Sabah Feminist Novelists: Views of Their Own

This paper scrutinizes five award-winning novels by five Sabah female writers and the issues of sexual discrimination, lack of opportunities, patriarchal hegemony and the negative perceptions of the body that plague Sabah Malay women. A discursive analysis of these issues is anchored upon a gynocritic feminist approach first introduced by Elaine Showalter in her famous essay entitled "Toward a Feminist Poetics" (Newton, 1997). The purpose of this study is to uncover the concept of the feminine "self" in the Sabah context through a thirty-year interrogation represented by these five female authors' novels and narrative styles, which include an exploration of their themes, language styles and poetics through the five novels entitled Malisiah by Obasiah Hj Usman (1986), Dari dalam Cermin by Azmah Nordin (1992), Gadis Adikara by Ruhaini Matdarin (2007), Pagi di Hujung Senja by Kathirina Susanna Tati (2013) and Helaian Linangkit by Dayangku Mastura Pg. Ismail (2016).

Descriptive study on subjective experience of genetic testing with respect to relationship, family planning and psychosocial wellbeing among women with lynch syndrome

Background Due to increased risk of endometrial and ovarian cancer, women belonging to known Lynch Syndrome (LS) families are recommended to undergo germline testing. Current practice in Finland is to offer counselling to women with pathogenic variant and advocate risk-reducing surgery (RRS) after completion of childbirth. The present study aimed to clarify the impacts of positive germline testing on family planning and reproductive decisions of these women, which are relatively unknown. Methods Seventy-nine carriers of germline MMR gene pathogenic variant (path_MMR) were identified from the Finnish LS Registry as having genetic testing performed before the age of 45 years and not having undergone hysterectomy or oophorectomy. These women were sent a questionnaire concerning family planning, intimate relationships and psychosocial wellbeing. Results Thirty-five women (44.3%) responded. Parity of path_MMR carriers (2.1) was slightly higher than parity among Finnish women in general (1.8). No significant differences were found between parity, number of induced abortions or sterilizations before and after genetic testing. Only minority of subjects reported any influence on family planning (20%) or negative impact on feminine self and body image (14%). Conclusions The positive germline testing does not seem to have a major negative impact on family planning, intimate relationships or feminine self and body image. According to the open comments, counselling, supportive and empathic attitude of the professionals seem to have a significant impact on this. These results are a valuable addition to the counselling of LS women at reproductive age.

'Getting by’ on 4chan: Feminine self-presentation and capital-claiming in antifeminist Web space

The Internet imageboard 4chan is often believed to be a hub of fascism, white supremacism, and violent misogyny. The popular press associates 4chan with ‘incels’ (involuntarily celibate men), using the site to vent their rage at women. Yet a significant minority of posters on the site are female, and/or present themselves as such. These posters use various strategies to negotiate a space for identity-construction and to build subcultural capital within an antifeminist Web space, a striking development in what Amy Shields Dobson calls the process of ‘getting by’ in postfeminist neoliberal culture. By quantifying and analysing these strategies, whilst restraining the rush to ethical judgement typical to discussion of 4chan, this study aims to resituate 4chan’s feminine users from passive objects of violence to active participants in the site’s culture and influence.

SPLEEN CONTEMPORAIN ET MAL DE VIVRE EN MILIEU URBAIN DANS (INTERVALLE OUVERT) D’IRINA-ROXANA GEORGESCU

(Intervalle ouvert) is a collection of poetry of a paradoxical significance and an unusual metric both disconcerting and original. IrinaRoxana Georgescu puts into words the evils of a splenetic soul, a distinctive feature of the urban mentality of modern times. Presented in the form of an interior monologue, her poetry is a cry from a cloistered and melancholic feminine self, but dreaming of a journey likely to remove it from a life “of sand”, from a gloomy reality that constantly crushes its “white and soft bones”.

Sine finibus

This chapter juxtaposes Ovid’s erotic and his exilic elegy. In Rome people could visit and examine Agrippa’s map; expansion and conquest sit hand in glove with powerful fantasies of imposing order, control, and hierarchy. In his early elegiac works Ovid contemplates feminine self-adornment. Luxury goods from foreign places flow to the capital, and the city’s female inhabitants seek out, then display on their bodies, the commodities of empire. Once the Ovidian women cloak themselves in the trappings of empire, however, they become one with their accoutrements. In the second part of the diptych, exilic Ovid, just like his adorned women before him, suffers in the face of absent fines. At the very margins of empire, in Tomis on the Black Sea, when he finds himself contemplating first-hand the permeable fines at the furthest edge of imperium, stable, fixed boundaries evaporate, and hybridization and melange take over. It becomes increasingly difficult to ascertain where imperium ends and the non-Roman world (not-yet-Roman world) begins. The Greeks, the Getans, the barbarians have already mixed together, and ultimately even the one Roman cannot sustain his Romanness.

Family Dyadic: Anima Animas

<p>In a randomized groups design 50 couples including 50 husbands and 50 wives belonging to joint and nuclear families were tested to study the presence of anima and animas contributory role in both spouses towards family dyadic and it relationship with joint and nuclear families. Dyadic Adjustment Scale (DAS) for family dyadic and The Masculine and Feminine Self-Disclosure Scale (MFSDS) were used to measure participants’ masculinity (anima) and femininity (animus) role in both spouses as contributory factor toward family dyadic in both family types. It was assumed that some useful information would emerge? SPSS was used for responses analysis. Significant .correlation between MFSDS .532^**and DAS.657^** found. MFSDS predicted DAS significantly <i>F</i> (<i>df</i> = 97) = 54.37,<i> p </i><.001. Traditional binary role were not much clear, a non significant relationship was found between family types and participants scores on both tests. The findings pointed toward further dyadic focus for contributory role of masculinity and femininity levels of spouses in both family types. </p>

Family Dyadic: Anima Animas

<p>In a randomized groups design 50 couples including 50 husbands and 50 wives belonging to joint and nuclear families were tested to study the presence of anima and animas contributory role in both spouses towards family dyadic and it relationship with joint and nuclear families. Dyadic Adjustment Scale (DAS) for family dyadic and The Masculine and Feminine Self-Disclosure Scale (MFSDS) were used to measure participants’ masculinity (anima) and femininity (animus) role in both spouses as contributory factor toward family dyadic in both family types. It was assumed that some useful information would emerge? SPSS was used for responses analysis. Significant .correlation between MFSDS .532^**and DAS.657^** found. MFSDS predicted DAS significantly <i>F</i> (<i>df</i> = 97) = 54.37,<i> p </i><.001. Traditional binary role were not much clear, a non significant relationship was found between family types and participants scores on both tests. The findings pointed toward further dyadic focus for contributory role of masculinity and femininity levels of spouses in both family types. </p>

Can We Hear Manu (Gandhi) Speak?

In 1942, the recently bereaved Manu Gandhi arrived in Sevagram ashram, Wardha, to serve the aged Mahatma and his ailing wife Kasturba. In 1943, she was called to Poona, where the Mahatma and his associates were jailed. During that time, Manu began keeping a regular diary. Translated and published in 2019, the diary throws open the inner world of a lesser known Gandhi. This review article is a discursive reading of Manu’s daily diary. It begins by locating women in general and Manu in particular in contemporary Gandhiana. The contents of the diary are discussed subsequently, the focus being primarily on Manu as a young woman. Put differently, the article explores Manu’s feminine self (identity and agency) and its interface with larger questions of history such as nationalism and patriarchy. Finally, in an interrogative mode, it examines the possibility of retrieval of Manu’s (a woman’s) hitherto inaudible voice.