Visibly ageing femininities: women’s visual discourses of being over-40 and over-50 on Instagram

Abstract

This article explores visual discourses about over-40 and over-50 femininities that emerge from women’s own Instagram accounts. It analyses women’s visual and textual rhetoric of what over-40 and over-50 looks like, and whether it could interrupt the ageist, sexist, and body-normative discourses of female ageing and visibility. Intertextual visual discourse analysis of images, captions, and hashtags reveals two dominant themes (fitness and fashion) and two repeating rhetorical elements (motherhood and self-sufficiency) through which women make themselves visible as over-40/50. A few explicitly subversive discourses (i.e., over-40 fatshion account) exist, but a discourse of a healthy, fit, fashionable, independent, self-sufficient, and happy mother over-40/50 is prevalent. It easily lends itself to being interpreted as an insidious reproduction of post-feminist ideology, but I argue that there are moments of critique and subversion within. Thus, a reparative reading that acknowledges moments of disconnect from the discourse that normalizes ageing women’s limited or non-existent visibility is offered.     

Elite women in the Ukrainian Hetmanate

The history of the Ukrainian Hetmanate has been studied from the perspective of war, political struggle, and diplomacy. This article studies various aspects of women’s lives in Cossack society: their legal status, economic rights, role in society, relations with husbands and sons, the tradition of women’s presence at formal receptions, and their interference in political life. It is also about “women in politics,” “witches,” sex and premarital relations, kidnappings, and love affairs. The general argument is that the position of Ukrainian women was closer to that of women in Catholic Poland than in Muscovy.     

Professional discretion and length of work experience: what findings from focus groups with care managers in elder care suggest

ABSTRACT

Research has explored how care managers in elder care – who often function as ‘street-level bureaucrats’ – regard professional discretion. The way in which length of work experience affects care managers’ use of professional discretion remains, however, unexplored. This article present findings from 12 focus groups with 60 care managers. By bringing attention to how care managers experience the needs assessment process, this article sheds light on how these ‘street-level bureaucrats’ struggle when they try to balance their clients’ needs against institutional frameworks and local guidelines. Length of work experience seems to play a role in how care managers claim to use professional discretion. Experienced care managers describe how they deviate from the guidelines at times in order to create an increased scope of action in their decision-making process. Those with less time in the profession describe greater difficulties in this respect. Findings suggest that research should explore if length of work experience plays a role in the actual way in which care managers assess needs and make decisions. As such, they contribute to our understanding of how needs assessment processes are navigated by professionals while also pointing towards the nature of professional discretion in gerontological social work.     

Israel's military public diplomacy evolution: Historical and conceptual dimensions

This study provides an historical overview of the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit (ISU) from the early years of the State of Israel until 2009. Analyzing five periods during which the ISU played a key role in Israel's public diplomacy, this research sheds light on the challenges the ISU faced in different periods and circumstances and examines how the ISU tried to modify its methods and actions in response to geopolitical changes and media development, albeit not always successfully. The study suggests better understanding the adaptation process by applying a three-layer framework for analysis: the tactical layer, the strategic layer and the perceptional layer. The findings of this work demonstrate that in adapting to new circumstances, the ISU focused mainly on the tactical response level, with the result that it did not undertake any review or debate over the need for deeper perceptional changes in ISU policies.     

Stakeholder Perspectives on Children's Mental Health Needs and Supports in Six Low‐ and Middle‐Income Countries

Low‐ and middle‐income countries (LMIC) are faced with disproportionately high levels of unmet child mental health needs. This study explored through interviews the perspectives of 17 inter‐agency service stakeholders from Brazil, Indonesia, Kenya, Pakistan, Rwanda and Turkey on existing supports and challenges. Four themes emerged on the holistic nature of children's mental health needs linked with disadvantage; limited resources and skilled workforce; stigma; and strategies for future implementation, including awareness, parental engagement, skills‐based programmes and cultural adaptation. Stakeholder input is essential in conceptualising, developing and evaluating culturally appropriate interventions for vulnerable children in LMIC.     

Women's entrepreneurship,neoliberalism and economic justice in the postfeminist era: A discourse analysis of policy change in Sweden

Since the early 1990s, there has been investment in women's entrepreneurship policy (WEP) in Sweden, which continued until 2015. During the same period, Sweden assumed neoliberal policies that profoundly changed the position of women within the world of work and business. The goals for WEP changed as a result, from entrepreneurship as a way to create a more equal society, to the goal of unleashing women's entrepreneurial potential so they can contribute to economic growth. To better understand this shift we approach WEP as a neoliberal governmentality which offers women ‘entrepreneurial’ or ‘postfeminist’ subject positions. The analysis is inspired by political theorist Nancy Fraser who theorized the change as the displacement of socioeconomic redistribution in favour of cultural recognition, or identity politics. We use Fraser's concepts in a discourse analysis of Swedish WEP over two decades, identifying two distinct discourses and three discursive displacements. Whilst WEP initially gave precedence to a radical feminist discourse that called for women's collective action, this was replaced by a postfeminist neoliberal discourse that encouraged individual women to assume an entrepreneurial persona, start their own business, compete in the marketplace and contribute to economic growth. The result was the continued subordination of women business owners, but it also obscured or rendered structural problems/solutions, and collective feminist action, irrelevant.     

Finding the niche to reposition leadership in Africa’s developing economies for the global highway: review of literature on leadership development programmes – methods and techniques*

Africa’s developing economies remain in critical need for leadership. This paper asserts that Africa’s new growth opportunities rest with leadership that could champion organizational performance, innovativeness, and good ethics among others. A review of extant literature on leadership development programmes (LDPs) was done to examine possible initiatives that leadership developers can use to influence leadership practices in Africa. This paper proposes that in Africa, LDPs can be used to inculcate authentic leadership practices and enhance networking and acquisition of innovative skills among others. Furthermore, LDPs could target the youth considering them as an investment into tomorrow’s leadership talent pool. The paper suggests that Africa’s niche for the global highway rests in contextualization of LDPs from other regions to Africa’s unique environment.     

Children’s educational attainment,occupation, and income and their parents’ mortality

Using data from Finland, this paper contributes to a small but growing body of research regarding adult children's education, occupation, and income and their parents' mortality at ages 50+ in 1970–2007. Higher levels of children's education are associated with 30–36 per cent lower parental mortality at ages 50–75, controlling for parents' education, occupation, and income. This association is fully mediated by children's occupation and income, except for cancer mortality. Having at least one child educated in healthcare is associated with 11–16 per cent lower all-cause mortality at ages 50–75, an association that is largely driven by mortality from cardiovascular diseases. Children's higher white-collar occupation and higher income is associated with 39–46 per cent lower mortality in the fully adjusted models. At ages 75+, these associations are much smaller overall and children's schooling remains more strongly associated with mortality than children's occupation or income.     

城镇企业职工基本养老保险基金支付能力预测研究

随着人口老龄化进程的加剧。我国城镇企业职工基本养老保险基金收支出现了巨大缺口并呈现逐步扩大的趋势,导致基金支付能力持续下降。本文应用社会保障精算方法与技术,以社会养老保险现行政策为导向。引入2005年颁布的《国务院关于完善企业职工基本养老保险制度的决定》中新养老金计发办法的经济参数。构建城镇企业职工基本养老保险基金收入与基金支出测算模型,其中以2006年新政策实施年为时间界限。分别构建“老人”、2006年前退休的“中人”（“老中人”）、2006年后退休的“中人”（“新中人”）、“新人”四类群体的基本养老保险基金支出洲算模型。从而推导出城镇企业职工基本养老保险基金支付能力预测精算模型。以期对养老保险基金失衡风险和支竹能力危机进行及时预测。并为社会养老保险政策调整和制度完善提供量化依据。     

“一带一路”战略为中阿关系发展增添活力

本文对历经六十年的中阿关系进行了回顾,政治上双方相互支持,维护权利,经济上优势互补,合作共赢。2010年底中东发生动荡后,中国一直密切关注,希望阿拉伯国家早日结束动乱、恢复稳定。随着时间的推移,阿拉伯国家会增加对中国尊重国家主权独立、坚持不干涉内政、主张政治解决争端立场的理解,会越来越体会到中国是可以信赖、可以交往的国家。在“一带一路”战略下,中阿关系将茁壮成长。