Search Results (35)

This essay examines two hybrid poetic texts that emerged from a period of feminist activism in U.S. and global poetry communities from 2014 to 2017: the collaboratively, anonymously authored “No Manifesto” (2015) and the radically revised second edition of the book of poetry and visual art YOU DA ONE by Jennif(f)er Tamayo. “No Manifesto” and YOU DA ONE embrace the hybrid tactics of collectivity, incongruity, and nonresolution as ways of protesting sexism and sexual violence in poetry communities. Synthesizing theories of hybridity from poetry criticism as well as immigrant and borderlands studies, the essay defines hybridity as a literary representation of cultural positions forcefully imposed upon subjects. Born out of the domination of sexual and state violence, hybridity marks the wound that remakes the subject, who develops strategies for resistance. By refusing to play by the rules of poetic or social discourse—the logics of domination that would have them be singular, cohesive, and compliant—Tamayo and the authors of “No Manifesto” insist on alternative ways of performing activism, composing literature, and entering the public sphere. These socially engaged, hybrid poetic texts demonstrate the power of the collective to disrupt the social and literary status quo. Full article

This study examines perceptions of sexual harassment in sports 25 years after the enactment of Israel’s prevention of sexual harassment law, building upon a 1999 study by Feigin and Negbi. Utilizing feminist and power relations theories, this research investigates how perceptions have evolved across genders, competitive levels, and coaching statuses. A total of 361 participants, including non-competitive, competitive, and Olympic athletes, completed a questionnaire assessing perceptions of potentially harassing behaviors. The results reveal significant shifts in awareness, particularly among female athletes, across all four factors of sexual harassment examined. The most substantial change was observed in the “Between concern and interest” factor, indicating increased sensitivity to ambiguous behaviors. Olympic athletes and coaches demonstrated heightened awareness compared to non-competitive athletes. Gender disparities persisted, with female participants consistently showing higher sensitivity to potentially harassing behaviors. These findings underscore the need for tailored educational programs, policy revisions, and increased representation of diverse perspectives in sports leadership. Full article

The social and behavioral sciences have contributed enormously to our understanding of societies and the relationships between individuals within them. Sexual harassment is a universal social problem that is reproduced in different contexts and societies. However, institutions such as universities have made it invisible, contributing to the impunity of harassers and the vulnerability of victims. This has been the case for decades in countries such as Spain. Today, universities are implementing training measures to prevent such behavior. This article analyzes, from a dialogic sociological perspective, one of these interventions in terms of its success and impact on the academic community: the “Training for the Prevention of Gender-Based Violence at the University”, implemented by the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (Spain) between 2021 and 2024. The article defines and analyzes its main characteristics: (1) the contents based on scientific evidence; (2) the human commitment of the trainers; and (3) the dialogue with the solidarity network World MeToo Universities. The article concludes that the positive impact of this pioneering intervention in the academic community constitutes a universal and transferable successful action to overcome gender-based violence in universities. Full article

This study takes the perspective of the theory of ethical witnessing. We analyse whether there is a difference in a discourse transmitted in a frame of reference based on ethical witnessing versus a discourse transmitted in the frame of hegemonic discourse based on the hierarchical testimony. This study tests the hypothesis that discourses diverging from the communication hierarchy and, consequently, from the interpretation frame established about gender-based violence, transform the elaboration, comprehension, and structure of questioning the victim’s suffering. The sample comprised 300 individuals, 85 identifying as male and 215 identifying as female. This study adopted a two-factorial (2 × 2) design comparing the testimony of gender-based violence (ethical witnessing vs. hierarchical testimony) and familiarity with the victim’s testimony (Yes vs. No). The results show that communications based on the ethical witnessing format are more effective in transforming the perception of gender-based violence than those using a hierarchical format. This study adopts the framework of ethical witnessing to examine whether discourse differs when conveyed through this lens, compared to discourse shaped by a hegemonic, hierarchical testimony. We test the hypothesis that narratives which deviate from traditional communication hierarchies—and thus from dominant interpretative frameworks surrounding gender-based violence—significantly influence how the victim’s suffering is processed, understood, and questioned. The global resonance of the #MeToo movement exemplifies the transformative potential of ethical testimony, as it amplified the voices of survivors while challenging traditional hierarchies of credibility and authority in public discourse. Full article

#MeToo furthered the debates about sexual harassment in academia in different contexts and locations. In Portugal, two moments drove the media debates around sexual harassment in higher education. Specifically, the allegations that emerged at the Faculty of Law of the University of Lisbon (FDUL) in 2022, and the case related to the Centre for Social Studies (CES) of the University of Coimbra in 2023. This study aimed to investigate the media coverage of these cases and their respective contributions to the national debate on sexual harassment in academia. We analysed the opinion articles published online between April 2022 and June 2023 in five Portuguese newspapers, Diário de Notícias, Jornal de Notícias, Público, Expresso, Observador, and Correio da Manhã, conducting a comparative analysis of the two cases. Sexual harassment was broadly discussed as an endemic reality, exacerbated by the precariousness and gendered hierarchical structures of academia. At the same time, there was a tendency to personalize the debate, by focusing on Boaventura Sousa Santos, CES’s emeritus director. This served as a basis for the instrumentalization of sexual violence as a form of political attack against the left, thus weakening the potential of the debates about sexual and moral harassment in academia. Full article

Background/Objectives: Child protection from any form of physical or mental abuse or mistreatment is a fundamental right. The scientific literature supports that evidence-based interventions, such as the “Zero Violence Brave Club”, contribute to reducing school bullying by promoting a culture of zero tolerance for violence in diverse educational contexts, regardless of socioeconomic or cultural characteristics. This research aims to analyze how the prevention model, supported by evidence-based interventions with social impacts, is implemented in six schools and to evaluate its impact on child protection and its positive effects on children’s health. This study focuses on schools that adopt a clear stance against violence and implement prevention measures aligned with evidence-based guidelines, such as those established by the recent MeToo Schools movement. Methods: To achieve this, fieldwork was conducted, including in-depth interviews with 13 educational community members. Results: The findings show that the studied schools applying SESI-based interventions prevent violence, strengthen child protection, and enhance the health and well-being of children. Conclusions: This research highlights the importance of implementing evidence-based programs such as the Zero Violence Brave Club (ZVBC), contributing not only to the prevention of violence but also to the improvement of students’ health and well-being, offering schools a tool to position themselves as a safe space for children. Full article

Gender-based violence and sexual harassment in the Nordic labor market prevails, despite decades of preventive work. The #Metoo movement has clearly challenged past and current notions of the Nordic countries as gender equal welfare states, but it also pointed at the inability of policy to overcome its own prerequisites. In this study, we analyze past research on sexual harassment in Nordic working life, especially targeting theoretical, methodological, and practical results and challenges. By taking this systematic Nordic research review as a point of departure, we also develop a framework to analyze and transgress existing boundaries of policy and research in several ways. By reimagining research practices, as well as neoliberal management protocols for prevention, we elaborate on ways forward through several analytical steps. Finally, we envisage a need to overcome an immanent paradox when performing social research, pointing towards a vision of critical research moving beyond contemporary research politics and policy. Full article

Background/Objectives: The scientific literature has provided evidence on the negative health effects experienced by those who suffer gender-based violence (GBV) and isolating gender violence (IGV), the latter being a form of retaliation against those who support GBV victims. However, less attention has been paid to the potential health improvements following the initial support received by victims. Methods: This study examines the positive health outcomes among survivors of GBV and IGV after they engaged with the “MeToo route,” an initiative of the MeToo movement aimed at raising awareness about gender violence and fostering solidarity through support networks that traveled through 13 Spanish universities through more than 20 events in September 2022. Results: Using communicative methodology, survivors shared how their health, previously harmed by their experiences of violence, improved as a result of the support provided after knowing the MeToo support network. Conclusions: The findings highlight the crucial role of solidarity networks in alleviating the health impacts of GBV and IGV and underscore the importance of effective support systems for recovery. Full article

The broad aim of this introduction to a Special Issue on “Susceptibilities: Toward a Cultural Politics of Consent under Erasure” is to broach key questions and research directions that illuminate contemporary public debates about the conditions and limits of conscious intention (and consent as a byproduct thereof), which is typically treated as a “property” that can be “underdeveloped”, “given”, or “taken away”. In keeping with Jacques Derrida’s repudiation of the metaphysics of presence, the perspective animating this essay is that the psychoanalytic standpoint of the unconscious deconstructs the epistemological privilege of determinacy, consistency, and wholeness in treatments of intentional consciousness. Given Jean Laplanche’s attention to the residues of coherent ego fetishism in Sigmund Freud’s oeuvre, the former’s critique of self-sovereignty as evinced in his theorization of the “enigmatic signifier”, “primal repression”, and “afterwardsness” assumes a pivotal role in the analysis of how writers as represented here by Sarah Polley in Run Towards the Danger narrate the vicissitudes of their traumatic memories of sexual assault. Ultimately, then, the implications of this analysis will carry over to brief discussions of this Special Issue’s seven contributions by Melissa Wright, Karen McFadyen, J. Asher Godley, Madeleine Reddon, Gautam Basu Thakur, Robert Hughes, and Rebecca Saunders. Full article

Media ethics has long been haunted by the question of representing human beings’ vulnerability to violence. While journalism and photojournalism have an obligation to report on the realities of violence and suffering in the world, the “spectacle of suffering” is fraught with ethical dilemmas. In this essay, I seek to theorize the ethics of vulnerability to violence in media representation. As a starting point, I argue for the politics of embodiment as a generative process that constitutes differential vulnerabilities. I move then to consider the way embodied vulnerabilities play out in the media, as exemplified by recent events such as the Black Lives Matter and MeToo movements as well as in times of war, from Vietnam to, more recently, Ukraine and Israel/Palestine. This leads to considerations of spectatorship: who looks and who is looked at? How are these relations of gazing related to the vectors of social and geopolitical power? Are images of embodied vulnerability simply media spectacles that reinforce power hierarchies, or are they powerful prosocial messages that might mobilize humanitarian activism? To address these epistemic questions, I propose that the feminist ethics of care encompasses an invitational rhetoric that can guide media praxis. Care ethics is aligned with various religious epistemologies, and because of that, I argue for it as an umbrella framework that has application in a variety of national and cultural contexts. Full article

Background: The rising costs of drugs are putting health care systems under pressure. We report on the Bavarian Drug Agreement, which employs prescribing targets for preferred and generic drugs in ambulatory care. Under this agreement, providers are regularly profiled with individual feedback but also possible sanctions. We investigated the degree to which targets were being met (or not) and why failure occurred. Methods: We analysed prescribing data aggregated by practice for the quarter 1/2018. We chose eight specialisation groups and analysed their drug targets with a high prescribing volume, widely missed drug targets (<90%), and drugs preventing drug target achievement. Characterisation of drug targets and preventing drugs was undertaken. Results: Drug targets with a high prescribing volume are mostly achieved, while highly missed drug targets mostly do not affect the main indication area of the specialisation groups considered. Generic drug targets seem to be more easily achieved than recommended drug targets. Paediatrics accounts for the largest number of missed drug targets. Conclusions: The Bavarian tool implemented uses the prescribing volume (DDD) and price components to evaluate the prescription behaviour of physicians. Well-established drugs with demonstrated effectiveness, safety, and lower costs are preferred. Nevertheless, me-too drugs, combination drugs, costly innovations with unclear value, and drugs with application methods of variable convenience challenge the drug prescribers and are reasons for missed drug targets. Full article

Due to their ability to prevent or slow the spread of fires, fire-retardant coatings are utilized as the main means of fire protection for steel structures, combining easy application and high economic efficiency. This study investigates the effects of the particle size and dosage of expanded vermiculite (EV) on the fire resistance and application performance of coatings. Ammonium polyphosphate, melamine, and pentaerythritol were used as intumescent fire-retardant systems, along with waterborne hydroxyl-modified acrylic resins as the film-forming substances. The properties of fire resistance coatings were tested via scanning electron microscope (SEM), X-ray diffractometry (XRD), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), limiting oxygen index (LOI), and cone calorimetry. The excellent fire performance of the coatings with 3 wt.% 300-mesh EV was proven, exhibiting a relative expansion of 30.43 times. Moreover, the surface structure of the charcoal layer was dense. The total smoke production (TSP) and smoke concentration (TSR) were only 0.18 m² and 0.25 m²/m². Full article

Human rights violations in sports reveal that athletes are continuously exposed to violence. In Korea, the negative effects of its sports powerhouse paradigm are increasingly apparent. Although discussions on human rights in sports have progressed, academic research on this has not. Sourcing information from Korea’s Press Foundation’s big data news system from 2006 to 2023, this study used term frequency, term frequency-inverse document modeling, topic term matrix extraction through latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA), and LDAvis to analyze sports human rights issues and policies over time. The results revealed topics in three timeframes: in the first policy establishment period (2006–2010), the topics ranged from “Sports Human Rights Education” to “Minimum Education for Student Athletes”. In the policy transition period (2011–2018), the topics included “Strengthening Sports Human Rights Education”, “Women’s Human Rights Issues in Sports”, and “Government-Level Investigation into Sportsdom Controversies”; and in the second policy establishment period (2019–2023), the topics included “Athlete Harassment”, “Sportsdom #MeToo Movement”, “Guarantee of Student Human Rights Convenience Facilities”, and “Guarantee of Sports Human Rights”. Better mid- to long-term plans, national efforts, and education that improve awareness of human rights in sports are needed for sustainability. Full article

Kathlyn Mayorga’s rape allegation against Portuguese football star Cristiano Ronaldo was mostly met in his home country with disbelief, prompting a strong wave of support for the national icon. Mayorga was often perceived as a ‘gold digger’. This article explores how traditional gender norms, sex scripts and rape myths underpinned the resignification of the rape allegation into a case of extortion, naturalizing sexual abuse regarding ‘immoral women’. It examines how the intersection of local patriarchal traditions with the neoliberal order produced a morality which normalized the commodification of women’s and men’s bodies as a path to social mobility. It looks at the commodification of Ronaldo’s body, his key to success as a ‘super-body’ whose exceptional sports performance granted him respectability, an exceptional social status and access to women’s sexualized bodies. Then, it examines the construction of Mayorga’s body as a sexualized body with less moral and/or commercial value, operating in an area perceived as indecent (sex as a ‘gold digger’ or sexual transactions as a prostitute) and whose inflicted harm could be compensated through money. Full article

Recent incidents in Room n, sexual harassment by social leaders, and the #MeToo movement showed Korea’s immature and distorted sexual culture. This cross-sectional descriptive study investigated the factors affecting the sexual behavior of Korean university students. The participants comprised 258 university students from S and C. The data collection period was from 29 November 2021 to 3 December 2021, and an online survey was conducted on sexual behavior, sexual attitudes, and subject characteristics. The collected data were analyzed using PASW Statistics 25.0. The average age of the participants was 21.38 ± 1.62 years old; the average age when they first watched a pornographic video on YouTube was 14.25 ± 2.55 years old. Sexual behavior was statistically significantly higher for men over 21 and under 14 when they first watched a pornographic video. As the age of the subjects increased, the younger the age of viewing pornographic videos and the thumbnail viewing path of the pornographic videos affected sexual behavior, with an explanatory power of 11.0% (F = 6.27, p < 0.001). Higher sexual attitudes in the communion and permissiveness domains showed greater influence on sexual behavior; the explanatory power was 24.0% (F = 10.02, p < 0.001). Korean university students must be educated on sex early to develop correct sexual attitudes and engage in correct and responsible sexual behaviors in their youth. Full article