Western Man Research Articles

New masculinities in uro-oncology: A social theory that contributes to the mental health of patients with penile cancer.

Sociocultural, the penis has represented an essential element in the identity and masculinity of Western men. Therefore, its injury, damage, or loss leads to psychosocial problems affecting these people's health and well-being. Penile cancer is a rare malignancy (it represents 1.44% of the cases of genitourinary cancers) that has direct effects on the genitals, and its treatment consists of penectomy (removal of the penis). The loss of the penis due to this disease has a profound impact on the survivors. It is associated with higher rates of depression, anxiety, and loss of male identity, some even feeling like "castrated animals" or fewer men, having not only biological but also social and psychological problems, leading to the loss or decrease of sexual activity, self-esteem, and ability to relate to others. The new masculinities (a social theory much discussed these days) is offered as an alternative to understanding the behavior of men concerning what represents the penis, and the construction of their identity, focusing on the need to reconstruct the idea of masculinity and unlink the identity of men outside their genitals, the discussion of such social elements can be offered alternatives to help improve the psychological condition of patients who have survived the penectomy and contribute significantly to their health and quality of life, especially in improving your mental health.

Longitudinal relationship between pre-exposure prophylaxis motivation and change in adherence among men who have sex with men in Western China

IntroductionThe efficacy of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) is highly dependent on adherence, and adherence behavior is influenced by motivation. The aim of this study was to explore the longitudinal relationship between PrEP motivation and change in adherence among men who have sex with men (MSM) in Western China.MethodsFrom November 2019 to June 2021, we conducted a PrEP prospective cohort study. Motivation to take medicine was measured by the PrEP Motivation Scale at baseline, and was grouped into different levels of latent categories by Latent Profile Analysis (LPA). A multinomial logistic regression model was used to explore the longitudinal relationship between change in adherence (improvement, decline, no change) and different levels of PrEP motivation.ResultsMSM were divided into two categories of PrEP motivation, a “high motivation group” (n = 506, 69.89%) and a “low motivation group” (n = 218, 30.11%). High PrEP motivation had no significant effect on the change in short-term adherence, however, it contributed to the improvement in long-term adherence [odds ratio (OR) = 3.028 (1.100–8.332), p = 0.031]. The predictive power of the adherence model was significantly enhanced with the addition of the PrEP motivation factor.ConclusionsThere was a positive correlation between high PrEP motivation at baseline and an improvement in long-term adherence. Surveillance and intervention of PrEP motivation in MSM can increase their adherence, and then promote PrEP efficacy.

Il ritmo del senso

The task that awaits those who have noticed the devastation of the truth prevailing today lies in coming to terms with the illusory nature of the political proposals that European leaders formulated during the 20th century and which, despite their diversity, are based on a single interpretation of the sense of Being in terms of “nihilism”. Now, we do acknowledge that ample space has been reserved in the last fifty years to show the criminal nature of the fascist and Nazi projects, as well as the alienation that emblematically characterizes the liberal model, particularly in its American version. That is why it now proves extremely urgent to clarify the spiritual presuppositions that favored the disastrous advent of Bolshevism in the Soviet Union. Here is what E.E. Cummings set out to do during a trip made in the 1930s to Stalin’s Russia and whose ripest fruits the American poet collected in a very precious diary emblematically entitled Eimi (I am). Awakening a sense of Being thus becomes the escape route Cummings devised to bring Western man back into that dimension capable of renewing in each of us that need for rootedness, which guarantees the possibility of an authentic existence.

Fat bodies, diet culture, and human flourishing: How did we get it so wrong?

AbstractContemporary diet culture is detrimental to many Western men and women, though women are disproportionately impacted. This results in poor body image, low self‐esteem, and unhealthy lifestyles. Christian discourse is not immune to the influence of diet culture, with many popular Christian pastors and authors adopting this paradigm and seeking to align it with a Christian worldview. When an understanding of a human being as an anthropological duality is brought to bear on the issue of diet culture, a more consistently Christian anthropology can resource a healthier view of the embodied self and provide resources for a robust Christian response to diet culture.

Networks, Marriage, and Socioeconomics: Comparing the Men and Women of the Islamic State

Social networks, marriage, and socioeconomic deprivation are considered determinants of participation in political violence. But whether they equally impact men and women’s involvement is not known. This study uses log-linear models to compare 468 Western men and women who joined the Islamic State. Significant differences between them are found. Though their education and employment levels are similar, women are less likely than men to be connected to pro-IS networks and more likely to have already been married before joining. The findings suggest that men joined the IS through their existing social networks, while women joined by breaking away from them.

Exploring the ‘White men’ dominance of senior leaders in premium international schools

ABSTRACT By 2022 there were over 13,000 private schools worldwide classified as delivering a non-national curriculum in English outside an English-speaking nation. Reports on the diversity of senior leaders of the “premium traditional international school” has always revealed a Western men bias although little has been reported about race. We report on the body of “premium non-traditional international schools”, those belonging to a branded, corporate, profit-driven grouping where we hypothesised that a greater diversity might exist with regard to sex and race. Our survey of the websites of 247 schools belonging to 10 major groupings reveals, from photographic evidence, that 88% of senior leaders are White, and 64% are White men. This finding is very similar to a recent report into diversity among the premium traditional sector. We explore this situation and offer for discussion two sets of possible reasons. An unwritten truth pertains that the recruitment of senior leaders is biased towards White men, whilst at another level the uncertainty, risks, and commercialisation of the field might be more attractive to White men. Both lead to a situation that is rarely questioned or discussed.

РУССКИЙ СИБИРЯК В НЕСОВМЕСТИМОЙ СОВМЕСТИМОСТИ ЗАПАДА И ВОСТОКА

The history of “Russian Eurasia” represents a variant of the formation of a socio-cultural community of Russian Siberians in the process of adaptation of the population to the challenges of the factors of the new environment. The natural, social, ethnocultural characteristics of the Siberian region were transformed under the influence of factors of Russian material and spiritual culture. At the same time, within the culture of the first Russian generations of Siberia and in the consciousness of its bearers, changes in conformity with the environment took place according to the feedback principle of small impulses of “micromutations”. During the XVII–XVIII centuries the results of the mutual adaptation of the society of Russian old-timers and the environment was the formation of a new “place of development”, sub-ethnic identity, self-awareness and character. Mentality and traditions in the process of cultural adaptation in the 18th–19th centuries are fixed in cultural traditions in the recombination of mutations that underwent natural selection at the level of genetic programs and the structure of ethnic constants. The society of old-timers continuously socialized new settlers into their midst. The stage-by-stage dynamics of adaptation contained stages of material, social and psychological “getting used to” them in the community of Russian old-timers. The process of one and a half centuries of adaptation to an extreme environment transformed the traditional irrational, sensory-emotional “worldview” into the rational, pragmatic psychology of “western man.” A process in which rational “thought gave birth” to stereotypes of an active, pragmatic transformer of the world. At the same time, in the value attitudes of the Orthodox-pagan worldview of the world, the attitudes of conscientiousness, humility, sympathy, mercy, and compassion increased compensatoryly among the old-timers. These value factors, according to Russian and generally Eastern traditions, were determined by the concept of “soul”. In the postulates of Russian culture, this factor is reflected in the saying “The soul gives birth to character.”Hence, the harsh realities of physical adaptation of the old-timers formed in them external behavioral rationality, the origins of psychological attitudes go back to Slavic-Russian ethnic spirituality. As a result of the ethnopsychological analysis, the author of the paper made an innovative conclusion: the incompatibility of the civilizational poles of rationality and spirituality was overcome by the formation of the quality of moral rationality in the character of the Russian Siberian.

Ruy Cinatti e a representação do "outro": ambiguidades e contradições

The Portuguese poet, essayist, and man of science Ruy Cinatti (1915-1986) developed professional activity as a high official of the colonial administration and, although integrated in the official structure of the regime and subscribing to the narrative about Portugal’s historical mission to civilize and educate the indigenous peoples from the colonized territories, he has developed, in parallel, a fascination for Timor and its people. Cinatti defended, albeit within the colonial framework, a territorial development able to favor the growth of the Timorese without offending their cultural traditions. In this essay, we reflect on whether Cinatti, by discursively inaugurating a new relationship of otherness, could be, from an epistemological point of view, anticipating the theses of Orientalism, a doctrine that, in the following decades, would affirm that the perception of the Orient constitutes a stereotyped image of the Western man, constructed to justify an alleged ethical and civilizational superiority of Europeans and to legitimize colonial domination.

Abstract 70: Unlocking the potential of the T-cell receptor in prostate cancer

Abstract Introduction: Prostate cancer (PC) is the most commonly diagnosed cancer among western men, with its diagnosis and subsequent monitoring still heavily dependent on the prostate specific antigen (PSA) test. However, the prognostic accuracy remains poor, leading to overtreatment of patients with non-aggressive cancer and undertreatment of those with aggressive cancer in need of intervention. Malignant cells are subject to constant monitoring and elimination by T-cell lymphocytes recognizing cancer-specific antigens through the T-cell receptor (TCR). Consequently, to establish itself and progress, cancer must evade or modulate the surveillance mechanisms of the immune system. As cancer growth accelerates, immune evasion becomes more difficult, resulting in a more pronounced impact on the immune system. Recently, our research group documented the clinical value of tumor-infiltrating T-cells as markers of aggressive PC. Here, we hypothesize that this signal can also be found in circulating T-cells isolated from the blood and used as proxy for the antitumoral immune response in tissue. Methods: This study utilizes a diverse and well-characterized cohort, encompassing 220 castration resistant PC patients (CRPC) with blood samples taken at the time of CRPC diagnosis, 30 newly diagnosed hormone-naïve PC patients, and 30 healthy male donors. For a deeper understanding of the mechanisms underlying the antitumoral immune response and its impact on disease progression, a subset of CRPC patients (n = 25) are TCR sequenced throughout their disease course and uniquely, the TCR repertoire of their metastatic biopsies is characterized. Results: In an initial comparison of 8 CRPC patients and 8 age-matched healthy males, we observed that cancer patients had a higher proportion of hyper-expanded T-cell clones (P = 0.003; Fisher’s exact test) and a less diverse TCR repertoire in blood. Furthermore, 86.5 % of hyper-expanded clones found in peripheral blood samples could also be found in malignant prostate tissue from matched CRPC patients, while overlap between patients was virtually non-existent Conclusion: Our pilot study detected differences in the TCR repertoire between cancer patients and matched controls. The clones contributing most to this difference were concurrently found in malignant tissue indicating that the antitumoral immune response can indeed be detected in the periphery. Given these promising results, we are currently running the larger study described above to obtain a better understanding of the TCR repertoire and establish its prognostic potential in PC. While the findings showcased in this abstract exclusively stem from the pilot study, results for the full cohort will be presented at the conference. Citation Format: Eske Nøhr Glud, Jacob H. Fredsøe, Iver K. Nordentoft, Asbjørn Kjær, Maria Rusan, Britt E. Laursen, Bodil G. Pedersen, Nicolai J. Birkbark, Lars Dyrskjøt, Michael Borre, Karina Dalsgaard Sørensen. Unlocking the potential of the T-cell receptor in prostate cancer [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2024; Part 1 (Regular Abstracts); 2024 Apr 5-10; San Diego, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2024;84(6_Suppl):Abstract nr 70.

Ecocosmism: Finitude Unbound

Western modernity was born with a revolution of limits. Western man, who has become the creator of his own destiny, has identified freedom with a conscious and systematic violation of the given conditions, with a future that constantly transcends the present. This modern condition is thus characterised by the fact that it is limited by boundaries that are mobile and can change. From this observation arises the paradoxical situation that growth today is inconceivable if it is not linked to a scenario of scarcity, in contrast to premodern theological views based instead on the abundance of creation, the original richness of the world. Inspired by this vision of a sustainable world, ecological thinking today is immediately associated with a language of finitude. Degrowth, self-limitation, and resource efficiency, these are all terms associated with a universalist model of progress that seems to know no limits. This article argues that the world is doomed to its own inevitable end if sustainability is understood from the perspective of an economically sustainable future defined by the limits of capitalist management. If, on the other hand, we step out of this impoverished and economic perspective of the concept of limit and the condition of finitude, then we open ourselves to an ecocosmic perspective that understands the world as part of a cosmic diversity that cannot be contained within a more or less extended totality of resources. In this article, being finite is understood ecologically as being a non-self-sufficient part of the interrelated possibilities of worldmaking, not as an element of a set of individuals or things.

Clinicopathological Features and Treatment Outcomes of Male Breast Cancer in Pakistani Population: A 10-Year Retrospective Cross-Sectional Study.

Male breast cancer (MBC) accounts for 1% of global breast cancer cases. On account of its rarity, very few prospective clinical trials have been carried out on MBC. Pakistan has the highest incidence of breast cancer in Asia, but very limited data are available on MBC. The objective is to determine the clinicopathological characteristics and treatment patterns of MBC in Pakistani population. This is a retrospective cross-sectional study. A retrospective cross-sectional study carried out using the cancer database of Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital & Research Center. Men with a histologically proven breast cancer, stage 0 to III disease and requiring surgical intervention were included. The Kaplan-Meier curve and log-rank test were used for survival analysis. Sixty-eight patients with MBC were included with a median age at diagnosis of 55 years. Most patients were stage II (47.1%). Invasive ductal carcinoma (IDC) was the commonest type (89.7%). Estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR), and Her-2 receptor positivity were 92.6%, 86.8%, and 32.4%, respectively. Mastectomy was performed in 95.6% of the cases. Neoadjuvant and adjuvant chemotherapy was administered in 25 (36.8%) and 26 (38.2%) patients, respectively. Fifty-five (80.9%) patients received adjuvant radiotherapy. Most of the patients (89.7%) received tamoxifen. The 5-year overall and disease-free survival was 88.2% and 80.9%, respectively. Patients receiving neoadjuvant chemotherapy had a better overall and disease-free survival (P = .025). Male breast cancer occurs at a relatively earlier age in Pakistani population as compared with Western men. Mastectomy is the preferred surgical option for MBC on account of the advanced disease and delayed presentation. Neoadjuvant chemotherapy has a statistically significant effect on overall and disease-free survival, but in spite of these benefits, it remains underutilized.

Rosa del Olmo Prize: Introductory Essay

Academic prizes have three problems: they feed an individualist ethos, perpetuate the idea of the ‘marketplace of ideas’ as a fair and even playing field, and build a stereotype of white, Western men as the ultimate knowledge creators. However, prizes can also challenge stereotypes and help democratise knowledge creation by enlarging the visibility of communitarian knowledge creation beyond Western scripts and outside hegemonic masculinities. The International Journal for Crime, Justice, and Social Democracy, committed to cognitive justice, knowledge democratisation, and encouraging voices on the periphery to partake in global academic debate, established the Rosa del Olmo Prize. Seeking to challenge criminological stereotypes about who can create knowledge that contributes to the development of criminology, the Journal honours Venezuelan criminologist Rosa del Olmo (1937-2000) through this award. Rosa symbolises critical, feminist, decolonial criminology working to advance social justice.

Prospective clinical sequencing of 1016 Chinese prostate cancer patients: uncovering genomic characterization and race disparity.

Although there is a well-known disparity in prostate cancer (PC) incidence and mortality between Chinese and Western patients, the underlying genomic differences have been investigated only sparsely. This clinicogenomic study was conducted to reveal the genomic mutations contributing to the PC disparity across ethnicities and investigate the mutational profile of Chinese PC patients. A total of 1016 Chinese PC patients were prospectively enrolled and subjected to targeted sequencing, resulting in usable sequencing data for 41 genes from 859 patients. Genomic data retrieved from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA; locoregional PC), Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center [MSKCC; metastatic castration-sensitive PC (mCSPC)], and Stand Up To Cancer [SU2C; metastatic castration-resistant PC (mCRPC)] cohorts were used as comparators representing Western men. Genomic mutations were analyzed using an integrated bioinformatic strategy. A comparison of the disease stages revealed that mutations in tumor protein 53 (TP53), androgen receptor (AR), forkhead box A1 (FOXA1), and genes involved in the cell cycle pathway were enriched in mCRPC. Mutations in adenomatous polyposis coli (APC) gene were found to be more prevalent in patients with visceral metastasis. Genomic differences between Western and Chinese men were mainly observed in castration-sensitive PC, with tumors from Chinese men having more FOXA1 (11.4% vs. 4.2%) but fewer TP53 (4.8% vs. 13%) mutations in locoregional PC and harboring fewer TP53 (11% vs. 29.2%), phosphatase and tensin homolog (PTEN; 2.5% vs. 10.3%), and APC (1.7% vs. 7.4%) mutations in the mCSPC stage than those of Western men. Patients of both ethnicities with mCRPC had similar mutational spectra. Furthermore, FOXA1 class-2 was less common than FOXA1 class-1 and showed no enrichment in metastasis, contrary to the findings in the Western cohort. Our study provides a valuable resource for a better understanding of PC in China and reveals the genomic alterations associated with PC disparity across races.

Una nuova arte per un nuovo mondo. Martin Heidegger e Barnett Newman


 
 
 Part I
 
 
 
 
 A new art for a new world Martin Heidegger and Barnett Newman
 Stefano Esengrini stefano.esengrini@unicatt.it
 
 
 
 
 François Fédier's contribution to the understanding of Martin Heidegger's thought represents the point from which we start to clarify the meaning of the path taken by the philosopher after Being and Time. The phenomenon of Ereignis as Enowning thus constitutes the horizon within which the possibility occurs for man to encounter his world and take root in it as if he were at home. The need to overcome the crisis that threatens the Western world determines the possibility of experiencing the world in a new way and founding new knowledge capable of giving a measure to our existence on earth. From this perspective, America becomes the place that knows how to symbolically embody the possibility that man has of establishing an authentic relationship with his surroundings and of developing a knowledge that is in tune with this opportunity.
 
 
 
 Part II
 Based on the rethinking of the metaphysical essence of art, we will be able to interpret the work of Barnett Newman as an attempt to give form in painting to the thought of a new start. More specifically, the prominence assumed by color becomes the index of the need to give shape to the space and time within which the world occurs. Thanks to the secret symmetry that exists between Newman and the work of Henry David Thoreau, we will thus be able to clarify the nature of the contribution provided by American art to the determination of a new world that America, more radically than other places on earth, has been able to articulate in unheard of forms capable of projecting a new hope for Western man today and for the future that is destined for us.
 
 
 
 
 

Demographic Context of Thai-Western Partnerships in Thailand

Marriages between Thais and Westerners have become more frequent in Thailand, which could have significant social and economic implications for the country. However, we currently lack information on the exact number of Thai-Western couples and their demographic characteristics. To address this, we conducted a study using Thailand’s 2010 Population Census to explore the scale of Thai-Western partnerships and identify some basic demographic traits of these marriages. Our findings revealed that in 2010, Thai-Western couples made up less than 1% of all married couples. Additionally, more male Westerners partnered with Thai individuals than female Westerners with Thai partners. The nationalities that predominantly formed partnerships with Thais were British, American, and German, comprising more than half of all Westerners in such unions. We also observed that approximately one-third of Westerners in these partnerships were 60 or older, indicating a significant age difference between Western men and their Thai counterparts. Furthermore, most Thai-Westerner couples reside in Bangkok, the capital city of Thailand.

Til death do us part? End-of-life care for ageing Western husbands in Thailand

After a few decades of large-scale transnational marriages and migration of Thai women to countries in the Global North, the phenomenon has matured and Western-Thai married couples have aged, particularly the men who tend to be older than their Thai wives. This article examines the understudied topic of Western man – Thai woman couples in their old age, focusing on those who decide to spend their late life in Thailand. Ageing in Thailand as non-citizens, many Western husbands fall through the net of social protection and rely on their Thai spouses as the only source of care. This study examines the implications of caring for frail Western husbands on Thai wives, drawing on biographical narrations of three Thai women. Located at the intersection of local and global care configurations, Thai wives are expected to perform the gendered role of spousal care givers with little support from either sending or receiving states. With different life trajectories and resources, the women do not engage with this gendered expectation in the same way, leading to different decisions on end-of-life care for their Western husbands. Their stories speak to the complexity of ageing, care arrangement and social protection in the context of global mobility.

I won’t buy that for a dollar: Orientalist representation of masculinity in remake of RoboCop movie

The prevailing representation of Muslim masculinity is often profiled in negative stereotypes or regarded as toxic and violent owing to their religion or racial heritage. Using Raewyn Connell’s theory of gender hegemony and orientalism paradigm, this paper investigates the remake of an original Hollywood blockbuster, RoboCop (2014). Following a textual analysis, this aims to answer some questions concerning the power dynamics between various male characters in the movie and how masculinity is playing part based on geographical racial orientation; more specifically, how masculinity could be traced in white western men vs. brown eastern men. Moreover, this paper pays particular attention to the characteristics of these characters’ masculinity vs. their western counterparts since the involvement of Middle Eastern characters was the most fundamental change in RoboCop (2014).

Relationships Between Young/Older Japanese Women and Filipino/Western English Teachers: Age, Gender, Ethnicity and English-Speaker Status

Pre-pandemic studies indicate that East Asian students’ migration to ASEAN Outer Circle nations to study English by no means marks their departure from an idealized anglophone English world. Via research conducted during the pandemic when online learning had become mainstream, this study further explores the significance of such students’ English study with Outer Circle teachers. A questionnaire survey was administered to 200 Japanese female English learners aged 20–59 who have taken English lessons provided by both western and Filipino teachers. The textual data analyses reveal that the respondents’ essentialized appreciation of Filipino teachers’ ‘Asianness’ and their English-as-a-second-language background is caused by their identity as Asian English learners struggling to acquire ‘correct’ English. Meanwhile, quantitative analyses identify the presence of many Japanese women who study English as a hobby irrespective of their age and teachers’ ethnicity. This finding provides an additional insight about Japanese female English learners who are well discussed in light of marginalized young Japanese women's longing for western men from/in the idealized West. Moreover, based on the statistical analysis of age differences in reasons for taking private English lessons and concern about teachers’ accent, this study discusses a possible impact of teacher–student age/gender matching on young or mature Japanese female English learners’ perceptions about lessons provided by predominantly young Filipino women or western men. It concludes with suggestions for future research that examines the significance of learning English from Filipino and other Outer Circle English teachers amid the pervasive native English norms tied to Inner Circle English teachers.

The Metrosexual's New Clothes

Abstract In analyzing the metrosexual and drawing on the work of Mark Simpson, this article argues that metrosexuality relates to the dressed, not naked, body. It also highlights the history and variations in form and expression of the metrosexual from the post-war period to the present day, illustrating how the metrosexual is a shifting kaleidoscope of relations between masculinity and sexuality, the body and clothing. Particular attention is given to the suit as the dominant form of modern, western men's dress and as a system of bodily adornment that has shifted over time. Underpinning this is a more unilinear development of the mediatization, commodification, feminization, and infantilization of fashionable masculinity. In sum, it is argued that furthering the understanding of the metrosexual and his relationship to masculinity and sexuality requires greater attention to men's clothes, which was otherwise rendered invisible in much of the preceding analysis.

"You'll Be Chased Away": Sources, Experiences, and Effects of Violence and Stigma among Gay and Bisexual Men in Kenya.

Gay and bisexual men in Kenya face extreme socio-political stigma which manifests in widespread violence and discrimination across socio-ecological levels. We conducted individual in-depth interviews with 60 gay and bisexual men in western and central Kenya. Interview transcripts were thematically analyzed using an inductive, phenomenological approach to qualitatively examine experiences of stigma and violence at the interpersonal and institutional levels. A total of seven primary themes and four sub-themes emerged from the data. At the interpersonal level, participants described stigma and violence from family, friends, and romantic/sexual partners with sub-themes for gay-baiting violence, blackmail, intimate partner violence, and commitment phobia. At the institutional level, participants described stigma and violence from religious, employment, educational, and healthcare institutions. This stigma and violence severely impacted the lives of participants including their mental health, physical health, sexual health, socioeconomic status, and ability to access health-promoting services. These data identify sources of stigma and describe how this stigma manifests in the everyday lives of gay and bisexual men in Kenya. Study findings and quotes from participants highlight the severity of violence, stigma, and discrimination faced by this community and emphasize the need for decriminalization of same-sex sexualities as well as interventions to support health and wellbeing.