British Women Research Articles

Artistic Aesthetics of English Idioms of Onomastic Nature

The article describes the ethnic and individual impact factors on the formation of conceptually linguistic picture of the world which works as a connecting primary phenomenon of every separate nationality, a marker of a national language, traditions, culture and literature. The subject of the research includes English idioms with an onomastic component, which ethnic identity is genetically determined by different strands: geographic and climate environment (natural landscape, pidsonnia (climate), natural disasters, flora, fauna), historical and social factors (economic activity (farming), occupation, relationship with the neighbours, social and political forms), mentally unique features of a national character. Phraseological units have become the ground for developing a phraseological picture of the world of the English ethnicity as an owner of an original outlook. The structure and semantics of these idioms comprise both the names connected with the England lands, and those that go far beyond its boundaries; it depends on the spreading area of a separate variant of the English language and its world significance. The key phraseological units of the English language contain toponyms (place names, proper names of geographical objects), anthroponyms (proper names of people). Thus, this study presents the other idiom groups as well. Toponyms of mythological, biblical and historical origin are the most spread among them. Sometimes English phraseological units comprise ethnonyms-componets to indicate the names of the nationalities, which representatives have contancted with an English cultural community one way or another. A specific typeof idioms is presented by the phraseological units of literary origin of the works of outstanding creative individuals. Shakespearisms make the largest group. Most of the studied idioms reflect ethnic and psychological peculiarities of a community, its national and cultural specififcs, demonstrate the sample of high artistic aesthetics.

The classification of idioms

This article aims at investigating the significance of idioms in linguistic research. The paper tries to shed light on the definition and importance of idioms by a number of scholars, their relations to the issue, its characteristics, functions and comprehension. Analyzed idioms reflect life style of the Karakalpak and the English nation, the investigated expressions either coincide in some basic categories or express polar points of view and attitudes

Bad Men, Good Men, and Loving Women: Gender Constructions in British State Messaging on Counterterrorism, Countering Violent Extremism and Preventing Violent Extremism

ABSTRACT The United Kingdom presents itself as a leader in counterterrorism (CT), countering violent extremism (CVE) and preventing violent extremism (PVE). The Action Counters Terrorism Campaign is a public-facing campaign of the U.K. government aimed at raising the public’s awareness of how it can support its CT/CVE/PVE efforts. A narrative analysis of the campaign’s YouTube channel (2017–2020) reveals a clear dominant narrative that “ordinary people” can assist in CT/CVE/PVE by being alert and following basic rules (such as Run, Hide, Tell). However, a gendered narrative analysis reveals far more surprising results: The terrorist threat is understood as exclusively male and only men are viewed as at risk of radicalization. Women are predominantly portrayed in relation to men in their lives. Through their love and care, women can support efforts to save men by noticing when “something is wrong.” This article reveals how the gendered constructions of the British awareness campaign are so engrained in a powerful metanarrative of gender and political violence that they ignore even widespread public security debates, such as those surrounding British girls and women joining ISIS. It concludes that a narrative analysis must include a gendered analysis to understand the political and security implications of CT/CVE/PVE narratives.

LINGUOCULTURAL FEATURES OF THE CONCEPT SEA IN THE ENGLISH-SPEAKING PRESS (BASED ON THE MATERIAL OF «THE TIMES» HEADLINES)

The sea, in all its scope and variety of denotative sphere, is one of the most important factors in the geopolitical location of Great Britain. The image-concept of the SEA is key in the linguistic consciousness of English people, which is objectivized in linguistic and conceptual pictures of the world. This fact is reflected in linguistic semantics and communicative activity. The relevance of our research is due to the need to study the phenomenon of the sea as a separate, independent cultural sphere of existence, without which it is impossible to imagine the course of the historical development of Great Britain, as well as to identify the relevant semantic components that form the concept of SEA. The specificity and semiotic richness of the concept of SEA is directly related to the historical and cultural experience of British people, to the peculiarities of the geographical location — living on the island, and to the realities that surround the representatives of this nationality. The study of the marine fragment of the world picture of the British became the object of this research for the reason that the world, natural objects and phenomena are part of the cultural world of the British linguistic community. The identification of the national cultural specificity of the linguistic consciousness of the speakers of this culture is related to the study of the content of everyday ideas about the real world. The sea, which is an integral part of the British landscape, has always had a great influence on the identity and language of this nation. The purpose of the research is to identify the specifics of the functioning of the lexeme “sea” within the framework of the linguistic-cultural concept of SEA and its comprehensive description based on the material of newspaper headlines. The subject of the research is the studying of structural and semantic characteristics, information rubrication of the titles in the newspaper discourse, which is part of the concept of SEA. The work is carried out within the framework of the theory of the linguistic and cultural approach, which is a synthesis of several research methods, including conceptual analysis, definitional analysis, and the field method. The research was conducted on the material of the English language. The source of language material was the headlines of magazine texts of the British periodical “The Times” for the period from July 1, 2021 to July 1, 2022.

Women’s football subculture of misogyny: the escalation to online gender-based violence

ABSTRACT Research question Given the worldwide growth of women’s football and its presence on social media, it is essential to explore and understand fan attitudes and culture. Research methods This article provides the first empirical social media netnography focusing on English women’s football teams (Manchester United and Burnley) and international fan views towards women professional players on TikTok. We extend this discussion by utilising a netnography in which researchers immersed themselves for seven months in women’s football groups on TikTok to gather and analyse new qualitative data in this context. Results and Findings We identify the escalation of gender-based violence on social media against women players. Four key themes emerged from the netnography: 1. Sexism: the place of women in football; 2. Misogyny and hatred of women; 3. Sexualisation of women; 4. Demand for a male-only space. Sexist comments were apparent in all of the TikTok posts containing female football players, with some also containing more aggressive misogynistic comments. Other dominant comments sought to reduce women to objects of sexual desire and belittle their professional skills, whereas others were appalled at the presence of female players on the clubs’ official accounts, demanding them to be a male-only space. Implications The study contributes to the understanding of online fan cultures on complex, video-based platforms such as TikTok. Through literature review and netnography, we identified a problem for football clubs on social media of longstanding, problematic issues of toxic fan comments.

Cancer care in the context of COVID-19.

359 Background: The COVID pandemic increased mental health challenges for cancer patients, overburdened oncology providers, and exacerbated health disparities. Using focus groups, this study aimed to understand the impact of COVID on people with cancer from underserved communities in WA state. Methods: In 4 focus groups (English and Spanish) people diagnosed with cancer from March 2020 or later in WA state were asked about their treatment, mental health, COVID testing and vaccine experiences, finances, and bias and racism during the pandemic. Focus groups included individuals with a cancer diagnosis in specific communities: Black and African American (n=8), English-Speaking Hispanic/Latinx (n=5), Spanish-Speaking Hispanic/Latinx (n=5), and Rural (n=4). Transcripts were analyzed using conventional content analysis in Dedoose 9.0. Initial coding used notes from preliminary data review. Codes were combined, deleted, and added during subsequent coding. Data was exported and themes were developed. Results: Several themes emerged from the discussions. See table. Conclusions: Cancer patients in WA State reported increased difficulties with navigating hospital policies, mental health, racism during treatment and at work, and economic stress during COVID. Some identified emotional support from family and community as mitigating factors. Feedback from the groups confirmed the need to prioritize mental health and social needs of people with cancer. Future research is needed on interventions to address such needs among individuals with cancer.[Table: see text]

4 Norm Selection and Application in Socially Responsible Neuropsychological Practice

Objective:In the wake of the national controversy over demographically corrected normative comparisons used in neuropsychological assessment, the field finds itself in need of adopting better practices and providing stronger instruction in norm selection and application when assessing underrepresented populations. Neuropsychologists must employ critical thinking within their clinical decision-making that takes into account patient demographics, analysis of the measures themselves, normative samples, and statistical adjustments employed in normative studies. Not doing so may result in erroneous diagnostic conclusions, exposing underserved patient populations to poor or harmful clinical care and even misdiagnosis. The following case series presents several demographic considerations illustrating how selection and application of different (at times, ill-fitting) normative reference groups can affect treatment outcomes in the Latinx community. We examined the performance of various published norms when applied to monolingual and bilingual Spanish speakers.Participants and Methods:This study samples three demographically diverse (i.e., education, age, and sex) clinical cases and applies regression-based and stratified norms to raw scores to demonstrate the possible differential outcomes when using different reference groups. One example is Ms. Congeniality, a 69-year-old, Spanish and English bilingual woman with 12 years of education who presented for a third revaluation at our clinic due to progressive memory loss. Her prior Spanish language profiles demonstrated impaired confrontation naming and steadily decreasing letter fluency over the past 10 years.Results:Her performance on semantic fluency (i.e., animal naming) showed relative stability based on her raw scores (10 in 2012, 11 in 2016, and 12 in 2022). Using the Neuropsi A&M norms, which stratify performance across nine age ranges between ages 6-85 and three education ranges between 0-10+ years, her performance over the past 10 years ranged between the less than 1st percentile to the 9th percentile (1%, 1%, and 9%, respectively). However, using the NP-NUMBRS norms, which use regression-based continuous age (19-60) and education (0-20) predictors of test performance, her scores corresponded to steadily improved performance (8%, 28%, and 86%). Thus, this qualitative comparison demonstrates a likely overcorrection for individuals of advanced age when using norms based on samples that are a poor fit because they lack representation of older adults, as in NP-NUMBRS, and a possible undercorrection when using norms with overly broad education stratifications (e.g., 10-22 years, as in Neuropsi).Conclusions:Application of ill-fitting normative standards can have far-reaching implications for interpretation of neuropsychological test results. Moreover, this case series exemplifies the need for higher-order instruction in norm selection, specifically for underserved communities who run the risk of being misdiagnosed. Through case examples, this study underscores the importance of understanding the unique effects of different demographic corrections in the context of limited available normative reference groups. This abstract is the first illustration in a series of papers aimed at facilitating the decision-making process within the framework of socially responsible neuropsychological practice.

Promoting REproductive Planning And REadiness in Diabetes (PREPARED) Study protocol: a clinic-randomised controlled trial testing a technology-based strategy to promote preconception care for women with type 2 diabetes

IntroductionWomen with type 2 diabetes (T2DM) are more likely to experience adverse reproductive outcomes, yet preconception care can significantly reduce these risks. For women with T2DM, preconception care includes reproductive...

The First Folio and the merchants of Venice: A collection of books from the natio Anglica in Padua

The Padua First Folio owned by the Biblioteca Universitaria does not include the original binding, but photos show the shelfmark as having belonged to the Santa Giustina Library. Other English books with the same binding and similar shelfmarks have been found, all coming from Santa Giustina. Some of them contain a mark of ownership by the two John Hobsons, consuls of the English nation in Venice in the seventeenth century, who bequeathed their books to the library of the natio Anglica at Padua University. We know very little about this library, founded in 1649. An Appendix proposes a reconstruction.

Identifying the Health Concerns of Pregnant British Pakistani Women Living in Deprived Areas: A Qualitative Study

IntroductionPregnant British Pakistani women have disproportionately poorer health than the wider population. Bradford has a strong Pakistani presence and a wide range of public health problems including high levels of gestational diabetes, high obesity rates and a high infant mortality rate, which is highest for babies of Pakistani origin. For women to be healthy, we need to know what concerns they have about their health so they can be addressed appropriately. The aim of this study, therefore, was to explore the health concerns of pregnant British Pakistani women living in deprived areas.MethodsSemi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted with 21 pregnant Pakistani women in a hospital setting. Data were analysed using thematic analysis.ResultsPakistani women identified safety issues, barriers to undertaking physical activity in the areas where they live, concerns surrounding exercising during pregnancy and cultural and religious constraints that prevented them from engaging in physical activity. They reported issues around food, concerns around a lack of culturally appropriate diet information, the cost of unhealthy food locally, and the lack of healthy food options in their residences. Women were unsure on where to obtain health promotion information and reported a lack of access in obtaining that information. Language barriers in accessing health promotion information were further reported as a concern.DiscussionResearchers, midwives, health providers, local authority and policy makers interested in improving the health of pregnant Pakistani women may use these findings to develop further research and interventions to improve the poor health of this population.

“A Serious House on Serious Earth It Is…” (Commentary on the Poem “Church Going” by Ph. Larkin).

The article analyzes one of the most popular works of the British poet Philip Larkin. The poem “Church Going” expressed the processes that took place in English society in the post-war period. Many English people broke up with religion and stopped visiting church. But such a refusal was followed by some losses. Certain of the former believers felt disagreeable themselves after leaving church. Larkin tries to find out what qualities of church had attracted people, what they had gotten there and what can replace church in the future when it ceases to exist as a social institution. In addition to the content study, the article pays attention to stylistic analysis and analysis of the elements of poetic form.

Exploring the deep layers of black motherhood in Beloved by Toni Morrison and The Long Song by Andrea Levy

This article aims to explore the deep layers of motherhood in the literary masterpieces Beloved by Toni Morrison and The Long Song by Andrea Levy. It is a comparative analysis of the selected novels that share a common background; the history of slavery. The trauma of slavery has an impact both on the literature and on the transfer of cultural memory. African American and Black British women's writings are connected to the malfunctioning results of slavery in their past which also haunts their present. Using certain narrative forms, their neo-slave narratives reflect the trauma of slavery and cultural memory. It uncovers the centrality of motherhood to cultural memory in African American and Black British women’s neo-slave narratives. This article engages with the transfer of cultural memory in black women’s neo-slave narratives through motherhood. It aims to encapsulate the relationships between colonization, historical injustices, slavery, and gender discrimination to investigate motherhood. Black women are recognized as bearers of cultural memory; therefore, the relationship between a mother and a daughter is used to analyze cultural memory and the trauma of slavery. Morrison and Levy’s neo-slave narratives are seen as a means of struggle against forgetting. Despite sharing some features, African American and Black British women’s neo-slave narratives have differences. Reading these two neo-slave narratives in a comparative approach, this study presents a renewed point of view for cultural memory studies in literature through black mothering. It will contribute to debates about the importance of maternal ancestry upon black women to construct cultural memory.

Pre-pandemic trajectories of depressive symptomatology and their relation to depression during the COVID-19 pandemic: longitudinal study of English older people.

Although the COVID-19 pandemic has affected depression, evidence of the role of pre-pandemic history of depression remains limited. We investigated how long-term trajectories of depressive symptomatology before the COVID-19 pandemic were related to depression during the pandemic, over and above the latest pre-pandemic depression status. Furthermore, we examined whether those experiencing depression closer to the pandemic were at higher risk during the pandemic. Employing data from waves 4-9 of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (2008-2009 to 2018-2019), we used group-based trajectory modelling on 3925 English older adults aged 50+ years to identify distinctive trajectories of elevated depressive symptoms (EDS). Fully adjusted logistic models were then used to examine the associations between trajectories and depression during the COVID-19 pandemic (June-July and November-December 2020). We identified four classes of pre-pandemic trajectories of EDS. About 5% were classed as 'enduring EDS', 8% as 'increasing EDS', 10% as 'decreasing EDS' and 77% as 'absence of EDS'. Compared with respondents with absence of EDS, those with EDS history were more likely to have depression during the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly those with enduring or increasing EDS in the previous 10 years. Moreover, the frequency of EDS was more crucial in predicting the risks of depression during the pandemic than the timing of the latest episode. Trajectories of depressive symptomatology are an important risk factor for older adults' mental health, particularly in the context of crisis. Older people with enduring or increasing EDS should receive particular attention from policy makers when provisioning post-pandemic well-being support.

“What have 6 million dead people got to do with football?”: How Anglo-Jewish football supporters experience and respond to antisemitism and “banter”

ABSTRACT Life-story interviews with 39 Jewish supporters of a football club whose quasi-Jewish identity is the catalyst for antisemitic abuse were used to explain the under-researched everyday experiences among members of the Anglo-Jewish community. All interviewees said their experiences of antisemitism within English men’s football supporter culture were much worse than in wider society. All interviewees believed references to Hitler and the Holocaust exceeded any threshold of acceptability and that the death of 6 million people should never be associated with football. While denigration of Jewish rituals and practices was offensive and problematic for some, Jewish stereotypes tended to be downplayed, dismissed, or tolerated by most interviewees as part of the “banter” endemic in English supporter culture to lessen or disrupt the impact of the hate speech they endure. These responses indicate complex processes of anger, acceptance and rationalisation as recipients attempt to make sense of and deal with everyday antisemitism.

In Search of Community. Eliza Orzeszkowa in the Circle of Questions of 19th-Century English Women Writers

The article deals with religious issues in selected novels by Eliza Orzeszkowa. The writer often manifested her distance to the Polish national Church and at the same time asked in her works about the possibility of creating a new type of religious community. The search of Orzeszkowa’s heroines is interpreted in the article in the context of the works of English women writers of the 19th century associated with the current of religious revival (Charlotte Brontë, Elizabeth Gaskell, George Eliot).

British Women and Cultural Practices of Empire. Edited by Rosie Dias and Kate Smith. 225mm. Pp xiii + 273, 11 col pls, 27 figs. Bloomsbury Visual Arts, Bloomsbury, London, 2019. isbn 9781501332159. £102 (hbk).

British Women and Cultural Practices of Empire. Edited by Rosie Dias and Kate Smith. 225mm. Pp xiii + 273, 11 col pls, 27 figs. Bloomsbury Visual Arts, Bloomsbury, London, 2019. <scp>isbn</scp> 9781501332159. £102 (hbk).

No Woman is an Island: The Politics of Loneliness, Spare Rib and The Women's Liberation Movement, 1969-1993

In this article we examine how loneliness is a political emotion that has played a crucial role in the formation of grassroots feminist networks and print culture, generating new ideas about collectivity. We frame feminist consciousness-raising groups and publications as infrastructures of loneliness that allow women at once to recognise isolation as a political condition and to cut through that isolation by forming social networks with other women in a local and national context. This article contributes to an emergent body of scholarship that uses affect theory as a lens through which to analyse the circulation of feeling in feminist periodicals, as well as in feminist movements more generally. The article explores how the women's liberation movement developed experimental responses to loneliness, as well as more commercial ones, which, if less overtly political, were also central to expanding terms of belonging as they critiqued the loneliness induced by the privatised heterosexual family unit. We turn first to consider the small group networks that were connected through Shrew in the early stages of the women's liberation movement and subsequently to the print networks fostered by Spare Rib to examine the interlocking forces of grassroots and commercial feminist responses to loneliness. The article analyses the possibilities and limitations of this politicisation of loneliness, insofar as feminist networks at once generated new radical forms of intimacy that allowed women to question the role of the nuclear family, and created their own structures of exclusion, especially for Black British and British Asian women who consequently formed their own groups and publications. We argue that our understanding of loneliness must be situated in relation to the material and psychic resources that generate structures of inclusion and exclusion. At a time of ever-increasing social atomisation and proclaimed 'crises' of loneliness, this article adds historical depth to our understanding of feminist networks and demonstrates the importance of sharing the feeling of being lonely as a way of forging new forms of communality and togetherness.

VICTORIAN HELLENISM AND TRAUMA: THE REINTERPRETATION OF MEDEA IN AUGUSTA WEBSTER’S “MEDEA IN ATHENS”

The 19th-century reinterpretations of Hellenic myths serve as an effective tool for discussing the female experience of exclusion and inclusion. Medea, one of the most notorious heroines of Greek mythology, recurrently permeated the Victorians’ consciousness, both in poetry and the visual arts. Traditionally, she is perceived as a filicide perpetrator, a femme fatale or a fallen woman. However, 19th-century British women poets represented Medea in a more subversive way. The present article explores how the mid-Victorian poet Augusta Webster (18371894) reimagines Medea as a woman confronting personal trauma. This article offers a detailed analysis of the poem, taking into account the psychological manifestations of traumatized sensibility and Medea’s strategies in describing her predicament. Webster’s Victorian reworking of Medea provides an intriguing literary portrayal of a traumatic response to marital breakdown, alienation, and filicide.

Effects of oral contraceptives and menopausal hormone therapy on the risk of rheumatoid arthritis: a prospective cohort study.

Oral contraceptives (OC) and menopausal hormone therapy (MHT) contain exogenous sex hormones and are used by millions of women around the world. However, their effect on the development of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is still debated and the current literature suggests that they may exert opposite effects on the risk of RA. The present study aimed to estimate the effects of exogenous hormones on the development of RA, both during the reproductive lifespan and later in life. The association between OC and RA, as well as between MHT and late-onset RA (LORA), was investigated using time-dependent Cox regression modelling in white British women from the UK Biobank (n = 236 602 and n = 102 466, respectively) and replicated in women from all ethnic groups. OC use was associated with a decreased risk of RA in ever-users [hazard ratio (HR) = 0.89; 95% CI = 0.82-0.96], as well as in current (HR = 0.81; 0.73-0.91) and former users (HR = 0.92; 0.84 -1.00), compared with never-users. In contrast, MHT use was associated with an increased risk of LORA in ever-users (HR = 1.16; 1.06-1.26) as well as in former users (HR = 1.13; 1.03-1.24) compared with never-users. OC use appears to protect against RA, while MHT may increase the risk of LORA. This study provides new insights into the possible inverse effect of exposure to different exogenous sex hormones on the risk of RA.

Long-term exposure to air pollution and risk of hospital admissions for obstructive lung disease among older English people

Long-term exposure to air pollution and risk of hospital admissions for obstructive lung disease among older English people