Probing The Politics of Difference: What's Wrong with an All-Male Priesthood?

Though it is often taken for granted that feminists necessarily must condemn the exclusion of women from the Roman Catholic priesthood, the author demonstrates that the "politics of difference," if pursued consistently, reopens this question. International feminist arguments for honoring gender differences, the teachings of John Paul II concerning women, and Catholic social justice teachings, taken jointly, suggest that the current Catholic exclusion of women from the priesthood is unjust not because the reservation of a social role to a single sex is inherently unacceptable, but because of the asymmetry in power between the roles accorded men and women in the governance of the Catholic Church. To be just, sex-specific reservation of roles must meet the criteria of balance, proportion, power, and particularity.     

A social psychological perspective on World War II collaboration in the 21st century: A Belgian case

The present study addresses antecedents and consequences of attitudes towards collaboration in the context of World War II (WWII) in Belgium. A survey conducted on 922 Belgian French- and Dutch-speaking participants shows that, on overall, Dutch-speakers perceive collaboration as more moral and support amnesty of the former collaborators at a higher level than their Francophone counterparts. In addition, we show that these attitudes are predicted by the generational belonging, linguistic and national identification of the participants. Finally, we find that attitudes towards WWII collaboration are linked to specific political prospects for the future of the country only among Dutch-speakers. These findings suggest that, 75 years after its end, the issue of collaboration during WWII still divides the Belgian society. Furthermore, they underline the added value of a multilevel approach in the understanding of social psychological phenomena.     

Shifting from nervous to normal through love machines: Battle exhaustion,military psychiatrists and emotionally traumatized soldiers in World War II

At the onset of World War II, both military and civilian psychiatrists were keen on designating internal factors, such as, cowardice, an overbearing mother, or a henpecked father as determinants of war neuroses. By the end of the war, the notion that anyone could break down under extreme pressure displaced most other explanations of war neuroses. In this paper, using feminist emotional geographies as a framework, I look at how love contributed to this shift. I read three types of texts created through the practices engaged by military psychiatrists in the Canadian Army during World War II at three different sites—in units treating only exhaustion, at a convalescent depot, and at a field dressing station. These texts as both the outcome and record of Canadian military psychiatric practices in World War II form the basis upon which I read how love as a machine (a lá Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari) passes through both psychiatry and the military as it contributes to enacting a reality in practice (a lá Annemarie Mol).