The Culture Wars of Faith, Sex, and Gender

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mugambi Jouet
Keyword(s):  
Culture Wars ◽  
Family Values ◽  
Sexual Education ◽  
Sex And Gender ◽  
Developed Country ◽  
The Bible ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Almost All ◽  
Developed World ◽  
The U.S

In virtually no other developed country are issues like abortion, contraception, homosexuality, and sexual education as controversial as in America. People in almost all other Western nations tend to share the liberal-moderate view of these questions. Few share the Christian fundamentalist position that represents a major side of America’s culture wars. Even though the vast majority of Americans are devout Christians, religion ironically divides them far more than Europeans. America is exceptionally polarized by rival understandings of faith, secularism, family values, gender roles, and sexuality. According to conventional wisdom, religious polarization in America reflects a clash between believers and non-believers. In reality, the divide is mainly among people of faith, as atheists or agnostics remain a limited proportion of the U.S. population. While nearly three-quarters of Americans identify as Christian, their churches are often at odds on basic issues like whether the Bible should be interpreted literally. The chapter particularly analyzes the ultra-traditionalist values prevalent in conservative America and demonstrates how unusual they are in the developed world.

scholarly journals Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) for HIV Infection in Cisgender and Transgender Women in the U.S.: A Narrative Review of the Literature

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aleta Baldwin ◽  
Brenda Light ◽  
Waridibo E. Allison
Keyword(s):  
Hiv Infection ◽  
Population Group ◽  
Transgender Women ◽  
Sex And Gender ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Pubmed Database ◽  
Trans Women ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Exposure Prophylaxis ◽  
The U.S

AbstractUsing a socioecological approach, this review describes the peer-reviewed literature on oral pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) among both cisgender (cis women) and transgender women (trans women) in the U.S. A search of the PubMed database and HIV-related conference abstracts generated over 2,200 articles and abstracts. Of these, 103 fulfilled review inclusion criteria. Most of the existing research presents findings on individual-level factors associated with PrEP use such as willingness and perceived barriers. There was far less investigation of factors related to PrEP at more distal ecological levels. Though trans women are at greater risk of HIV infection than cisgender women, less is known about this population group with respect to PrEP despite their inclusion in many major clinical trials. Further, the literature is characterized by a persistent conflation of sex and gender which makes it difficult to accurately assess the reviewed research on HIV prevention and PrEP apart from risk group. Informed by these findings, we highlight specific opportunities to improve access to PrEP and reduce socioecological barriers to PrEP care engagement for cisgender and transgender women.

Queer Bible Readings in Global Hermeneutical Perspective

2020 ◽  
pp. 64-80
Author(s):  
Jeremy Punt
Keyword(s):  
Queer Theory ◽  
Social Dynamics ◽  
Sex And Gender ◽  
Form And Function ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Feminist Interpretation ◽  
Political Interests ◽  
The Social ◽  
And Gender ◽  
And Function

Queer readings of the Bible are indebted to feminist interpretation but work with a broader and more fluid notion of sex and gender than feminism. Not exhausted by them, queer biblical interpretations typically revolve around two distinct emphases, “queering” or investigations into the social construction of sex and gender, and “queerying” which traces the theoretical and political interests of such constructions, and their involvement in social dynamics and power. This essay explains queer biblical interpretation by showing that queer theory (de)constructs sex and gender; unravels established notions of fixed identity; contests heteronormativity; becomes indecent; outwits or goes beyond ascribed sex and gender; and queers biblical reception. Queer theory exposes sex and gender as powerful systems of convention that require, define, and even prescribe the form and function of sex and gender.

Burning Bush

2007 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-108
Author(s):  
Ken Stone
Keyword(s):  
Bush Administration ◽  
Gay Marriage ◽  
Biblical Text ◽  
Sex And Gender ◽  
The Bible ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Point Of Departure

George W. Bush links the call of Moses at the burning bush (Exod. 3) to his decision to run for US President. This article uses Bush’s appeal to Moses as a point of departure for reflection on the role of biblical rhetoric in and against the Bush Administration. Much attention has been given to the importance of religion in Bush’s 2004 reelection. However, Bush’s appeal to Moses provides openings for potentially subversive readings. Although the politics of marriage (especially as refracted through the “gay marriage” debates) played a role in Bush’s re-election, Moses’ own marriage is a source of contention in the biblical text; and matters of sex and gender create moments of potential instability at several points in the Moses traditions. The claims made about “Bible” by Bush and his supporters are performative rather than constative statements. Like the phrase “Burning Bush” itself, Bush’s Bible therefore remains open for resignification by those who read the Bible for very different purposes.

scholarly journals Proliferating Panic: Regulating Representations of Sex and Gender during the Culture Wars

1970 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Cristyn Davies
Keyword(s):  
Performance Art ◽  
The United States ◽  
Culture Wars ◽  
National Endowment ◽  
Sex And Gender ◽  
Karen Finley ◽  
The Arts ◽  
American Citizen ◽  
The Media ◽  
And Gender

During the culture wars in the United States surveillance of representations of the American citizen reached a particular frenzy. This article explores the moral panic that has accompanied attempts by the New Right to shape and define the American citizen as heterosexual, monogamous, white, and a believer in middle-class family values. Davies focuses on the work of performance artists Karen Finley and Holly Hughes whose work challenges hegemonic discourses of gender and sexuality. They were two of those artists branded by the media as the ‘NEA Four’, practitioners whose work was considered indecent and consequently de-funded by the National Endowment for the Arts. The article imagines performance art as a queer time and space; that is, not only does performance art contest normative structures of traditional theatrical performance, so too does it challenge understandings of normative subjects, and the relation of the arts to structures of power.

Marriage and Sexual Relations in the World of the Hebrew Bible

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ken Stone
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Song Of Songs ◽  
Sex And Gender ◽  
Sexual Relations ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The Status ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Male Contests ◽  
Status Of Women

The Hebrew Bible is sometimes understood as the source of a ‘traditional’ Judaeo-Christian approach to marriage and sexual practice. A comprehensive examination reveals, however, that biblical assumptions about sex, gender, and kinship are complex and internally diverse. Some of these assumptions stand in tension with traditional Jewish and Christian norms for marriage and sexual activity. This essay reviews such matters as the biblical vocabulary for, and representations of, marital relations; the status of women in households organized around fathers; the role of polygyny; differing standards for the sexual conduct of husbands, wives, and concubines; intermarriage and inter-ethnic sexual relations; prostitution; the use of sex and marriage within male contests for power and honour; the use of sexual and marital images in representations of Israel’s relationship to God; and the attitudes towards sex and gender found in less frequently read books of the Bible such as the Song of Songs.

scholarly journals Sex and gender in respiratory physiology

2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (162) ◽  
pp. 210038 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antonella LoMauro ◽  
Andrea Aliverti
Keyword(s):  
Respiratory Physiology ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
Physiological Changes ◽  
Sex And Gender ◽  
Exercise Protocol ◽  
Homogeneous Groups ◽  
Biological Variable ◽  
Inflammatory Processes ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Almost All

Sex is a biological concept determined at conception. Gender is a social concept. Medicine recognises sex as a biological variable and recommends including sex as a factor in clinical practice norms and as a topic of bench and clinical research. Sex plays a role in respiratory physiology according to two pathways: hormones and anatomy, with females characterised by smaller dimensions at every level of the respiratory system. Sex hormones also play specific roles in lung inflammatory processes, breathing control and in response to diseases. The literature is extremely controversial because many factors need to be considered to avoid erroneous comparisons. The main difficulty lies in creating homogeneous groups of subjects according to age, body weight, lung/airway size, fluctuations in circulating hormone levels, and exercise protocol. Because almost all of the knowledge available in physiology is based on research in males, medicine for women is therefore less evidence-based than that being applied to men. Finally, the number of transsexual people is increasing and they represent new challenges for clinicians, due to the anatomical and physiological changes that they undergo.

Sleep Among Older Adults

2019 ◽  
pp. 139-166
Author(s):  
Katie L. Stone, PhD ◽  
Vicki Li
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Life Transitions ◽  
Age Group ◽  
Sex And Gender ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Social Environmental ◽  
Social Environmental Factors ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Sex And Gender Differences ◽  
The U.S

As Americans live longer, growth in the number of older adults is unprecedented. In 2014, 14.5% (46.3 million) of the U.S. population was aged 65 or older, and this is projected to reach 23.5% (98 million) by 2060. This chapter focuses on sleep among older adults, defined as at least 65 years old, and includes a discussion on sleep and retirement. The chapter especially discusses variation of sleep and sleep disorders in this age group and associations with frailty and disease and provides a social determinants perspective. Social/environmental factors that impact sleep in older adults include the impact of retirement, caregiving, institutionalization, and other key life transitions. Important sex and gender differences among older adults are also discussed.

scholarly journals Unbearable Lessons: Contesting Fat Phobia in Physical Education

2008 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 66-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heather Sykes ◽  
Deborah McPhail
Keyword(s):  
Physical Education ◽  
Queer Theory ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Physical Activities ◽  
Sex And Gender ◽  
Feminist Poststructuralism ◽  
Fat Phobia ◽  
Fat Bodies ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The U.S

In this article we examine how fat-phobic discourses in physical education both constitute, and are continually negotiated by, “fat” and “overweight” students. This claim is based on qualitative interviews about memories of physical education with 15 adults in Canada and the U.S. who identified as fat or overweight at some time during their lives. The research draws from feminist poststructuralism, queer theory, and feminist fat theory to examine how students negotiate fat subjectivities in fat-phobic educational contexts. The interviews reveal how fat phobia in physical education is oppressive and makes it extremely difficult for most students to develop positive fat subjectivities in physical education; how weighing and measuring practices work to humiliate and discipline fat bodies; and how fat phobia reinforces normalizing constructions of sex and gender. The interviews also illustrate how some students resisted fat phobia in physical education by avoiding, and sometimes excelling in, particular physical activities. Finally, interviewees talk about the importance of having access to fat-positive fitness spaces as adults and suggest ways to improve the teaching of physical education.

Poussin's Women

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Troy Thomas
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Gender Studies ◽  
Social Situation ◽  
Roman History ◽  
Sex And Gender ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Classical Mythology ◽  
Nicolas Poussin ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Representations Of Women

Poussin’s Women: Sex and Gender in the Artist’s Works examines the paintings and drawings of the well-known seventeenth-century French painter Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665) from a gender studies perspective, focusing on a critical analysis of his representations of women. The book’s thematic chapters investigate Poussin’s women in their roles as predators, as lustful or the objects of lust, as lovers, killers, victims, heroines, or models of virtue. Poussin’s paintings reflect issues of gender within his social situation as he consciously or unconsciously articulated its conflicts and assumptions. A gender studies approach brings to light new critical insights that illuminate how the artist represented women, both positively and negatively, within the framework in his seventeenth-century culture. This book covers the artist’s works from Classical mythology, Roman history, Tasso, and the Bible. It serves as a good overview of Poussin as an artist, discussing the latest research and including new interpretations of his major works.

scholarly journals Reversing the Trends toward Shorter Lives and Poorer Health for U.S. Women: A Call for Innovative Interdisciplinary Research

2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (9) ◽  
pp. 1796 ◽  
Author(s):  
April Schweinhart ◽  
Janine Clayton
Keyword(s):  
Women’S Health ◽  
Women's Health ◽  
Race And Ethnicity ◽  
Interdisciplinary Research ◽  
Health Indicators ◽  
The United States ◽  
Life Course Perspective ◽  
Sex And Gender ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The U.S

The United States (U.S.) is a leader and innovator in biomedicine, yet trails behind for many key health indicators, especially for women. This paper highlights key evidence indicating that not only is the state of women’s health in the U.S. lagging, but it is at risk for falling off the curve. Women’s health care remains fragmented; research in the field can be disconnected and difficult to integrate across disciplines—silos prevail. Structural obstacles contribute to this lack of cohesion, and innovative, interdisciplinary research approaches which integrate the multidimensional aspects of sex and gender, and race and ethnicity, with a life course perspective are sorely needed. Such synergistic, scientific strategies have the potential to reverse the trend towards shorter life expectancy and poorer health for women in the U.S. The National Institute for Health (NIH) seeks to raise the bar for the health of all women by tackling these issues through enhancing the relevance of biomedical research to the health of women and driving the sustained advancement of women in biomedical careers.

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