“She has mellowed me into the idea of SPL”: Unpacking relational resources in UK couples’ discussions of Shared Parental Leave take-up

This article undertakes an in-depth examination into how two couples negotiate the sharing of parental leave, to understand how ‘relational resources’ may be drawn on in transforming gendered practices. The couples are selected from a longitudinal study of 42 first-time parents taking various combinations of leave. Drawing on a ‘listening guide’ approach, I analyse the interactions observed in couple interviews with a couple that shares, and another couple that does not share leave. I show that in trying to convince their partners to take leave, both women draw on gendered scripts, either in how the interaction is managed, or by the discourses that are drawn on. Moreover, fathers’ work context strongly mediates negotiations, as all participants judge this to trump other considerations regarding leave, reinforcing men’s attachment to the workplace. More research is needed to understand how these process shape divisions of paid and unpaid work in the long term

Negotiating respectability: comparing the experiences of poor and middle class young urban women in India

This paper draws together two studies, one which explores the intimate relationships of young slum-dwelling Dalit women in Mumbai and the other of young middle class women in Baroda, Gujarat. Using an intersectional lens, we trace the ways that gendered ideals of respectability shape women’s freedom of movement and relationships. The comparison produces new insights into the ways that class, caste and location cut across gender to shape young women’s lives in India. We argue that the distinctive positionings of the women structure the ways in which they react to gender norms and the means with which they strategise around them. Middle –class young women strike a ‘passive bargain’, upholding ideals of respectability by shoring up symbolic capital for a ‘good’ marriage and class privilege. The Dalit women show more active resistance to an ideal which they struggle to achieve, despite heavy control and surveillance over their movement and relationships. However, contrary to previous research, we show that both groups are beholden and lay claim to similar gendered and intimate ideals

Pushing at the boundaries of the discipline: politics, personal life and the psychosocial

Book synopsis: Navigating a career in the discipline of sociology can be very challenging, yet it is intensely rewarding. Sociologists’ Tales is the first book to bring together the thoughts and experiences of key UK sociologists from different generations of British sociology, many internationally recognised, reflecting on why they have chosen a career in sociology, how they have managed to do it and what advice they would offer the next generation. This unique volume provides an understanding of sociology and its importance, and will have wide appeal among students and young sociologists thinking about their future

The (im)possibilities of dialogue across feminism and childhood scholarship and activism

The relations between those positioned as women and as children, and the political and intellectual consequences of how we conceptualise these connections, has received only scant attention. In this article we describe a symposium and on-going project which aim to bring together community-based and academic scholars to debate the intersections and perceived antagonisms between various forms of feminism and the politics of childhood. We trace how these intersections have been debated in the literature and outline the potential benefits and pitfalls of encouraging further connections between these fields. Drawing on our symposium experience, we also outline the challenges involved in bringing together academic and community-based scholars and activists, and consider the implications for similar future endeavours

'Cold intimacies' in parents’ negotiations of work-family practices and parental leave?

This article aims to assess the contention that a ‘feminist’ ideology is associated with a ‘cooling’ of intimacy in heterosexual relationships, as argued by scholars such as Arlie Hochschild and Eva Illouz. According to this thesis, such an ideology, ‘abducted’ by a commercial spirit, encourages women to disengage from warm intimate bonds with others and to prioritize their own personal fulfillment and parity in care and housework. Drawing on two qualitative empirical studies exploring couple’s intimate lives and their feminist and egalitarian preferences and practices in leave, care and housework, this article examines in detail the basis of this thesis, and its effectiveness in explaining the lived experiences of parent couples’ negotiations of this terrain. The data were collected through focus group discussions with parents not sharing leave and a detailed ethnography with couples sharing leave. The comparison shows that, far from observing a clear dichotomy between ‘cold’ feminists and ‘warm’ traditional couples, both sets of parents present a more complex picture of ‘warm’ and ‘cold’ relations. The analysis enables a critical appreciation of sociological theorising about gender equality and intimacy, contributing to sociological debates around individualism, feminism and family life

Globally controlled universal quantum computation with arbitrary subsystem dimension

We introduce a scheme to perform universal quantum computation in quantum cellular automata (QCA) fashion in arbitrary subsystem dimension (not necessarily finite). The scheme is developed over a one spatial dimension $N$-element array, requiring only mirror symmetric logical encoding and global pulses. A mechanism using ancillary degrees of freedom for subsystem specific measurement is also presented.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figur

On fault-tolerance with noisy and slow measurements

It is not so well-known that measurement-free quantum error correction protocols can be designed to achieve fault-tolerant quantum computing. Despite the potential advantages of using such protocols in terms of the relaxation of accuracy, speed and addressing requirements on the measurement process, they have usually been overlooked because they are expected to yield a very bad threshold as compared to error correction protocols which use measurements. Here we show that this is not the case. We design fault-tolerant circuits for the 9 qubit Bacon-Shor code and find a threshold for gates and preparation of $p_{(p,g) thresh}=3.76 \times 10^{-5}$ (30% of the best known result for the same code using measurement based error correction) while admitting up to 1/3 error rates for measurements and allocating no constraints on measurement speed. We further show that demanding gate error rates sufficiently below the threshold one can improve the preparation threshold to $p_{(p)thresh} = 1/3$. We also show how these techniques can be adapted to other Calderbank-Shor-Steane codes.Comment: 11 pages, 7 figures. v3 has an extended exposition and several simplifications that provide for an improved threshold value and resource overhea