If you have been around the same older people, such as your grandparents, for many years, you undoubtedly have noticed that the way their bodies look changed over time. Two changes are especially visible: a decrease in height and fluctuations in weight. Height remains fairly stable until the 50s, but between the mid-50s and mid-70s […]
Месяц: Сентябрь 2015
Women’s role in the pastoral economy
Somali society is a strongly patriarchal one. Sets of families (qoys), each with a male head, and usually related through the male line, settle and move together, forming a reer. Women continue to be members of their reer even after they have married and moved away to live with their husband’s family, and this provides […]
Government sanction of women’s public education
Between 1902 and 1907, when the Qing government finally sanctioned public education for girls (primary and teacher training schools), male and female activists continued to open schools for girls. In the same year that the Wuben Girls’ School was opened, for example, the Chinese Educational Association — founded in the spring of 1902 to promote […]
Feminist cultural theory
Without a doubt the most significant academic tradition of research in the analysis of sexual representations on television has been feminist cultural studies. From the early 1980s a rich diversity of approaches has been developed that, initially drawing on feminist film studies and feminist sociology, but then on a wider field of black, gay, lesbian […]
The pastoral economy
Pastoralism, the movement of households following seasonal grazing patterns, has been practised among Somalis for centuries. The movements of pastoralists and their livestock are directed by the seasons and by the availability of grass and water. In Somalia there are two rainy seasons (gu’ and dayr) and two dry seasons (haggaa and jilaal). Pastoralists move […]
Changes in Skin, Hair, and Voice
When we, like Kristina, see the first visible signs of aging, it makes no difference that these changes are universal and inevitable. Nor does it matter that our wrinkles are caused by a combination of changes in the structure of the skin and its connective and supportive tissue and the cumulative effects of exposure to […]
Public Memory, Pedagogy, and Ambivalence
To explore the argument outlined above, I turn to the tenth anniversary representation and circulation of the memory of the Montreal massacre in the Canadian media. As Chun (1999,114) remarks, in the absence of any juridical forum, “the mediatization of the event” has become particularly important to “the task of comprehending the massacre and placing […]
Shock, Grief, and Early Expressions of a Legacy of Loss
Named as the “deadliest single-day mass shooting in Canadian history” (Charles Grandmont, National Post, 5 December 1999), the massacre in Montreal registered widely in the social domain in a manner unprecedented in Canada. These comments, fashioned in the immediate aftermath of the killings, characterize the shock and horror that many expressed: This week, the unimaginable […]
The drive towards perfection
The most important difference between Catholic and Reformed attitudes to sex was the Protestant aspiration to perfection. The traditional Catholic view had been that fleshly lusts were reprehensible but inevitable: to restrain them completely might be impossible, or counter-productive. The enforcement of sexual discipline was accordingly balanced by a certain amount of toleration of organized […]
An “Opt-Out Revolution”?
In 2003 the various rumors and claims about the challenges of managing work and family life crystallized into news of a full — scale retreat to hearth and home. Detecting the start of an “opt-out revolution,” Lisa Belkin’s New York Times Magazine article told of accomplished professional women leaving high — powered jobs to stay […]