Questions Of Gender Research Articles

Genders, sexualities, and Catholic schools: towards a theological anthropology of adolescent flourishing

ABSTRACT Good religious education needs to be rooted in a robust theological anthropology. The Roman Catholic Church’s gender complementarity approach is inadequate for accompanying adolescents in Catholic schools as they engage in questions of gender and sexuality; instead, educators need a theological anthropology oriented towards adolescent flourishing. To construct a more capacious theological anthropological approach, one that is still authentically Catholic and rooted in the Church’s official documents, this essay turns to Pope Francis’ Christus Vivit and Fratelli Tutti. From Francis’ concern for mercy and accompaniment, a theological approach to the goodness of adolescence is described, which can ground theological reflection on gender and sexuality in love and human dignity, rather than shame and exclusion.

From Gender Gap to Gender Gaps: Bringing Nonbinary People into Political Behavior Research

The “gender gap” in voting is one of the most well-documented findings in survey research across democracies. However, gender gap research has traditionally assumed that everyone is either a man or a woman, which does not account for the growing number of people who identify as nonbinary. How do nonbinary people differ from men and women in their party identification and voting behavior? We answer this question using data from the 2021 Canadian Election Study online panel, which has a large enough subsample of nonbinary respondents to identify gaps in party identification and voting behavior. Nonbinary people are much less likely to identify with and vote for the Liberal Party or Conservative Party and much more likely to identify with and vote for the social democratic New Democratic Party (NDP) than both men and women. Many of these gaps persist even when restricting the analysis to LGBTQ respondents, adjusting for demographic variables that predict nonbinary identity, and adjusting for issue attitudes. Nonbinary people’s distinctiveness from men and women suggests that researchers need to add nonbinary response options to gender questions and, wherever possible, incorporate nonbinary people into analyses of gender and politics.

Searching for a home: the bitter experiences of Afghanistani ‘returnees’

Negotiating the language, culture and social norms of one’s ‘homeland’ can be a painful and difficult experience In 2004, Khadija Abbasi became part of the generation forced by the Iranian state to ‘return’ to Afghanistan, though they had been born in Iran. Negotiating this ‘voluntary return’ ‐ one of the UNHCR’s ‘preferred’ options for refugees ‐ proved extremely difficult. The Iran-born and Iran-raised ‘returnees’ had to re‐learn ‐ through a complex process of socialisation that was accompanied by local rejection and stigmatisation ‐ how to construct an attachment to their new country. Abbasi describes difficulties of language, culture, religious practice and social norms ‐ made all the more complex by her Hazara identity and questions of gender. In Iran refugees had simply been ‘Afghan’; after arrival in Afghanistan people realised they were Hazara. In a country that was overshadowed by ethnic politics, they had to adapt to processes of re-ethnicisation. Moreover, in Afghanistan patriarchy was inflected differently, sometimes in ways which intersected with ethnic identity. Eventually Abbasi was forced to leave her job with an NGO because she was perceived to have behaved in a way that ???disrespected??? Afghan traditions.

Creepypasta and “the Fabrègues Affair”: Imitation and aggression in a recent case of youth violence

This article offers a critical analysis of “the Fabrègues Affair” (2022), a case of youth violence in which two twelve-year-old girls carried out a series of stabbings, resulting in the death of one of their fathers. What was initially viewed as a simple “family tragedy [ drame intrafamilial]” ballooned into a national conversation when the girls claimed, after their arrest, that their violent act had been inspired by “creepypasta,” crowdsourced online horror fictions and videos. While the crime, in its purported relation to digital forms of storytelling, appears eminently specific to the present moment, and while news coverage consistently emphasized the girls’ femininity and sexual orientation in an apparent attempt to further sensationalize their act, the conventional wisdom, as it appears in media coverage of the case, exposes a striking reliance among commentators on outdated psychoanalytic models that do not attend to the specificities of the moment, or to questions of gender and sexuality. This article explores how theories of the relationship between imitation and aggression have been applied in “the Fabrègues Affair” before proposing alternative feminist approaches to understanding the social phenomenon of violent behaviors among girls who appear to draw inspiration from imaginary monsters. In doing so, it aims to contribute new perspectives, drawn from feminist theory and horror studies, to girlhood and childhood studies in the contemporary French context.

Disruptive behaviors in the classroom, a question of gender or of inadequate forms of coping?

Disruptive behaviors in the classroom are a cause of concern for schools and educational researchers because of their impact on the rhythm of the class, harming students and teachers. The literature links the use of different coping strategies with disruptive behavior, with controversy regarding the frequency in which boys and girls engage in them, as well as a differential use of problem-focused versus emotion-focused strategies within the sexes. This study aimed to explore the relationships between gender, coping strategies, and adolescent disruptive behaviors and to identify possible idiosyncratic profiles of students regarding gender and the typology of disruptive behaviors. A sample of 382 high school students from the city of Algeciras (Cádiz, Spain) completed the Hormigo et al. (2003) Questionnaire of Perception of Conflict Behaviors and the Spanish adaptation of the Cano et al. (2007) Coping Strategies Inventory. The results showed that problem-focused coping strategies predicted a lower frequency of disruptive behaviors, whereas emotion-focused coping strategies increased the frequency of disruptive behaviors regardless of gender. Three differentiated profiles of students have also been identified: two groups of boys (adolescents who frequently committed all types of disruptive behaviors and boys who engage less frequently in disruptive behaviors) and a group of girls, more homogeneous, who resemble the group of disruptive boys showing more aggression towards teachers and school material and slightly disobedient, and differing from both boys groups regarding aggression among students.

Emilie de Geer, kvinnors bildning och läsningens materialitet

Emilie de Geer, Women’s Education, and the Materiality of Reading This article aims to study the reading practices of the Swedish noblewoman Emilie de Geer (1782–1828) of Löfstad Castle, in relation to her intellectual and political interests. The Enlightenment and events such as the French Revolution ignited new political ideas, increased the number of female authors, and gave grounds for discussions on the effect of women reading literature. Hence, women’s reading practice “is the most important arena in which to judge their contributions to social change” (Diaconoff, 2005). All Löfstad women, such as Hedvig Catharina von Fersen (born De la Gardie, 1732–1800), Sophie Piper (born von Fersen, 1757–1816), and Emelie De Geer had close connections to both Swedish and European royal and noble families – the very elite in terms of both culture and politics. The library of Löfstad has never been studied in depth, especially not through questions of gender, women’s reading and writing as a space to cultivate ideas on politics, women’s worth and agency within the social and cultural sphere they inhabited. Thus, this article will contribute to the broad fields of cultural and literary history, shedding new light on Swedish women’s reading practices, intellectual ideas, and political debate during the Enlightenment.

Gender, Dissent and the Afterlives of the Pakistan Movement: Fatima Jinnah in the 1965 Elections

This article focuses on Fatima Jinnah’s politics in postcolonial Pakistan. Widely hailed as the ‘Mother of the Nation’ in contemporary Pakistan, Fatima Jinnah harbours immense symbolic significance. Her patriotism, however, came furiously under question when she campaigned against the military dictator Ayub Khan in the 1965 presidential election. Using unexplored Fatima Jinnah papers, this article reconstructs the story of the election. It argues that the figure of Fatima Jinnah needs to be firmly placed outside the reductive epithets of ‘mother’ and ‘sister’ to underscore her political agency. It unpacks her campaign to show how her advocacy for democracy contested Ayub Khan’s interpretation of Pakistan’s ideology. Ultimately, her politics of dissent saw her branded a traitor and became the battleground for questions of gender, Islam and political rights. This election deepens our understanding of women leaders in postcolonial Pakistan and South Asia.

Constraint and corporeality: reading Brooke-Rose and Garréta’s gendered experiments

ABSTRACT This essay considers – and seeks to complicate – the critical tendency to gender constrained writing as ‘masculine’ and to read women’s experimental literature as a ‘feminine’ writing of the body. Via readings of Christine Brooke-Rose’s Between and Anne Garréta’s Sphinx (1986), it elucidates how the constraint in each novel actually produces the focus on the body – without thereby simulating a writing of the body – and on questions of gender and desire. In both novels, I suggest, gender itself emerges as a form of ‘constraint’. In so doing, the essay seeks to move beyond any facile polarisation of constraint and excess, the conceptual and the embodied, and to unpick the gender-political possibilities of certain experimental literary strategies.

“Please Mind the Gender Pain Gap between Men and Women”: the Question of Sex and Gender in Chronic Pain

“Please Mind the Gender Pain Gap between Men and Women”: the Question of Sex and Gender in Chronic Pain

Minority genders in quantitative survey research: a data-driven approach to clear, inclusive, and accurate gender questions

Abstract Whilst linguistic research on speakers of minority genders has increased in the past decade, much less is known about how they can best be included in broader (socio)linguistic research. The current paper compares the way a range of five different gender measures for survey research are filled out and evaluated by a sample of LGBTQ+ people (N = 682). It finds that providing a larger range of answering options allows researchers to gain a better view of the gender diversity in their sample, whilst preventing refusals and loss of participants. The gender question that was least likely to be refused and was rated the most accurate, most inclusive, and clearest was a six-option multiple-choice question which included a “prefer not to say” and a write-in option. This question reconciles two competing interests in the treatment of queer data: it explicitly recognizes and names minority genders and simultaneously carves out space for participants to refuse categorization or write out gender identities beyond those preset by the researcher.

Menstrual Methodologies

Abstract: This article develops “menstrual methodologies” for ungendering menstruation and attending to the chronic pain and dysphoria present in menstrual embodiment. Specifically, it unfolds from the experiences of a nonbinary person with undiagnosed endometriosis through developing a series of menstrual methodologies, including ungendering menstruation; thinking with pain through crip time, crankiness, and autoethnography; and a justice-based approach to menstruation; followed by an application of these methodologies to a recent case study. Following on an autobiographical prelude, I begin with an introduction to menstrual methodologies and next outline each one. Menstrual methodologies, I argue, provide a toolkit not only for those who study menstruation and menstruators but for researchers across disciplines who are interested in questions of gender, embodiment, pain, medical science, justice, and disability.

Just not cricket: Baseball, youth and national identity in late nineteenth-century children’s magazines

In the late nineteenth century, baseball became enshrined as America’s national sport. Across American culture, the game became imbued with a series of values and characteristics that seemed redolent of life in the Gilded Age and beyond. This article explores the ways in which this process played out in the pages of popular magazines directed at the children of the nation’s elite. These neglected resources provide us with an extraordinary lens through which to chart both the changing place of the national game within the lives of American children and the changing meaning of baseball within the life of the nation. In poems, stories, illustrations, editorials and even reader’s letters, children were newly acculturated into the sporting life in ways that had profound implications for wider questions of childhood, gender, race, class and national identity.

Gender considerations in One Health: a framework for researchers.

One Health research and intervention outcomes are strongly influenced by gender dynamics. Women, men, girls, and boys can be negatively affected by gender-based disadvantage in any of the three One Health domains (animal, human, and environmental health), and where this occurs in more than one domain the result may be a compounding of inequity. Evidence worldwide shows that women and girls are more likely to suffer from such gender-based disadvantage. A thoughtfully implemented One Health intervention that prioritizes gender equity is more likely to be adopted, has fewer unintended negative consequences, and can support progress toward gender equality, however there is limited evidence and discussion to guide using a gender lens in One Health activities. We propose a framework to identify key gender considerations in One Health research for development - with a focus on Low-and Middle-Income Countries. The framework encourages developing two types of research questions at multiple stages of the research process: those with a bioscience entry-point and those with a gender entry-point. Gender considerations at each stage of research, institutional support required, and intervention approaches is described in the framework. We also give an applied example of the framework as it might be used in One Health research. Incorporation of gender questions in One Health research supports progress toward more equitable, sustainable, and effective One Health interventions. We hope that this framework will be implemented and optimized for use across many One Health challenge areas with the goal of mainstreaming gender into One Health research.

Manifestations of the Utilization of the Magical Realism Technique in John Updike’s Novel Brazil

Although an obsessive meditation on a multiracial society, John Updike's Brazil is a magic-saturated reworking of the most romantic love story of them all, the Celtic legend of Tristan and Iseult. Apparently, Updike uses the medievalist legend as a vehicle to explore some typical Updikean themes: the social politics of love, class conflict, the question of gender and patriarchy, immorality and violence, etc. This paper is an attempt to point out how Updike digs into myth and uses the techniques of ‘magical realism’ to weave a narrative of his two young Brazilian lovers, Isabel and Tristão, who try to stay together despite various forces that conspire to keep them apart, notably opposition from their families. Updike's utilization of ‘magical realism’ will be analyzed in light of the five primary characteristics of this mood as suggested by Wendy B. Faris in her seminal work Ordinary Enchantments: Magical Realism and the Remystification of the Narrative. This paper is also meant to highlight how Updike's use of this device gives him an opportunity to hypothesize about the social and emotional consequences of a reversal of races. It is here that the link Updike creates between the indigenous peoples and the characters becomes key, for it allows the central characters, Isabel and Tristão, to experience the magic, and thus finally delve into what race means in their lives and for their identities. This paper argues how the characters manage, through magic too, to explore ethnic identity; an identity they previously ignored or abandoned. For all, this abandonment has negative consequences, leading to their devaluation of self. Isabel thinks that her being black and Tristão being white will solve much of their problems, but in reality it only makes them worse and Tristão ends up killed in the end.

From domestic guardian to the national militia: the familial, the national and the middle class in 1980s popular Hindi films

ABSTRACT This essay analyzes the theme of domestic anxiety of the Indian middle class in the 1980s through two specific genres of the contemporary popular Hindi films – the family drama and the action adventure. Poised right before the 1990s neoliberal drive in the Indian economy, the 80s middle class – hitherto staid and hermetic – was rattled by an ‘invasive’ global culture, permissiveness, politics of representation, rights and reform. This paper shows that the cinematic resolution of this crisis is a grudgingly lenient orthodoxy negotiating with the limits of cultural inclusion, represented through the questions of agency, gender, class, caste and ethnicity abounding in the middle class domestic sphere. The essay analyzes the middle class problematization of the familial as well as the national in films like Arth (Bhatt, 1982), Agar Tum Na Hote (Tandon, 1983), Souten (Tak, 1983), Shaan (Sippy, 1980) and Mr. India (Kapur, 1987).

Measuring the Growth of Gender-Inclusive Surveys Around the World

As ideas about gender identity evolve, survey researchers around the world are working to understand how best to measure sex and gender in a way that is both accurate and inclusive. Emerging best practices differ widely between countries based on cultural and societal norms and the construction of language around gender. In this paper, we examine how survey creators have changed how they ask about gender in the past decade across 11 linguistically and culturally diverse countries. We measure the number of answer options included in gender questions created by SurveyMonkey users between 2012 and 2022. Our findings show that the number of gender questions with more than two answer options increased in all countries examined in our research. Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia show the highest levels of gender questions with more than two answer options in 2022, while Egypt and Nigeria have the lowest levels.

I’ll Be Gone in the Dark: feminism and the adaptation of true crime in the #MeToo era

ABSTRACT This article considers what Liz Garbus’s television version of Michelle McNamara’s I’ll Be Gone in the Dark (HBO, 2018) reveals about true-crime adaptation in a post #MeToo era, particularly in relation to questions of gender, authorship, and voice. With reference to Jaimie Baron’s notion of the ‘layered gaze’ (2021), Jennifer O’Meara’s research on the digital remediation of women’s voices and the ‘sonic screen’ (2022), and Lisa Coulthard’s concept of the ‘listening gaze’ (2018), it argues that the feminist force of I’ll Be Gone in the Dark derives from its strategic remediation of McNamara’s voice through digital audio clips of the deceased writer, alongside a voice-over by actress Amy Ryan, who ventriloquizes the no longer physically present McNamara. Through a careful recalibration of women’s voices, I’ll Be Gone in the Dark illustrates how, in bringing the labour of adaptation to the foreground, there is potential for true crime to be deployed for socially and emotionally restorative ends. However, the article also delves into the problematics of the series’ call to viewers to identify with the figure of the dead white woman as both true crime investigator and victim. Exploring the documentary mechanisms and strategies used by the HBO series to adapt the story of the ‘Golden State Killer’ through the voice of the dead McNamara, it concludes with some thoughts on the limitations of its white feminist approach to narrating gender-based violence, suggesting directions for future research into women’s authorship and adaptation of true crime.

Security and religion in democratizing Tunisia: re-enacting surveillance through religious narratives and gendered dynamics

Despite a process of democratization that started in 2011 and has often been described as successful (Stepan, 2012; Freedom House, 2015; Bugeja, 2016), until the recent backsliding process, some Tunisian national institutions have undergone little or no change. This was the case of the Ministry of Interior and the larger security apparatus whose reform was often discussed but never implemented (Grewal 2018). This research focuses on the intersection between the security apparatus and the state control over religion, examining the role of female civil servants working under the Ministry of Religious Affairs, called wa’ydhat. For the purpose of this research, security is understood as consisting “of everyday, routine, and sometimes unconscious engagements” (Ochs, 2011: 3) of practitioners in the religious and security sector. The analysis of the work of wa’ydhat allows us to highlight the connections between local and global narratives of security, which emphasize the role of women as central in the fight against terrorism due to their purported inherent “peaceful” qualities, and their actual role as watchers within a system of surveillance and control. As Moghadam claims, “at times of regime consolidation and state building, questions of gender, family and male-female relations come to the fore. The state becomes the manager of gender” (1993: 94). However, instead of producing new gender policies in conformity to the new historical moment Tunisia is reproducing the exact same debates and gender stereotyped roles of the past years. Interestingly, the work of wa’ydhat stands at the intersections between the religious and the security sector in Tunisia, highlighting the role of the state in controlling religious narratives and practices. In order to best examine this intersection, and the role of security practitioners in shaping and re-enacting security measures, we investigate their everyday experience and understanding of their position within the security apparatus. By inquiring about their everyday work, our aim is to highlight how “national security delineates individual experience” (Ochs, 2011: 3), how the national discourse on security is reproduced in day-to-day life and how in turn, these everyday practices shape the security apparatus. Analyzing the “everyday” or “mundane” dimension of security means focusing on the way in which security practices are interpreted, adapted, and/or negotiated by different individuals and groups through the lens of their lived experiences (Crawford and Hutchinson, 2016: 1190). With looking at practices of security reproduced in the work of practitioners, we can determine if and how dominant security narratives are adapted or rather challenged (Luckham, 2017), and how the legitimation of systems of security are understood by specific individuals and groups. While security policies and practices are often understood as a top-down and strongly hierarchical process, analyzing security practices at the micro level entails an understanding of the social construction of security as a horizontal process. The political establishment shapes the practices and narratives of the government and the international community. The work of the wa’ydhat is crucial to understanding of the security mechanism in Tunisia today. Furthermore, the presence of the wa’ydhat since 2011 fits into a dynamic of continuity of security policies with Ben Ali’s regime. In conclusion, the role of wa’ydhat within the control and surveillance apparatus in Tunisia exists at the intersection between the evolution of surveillance practices worldwide, under the umbrella of the global war on terror, and the history of state control over religion in the country, dating back to the years of Bourguiba. This article consists of three sections, starting with an overview of the debate around the moderate/radical divide in Tunisia. This section is crucial to understand the sociological and political background of the security policies, and explains how the struggle between the so-called secular forces and the religious parties have created a hierarchy between state-led Islam and non-state-led Islam, securitizing religion. The second section of this paper shows the evolution of the security apparatus within a frame of religion policing. Finally, we present the case of the wa’ydhat in the post-revolutionary setting as a critical example of securitization of Islam, and cooperation between security and religious management.

GENDER THEORY AND GENDER IDEOLOGY. THE CZECH SITUATION

The social role of a person, to a large extent imposed by the person’s sex, may change. The social role is given by a social construct called gender, while sex is given biologically. Gender theory or gender studies is a branch of science exploring sex and gender. Besides and in contrast to it, there is gender ideology, or better anti-gender ideology, standing in fierce opposition to every mention of gender. Gender theory uses rational arguments, anti-gender ideology usually does not. It may be portrayed by the example of the Istanbul Convention about violence against women and domestic violence. Its topic is not gender, but it uses the word gender from time to time as a useful instrument of gender theory. However, the Convention is presented by its opponents as an instrument for spreading gender ideology. The Catholic Church or their bishops in the Czech Republic are usually of the same opinion, they are also manipulated or are the manipulators themselves. This way their opinion does not correspond to the teaching of the Vatican documents and is misleading for many Czech Catholics. Nevertheless, the influence of the Catholic bishops is diminishing in many aspects, including the question of gender.

Caroline Bynum and Medieval Art History in America

Abstract As a contribution to the Common Knowledge symposium “Caroline Walker Bynum across the Disciplines,” this essay stresses Bynum's commitment to the methods and questions of history but also the unparalleled impact of her work on adjacent fields, including and perhaps even especially art history. Furthermore, her body of scholarship registers a consistent engagement with art historians. Weaving together personal memoir and historiography, this article sketches the manifold ways in which Bynum's publications have responded to and shaped the contours of medieval art history in America since the early 1990s — particularly with respect to questions of gender, body, identity, violence, and materiality — and the formative role that her mentorship and pedagogy have played in the author's development as an art historian.