Liquid racism and the Danish Prophet Muhammad cartoons

This is the author's accepted manuscript. The final published article is available from the link below. Copyright @ 2010 The Author.This article examines reactions to the October 2005 publication of the Prophet Muhammad cartoons in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. It does so by using the concept of ‘liquid racism’. While the controversy arose because it is considered blasphemous by many Muslims to create images of the Prophet Muhammad, the article argues that the meaning of the cartoons is multidimensional, that their analysis is significantly more complex than most commentators acknowledge, and that this complexity can best be addressed via the concept of liquid racism. The article examines the liquidity of the cartoons in relation to four readings. These see the cartoons as: (1) a criticism of Islamic fundamentalism; (2) blasphemous images; (3) Islamophobic and racist; and (4) satire and a defence of freedom of speech. Finally, the relationship between postmodernity and the rise of fundamentalism is discussed because the cartoons, reactions to them, and Islamic fundamentalism, all contain an important postmodern dimension.ESR

Gender and release from imprisonment: Convict licensing systems in mid to late 19th century England

This paper draws on the research undertaken into the lives and prison experiences of around 650 male and female convicts who were released on licence (an early form of parole) from sentences of long term imprisonment (three years to life) in England in the mid- to late-nineteenth century. Our project confirmed the patterns of offending seen in other studies of female and male offending, namely, that women were committed to periods of long-term imprisonment overwhelmingly for crimes of larceny and sometimes low-level violence (or their criminal backgrounds indicated this type of low-level disorderly behaviour) and only in the minority for crimes of serious interpersonal violence. Similarly, the majority of men were also committed to the convict system for larceny. Yet how male and female offenders were treated by the prison licensing system did differ significantly. The vast majority of all prisoners, male and female, were released early on licence from their prison terms, even those who had committed very serious offences. All licences had several conditions in them and licence-holders were free so long as they met these conditions. Any breach of the above conditions meant that the individual would be returned to prison to serve out the remainder of their sentence.However, a proportion of female offenders were released slightly earlier than their male counterparts, though not directly into the community but on a conditional licence to Female Refuges. Out of the 288 women researched in our project, 200 of them were released in this manner; under further confinement in a refuge. Women stayed in such refuges for on average between six and nine months, before their final release was then approved by the Directors of the Convict Prisons

"Monstrous and indefensible"? Newspaper accounts of sexual assaults on children in nineteenth-century England and Wales

This material has been published in Women's Criminality in Europe, 1600–1914 edited by Edited by Manon van der Heijden, Marion Pluskota, Sanne Muurling, https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108774543. This version is free to view and download for private research and study only. Not for re-distribution or re-use. © 2020 Cambridge University Press.Popular crime reportage of sexual violence has a long history in England. Despite the fact that from the 1830s onwards newspapers and periodicals – and sometimes even law reports – were increasingly liable to skim over the reporting of sexual offences as ‘unfit for publication’, this does not mean that such reportage vanished entirely. Instead, certain linguistic codes and euphemisms were invoked to maintain a respectable discourse. Given the serious problems with gaps in the surviving archival record for modern criminal justice, newspapers remain an essential tool for understanding the history of sexual violence in nineteenth century England and Wales. Using keyword searches in digitized newspaper databases such as the British Newspaper Archive and Welsh Newspapers Database, this chapter examines the continuities and changes in the reporting of sexual violence against children between 1800 and 1900, and explores what these euphemisms and elisions reveal about attitudes to gender and crime in nineteenth-century England and Wales.Peer reviewe

Tess of the d'Urbervilles

xxxix, 410 p. ; 19 cm

Well balanced Families: A gendered analysis of work-life balance policies and work-family practices

Purpose – The paper considers the impact of work-life balance policies on the work and family practices of professional, dual-earner parents with dependent children, by assessing the extent to which “well-balanced families” have been resultantly facilitated. It poses two research questions: the first centres on how far work-life balance policies have better enabled working parents to manage their commitments to employers and children, whilst the second focuses on how far parental and employer responses to work-life balance policies may be gendered. The ultimate aim is to (re)-articulate the importance of gender in the work-life balance agenda. Design/methodology/approach – The paper draws upon historical and conceptual research on work and family practices. It invokes gender as a lens through which notions of the “well-balanced family” are considered. Findings – It is argued that work-life balance policies have not led to well-balanced, or “gender-neutral”, work and family practices. This is for two reasons, both relating to gender. First, the take up of work-life balance policies is gendered, with more mothers than fathers working flexibly. This is partly because organizational expectations fail to acknowledge social change around the paternal parenting role. Second, work-life balance policies focus mainly on the issues of paid work and childcare, failing to take account of domestic labour, the main burden of which continues to be carried by mothers. Practical implications – Deeply ingrained social assumptions about the gendered division of labour within heterosexual couples limit the impact of work-life balance policies on work family practices. Originality/value – The paper moves forward the debate on work-life balance through taking an interdisciplinary approach to an issue which has often been addressed previously from discipline-specific approaches such as health, psychology or policy

Fathers at work:a ghost in the organizational machine

This article first provides a review of fatherhood in the gender and organization literature on work and family, and the body and (in)visibility. It observes how organizational assumptions which frame fathers as breadwinners, ignoring their paternal role, remain extraordinarily persistent because policies (no matter how long established) do not necessarily change social attitudes and behaviours. The article then draws upon original qualitative data to demonstrate how while male workers may feel valued as employees, they often feel invisible at work in their paternal role. Fathers perceive that, while family-friendly policies might in theory be available to ‘parents’ these are in practice targeted at working mothers. The article considers why working men's paternity is so often ignored, as though fathers are a ghost in the organizational machine. A recommendation for the establishment of a fatherhood and motherhood passport is made

The price of love:the prioritisation of child care and income earning among UK fathers

Shifting perspectives on how fathers ‘should’ practice childcare responsibilities, combined with changing household income patterns, indicate that balancing childcare and breadwinning is complicated for contemporary fathers. Drawing on qualitative discussions with 100 employed fathers in the United Kingdom (UK) and using notions of breadwinner (income-earning) and involved (hands-on) fathering as an analytical framework, this study examines how employed, married/cohabiting and lone UK fathers interpret paternity. It finds that breadwinning remains important for many fathers. However, there is a tendency among some men to prioritise childcare over paid work. The study therefore discerns patterns of continuity and change among contemporary fathers in their practices of childcaring and income earning. The study concludes that further research is needed, especially concerning lone fathers with resident children, who may be more involved with childcaring than is presently acknowledged