In October 2010, under the headline ‘Couples bid to overturn gay marriage law’ (24/10/2010: 25), The Observer newspaper reported on a campaign in Britain to overturn the restrictions that prevent same-sex couples from being formally married and heterosexual couples from entering into civil partnerships. The report quoted the campaign’s coordinator, the Outrage! activist Peter Thatchell, […]
Месяц: Сентябрь 2015
Traditions of Marriage and the Household
Sadia Musse Ahmed Editors’ note ‘After that day I decided to rely only on myself, and not any man… the civil war taught me that a woman can live on her own.’ This Somali woman was reflecting on the day during the war when she learned that her husband had decided to divorce her; leaving […]
Psychological Implications
Older adults say that engaging in sexual behavior is an important aspect of human relationships throughout adulthood (AARP, 1999a; Jacoby, 2005). Healthy adults at any age are capable of having and enjoying sexual relationships. Moreover, the desire to do so normally does not diminish. Unfortunately, one of the myths in our society is that older […]
Ordinary Lives, Vital Relationships: Same-Sex Marriage in Context
In this chapter we consider some of the international, socio-historical and political contexts that are the backdrop to new generational claims about the ordinariness of same-sex relationships and marriages. Our aim is to situate these claims, and the relating practices they involve, in terms of developments in heterosexual and non-heterosexual cultures, in terms of political […]
Male Reproductive System
Unlike women, men do not have a physiological (and cultural) event to mark reproductive changes, although there is a gradual decline in testosterone levels (Seidman, 2003). Men do not experience a complete loss of the ability to father children, as this varies widely from individual to individual, but men do experience a normative decline in […]
TENURED POSTS IN TOP SOCIOLOGY DEPARTMENTS
In 1970, the USA had 2,525 higher education institutions (HEIs) with 450,000 academic staff, of whom 23 per cent were women. By 1993 there were 3,632 HEIs, with 933,373 staff, 38.7 per cent female. Of the 554,903 full-time staff, 33.5 per cent were female. Between 1975 and 1993 women as a percentage of full professors […]
CONTROVERSIES
Hormone Replacement Therapy There is probably no medical topic more controversial than hormone replacement therapy (HRT). For many years, women have had the choice of taking medications to replace the female hormones that are not produced naturally by the body after menopause. HRT may involve taking estrogen alone, or in combination with progesterone (or progestin […]
Female Reproductive System
As Helen is beginning to experience, the major reproductive change in women during adulthood is the loss of the natural ability to bear children. Called perimenopause, this transition begins in the 40s, as menstrual cycles become irregular and some women experience things such as night sweats, and is generally complete by age 50 to 55 […]
Impact of the collapse of the state structures8
Pastoral communities have suffered badly since 1998 when import bans were imposed on livestock from the Horn of Africa by Saudi Arabia, the largest importer of Somali livestock (usually sheep and goats). The bans were imposed to prevent the spread of Rift Valley Fever, which was identified in southern Somali livestock in 1997-98. The war […]
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF FOUCAULT FOR FEMINIST THEORY: CONTRADICTIONS AND COMPROMISE
On one level Foucault appears to hold much significance for feminism. As Ramazanoglu (1993) notes, he has enabled feminists to look in new ways at the control of women. At another level, Foucault can be said to challenge or even undermine feminism, in that, as Ramazanoglu states, he questions many of feminism’s conclusions about the […]