Gender Distinctions Research Articles

Queering the stitch: Fashion, masculinity and the postsocialist subject

In my article, I analyse some of the ways in which Gosha Rubchinskiy, Demna Gvasalia and Lotta Volkova might be said to ‘queer’ masculinity. I draw parallels between their work and the modernist, utopian, Constructivist project of Soviet fashion designers of the 1920s such as Varvara Stepanova and Lyubov’ Popova. Most importantly, both groups of artists share a desire to organize their fashion practice within a broader ideological project. At the heart of their respective projects is a fundamental challenge to conventional notions of gender in fashion, and in the fashion industry. In both cases, the ‘queering’ of gender norms, distinctions and hierarchies, both on and off the catwalk, is designed to produce a radical transformation of the relationship between the fashioned object and the fashionable, consuming subject. As far as today’s post-Soviet fashion designers are concerned, by the way in which they either queer masculinity or perform their own, queer brand of masculinity, they produce a new, utopian subject. Far from being the antithesis of the Constructivist project, then, this post-socialist utopian body can be seen as constituting perhaps its most spectacular realization to date.

Environmental, Eco - Criticism and Eco - Feminist Perspectives in Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance & Gloria Naylor’s Linden Hills

This paper attempts a reading of Rohinton Mistry’s novel A Fine Balance (1997) and Gloria Naylor’s Linden Hills (1985) envision insights from recent developments in eco-criticism and eco-feminism. Through Gender theory eco-feminism substantiates the silence of women in Linden Hills.
 Eco-criticism is a form of literary criticism based on ecological perspectives. It investigates the relation between human and the natural world in literature, such as the way in which environmental issues, cultural issues concerning the environment and attitudes towards nature are presented and analyzed. One of the main goals of eco-criticism concerns the environment and attitudes towards nature and ecological aspects. This form of criticism has gained a lot of attention during recent years (approximately since 2000) due to greater social emphasis on environmental destruction as a result of increased technology. It is hence a way of analyzing and interpreting literary texts. Eco critics investigate such things as the underlying ecological values, what, precisely, is meant by the word nature, and whether the examination of “Place” should be a distinctive category, gender or race. By examining the eco critical discourse in A Fine Balance, the paper posits that Mistry’s vision of development in India is predicated on the conditions of sustainability.
 The Ecological Feminism is an interdisciplinary movement which interrogates the new ways of thought process concerning natural world, diplomacy, and mysticism. Eco-feminist speculation has exacting and important association between females and natural world. Eco-feminism understands the suppression of women and their mistreatment in phrases of the subjugation and operation of the environment. Naylor discusses gender conditioned with eco-feminism perspectives. She scrutinizes United States as a “Place”, in relation to race of Linden Hills.
 The postcolonial feminist theory contends that through novel, A Fine Balance comparing with Linden Hills, Mistry interrogate the difficulties of maintaining natural and human diversity in the contemporary economic and social development in the Indian subcontinent. The aspects of paper are tailoring sustainability, ecology, eco - feminism and environment, urbanization and modernization, creation of ecological imbalance and the use of nature ‘as an end to all means’.

Primary hyperparathyroidism: clinical forms and their features. Retrospective study

Background: Primary hyperparathyroidism (PHPT) is a disease characterized by autonomous production of parathyroid hormone (PTH) from one or more parathyroid glands. Over the past 50 years asymptomatic form of the disease have become more prevalent in developed countries. Aims: To evaluate the clinical forms of PHPT presented in recent years and to specify the clinical and laboratory features in patients with symptomatic and asymptomatic forms of the disease. Materials and methods: We reviewed medical records of 449 patients admitted to three Medical Centers (Saint-Petersburg, Russia) between 2011–2018. Anamnesis, anthropometric data, laboratory (PTH, serum total calcium and ionized calcium, phosphorus, alkaline phosphatase, 24-h calciuria level, 25(OH)D) and instrumental (ultrasonography, scintigraphy, CT/MRI scan, DXA) tests were analyzed. Results: Patients’ average age was 59 years, with 93.1% women, and an F:M ratio of 13.5:1. Symptomatic form of PHPT was identified in 310 patients (69%), while 139 were asymptomatic. 4.2% of patients had PHPT as part of MEN syndrome. Almost half of the male population had urolithiasis and 45% of women had osteoporosis. Cardiovascular diseases were present in 64.4% of cases. 25(OH)D level was determined only in 20% of cases and was higher in asymptomatic patients (32.2 & 18.6 ng/ml, p = 0.003). Normocalcemic form of PHPT was diagnosed in 37 patients (8.2%) and was characterized not only by normocalcemia and lower PHT level, but also by smaller adenoma size ( p = 0.01) and hypocalcemic syndrome after surgery. Conclusions: Study results showed that symptomatic PHPT is more prevalent in the Russian population, that there are gender distinctions affecting the clinical presentation, and that the frequency of cardiovascular disease is high in this patient population. PHPT as part of MEN syndrome was detected in 4.2% of cases and required molecular genetic testing. Normocalcemic form of PHPT with postoperative hypocalcemia was present in every fourth patient. Rare determination of 25(OH)D level imposes the need of mandatory assessment of vitamin D supplementation and the reduction of its deficiency as part of the preoperative preparation of PHPT patients.

Effects of desensitizing dentifrices on the reduction of pain sensitivity caused by in-office dental whitening: a double-blind controlled clinical study.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to clinically evaluate the influence of desensitizing dentifrices applied through a plastic tray on reducing the pain sensitivity and color variation caused by in-office dental whitening and to evaluate differences among such dentifrices through a controlled double-blind clinical study.Materials and methods: A prospective study was conducted with 48 individuals between 18 and 30 years without gender distinction. For the dental whitening, 35% hydrogen peroxide was used in three clinical sessions. After each whitening session, the volunteers used a plastic tray containing one of the dentifrices (sucralose– S, sodium fluoride – SF, arginine and calcium carbonate – ACC, and 5% potassium nitrate – PN) for 4 hrs during the night. The evaluation of the sensitivity associated with the use of the plastic tray in each whitening session was performed using the analog numerical scale with scores from 0 to 10. The color variation (ΔE) was determined with a spectrophotometer. The pain sensitivity data were submitted to the multivariate analysis of variance with repeated measurements and a Lambda Wilks test (p<0.05). To analyze the color variation, a one-way ANOVA was applied (p<0.05).Results: The ACC and 5% NP groups showed a reduction in sensitivity in relation to the other groups (p<0.05). There was a reduction in sensitivity after placement of the tray with dentifrice. The color evaluation associated with the dentifrice showed no difference (p=0.9186).Conclusion: The use of desensitizing dentifrices with ACC or 5% NP in a plastic tray was effective for the reduction of pain sensitivity, and the use of a desensitizing dentifrice did not decrease the effectiveness of whitening.

Metalinguistic knowledge about the native language and language transfer in gender assignment

Whereas Standard Dutch only distinguishes between two adnominal grammatical genders, substandard varieties of Belgian Dutch distinguish between three such genders. German, too, distinguishes between three genders. Nevertheless, when assigning gender to German nouns with Dutch cognates, speakers of Belgian Dutch are strongly influenced by Standard Dutch gender but to a much lesser degree (if at all) by substandard gender. On the hypothesis that a lack of metalinguistic knowledge about L1 substandard gender decreases its use as a source for transfer, I experimentally manipulated the metalinguistic knowledge about L1 substandard gender of 45 speakers of substandard Belgian Dutch varieties. I then assessed how strongly this manipulation affected the participants’ reliance on substandard gender distinctions when they assigned gender to L2 German nouns with Dutch cognates. Results confirm the strong influence of Standard Dutch, hint at a weak influence of substandard Dutch, and show no appreciable effect of the experimental manipulation.

Oral health in children with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia: before and after chemotherapy treatment.

Toevaluatechanges in the oral health status ofchildrenunder the age of 14years with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) attending a cancer centre before and after chemotherapy treatment. A total of 32 children with ALL without distinction of gender were selected for study. The oral cavity of the patients was evaluated before the induction stage and 17days later. Clinical evaluation of the submandibular, submental, and cervical lymph nodes was performed. Saliva samples were collected during the early morning hours. Bacterial plaque was assessed by using the Silness and Löe plaque index (SLPI) and gingiva status was evaluated with the gingival Löe and Silness index (GLSI). The WHO toxicity oral scale was used to record the degree of oral mucositis. The resulting data were analysed with McNemar's test, t test (for related samples), and Wilcoxon test. There were statistically significant differences for palpable lymph nodes, paleness of oral mucosa, and ecchymoseis, respectively, P ≤ 0.000, P = 0.03, and P = 0.01, with thesemanifestationsdecreasing significantly after treatment. Incipientgingivitis had frequencies of 71.9% and 75% before and after treatment, respectively. The mean SLPI score declined significantly from 1.16 ± 0.52 (before treatment) to0.56 ± 0.36 (after treatment) (P < 0.000); salivary flowincreasedsignificantly from0.54 ± 0.34to 1.22 ± 1.07 after chemotherapy treatment (P < 0.00). Oral mucositiswas present in24 children (75%)witha 1-2 severitylevel. After chemotherapy treatment, there were changes in the oral conditions of children with ALL. Some manifestations decreased after treatment, whereas inothers increased.

Gender and Children’s Food Practices: A Qualitative Study of 12–14-Year-Old Children in A Danish School Setting

ABSTRACTIn this article, we will focus on gender and food among children in Danish home economics classes—more specifically, children aged 12–14 (6th and 7th graders in the Danish school). The aim of the study is to investigate whether the traditional gender representations found in studies of children’s food media are replicated in children’s food practices in a school setting. The article concludes that gender is not as manifest as other studies have indicated, notably those on media representations of children and food. This is not to say that gender distinctions were absent but that they were expressed in more subtle ways. Also, the article highlights the importance of paying attention to different kinds of food practices, and how they might be gendered differently by the same subjects. The article calls for more research in the field and more broadly on the complex relationship between gendered media representation and social practices in everyday life.

Un estudio sobre creatividad figurativa no verbal por la activación motora de la mano izquierda

Este estudio investigó el impacto que tuvo el uso focal de la extremidad superior fina izquierda en la Prueba de Creatividad Figurativa no verbal de To-rrance en alumnos de educación superior. Los parti-cipantes fueron 40 estudiantes de la Universidad Autónoma de Tamaulipas en el Periodo Escolar 2018-1, conformados en cuatro grupos: 10 mujeres diestras (Edad, M=23, DE=.816), 10 mujeres zur-das (Edad, M=23.20, DE=1.033), 10 varones dies-tros (Edad, M=23.20, DE=1.814) y 10 varones zur-dos (Edad, M=23, DE=1.155). El estudio se inclinó hacia el enfoque cuantitativo con diseño transeccio-nal a fin de conocer el rendimiento creativo figura-tivo al utilizar la mano predominante y no predomi-nante durante las pruebas. Los resultados mostraron mayor puntaje de manera general en todos los grupos sin distinción de género cuando utilizaron su extremidad superior fina izquierda en la prueba, aunque estas diferencias no fueron significativas (p&gt;.05) respecto a cuando utilizaron la extremidad motora derecha.

Rethinking Agreement in Spoken Arabic: The Question of Gender

Abstract This paper proposes a re-discussion of the question of the number of genders in Arabic. Only varieties of Arabic that display gender distinction in the plural are considered here. In these varieties, it is argued, all nouns fall into one of three distinct agreement classes (or genders), and this in spite of the fact that only two separate genders surface at the morphological level. In other words, a discrepancy exists between the number of target genders and that of controller genders. This situation is not unique to Arabic, and finds parallels in other languages of the world. In addition, the article discusses the role of feminine singular agreement with plural controllers. This type of agreement is not restricted to any particular controller type and always exists in variation with plural agreement. Therefore, it is not to be regarded as a separate agreement category, but rather as an indicator of the referent’s level of individuation. Finally, the last section of the article concentrates on the possible diachronic implications of the analysis proposed above

Adherence to oral pharmacological treatment in cancer patients: Systematic review.

The objective was to identify the best-validated scale for assessing oral pharmacological adherence in oncology patients.A bibliographic search was performed in MEDLINE via Ovid, EMBASE, CENTRAL and LILACS. We included all studies in which a validation of adherence scales to oral pharmacological treatment was performed in oncology patients older than 18 years without gender distinction. We excluded studies that included newly diagnosed patients. No statistical analysis was performed due to the nature of the study. A total of 4609 studies were found. After screening, six studies were selected for qualitative analysis. In the analysis of the six included studies, a total of 855 patients older than 18 years with oncological diagnoses were found. Two of the studies, Bagcivan et al. and Amorim et al., used scales that show acceptable validity and reliability to adequately measure adherence to pharmacological treatment in each of the patients. In this way, the quality of patient care and success in pharmacological treatments can be guaranteed. According to the results obtained in the evaluation of biases and analysis of psychometric properties, the best-validated scales are as follows: Adherence Determinants Questionnaire (ADQ) (Brazilian version) and the Oral Chemotherapy Adherence Scale (OCAS). These are valid, reliable and useful scales that can be adapted to any cultural context.

Remembering pre-independence childhoods in South India: interrogating autobiographies and identities

ABSTRACTThis article discusses the potential of autobiography for understanding histories of childhood, the effects of late-colonial social policy and the experience of change in India in the decades immediately preceding independence in 1947. This was an era characterized by both increased state intervention in the lives of poor Indian children and the growing influence of universalizing notions about modern childhood. Based on a detailed study of 55 autobiographies produced by those born between 1910 and 1940, the article analyses the ways in which childhood was imagined, defined and discussed by South Indians through memories that coalesce around the themes of innocence, play, education, work, family and social identity. It demonstrates that these narrations of memory also convey aspirations for contemporary Indian children through comparative reference to the binary of ‘today’ and ‘those days’. The article reveals the complexity of ideas and experiences at a local level which, despite the commonality of age, were refracted through the distinctions of gender, religion, race and class.

How gender is constructed and experienced in the social world of the nursery school

ABSTRACTThis case study attempts to capture the way gender is constructed and experienced in the social world of the nursery school. It presents findings from a staff survey, structured and unstructured observations of one male’s and one female’s professional practice and one-to-one interviews with children aged three to four years. Despite practitioners’ reported intentions to challenge traditional notions of gender, construction of traditional gender distinctions was not problematised by staff and was upheld by comments of children. Children appeared to construct themselves in terms of gender stereotypes and were offered only limited alternative gender positions by the male and female practitioners.

A percepção dos enfermeiros da estratégia de saúde da famí­lia do território de Manguinhos sobre a sexualidade infantil e a implicação para o cuidado í saúde da criança

A pesquisa objetivou analisar percepção dos enfermeiros da Estratégia Saúde da Famí­lia do Território de Manguinhos sobre a sexualidade infantil e a implicação desta percepção para o cuidado í saúde da criança. Trata-se de um estudo descritivo, exploratório e de natureza qualitativa. Realizado no Centro de Saúde Escola Germano Sinval Faria e Clí­nica da Famí­lia Victor Valla no Complexo de Manguinhos, no Municí­pio do Rio de Janeiro, onde está localizado e é campo de ensino e pesquisa para ENSP/FIOCRUZ, com 8 enfermeiros entrevistados atuantes na Estratégia Saúde da Famí­lia. Utilizou-se o método de interpretação de sentidos, baseando-se em princí­pios hermenêutico-dialéticos. Os depoimentos evidenciam que o despreparo do profissional sobre o assunto e a implicação desta percepção para o cuidado í saúde da criança, leva a um cuidado incompleto. Neste sentido, refletimos sobre a importância da atuação do enfermeiro como profissional de saúde nas consultas, onde pode colaborar de maneira positiva com a educação de pais e crianças a respeito da sexualidade.

How does the global microfinance industry determine its targeting strategy across cultures with differing gender values?

In this paper we empirically investigate the role of culture in determining the gender-targeting strategy of microfinance institutions (MFIs). We use female/male grammatical distinctions in language as the manifestation of culturally-inherited gender values. Our findings indicate that grammatical gender distinctions have a significant effect on the targeting strategy of MFIs. Specifically, MFIs target women in cultures where they are most likely to experience financial discrimination. This suggests that MFIs adapt to disparate discriminatory cultures in a way that serves their core mission of outreaching financially-excluded women, particularly where such strategy is most needed.

A novel firefly algorithm based on gender difference and its convergence

Firefly algorithm is a population-based algorithm, because the search process is simple and easy to implement, it has received extensive attention from scholars. However, the algorithm has low accuracy and is easy to fall into local optimum. Therefore, an improved firefly algorithm based on gender difference (GDFA) is proposed to enhance the performance of the algorithm in this paper. In the basic firefly algorithm, fireflies have no gender distinction, which is not consistent with reality. According to this point, fireflies are divided into two subgroups based on gender. In addition, different update equations are designed for two subgroups on the basis of their moving ways. Male fireflies are guided by two randomly selected female fireflies to focus on global search and female fireflies move to the best male firefly to implement local search, which aim to balance the exploration and exploitation of the algorithm. To further improve the search accuracy, the chaos search is conducted near the best position of the population. Several simulation experiments and constrained optimization problems are carried out to verify the effectiveness of GDFA, and the time complexity of GDFA is analyzed. Finally, the convergence analysis of proposed algorithm is given based on Markov chain theory.

Coparenting Negotiation During the Transition to Parenthood: A Qualitative Study of Couples’ Experiences as New Parents

Coparenting – how couples relate to one another in their joint roles as parents – is predictive of a wide variety of family and child outcomes. The current study used a qualitative, phenomenological approach to understand how couples negotiate the coparenting relationship during the transition to parenthood. The principal researcher interviewed 16 men and women of eight heterosexual, dual-earning, new parent couples. Themes emerged which were both conducive to successful coparenting and inhibitive of successful coparenting. Gender distinctions emerged between men and woman in their experiences of coparenting negotiation. Clinical implications of the themes are discussed.

‘Sissy that walk’: Reframing queer Pacific bodies through the FAFSWAG Ball

This article explores the Auckland-based arts collective FAFSWAG. This group of queer Pasifika artists and dancers has taken up the activism and aesthetics of US ball culture, creating their own underground vogue scene. Facing exclusion and marginalization sometimes from both the mainstream queer community and their own Pasifika communities, FAFSWAG craft a creative response that celebrates and asserts safe spaces for queer ‘brown’ bodies and revisits distinctive Pasifika gender concepts. Their discourse, dance, and events offer responses to lived exigencies of colonization, diaspora, homophobia and racism. Voguing offers masculine and feminine movements for these queer bodies, challenging masculinities imposed by ‘tradition’, pop culture and colonial narratives. The transplanting and uptake of New York ball culture has given FAFSWAG in New Zealand a platform and inspiration to create art and movement that reflects their multiple identities, genders, histories and influences.

On Translator’s Subjectivity from the Feminist Translation Perspective

Feminist translation theories have subverted the traditional standing of translation, highlighting the translator’s subjectivity. Emphasizing the creative treason in the translation process, feminism translations recognize and promote the status of translators in theory. In translation practice, feminist translators manipulate the source text to make the translators visible. Feminism reinterprets the relationship between translators’ subjectivity and the loyalty of translation from the perspective of gender studies. This paper discusses the relationship between the translators’ subjectivity and loyalty of translation from the feminist perspective. Feminism translations hold that translators who carry distinctive social, cultural and gender identity will inevitably leave their special mark on the translation works in the translation process. This serves as the need to highlight the subjectivity of translators. Feminist translation theories stand as one of the newly emerging translation theories which prosper with the cultural turn in translation studies.

THE SURGICAL MANAGEMENT OF CERVICAL LIPOMATOSIS – CASE REPORT

Madelung’s disease (MD), also known as multiple symmetric lipomatosis or Launois Bensaude syndrome, is a rare metabolic condition, consisting of fat deposits, located mainly in the cervical, thoracic and abdominal areas. Etiology of the MD still remains unclear. It affects about one person in 25.000 inhabitants, with no gender distinction. Usually, patients with MD also suffer from other coexisting conditions. For the majority of the patients, the most frequent reasons for medical presentation are aesthetic reasons. The unique efficient treatment consists of surgical approach. Considering the rarity of such clinical cases and the lack of operative approaches in the medical literature, the aim of our paper is to present a case of MD of a non-smoker and non-alcoholic patient and our postoperative results. We report the clinical case of a middle-aged male (41 years old), which required the surgical management of his cervical lipomatosis, in order to regain his initial aesthetic aspect. Our surgical result was satisfying both for our surgical team and for the patient. We managed to obtain a positive aesthetic result, with no postoperative complications or negative events.

Does Work–Family Conflict Vary According to Community Resources?

ObjectiveTo examine the gendered impact of community on work–family conflict (WFC) and whether respondents with young children benefit more from community resources compared with other residents.BackgroundStudies suggest that the gender gap in WFC is decreasing. Most attribute this trend to individual‐level antecedents of work and family. However, these explanations do not take into account important community‐level components—specifically, men's and women's differential access to and use of community resources.MethodIndividual‐level data from 1,702 Canadians matched to census‐level data from the Canadian census were used, and hierarchical linear modeling techniques were employed.ResultsKey findings were that women and parents with young children experience more conflict in less resourced communities, and collective efficacy affected men's and women's reports of WFC, but in opposite, nonlinear ways: At higher levels of collective efficacy, women reported heightened conflict. For men, this pressure was only felt when efficacy levels were high.ConclusionThere are important gender distinctions in reported WFC depending on one's community resources. In some circumstances, these resources are more beneficial for women than men and matter differently for parents with young children compared with those without young children.ImplicationsThese findings help inform community and policy‐based initiatives aimed at reducing residents' experiences of WFC, underscoring the utility of promoting efficacious communities.