Guerrilla USA: The George Jackson Brigade and the Anticapitalist Underground of the 1970s

The purpose of this profile is to address the Spanish 15M movement from a gender perspective, focusing, on the one hand, on the role played by feminist demands within it and, on the other, on how feminism may have contributed to the 15M, its internal debate and its further developments unfolding in the current Spanish political context. In order to do that, we first explore how feminist demands were initially received in the camps and the reactions they raised among the media and citizenship. Second, we tackle how this case of overlap between a larger group and feminist groups is different from previous collaborations and confrontations. Finally, we focus on how the 15M movement has transformed (or not) as a result of feminism and the implications of this process towards rethinking the role of feminism within contemporary Spanish politics.     

Social and family responsibility or self-interest?

Mothers’ increasing labour market participation is posed as a key aspect of a growing trend towards individualization — both for ill and for good. In ‘for ill’ versions, mothers’ employment is regarded as undermining commitment to family relationships and leading to a loss of community. In ‘for good’ versions, family and community relationships become contingent upon values of equality and respect. ‘Preference theory’ modifies the individualization thesis, with a posited distinction between mothers in full-time employment with ‘work-centred’ identities and those with part-time work who want ‘adaptive’ or ‘home-centred’ identities. This paper examines such issues, drawing on qualitative case study research on mothers employed full and part time in a hospital and an accountancy firm in the UK. It considers how the variable work ethos of organizations, and the ways mothers engage with these, can interact with their engagement in family and community relationships. In particular, it suggests that employment can be as much about social obligation in a local community, and commitment and obligations to family, as about individualized self-provision and options.     

Cool, Creative and Egalitarian? Exploring Gender in Project-Based New Media Work in Euro

The new media industries are popularly regarded as cool, creative and egalitarian. This view is held by academics, policy-makers and also by new media workers themselves, who cite the youth, dynamism and informality of new media as some of its main attractions. This paper is concerned with what this mythologized version of new media work leaves out, glosses over and, indeed, makes difficult to articulate at all. Themes include pervasive insecurity, low pay, and long hours but the particular focus of the paper is on gender inequalities in new media work. Despite its image as 'cool', non-hierarchical and egalitarian, the new media sector, this paper will argue, is characterized by a number of entrenched and all too old-fashioned patterns of gender inequality relating to education, access to work and pay. Moreover, a number of new forms of gender inequality are emerging, connected - paradoxically - to many of the features of the work that are valued - informality,autonomy,flexibility and so on. Drawing on a study of 125 freelance new media workers in six European countries, this paper explores these issues and argues that the new forms of sexism in new media represent a serious challenge to its image of itself as cool, diverse and egalitarian.     

GENDER DIFFERENCES IN THE PSYCHOLOGICAL WELL-BEING OF MARRIED MEN AND WOMEN: An Asian Case

Using a wide variety of measures of psychological well-being obtained from a representative sample of married men and women in Bangkok, Thailand, we examine gender differences in psychological well-being. We find that, in Bangkok, as in the United States, married men generally enjoy a higher level of psychological well-being than do married women. We find no support for role strain theory, but we do find support for role enhancement theory. We find that social support has little effect on psychological well-being, but that social strain not only has a significant effect on well-being but also largely accounts for gender differences in well-being. The mixed findings suggest the importance of testing theories in different societal contexts, for they may or may not be easily portable from one culture to another.     

Body Mass Index,Dieting, Romance,and Sexual Activity in Adolescent Girls: Relationships Over Time

Romantic relationships constitute an important, but understudied, developmental context for accommodation to pubertal change. Using a nationally representative sample of 5,487 black, white, and Hispanic adolescent females, this study examined associations among body mass index, current romantic involvement, and dieting. For each one point increase in body mass‐index (BMI), the probability of having a romantic relationship decreased by 6%. Further, involvement in a nonsexual romantic relationship—but not involvement in a sexual romantic relationship—was associated with a significant increase in the likelihood of dieting. Associations between relationship type and dieting did not vary by age, socioeconomic status, or race, but were stronger at higher BMIs. These findings confirm that weight has implications for romantic involvement, which is highly valued by adolescent girls, and that romantic relationships, in turn, are important contexts in which to consider psychological and behavioral accommodation to the physical changes of puberty.     

Elementary statistics laboratory

Students in elementary statistics traditionally see experiments and data as words and numbers in a text. They receive little exposure to the important statistical activities of sample selection, data collection, experimental design, development of statistical models, the need for randomization, selection of factors, etc. They often leave the first course without a firm understanding of the role of applied statistics or of the statistician in scientific investigations. In an attempt to improve elementary statistics education, we have developed a statistics laboratory similar to those of other elementary science courses. We will discuss our experiences in teaching a laboratory component with the traditional elementary statistics course. In each lab session, students, working in teams, discuss the design of an experiment, carry out the experiment, and analyze their data using Minitab on a Macintosh or MS-DOS based computer. The students then individually either answer a series of short answer questions or write a formal scientific report. The labs are designed to be relatively inexpensive and portable. They do not require a prior background in science, statistics or computing.     

Why Have Children in the 21st Century? Biological Predisposition, Social Coercion, Rational Choice

This review examines arguments and evidence pertaining to the question: why have children in settings where the net economic costs of children are clearly substantial? Thereview is organized around three themes: biologicalpredispositions, environment (social coercion) and rationalchoice. Specifically, we explore the argument that evolution hasproduced sets of genes that predispose persons to childbearing bymaking sex and parenthood pleasurable. We review sociologicalarguments regarding the pronatalism/antinatalism of societalinstitutions. Finally, we discuss arguments that stress therationality of childbearing decisions by appealing to biologicalpredispositions and the economic and non-economic values ofchildren. The authors speculate that while a modern socialstructure and rationale supportive of childbearing could beconstructed, such changes are not inevitable and may be difficultin the face of competing interests. Moreover, future social andtechnological change could alter the context of childbearingsubstantially. This uncertainty complicates policyrecommendations.     

Reconsidering work time: a multivariate longitudinal within-couple analysis

Dual-earner couples now work significantly more hours than in the past, but few couple-level studies examine whether work hours are linked to mental health and quality-of-life outcomes. In 2001, Jacobs and Gerson proposed that combined spouse work hours would better predict outcomes than would spouses’ individual work hours. Longitudinal data from a random sample of 211 dual-earner couples with children partially support this hypothesis. Our findings suggest that future research on dual-earner couples’ work hours should be couple-level and longitudinal, estimate both linear and non-linear relationships, and include multiple positive and negative outcomes as well as subjective indicators of the meaning of work hours.     

The Benefits of Dispositional Mindfulness in Physical Health: A Longitudinal Study of Female College Students

Abstract

Objective: This article examines the relationship between dispositional mindfulness, health behaviors (eg, sleep, eating, and exercise), and physical health. Participants: Participants included 441 college women. Methods: Women completed self-report surveys at the beginning and end of a 10-week academic quarter. The study was conducted over 5 academic quarters from fall 2008 to fall 2010. Results: Findings indicated that higher levels of dispositional mindfulness were related to healthier eating practices, better quality of sleep, and better physical health. Dispositional mindfulness contributed to better physical health even after controlling for traditional health habits. Finally, bidirectional mediational relationships were found between healthy eating and dispositional mindfulness as well as between sleep quality and dispositional mindfulness when physical health was the outcome variable. Conclusions: Findings suggest that incorporating mindfulness training into programming on college campuses may be beneficial, as results indicate that dispositional mindfulness is related to positive physical health among college students.