Gender and the 'New Paradigm' of Health

This article provides a critical review of literature on the relationship between gender and the 'new paradigm' of health. An overview of the feminist critique of health is given, from the Women's Health Movement of the late 1960s and early feminist debates about medicalisation, to more recent discussions about structural inequalities between men and women, eating disorders, and AIDS. I then go on to explore the feminist response to the so-called 'new paradigm' of health (an approach that emphasises health promotion, individual responsibility for health, and body-monitoring). Arguments that health promotion initiatives target women and confirm their position as principal guardians of health within the family are considered, as well as literature on the breast cancer awareness campaign. I then explore the growing body of literature on masculinity and health, and its account of the relationship between gender and current ideas about healthiness. Finally, I offer up some suggestions for the direction a new feminist critique of health might take.     

Neither ‘family’ nor ‘corporate’ farming: Australian tomato growers as farm family entrepreneurs

For the past two decades there has been much debate about the future of family farming. The basic question on which this debate has turned is whether current pressures on family farm systems should be understood as symptomatic of a terminal condition, in which farmers are replaced progressively by corporate ownership; or whether family farms will persist as a social formation, albeit increasingly subsumed by off-farm interests. Using evidence from the Australian processing tomato sector, this article documents the changing social and economic formation of ‘family farming’. We argue that in this industry, the appropriate way to describe farmers is through the deployment of that a new category of farming; farm family entrepreneurs. This phrase is coined to describe the situation where family units remain at the social and economic heart of farm ownership and operation, but in the context where they relate to their land-based assets through legal and financial structures characteristic of the wider economy. As this article explores, this formation seems to represent an accommodating modus operandi for farm units within neo-liberal agricultural governance. Nevertheless, however, this duality of family-based structures and capitalist entrepreneurialism inevitably provokes a series of tensions, whose resolution requires a variety of organizational strategies to be put in place.     

From critical sociology to public intellectual: Pierre Bourdieu and politics

By the late 1990s, Pierre Bourdieu had become the primary public intellectual of major social scientific status at the head of the anti-globalization movement that emerged in France and in other Western European countries. This article discusses how Bourdieu became a leading public intellectual, a role that seems to contrast with his early years as a professional sociologist. It explores what seemed to change in Bourdieu’s activities and outlook as sociologist and what seems to have remained constant. It identifies several institutional conditions that seemed necessary for Bourdieu to be able to play the kind of public intellectual role he did in his later years. Bourdieu’s movement from a peripheral position to a central location in the French intellectual field, the changing character of the field itself, the growing influence of the mass media in French political and cultural life, the failures of the French Socialists in power, a cultural legacy of leading critical intellectuals in France, a unifying national issue of globalization, and the political conjuncture in 1995 all intersected in ways that opened a path for Bourdieu to choose new and more frequent forms of political action. His responses to that combination of factors at different moments reveal both a striking continuity in desire to preserve the autonomy of intellectual life and a change in view and strategy on how best to do that. The article concludes with a brief evaluation of Bourdieu’s public intellectual role.     

Secondary analysis of dangerousness among death sentenced capital murderers

The theory of incapacitation involves reducing an offender's ability or capacity to commit further crimes. Capital punishment accomplishes this goal. An executed murderer never murders again. However, we do not execute all murderers, only capital murderers. This policy produces several research questions. Do capital murderers present a special risk to society? Are capital murderers more likely to murder or commit other violent crimes again than other murderers or the average citizen? To answer these questions, many states require a prediction of future dangerousness of a newly convicted murderer. To what extent has the judgment of future dangerousness matched actuarial data of subsequent murders and serious crimes? Using a secondary analysis, this investigation attempted to assemble available data of postconviction dangerousness of death sentenced capital murderers to create a more comprehensive actuarial account of subsequent dangerousness and to present the data in a common format used by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Across 14 studies identified with relevant data, there were 13 instances of subsequent murder and 462 serious crime or prison rule violations.     

Form Perception of Partly Occluded Shapes in 4‐Month‐Old Infants

Two habituation experiments were conducted to investigate how 4‐month‐old infants perceive partly occluded shapes. In the first experiment, we presented a simple, partly occluded shape to the infants until habituation was reached. Then we showed either a probable completion (one that would be predicted on the basis of both local and global cues) or an improbable completion. Longer looking times were found for the improbably completed shape (compared to probable and control conditions), suggesting that the probable shape was perceived during partial occlusion. In the second experiment, infants were habituated to more ambiguous partly occluded shapes, where local and global cues would result in different completions. For adults, the percept of these shapes is usually dominated by global influences. However, after habituation the infants looked longer at the globally completed shapes. These results suggest that by the age of 4 months, infants are able to infer the perceptual completion of partly occluded shapes, but for more ambiguous shapes, this completion seems to be dominated by local influences.     

A semi-parametric approach to robust parameter design

Parameter design or robust parameter design (RPD) is an engineering methodology intended as a cost-effective approach for improving the quality of products and processes. The goal of parameter design is to choose the levels of the control variables that optimize a defined quality characteristic. An essential component of RPD involves the assumption of well estimated models for the process mean and variance. Traditionally, the modeling of the mean and variance has been done parametrically. It is often the case, particularly when modeling the variance, that nonparametric techniques are more appropriate due to the nature of the curvature in the underlying function. Most response surface experiments involve sparse data. In sparse data situations with unusual curvature in the underlying function, nonparametric techniques often result in estimates with problematic variation whereas their parametric counterparts may result in estimates with problematic bias. We propose the use of semi-parametric modeling within the robust design setting, combining parametric and nonparametric functions to improve the quality of both mean and variance model estimation. The proposed method will be illustrated with an example and simulations.     

Risk Compensation or Risk Reduction? Seatbelts,State Laws,and Traffic Fatalities*

Objective. The risk compensation hypothesis suggests that drivers enjoying greater safety will drive more recklessly and thereby impose greater risks on nonoccupants. We provide a test of the risk compensation hypothesis in the context of state seatbelt laws and belt use rates. Methods. Fixed‐effects models with policy and demographic variables are estimated using annual state data from 1985 to 2002 to test the effect of seatbelt laws and seatbelt use rates on logged fatality rates for occupants, pedestrians, motorcyclists, and all nonoccupants in separate models. Results. Contrary to the risk compensation hypothesis, the results indicate that both occupants and nonoccupants enjoy greater safety due to state mandatory use laws and increased safety belt use rates. Conclusion. Overall, seatbelt laws and the higher belt use these laws induce do not increase nonoccupant risk exposure. If anything, these laws and the accompanying increase in belt use result in safer driving behavior.