The sexualization of girls has captured the attention of the media, advocacy groups and politicians in recent years. This prolific discourse sets alarm bells ringing: sexualization is said to lead to depression, promiscuity and compassion deficit disorder, and rob young girls of their childhood. However, measuring such claims against a wide range of data sources reveals a far more complicated picture.

"Becoming Sexual" begins with a simple question: why does this discourse feel so natural? Analyzing potent cultural and historical assumptions, and subjecting them to measured investigation, R. Danielle Egan illuminates the implications of dominant thinking on sexualization. The sexualized girl functions as a metaphor for cultural decay and as a common enemy through which adult rage, discontent and anxiety regarding class, gender, sexuality, race and the future can be expressed. Egan argues that, ultimately, the popular literature on sexualization is more reflective of adult disquiet than it is about the lives and practices of girls.

"Becoming Sexual" will be a welcome intervention into these fraught polemics for anyone interested in engaging with a high-profile contemporary debate, and will be particularly useful for students of sociology, cultural studies, childhood studies, gender studies and media studies.

In Grief and Romantic Relationship Dissolution, Shawn Blue explores the grief and loss associated with divorce and romantic breakups. Using a model of love and attachment theory, Blue sets a foundation for how connection leads to loss when an attachment relationship is ended and analyzes the various consequences of grief as the result of dissolution on the individual. She devotes special attention to the role of technology on romantic relationship development and makes speculations of the grief that is experienced by relationships created online when they end. Finally, she utilizes and applies case material to illustrate the grief process and incorporates the influence of media in the understanding of loss related to the ending of attachment relationships. This book is recommended for scholars in psychology, communication studies, and media studies.

A "CHOICE"Outstanding Academic Title of 2010

For many women around the world, their greatest risk of HIV infection comes from having sex with the very person with whom they are supposed to have sex: their spouse. "The Secret" situates marital HIV risk within a broader exploration of marital and extramarital sexuality in five diverse settings: Mexico, Nigeria, Uganda, Vietnam, and Papua New Guinea. In these settings, the authors write, men's extramarital sex, is an officially secret but actually widespread (and widely acknowledged) social practice, rather than something men do because their bodies demand it and women can't stop them.

Drawing on research conducted as part of an innovative comparative ethnographic study, and modeling a novel approach to collaborative anthropological scholarship, the authors show men's extramarital sex to be a fundamental aspect of gendered social organization. Through theoretically sophisticated yet lucid writing and vivid ethnographic description, drawing on rich data from the marital case studies conducted by research teams in each country, they trace how extramarital opportunity structures, sexual geographies, and concerns about social risk facilitate men's participation in extramarital sex. Also documented throughout is the collision between traditional ways and the new practices of romantic companionate marriage."

During the first decade of this millennium Germany's largest ethnic minority-Turkish Germans-began to enjoy a new cultural prominence in German literature, film, television and theater. While controversies around forced marriage and "honor" killings have driven popular interest in the situation of Turkish-German women, popular culture has played a key role in diversifying portrayals of women and men of Turkish heritage. This book documents the significance of marriage in 21st-century Turkish-German culture, unpacking its implications not only for the cultural portrayals of those of Turkish background, but also for understandings of German identity. It sheds light on the interactions of gender, sexuality and ethnicity in contemporary Germany. This book explores four notions of marriage in popular culture: forced marriage; romantic marriage; intercultural marriage; and gay marriage. Over five chapters, the book shows that in popular culture marriage is conventionally portrayed as little more than a form of oppression for Turkish-German women and gay men. The state of Turkish matrimony is seen as characterized by coercion, lack of choice, familial duty and "honor," even violence. In German culture, by contrast, marriage stands for individual choice, love and equality. However, within comedy genres such as "chick lit", "ethno-sitcom" and wedding film, there have been attempts to challenge the monolithic power of these gender stereotypes. This study finds that, in grappling with the legacy of these stereotypes, these genres reveal a yearning within German popular culture for the very kinds of "traditional" gender roles Turkish Germans are imagined to inhabit. The book provides a comprehensive account of the multiple ways in which the diverse portrayals of marriage shape views of Turkish Germans in popular culture, and are also revealing of the role of gender in contemporary Germany. It investigates some key genres-autoethnography, chick lit, ethno-sitcom, wedding film, "gay" Bildungsroman, documentary theater-within which questions of gender and cultural difference are "framed". In new and innovative close readings of literary, filmic, television and dramatic texts, the work reveals the broad significance of cultural portrayals of Turkish-German intimacy.

Beginning in the late 1930s, a crisis in colonial Gusiiland developed over traditional marriage customs. Couples eloped, wives deserted husbands, fathers forced daughters into marriage, and desperate men abducted women as wives. Existing historiography focuses on women who either fled their rural homes to escape a new dual patriarchy-African men backed by colonial officials-or surrendered themselves to this new power. "Girl Cases: Marriage and Colonialism in Gusiiland, Kenya 1890-1970" takes a new approach to the study of Gusii marriage customs and shows that Gusii women stayed in their homes to fight over the nature of marriage. Gusii women and their lovers remained committed to traditional bridewealth marriage, but they raised deeper questions over the relations between men and women.

During this time of social upheaval, thousands of marriage disputes flowed into local African courts. By examining court transcripts, "Girl Cases" sheds light on the dialogue that developed surrounding the nature of marriage. Should parental rights to arrange a marriage outweigh women's rights to choose their husbands? Could violence by abductors create a legitimate union? Men and women debated these and other issues in the courtroom, and Brett L. Shadle's analysis of the transcripts provides a valuable addition to African social history.

This comprehensive reference in family gerontology reviews and critiques the recent theoretical, empirical, and methodological literature; identifies future research directions; and makes recommendations for gerontology professionals. This book is both an updated version of and a complement to the original Handbook of Families and Aging. The many additions include the most recent demographic changes on aging families, new theoretical formulations, innovative research methods, recent legal issues, and death and bereavement, as well as new material on the relationships themselves-sibling, partnered, and intergenerational relationships, for example. Among the brand-new topics in this edition are step-family relationships, aging families and immigration, aging families and 21st-century technology, and peripheral family ties. Unlike the more cursory summaries found in textbooks, the essays within Handbook of Families and Aging, Second Edition provide thoughtful, in-depth coverage of each topic. No other book provides such a comprehensive and timely overview of theory and research on family relationships, the contexts of family life, and major turning points in late-life families. Nevertheless, the contents are written to be engaging and accessible to a broad audience, including advanced undergraduate students, graduate students, researchers, and gerontology practitioners. Serious lay readers will also find this book highly informative about contemporary family issues. Comprises 23 chapters of all-original work covering background information, relationships, contexts of family life, and turning points such as retirement and divorce Contributions from 46 distinguished scholars recognized as leading experts in their fields Citations for cutting-edge research on each topic, plus foundational references in new areas A detailed topic index

For every hero, there is a villain, and for every villain there is a story. But how much do we really know about the villain? Filling a gap in the field of gender representation and character evolution, the chapters in this edited collection focus on female villains in the fairy tale narratives of 21st Century media. Within the realm of fairy tale study, the characters of princess, prince, hero, and damsel in distress have been researched extensively, however the female villain has rarely been the central focus of academic study. Gender and Female Villains in 21st Century Fairy Tale Narratives: From Evil Queens to Wicked Witches features chapters from different academic disciplines such as television and film studies, fan studies, character analysis, gender studies, feminist studies and audience analysis. Through the primary lens of gender studies, the collection delves into issues such as vanity, body dysmorphia, femslash fandom, the lesbian gaze, the queering of the villain-hero dichotomy, and morality and femininity. Concluding by looking into physical disability, maternal subversion, and social exclusion, as well as the construct of beauty 'ideals' as applied to female villains, this collection breaks fresh ground by putting the female villain at the centre of academic study.

Beneath the Tapestry devotional walks alongside hopeful adoptive parents and families through the process of adoption and beyond. Natalie Schram shares her family's stories of completing their first home study, finding adoption experts to support them, walking through the tangled mess of fear and unknowns, battling through spiritual warfare, experiencing unsightly beauty, and navigating life after placement. Beneath the Tapestry shares many details of how God weaved four adoptions into the masterpieces that they are. It's through these honest stories that many have found hope and healing. Natalie shares how each adoption holds unique details all their own, but the universal characteristic in every adoption is that it comes from a broken place and therefore carries that brokenness with it. Beneath the Tapestry reveals as many details about the Schram's adoption journeys as possible and in a very real, honest, unique, and vulnerable way. Natalie Schram draws you in and speaks to you directly. You will feel as if you are in an actual conversation with her. You will be guided and supported through scripture, real life stories, and prayer as Natalie teaches you to love and live selflessly through the process. Journeying through adoption four times has allowed the Schram family the joy of growing deeper in Christ while seeking God's Will for expanding their family. Beneath the Tapestry goes beyond offering support during the adoption journey and seeks to reach the heart of the reader. Through Beneath the Tapestry Natalie's hopeful prayer is for each reader to seek a deeper relationship with Christ, grow in their faith, and learn how to love and support others selflessly, in the midst of their journey

A husband echoes back words that his wife said to him hours before as a way of teasing her. A parent always uses a particular word when instructing her child not to talk during naptime. A mother and family friend repeat each other's instructions as they supervise a child at a shopping mall. Our everyday conversations necessarily are made up of "old" elements of language-words, phrases, paralinguistic features, syntactic structures, speech acts, and stories-that have been used before, which we recontextualize and reshape in new and creative ways.
In Making Meanings, Creating Family, Cynthia Gordon integrates theories of intertextuality and framing in order to explore how and why family members repeat one another's words in everyday talk, as well as the interactive effects of those repetitions. Analyzing the discourse of three dual-income American families who recorded their own conversations over the course of one week, Gordon demonstrates how repetition serves as a crucial means of creating the complex, shared meanings that give each family its distinctive identity.
Making Meanings, Creating Family takes an interactional sociolinguistic approach, drawing on theories from linguistics, communication, sociology, anthropology, and psychology. Its presentation and analysis of transcribed family encounters will be of interest to scholars and students of communication studies, discourse analysis, sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology, and psychology-especially those interested in family discourse. Its engagement with intertextuality as theory and methodology will appeal to researchers in media, literary, and cultural studies.

Whether considered from an American or a European perspective, the past four decades have seen family life become increasingly complex. Changing Family Dynamics and Demographic Evolution examines the various stages of change through the image of a kaleidoscope, providing new insights into the field of family dynamics and diversity. Contributions from both eminent and contemporary scholars provide a comprehensive and multidisciplinary perspective encompassing over five decades and two continents. This is the kaleidoscope, showing the diversity and complexity of contemporary families. Each chapter is a new turn with the built in mirrors reflecting new insights into the colored glass and beads. Through this analogy, this book explores family transitions in the US and Europe, gender dimensions of family transitions, children in new families, intersectional approaches of demographic processes and policy perspectives as well as offering thoughts on a future outlook. Unique and accessible, this book will appeal to students and researchers in a variety of fields including demography, the sociology of the family, gender studies and family law. It will also be of value to policy makers for children and families as well as those involved in family social care. Contributors include: E. Alofs, T. Brouckaert, C. Defever, D. De Wachter, K. Featherstone, F.F. Furstenberg Jr., T. Kil, K. Matthijs, P. Meier, D. Mortelmans, L. Murinko, K. Neels, J. Scott, B. Segaert, W. Sigle, I. Szalma, L. Toulemon, J. Vergauwen, J. Wood

This book explores how women of the poorer and middling sorts in early modern England sought to make the best of their lives in a society that excluded or marginalized them in almost every sphere. It argues that networks of close friends ('gossips') provided invaluable moral and practical support, helping them to shape their own lives and to play an active role in the affairs of the local community.

Parents of Poor Children is the first sustained study of the mothers and fathers of poor children in the England of the early modern and early industrial period. Although we know a good deal about the family life of monarchs in this period, much less is known about what life was like for poor single mothers, or for ordinary people who were trying to bring up their children. What were poor mothers and fathers trying to achieve, and what support did they have from their society, especially from the welfare system?
Patricia Crawford attempts to answer these important questions, in order to illuminate the experience of parenting at this time from the perspective of the poor, a group who have naturally left little in the way of literary testimony. In doing this, she draws upon a wide range of archival material, including quarter session records, petitions for assistance, applications for places in the London Foundling Hospital, and evidence from criminal trials in London's Old Bailey.
England in this period had a developing system of welfare, unique in Europe, by which parish rates were collected and administered to those deemed worthy of relief. The "civic fathers" who administered this welfare drew upon a code of fatherhood framed in the Elizabethan period, by which a patriarch took responsibility for maintaining and exercising authority over wives and children. But, as Patricia Crawford shows, this code of family conduct was the product of a material world completely alien to that which the poor inhabited. Parents of the poor were different from those of middling and elite status. Poverty, not property, dictated their relationships with their children. Poor families were frequently broken by death. Fathers were frequently absent, and mothers had to rear their children with whatever forms of relief they could find.

Die koeël is deur die kerk. Die huweliksbootjie het gesink. Hy kry die bed en sy die tafel. Hoekom skei hulle en hoekom skei hulle nóú dat jy ’n volwasse kind is?

Jou ouers is besig om te skei of hulle is klaar geskei. Almal fokus op hulle, maar jy suffer ook. Volwasse kinders kry swáár wanneer hulle ouers skei. Net so swaar, indien nie swaarder as jong kinders nie.

’n Eerste in Afrikaans — ’n handleiding vol raad oor hoe om die sleg en gesukkel van ’n egskeiding te hanteer waar volwasse kinders van egskeiding (18 jaar en ouer) hulle eerstehandse ervaring, verwarring, onsekerheid, woede en hartseer deel wat begin die oomblik as Ma en Pa sê: dis verby.

Die slegte nuus? Die egskeiding sal altyd ’n wond wees. Die goeie nuus? Jy kan leer hoe om dit beter te hanteer en met tyd kan dit net ’n letsel word. Soos Gretha (26) sê: “Time makes all wounds bearable.”

Written by sex educator and body-positivity advocate Ruby Rare, Sex Ed is the practical and fun guide to sex that you've always wanted - but never known how to ask for. This is the information you should have been taught at school: a no-holds-barred roadmap that covers everything from how the brain is the most important sex organ and how to communicate what you want to yourself and a partner, all the way down to the messy stuff - solo sex, orgasms, touching, kissing, blow jobs, cunnilingus, anal play, lube, toys, kegels. After all, sex education shouldn't start and end with putting a condom on a banana.

What is the relationship between work and family in a world where employment creates endless tensions for families and families create endless tensions for the workplace? This collection of reprinted and original articles broadens this discussion by addressing issues from the perspectives of often neglected populations: from white middle-class women with young children to people of color, to poor families, to the new sorts of families gays and lesbians are struggling to construct, to fathers, to older children.

To discuss work and family is also to discuss gender. Ranging from California's Silicon Valley to a remote fishing village in the northeast, part one shows how new work arrangements have created new expectations for what it means to be a woman or a man, and how slow and uneven the pace of change can be. Nowhere are the tensions of work and family more potent than around childcare. Part two takes up these tensions, showing how various "solutions" to caring for children of all ages (whether infants or teenagers) create new problems. Parts three and four turn outward to show how the new relationships between families and work are changing the relationships between families and the communities in which they live and generating new social policy dilemmas.

Through an examination of interviews provided by 100 children of refugees in Cyprus, born after their family's displacement, Hadjiyanni illustrates the formation of a refugee consciousness, an identity adopted by many children who never experienced the actual displacement of their family. Focusing on the process by which a child born into a refugee family develops a refugee identity, the book identifies nine dimensions that inform this consciousness. Establishing the family as the primary transmitter of the refugee identity and the child as its constructor, the author points to the power of homeplace in forming and supporting such an identity. The book challenges the notion that refugee consciousness is a separate identity and a crisis by reinterpreting it as a resistance to adversity. Shedding new light on what it means to be a refugee, this work is a welcome addition to the field.

Beginning with a discussion of the meaning of the term refugee, and how it has been adopted by the children of some refugees in Cyprus, the author moves to an examination of the meaning of past and present to the formation of a refugee consciousness. She then looks to the causes of such identity formation, focusing on the transference of identity from parent to child, and the effects of past loss on children who have not actually experienced displacement. Housing issues are also examined as a contributing factor, as refugee housing is typically distinct, and constrained, compared to housing for native citizens of a community. The author concludes her work with a discussion of the implications of the Cyprus example for both the future and for general refugee studies.

This scholarly and personal exploration of what it is like to grow up feeling unloved describes personality types and syndromes that often manifest, regardless of whether the family unit was "dysfunctional" or not. Though recent decades have seen a great deal of discussion on the "dysfunctional" family, many people share a different problem, regardless of whether their family was "functional" or not: they are never given love, or taught how to receive it. This book will establish the concept of the loveless family by investigating scholarship on the subject as well as through the personal reflections and experiences of author Jon P. Bloch. The Loveless Family: Getting Past Estrangement and Learning How to Love explains what a loveless family is, some of the typical syndromes seen within it, how families may cope with serious physical or mental issues, and how adults who came from a loveless family can develop meaningful relationships. This book is written to be engaging and accessible to the average reader, yet authoritative and also of value to scholars. In-depth examinations of seven personality types and syndromes that manifest in the loveless family Bibliographic reference sources A subject index

Pardeck and his contributors approach the topic of family health from a macro perspective. Family health is a holistic approach to treatment embracing aspects of family functioning not typically considered in other more traditional approaches to assessment and treatment. They place particular emphasis on the ecological context in which the family functions, including the neighborhood, community, and other larger social systems. Family health is defined as the development of, and continuous interaction among, the physical, mental, emotional, social, economic, cultural, and spiritual dimensions of the family, that result in the holistic well-being of the family and its members. The chapters in the book are guided by a number of key premises, including (a) Family health social work practice is grounded in a biopsychosocial approach to assessment and treatment; (b) Family health is based in a systems-ecological approach to assessment and intervention because of the role that various systems play in the well-being of the family; (c) Family health views the family system as the most important system for promoting the growth and development of the person; (d) Family health social work practice requires close collaboration between social work practitioners and other professionals. Based on these basic premises, Pardeck focuses on the macro level issues of family health practice that include community intervention, policy and program development, and program administration. The book is an important resource for social work professionals, scholars, students, and other researchers involved with social work practice and human services.

Contemporary racism, sexism, and heterosexism all share an important feature: they rely on less overt forms of discrimination that preserve, protect, and mask the power of the dominant group. In this context, racism is colorblind, sexism is gender blind, and heterosexism is sexuality blind. This, however, creates all manner of issues for people of color, women, and LGBTQ+ folks who must navigate a culture that sees discrimination and inequality as a thing of the past. Indeed, despite the multitude of legal, social, and political advances made by these groups, inequality continues to persist, but often in a more subtle, covert, and often invisible manner. This edited book makes visible the multitude of subtle ways racism, sexism, and heterosexism persist in an era where many believe such inequalities are in the past. To do so, the authors contributing to this book focus on interpersonal relationships--as interpersonal relationships are one of the fundamental places where inequality is reproduced. The value of this edited volume comes from giving academics, students, and activists a more comprehensive understanding of what inequality looks like in the contemporary United States, and how this inequality is reproduced in our everyday relationships. This information will also be useful for social justice activists and policy makers who can rely on our research to make more informed decisions that benefit marginalized groups. This book serves as an insightful resource for academicians who are interested in better understanding the ways inequality is reproduced in the contemporary United States, and instructors teaching about how inequality has changed over time, what contemporary inequality/discrimination looks like, and social justice-oriented faculty who want to expose and identify inequalities in order to better make social change.

In this provocative new work, R. Claire Snyder argues that the fundamental principles of American democracy not only allow but require the legalization of same-sex marriage. In addition to explaining the theoretical issues at stake, the book provides a short history of marriage, disentangling its interpersonal, communal, religious and civil components. In clear and concise language, Snyder examines and systematically addresses numerous critiques of same-sex marriage, including religious conservatism, traditionalism, the organized movement of the Christian Right, communitarianism, and academic "queer theory." By exploring the arguments swirling around this controversial topic from the perspective of democratic theory, Gay Marriage and Democracy shows that all citizens must be treated equally for democracy to truly succeed.