Simone de Beauvoir and the Graying of American Feminism

Simone de Beauvoir's study on age and aging can be read as an example of feminist scholarship presenting the contradictions and the ambivalence inherent in any topic dealing with women and society. Beauvoir's work both applauded and criticized by feminist scholars offers an important document for addressing the double discrimination based on gender and age, and has been influential in defining a feminist approach to the discussion of gender and age. With the graying of American feminists in the 1990s, age became a concern and Beauvoir's contribution to the area of age studies received recognition as an early contribution to the humanist exploration of the topic of aging. This article surveys interpretations of Beauvoir's work on aging by literary critics, feminist historians, and a gerontologist.     

病症理解与性别权力——基于女性主义的视角

病症理解的唯科学主义倾向反映了医学领域的男性主义思维统治。病症的唯科学理解割裂了病症与不同性别主体的联系;病症的唯科学理解忽视女性经验与情感在医学科学研究中的意义。病症的理解需要范式的根本转变,这种新的范式将不仅应该根据临床界定的疾病状态来理解病症,而且应该根据患者的性别与心理以及他们的生存困境来理解病症。     

Orthodox Christianity as a transnational religion: theoretical,historical and comparative considerations

In this article I analyse Orthodox Christianity as a transnational religion. In the first section I develop a theoretical argument concerning the relationship among diaspora, transnationalism and Orthodoxy. Seen through these lenses, transnationalism represents a newfound situation connected to the epochal shift from empires to nation-states. I then give a historical overview of demographic trends which shows that in the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries millions of Orthodox emigrated to North America and Western Europe; while large Orthodox groups were created in the USA by the early twentieth century, the majority of Orthodox immigrants to Canada, Australia and Western Europe are post-1945 arrivals. I then offer a brief overview of the situation of Orthodox transnationalism in the post-Soviet space since 1989, and argue that in contrast to that situation, it is the experience of migration that is most accurately captured by the label of religious transnationalism. Lastly, I conduct an initial comparison of North American and European experiences. The current fragmentation of Orthodox jurisdictions reflects the creation of autonomous church organisations or groups of parishes that extend the jurisdictions of Mother Churches into the host states. I contemplate the consequences of religious transnationalism for future developments.     

辅助生殖技术应用的女权主义理解及启示

女权主义对辅助生殖技术的态度虽然复杂多变,但其中存在三种明显的倾向：拒绝技术、接纳技术以及一种调和的中间立场,它典型地体现在第二波女权主义、第三波女权主义以及女权主义最近的“物质转向”上。这三次对辅助生殖技术的回应,反映了女权主义科学技术研究的思想进展,尤其是其“物质转向”,超越了生物本质主义和社会建构主义之间的二元对立,将辅助生殖技术置于自然−文化、物质−话语系统进行分析,并思考其中存在的伦理和政治问题,这对思考辅助生殖技术的应用具有重要的启发意义。

     

Hypoactive Sexual Desire in Heterosexual Women:

The problem of hypoactive sexual desire is the most common sexual problem that heterosexual couples and individuals present to sex therapists. Often it is a woman who reports that she has the problem, or her male partner brings her to therapy believing she has hypoactive desire. The treatment literature describes a variety of causes that contribute to the disorders of sexual desire. However, most of the literature looks primarily at the causes within an individual's history of within a couple's relationship. There does not seem to be adequate consideration given to the social and cultural limitations that have defined and prescribed a sexual role for women that is primarily oriented to the service of male needs rather than female sexual pleasure. This article will analyze some of the social and cultural forces that limit female sexual expression, and are a neglected factor when causes for low sexual desire in heterosexual women are given.     

On the Performativity of Gender: Gender Studies in Post-Soviet Higher Education

In this article I attempt to conceptualize myexistential and institutional experience as thedirector of the Kharkov Center for GenderStudies acquired in the course of introducinggender studies into the system of post-Soviethigher education. The main subject of thearticle concerns the logical ground of genderdiscourse and the complicated relations betweenthe notions of `gender studies', `women'sstudies', and, within the latter, `feminism' inthe former USSR, all in the framework ofconcepts from Western feminists theory.     

Clocks,Creation and Clarity: Insights on Ethics and Economics from a Feminist Perspective

This essay discusses the origins, biases, and effects on contemporary discussions of economics and ethics of the unexamined use of the metaphor an economy is a machine. Both neoliberal economics and many critiques of capitalist systems take this metaphor as their starting point. The belief that economies run according to universal laws of motion, however, is shown to be based on a variety of rationalist thinking that – while widely held – is inadequate for explaining lived human experience. Feminist scholarship in the philosophy of science and economics has brought to light some of the biases that have supported the mechanistic worldview. Possible alternatives to the an economy is a machine include an economy is a creative process and an economy is an organism. Such metaphors are intellectually defensible as guides to scientific inquiry and provide a richer ground for moral imagination.     

Integrating psychological research on girls with feminist activism: a model for building a liberation psychology in the United States

A liberation psychology is needed to bridge the gap between psychology's focus on individual distress and broad social forces that foster such distress. We offer a model for bridging this gap by focusing on a specific area of psychology (psychological research on girls) and a specific social movement (feminist activism). Psychological research on girls and feminist activism share the common goal of improving the lives of girls and women. However, both have fallen short of this goal. This is due, in part, to the weaknesses associated with each endeavor and to the fact that the complementary strengths of each have remained isolated from the other. In this paper, we propose a common language and shared framework to integrate psychological research with feminist activism. First, we review the basic strengths and weaknesses associated with psychological research and feminist activism, with a particular focus on how they are distinct from one another. Second, we provide a taxonomic framework for integrating these two areas on the basis of the stress paradigm, with specific examples provided from our recent reviews of the literature and our own empirical work with adolescent girls. Finally, we conclude with recommendations for future work needed to integrate psychological research on girls with feminist activism toward the goal of building a liberation psychology in the United States.     

Motivation for Collective Action: Group Consciousness as Mediator of Personality, life Experiences, and Women's Rights Activism

Prior research on political activism focused on direct predictors of collective action (e.g., life experiences), with little attention paid to what psychologically motivates individuals to act. The group consciousness literature provides an obvious psychological motive for activism, but ignores individual difference variables that differentiate people who develop group consciousness from those who do not. This article integrates the two literatures on activism and group consciousness, and presents a model whereby group consciousness mediates relationships between collective action and personality and life experiences. The general model was evaluated empirically by examining feminist consciousness and women's rights activism in two samples. Feminist consciousness was found to mediate relationships between activism and anumber of personality and life experience variables, including low authoritarianism, political salience, sexual oppression, and education about women's position in society. The possible extension of this model to other kinds of political activism is discussed.     

Ideas of self and community: Ethical implications for a communitarian conception of moral autonomy

This paper attempts to construct a concept of moral autonomy thai is compatible with a relationally-based or care-based ethical theory. After critiquing the traditional liberal identification of the ethical self with an abstract rational self detached from community and historical narrative, I argue that the ethical self emerges in a dialectical relation with the community itself. Essentially, I argue for a concept of autonomy that will be analyzed as a critical perspective from within a community rather than as a privileged view from outside. Central to this argument is an understanding of the nature and role of moral conversation in the regeneration of community. The nature of that conversation is examined.