There is a call for papers for a 2009 special issue on 'men and masculinities' (edited by Robinson & Meah). They're casting wide. Submissions close this December.
Hague & Bridge look over a Cheshire domestic violence coordinated community response project (CCR). Combining stats-processing, education, training, and outreach - and placing police interventions in a network of support and advocacy (basically joining the dots between various do-good services) - the CCR gets a good review (and the numbers are fairly impressive). Give them some more money already...
Monk-Turner & Co. are checking on advertisers' use of sex. Nearly 300 ads were coded, with startling results: 99% featured alluring behavior, 82% provocative clothing, and 46% were objectifying (the subject was explicitly gazed at). There's a further breakdown if you're interested... Who still buys magazines anyway?
Francis goes theory on us. There's a critical walk through Halberstam, leaving us with two problems: the necessary import of our stubborn meat bodies and the related costs of one's behavior diverging from wider meat-signaled expectations. This feels like it should be the introduction to something more substantial.
There was a romance-novel boom at the start of Franco's Spain, and Puente wants you to admit they were a little bit subversive. Despite conforming to the broad strokes of the generalissimo's ideology (if you can even call it that), and contemporary gender norms, there is some notable discursive wiggle-room in the protagonists' determination and success in overcoming difficulties (what sort of a depressing failure-riddled romance novel was she supposed to be writing?).
Wijk & Finchilescu covers the introduction of unisex South African navy ships. We're talking rituals (initiations... girl-excluding sports days), artefacts (impractical uniforms for women) and metaphors ('man's world'... crew as family... female officers as 'sir'). There's some definite ambivalence here, but at least in the meantime the women got proper uniforms.
