Where in the World Are the Lesbians?

In 2001 I became, as far as I can tell, the first person hired at a Catholic university specifically because of my work in LGBTQ studies. I am blessed, as it were, with a departmental colleague who publishes widely in postcolonial queer studies, a colleague in another department who teaches queer U.S. history every two years, and many supportive friends on the faculty. Still, I am the most public face of LGBTQ studies on campus, and if a new queer studies course is added to the curriculum, I am likely to be the one who develops it. Over the years I have come to realize that my role is not unusual, Catholic university or not. I was in a similar position at a large state university for seven years and have several friends and acquaintances across the country at a variety of institutions in similar spots. Most of us are not lucky enough to work among even a small clustering of others teaching in our field, even if we do have colleagues who assign queer theory in their courses or publish on queer topics. Of necessity this makes us chameleons, generalists. As an interdisciplinary scholar with an interdisciplinary doctorate, I feel suited to the role

Women's bodies, demography, and public health: abortion policy and perspectives in the Ottoman Empire of the nineteenth century

This article discusses the anti-abortion policy of the Ottoman state between 1789 and 1908, taking into account legal changes, demographic policies, new sanitary measures and proto-nationalistic agenda of the ruling elite

Practice Makes Practice . . . Visible? Revealing Structures of the Artistic Field by Articulating the Evasive Properties Inherent in its Systems of Production Through Art Practice

This practice-led research project attempts to seek out and reveal the structures that frame the production of art practice, through and with art practice itself. With this premise in mind, the first phase of the study aims to use practice-led research by adopting quasi-ethnographic strategies firstly to explore the field of artistic production, and secondly in an attempt to activate, capture and contain tangible evidence that the artistic field is powered by persuasive informal discourse and practices that contribute to stringent and hierarchical rules of engagement. Entering the second phase of the project the contribution of this study is based on the proposition that as a research project it utilises the performative lecture to position art practice as a formal presentation model demonstrating that art practice in and of itself can act as an appropriate tool to articulate the findings from the practice-led research cited above. The study aims to demonstrate that art practice can be an adept conceptual, contextual mode of communicating its own particular character, to iterate and embody its own hierarchical structures and articulate, critically, by rendering visible its structures and evasive, invisible properties. Through a decisive performative approach adopted in the second phase of the project, the artworks produced seek to tease out and form a type of rebuttal towards the problem of subjectivity inherent in my position as a researcher in relation to my research enquiry, that is, the problem of how an artist can make critical artworks about the system of which he/she is a part. This teasing out process is done by attempting to attain an insightful ‘inter-subjective’ reflexivity around my research enquiry through performative practice and by adopting self-conscious strategies. These self-conscious attributes aim to acknowledge, harness and present nuances of subjectivity, coupled with and couched in a formal academic context where the performative works play out, acting as an objective frame for the work. Through a body of practice contained on the accompanying website (naomi-sex.com) and text including various theoretical references where at conceptually relevant points art practice theory and textual content intersect and interface, this project as a whole aims to present and contextualise the subject of my enquiry, its influencing factors and the outcomes of the research period

Single-sex Schooling and Academic Attainment at School and through the Lifecourse

This paper examines the impact of single-sex schooling on a range of academic outcomes for a sample of British people born in 1958. In terms of the overall level of qualifications achieved, we find that single-sex schooling is positive for girls at age 16, but neutral for boys, while at later ages, single-sex schooling is neutral for both sexes. However, we find that single-sex schooling is linked to the attainment of qualifications in gender-atypical subject areas for both sexes, not just during the school years, but also later in life

Justice Center Research Overview; Vol. 4

Presents a brief history of sex offender registries and notification programs nationally and in Alaska; describes provisions of Alaska's registry/notification laws; and discusses recent research findings about the effectiveness of such laws and their impact on offenders

Objectification theory predicts college women’s attitudes toward cosmetic surgery

This study investigated cosmetic surgery attitudes within the framework of objectification theory. One hundred predominantlyWhite, British undergraduate women completed self-report measures of impression management, global selfesteem, interpersonal sexual objectification, self-surveillance, body shame, and three components of cosmetic surgery attitudes. As expected, each of the objectification theory variables predicted greater consideration of having cosmetic surgery in the future. Also, as expected, sexual objectification and body shame uniquely predicted socialmotives for cosmetic surgery, whereas self-surveillance uniquely predicted intrapersonal motives for cosmetic surgery. These findings suggest that women’s acceptance of cosmetic surgery as a way to manipulate physical appearance can be partially explained by the degree to which they view themselves through the lenses of sexual and self-objectification

Sex Industry and Sex Workers in Nevada

Las Vegas has long been known as the symbolic center of the commercial sex industry. Nevada is host to the only legal system of prostitution in the United States. From the early legalization of quickie divorce and marriage to the marketing of its large resorts, sexuality has been a key component of Nevada’s tourist economy. If trends continue, for good or for ill, the sex industry will be an even larger part of the economy in the future. The sex industry refers to all legal and illegal adult businesses that sell sexual products, sexual services, sexual fantasies, and actual sexual contact for profit in the commercial marketplace. The sex industry encompasses an exceedingly wide range of formal and informal, legal and illegal businesses, as well as a wide range of individuals who work in and around the industry. This report will review the context in which sexually oriented commercial enterprises have flourished, discuss general trends in the Nevada sex industry, and make policy recommendations

Sex assignment in conditions affecting sex development

The newborn infant with atypical genitalia presents a challenging clinical scenario and requires expert input. There have been appreciable advances in our knowledge of the underlying causes that may lead to a mere difference or a more serious disorder of sex development (DSD), the natural history of conditions, as well as the short and long-term complications of these conditions themselves, together with the clinical interventions that are associated with these conditions. With this information, the DSD expert can be more confident when discussing options with the parents of the newborn infant. By working within a multidisciplinary team, the expert should be able to support the family whilst individualising the management plan so that it is also cognizant of the shifts in societal attitudes and expectations around concepts of diversity and openness. It is, therefore, likely that the practice of assigning sex, especially in those cases where sex assignment is unclear on expert assessment, will continue to show temporal, social and geographical variations. It is imperative that clinical data for rare conditions such as these are collected in a standardized format and shared through a common registry so that any evidence that is used for future shifts in practice has a stronger foundation than that which is currently available

From “Black is Beautiful” to “Gay Power”: Cultural Frames in the Gay Liberation Movement

In lieu of an abstract, a short excerpt is provided: The 1960s and 1970s were a decade of turbulence, militancy, and unrest in America. The post-World War II boom in consumerism and consumption made way for a new post-materialist societal ethos, one that looked past the American dream of home ownership and material wealth. Many citizens were now concerned with social and economic equality, justice for all people of the world, and a restructuring of the capitalist system itself. According to Max Elbaum, the traditional narrative of the 1960s begins with an “idealistic, impassioned” youth working on voter registration and civil rights and ends with “days of rage as the sixties movement, frustrated by the Vietnam War, became irrational and self-destructive.”[i] What started out as middle-class students organizing in the South for civil rights slowly transformed into “the emergence of the New Left, the antiwar movement, women’s liberation, and identity based politics.”[ii] The New Left protest groups of this decade are important to gay radicalism because they created the foundational strategies for future gay activism.[iii] Although Homophile organizations existed in the 1940s and 1950s, gay radicalism did not fully blossom until the language, style, and strategies of the New Left emerged during the decade of discontent, chiefly embodied by the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and the Black Panther Party.[iv] In Maurice Issserman and Michael Kazin’s view, “the New Left was a profoundly American movement, inspired by the civil rights movement, and fashioning its early political beliefs from a combination of American radical traditions.”[v] Originally, the New Left focused on social justice issues – poverty, race, equality – through conscience raising events. Eventually, as the Vietnam War escalated, and the stark realities of American imperialism became more apparent, many adopted a militant approach.[vi] [i] Max Elbaum, Revolution in the Air: Sixties Radicals Turn to Lenin, Mao, and Che, New ed (London ; New York: Verso, 2006), 15.. The “Good Sixties, Bad Sixties” narrative, exemplified in Todd Gitlin\u27s The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage, is contested by multiple scholars, including Terence Kissack, “Freaking Fag Revolutionaries: New York’s Gay Liberation Front, 1969–1971,” Radical History Review 1995, no. 62 (March 20, 1995): 105–134. [ii] David A. Reichard, “‘We Can’t Hide and They Are Wrong’: The Society for Homosexual Freedom and the Struggle for Recognition at Sacramento State College, 1969-1971,” Law & History Review 28, no. 3 (August 2010): 636. [iii] Similar to many other authors of gay history, the use of identity labels is often messy. An individual or organization’s use of a specific term is a very personal decision. Consequently, I have adopted the standard practice of referring to a movement or organization as they would have been during the historical period in which they existed. Hence, for much of the 1960s and 1970s, “gay” or “lesbian and gay” would have been used to refer to a community of homosexual individuals. Furthermore, I refer to the Gay Liberation movement and Gay Rights movements with two very distinct definitions. Gay liberation sought the goal of destroying a system in which gays and lesbians were treated as second-class citizens; on the other hand, the Gay Rights Movement was specifically targeting laws and ordinances, within the political system, which discriminated against gays and lesbians. At no point should my misuse of a term be construed as a lack of sensitivity. [iv] Various rights group adopted the term “homophile” because it denotes same-sex love and not just sexual acts. The homophile movement wanted to persuade “hetero and homosexuals alike that gay men and women should be considered full participants in the pageant of American civil rights.” See John Dennett II. Master, “`A Part of Our Liberation’: ‘ONE Magazine’ and the Cultivation of Gay Liberation, 1953-1963” (Ph.D. Dissertation, University of California, Riverside, 2006), 361. For more, see Martin Meeker, “Behind the Mask of Respectability: Reconsidering the Mattachine Society and Male Homophile Practice, 1950s and 1960s,” Journal of the History of Sexuality 10, no. 1 (2001): 78–116, doi:10.1353/sex.2001.0015; James T. Sears, Behind the Mask of the Mattachine: The Hal Call Chronicles and the Early Movement for Homosexual Emancipation, Gay and Lesbian Studies (New York, N.Y.: Harrington Park Press, 2006). [v] Maurice Isserman and Michael Kazin, America Divided: The Civil War of the 1960s, 4th ed. (New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, USA, 2011), 161. [vi] Terrence R. Restivo, “The Building of a New Left Conglomerate in the City of Ann Arbor: VOICE, the Black Action Movement and Human Rights Party (1965-1975)” (M.A., Duquesne University, 2006), 6