The Problematization of Sexuality among Women Living with HIV and a New Feminist Approach for Understanding and Enhancing Women’s Sexual Lives

In the context of HIV, women’s sexual rights and sexual autonomy are important but frequently overlooked and violated. Guided by community voices, feminist theories, and qualitative empirical research, we reviewed two decades of global quantitative research on sexuality among women living with HIV. In the 32 studies we found, conducted in 25 countries and composed mostly of cis-gender heterosexual women, sexuality was narrowly constructed as sexual behaviours involving risk (namely, penetration) and physiological dysfunctions relating to HIV illness, with far less attention given to the fullness of sexual lives in context, including more positive and rewarding experiences such as satisfaction and pleasure. Findings suggest that women experience declines in sexual activity, function, satisfaction, and pleasure following HIV diagnosis, at least for some period. The extent of such declines, however, is varied, with numerous contextual forces shaping women’s sexual well-being. Clinical markers of HIV (e.g., viral load, CD4 cell count) poorly predicted sexual outcomes, interrupting widely held assumptions about sexuality for women with HIV. Instead, the effects of HIV-related stigma intersecting with inequities related to trauma, violence, intimate relations, substance use, poverty, aging, and other social and cultural conditions primarily influenced the ways in which women experienced and enacted their sexuality. However, studies framed through a medical lens tended to pathologize outcomes as individual “problems,” whereas others driven by a public health agenda remained primarily preoccupied with protecting the public from HIV. In light of these findings, we present a new feminist approach for research, policy, and practice toward understanding and enhancing women’s sexual lives—one that affirms sexual diversity; engages deeply with society, politics, and history; and is grounded in women’s sexual rights

Sediment source fingerprinting: benchmarking recent outputs, remaining challenges and emerging themes

Abstract: Purpose: This review of sediment source fingerprinting assesses the current state-of-the-art, remaining challenges and emerging themes. It combines inputs from international scientists either with track records in the approach or with expertise relevant to progressing the science. Methods: Web of Science and Google Scholar were used to review published papers spanning the period 2013–2019, inclusive, to confirm publication trends in quantities of papers by study area country and the types of tracers used. The most recent (2018–2019, inclusive) papers were also benchmarked using a methodological decision-tree published in 2017. Scope: Areas requiring further research and international consensus on methodological detail are reviewed, and these comprise spatial variability in tracers and corresponding sampling implications for end-members, temporal variability in tracers and sampling implications for end-members and target sediment, tracer conservation and knowledge-based pre-selection, the physico-chemical basis for source discrimination and dissemination of fingerprinting results to stakeholders. Emerging themes are also discussed: novel tracers, concentration-dependence for biomarkers, combining sediment fingerprinting and age-dating, applications to sediment-bound pollutants, incorporation of supportive spatial information to augment discrimination and modelling, aeolian sediment source fingerprinting, integration with process-based models and development of open-access software tools for data processing. Conclusions: The popularity of sediment source fingerprinting continues on an upward trend globally, but with this growth comes issues surrounding lack of standardisation and procedural diversity. Nonetheless, the last 2 years have also evidenced growing uptake of critical requirements for robust applications and this review is intended to signpost investigators, both old and new, towards these benchmarks and remaining research challenges for, and emerging options for different applications of, the fingerprinting approach

When Does Differential Treatment Become Perceived Discrimination? An Intersectional Analysis in a Southern Brazilian Population

Despite ideals of equality and “racial democracy,” high levels of social inequality persist in contemporary Brazil. In addition, while the majority of the Brazilian population acknowledges the persistence of racism, high proportions of socially disadvantaged groups do not regard themselves as victims of discrimination. This study seeks to shed light on this issue by investigating the processes through which individuals come to interpret their experiences of mistreatment as discrimination. We ask: (1) How frequently do respondents perceive being treated differently due to a variety of social statuses alone and in combination? and (2) What factors are associated with respondents interpreting this differential treatment as “discrimination”? Data come from an ongoing cohort investigation, which included a representative sample of adults living in the urban area of Florianópolis. Results show that 45 percent of respondents experienced mistreatment and attributed it to two or more factors, such as social class, age, gender, and race. Perceptions of mistreatment based on social class were positively correlated with perceived mistreatment due to gender, place of residence, weight, race, and the way one dresses. Regression analyses revealed that interpreting differential treatment as stemming from multiple social statuses was the strongest predictor of respondents classifying their mistreatment as discrimination. Our findings highlight the importance of disentangling perceptions of mistreatment from perceptions of discrimination and show that the relationship between the two is structured in large part by the ways in which individuals interpret their experiences at the intersection of multiple inequalities. </jats:p

Fat is a Feminist Issue, but it is Complicated: Commentary on Fikkan and Rothblum

Fikkan and Rothblum (2011) review the literature on discrimination and bias against overweight and obese (fat) women. They provide convincing evidence that fat women face discrimination in the workplace, are treated disparately in medical, mental health, andEducational settings, are at a disadvantage in social and romantic situations, and are either absent or portrayed negatively in the media. They conclude with the observation that feminists have largely ignored this issue that disproportionately affects women. While I agree that fat is a feminist issue, I also argue that the issue of gender differences in the experience of weight discrimination is more complicated than suggested in the Fikkan and Rothblum review. The commentary concludes with some possible explanations for why feminists have neglected this issue, emphasizing the historical changes in the feminist movement which have taken the focus off of issues primarily related to White middle-class women