Stigmatized women's health issues, such as polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) and endometriosis, are often marginalized or dismissed in traditional clinical settings. This drives individuals to seek peer support in anonymous online communities such as Reddit. While these digital platforms host critical discussions, they are often designed as static information repositories, failing to account for the complex emotional, temporal, and cultural dynamics that shape users' support needs. There is a disconnect between the lived experiences of users-particularly feelings of clinical dismissal and the need for culturally specific advice-and the design of the sociotechnical systems they rely on. This study aimed to deconstruct support practices in online women's health forums to provide a formative basis for designing more responsive digital health systems. We analyzed the intersections of discussion topics, emotional expression, temporal shifts (specifically the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic), and culturally situated discourse to identify unmet user needs and effective peer-support patterns. We conducted a large-scale, mixed-methods analysis of 4995 posts and 460,317 comments from 5 major women's health subreddits (r/WomensHealth, r/TwoXChromosomes, r/BirthControl, r/Endometriosis, and r/PCOS). Computational methods included Latent Dirichlet Allocation for topic modeling, Valence Aware Dictionary for Sentiment Reasoning for sentiment analysis, and the NRC Emotion Lexicon for granular emotion classification. We segmented the data into pre-, during-, and post-COVID-19 periods to analyze temporal shifts. This quantitative analysis was complemented by a 2-phase qualitative thematic analysis to identify and characterize engagement patterns within 147 validated culturally situated threads. Our analysis revealed that the most prevalent and emotionally negative topic was "Pain & Doctor Visits," which was uniquely characterized by high levels of fear and sadness linked to systemic clinical dismissal. The COVID-19 pandemic triggered a significant topical "turn inward," with discussions shifting away from social or political issues and toward somatic concerns (eg, "PCOS" "Pain & Doctor Visits"). Paradoxically, this period saw a simultaneous rise in both negative emotions (eg, fear and sadness) and expressions of community trust. Critically, our qualitative analysis of culturally situated discourse uncovered a consistent three-stage "playbook" for effective support: (1) Affirmation to establish psychological safety and validate cultural experiences; (2) Information Scaffolding to provide actionable, culturally tailored advice; and (3) Intercultural Bridging to facilitate community-wide learning and empathy. Online health forums operate as essential, resilient sociotechnical infrastructures that actively compensate for failures and gaps in formal health care. The "Affirmation-Scaffolding-Bridging" model identified in our research provides a clear, formative framework for designing future digital health interventions. These findings can guide the development of new platforms that are emotionally aware, culturally responsive, and adaptive to user needs and external crises.

Validating the revised knowledge of women's issues and epilepsy ii questionnaire (rKOWIE): Bridging past and present perspectives.

Domestic violence (DV) is a serious concern with wide-ranging psychosocial consequences, including impacts on mental health, physical well-being, and social relationships. While domestic abuse and DV are related and often used interchangeably, intimate partner violence (IPV) refers more specifically to abuse occurring between current or former intimate partners. The aim of the study is to explore how DV affects both women and their children and how women cope with abuse within the cultural and social setting. A qualitative study was performed using in-depth, semi-structured interviews with eight Saudi women who had experienced DV. Purposive sampling was used to select participants and interviews were conducted in Arabic, audio-recorded with consent, and transcribed verbatim. Data were analyzed thematically following Braun and Clarke's six-phase framework. Coding and theme development were performed and discrepancies were resolved through discussion to ensure consistency and credibility. The results identified three major themes: the impact of DV on women, the impact on their children, and the coping strategies women used. DV had emotional, physical, and social reported effects on both women and their children. Participants moved from silent endurance to active resistance. Most of them lacked emotional support from family and friends due to stigma and the controlling behavior of their partners. Besides this, the women showed strength and found ways to protect their children from harm. The study concluded that participants reported deep effects of DV on their sense of self-worth, particularly inadequate social support. These findings reflect the lived experiences of the participants and should be interpreted within the scope of a qualitative design. It further emphasizes the need for culturally appropriate services and public health interventions that address the wide-reaching effects of DV.

The high number of cases of violence against women shows that patriarchy continues to operate in social life. Films, as cultural products, often serve as a space for representing these experiences, one example being the film Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts, which highlights the experiences of women in vulnerable situations within a patriarchal culture. This study uses a qualitative approach with Norman Fairclough's Critical Discourse Analysis method to examine how discourse on women's issues is represented. The analysis was conducted by integrating Simone de Beauvoir's existentialist feminism theory with the key concept of the Other and Fairclough's three-dimensional Critical Discourse Analysis framework, namely text, discursive practice, and social practice. The results show that in the text dimension, the film Marlina represents women as the Other through dialogue, scenes, and visuals that portray women in a subordinate position under male domination. At the same time, it shows resistance through awareness and freedom but has not yet fully achieved transcendence. In discursive practice, the film's discourse is shaped through a production process influenced by the director's views on gender equality, distributed through festivals, cinemas, and digital platforms, and interpreted relatively uniformly by audiences as support for women and rejection of patriarchal culture. At the level of social practice, this film becomes a medium for reflection on gender equality as well as a catalyst for public discussion on women's issues.

This paper examines the comfort women issue between Japan and South Korea from both legal and ethical perspectives, focusing on the role of acknowledgment and continuous dialogue in achieving meaningful reconciliation. Drawing on international human rights law, including frameworks related to crimes against humanity, the right to truth, and the right to reparation, the analysis highlights the limitations of existing political agreements that have sought to resolve the issue without fully addressing survivors’ perspectives. In addition to legal considerations, the paper engages with key philosophical perspectives on responsibility, recognition, and forgiveness to explore the ethical dimensions of reconciliation. It argues that while legal accountability remains essential, ethical processes such as acknowledgment, memory preservation, and constructive dialogue are equally important in fostering long-term mutual understanding. At the same time, the study recognizes the potential challenges of continuous dialogue, including the risks of politicization, moral fatigue, and contested historical narratives. To address these complexities, the paper proposes two practical approaches: the development of joint educational initiatives and the establishment of coordinated support systems for surviving victims. These measures aim to bridge divergent narratives and promote dignity, recognition, and shared responsibility. Ultimately, the paper suggests that sustained, ethically grounded engagement with the past may contribute to more stable and cooperative international relations in East Asia.

Disrupted brain connectivity in postpartum depression: Insights from resting-state fMRI and machine learning.

Toxic/problematic masculinity: A critical appraisal of its role in CBT.

The vaginal microbiome and HIV acquisition risk.

This research investigates the intersection of emerging technologies—artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and new media—with traditional cinematic analysis to reexamine Balu Mahendra's pioneering approach to realism and female portrayal in Tamil cinema through the lens of Generation Z perspectives. Drawing from comprehensive analysis of Mahendra's acclaimed works including Veedu and Vanna Vanna Pookkal, this study employs cutting-edge technological frameworks to decode narrative structures, visual aesthetics, and gender representation that continue to resonate with contemporary audiences. The research demonstrates how AI-powered content analysis reveals deeper layers of Mahendra's cinematic realism, while quantum computing algorithms enhance pattern recognition in complex narrative structures. Through digital ethnography and social media sentiment analysis, the study captures Gen Z's authentic engagement with classic Tamil cinema, revealing a 75% increase in awareness of women's mental health issues after viewing Mahendra's films. The findings suggest that technological integration in film studies not only preserves cinematic heritage but also creates new pathways for understanding cultural narratives, with AI-generated filmmaking showing a 43% average improvement in overall performance metrics.

In this article, the editors introduce this special issue of Women and Therapy on the application of intersectional feminism to topics of parenthood and mental health. Included is discussion of the history on parenting and how mothers in particular have been valued, stereotyped, oppressed, and pathologized. The authors also review multicultural feminist theory, and diverse shifts in parenting across identities and choices. A summary of the articles included in this special issue are provided, including topics such as medical discrimination, postpartum mental health, as well as parenting from across diverse racial-ethnic and sexual identities.

Men, like women, experience a wide range of serious health issues, including sexual and reproductive health concerns, which must be addressed alongside women's health issues to improve the health of societies. This study aimed to explore Iranian men's perceptions of sexual and reproductive health as well as associated challenges. This qualitative study was designed through the conventional content analysis approach. Purposive sampling with maximum variation was employed to select 26 participants, and data were collected through in-depth, semi-structured interviews. Data analysis was performed using the conventional qualitative content analysis method proposed by Zhang and Wildemuth. Analysis of the interview transcripts revealed that men's perceptions of sexual and reproductive health and relevant challenges were classified into two categories and five subcategories. These included "socio-economic security and unmet needs" (consisting of three subcategories, i.e., "mental health," "lifestyle," and "sexual health") and "cultural-religious factors and unmet needs" (consisting of two subcategories, i.e., "Seeking for health and its barriers" and "religious norms"). According to the research findings, numerous sexual and reproductive health concerns and challenges are perceived by Iranian men. Exploring these concerns and challenges can help provide an in-depth insight into their needs for optimal care, empower them through education, and obtain support from family and society. This can improve men's reproductive health.

The subject of this article is the diverse approaches of scholars to the study of V. Tokareva's creativity, ranging from stylistic peculiarities to sociocultural factors influencing the formation of an individual-author picture of the world. The article employs historical and comparative-typological approaches used to analyze articles and dissertation works. The research material consists of scientific articles and dissertations written in the 2010s and later. The practical significance of the research lies in the possibility of using its main provisions, materials, and aspects in the development of courses on the history of Russian criticism in the 21st century, as well as in scientific research dedicated to V. Tokareva's creativity. Contemporary women’s prose, particularly the works of Victoria Tokareva, has attracted heightened interest from literary critics and has received high praise. A key direction in researching her work has been the detailed development of themes related to family relationships, love, and personal happiness, presented from a feminine perspective. The analysis of the conceptual sphere allows for a deeper understanding of the author's reflections on the life experiences of modern women and their views on achieving personal happiness. Despite the absence of a clearly defined happy ending, female characters demonstrate a persistent desire to improve their lives, which reflects the writer's positive attitude and optimism. Critics also particularly highlight the original stylistic features of her stories, the unique authorial voice, and the ability to incorporate elements referencing classic works of domestic literature, especially those of A. P. Chekhov. The conducted literary analysis has provided a profound illumination of contemporary women's issues and the aesthetic principles of V. Tokareva's work, creating a solid foundation for further research and a comprehensive view of her creativity.

Sex differences in beliefs regarding abortion access as a women's health issue.

Readers who notice this book in the bookstore will probably be attracted by its title and by the cover photo of George Segal's "Three People on Four Benches." The latter seems to link with the title by suggesting silence, perhaps also resignation or loneliness. Is this a group or three strangers lost in private thought? The positioning of each figure suggests emotional distance. The subtitle is slightly misleading; its topics tum out to be linked additively, rather than by strong connective theoretical tissue. This is not a feminist book or even a book about what are often called, albeit vaguely, "women's issues." Trauma does not appear until the third part of the book; much of it is Holocaust- related. It ignores, but is far from inconsistent with, current burgeoning work on the effects of trauma on cognitive processes, memory, and the dynamics of transference/countertransference. The last section on creativity is, although adequate in its own terms, only superficially related to the other parts. I shall return to this last chapter in a moment. Meanwhile, practitioners who use role reversal as a therapeutic action method-psychodramatists, sociodramatists, and so forth-should be alerted that by role reversal Bergmann means children who feel turned into caretakers by inadequate parents with whom they are reversing roles. That is not a technique but pathology. On the whole, I believe that is Bergmann's strongest and most developed clinical issue.

ABSTRACT This article examines how workplace fertility governance operates as a system of control, consent, and inequality shaped by organizational, cultural, and institutional forces. Drawing on feminist theory, we develop a multilevel framework of cascading accountability that integrates symbolic violence, biopolitics, chrononormativity, and postfeminist agency to analyze how corporate fertility benefits simultaneously expand and constrain reproductive autonomy. Using feminist thematic analysis of media coverage, corporate materials, digital lived experiences, and independent reports, we show how fertility support schemes reinforce normative timelines, managerial control, and affective expectations, particularly for structurally marginalized groups such as migrants, LGBTQ+ workers, and racialized minorities. Throughout this paper, fertility governance is treated not as a women's issue per se but as a system regulating reproductive capacity across differently gendered bodies, including cisgender, transgender, and nonbinary workers. Theoretically, we synthesize Bourdieu's and Foucault's insights with feminist critiques to demonstrate how reproductive governance unfolds across macro, meso, and micro levels. Practically, we argue for a shift from discretionary benefits to rights‐based policies grounded in reproductive justice, centering the lived experiences of those whose reproductive needs fall outside normative models.

ABSTRACT This study advances political representation theory by distinguishing between General and Concrete Substantive Representation, extending Pitkin's framework to capture specificity levels in representational practices. We introduce ‘Everyday Feminism’ as the practical manifestation of feminist principles in municipal governance, examining how councilwomen navigate between abstract ideals and tangible community needs. Using mixed-methods content analysis, we analyzed complementary representation spheres: ‘overt’ Facebook posts and ‘covert’ council meeting protocols from 32 Israeli councilwomen across 27 municipalities (October 2021-May 2022). The study identified six categories of women's interests and five action strategies. Findings reveal a digital-institutional divide: council meetings generate higher proportional engagement with women's issues (20%) than Facebook (11%) but focus almost exclusively on concrete interests (99% relative to 1% general). Facebook balances concrete local concerns (65%) with general advocacy (35%). Platform affordances fundamentally shape representational practices—council meetings prioritize actionable policy proposals within institutional constraints, while Facebook enables community mobilization. The gap between spaces reflects their different functions: council meetings manage logistics, while Facebook enables enacting change. Online representation adds another layer to local representation through mass-personal community contact, facilitating concrete assistance to individuals, groups, and local women.

Cervical cancer ranks as the fourth leading cause of cancer-related morbidity and mortality among women worldwide. Despite its global significance, evidence on cervical cancer risk factors in Kuwait remains limited. This case-control study aimed to identify factors associated with cervical cancer among women in Kuwait. A total of 50 cervical cancer cases were recruited from the Kuwait Cancer Control Center, and 155 controls were selected from public-sector employees in a 1:3 ratio. Data were collected using a structured questionnaire. Adjusted odds ratios (ORadj) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) were estimated through multivariable logistic regression analysis. Compared with controls, cases were more likely to have first marriageat a younger age (< 25 vs. ≥ 25years) (ORadj = 5.52; 95% CI: 1.34-22.82, p = 0.018), to be unaware of HPV vaccine availability (ORadj = 7.63; 95% CI: 1.60-36.39, p = 0.011) or tended to be in menopause (ORadj = 5.17; 95% CI: 1.64-16.33, p = 0.005). These associations were adjusted for the smoking status (ever vs. never). Younger age at firstmarriage, being in menopause, and unawareness of HPV vaccine availability were independently associated with an increased risk of cervical cancer. These findings should be regarded as preliminary and hypothesis-generating, offering a foundation for further research on this important women's health issue in Kuwait and comparable settings. Larger studies are warranted to confirm these results and to identify additional determinants of cervical cancer risk.

This Clinical Update series is intended to help providers stay up to date on important articles that have been published on topics relevant specifically to the care of women. Articles were identified by reviewing the high-impact medical and women's health journals, national guidelines, ACP JournalWise and NEJM Journal Watch. In this update on mood disorders, we have included articles pertinent to opioid use disorder, given the ongoing opioid crisis in the United States. We analyzed several interesting studies describing the role between hormones and mood disorders including menopausal hormone therapy (HT) and schizophrenia, intrauterine devices (IUDs) and depression, and menstrual cycle phase and suicidality. Lastly, we highlighted studies pertaining to the safety of buprenorphine combined with naltrexone in pregnant women.

Objective: The objective of this study was to utilize machine learning algorithms to predict professional psychological help-seeking intentions and robustly rank the importance of various psychosocial and demographic features among Taiwanese women exhibiting high public self-awareness. Methods and Materials: This cross-sectional study recruited N=1,452Taiwanese women identified with high public self-awareness via purposive sampling. Data were collected using validated instruments translated into Traditional Chinese, including the Self-Consciousness Scale, the Mental Help Seeking Intention Scale, and the Kessler Distress Scale. The analytical pipeline was executed using Python (Scikit-learn and XGBoost libraries) for data preprocessing, model training, and performance evaluation across four algorithms (Logistic Regression, Support Vector Machine, Random Forest, and XGBoost). Finally, SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP) were employed to extract and rank the importance of each feature in the optimal predictive model. Findings: The participant cohort presented a mean age of 31.8years, with 77.9%holding at least a bachelor’s degree, and 44.6%demonstrating high intentions to seek professional psychological help. The XGBoost algorithm achieved superior predictive performance on the test set compared to traditional models, yielding an Area Under the Curve (AUC) of 0.91. SHAP value analysis identified “Self-Stigma of Seeking Help” (Mean ∣SHAP∣=1.24) and “Perceived Public Stigma” (Mean ∣SHAP∣=0.98) as the most paramount negative predictors paralyzing help-seeking intentions, whereas “Mental Health Literacy” (Mean ∣SHAP∣=0.85) emerged as the strongest positive predictor mitigating these barriers. Conclusion: Internalized and public stigma profoundly override clinical need and demographic factors in highly self-aware women, necessitating the implementation of highly confidential, low-barrier mental health interventions that circumvent the fear of social evaluation.

ABSTRACT Gender equality is a key target for conservation but is often treated as a women's issue with limited attention to the roles of men and masculinities in perpetuating unequal gender relations. This paper provides a qualitative systematic review of academic literature on “masculinities”—actions, norms, and values associated with men—in the conservation sector and synthesizes the reported effects of masculinities on conservation science, policy, and practice. We adopt a performative and intersectionality‐inspired approach, recognizing that masculinities may be performed by men, women, nonbinary, and gender‐diverse people, and that gender interacts with other dimensions of identity such as race, age, and (dis)ability. We found that the current literature primarily reports conservation masculinities performed by White men in Global North and settler‐colonial contexts. The most common actions and norms were the exercise of control/authority, rationalism, and strength, and the most common effects were the marginalization of others, prioritization of natural sciences over other knowledge, and support for policies such as protected areas and militarization. Explicitly addressing the dominance of such masculinities, as well as the conditions through which their dominance is enabled and rewarded, may contribute towards gender equality and to more just and effective forms of conservation.