Using the Theory of Gender and Power to Examine Experiences of Partner Violence,Sexual Negotiation,and Risk of HIV/AIDS Among Economically Disadvantaged Women in Southern India

This article uses the Theory of Gender and Power to examine women's vulnerability to HIV/AIDS in order to: understand the vulnerability of female sex workers/poor women due to poverty and lack of educational resources; explore women's vulnerability in the context of client/partner violence, alcohol use, male partner's high-risk behaviors, and women's lack of control in their intimate relationships; and explore the role of traditional heterosexual gender norms in the outcomes of sexual negotiation. Ethnographic data were collected from 32 women and 38 men in India as part of an ongoing National Institute of Mental Health study. Results highlighted women's vulnerability to HIV/AIDS stemming from partner violence, alcohol use, poverty, dangers of sex work environments, and tacit acceptance of cultural/gender norms.     

Are Half of All IPV Perpetrators Women? Putting Context Back into the Intimate Partner Violence Research Field

For our field to truly understand women's use of IPV, it is crucial that the following three steps be taken by researchers to put context back into the equation: (a) incorporate the effects of multiple oppressions women face within the context of predominantly male offending across different types of violent criminal categories (top level); (b) integrate findings from both objective and subjective IPV research methods that will require elevating subjective approaches to the same status as objective (middle level); and (c) centralize the issue of ongoing patterns of coercion, power, and control within our definitions of IPV (individual level). Without such an embedded approach, our field will continue to divert much-needed resources toward the so-called gender symmetry debate and run the risk of helping to perpetuate further injustices against women.     

Cultural Issues in Terrorism and in Response to Terrorism

Summary

Among the multiple causes of terrorism is a clash of cultures. Trauma and the destruction of culture may create fertile ground for violent cultures and future terrorists. Cultural differences are important elements in the prevention, assessment, and treatment of post-terrorism psychological sequelae. Cultural and spiritual practices have been used or adapted to reduce anxiety, enhance recovery, and provide supplemental interventions. Learning within a community and engaging community and religious leaders, community members, and the individual patient in order to be guided by the specific needs of a group or an individual is essential to effective interventions following terrorism.     

A Brief Report on Predicting Self-Harm: Is It Gender or Abuse that Matters?

Self-harm, which consists of nonsuicidal self-injury and attempted suicide, is a public health problem that is not well understood. There is conflicting evidence on the role of gender in predicting self-harm. Abuse history also is a potentially relevant factor to explore, as it is related to both gender and self-harm. In this study, we hypothesized that abuse history, as opposed to gender, would predict self-harm. Three hundred and ninety-seven undergraduates completed a self-report survey that assessed abuse history, nonsuicidal self-injury, and attempted suicide. The results suggested that abuse history predicted nonsuicidal self-injury and attempted suicide. These findings can inform clinical interventions as they reinforce the importance of including abuse history in the conceptualizations and treatment of self-harm.     

The Media’s Sexual Objectification of Women,Rape Myth Acceptance,and Interpersonal Violence

A new trend has emerged in print advertisements by which women’s bodies are literally morphed into objects. This study begins to explore this phenomenon by examining the effects of viewing these types of advertisements on attitudes toward rape and violence, as well as rape likelihood. In addition, this study examined the degree to which moral disengagement and dehumanization influences rape likelihood through rape myth acceptance. Three hundred eighty participants viewed 1 of 3 conditions—control, sexual objectification of women, or women as objects—and then filled out a number of questionnaires to assess their rape myth acceptance, acceptance of interpersonal violence, rape likelihood, and moral disengagement. Results indicated that although viewing sexually objectified women in advertising did not increase any of the dependent variables for individuals in the experimental conditions compared to the control condition, there was a main effect of sex for several dependent measures, as well as a full mediation of moral disengagement and rape likelihood by rape myth acceptance in male participants. These findings suggest that education aimed at correcting men’s endorsement of rape myths might be a key pathway to decreasing rape likelihood. Despite these conclusions, this study’s primary limitation was that it was conducted with collegiate participants with an unequal gender distribution.     

Do Affiliative and Autonomous Styles Relate to Peer Relational Victimization and Aggression?

This study considers whether established depressogenic personal styles based on Beck’s theory of autonomy and sociotropy relate to peer relational victimization and aggression. A diverse emerging adult sample was administered a computer-based survey. Latent profile analysis revealed affiliative, autonomous, and more balanced personal styles. Autonomous and affiliative style participants reported greater peer relational aggression than balanced style participants. Peer relational victimization mediated autonomous style differences in peer relational aggression. Additionally, peer relational victimization mediated the affiliative style difference in peer relational aggression among males and depressed females. Finally, the effect of peer relational victimization on relational aggression was greatest among depressed affiliative and depressed autonomous adults. Results highlight the potential that personal styles relate to depression risk pathways for peer relational victimization and aggression.     

The Postcolonial Other

Abstract

I locate the starting point for this essay on the common ground between the traditionally conceived attribute of divine love and the moral theory known as divine command ethics. The latter assumes that something is good because God commands it; with the former, the gift of divine love requires love in return. In this light, God's command to love is recognized as goodness itself by those ‘he’ loves. In other words, those persons loved by God are morally motivated to love. However, this theistic account of divine command theory simply assumes that love is knowable, do-able and so required. The obstacles to knowing love and loving are rarely made explicit. To tackle some of these, this essay is loosely structured around a dialogue with Kantian morality. Analysis of the gendered nature of love will take place indirectly in the course of my account of duty, pure goodness and moral motivation.     

George Eliot and the Authority of Preaching

Abstract

Preaching was for many centuries the domain of men, and the exclusion of women was justified on the grounds of their different nature and lack of authority. Victorian philosophical debates about the nature of women found literary counterparts in Victorian fiction. Eliot's novel Adam Bede presents a female preacher whose authority is demonstrably independent of her biological sex, despite the attitudes of her audiences. Her sermon's echoes of Mark's Gospel show how the literary contexts of both biblical and Victorian fiction may suggest that the authority of preaching in the material world comes from encounter with Christ and is entirely independent of gender.     

The Good-in-Bed Effect: College Students’ Tendency to See Themselves as Better Than Others as a Sex Partner

Self-enhancement refers to the finding that people tend to see themselves as better than others. The present research tested whether people display self-enhancement with regard to beliefs about their competency as sexual partners (the good-in-bed effect). Participants were asked to list good and bad sexually related behaviors more frequently performed by the self or by others. Study 1 demonstrated that people selectively associate themselves with good and others with bad sexual behaviors. In Study 2, independent raters judged bad behaviors associated with the self as less negative than bad behaviors associated with others. Study 3 replicated the good-in-bed effect and also found that when the salience of the comparison between good and bad traits is increased, men are more likely than women to demonstrate the effect. Implications of the results for relationship satisfaction are considered.     

Real-World Knowledge Facilitates Interpretation of Paintings by Naive Art Observers

It is often assumed that women kill themselves because of love and men because of achievement problems. The authors evaluated the suicide notes of 56 U.S. adult women and men with regard to love and achievement motives. Love themes were significantly more common than achievement themes, independent of sex and age. This suggests that, at least for U.S. adults who leave suicide notes, relationship concerns may be a dominant component of the motivation for suicide.