Advocating alcohol abstinence to pregnant women: some observations about British policy

In 2007, the English Department of Health (DH) issued advice stating 'pregnant woman' and 'those trying to conceive' should abstain from drinking alcohol. As others have noted, this advice was issued despite their being no new evidence about the deleterious effects of low levels of alcohol consumption. In this paper, we argue this development is significant for the social construction of 'risk', since in advocating abstinence without an evidence base for this advice, policy makers formalise a connection between uncertainty and danger. We suggest this development has important implications, most obviously for pregnant women, certainly impacting on the nature of the advice they will now receive and likely more generally on their experience of the transition to motherhood. We suggest it has wider implications for individuals' experience also, as policy makers appear to be advocating the same approach to risk to non-pregnant people. Further, it suggests a noteworthy formalisation of a new definition of risk, which should be debated far more extensively, as it matters for the future development of health policy.

"Sexism in the Schools" conference at P.S. 41 about the changing roles of women in Africa and America

General note: Title and date provided by Bettye Lane.

Betty Friedan speaks at "Films and Women" meeting about violence against women in motion pictures

General note: Title and date provided by Bettye Lane.

"Sexism in the Schools" conference at P.S. 41 about the changing roles of women in Africa and America

General note: Title and date provided by Bettye Lane.

Florence Rush, author of "The Best Kept Secret" about child molestation, speaks at Crimes Against Women conference

General note: Title and date provided by Bettye Lane.

"Sexism in the Schools" conference at P.S. 41 about the changing roles of women in Africa and America

General note: Title and date provided by Bettye Lane.

Women officer workers meeting about banks that do not raise level of women employees

General note: Title and date provided by Bettye Lane.

Homeless woman about to board a bus to take her to women's shelter for the night

General note: Title and date provided by Bettye Lane.

In two minds about screening: an investigation of cervical cancer prevention among Irish women

Cervical cancer is the second most common female cancer worldwide. Cervical screening programmes can reduce the incidence of cervical cancer by up to 80 percent if the invited women participate. Previous Irish research has associated screening attendance with subjective norms, anticipated regret, higher socio-economic status and education. Greater perceived screening barriers and lacking knowledge were associated with avoidance. These findings support a variety of expectancy-value theories of behaviour. They also suggest that expectancy-value theories could benefit from the inclusion of affective predictors of behaviour, like anticipated regret. In 2008 the Republic of Ireland introduced the National Cervical Screening Programme (NCSP). This research seeks to identify the predictors of participation in the NCSP. A systematic review of reviews showed that predictors of screening participation clustered into environmental and psychological influences. There is a gap in the evidence synthesis of associations with personal characteristics and health beliefs. Thematic analysis of focus group interviews confirmed the validity of many screening predictors identified by the systematic review and expectancy-value theories. A survey of these predictors suggested that reduced screening barriers might encourage first-time participation, while regular attendance requires greater endorsement of screening benefits and stronger subjective norm and intention. Positive attitude, rather than knowledge, appeared to be crucial for strong intention, so the final study piloted an experiment comparing the utility of positive attitude in strengthening intention to the utility of information provision. Despite lacking significant differences between conditions, content analysis of participant comments suggested that a full trial would be worthwhile, given purposive sampling and improved sample retention. These findings agree with previous Irish research on the importance of screening intention, although its association with attitude appeared to be stronger in the present research. The findings further indicate that future screening promotion should consider interventions based on patients’ experiences of screening.

Effect of reading sport chronicles on the perception of justice and the predisposition to protest actions in soccer

In this study three chronicles from national newspapers (one generalist and two sport press) were analyzed. The chronicles belong to Spain’s soccer final of the King’s Cup in 2014. The aim of the study was to know if there was any influence on the readers’ perception of justice and consequently if this influence could cause a particular predisposition to participate in acts of protest. 462 university students participated. The results showed that different chronicles caused differences in the perception of justice depending on the chronicle read. However, a clear influence on the willingness to participate in acts of protest was not obtained. These results should make us think about the impact of sport press and its influence, and to be aware of the indirect responsibility of every sector on the antisocial behaviors generated by soccer in our country.

The effects of sense and the production conditions of the discourse about woman in the newspaper "the mentor of Brazilian women"

More than understanding a speech, we need to decode it to then seek to understand how this discourse was made and what direction effects it produces. The Mentor of the Brazilians from Sao Joao del Rei - our object of study in this article - since its announcement in 1829, it was proposed to be like the newspaper's name itself shows, a Mentor, a newspaper to guide, advise women the inclusion in the political and moral life of the country, but without forgetting the family and their deveres. Para rationale of this study are taken as the essence of the studies Pêcheux and Eni Orlandi, the French Discourse Analysis (DA), trying to understand the speech of the mining journal in their production conditions in the nineteenth century. Understanding that social memory leads to a discursive memory that formulates the speeches already in place, giving rise to the social-historical context of ideological and enunciator statement. In addition, it is necessary to establish the role of the analyst in the process of understanding of the subject matter, because according to Orlandi (2008), the subject has his body tied to the body of the senses; subject and senses has its corporeality, made at the meeting of the materiality of language and history. In this perspective, enunciator and analyst embody the senses three cutouts of the weekly newsletter: a) the ad in the Astro de Minas newspaper talking about the first Mentor of the Brazilians women edition, b) the No. 1 edition and c) No.10 edition of the Mentor of the Brazilians women.

There is nothing that 'identifies me to that place' : Aboriginal Women's perceptions of health spaces and places

There is a growing body of literature within social and cultural geography that explores notions of place, space, culture, race and identity. The more recent works suggest that places are experienced and understood in multiple ways and are embedded within an array of politics. Memmott and Long, who have undertaken place-based research with Australian Indigenous people, present the theoretical position that ‘place is made and takes on meaning through an interaction process involving mutual accommodation between people and the environment’. They outline that places and their cultural meanings are generated through one or a combination of three types of people–environment interactions. These include: a place that is created by altering the physical characteristics of a piece of environment and which might encompass a feature or features which are natural or made; a place that is created totally through behaviour that is carried out within a specific area, therefore that specific behaviour becomes connected to that specific place; and a place created by people moving or being moved from one environment to another and establishing a new place where boundaries are created and activities carried out. All these ideas of places are challenged and confirmed by what Indigenous women have said about their particular use of, and relationship with, space within several health services in Rockhampton, Central Queensland. As my title suggests, Indigenous women do not see themselves as ‘neutral’ or ‘non-racialised’ citizens who enter and ‘use’ a supposedly neutral health service. Instead, Aboriginal women demonstrate they are active recognisers of places that would identify them within the particular health place. That is, they as Aboriginal women didn’t just ‘make’ place, the places and spaces ‘make’ them. The health services were identified as sites within which spatial relations could begin to grow with recognition of themselves as Aboriginal women in place, or instead create a sense of marginality in the failure of the spaces to identify them. The women’s voices within this paper are drawn from interviews undertaken with twenty Aboriginal women in Rockhampton, Central Queensland, Australia, who participated in a research project exploring ‘how the relationship between health services and Aboriginal women can be more empowering from the viewpoints of Aboriginal women’. The assumption underpinning this study was that empowering and re-empowering practices for Aboriginal women can lead to improved health outcomes. Throughout the interviews women shared some of their lived realities including some of their thoughts on identity, the body, employment in the health sector, service delivery and their notions of health service spaces and places. Their thoughts on health service spaces and places provide an understanding of the lived reality for Aboriginal women and are explored and incorporated within this paper.

Breastfeeding experiences of Japanese women living in Perth, Australia

The aim of this study was to document the breastfeeding practices of Japanese-Australian mothers living in Perth. A cross-sectional survey of mothers who had delivered babies in Japan or Australia or both was carried out on a sample of 163 mothers recruited through Japanese social and cultural groups in Perth and by a 'snowball' technique. Factors involved in the decision to breastfeed were analysed using multivariate regression analysis. The main outcome measures were the initiation and duration of breastfeeding and cultural beliefs about breastfeeding. Breastfeeding initiation rates of the Japanese- Australian mothers in Japan and in Australia were higher than for other Australians and are consistent with breastfeeding rates in Japan. In Australia, 65% of Japanese-Australian mothers were still breastfeeding at six months. The most common reason for the decision to cease breastfeeding was 'insufficient breastmilk'. The significant factors in breastfeeding duration were 'the time the infant was introduced to infant formula', 'the time when the feeding decision was made', 'doctors support breastfeeding' and 'the mother received enough help from hospital staff'; these were positively associated with the duration of breastfeeding. Japanese mothers take a lot of notice of advice given by health professionals about infant feeding practices.