Multiple targets, mixing strategies: Complicating feminist analysis of contemporary South African women's movements

In this brief commentary, I want to focus on the importance of identifying the key aspects of identity that motivate women to participate in activism for social change. In doing so, I build on the injunction, variously expressed by Basu (1995), Mohanty (1991) and Mouffe (1992), that women's identities are multiply informed by their racial, ethnic, socio-economic and geographic locations. Consequently, the issues that impel them into action for gender justice, as well as the alliances they choose, will necessarily be informed by these different aspects of their identities. However, the issues that they take up are not of their own choosing. These too are informed by the confluence of geopolitical relations in the historical moment. Multiple shifts have occurred in women's struggles in South Africa, and they have had to invent equally multiple and innovative strategies and spaces of engagement, as well as enter into new alliances with other gendered movements to effect gender justice

Digital Media Frames of Stereotypes Pertaining to Women Coaches: A Textual Analysis of Sport Blog Post Comments

University of Minnesota M.S. thesis. May 2019. Major: Kinesiology. Advisor: Nicole LaVoi. 1 computer file (PDF); v, 85 pages.Today, there a record number of girls and women participating in sport (Acosta & Carpenter, 2014). However, the number of women in sport leadership, particularly in coaching, has drastically decreased over the past 45 years (Acosta & Carpenter, 2014; LaVoi, 2016). Women also receive very little sport media coverage (2-4%) and often times are trivialized, if and when, they are in the media (Cooky et al., 2013; Kane et al., 2013). With the growing popularity of digital media, this study used framing theory to examine how women coaches are portrayed in digital sport media comments. It examined the comments made in response to three sport blogs posted on the online swim news medium SwimSwam to better understand how women coaches are framed. The sample included 229 comments with 302 total units of analysis. Comments were aligned with LaVoi’s (2016) Ecological-Intersectional Model of Supports and Barriers for Women Coaches to better understand if comments were reproducing or challenging common gender ideologies pertaining to women coaches. The top five themes were women blame the women (22.5%), “blaming” men (19.5%), the unique nature of swimming (10.6%), women can/want to coach (8.3%), and the “best” bias (7.2%). Most comments reproduced common gender ideologies pertaining to women coaches as most aligned with the individual level of the model (57.6%). Findings indicate that digital media continues to marginalize women, creating an environment that does not value or support women coaches

2010 FIFA World Cup : gender, politics and sport

The euphoria of the 2010 FlFA World Cup in South Africa seems to persist, albeit as faded, scraggy remnants of flags hanging precariously on aerials and the side view mirrors of cars. The cacophony around this event has died. Shakira has left the stage. However the debates about the gendered impact of the FlFA World Cup still remain. This special issue of Agenda, maps out some of the key features of the debate, as we question whether women's participation in sport has been significant and whether international sporting events can make a substantive difference in women's lives.http://www.agenda.org.z

Biology, bodies and human rights

No abstract available.http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ragn20am201

Ambivalent rhetorics: resentment and negotiation in youth sociability contexts in Cape Town (South Africa)

O objetivo deste artigo é refletir sobre um conjunto de questões relativas ao racismo, à sexualidade e ao contato intercultural na África do Sul, mais especificamente em Cape Town. Esta cidade, que já foi reconhecida como democrática, com expressiva população coloured e gay friendly se apresenta atualmente como uma das mais desiguais da África do Sul pós- apartheid. Percorremos trajetórias de homens e mulheres homo e heterossexuais, de diferentes raças e regiões, no sentido de abrir a escuta para suas experiências, dar inteligibilidade a seus campos de negociação e qualificar formas ressemantizadas de exclusão. Objetiva-se analisar uma nova e relativamente recente sensibilidade social advinda com a "rainbow"nation" - a experiência de mistura em sua articulação com marcadores sociais da diferença.The goal of this article is to reflect upon a series of questions concerning racism, sexuality and intercultural contact in South Africa and, specifically, Cape Town. The city, once acclaimed as democratic, with an expressive colored and gay-friendly population, has recently been (re)presented as one of the most unequal cities of post-apartheid South Africa. Here, we follow the life trajectories of some men and women, both homo- and heterosexual, of different races and regions, listening to their experiences in order to reveal their fields of negotiation and to thus qualify some re-signified forms of exclusion. Specifically, our objective is to analyze a new and relatively recent social sensibility arising within the "rainbow nation" (the experience of admixture in intersectionality with distinct social difference markers) that does not necessarily imply sexual-affective inter-racial dating

New genetic loci link adipose and insulin biology to body fat distribution.

Body fat distribution is a heritable trait and a well-established predictor of adverse metabolic outcomes, independent of overall adiposity. To increase our understanding of the genetic basis of body fat distribution and its molecular links to cardiometabolic traits, here we conduct genome-wide association meta-analyses of traits related to waist and hip circumferences in up to 224,459 individuals. We identify 49 loci (33 new) associated with waist-to-hip ratio adjusted for body mass index (BMI), and an additional 19 loci newly associated with related waist and hip circumference measures (P < 5 × 10(-8)). In total, 20 of the 49 waist-to-hip ratio adjusted for BMI loci show significant sexual dimorphism, 19 of which display a stronger effect in women. The identified loci were enriched for genes expressed in adipose tissue and for putative regulatory elements in adipocytes. Pathway analyses implicated adipogenesis, angiogenesis, transcriptional regulation and insulin resistance as processes affecting fat distribution, providing insight into potential pathophysiological mechanisms

Prevalence, associated factors and outcomes of pressure injuries in adult intensive care unit patients: the DecubICUs study

Funder: European Society of Intensive Care Medicine; doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100013347Funder: Flemish Society for Critical Care NursesAbstract: Purpose: Intensive care unit (ICU) patients are particularly susceptible to developing pressure injuries. Epidemiologic data is however unavailable. We aimed to provide an international picture of the extent of pressure injuries and factors associated with ICU-acquired pressure injuries in adult ICU patients. Methods: International 1-day point-prevalence study; follow-up for outcome assessment until hospital discharge (maximum 12 weeks). Factors associated with ICU-acquired pressure injury and hospital mortality were assessed by generalised linear mixed-effects regression analysis. Results: Data from 13,254 patients in 1117 ICUs (90 countries) revealed 6747 pressure injuries; 3997 (59.2%) were ICU-acquired. Overall prevalence was 26.6% (95% confidence interval [CI] 25.9–27.3). ICU-acquired prevalence was 16.2% (95% CI 15.6–16.8). Sacrum (37%) and heels (19.5%) were most affected. Factors independently associated with ICU-acquired pressure injuries were older age, male sex, being underweight, emergency surgery, higher Simplified Acute Physiology Score II, Braden score 3 days, comorbidities (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, immunodeficiency), organ support (renal replacement, mechanical ventilation on ICU admission), and being in a low or lower-middle income-economy. Gradually increasing associations with mortality were identified for increasing severity of pressure injury: stage I (odds ratio [OR] 1.5; 95% CI 1.2–1.8), stage II (OR 1.6; 95% CI 1.4–1.9), and stage III or worse (OR 2.8; 95% CI 2.3–3.3). Conclusion: Pressure injuries are common in adult ICU patients. ICU-acquired pressure injuries are associated with mainly intrinsic factors and mortality. Optimal care standards, increased awareness, appropriate resource allocation, and further research into optimal prevention are pivotal to tackle this important patient safety threat

Correction to: Prevalence, associated factors and outcomes of pressure injuries in adult intensive care unit patients: the DecubICUs study

The original version of this article unfortunately contained a mistake

Prevalence, associated factors and outcomes of pressure injuries in adult intensive care unit patients: the DecubICUs study

Funder: European Society of Intensive Care Medicine; doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100013347Funder: Flemish Society for Critical Care NursesAbstract: Purpose: Intensive care unit (ICU) patients are particularly susceptible to developing pressure injuries. Epidemiologic data is however unavailable. We aimed to provide an international picture of the extent of pressure injuries and factors associated with ICU-acquired pressure injuries in adult ICU patients. Methods: International 1-day point-prevalence study; follow-up for outcome assessment until hospital discharge (maximum 12 weeks). Factors associated with ICU-acquired pressure injury and hospital mortality were assessed by generalised linear mixed-effects regression analysis. Results: Data from 13,254 patients in 1117 ICUs (90 countries) revealed 6747 pressure injuries; 3997 (59.2%) were ICU-acquired. Overall prevalence was 26.6% (95% confidence interval [CI] 25.9–27.3). ICU-acquired prevalence was 16.2% (95% CI 15.6–16.8). Sacrum (37%) and heels (19.5%) were most affected. Factors independently associated with ICU-acquired pressure injuries were older age, male sex, being underweight, emergency surgery, higher Simplified Acute Physiology Score II, Braden score 3 days, comorbidities (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, immunodeficiency), organ support (renal replacement, mechanical ventilation on ICU admission), and being in a low or lower-middle income-economy. Gradually increasing associations with mortality were identified for increasing severity of pressure injury: stage I (odds ratio [OR] 1.5; 95% CI 1.2–1.8), stage II (OR 1.6; 95% CI 1.4–1.9), and stage III or worse (OR 2.8; 95% CI 2.3–3.3). Conclusion: Pressure injuries are common in adult ICU patients. ICU-acquired pressure injuries are associated with mainly intrinsic factors and mortality. Optimal care standards, increased awareness, appropriate resource allocation, and further research into optimal prevention are pivotal to tackle this important patient safety threat

Coconuts do not live in townships : cosmopolitanism and its failures in the urban peripheries of Cape Town

The issue of temporality and gender – time as lived differently by diverse gendered bodies – has for the most part, not been a central concern of mainstream feminist theorists, particularly living and working in African contexts. Feminist geographers such as Gillian Rose (1993) and Doreen Massey (1994) have considered the meanings of time as lived by women through space as a means to interrogate the received notions of place as settled, timeless and occupied by people sharing a homogenous identity. Anthropologists in the South such as Antonadia Borges (2006) and cultural geographers, Oldfield and Boulton (2005) have considered a fine-grained analyses of time progression through the everyday activities in a particular place as a means to understand the complex negotiation of identity in space. Oldfield and Boulton, writing on young people’s negotiations to secure shelter in the context of Old Crossroads, Cape Town, South Africa, consider how these youth’s gendered and embodied experiences of the housing crisis, inform their expectations of partners, relationships and their interpretation of gendered citizenship in post-Apartheid South Africa