Social Constructionism,Sexuality, and Politics

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BOOK REVIEWS

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A Feminist Policy Analysis Framework

ABSTRACT

Most policy analysis models, both inside and outside of social work, approach policy in a gender-neutral manner. This fact belies the many ways our society is organized around gender, which is often regulated through policy. This article outlines a model for looking at policies through a gendered lens by framing a set of questions to be asked in a feminist policy analysis. The complexities and underlying issues inherent in such a model are discussed, as well as the model's implicit goals and values. The model provides an important framework for policy analysts and teaching students about policy.     

Separation,Connection, and the Ambiguous Nature of Émigré Houses in Rural Highland Madagascar

ABSTRACT

The houses that educated migrants from highland Madagascar build in their home villages are generally large in scale and modern in style. They are also usually empty and in a very poor state of repair. This article is about how these houses articulate the ambivalent relationship of migrants to their ancestral land and the family they have left behind there. The argument goes beyond analyses of émigrés' houses that simply see such constructions as ways of maintaining links to their point of origin and suggests that they also act as means of attenuating such connections. In fact, they embody and symbolize a range of contradictions and tensions typical of the migrant experience, such as presence and absence, connection and separation, individual ambition and communal obligation.     

Jewish and Muslim Married Women Don't Work

ABSTRACT

This article sets out to locate the place and meaning of work within the lives of migrant wives by examining the experiences of two migrant waves into Britain: Eastern European Jews from Russia, Russia/Poland, and Romania at the end of the nineteenth and early years of the twentieth centuries; and Muslim Bangladeshis during the latter decades of the twentieth and dawn of the twenty-first centuries. Using a cultural and religious framework, it explores the reality of life for women whose traditional role has been perceived solely as that of homemaker. However, research has shown that in the case of both groups, economic activities were carried out within and beyond the home. Going behind the “veil,” it reveals the various means employed by women who sought to sustain the household at times of hardship, even if this involved contravening the wishes of spouses and in-laws. Finally, the article highlights the recent changes that have taken place in the economic lives of Bangladeshi and Pakistani women who are seeking to empower themselves by moving into the economic mainstream.     

International women's magazines in China: Global and local perspectives

Unlike other global media products that are imported from overseas, international women's magazines in China are published via licensing agreements or joint ventures with local companies. These ownership patterns allow local editions of international women's magazines to negotiate the tensions and contradictions between the global players and local publishers. Given the influence of cultural and commercial forces in different economic environments, international women's magazines provide a challenging platform for exploring the interaction between global and local forces. Through a theoretical framework of hybridity theory and in-depth interviews with editorial personnel from the magazine industry, this study explores the global and local forces that have contributed to the production process of international women's magazines in China. The findings reveal that these magazines are a result of a multi-level convergence of local realities and global influences. Although there are factors of control and dependence in many areas such as the publishing ideas, editorial policies, the training of personnel, and the quality of production, both Western-style and Japanese-style women's magazines tend to appropriate and rework global cultures to satisfy local readers' needs, albeit in different ways. As a result, local and transnational influences are inextricably interwoven in the production process of international women's magazines in China. The study provides an extensive understanding of the global processes, the consumers, and the cultural forces that are shaping the media, particularly magazines in China.     

Male and Female Sexuality During Pregnancy:

We studied male and female sexual behavior and satisfaction during pregnancy. Expectant fathers were less emotionally satisfied than their wives through the pregnancy. Relative to their husbands, women experienced more conflict and guilt, but reported feeling peaceful and fulfilled in pregnancy, more self-accepting sexually, and derived more pleasure from sex. Both women and men underestimated how attractive their partner found the woman's pregnant body, with men finding their wives more attractive. There were no significant differences in level of sexual desire or sexual satisfaction between men and women. A series of multiple regressions identified a number of variables as predictive of male and female sexual satisfaction. Comparing pregnant couples expecting their first child with normative da:a, we found that expectant couples were less satisfied with the frequency of sex and also derived less sexual pleasure than nonpregnant couples.     

Predictors of HIV Sexual Risk Behavior Among Men Who Have Sex with Men,Men Who Have Sex with Men and Women,and Transgender Women

ABSTRACT

Men who have sex with men, men who have sex with men and women, and transgender women are at high risk for HIV infection. This study seeks to clarify which known HIV risk factors (partner type, sex location, serodiscordance, multiple sex partners, substance use during sex) contribute to engagement in high-risk (unprotected receptive anal) sex in each population. Data collected from June 2005 through June 2008 indicate all three populations display different HIV sexual risk profiles. The data suggest that HIV-prevention interventions should be individually tailored to address the specific needs of these three highly vulnerable and impacted populations.     

Healthy Sexual Development: A Multidisciplinary Framework for Research

ABSTRACT

A group of Australian researchers from a range of disciplines involved in studying children's sexual development developed a framework for researching healthy sexual development that was acceptable to all disciplines involved. The 15 domains identified were: freedom from unwanted activity; an understanding of consent; education about biological aspects; understanding of safety; relationship skills; agency; lifelong learning; resilience; open communication; sexual development should not be “aggressive, coercive or joyless;” self-acceptance; awareness and acceptance that sex is pleasurable; understanding of parental and societal values; awareness of public/private boundaries; and being competent in mediated sexuality.     

Inference for quantile measures of kurtosis,peakedness, and tail weight

Insight into measures of peakedness, heavy-tailedness, and kurtosis can be gained by studying Ruppert’s ratios of interquantile ranges. They are not only monotone in Horn’s measure of peakedness when applied to the central portion of the population, but also monotone in the practical tail-index of Morgenthaler and Tukey, when applied to the tails. Non-parametric confidence intervals are found for Ruppert’s ratios, and sample sizes required to obtain such intervals for a pre-specified relative width and level are provided. In addition, the empirical power of distribution-free tests for peakedness and bimodality are found for some symmetric distributions.