Solidarity in Falling Apart

In this essay, I reconceptualize feminized trauma by utilizing a queer crip feminist disability justice framework. This reconceptualizing allows for an intervention in both historical psychoanalytic and contemporary biomedical framings of the experience of gendered and sexual violence, pursuant or sequelic trauma, and associated symptoms. Both historical and contemporary psycho-logics too often imagine gendered and sexual violence as abnormal or exceptional events (e.g., “stranger rape”) which can be treated and cured individually, thus delimiting them within a white, wealthy or middle-class, cis- and hetero-feminine register. As a corrective, within the framework of everyday emergencies, insidious traumas, and cripistemologies of crisis, I position feminine fracturing and falling apart as chronic, and consider abolitionist strategies for survival, care, and solidarity beyond traditional medical frameworks for recovery. This further provides a way to understand dissociation or rather dissociative-adjacent symptomology as real, legitimate, and painful, yet also as sociopolitical products experienced differently across diverse populations—and as mundane, banal, and even expected for some. Here, feminine fracturing is symptom, method, and potential avenue for change or liberation. What does “recovery” look like when feminized trauma is endemic to the point of being so normalized and unexceptional as to be a thoroughly unremarkable part of our everyday cultural backdrop? How is this exacerbated when we examine the experiences of trans women, poor women, and immigrant and BIPOC women and femmes? I posit that there is promise in embracing a fracturing, in falling apart—as antidote to the normative and neoliberal logic of keeping it together.

At whose expense? System justification and the appreciation of stereotypical humor targeting high- versus low-status groups

Many popular comedians tell complicated jokes that involve multiple levels of interpretation. The same joke may be perceived as criticizing or reinforcing the societal status quo, depending on perceivers’ assumptions about the target of the punchline (e.g., whether the joke is at the expense of high- or low-status groups). We focused on how such jokes are experienced by listeners who are psychologically prone to justifying (vs. challenging) the status quo. In a sample of Mechanical Turk workers (N = 179), we explored whether individual differences in system justification would be associated with the appreciation of group-based (stereotypical) humor, depending on the perceived target of the joke. As hypothesized, high system-justifiers found jokes targeting low-status groups (e.g., women, poor people, racial/ethnic minorities) to be funnier than low system-justifiers did. In some cases, low system-justifiers found jokes targeting high-status groups (rich people, European Americans) to be funnier than high system-justifiers did. These results expand upon previous demonstrations that humor appreciation is linked to relatively stable ideological dispositions and suggest that different individuals may perceive complex group-based humor in divergent ways.

A Multi-layered Minority: Hazara Shia Women in Pakistan

Shia account for approximately 10–15 per cent of the Muslim population in Pakistan, which has a largely Sunni Muslim population. Anti-Shia violence, led by extremist militant groups, dates to 1979 and has resulted in thousands killed and injured in terrorist attacks over the years. Hazara Shia, who are both an ethnic and a religious minority, make an easy target for extremist groups as they are physically distinctive. The majority live in Quetta, the provincial capital of Balochistan in central Pakistan, where they have become largely ghettoised into two areas as result of ongoing attacks. Studies on the Hazara Shia persecution have mostly focused on the killings of Hazara men and paid little attention to the nature and impact of religious persecution of Shias on Hazara women. Poor Hazara women in particular face multi-layered marginalisation, due to the intersection of their gender, religious-ethnic affiliation and class, and face limited opportunities in education and jobs, restricted mobility, mental and psychological health issues, and gender-based discrimination.

Low system justification drives ideological differences in joke perception: A critical commentary and re-analysis of Baltiansky et al. (2020)

A recent study by Baltiansky, Craig, & Jost (2020) tested two hypotheses related to system justification and the perception of stereotypical humor. They reported to have found evidence for a cross-over interaction, with judgments of jokes being contingent on a combination of the social status of the targets of jokes and raters’ system justification motivations. Here, we discuss the original analysis, presentation, and interpretation of the data in Baltiansky et al. (2020), before presenting a re-analysis of the authors’ shared data file. We show that the framing of claims such as “high system-justifiers found jokes targeting low-status groups (e.g., women, poor people, racial/ethnic minorities) to be funnier than low system-justifiers did” (p. 1) are misleading in their framing. Instead, our re-analyses suggest that ideological differences in joke perception are driven primarily by those scoring low on the system justification motivation rating jokes about ostensibly low-status groups as less funny than jokes about other social groups.

Hoodoo, Kentucky, Workers Adminstration Project, Poetry, Black Folklore, Ancestors and Memory

A poem about realizing freedom through transformation. The poem “ ‘Hoodoo’ Inspired by Mamie Hansberry from Christian Country Kentucky” is based on the voice of Mamie Hansberry, a formerly enslaved woman from Kentucky. Hansberry’s words were recorded by historians and archivists who worked for the Workers Project Administration (WPA). The WPA was a Depression-era program where historians and writers went around the South to collect the stories of the former enslaved. This program provided an opportunity for Black voices to be added and centralized in the archives. Despite positive intentions, the archivists were clouded by their own internal bias. Most of the collectors were white Southern males who held strong biases that influenced the topics they chose to explore. For example, Black folklore is featured heavily in the WPA narratives. To the recorder, these beliefs might have been viewed as eccentric and uncivilized. When interacting with Mamie Hansberry, they more than likely prompted her into explaining “Hoodism”. Instead of a simple introduction, however, Hansberry spun an oral rhyming poem, “A snake head an’ er lizard tail, Hoo-doo; Not close den a mile of jail, Hoo-doo.” Through her rhythmic re-telling, she showcases the beauty and power that resides in “Hoodisms”, that was probably lost by the white male listeners. The archives often offer us silence on Black voices that are women, poor, and rural. If they were recorded, they are often tainted by the bias of our racist and sexist systems, such as in the WPA narratives. Instead of looking to the archives to better tell the stories of my ancestors, I choose to do so through poetry allowing me to reimagine and explore where the archives offer me no assistance. Removing the white male gaze, I give my version of “Hoodism” based on the long line of Kentucky Black women who came before me, like Mamie Hansberry. This is my homage to their voices and stories. Their stories are not lost or forgotten.

At Whose Expense? System Justification and the Appreciation of Stereotypical Humor Targeting High vs. Low Status Groups

Many popular comedians tell complicated jokes that involve multiple levels of interpretation. The same joke may be perceived as criticizing or reinforcing the societal status quo, depending on perceivers’ assumptions about the target of the punchline (e.g., whether the joke is at the expense of high- or low-status groups). We focused on how such jokes are experienced by listeners who are psychologically prone to justifying (versus challenging) the status quo. In a sample of Mechanical Turk workers (N = 179), we explored whether individual differences in system justification would be associated with the appreciation of group-based (stereotypical) humor, depending on the perceived target of the joke. As hypothesized, high system-justifiers found jokes targeting low-status groups (e.g., women, poor people, racial/ethnic minorities) to be funnier than low system-justifiers did. In some cases, low system-justifiers found jokes targeting high-status groups (rich people, European Americans) to be funnier than high system-justifiers did. These results expand upon previous demonstrations that humor appreciation is linked to relatively stable ideological dispositions and suggest that different individuals may perceive complex group-based humor in divergent ways.

POVERTY & HEALTH: INCIDENCE, CAUSES, AND CONSEQUENCES OF MATERNAL ANAEMIA AMONG WOMEN POOR GROUPS IN INDIA - A LITERATURE SURVEY

This Article Surveyed the Nature and Structure of Maternal Ananemia among the Poor Women Groups in India which exclaimed the Nature of Poverty and Health Hazardness are Associated deeply with in maternal Ananemia among the poor women groups. This study at large extent claimed that the structure, patterns and morphic of maternal anaemia problems among the poor women who substantially lactating nutritional deficiency in different form which causes and consequences the destitutes during their pregnancy. This study also observed various nature of incidence, causes, and consequences of maternal anaemia among the poor women in India. It also highlights the Management and Administration of Maternal Anaemia among of the poor women during pregnancy in India.

Sleep characteristics and white matter hyperintensities among midlife women

Study Objectives Sleep disturbance is common among midlife women. Poor self-reported sleep characteristics have been linked to cerebrovascular disease and dementia risk. However, little work has considered the relation of objectively assessed sleep characteristics and white matter hyperintensities (WMHs), a marker of small vessel disease in the brain. Among 122 midlife women, we tested whether women with short or disrupted sleep would have greater WMH, adjusting for cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors, estradiol, and physiologically assessed sleep hot flashes. Methods We recruited 122 women (mean age = 58 years) without a history of stroke or dementia who underwent 72 h of actigraphy to quantify sleep, 24 h of physiologic monitoring to quantify hot flashes; magnetic resonance imaging to assess WMH; phlebotomy, questionnaires, and physical measures (blood pressure, height, and weight). Associations between actigraphy-assessed sleep (wake after sleep onset and total sleep time) and WMH were tested in linear regression models. Covariates included demographics, CVD risk factors (blood pressure, lipids, and diabetes), estradiol, mood, and sleep hot flashes. Results Greater actigraphy-assessed waking after sleep onset was associated with more WMH [B(SE) = .008 (.002), p = 0.002], adjusting for demographics, CVD risk factors, and sleep hot flashes. Findings persisted adjusting for estradiol and mood. Neither total sleep time nor subjective sleep quality was related to WMH. Conclusions Greater actigraphy-assessed waking after sleep onset but not subjective sleep was related to greater brain WMH among midlife women. Poor sleep may be associated with brain small vessel disease at midlife, which can increase the risk for brain disorders.

(Rich) White Women, (Poor) Brown Men, and Sexual Settings

This chapter addresses recent representations of Western white women (with money) from the United States, Canada, France, and the United Kingdom and their relationships with African and Asian men (without money) against several backdrops: sex tourism in the Caribbean, the low-wage labor market for undocumented immigrants in the United States, and the US fertility industry. Interrogating the interlocking relationship between political and libidinal economies, the chapter explores how these films frame differing freedoms and choices across gender, race, and class in scenes of sexual intimacy facilitated by a monetary transaction. In the process, it formulates the term “sexual setting” to identify how social, historical, and other contexts never subside but inform the erotics and pleasures of intimate bodily entanglements in the movies. In illustrating how the structural inequality of race, socioeconomics, and globalization infuse sexual scenes, the chapter shows how to assess the ethics of sexual entanglements.

Femicide

On November 26, 2012, the Vienna Declaration on Femicide was signed by participants at a one-day symposium convened by the Academic Council on United Nations System (ACUNS). This symbolic event comes more than forty years after Diana Russell first used the term testifying at the International Tribunal on Crimes Against Women. Since the mid-1970s, there has been periodic and important research on femicide; however, since mid-2000, there has been an obvious increase in grassroots, academic, and government attention. In part, this is due to efforts of those concerned about high femicide rates in some countries, leading to legislative efforts and initiatives to better respond to femicide. This has also led to use of the term “feminicide” (or feminicidio) by some to highlight the impunity with which these crimes are often treated in some parts of the world (e.g., Latin America) or when perpetrated against some groups of women (e.g., Indigenous women, poor women, sex-trade workers). Increasing attention to femicide has led to discussions about how to define and classify femicide; what we currently know about its prevalence and characteristics of those involved; how to document it more accurately; how countries can better prevent femicide, particularly for some groups; what punishments are appropriate; and whether and how states are contributing to the problem with inadequate responses. The research highlighted in this bibliography adheres to Russell’s definition of femicide as “the killing of one or more females by one or more males because they are female,” or killings motivated by hatred and unequal power relations between men and women. It also includes research encompassing the more recent concept of feminicide which captures the complicity of the state or governments in contributing to these killings. Therefore, this bibliography includes only articles, books, and other publications that use the terms “femicide” or “feminicide” explicitly in the title or abstract. While this decision excludes important work that arguably captures killings of women by men because they are women, it underscores the importance of using terms that directly name the phenomenon rather than using more gender-neutral terms (e.g., intimate partner, domestic or family homicide). Given the burgeoning literature in the recent decade on these latter phenomena, it also provides parameters that made article selection more focused and manageable. While numerous countries are represented below, some world regions are more active in researching and addressing femicide/feminicide. Many disciplines are seeking to better understand, document, and respond to these killings as shown by the Journals in which research has been published, ranging from the expected—sociology, law, criminology—to the less expected, such as gynaecology and obstetrics, and pediatrics, underscoring the multidisciplinary foci required to adequately understand femicide. Regardless of world region or discipline, the research below represents key works and recent and innovative approaches to the study of femicide/feminicide. The field is rapidly expanding, however, with new publications appearing frequently. This bibliography provides a sample of what is available.