Feminism & Psychology recent issues

Editorial Introduction: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Queer Health Psychology: Historical Development and Future Possibilities

Peel, E., Thomson, M. — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 07:24:15 PST

Our Health, Our Say: Towards a Feminist Perspective of Lesbian Health Psychology

Fish, J. — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 07:24:16 PST

Although women’s health has been a central concern of feminist psychology, lesbian health has been largely overlooked. Adopting a feminist approach, this article considers the distinctiveness of lesbian health psychology by examining the contexts for lesbian health. Notions of disease and risk have underpinned the endeavour of constituting lesbians’ health as a research discipline. Dominant traditions have established lesbian health psychology along key dimensions of difference from heterosexual women: differences in risk and preventive health behaviours, in healthy behaviours, in experiences of healthcare, in mental health and in experiences of discrimination. In this article, I propose an agenda for a critically informed perspective of lesbian health psychology and for explanations that do not reinscribe pathology.

Chronic Illness in Non-heterosexual Contexts: An Online Survey of Experiences

Jowett, A., Peel, E. — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 07:24:16 PST

In this article we contribute to the expansion of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) health psychology beyond the confines of sexual health by examining the experiences of lesbian, gay and bisexual people living with non-HIV related chronic illness. Using a (predominantly) qualitative online survey, the perspectives of 190 LGB people with 52 different chronic illnesses from eight countries were collected. The five most commonly reported physical conditions were arthritis, hypertension, diabetes, asthma and chronic fatigue syndrome. Our analysis focuses on four themes within participants’ written comments: (1) ableism within LGBT communities; (2) isolation from LGBT communities and other LGB people living with chronic illness; (3) heteronormativity within sources of information and support and; (4) homophobia from healthcare professionals. We conclude by suggesting that LGBTQ psychology could usefully draw on critical health psychology principles and frameworks to explore non-heterosexual’s lived experiences of chronic illness, and also that there remains a need for specifically targeted support groups and services for LGB people with chronic illnesses.

Transgender People in Australia and New Zealand: Health, Well-being and Access to Health Services

Pitts, M. K., Couch, M., Mulcare, H., Croy, S., Mitchell, A. — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 07:24:16 PST

This research had its beginnings in an act of trans activism, including a campaign by a number of trans organizations advocating the need for research dealing with health, well-being and access to health services in relation to this population. This study set out to recruit the broadest possible community sample by using a range of recruitment techniques and an online survey. In total, 253 respondents completed the survey. Of these, 229 were from Australia (90.5%) and 24 (9.5%) were from New Zealand. Respondents rated their health on a five-point scale; the majority of the sample rated their health as ‘good’ or ‘very good’. On the SF36 scale, respondents had poorer health ratings than the general population in Australia and New Zealand. Respondents reported rates of depression much higher than those found in the general Australian population, with assigned males being twice as likely to experience depression as assigned females. Respondents who had experienced greater discrimination were more likely to report being currently depressed. Respondents were asked about their best and worst experiences with a health practitioner or health service in relation to being trans. They contrasted encounters where they felt accepted and supported by their practitioners with others where they were met with hostility.

Discharged for Homosexuality from the Canadian Military: Health Implications for Lesbians

Poulin, C., Gouliquer, L., Moore, J. — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 07:24:16 PST

This study examines the short- and long-term psychological, physical and social health implications associated with pre-1992 investigations and eventual discharge of Canadian military servicewomen for reasons of homosexuality. Theoretically, it sheds light on the impact of the intersection between sexism and heterosexism. The feminist psycho-social ethnography of the commonplace methodology was utilized. The study draws on in-depth semi-structured interviews with 13 former military personnel who self-identified as lesbian. While in the military, study participants were persecuted and forced to adopt various cognitive and behavioural coping strategies to avoid being found out and discharged by the military’s Special Investigative Unit. Women reported that the relentless military surveillance, ongoing risk evaluation, and identity hiding contributed to psychological, physical and social health effects, including high stress, physical exhaustion, depression, substance abuse and social isolation. The criminal code’s definition of torture and the literature regarding the effects of stalking on victims provide context for the results. The discussion presents policy recommendations aimed at repairing the psychological damage that discharged lesbian service members suffered.

The Health and Well-being Implications of Emotion Work Undertaken by Gay Sperm Donors

Riggs, D. W. — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 07:24:16 PST

As reproductive health clinics both within Australia and internationally continue to face a shortfall in the number of available sperm donors, so there exists a growing demand for men willing to donate to clinics. At the same time, and where an increasing number of countries move toward legislating for the release of identifying information about donors to children conceived of their sperm, fewer men report a willingness to act as donors. This article suggests that this is at least in part caused by the considerable ‘emotion work’ involved in sperm donation. Drawing on 21 interviews conducted with gay Australian sperm donors, the article provides a thematic analysis of instances of such emotion work and explores the implications of this for the health and well-being of gay men who donate sperm both to clinics and in private arrangements.

Understandings of Cervical Screening in Sexual Minority Women: A Q-Methodological Study

Darwin, Z., Campbell, C. — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 07:24:16 PST

Discursive perspectives argue that cervical screening carries social and moral meaning. Overlooked by research into the health needs of sexual minority women, previous literature that has examined uptake of cervical screening has instead targeted increasing attendance via information and service provision. In order to explore the diversity of meanings that British sexual minority women have about cervical screening, the Q-sorts of 34 sexual minority women were factor analysed by-person and rotated to simple structure using Varimax. The five factors are interpreted and discussed relative to competing discourses on information provision within cervical screening. The five accounts are labelled ‘cervical screening is’: an essential health check that women have the right to refuse; a woman’s health entitlement; a vital test but degrading experience; a sensible thing to do; and an unnecessary imposition for some women. Critical approaches to informed choice are explored with attention to recent developments in cervical cancer prevention. Findings highlighting the need for affirmation of diversity within healthcare are considered in relation to existing criteria for UK national screening programmes.

How Does an Emergent LGBTQ Health Psychology Reconstruct its Subject?

Flowers, P. — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 07:24:16 PST

Heterocentric Practices in Health Research and Health Care: Implications for Mental Health and Subjectivity of LGBTQ Individuals

Ussher, J. M. — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 07:24:16 PST

Thank You to our Volume 19 Reviewers

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 07:24:16 PST

Editors' Introduction: Whither Feminist Liberation Psychology? Critical Explorations of Feminist and Liberation Psychologies for a Globalizing World

Lykes, M. B., Moane, G. — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 03:17:15 PDT

This article explores the roots of feminist and liberation psychologies, positioning examples of contemporary praxis that are deeply informed by today's complex global realities. Examining the consequences of academic and professional women's accompaniment of women `on the margins', that is, those living in `limit situations' deeply affected by global realities of poverty, gender-based violence and structural inequalities, we argue that activist scholars are developing feminist liberationist psycholog(ies) within and beyond the borders of psychology that respond to and incorporate these lived experiences. Through participatory research, pedagogy and community-based workshops, this special issue demonstrates this new praxis. Thus, critical reflexivity and `just enough trust' enable engagement across differences, creating in-between spaces for dialogue, appreciation, and contestation as well as alliances and solidarity — values for a renewed and transformed praxis of psychology with and for those historically marginalized and excluded from our theory and practice.

Narrating Trauma and Reconstruction in Post-conflict Karachi: Feminist Liberation Psychology and the Contours of Agency in the Margins

Chaudhry, L. N., Bertram, C. — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 03:17:15 PDT

The article examines poor women's responses to direct and structural violence in Karachi, Pakistan, by combining goals and themes from liberation psychology with transnational feminism. We draw on interviews with Mohajir women survivors to analyse constructions of psychosocial trauma and attempts to rebuild post-conflict life-worlds, in a bid to understand the scope and contours of their agency within their `limit situations'. Although agency, resistance, and critical consciousness remain constrained by multi-layered power relations, women's narratives reflect crucial insights about social structures impacting their lives, and point to the need for interventions that integrate trauma alleviation and opportunities for local, national, and transnational grassroots activism, advocacy and policy initiatives.

Justice by Any Means Necessary: Vigilantism among Indian Women

White, A., Rastogi, S. — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 03:17:15 PDT

Through an analysis of news reports and documentary footage on the Gulabi Gang and ethnographic reports on the Mahila Aghadi, both of India, we illustrate how women who engage in violent forms of justice-seeking require us to expand social psychological concepts of retributive and restorative models of justice, women's agency, and community organizing. Our grassroots feminist analysis in an Indian context integrates: (1) feminist definitions of punishment and ethical violence; (2) research on perceptions of justice and moral convictions; and, (3) the feminist and liberatory roles that women's and poor people's movements play in the reorganization and recovery of individual and community values.

The Headscarf and Emancipation in the Netherlands

Koyuncu Lorasdagi, B. — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 03:17:15 PDT

The Political Economy of Children's Trauma: A Case Study of House Demolition in Palestine

Shalhoub-Kevorkian, N. — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 03:17:15 PDT

Anatomy of a Workshop: Women's Struggles for Transformative Participation in Latin America

Crosby, A. — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 03:17:15 PDT

The systemic use of sexual violence as a weapon of war was a profound social silence during the armed conflicts in Guatemala and Perú, and in Colombia, where war rages on, women's bodies continue to be the invisibilized site of territorial struggle and violence. However, in each of these contexts, women survivors are breaking this silence, speaking their truths, seeking healing, and demanding justice. These struggles for personal and collective liberation are inherently dialogical and relational processes, requiring the building of connections — with other survivors, and with those who can provide accompaniment. This article focuses on this latter group of `accompaniers', on their understandings and experiences of engagement in work on the issue of sexual violence, and their relationship to survivors, using as primary data an international workshop held in Guatemala in May 2007 that brought together psychologists, lawyers, researchers and activists who accompany women survivors in Perú, Guatemala, and Colombia.

In Whose Interest Do We Work? Critical Comments of a Practitioner at the Fringes of the Liberation Paradigm

Lindorfer, S. — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 03:17:15 PDT

`De-ideologizing reality' is an urgent task within the psychology of liberation. Ignacio Martín-Baró characterized it as a process of conscientization that unmasks power interests underlying knowledge production, retrieves the `original experience of the people', and returns that experience in the form of `objective data'. In contemporary humanitarian trauma work in crisis areas, however, psychology often masks global power structures and further stigmatizes and alienates `victims' from their communities and their original experience. I draw upon my work as a psychologist, theologian and freelance consultant in the Great Lakes Region of Central Africa to analyse two case studies. I use these examples to analyse and critique the underlying power discourses implied in definitions of `victimhood' in humanitarian interventions and identify contradictions that challenge liberation thinking as well as demystify feminist agendas. I conclude by calling for a change of perspective and of professional attitudes that can be realized through engaging a de-ideologizing approach towards global psychosocial trauma interventions.

Facing Gender-based Violence in El Salvador: Contributions from the Social Psychology of Ignacio Martin-Baro

Madrigal, L. J., Tejeda, W. V. — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 03:17:15 PDT

Naming Our Reality: Low-income LGBT People Documenting Violence, Discrimination and Assertions of Justice

Billies, M., Johnson, J., Murungi, K., Pugh, R. — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 03:17:15 PDT

Toward a Feminist Liberation Psychology of Alliances

Ostrove, J. M., Cole, E. R., Oliva, G. A. — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 03:17:15 PDT

Envisioning Participatory Action Research Entremundos

Torre, M. E., Ayala, J. — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 03:17:15 PDT

Present but Un-named: Feminist Liberation Psychology in Portugal

de Oliveira, J. M., Neves, S., Nogueira, C., De Koning, M. — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 03:17:15 PDT

In this article, we intend to show the paradox of Portuguese feminist liberation psychology, a discipline that is present inside the practical domain of social interventions, but remains unnamed. We aim to reveal examples of the few practices of feminist liberation psychology that exist in Portugal in order to inscribe them into the academic field. This article emphasizes some experiences from one grassroots movement that could be considered feminist psychology and liberation-psychology practices. Using a historical background, we focus on Portuguese social-political aspects including the feminist movement. Then, through a case study, we explore the grassroots movement Graal, whose projects were very influenced by the writings of Paulo Freire, on pedagogy of liberation. The concern with liberating oppressed groups is visible through the work of the Graal and shows the importance of collective action through conscientization.

Removing the Splinters from Our Own Eyes: A Commentary on Identities and Power in South African Community Psychology

Carolissen, R., Swartz, L. — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 03:17:15 PDT

Transdisciplinary Learning: Exploring Pedagogical Links between Feminisms and Community Psychology

Whelan, P., Lawthom, R. — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 03:17:15 PDT

Review: Sandra Jovchelovitch: Knowledge in Context: Representations, Community and Culture. London: Routledge, 2007, 224pp. ISBN 978--0--415--28735--7, {pound}19.95 (pbk); ISBN 978--0--415--28734--0 {pound}39.95 (hbk)

Crafter, S. — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 03:17:15 PDT

Review: Jane M. Ussher: Managing the Monstrous Feminine: Regulating the Reproductive Body, London: Routledge, 2006, 240pp. {pound}15.95 ISBN 978--0-- 415--32811--1 (pbk), {pound}45.00 ISBN 978--0--415--32810--4

Gambaudo, S. — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 03:17:15 PDT

Review: Kay Inckle: Writing on the Body? Thinking Through Gendered Embodiment and Marked Flesh. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2007, 242pp. {pound}34.99, ISBN 1--84718--131--7 (hbk)

Del Busso, L. — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 03:17:15 PDT

Editorial Note

Wed, 15 Apr 2009 07:36:04 PDT

Feminism's Queer Theory

Jagose, A. — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 07:36:04 PDT

This article argues that, in contradistinction to its widely promoted ethical openness to its future, queer theory has been less scrupulous about its messy, flexible and multiple relations to its pasts, the critical and activist traditions from which it emerged and that continue to develop alongside in mutually informing ways. In particular, it assesses queer theory's tangled, productive and ongoing relations with feminist theory. Returning to the controversial analytic separation of gender and sexuality that has been prominently theorized as key to distinguishing between feminist and queer theoretical projects, the article traces the influence of Gayle Rubin's `Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality' through feminist and queer scholarship in order to demonstrate that, however different their projects, feminist theory and queer theory together have a stake in both desiring and articulating the complexities of the traffic between gender and sexuality.

Editors' Introduction: Is the Personal Pedagogical? Sexualities and Genders in the Higher Education Classroom

Clarke, V., Braun, V. — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 07:36:04 PDT

I. Using the L-word: Coming Out in the Classroom

Wolfe, S. J. — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 07:36:04 PDT

II. Between a Rock and a Hard Place

Johnson, S. — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 07:36:04 PDT

III. Despite our Differences: Coming Out in Conservative Classrooms

Liddle, K. — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 07:36:04 PDT

IV. Self-disclosure in Teaching Sexuality Courses

Barker, M., Reavey, P. — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 07:36:04 PDT

V. `Like, get over it!': On `Getting' and `Getting Over' Sexuality in the Classroom

Smith, T. E., Yost, M. R. — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 07:36:04 PDT

VI. Coming Out When You're Not Really In: Coming Out as a Teachable Moment

Willman, R. K. — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 07:36:04 PDT

VII. When Coming Out is Redundant: On the Difficulties of Remaining Queer and a Theorist after Coming Out in the Classroom

Crawley, S. L. — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 07:36:04 PDT

VIII. Acting Out in School

Bacon, J. — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 07:36:04 PDT

Commentary: The More Things Change

Mintz, B., Rothblum, E. — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 07:36:04 PDT

`Empowerment' and the Pole: A Discursive Investigation of the Reinvention of Pole Dancing as a Recreational Activity

Whitehead, K., Kurz, T. — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 07:36:04 PDT

The activity of `pole dancing' has recently been transformed from an act performed exclusively in strip clubs to one currently marketed as a form of aerobic exercise. While much feminist academic work has investigated aspects of the sex industry, such as stripping, very little research has been conducted into this recent social phenomenon of pole dancing as a recreational activity. This study takes a feminist poststructuralist approach to the investigation of this topic through the discursive analysis of talk produced in a range of focus groups and interviews. Participants included instructors at pole dancing studios, pupils regularly attending the studios, one-off pole dancers and general university students (a total of 25 participants; 20 females and five males). Our analysis focuses on the ways in which ideological dilemmas surrounding issues such as empowerment, control and the male gaze are managed within the participants' accounts. Implications of these constructions are discussed in relation to the redefinition/reiteration of hegemonic, patriarchal notions of female sexuality.

Imagining the Other? Ethical Challenges of Researching and Writing Women's Embodied Lives

Rice, C. — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 07:36:04 PDT

Feminists influenced by post-conventional and critical perspectives confront a significant challenge when researching women's embodiments: the dilemma of representation. For researchers from positions of bodily privilege, issues of interpretation intensify when researching and writing across physical differences distorted by colonial and other hegemonic histories and legacies. In this article, I draw from interviews with diversely embodied women to discuss difficulties encountered in interpreting their narratives of embodiment. I reflect on strategies of embodied engagement, including de-centring my bodily self, re-visiting my body story, and imagining the other's embodied experiences in the creation of provisional meanings about participants' bodies and lives. To shed light on risks and rewards of researcher-embodied reflexivity to study sensitive subjects such as appearance and difference, I show how analysing my `body secrets' invites deeper exploration into dynamics of bodily privilege and abjection underpinning women's accounts. I conclude by questioning the ethics of my `imaginative leap' into other/ed women's lives and by considering more broadly the perils and possibilities of traversing the space between self and other, and other in the self, within feminist research.

The Social Construction of a Serial Killer

Bartels, R., Parsons, C. — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 07:36:04 PDT

Much psychological research examining the serial killer has adopted an essentialist theoretical focus concentrating on the `nature' of the individual who commits the murder. This study, in contrast, aims to analyse the talk of a serial killer using principles taken from discursive psychology. A courtroom transcript concerning the confession to 10 murders by the serial killer, Dennis Rader, was analysed. The transcript was read and reread in order to examine how the killer drew upon popular understandings of serial killing, until eventually three main discourses were identified: perpetrator as `sympathetic', `serial killer' and `driven by sexual fantasy'. The analysis demonstrated that these discourses all served to reinforce the widely shared construction of the serial killer, i.e. being sexually motivated. Furthermore, the findings show how this construction served the functions of mitigating responsibility, justifying certain actions and obscuring violence. Possible implications of this construction and its discursive functions are discussed.

Editorial Note

Fri, 23 Jan 2009 07:41:41 PST

Constructions of `Culture' in Accounts of South Asian Women Survivors of Sexual Violence

Ahmed, B., Reavey, P., Majumdar, A. — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 07:41:41 PST

The aim of this article is to explore some of the ways in which British South Asian women survivors of sexual violence (in particular, those who are either British born or have lived in the UK for most of their lives and are fluent English speakers) construct the effects of `culture' within their accounts of sexually violent experiences. We present a discursive analysis based on semi-structured interviews with eight English-speaking women of South Asian origin living in the UK, who had either escaped from or were currently seeking help for sexual violence. Our analysis discusses how a discourse of `culture as problematic and unchangeable' is both accepted and challenged simultaneously. Culture is presented as the reason why family and community members hold problematic views about sexually violent experiences. However, these women simultaneously resist this discourse through demonstrating their disappointment and ambivalence with their family and community-held views. Furthermore, we discuss how such constructions intersect (or not) with service provider constructions as reported in previous research. We also discuss the implications that our analysis may have for service provision and propose a set of theories and models that might inform them. This study forms part of a larger project on South Asian women's experiences of sexual violence.

Sexual Abuse, Counselling and Compensation: Discourses in New Zealand Newspapers

Frewin, K., Pond, R., Tuffin, K. — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 07:41:41 PST

This article offers a critical discursive analysis of contemporary media accounts of controversial New Zealand legislation designed to provide counselling and monetary compensation to sexual abuse victims/survivors. Analysis of newspaper texts from 2002 to 2005 located a heated debate, with opposition to and defense of the legislation. Opposition was articulated through strong emotional talk and perpetuation of a `big scam' discourse that positions sexual abuse survivors as potentially untrustworthy, fraudulent claimants. Counsellors/therapists are positioned as part of a predatory, money-hungry industry, which uses questionable practices to create false memories or reports of sexual abuse. The persuasive function served by this emotionally laden big scam discourse has a higher profile than arguments defending the legislation. The dominance of the big scam discourse arguably contributes to the suffering of sexual abuse survivors, more often women and children, by maintaining attention on authenticity and entitlement. Humanitarian attempts to address the deleterious effects of sexual abuse are undermined.

The Negotiation of Compulsory Romance in Young Women Friends' Stories about Romantic Heterosexual Experiences

Korobov, N., Thorne, A. — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 07:41:41 PST

For young women in western cultures, satisfying the dictates of traditional romantic norms while sustaining intimacy with same-sex friends and a sovereign sense of self can be daunting. The present study explored how 23 pairs of young adult, white female friends (ages 19—25) attending a public university in Northern California positioned themselves vis-à-vis norms of compulsory romance as they told spontaneous stories about their own and others' experiences. While their story discourse generally oscillated between complicity and resistance to the compulsory romantic interpretative repertoires of `sentimentality', `unrequited pursuit' and `emotional caretaking', such complicity and resistance was often mitigated, qualified or displaced. The findings suggest that for these young women, complicit and resistant positions to repertoires of compulsory romance are synergistic. Implications are discussed for a view of identity development as growth in ideological dexterity and rhetorical fluency.

Breastfeeding as a Moral Imperative: An Autoethnographic Study

Crossley, M. L. — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 07:41:41 PST

In recent years, breastfeeding has been heavily promoted in the UK. This has been partly premised on the health benefits for women and infants, but there has also been a strong rhetoric of `the natural' that has surrounded childbirth practices more generally. Some feminist thought has been influential in promoting breastfeeding as a way of `resisting' the medicalization of childbirth and motherhood, associating it with women's personal agency and empowerment. Despite the strong cultural pressure to breastfeed, however, many women `fail' to do so, with only 25 percent of women in the UK breastfeeding exclusively when the infant is four months old. Recent research has begun to look at the negative psychological and emotional effects experienced by women in the light of this `failure'. Exploring these issues further, this article uses an autoethnographic approach and utilizes sociological concepts such as the `body-project' to illustrate how the act of breastfeeding can be fraught with tension as contradictory pressures in contemporary society pull women in various ways. The article concludes that, far from being an `empowering' act, breastfeeding may have become more of a `normalized' moral imperative that many women experience as anything but liberational. Accordingly, an uncritical appropriation of the idea that `breast is best' may not only be disempowering for women, but also problematic for babies.

A Feminist Discourse Analysis of Popular-Press Accounts of Postmaternity

Sheriff, M., Weatherall, A. — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 07:41:41 PST

Feminist research has examined a broad range of women's experiences as mothers. However, relatively few studies exist on postmaternity, colloquially the `empty nest'. The present study is a feminist discourse analysis of the variable ways postmaternal experiences were described in popular-press accounts. The analysis identified individual differences as an ideological albeit commonsense notion for interpreting different responses to the departure of adult offspring. Two discourses of womanhood, `modern' and `traditional', produced an ideological dilemma where the subject position `fit adult' conflicted with that of `good mother'. `Adjustment' was used rhetorically to manage that dilemma. The analysis also considered the ways gender differences were managed and the significance of `empty nest' as a pervasive metaphorical colloquialism for postmaternity. The results show that longstanding cultural beliefs about women as mothers still exert a powerful discursive force. However, women can now be represented as having lives beyond the domestic sphere. A dilemma arising in accounts of contemporary women at postmaternity is the conflicting identities of socially fit, well-adjusted adults and good mothers who mourn the loss of their children.

Editor's Introduction: Telling Stories of Gendered Experience

Burns, A. — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 07:41:41 PST

I. Science Fictive Visions: A Feminist Psychologist's View

Unger, R. K. — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 07:41:41 PST

II. Fallacies of Fact and Fiction

Oakley, A. — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 07:41:41 PST

III. Sex and Censorship: The Case of Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Burr, V. — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 07:41:41 PST

IV. `Why I Love Carmela Soprano': Ambivalence, the Domestic and Televisual Therapy

Gorton, K. — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 07:41:41 PST

V. `You'll Like This -- It's Feminist!' Representations of Strong Women in Horror Fiction

Lazard, L. — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 07:41:41 PST

Reviews: Sara Ahmed: Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, Objects, Others. Durham, NC, London: Duke University Press, 2006, 223pp. $21.95, ISBN 0822339145 (pbk)

Eckert, L. — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 07:41:41 PST

Reviews: Irina Anderson and Kathy Doherty: Accounting for Rape: Psychology, Feminism and Discourse Analysis in the Study of Sexual Violence. London: Routledge, 2008, 161pp. $26.95, ISBN 9780415211741 (pbk)

Lazard, L. — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 07:41:41 PST

Reviews: Elisabeth Badinter (2006) Dead End Feminism, Cambridge, UK and Malden, MA: Polity Press, 136pp. (First published 2003 as Fausse route, Editions Odile Jacob.) {pound}45.00 ISBN 9780745633800 (hbk), {pound}13.99 ISBN 9780745633817 (pbk)

Gambaudo, S. — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 07:41:41 PST

Reviews: Deborah Cameron: The Myth of Mars and Venus: Do Men and Women Really Speak Different Languages? Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007, 196pp. $19.95, ISBN: 9780199214471 (hbk)

Sheese, K., Beaulieu, T. — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 07:41:41 PST

Reviews: Niamh Stephenson and Dimitris Papadopoulos: Analysing Everyday Experience: Social Research and Political Change. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006, 218pp. $52.29, {pound}44.65, ISBN 1403935580 (hbk)

Held, L. — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 07:41:41 PST