Inside the Locker Room: Male Homosociability in the Advertising Industry

The use of the term homosociability by male employers and employees has been a key issue in the construction and maintenance of the gendered labour market, especially in senior‐level jobs. Male homosociability encompasses the formal old boys' networks and informal clubs or meetings, as well as humour and banter, referred to metaphorically in this article as the locker room. This article examines the locker room and its resulting forms of socializing, socialization, communication and rituals found in the advertising industry. To gain a clearer understanding of how the locker room constructs workplace opportunities, this article draws upon qualitative research and analysis and examines major service occupations in the advertising industry and the executives who inhabit them. Studying the relationship between the locker room and the production process provides additional perspectives on service work in the corporate sector, occupations and gender inequality.     

What Would You Sacrifice? Access to Top Management and the Work–life Balance

This article is based on a current research, combining quantitative (human resources figures and statistics) and qualitative data (60 interviews with career managers, top managers and high potential talents, both men and women), conducted in a major French utility company on the subject of diversity and more specifically on the issue of women's access to top management positions. The main purpose of this research is to understand the difficulties women may encounter in the course of their occupational career linked to organizational aspects, including the ‘glass ceiling’ processes, informal norms related to management positions (such as time and mobility constraints) and social and cultural representations attached to leadership. The other perspective of this research focuses on the different strategies women and men build either to conform to the organizational norms or bypass them. The issue of work–life balance are therefore addressed both from a corporate/organizational standpoint and an individual and family perspective.     

Training the workforce following a serious case review: lessons learnt from a death by fabricated and induced illness

In England, when a child dies as a result of suspected maltreatment, the Local Safeguarding Children Board is required to establish whether lessons can be learnt about collaborative working to safeguard children. These reviews usually include recommendations for both inter and intra‐agency training. In this paper, the authors argue that it is crucial, when planning and delivering training in this situation, to recognise the emotional impact on the workforce of the death of a child from maltreatment. This is particularly important when the child has died as a result of fabricated and induced illness (FII) by a carer and professionals may have inadvertently contributed to the child's suffering. Drawing on a case example of training following the death of a child from FII, this paper considers the challenges encountered by those responsible for commissioning and providing training. Attention is given to managing logistics, such as time delays between the death of the child and the eventual publication of the serious case review. The particular knowledge and skills required by trainers, not only in relation to the subject matter but also in managing complex group processes, are discussed. The support required by course participants and the trainers themselves is explored. The paper concludes with a checklist for those commissioning and providing training. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Reframing Asperger syndrome: lessons from other challenges to the Diagnostic and statistical manual and ICIDH approaches

The medical approach to Asperger syndrome (AS) classifies it as a mental disorder. This paper critically examines the concept of mental illness as specified by the Diagnostic and statistical manual (DSM) in the light of published assessments and accounts of AS provided by a variety of sources. Taken together, these accounts provide further support for reframing AS as a socially constructed human difference rather than a pathology. The demedicalization of homosexuality is offered as one potential model for the nature of the reframing of AS.     

裕固族妇女生育观念与生育意愿的调查分析

本文采用自编问卷,对肃南县裕固族妇女的生育观念和生育意愿进行了调查与分析。结果发现：（1）裕固族妇女生育目的注重情感效用;（2）裕固族妇女生育年龄相比较于过去普遍推迟;（3）裕固族妇女生育孩子没有显著的性别偏好;（4）裕固族妇女意愿生育数量少。文章在分析裕固族妇女生育观念和生育意愿现状的基础上提出了相应的对策和建议。     

Caring for people with intellectual disabilities in poor rural communities in Cambodia: experience from ADD International

The burden of care for a disabled relative traditionally falls on women: mothers, wives, sisters. In Cambodia, Khmer culture is strongly structured around the family unit within which both the role of women and discrimination towards people with disabilities are sanctioned by social hierarchy, perceptions of weakness, and the concept of karmic merit. This article explores the impact of ADD International's project in Cambodia to support people with ‘intellectual disabilities’ – that is, learning disabilities – and aims to assess how this work affected carers, the majority of whom were women.     

Barriers to employment: voices of physically disabled rural women in Thailand

Employment is an essential activity that can generate income for people with disabilities, but very little is known about the interplay between disabled women, family and paid jobs. This article, therefore, sets forth a qualitative method for examining barriers that affect the employment opportunities of physically disabled women. Findings drawn from face-to-face interviews with 20 physically disabled women who live in rural poverty in Thailand clearly indicate that physical barriers from built environment, personal limitations; attitudinal barriers from the non-disabled community, especially employers; and over-protection from families limit their employment opportunities. Despite showing their interests in the labour market, these women are still left behind and trapped in rural poverty. The author argues that this situation is due to the non-disabled community ignoring the potential of these women. The author also recommends that the government of Thailand, NGOs and disability organisations should introduce strong tailored interventions and a multifaceted approach to address the medical, social and legal aspects of restricted participation in the labour market in order to improve the employment prospects of women with physical disabilities.     

Physical activity and nutrition program for adults with metabolic syndrome: Process evaluation

IntroductionThe Vietnam Physical Activity and Nutrition (VPAN) program aimed to improve physical activity and nutrition for adults aged 50–65 years with Metabolic Syndrome in Vietnam. The VPAN program consisted of a range of resources and strategies, including an information booklet, resistance band, face-to-face education sessions, and walking groups. This process evaluation assessed the participation, fidelity, satisfaction, and reasons for completing and not-completing the VPAN.MethodsData were collected by mixed-methods from a sample of 214 intervention participants. Quantitative data were collected via surveys (n = 163); qualitative data via face-to-face exit interviews with intervention program completers (n = 10) and non-completers (n = 10), and brief post education session discussions.ResultsMost participants (87%–96%) reported the program resources and strategies useful, assisting them to increase their physical activity level and improving their diet. The education sessions were the most preferred strategy (97%) with high attendance (>78% of participants). The main reasons for withdrawal were work commitments and being too busy.ConclusionThe evaluation indicated that the program reached and engaged the majority of participants throughout the six-month intervention. The combination of printed resources and face-to-face intervention components was a suitable approach to support lifestyle behavioural change in the Vietnamese population.     

Loving transgressions: Queer of color bodies,affective ties,transformative community

ABSTRACT

This introductory article considers the importance of queer woman of color theorizations of affect in thinking more fully the recent interdisciplinary turn to affect. The affective turn has vitally invited culture and feminist critics to interrogate emotion beyond the individual to examine the political and cultural production of emotion. Even as women of color are often associated with excessive affect, the theoretical contributions women of color make to the field of affect studies are often overlooked. Our introduction and this special issue more broadly examine how this solipsism shapes projects invested in critical knowledge production, as well as the stakes of centering a queer woman of color genealogy. For instance, we argue for the importance of retaining U.S. third-world feminist concepts—like interpellation, oppositional consciousness, and the generative force of negative affects—even as they fall out of favor within affect studies. Centering theory that emerges from the vexed spaces of queer women of color lived experiences generates a vital interdisciplinary conversation that contributes to the ongoing political task of mobilizing affect for social action as a critical praxis. In the articles that follow we see this critical praxis at work in the form of community organizing, music, poetry, and performance art.