Relationship Status and Activated Kin Support: The Role of Need and Norms

Using data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, we examined whether mothers' (N = 4,127) and fathers' (N = 3,405) relationship status influenced their activation of financial support from relatives over time. We found that relationship status influenced the activation of financial support from relatives but that the effects differed somewhat by gender. Mothers were significantly more likely to activate financial assistance if they did not reside with the focal father, whereas fathers had lower odds of activating support if they were no longer in a relationship with the mother. Thus, the need for assistance may encourage mothers to access support; fathers may be less likely to access support when they deviate from social norms.     

Sexuality and Female Friendship in Maryse Condé's I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem

Maryse Condé's I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem offers a complex vision of what it means to be Caribbean at a particular moment in the history of colonization. Simultaneously the novel raises social issues, such as racism and religious bigotry, which are not limited to the era in which it unfolds. But it also destabilizes conventional, rigid notions of female heterosexuality, characterized in clearly heterosexist terms, and those of sexually ambivalent intimate female friendships. By rendering the boundaries between heterosexuality, lesbianism, and bisexuality more fluid and tenuous, the novel illuminates the tension between culturally normalized expectations of female sexuality and the realities of women's lives, and presents a means of avoiding the difficulties encountered when feminism is equated with a particular sexual orientation.