In Issue 5, in Tangles, tears and messy conversations, Lane, Woloshyn and Taber discuss the experiences of female secondary school students participating in discussions of gender in the media. The participants challenged dominant perspectives, and developed personal positions, regarding popular media and gender. However, the participants identified the complexities of representations of strong women and wrestled with the contradictions that arose from these. In White pregnant bodies on the Australian beach, Nash discusses a group of images that feature a place intrinsically related with Australian women’s photographic memories of pregnancy – the beach. Building on feminist interdisciplinary studies of family photography, Nash argues that familial images of pregnancy contribute to alternative ways of knowing and interpreting the Australian beach landscape and the entangled social relations and interactions within these spaces. The author indentifies three categories of beach pregnancy images including (1) the family holiday photograph, (2) the bikini photograph and (3) the ‘natural’ pregnant body/landscape photograph to enable a more precise account of how personal and cultural memories of the Australian beach intersect. The author concludes that the beach is a critical site for deepening feminist understandings of the production and expression of pregnant identities and Australian national identity.
In Gender diversity in aircraft maintenance, Newcomer, Clarke, Button and Weiland identify the largest gender-based demographic disparity in aviation. They cite research findings that indicate women feel negatively about their promotion opportunities and social acceptance. The purpose of this follow-up study was to explore the perspectives of men. Results indicated that there was a significant difference between the perceptions of men from those of the women regarding work environment and social acceptance. In Managing visibility and differentiating in recruitment of women as leaders in the armed forces, Alvinius, Krekula and Larsson explore recruitment as one of the Swedish Armed Forces’ (SAF) main challenges, especially the recruitment of women. This article analyses how female military officers perceive their path to leadership positions. Using a Grounded Theory, the analysis highlighted two themes: the visibility of women as leaders and the differentiation of women as leaders. The suggested model may be valuable in recruitment, educational settings and leader development of high-level military officers from a gender perspective.
In Disrupting (gendered) Islamophobia, Keddie reports on data gathered from a study involving young Muslim women. The Islamic principle of ijtihad (jurisprudential interpretation of religious text) and the practice of feminist ijtihad are theorized as powerful tools in supporting women in countering Islamophobia in their lives. Using these tools, however, is not unproblematic and can reinscribe disempowering gender and ethno-cultural relations.
In Women’s perspectives on the value of a father’s initiative in shifting gendered practices within families, Hanna, Robertson, Woodall and Rowlands explore the perspectives of women about a community-embedded fathers’ initiative in Northern England. Projects to improve the well-being of men and their children are less common within the landscape of parent and child support, with mothers more often being the target recipients. Findings suggest that women see the positive impact of the project, identifying that it offers a shared space for men and children and time for mothers without their children. In addition, it shifts attitudes around childcare and emotional labour in the home as well as long-held gendered beliefs about men as fathers. The research demonstrates that such initiatives can ‘undo’ gender and the positive implications this could have for families.
In Ellie’s First Time, Sternudd uses the example of Ellie Nash in the teen drama Degrassi to investigate articulations of the phenomenon of self-cutting and how it is rearticulated to fit into established constitutions of femininity. If this was not possible, self-cutting could only be understood as a radical and aggressive behaviour easily connected to movements such as Riot Grrrls emerging at the turn of the twenty-first century. The scene that includes Ellie’s first cut is scrutinized to suggest that themes such as success, control, family and alternative culture framed self-cutting as being executed by girls who are fragile and vulnerable but also sensible.
In Inclusive Masculinity Theory, Anderson and McCormack review their earlier early exposition of inclusive masculinity theory published in the JGS in 2010. Since then, the theory has been widely adopted within both sport and masculinities literature. Furthermore, a large number of other scholars not using the theory have also documented and labelled new masculinity types. This article provides an overview of the genesis of the theory and its refinement, before considering and responding to critiques of the theory and suggesting future directions for research.
Blu, May 2018