variance. In a second step of multiple regression analysis, relationship to fellow workers was a significant predictor of SOC and contributed to 31.7 per cent of the variance.     

"We mentally ill smoke a lot": identity, smoking, and mental illness in America

Most of the history of the tobacco industry over the last few decades has focused on the conflicts between tobacco industry leaders who promoted smoking and tobacco control advocates who warned of the health consequences. Yet a view of this conflict from the perspective of smokers who are also mentally ill raises questions about how to frame public health policy for these individuals. Mentally ill consumers wrote to the tobacco industry between the 1970s and 1990s and expressed their commitment to smoking and to cigarette companies, despite their awareness of the health risks. This paper explores the relationship between mentally ill consumers, the tobacco industry, and public health in the United States through letters written by mentally ill smokers.     

American Indian Ethnic Identity: Tribal Nonresponse in the 1990 Census*

Objectives. About 11 percent of American Indians did not report their tribal affiliation on the 1990 U.S. Census form. I use several theoretical perspectives as tools to explore the reasons behind this surprising omission. Method. Logistic regression analysis is the method employed. Results. American Indians living with someone who speaks an American Indian language are very likely to report a tribal affiliation, as are those living in “Indian states” (states with historically high numbers of American Indians). Those who are least likely to report a tribal affiliation are Hispanic women with low education who report no American Indian ancestry, do not live with other American Indians, and live in a metropolitan area of a “non‐Indian state.” Conclusions. Lack of knowledge of family history appears to be one of the primary causes of tribal nonresponse. Salience of tribal identity also affects responses.     

Beyond Women,Children, and Families: Gender,Representation, and Public Funding for the Arts*

Objectives. Research on the impact of female legislators has found that in their voting records women in elective office tend to be more liberal and more supportive of issues of concern to women, children, and families than are men, differences that conform to gender stereotypes held by voters. This article examines another well‐established gender stereotype that is not linked to the traditional concerns of women as conventionally defined by scholars: that women in public office will be more supportive of the arts. Method. The 40 votes taken on arts legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives, 1983–2002, are examined using negative binomial regression in a model that includes district and personal characteristics. Results. Democratic Party membership and support, citizen ideology, urban residence, and gender are significant factors in explaining support for public funding for the arts. Female representatives are more likely than their male colleagues to support the arts, a finding that primarily reflects the greater support of Republican women for the arts in comparison with their male counterparts. Conclusion. This study suggests that substantive representation of women by female elected officials may extend to more policy issues than previous research has documented. Research on issues that are recognized as gendered (e.g., arts policy) but are not traditionally defined as women's issues is an area for further exploration.