“Castration or Decapitation?” A Feminist Reading of Two Stories by Angela Carter

This article examines two stories by Angela Carter, “The Bloody Chamber” (1979) and “The Executioner’s Beautiful Daughter” (1974) to account for Carter’s unique and ambivalent dismantling of patriarchal myths. Carter conflates two patriarchal tropes, castration and decapitation, to figure the oppression of women while allowing for an avenue of resistance. Using the French version of feminism, the work of Hélène Cixous in particular, the psychoanalytic theories of Freud and Lacan, and the postmodern critique of Linda Hutcheon, the article contends that Carter uses the trope of decapitation to link beheading to loss of agency and thus to serve her project of exposing violent patriarchal and sexual structures. She utilizes decapitation to interrogate female inferiority and project its castrating impact on those women who are threatened with this punishment. Decapitation, however, becomes a means of undermining patriarchal logic from within since Carter reverses its targets and logic just as she does with castration. Carter’s act of conflating castration and decapitation and unsettling their connotations revises power structures and challenges attributing castration to men and decapitation to women, offering a postmodern critique of patriarchal fixities, oppressive boundaries, and negative gender constructions imposed on women.

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Entrapment Between Narratives: The Millennial Voice and Degendering Organizational Resilience

Frontiers in Sustainability ◽

10.3389/frsus.2020.620903 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 1 ◽

Author(s):

Hope Witmer

Keyword(s):

Gender Equity ◽

Organizational Resilience ◽

Unique Contribution ◽

Power Structures ◽

Cohort Group ◽

Organizational Demands ◽

Gender Constructions ◽

Recommendations For Practice ◽

Definition Of ◽

Equity And Inclusion

The Covid-19 pandemic pushes organizations to innovate, adapt, and be responsive to new conditions. These demands are exacerbated as organizations respond to the triple sustainability challenge of social and environmental issues alongside economic recovery. These combined factors highlight the need for an inclusive definition of organizational resilience, the increased agility to adapt, learn, and transform to rapidly shifting external and internal conditions. This paper explores a gendered perspective of organizational resilience and the implications for degendering the concept to incorporate masculine and feminine constructs equally valuable to the theory and practices of organizational resilience during times of crisis. Viewing the organizational demands of crisis and the expectations of the millennial workforce through the degendering lens elucidates conceptualizations of gender constructions and power that limit inclusive practices and processes of organizational resilience. Data was used from focus groups of men and women between the ages of 21–35 (millennials) who have experience in the workplace and a shared knowledge of sustainability including social aspects of gender equity and inclusion. The Degendering Organizational Resilience model (DOR) was used for analysis to reveal barriers to inclusive, resilient organizational practices. The data was organized according to the three aspects of the DOR, power structures, gendering practices, and language. A unique contribution of this study is that it explores a cross-cultural gender perspective of organizational resilience focused on a specific cohort group, the millennials. Based on the findings three organizational recommendations for practice were identified. These include recommendations for policies and practices that deconstruct inequitable practices and co-create more agile structures, practices, and narratives for sustainable and resilient organizations.

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The French Version of the Revised Child Anxiety and Depression Scale (RCADS) in a Nonclinical Sample

Swiss Journal of Psychology ◽

10.1024/1421-0185/a000158 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 74 (3) ◽

pp. 119-127 ◽

Cited By ~ 10

Author(s):

Martine Bouvard ◽

Anne Denis ◽

Jean-Luc Roulin

Keyword(s):

Factor Analysis ◽

Anxiety Disorder ◽

Confirmatory Factor Analysis ◽

Generalized Anxiety Disorder ◽

Child Anxiety ◽

Depression Scale ◽

Anxiety And Depression ◽

Generalized Anxiety ◽

French Version ◽

Confirmatory Factor

This article investigates the psychometric properties of the Revised Child Anxiety and Depression Scale (RCADS). A group of 704 adolescents completed the questionnaires in their classrooms. This study examines potential confirmatory factor analysis factor models of the RCADS as well as the relationships between the RCADS and the Screen for Child Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders-Revised (SCARED-R). A subsample of 595 adolescents also completed an anxiety questionnaire (Fear Survey Schedule for Children-Revised, FSSC-R) and a depression questionnaire (Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale, CES-D). Confirmatory factor analysis of the RCADS suggests that the 6-factor model reasonably fits the data. All subscales were positively intercorrelated, with rs varying between .48 (generalized anxiety disorder-major depression disorder) and .65 (generalized anxiety disorder-social phobia/obsessive-compulsive disorder). The RCADS total score and all the RCADS scales were found to have good internal consistency (> .70). The correlations between the RCADS subscales and their SCARED-R counterparts are generally substantial. Convergent validity was found with the FSSC-R and the CES-D. The study included normal adolescents aged 10 to 19. Therefore, the findings cannot be extended to children under 10, nor to a clinical population. Altogether, the French version of the RCADS showed reasonable psychometric properties.

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Psychometrical Properties of a French Version of the General Self-Efficacy Short Scale (ASKU)

Swiss Journal of Psychology ◽

10.1024/1421-0185/a000233 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 79 (1) ◽

pp. 15-25

Author(s):

Jean Philippe Décieux ◽

Philipp Emanuel Sischka ◽

Anette Schumacher ◽

Helmut Willems

Keyword(s):

Self Efficacy ◽

Factor Model ◽

German Version ◽

French Version ◽

Context Variable ◽

Confirmatory Factor ◽

French Speaking ◽

German Speaking ◽

Valid Instrument ◽

General Self Efficacy

Abstract. General self-efficacy is a central personality trait often evaluated in surveys as context variable. It can be interpreted as a personal coping resource reflecting individual belief in one’s overall competence to perform across a variety of situations. The German-language Allgemeine-Selbstwirksamkeit-Kurzskala (ASKU) is a reliable and valid instrument to assess this disposition in the German-speaking countries based on a three-item equation. This study develops a French version of the ASKU and tests this French version for measurement invariance compared to the original ASKU. A reliable and valid French instrument would make it easy to collect data in the French-speaking countries and allow comparisons between the French and German results. Data were collected on a sample of 1,716 adolescents. Confirmatory factor analysis resulted in a good fit for a single-factor model of the data (in total, French, and German version). Additionally, construct validity was assessed by elucidating intercorrelations between the ASKU and different factors that should theoretically be related to ASKU. Furthermore, we confirmed configural and metric as well as scalar invariance between the different language versions, meaning that all forms of statistical comparison between the developed French version and the original German version are allowed.

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The Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS)

Swiss Journal of Psychology ◽

10.1024/1421-0185/a000093 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 72 (1) ◽

pp. 5-11 ◽

Cited By ~ 29

Author(s):

Elise S. Dan-Glauser ◽

Klaus R. Scherer

Keyword(s):

Emotion Regulation ◽

Well Being ◽

French Translation ◽

French Version ◽

Inappropriate Behaviors ◽

Initial Validation ◽

Difficulties In Emotion Regulation ◽

Instrument Measuring ◽

Highly Correlated ◽

Psychopathological Disorders

Successful emotion regulation is a key aspect of efficient social functioning and personal well-being. Difficulties in emotion regulation lead to relationship impairments and are presumed to be involved in the onset and maintenance of some psychopathological disorders as well as inappropriate behaviors. Gratz and Roemer (2004 ) developed the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS), a comprehensive instrument measuring emotion regulation problems that encompasses several dimensions on which difficulties can occur. The aim of the present work was to develop a French translation of this scale and to provide an initial validation of this instrument. The French version was created using translation and backtranslation procedures and was tested on 455 healthy students. Congruence between the original and the translated scales was .98 (Tucker’s phi) and internal consistency of the translation reached .92 (Cronbach’s α). Moreover, test-retest scores were highly correlated. Altogether, the initial validation of the French version of the DERS (DERS-F) offers satisfactory results and permits the use of this instrument to map difficulties in emotion regulation in both clinical and research contexts.

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