Muslim Women's Challenges to Islamic Law The Case of Malaysia

The reform of Islam by women and especially the lessons this activism might contain for feminist praxis is a highly topical and important issue. This article outlines some of the lessons to be drawn from studying this area with a specific focus on the activism of some groups of Malaysian Muslim women aimed at the reform of Islam. Two different strategies for reform are explained and traced in their attempts to reform religious interpretation and the Islamic legal system, the Syar'iah. The aim of the article is to provoke dialogue over the relationship of Islam to women's rights, while highlighting the agency of Muslim women within an Islamic framework. Another aim is to contribute to the debate over what constitutes feminism and the need to subject the debate continuously to cross-cultural and international perspectives.     

Breaking free from siloes: intersectionality as a collective action frame to address toxic exposures and reproductive health

ABSTRACT

There has been increasing interest in collaborative approaches between the environmental justice (EJ) and reproductive justice (RJ) movements to address the higher burden of toxic exposures and associated reproductive health outcomes in vulnerable communities. This study examined the collective action frames (CAFs) of advocates at the EJ/RJ nexus. CAFs highlight how advocates identify problems and solutions, and motivate action. The use of intersectionality was identified as a main CAF used in three key ways: breaking free from identity-based, issue-based, and movement-based siloes. First, interviewees described breaking free from identity-based siloes by identifying risks of toxic exposures that result from intersecting social locations (e.g. gender, race/ethnicity, income, immigration status) and by equally prioritizing multiple aspects of their identities as they engage in advocacy. Second, they described breaking free from issue-based siloes by developing multi-issue agendas that address a complex web of interrelated problems impacting health. Third, they described breaking free from movement-based siloes by developing cross-movement collaborations to address issues of mutual concern. Among multiple reasons given for cross-movement collaborations, advocates perceived them as valuable in order to disrupt social, political, and economic power imbalances that shape environmental reproductive health inequities, as well as other health and social inequities. Based on these findings, we suggest that intersectionality is a master frame, and thus may be useful to advocates in other social movements addressing intersectional issues. Understanding an intersectionality frame can help to inform advocacy approaches to promote health and health equity, particularly those focused on policies and structural drivers of health.     

Cognitive Coping Strategies of Newlyweds Adjusting to Marriage

The current study focused on the cognitive strategies newlyweds used to cope with distress due to adjustments during the transition to marriage. Forty-two recently married husbands and wives (21 couples) were interviewed, and a qualitative thematic analysis was used in the investigation. Several themes emerged regarding the types of cognitive coping strategies that have potential to add nuanced understanding of some formerly identified cognitive processes, which may have helped maintain satisfying relationships in the midst of unexpected adjustments. The implications for explaining the paradoxical nature of the transition to marriage and for further research and application toward premarital education are discussed.     

Peripheries,suburbanisms and change in sub-Saharan African cities

The ‘revisionist’ view of South African history has an advantage in understanding the role of values in terms of class structures, as opposed to liberal orthodoxy that sees ‘race’ as an autonomous variable: a view that is both static and unhistorical. The problem of explaining these values, however remains for class analysis can be accused of economic determinism. Pluralism may, therefore, be of use as a supplement to class analysis by interpreting values in a subjective sense. Class becomes only one of a number of forms of political consciousness (i.e. religious, ‘tribal’ or ethnic) and the analysis shifts to a market of competing political ideologies. This view is explored empirically by the example of the rise of a segregationist ideology in South Africa in the twentieth century.     

Family problem solving: A case study

Abstract

Working with the families of young offenders may often be the best method of helping those young offenders to change. Sometimes, however, social workers and others who work with young offenders are reluctant to work with family groups because they may feel that they lack skills in family counselling. This article presents a case study which illustrates a family counselling intervention. The case study uses Family Problem Solving, a method which involves the adaptation of mainstream social work skills to work with families. It is anticipated that the article might be of interest to social workers who work with families but who feel apprehensive about counselling family groups.     

Gay Theatre,AIDS, and Taboo: Reconsidering Robert Chesley

Theatre was among the first popular culture forms to address HIV/AIDS and did so memorably in such works as The Normal Heart, As Is, Love! Valor! Compassion!, and March of the Falsettos. As a response to criticisms of stage dramas focusing on HIV/AIDS in the main as undifferentiated and melodramatic, the author suggests critical consideration of two works by playwright Robert Chesley. In her analysis of Night Sweats and Jerker, the author argues Chesley offers an alternative perspective that is both liberatory and sex-positive.     

Environmental affects: NASCAR,place and white American cultural citizenship

Attempts to grapple with the complicated tangle of race and memory are more prominent than ever in the public discourse of the United States. In 2006, public intellectual Henry Louis Gates sought to popularize the search for roots and meaning with his project African American Lives, and in 2007 the black and white descendants of the landmark Plessy v. Ferguson case met in New Orleans to discuss the past and present significance of their ancestors’ lives. As the crafting of identities around increasingly fluid notions of ‘race’ proceeds apace, the activities of family historians provide a useful entrée into struggles over race, identity, and collective memory in the United States. The research reported here illustrates how the shared history of the multi-racial descendants of eighteenth and nineteenth century St Domingue/Haiti in Louisiana is encountered in racially distinct ways. Participant observation is used to examine how race is dealt with in the activities of two groups: 1) a mainly European American genealogical society, called the St Domingue Special Interest Group; and 2) the LA Creole cultural and genealogy group, made up primarily of Louisiana creoles of color. Preliminary findings indicate that while the process of engaging in family history research provides an opening for some participants to better understand others across racial and ethnic divides, this kind of cross-racial dialogue was limited by the organization of family history activities into racially distinct social networks. As the popularity of genealogy increases, the findings here point to the need to recognize the public significance of these private histories.     

Sexual Messages in Black and White: A discourse analysis of Essence and Cosmo

The research presented employed critical discourse analysis to examine advice columns on sex and women's sexual freedom as expressed in two popular women's magazines, Essence and Cosmopolitan, over a three-year period. Essence has a Black female audience, Cosmo a predominantly White female audience. Critical discourse analysis is concerned with language as a primary force for the production and reproduction of ideology and belief systems that come to be accepted as common sense. The study asked whether and to what extent sex talk in these two magazines mirrored tenets of sexual liberation as set forth by “second-wave feminism.” Findings showed that while both magazines reinforced women's right to sexual pleasure and to ask for what they wanted, Essence came closest to mirroring the tenets of women's liberation by advocating women's right to say no to men's bad behavior and to be their own persons. By contrast, Cosmo advised women to be innovative in exciting and keeping their men and to be more flexible in managing men's less than desirable behavior.     

Predicting Material Hardship Among Former Welfare-to-Work Participants: An Income- and Resource-Packaging Model

ABSTRACT

Material hardship is of concern because it refers to physical deprivation related to meeting the basic needs of food, housing, utilities, and other items. This study tests a predictive income- and resource-packaging model of material hardship using survey data collected from 459 former welfare-to-work program participants. Logistic regression results show that receiving social support in the form of living rent-free decreased the odds for experiencing material hardship. The predictors of working in the informal economy, being sanctioned while on public assistance, having mental health issues, and having transportation problems all increased the odds for experiencing material hardship. The measures of formal employment income, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families income, work-first program participation, sharing living expenses, monetary social support, and assistance from nonprofit organizations were unrelated to predicting material hardship experiences. Policymakers interested in improving conditions for needy families should question the use of sanctions and carefully monitor material hardship among those sanctioned. Future programs and future research should consider the extent to which low-income women participate in the informal economy to make ends meet, rely on social networks to live rent-free, and struggle with poor health and transportation problems.