Sadly, this year sees the departure of our much-valued Editorial Assistant (Norma) who has decided to retire. Norma took on the role of Editorial Assistant at the time I took on the role of Editor-in-Chief/Chair to the Board around 10 years ago, so I have come to rely on her and we have always worked well together. Norma has made a significant contribution to the development of the Journal during her time with us we will all miss her. I am taking this opportunity to say a big thank you from both myself and the board. At around the same time, we will be moving our Editorial Offices to the University of York. It will be a new era for us and we look forward to working with our colleagues in York.
In this issue, in How women are imagined through conceptual metaphors in United Nations Security Council Resolutions, Martin de la Rosa and Lázaro look at UN Resolution 1325 which highlights the importance of involving of women in peace processes. This paper aimed to interrogate the way in which women are narrated by means of the two conceptual metaphors that are most often repeated: WOMEN ARE VICTIMS (typically found in earlier resolutions) and WOMEN ARE AGENTS OF CHANGE (gaining more visibility latterly). How these ideas shape the characterization of women in times of conflict guide our understanding of how to engage the resolution to its greatest effect.
In Affective Violence, Hook and Wolfe explore named patriarchal practices as (re)produced via gender norms. The authors consider heteronormative familial conventions that maintain and reinscribe gender, reductively, as natural. The authors assert a failure of feminism to re-signify the norms associated with parental care work that tie the female body to reproduction and discuss a reframing of patriarchal power that releases it from the male/female binaries.
In Variations in Couples’ Egalitarian Attitudes, Brame, Kuss, McLain and Kimberly look at the challenges faced by therapists working with couples and their roles within the relationship. Although current literature has focused on egalitarian attitudes, there has not been a review of predictive factors in areas of the United States where traditional values are prevalent. This study suggests a positive relationship between egalitarian attitudes and religious affiliation, religiosity and education. Suggestions for therapists, and how this information can positively influence the therapeutic relationship, are provided.
In Clergywomen’s experience of ministry in the Church of England, Robbins and Greene investigate the ordination of clergywomen in the Church of England (1994) and the subsequent consecration of women as bishops. The authors explore clergywomen’s understanding of their ministry in light of these changes. Three themes emerged from the data generated by these women’s stories: perceptions of difference between explicit and implicit opposition; differences in how their ministry is perceived by others; and tensions in ministry between their internal and external worlds.
In ‘…My biggest worry now is how my husband is going to cope’, Gibson, Broom, Kirby, Wyld and Lwin look at how the impact of a cancer diagnosis flows beyond the person to shape and disrupt relationships with partners, family and friends. Drawing on interviews the authors investigate women’s accounts of living with cancer and their experience of ‘care’ within close relationships. The data reveal how social scripts of gender, care and emotionality shape their experience.
In Discourses of sameness, unbalance and influence, De Simone and Scano study the persistence of gender inequalities in medicine through the mechanisms that regulate the contemporary gender order. Through interviews with Italian physicians, and a focus group with senior-year medical students, the authors suggest that ‘hegemonic masculinity’ shapes discourses of sameness aimed at silencing gender inequalities in medicine and introduce new debate on female career paths and elitism in the profession. The findings suggest that the new generation of physicians challenge the dominant gender order. The authors address the potential to subvert or sustain power structures permeating healthcare professions.
In Feminist Men? Conlin and Heesacker highlight the essential participation of men in achieving gender equality. The study demonstrates an association between the degree of feminist self-identification and reported activism in men as well as the importance of survey language in assessing activism. Men were more likely to report activism when the term ‘feminist’, or similar, was not used. The positive association between labelling and activism replicates in men a pattern consistently observed in women, and challenges the notion that men cannot be feminists.
In Men of Dance, Christofidou offers insight into female-concentrated contexts and how these provide the opportunity for men to challenge gender norms. The author researches professional dance institutions in Scotland (feminized, female-concentrated and ‘gay-friendly’). Findings suggest that the backstage spaces of dance institutions are safe spaces where male dancers can challenge heterosexual hegemony and ‘undo gender’. This article provides insight into the ways that gender and sexuality are constructed and negotiated when prevailing norms are challenged.
In ‘As a woman I cannot just leave the house’, Njiru and Purkayastha analyse extramarital sex and HIV transmission in the context of Kenyan marriage. Particular patterns of femininity and masculinity enable, mostly, men’s infidelity and the risk of HIV. The authors argue that the understanding of extramarital sex as a key pathway to HIV infection has been previously limited. Through considering the socio-spatial structures in which infidelity occurs, and moving public health HIV interventions beyond individual-level interventions, the pathways of infection may be better explicated.
Blu, October 2018