Male Symbol Research Articles

Writing through the Visual and Virtual: Inscribing Language, Literature, and Culture in Francophone Africa and the Caribbean, Edited by Renée Larrier and Ousseina Alidou

Reviewed by: Writing through the Visual and Virtual: Inscribing Language, Literature, and Culture in Francophone Africa and the Caribbean ed. by Renée Larrier and Ousseina Alidou Kimberly Bain Writing through the Visual and Virtual: Inscribing Language, Literature, and Culture in Francophone Africa and the Caribbean RENÉE LARRIER AND OUSSEINA ALIDOU Lexington Books, 2015. v- 398 pp. ISBN 9781498501644 e-book. Writing through the Visual and Virtual focuses on examining the various cultural, rhetorical devices that are used in communities of the diaspora. The authors examine how different aspects of visual and virtual rhetoric serve as an integral part of their community for social progress. The text begins with a discussion on the importance of International Women's Day pagne. The IWD pagne is produced in Central Africa. The process of manufacturing these commemorative cloths involve intricate dye designs. The pagne is a visual expression, particularly for Muslim women, to express their "plural histories of struggle, strength, and aspiration" (6). The pagne is a symbolic outfit worn by women at "… workshops on violence and reproductive health … legal clinics on women's rights and peacemaking … [and] … marches" (7). Banoum and Rice discuss the idea that the pagne is a form of living text that women use to make rhetorical statements within their movements. These outfits are designed according to the United Nations' general theme. The design features "women across class, region, and language…" (7). Authors observed the various styles from 2010 to 2012. Each year, these cloths represented a different symbol of women's empowerment. The authors understand that expressing themselves through these living texts in a country as patriarchal as Cameroon. However, these women find strength in telling their story of struggle, empowerment, and equality through these visual expressions. The use of language is particularly highlighted in this book, as it serves as a regional rhetoric that is used, such as gawlo used by the griots to "… address appropriately internal sociopolitical tensions and dissensions … through the adoption of the griotic rhetoric and language" (33). The use of griot rhetoric has been used by "masters in the 'art of eloquence'" that encompasses "praise singers, entertainers, genealogists, diplomats, and advisors in the circles of West AFrican empires and kingdoms" (33). The text even identifies "Zora Neale Hurston and Aime Cesaire['s] use [of] griotic rhetoric in their literary works" (34). Hurston, in her works, implemented elements of Griotic rhetoric in her literary works and had "managed to turn effective literary and performance art-materials non-literate folk traditions she set out to popularize" (35). Both Cesaire and Hurston used these elements of Griotic rhetoric to influence the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. By doing so, they transformed what we consider today as African American literature. The authors continue to discuss how oral literature, such as testimonies and folklore, help keep social crises and injustices that plague West African countries. Not only is oral literature a way to preserve history, but to support progessive [End Page 238] movement in the region. While it has its drawback of "collective memory," it serves to give context for change (49). Part II discusses the body culture of diasporic nations. Particularly in the Caribbean, the Creolization of the nations has been visually expressed in dance, music, and voice that "…mirrors the hybridity of its sociocultural context" (61). How identity is expressed through visual performance and storytelling is a strong theme in Writing through the Visual and Virtual. Les Retifs is a performance that portrays its characters "as a web of sisters, neighbors, mothers with their personal share of happiness and trials" (66). Here, they are able to write the narrative of their struggles and shape the perception. The authors continue to discuss visual rhetoric and how it's applied to health and awareness. The HIV-AIDS epidemic has plagued large parts of Africa since the 1980s. The clash between public health and religious conviction has made this health crisis particularly difficult to tackle in parts of the African continent. Activists such as Adboul Salam of Nigeria creates HIV-AIDS dance songs to spread awareness. Through his artistic works, he is able to reconcile the Muslim ideology with education on sexual health. This allows for an understanding...

Chinese Rural Female Students’ Access to Higher Education

The extent of women’s educational rights does not depend entirely on political, economic and social factors, but is also closely related to sociocultural traditions. In China, the rights to education are not only the basis for women’s life, but also the symbol of women’s liberation as the level of education and culture represent the ability of women and the driving force that helps with improving women’s educational destination. The educational level of rural women and the overall development of the whole society, however, are of vital importance. Rural education is the foundation and key to solve Chinese equal education in the future, and the development and improvement of rural women’s access to higher education is more related to rural gender equity, education harmony and new rural construction. Firstly, the paper will review the background of Chinese rural female students in accessing to higher education and why it’s important for rural women to achieve academic and personal development. Second, it will expound the status quo of rural women’s higher education in China at three levels of entity, consciousness and policy. Finally, the paper will critically analyze international and national policies and practices that assigned to address Chinese rural female students’ enrollment in higher education and give corresponding recommendations.

The beard as an epitome of contemporary masculinity in the face of the transgression of classic social models

Este estudio, tuvo como propósito fundamental, auscultar el impacto social que como fenómeno antropológico, ha alcanzado el uso de la barba en el rostro del hombre contemporáneo, característica física-sexual externa, inherente al género masculino. Se trató de una investigación documental, con diseño bibliográfico y método bibliográfico, donde se aplicó como técnica la documentación, sobre los contenidos seleccionados para tal fin; en ello se utilizó como instrumentos la matriz bibliográfica y la matriz analítica de contenido. Desde la perspectiva dialéctica, fueron intervenidos un conglomerado de artículos científicos donde autores como Al-Jibaly (2007), Enguix (2013), Barba & Gómez (2016), Gómez (2017) y Romero (2018), entre otros, explayaron sus hallazgos investigativos, relacionados a la percepción que desde la mirada del otro, genera la barba; elemento legendario, de indiscutible estética varonil, carácter histórico, entológico e incluso antropológico, Así pues, logró reconocerse el innegable trasfondo psicosocial y cultural que le permea, con el cual ha logrado su prolongación como símbolo de masculinidad durante siglos, aún en los últimos años, donde los modelos sociales se han vuelto cada día más fluidos. Pudo concluirse, que en la contemporaneidad, esta se erige como epítome de la virilidad, sabiduría y madurez; vinculado a la robustización de la figura masculina ante sí mismo, en una suerte de constructo social propio.

Пахарь и Музыка как гендерные персонификации чешской идентичности в культуре

The culture of the Czech National Revival produced a symbolic autoidentification in figures of the Plowman and the Music. The drawings of J. Mánes and the sculptures of J. Myslbek perpetuated these figures as gender symbols of the Czech identity. The figures of the Plowman and the Music are presented in the Mánes’ drawing “Domov”. The semantics of the drawing is versatile, which provides an impulse for its culturological interpretation. A symbolic figure of the Plowman in historical and cultural consciousness of Czechs has been associated with Přemysl the Ploughman — the legendary founder of the Přemyslid dynasty. According to the Czech legend told by Cosmas of Prague, Přemysl was elected the prince upon the request by the Czech ruler Libuše, who then married him. The title of the drawing refers to the song of J. K. Tyl, which had become somewhat of an unofficial Czech anthem of the 19th century. In the Mánes’ drawing Libuše is substituted by a symbolic figure of the Music as a personification of the national genius of Czechs. Historical-patriotic connotations generate the image of the Czech people, which formed in the epoch of the National Revival. Moreover, the Czech identity manifested itself in gender as a harmony of the male and female principles, work, and music. The idea of organic work as the basis of art is introduced into the drawing`s composition. A series of Mánes’ drawings “The Music” came to be a vivid embodiment of the national identity, showing the life of a peasant accompanied by music from birth till death. The Myslbek’s sculpture “The Music”, which became lobby`s centerpiece of a new Czech sacred place — The National Theater in Prague, is presented as a personification of the Czech identity in culture. A female image of the Music is identified with the soul of the people in a state of sociocultural and political emancipation.

이슬람 종교규율에 표현된 미용 문화의 상징성

The purpose of this study is interprets the culture expressed in Islamic religious discipline and regulation from a cosmetic point of view and examines how it is expressed and accepted in the rapidly changing modern times. Also, what the symbolism is. First, the veil culture, which is applied only to Muslim women, is free from the symbol of oppression, has a religious belief and religious symbolism and is being used as a fashion trend. Second, plastic surgery is strictly limited for simple cosmetic purposes. Third, shaving is not mandatory in Islam. Fourth, for Muslim men, wearing a beard is a symbol of masculinity. On the other hand, women are encouraged to epilate, emphasizing submissive and obedient femininity. Finally, there is a bathing ritual. In Islam, cleanliness is more important than external grace. Before worship, you must perform the salat ritual, clean your body and mind and confess your faith.

Mezhdunarodnyj zhenskij den': pokaznoj prazdnik ili istoricheski vazhnyj etap zhenskoj emansipacii

The article is devoted to the information coverage of 8 March International Women’s Day as a historical symbol of women’s struggle for changes in their lives and in society. We analysed the media coverage of it in Turkey, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Norway. The qualitative analysis shows that the general conditions of women were ignored and good looking and well-educated women were portrait to mark the activities of International Women’s Day.

Pit Bulls and Dogfighting as Symbols of Masculinity in Hip Hop Culture

This article explores the aesthetic and cultural connections between the hyper-masculinization inherent to hip hop culture (and particularly to gangsta rap), the pit bull dog breed, and dogfighting. Building on recent scholarship that has identified the racial and racist assumptions underlying the pit bull controversy, I provide further evidence and arguments on how the highly racialized and genderized hip hop discourses inoculate the pit bull body and suffuse it with multiple meanings reminiscent of America’s traumatic encounter with otherness. As a palimpsest that attests to both mainstream and countercultural explorations of racialized masculinities, the pit bull body is made to “perform” its role as both an agent and a victim within the nation’s compulsive need to control and monitor the “other.”

Bahia's Independence: Popular Politics and Patriotic Festival in Salvador, Brazil, 1824–1900

Brazil's independence was unique within Latin America. The transition from a colonial holding to an independent nation witnessed no major battles, retained continuity with the same royal family, and, most significantly, produced an empire rather than a republic. Within the limited arena of battles, the most important skirmishes took place around Salvador, capital of the Northeastern state of Bahia. Since the 1820s, patriots there have long labored to preserve this distinction. The creation of a commemorative celebration known as Dois de Julho (Second of July) was central to this effort and has been surprisingly long-lasting in its power to mobilize people in the streets. It is still celebrated today and continues to be one of Bahia's most significant civic festivals, although it never succeeded in achieving status as a national celebration.Hendrik Kraay's book Bahia's Independence seeks to uncover the early roots of this celebration and to trace its transformations over the first century of its existence. Over the course of his work, he argues that the festival was political in its origins and more generally attempts to correct an older historiography that he proposes has obscured the festival's true political origins and significance. Following the contributions of James Sanders and others, he argues that the early years of the century witnessed surprisingly broad and liberal participation in politics at the local level. Insisting that participants were also engaging in nation making through involvement in political events such as the festival, he advocates that politics in early independent Brazil were not nearly so restrictive as once believed.While the framing of Kraay's work engages with these larger political questions, the chapters themselves delve into close and painstaking study of the festival itself and its involvement in the larger Bahian political scene. The first three chapters are dedicated to tracing change over time. In chapter 1 Kraay shows that the origins of the festival, often assumed to be popular and somewhat spontaneous, were in fact more political than early folklorists and historians wished to acknowledge. Kraay situates the festival both as a continuation of civic and religious celebrations of the colonial era and as a tool by local radicals to influence political debates. The next two chapters continue this chronological narrative, revealing a broader popular participation in the 1850s and 1860s that became threatening enough to political authorities who were attempting to impose order that some elements of the celebration were banned altogether. Chapter 4 steps back to try to analyze participants' understanding of the festival, an undertaking made difficult by the uneven record of newspapers during the nineteenth century, the primary source base for Kraay's study. The event was framed without reference to Brazil's system of slavery, although it did incorporate an indigenous female symbol (referred to as a cabocla) as a central icon and element in the celebrations, despite growing discomfort with the symbol at the close of the nineteenth century. Chapter 5 looks at how a dynamic theater scene, charged with developing national themes, took up the topic of Bahia's independence struggles in galas and plays for the elite. And chapter 6 analyzes the battles that unfolded over the placement of and symbols to be used with a monument dedicated to the event. As Kraay shows, though city officials tried to relocate the center of festivities to a more formal square in the center of town focused around the new monument, popular understandings continued to ground the festivities elsewhere.As he moves through the analysis in the course of the chapters, Kraay returns to several larger points. One is that Bahia's focus on battles as the ultimate cause of independence challenged traditional narratives that exclusively privileged the actions of Pedro I. This counternarrative revealed a significant form of radical liberalism in Latin America that early on imagined the nation as having popular roots and origins, albeit with somewhat unclear racial dynamics. A second is that regionalism and nationalism fed into one another, a point well developed for the twentieth century. Kraay suggests, however, that this nineteenth-century regionalism was set apart from its twentieth-century counterparts by the latter's focus on cultural distinctiveness, a contrast that deserves further development.Kraay's research throughout the book is fine-grain and detailed, and he has dedicated 20 years to uncovering all available sources for this study in archives and especially newspapers. The reader, however, may sometimes get lost in the details, particularly in the chapters tracing the festival's alterations over time; more streamlining would have helped the reader hold on to the important points more easily. Such a critique, however, should not take away from the quality of this work. The book's larger arguments are engaging and important, and this meticulous work should interest scholars of nineteenth-century popular politics across Brazil and Latin America.

Interfaith photovoice: an example of Muslim-Christian engagement in Canada

Religion is highly visible in the daily activities of Canadians yet the visibility of religious diversity has become a source of tension and conflict. The Interfaith Photovoice (IFPV) Initiative harnesses the visibility of religion and uses the photovoice process to strengthen relationships between Muslims and Christians, bridge cultural divides, encourage mutual advocacy, and engage communities around questions of faith and religious diversity. This article highlights the work of IFPV participants from Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada through the qualitative analysis of thirty-nine images and six interviews with Christian and Muslim university students utilising a theoretical framework of deep equality and lived religion. The results of visual content analysis, which focused on cross-photo comparison, are supported by evidence from the interview data. The findings are explained under the themes of public religious spaces, religious and symbolic clothing, and institutions and gender. The IFPV process facilitated the development of agonistic respect between religiously diverse women and men on a secular campus in a pluralistic city, showing that religious freedom must include the choice to be seen as religious.

Transposition of Drupadi in Garin Nugroho's Setan Jawa: Woman as a Javanese Symbolic Act

Art film is a film full of symbols. The film Setan Jawa by Garin Nugroho (2016) brings the concept of a silent film and the cinematic-orchestral collaboration with various standards across arts, while also adapts some cultural narratives in the Javanese context. This film presents Drupadi narrative, one of the Javanese Wayang cultural narratives. Drupadi is often referred to as a symbol of women’s loyalty and obedience to the universal law, through her obedience to her husband and mother, although this obedience is contrary to the self (I) concept. With the help of textual analysis, this article aims to identify the adaptation of Drupadi’s cultural narrative that is creatively transposed in the film Setan Jawa. The results show that there is a director’s personal code (idiolect) in the film, that offers women’ representation different from the conventions in the Javanese culture. While the conclusion might be arguable, one can reflect on the symbolic act of women’s representation being creatively transposed not as subordinate but as having the power to fulfill their own destiny.

Transgresión social y género: notas conceptuales y epistemológicas para una sociología feminista de la transgresión

Este artículo es un primer esfuerzo analítico por constituir una sociología feminista de la transgresión. A partir de la sociología de la desviación, el feminismo y el psicoanálisis, se proponen algunas notas para dotar de contenido teórico y epistemológico a conceptos que nos permitan comprender el fenómeno de la ruptura del orden social caracterizado como la gramática del horror. Primero, se explica la base conceptual de esta propuesta. Después, se debate porque el concepto de desviación es insuficiente para interpretar y comprender la ruptura del orden social. Finalmente, se presenta la propuesta conceptual y temática que debería seguir una sociología que, respecto al fenómeno de la transgresión social, pretenda visibilizar los cuerpos, comportamientos y prácticas de las mujeres. Metodológicamente, se trata de un debate teórico analítico que recurre, ahí donde es necesario, a referentes empíricos del orden social actual en México.

Gender symbolism and the expression of post-colonial national and religious identities

ABSTRACT This paper traces the symbolic importance of gender to the assertion of national and religious identities drawing on case study data with youth from Senegal, Pakistan, Nigeria and Lebanon. We start with a brief overview of the theoretical and methodological approach to the research. We then illustrate the gender assumptions within youth identity narratives and the ways these produce masculinist and patriarchal national imaginaries that instantiate a heteronormative hierarchy and gender polarity. Intersecting with this, we explore the ways that particular claims to Islam also legitimise and depend on the surveillance and regulation of women. We further show how gender remains a significant dimension of national othering and a site of explicit postcolonial resistance that strengthens and stabilises heteronormative gender hierarchies and associated inequalities. Nevertheless, youth’s imaginaries are of a modernising religious nation, which are articulated in contra-distinction to the secular imaginaries of former colonising nations of the West. Provoked by this opposition, we show how religion is central in the production of nation states, colonial and post-colonial, and the ways that gender is inscribed in both. We point to the gender continuities of the post-colonial and former colonising states. Both sustain the continued surveillance and regulation of women and their bodies are used to inscribe power regimes and define difference. Finally we question the adequacy of liberal understandings of gender equality for disrupting the powerful gender symbolism embedded in youth’s national and religious imaginaries as well as the material conditions that emanate from these.

Segregación de género: narrativas de mujeres desde la academia.

Este artículo analiza las narrativas de mujeres insertas en la academia respecto de las desventajas que enfrentan en relación a sus pares hombres. Para tal efecto, se desarrollaron tres grupos de discusión con participación de académicas y administrativas. Con el fin de contextualizar los relatos, se analizaron datos cuantitativos sobre brechas de género en educación de pre y post grado en Chile. Las preguntas formuladas para realizar este trabajo fueron: ¿cuáles son las narrativas que las mujeres construyen en torno a las prácticas de dominación en la academia? ¿Cómo explican la posición de desventaja que enfrentan? En el análisis realizado se constata la presencia de estructuras y simbolismos androcéntricos que reifican las relaciones tradicionales y estereotipos de género. Se visualizan fronteras simbólicas de género en un espacio laboral generizado y mercantilizado, que desvaloriza los aportes de las mujeres y promueve una concepción hegemónica-masculina del éxito y de la productividad.

Note passing as gendered practices of public ambiguity in a hyper‐masculine organization

This article explores a surprising and seemingly mundane organizational practice: passing notes during professional meetings. Based on 34 in‐depth interviews with women in a hyper‐masculine organization — the Israeli military — this study focuses on what I term gendered practices of public ambiguity. It demonstrates how these practices shed light on three interrelated paths to power at work: (i) practices of public intimacy between men; (ii) practices of women's degradation by men; and (iii) practices of recognition claims by women. The tension between the publicity inherent in the routine passing of notes and the ambiguity of their contents calls for a more nuanced theorization of gendered power practices, which transcends the accepted dichotomy of doing and undoing gender, reproducing or challenging the symbolic gender order. The findings show that gendered micro‐practices can become polysemic symbolic spaces in which women redirect the flow of power, if only temporarily and locally, and turn it into a multidirectional and multi‐agentic resource. The conceptual contribution of these findings is discussed in terms of the positioning of women in hyper‐masculine environments as pragmatic subjects who (re‐)construct mechanisms of power out of the restricted repertoire available to them.

Battling Bella: The Protest Politics of Bella Abzug by Leandra Ruth Zarnow

Reviewed by: Battling Bella: The Protest Politics of Bella Abzug by Leandra Ruth Zarnow Joyce Antler (bio) Battling Bella: The Protest Politics of Bella Abzug. By Leandra Ruth Zarnow Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2019. x + 441. "I've been described as a tough, rather noisy woman, a prizefighter, I've been called Battling Bella, Mother Courage, and a Jewish mother" (182). So Bella Abzug described herself in 1972, as she began the second of her three terms in the House of Representatives. The term aptly captures the audacious political figure that Leandra Zarnow explains so well in this astute political biography. Abzug was a political luminary with outsized charisma. She had been a peace and gender activist and then became a lawmaker with a mastery of detail and process that made her one of the most effective politicians of her era. But few have emphasized the Abzug that Zarnow portrays: a left-wing progressive New Politics Democrat committed to a bold socialist vision for more than a half century. This Bella was a radical populist devoted to gender equity, gay rights, peace, civil rights and civil liberties, as well as Jewish issues and Zionism. Zarnow emphasizes that Abzug was especially dedicated to economic justice and labor rights. She suggests that Abzug was "intersectional" before the term ever arose, but class may have been most prominent among her passions, an overlooked key to her politics. Judaism introduced Abzug to concerns of social justice and the need to fight injustice. From childhood onward, Abzug found sustenance in Conservative Judaism and Socialist Zionism. She joined Hashomer Hatzair and Avukah, remaining a Social Zionist. Abzug found common cause with many kinds of political radicals; as a pro-Israel Jewish progressive, she sided with leftists on every issue except Israel. At various times, her strongly held Jewish identity led to uncomfortable differences with feminists and leftists. Zarnow points out other disagreements Abzug had with women's liberationists. She never completely supported the ERA, for example, though she was identified with it throughout her life. In her congressional years, after she had become a symbol of women in politics, the fight against gender inequity, particularly its structural manifestations, became a primary objective. Zarnow emphasizes protest as the continuing motif of Abzug's activism. No matter the arena—her law practice, her activist and lobbying groups, the United States Congress, or later in her life, global NGOs—Abzug pushed hard for change. "I'm hardly likely to turn and change from tiger to pussy cat," she remarked during her first run for Congress on the Democratic ticket, proud of her actions as a political maverick (118). She took the tools she had cultivated as a socialist outsider into Congress yet recognized that in order to win major battles, she had to build interparty and bipartisan alliances, so she modified defiant stances [End Page 483] when necessary. This was not selling out, says Zarnow. Though some others have seen Abzug as an accommodationist, Zarnow argues that she was practicing "pragmatic radicalism" (146). Doing so enabled Abzug to remain "an outside agitator working on the inside of the US government," pushing through policies that advanced women's and gay rights, familial well-being, market productivity, and support for Israel (294). Zarnow is very good on the personal as well as political qualities that inspired Abzug's career and her celebrity. Abzug's authenticity was key to both: her openness, her audacity, even her body—"unquiet and uncontained" (180). Abzug often broke the rules of civility for a public figure. Her flamboyant persona as well as her protest politics made her a cultural target that could attract cruel antigay, antisemitic, anti-Communist, and anti-woman commentary, as well as deep admiration and loyalty. The fervor of the opposition to her reveals the extent to which Abzug was a deep threat to conservative forces—a "galvanizing symbol of everything rotten with liberalism" (186). Battling Bella offers fresh accounts of Abzug's legislative and policy accomplishments and revisits a number of the most interesting political events of the late twentieth century, with which Abzug's career was entwined. I count among them the establishment of the National Women's Political Caucus in...

Female Gender Identity in the Adaptation of Disney Live-action Film Mulan

The Disney’s 2020 live-action Mulan is remade from its 1998 animated one whose box office globally grossed 304 million. Both movies are based on Chinese “The Ballad of Mulan” that a young woman disguised as a man to join the army about 1500 years ago. The 2020 Mulan movie is adapted to strengthen Mulan’s motto “loyal”, “brave” and “true” as a warrior, spill Li Xiang into Chen Honghui and Master Tung, replace Mushu with phoenix, and create two female role：Mulan’s sister Xiu and a witch Xianniang for views of new era from the 1998 animated film. These changes are analysed from a perspective of female gender identity to conclude that “loyal”, “brave” and “true” motto will push women to be engaged in social fairs and take more social responsibilities, omission of Li Xiang is helpful for women to break their hidden Cinderella complex, Phoenix, a female symbol, rather than a dragon, a male, is better to be Mulan’s guardian, and Xianniang, the villain in the movie, is pessimistic for women to take their place in the world, showing her power as a woman in a negative way. These adaptations reflect more independent gender identity of females.

Inter-Artistic Plague Narratives and the Cultural Differences between China and the West

Abstract: Artistic representation is an instrument of historical memory that, unlike history, serves to transfer the emotional imprint that historical records leave behind for the sake of objectivity. Art memorializes achievements and success, but also tragic moments of death and destruction. Cultural differences between China and the West lead to varied perspectives and patterns of expression in the Fine Arts. This paper offers several examples showing how art has dealt with epidemic and pandemic. No one is immune to such tragedies in our increasingly globalized world. By looking back at the memories recorded in artistic representation, we can learn from the past and cooperate in order to face future crises successfully. However, cooperation is only possible if we are aware of cultural differences. This paper provides a brief example on how Chinese and European art face inter-artistic plague narratives in different ways.

«Живите в благоденствии!» (к вопросу об обрядах введения невесты в свадебной обрядности у калмыков)

The article deals with one of the Kalmyk marriage rites, the longstanding tradition of which was disrupted in the second half of the XX century. This topic has not been the subject of the research before. The purpose of the article is to identify the symbolism and origins of the fat-throwing rite in Kalmyk wedding ceremony. Methods. Methods used in the research are synchronous and diachronic, descriptive, comparative-functional and comparative-semantic. Results. Various variants of this ritual have been studied in many Kalmyk families, its comparative materials in wedding traditions of the Turkic-Mongolian peoples have also been analyzed, the ideas that determined the origins and functionality of the ritual among Kalmyks have been revealed. As a result of the study, it was concluded that the original symbolism of this rite is associated with the ancient form of the cult of fire, various deities as well as the cult of ancestors. The ritual of throwing fat during the wedding ceremony in Kalmyk family is aimed at making offerings to various sacred forces through the fire of the hearth as a polysemantic marker and entering under their patronage. The image of fire among the Kalmyks continues to retain its ancient form, despite the adaptation of Buddhist practice. It is suggested that the image of the ancient deity is a taboo in the ritual exclamation-appeal “tsog/tsog” directed towards him. In rites associated with fire, a ram was used as a “solar animal” with the” hot living breath (“halun kiita”). The original meaning of offering the brisket of a ram to the deity of fire in context of the marriage rite is lost. In the ceremonial sphere, it is associated with female symbol, symbols of motherhood, the emotional world of a man.

Symbolic sexism: superficial or serious bias? An investigation into images on patient call bells.

To determine whether gendered symbols on patient call bells are restricted to our hospital or are examples of an international practice that perpetuates gender stereotypes and occupational segregation. Multicentre, international study of hospital equipment, 2018. Types of symbols on patient call bells. We received 56 responses from 43 hospitals in eight countries across five continents: 37 devices included female-specific images, nine included gender-neutral images, and ten did not use imagery (for example, button-only devices). No call bells included male-specific images. Female symbols on patient call bells are an international phenomenon. Only female or gender-neutral images are used, indicating bias in their design, manufacture, and selection. Female symbols may reinforce gender stereotypes and contribute to occupational segregation and reduced equity of opportunity. We suggest alternative symbols. Individual action with coloured marker pens may provide a pragmatic short term, albeit provocative, solution. While call bell design has only a minor impact on patients, everyday bias affects all staff and society in general.

Категория рода русских существительных в гендерном аспекте: парадигматический и синтагматический потенциал

This article proposes a gender classification of Russian declinable nouns. The following aspects are discussed:1. The way in which nouns are connected with gender semantics: factually, when the gender stem is part of their lexical meaning structure, or potentially;2. the level at which the semantics is rendered: the level of the word (within the lexeme stem or the entire word form) or the level of the syntagma;3. the semantic nature: the meaning of the biological or the symbolic gender that is present in the anthropomorphic reflection of the world.