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“Manners” alternates between the portrayal of self-reliant “gentlemen” like Montaigne, Socrates, and El Cid, who are “original and commanding” and “fashion,” an imitative “hall of the Past” where “virtue [has] gone to seed.” But near the end of the essay he turns away from forms of aristocratic morality by introducing two new heroes: a woman, “the Persian Lilla,” who reconciles “all heterogeneous persons into one society”; and then “Osman,” a poor beggar at the gates of the Shah who is a “great heart … so sunny and hospitable in the centre of the country,” and whose wealth lies in his ability to “harbor” madness without sharing it. The introduction of Lilla and Osman late in “Manners” raises the question of how they align with its other heroes. Are they part of a turn or contrary tendency showing up late in the essay, or a deeper exploration of forms of virtue – especially love – already introduced?
Who were the women of Meerut, said to have turned a nonviolent military mutiny – a refusal to load and fire a weapon – into a violent revolt that nearly toppled the British Raj? Were they prostitutes, or were they wives? There is much in the book to suggest the latter, but (ironically) that same evidence also suggests the simultaneous possibility of the former. This paradoxical formulation requires a more nuanced understanding of the nature of north Indian marriage in mid-century. A more fundamental question is: Did the women of Meerut exist? Or were they the product of overheated imaginations casting about for exculpation – on both sides of the racial divide? This necessitates a further examination of the two sources for the story of the Meerut women, or rather the question of their independent narrative origin. While the evidence militates in favor of their historicity, gender humiliation was already in the air: Even if they did not exist, they would be invented. They matter not simply because they enable us to add women to the mix of history (and stir, as the saying goes), but because they allow us to perceive something fundamental about the nature of history itself.
The military revolt and widespread rebellion that overtook north India in 1857 was, arguably, the most significant challenge to the British Empire in the nineteenth century. Given the global historical significance of 1857, it is not surprising that the events of that year have been subjected to intense scrutiny by historians – especially as that fateful year began to loom large after 1900 as “India’s First War of Independence.” Historians have long noted that the first serious blood spilled in 1857 occurred in the military garrison town of Meerut, north of Delhi. And historians almost always point to the catalyzing role of local women – usually described as “prostitutes” – of the cantonment bazaar, who were said to have provided the spark that set the cantonment on fire. But who were these women? Surprisingly, despite 170 years of historiography, this question has not been asked till now. It is at the heart of the present study.
While early twentieth-century Western European and North American modernism has been characterized as a shock, its reverberations pulled the effects of the past variously in the wake of the new, depending on one’s circumstances in global modernity. This chapter discusses how, in that rupture/transition, the passages of Elizabeth Bowen, Pauline Smith, Dorothy Livesay, Katherine Mansfield, and Jean Rhys into and out of British imperial metropole London in the “Mother Country” (England), reveal their self-conscious adaptations of modernist technologies, undoing some imperial trappings and redoing prevailing imperial-patriarchal structures of value and status to which they claim membership. Each woman conveys the effects of empire–democracy, while struggling to retain belief in the liberal humanist subject/author captured in the figure of the “New Woman.” “Technology” refers to both the material infrastructure of modernity (mass reproduction, invention, and innovation) as well as “teks,” the fabric woven to convey the intangible but felt experiences of being in empire. The chapter unpacks the different implications of the gendered, racialized, and classed discourses of modernity in the nation-state – mastering, producing, doing – for these writers, who were positioned unequally to each other and who interpreted socialist, feminist, and anticolonialist movements differentially.
Depression rates are higher in women, especially during periods of hormonal fluctuation. Reproductive system disorders (RSDs), which often disrupt hormonal balance, may contribute to this mental health burden. Despite their prevalence and significant health implications, the link between RSDs and depression remains underexplored, leaving a gap in understanding these women’s mental health risks.
Methods
Using Danish nationwide health registers (2005–2018), we conducted a cohort study of 2,295,824 women aged 15–49, examining depression outcomes in 265,891 women diagnosed with 24 RSDs, including endometriosis, polycystic ovary syndrome, and pain-related diagnoses. For each RSD, age-matched controls were selected. We calculated incidence rates, incidence rate ratios, and prevalence proportions of depression diagnoses or antidepressant use around RSD diagnosis.
Results
Across all RSD subtypes, women demonstrated higher rates of depression both before and after diagnosis, with a peak within the year following diagnosis. Incidence rate ratios within 1 year of RSD diagnosis ranged from 1.15 (95% confidence interval [CI] 1.06–1.25) to 2.09 (95% CI 1.98–2.21), depending on RSD subtype. Elevated depression prevalence was observed 3 years before diagnosis, suggesting mental health impacts may have preceded clinical RSD identification.
Conclusions
This study reveals a striking association between RSDs and depression. Women with RSDs are more likely to suffer from depression, before and after RSD diagnosis, highlighting the need for integrated mental health screening and intervention. With over 10% of women affected by RSDs, addressing this overlooked mental health burden is imperative for improving well-being in a significant portion of the population.
This article examines women’s storytelling and nanga (harp) performances in nineteenth- and twentiethcentury western Uganda to investigate how these songs shaped community identity and norms. Drawing on musical recordings, archival sources, and interviews, this article demonstrates that these performances functioned as important public histories, teaching audiences about past famines, droughts, climate change, and cattle events. These narratives both chronicled regional histories and provided the shared intellectual material from which community norms and a shared identity could be articulated. Extant scholarship has focused overwhelmingly on how male intellectuals contributed to ideas of race, nation, or ethnicity. This article thus provides an important alternative by showing how women produced histories that contributed to group identity—yet this historical production occurred through musical performances rather than in books, tracts, or petitions. In doing so, this article reintegrates western Ugandan women into narratives of imperial encounters and intellectual history.
The 6-item Hourglass Body Shape Ideal Scale (HBSIS) assesses a woman’s internalization of the hourglass body ideal. This measure can be administered online or in paper-form to women with a sixth grade reading level or above and is free to use in any setting. This chapter first discusses the development of the HBSIS and then provides evidence of its psychometrics. This scale has been found to have a unidimensional factor structure among an undergraduate and a community sample of women through exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. Internal consistency, reliability, and convergent validity support the use of the HBSIS. This chapter provides the scale items, instructors for administering the scale, the recommended item response scale and scoring procedures. Logistics of use, such as permissions, copyright, and contact information are provided.
This short essay provides a concise top-down picture of the Red Army during the Great Patriotic War, 1941–1945. It looks at not only its leadership and command (including the State Defence Committee, Stavka, and General Staff) but also size and structure, political supervision, mobilisation and training, and military equipment. When looking at mobilisation and training, it briefly considers not only wider issues but also the mobilisation of specific national groups and women. When considering equipment it identifies some key pieces of equipment that the Soviet Union was able to produce in large numbers, and that proved to be not only relatively easy to manufacture but also rugged and effective.
The Muscle Pictorial Measure (MPM; Gillen & Markey, 2015) is a figural drawing measure that assesses body perceptions. The discrepancy between perceived and ideal figures within the scale represents muscle dissatisfaction. The scale can be administered in-person or online to adults and is free to use in any research setting. This chapter first discusses the rationale for developing the MPM and then provides evidence of its psychometric properties. The scale has separate versions for men- and women-identifying participants. Because these scales are gender-specific, raw scores on each version cannot be compared; discrepancy scores must be calculated instead. The scale has established two-week test-retest reliability, and convergent validity as a measure of ideal muscularity among men. Participants of different racial/ethnic backgrounds identify with the figures. This chapter provides the MPM items in their entirety (including optional items), instructions for administering the MPM to participants, and the scoring procedure. Logistics of use, such as permissions, copyright, and contact information, are provided for readers.
The Perceived Effects of Media Exposure Scale (PEMES) assesses people’s beliefs about how their body image was impacted by exposure to specific media images (Frederick et al., 2017). It has been administered in experiments where participants are exposed to images of fashion models versus control images, and participants report whether the images had negative, neutral, or positive impacts on their feelings about different aspects of their appearance. It is was inspired by two previous scales that ask participants to assess the impact of pornography (Hald & Malamuth, 2008) and their body images (Body Image Quality of Life Inventory; Cash et al., 2004) on different aspects of their lives. The PEMES can be administered to adolescents and/or adults and is free to use. This chapter describes the development and psychometrics of the PEMES. The PEMES has been found to have a two-factor structure within two exploratory factor analyses: The PEMES-Weight subscale and PEMES-Face subscales. Internal reliability was high for both subscales. The chapter provides the PEMES items, responses scale, and scoring procedure. Logistics of use, such as permissions, copyright, and contact information, are provided for readers.
The 26-item Body Dissatisfaction Scale for Adults (BDS; Tariq & Ijaz, 2015) assesses dissatisfaction with different parts of body. The BDS can be administered online and/or in-person to young adults, and adults and is free to use in any setting. This chapter first discusses the development of the BDS and then provides evidence of its psychometrics. More specifically, the BDS has been found to have 4-factor structure for males and 3- factor structure for females within exploratory factor analyses and has been found to be mostly invariant across different cultures and languages (except 1 item). Internal consistency reliability, test-retest reliability, and concurrent validity, support the use of the BDS. Next, this chapter provides the BDS items in their entirety, instructions for administering the BDS to participants, the item response scale, and the scoring procedure. Logistics of use, such as permissions, copyright, and contact information, are provided for readers.
The Muscle Silhouette Measure (MSM) and Fat Silhouette Measure (FSM) are pictorial scales that assess perceptions of male body image (Frederick et al., 2007). They each contain eight images, with the MSM progressing from non-muscular to very muscular, and the FSM very low body fat to very high body fat. Consistent with self-discrepancy theory (Higgins, 1987), these measures assess men’s perceptions of their current bodies and their ideal bodies, and the discrepancy between these perceptions. It has also been used to assess women’s perceptions of the most attractive male body type and to code representations of muscularity level in popular magazines. The MSM and FSM can be administered to adolescents and/or adults and is free to use. This chapter describes the development and psychometrics of the MSM and FSM. The images were drawn by an artist based on photos of men in the Atlas of Men (Sheldon et al., 1954). Test-retest reliability was high for reports of current and ideal body. It was high for the MSM and moderate for the FSM for the self-ideal discrepancy. The chapter provides the images, response scale, and scoring procedure. Logistics of use, such as permissions, copyright, and contact information, are provided for readers.
The Body Matrices (Frederick & Peplau, 2007; Gray & Frederick, 2012) contain 28 computer-generated images of shirtless men varying in body fat and muscularity and 32 images of women in bikinis varying in body fat and breast size. The male matrices present seven levels of muscularity and four levels of body fat. The female matrices present eight levels of body fat and four levels of breast size. Each matrix contains all possible combinations of these body fat and muscularity/breast size level (e.g., slender women with large breasts; heavier women with smaller breasts). Consistent with self-discrepancy theory (Higgins, 1987), they assess men’s and women’s perceptions of their current bodies and their ideal bodies, and discrepancies between these perceptions. They can be administered to adolescents and/or adults and are free to use. This chapter describes the development and psychometrics of The Body Matrices. Test-retest reliability was high for current and ideal bodies for men and women, and moderate to high for self-ideal discrepancies. BMI (self-reported height and weight) was strongly associated with current body images chosen by participants. The chapter provides the images, response scale, and scoring procedure. Logistics of use, such as permissions, copyright, and contact information, are provided for readers.
Francesco Costabile’s Una femmina (2022) challenges traditional notions of masculinity and femininity embedded in the ’Ndrangheta and patriarchy at large. This analysis examines the construction of some of the key characters in Una femmina while reflecting on motherhood and female agency – two central topics in sociological research on gender and organised crime. The essay considers the power dynamics underlying these themes and explores the film’s aesthetic choices, which express a gynocentric perspective through a psychological exploration of its central female characters.
Antiwar sentiment grew during 1967. Divided over some issues, the movement’s decentralized nature resisted control by any one faction and it advanced along coexisting paths. Liberals appealed to moderates through Vietnam Summer and Negotiations Now, but by autumn, leftist influence was more pronounced. Frustrated over continued escalation, some activists engaged in more direct confrontation. Students challenged university connections to the military-industrial complex, draft resistance proliferated through organizations and individual conscience, GI dissent gained momentum, and radicals increasingly adopted civil disobedience, most evident at the March on the Pentagon. New layers of moderate antiwar opinion worked through the democratic process and street demonstrations worked in conjunction with government critics. Government officials tried to undermine this loyal opposition. Harassment ranged from infiltration and sabotage to politically influenced trials. President Johnson responded to antiwar pressure with an optimistic progress campaign that would have serious future repercussions. The movement endured these assaults as a coalition of diverse organizations and perspectives.
This chapter examines the process of military mobilization in South Carolina during the initial months of the war. It probes what motivated men to volunteer for military service at this time and gives sustained consideration to flag presentations to volunteer units, public occasions that have been insufficiently appreciated by historians as important sites for the construction of Confederate nationalism at the local level. White women proved integral to the ritual and rhetoric surrounding these presentations, and so their role in the wider process and culture of mobilization is also analyzed. The final part of the chapter turns its attention to Federal forces establishing a vital foothold on South Carolina’s coast in late 1861 and, in particular, considers its consequences for the interior sections of the state. Federal success on the coast meant that the war had come a lot closer to home for those in the upcountry and this, when coupled with a growing realization that victory was likely to entail considerable sacrifice in terms of both blood and treasure, sowed the seeds for a more ardent national vision to emerge among some South Carolinians.
Following the Tet Offensive, the struggle to define the war intensified. The most widespread antiwar activity during 1968 was mobilizing behind the presidential campaigns of Eugene McCarthy and Robert Kennedy. Peace forces coalesced at the beginning of 1968 for what many perceived as a quixotic effort to replace a president who had promised peace with one who would actually secure peace. Lyndon Johnson’s withdrawal from the race in late March inspired a realistic potential for an antiwar Democratic Party nominee. Kennedy’s death in early June ended that hope, however, and strained the collaboration between movement insiders and outsiders. Street demonstrations and growing dissent within the military worked in conjunction with persistent critics within the federal government. Liberal emphasis on electoral campaigns reduced their impact in the national coalition. Leftists, radicals, and the counterculture played a greater role in the spring National Mobilization, the nationwide student strikes, and the August confrontation in Chicago. The government used the courts to deter ongoing draft resistance but without noticeable effect.
This chapter is where the writings and deeds of the upcountry’s lower-class "common whites" are analyzed most forensically. This material testifies to the genuine struggles ordinary households encountered due to the loss of male family members (and their labor) to Confederate armies, though this evidence also suggests that some white men remained home and played important roles in their households and neighborhoods during the first half of the war. These circumstances could provoke contests over power within families, contests that must be viewed holistically to appreciate the sometimes interwoven gendered and generational conflicts within them. The final part of this chapter considers the short-term military service that some older white South Carolinian men were required to complete at certain points of the war and how, by the final stages of the conflict, the well of white military manpower was finally running dry.
The introduction grounds African literary studies in practical and material considerations, and shows how print is a site of innovation and transformation. The print archive is shown to be full of texts which are now overlooked, but which enable us to understand much more about the literary productivity of the period, including what printed texts meant, socially and culturally, to their readers. An overview of the three sections of the volume is given, from Part I, which asks when independent African-owned printing presses emerged on the continent, what they published and where their readers were located, to Part II, which asks about the audiences for print culture and how they were convened, and Part III, which asks about the international networks of producers, distributors and readers behind the flows of texts on the continent. Emphasising specificities of language, religion and education, as well as the tangible social and political networks behind the circulation of texts, the introduction suggests that a locally sensitive approach to the study of print networks is essential to our understanding of global movements such as Black internationalism and Islam.
This paper examines the life trajectories, social contexts and living conditions of women of uncertain status in post-slavery, colonial-era Tabora, with a focus on those involved in the production and consumption of beer. It thereby searches insights into the aftermath of slavery in this region, particularly for women. It reflects on the persistent social unease surrounding slavery and its aftermath, and on the way it shapes and limits sources, arguing that a focus on post-slavery is nevertheless productive. Set in context, brewers’ life stories provide a vivid illustration of a competitive urban environment, the chances for self-emancipation that it offered, and the concomitant challenges and dangers. They thereby also enable fresh insight into the social history of alcohol and of urban women in colonial Africa. We find evidence of more successful brewing careers than existing studies would predict, but also of very stark vulnerability and persistent quests for safety in family networks. This spread of outcomes highlights the contingent nature of emancipation and the endlessly varied ways in which social constraints and personal motivations combined in individual lives.