The fangs of reproduction: an analysis of taiwanese menstrual pollution in the context of buddhist philosophy and practice

Anthropologists have hitherto considered Taiwanese pollution beliefs largely in the framework of Mary Douglas's theories, neglecting important sociocultural aspects that contribute to the persistence of pollution beliefs and related menstrual taboos. Recent studies have shown that most societies hold diverse attitudes toward menstruation, and that such attitudes are deeply rooted in the sociocultural and religious structures of the respective societies. Thus, in this article, rather than generalizing about “the pollution of Taiwanese women”, I argue that the unraveling of the complexity of Taiwanese menstrual pollution beliefs necessitates their analysis in the context of Buddhist philosophy and practice. Embedded in the specific Buddhist context, pollution beliefs and menstruation taboos gain validity. While menstrual taboos do not hark back to Buddhist beliefs, certain Buddhist attitudes toward the human body in general, and female embodiment in particular, allow for the formation of pollution beliefs. The analysis of Buddhist beliefs and practices in conjunction with Chinese views shows that their conflation contributed to the shaping and persistence of pollution beliefs and menstrual taboos.     

Medicalising menstruation: a feminist critique of the political economy of menstrual hygiene management in South Asia

Women's use of water differs from men in essentially one aspect: in cleansing the body of menstrual blood. The pledge of the water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) sector to place ‘women at the centre’ of development has in recent years, therefore, come to focus on menstruation. International development agencies have begun to push the agenda of menstrual hygiene management (MHM), but their use of a medical approach requires critical rethinking. This article argues that through MHM lessons, menstruation is medicalised to construct new and repressive expectations of normality for the female body. A medical construction also poorly accommodates the natural biological process of menstruation within the gamut of existing sociocultural practices. Consequently, menstruation becomes associated with the perceived need for not only sanitisation of the female body of the rural poor, but also to turn it into a working body that is able to ceaselessly and ‘normally’ perform its productive and reproductive chores. I note that the success of medicalisation relies upon the separation of the body from its purported waste, the menstrual blood. Once menstruation is confined to a pathological condition, treatable only by public agents such as doctors and commercially produced goods such as sanitary napkins, a defining essence of womanhood is thereby dissociated from the female body.     

‘We Help our Husbands!’ Negotiating the Household Budget in Rural Burkina Faso

This article addresses the intra‐household division of responsibilities among the Bisa and Mossi in south‐eastern Burkina Faso. Based on a detailed village study of the land use which revealed that women cultivated 31 per cent of all the land in 1997, gendered practices in household budgeting are investigated. Although the proportion of women’s own‐account agriculture suggests that they contribute substantially to household consumption, the majority of women maintain that they only help their husbands when contributing in areas that, ideologically, are his responsibility, for example by providing food and by paying school fees and materials. In this way, women keep within the norms of showing respect for the husband but, at the same time, they may press him to fulfil his obligations.     

Is gender inequality a barrier to realizing fertility intentions? Fertility aspirations and realizations in South Korea

Research highlights the emergence of national low fertility regimes and the importance of understanding how institutional gender inequity supports low fertility. In South Korea, where gender inequality is high and a national low fertility regime exists, many women express a desire for two children but bear one child. Does gender equity, particularly within the household, influence the realization of fertility desires within the context of institutional inequality? Using the Korean Longitudinal Survey of Women &; Families, in this paper, I test the effect of gender equity within the family on second births. Evaluating a subsample of married women with one child who desire a second child, I find that women’s gender role attitudes, husbands’ housework and women’s responsibility for children’s education influence the likelihood of realizing a second birth. Results highlight the importance of men’s household contributions and women’s educational responsibilities on the realization of fertility intentions within low fertility regimes.     

Did the Akan resort to abortion in pre-colonial Ghana? Some conjectures

The question of abortion practice in pre-colonial Ghana is the central topic of this work. The author performed exhaustive field work and data analysis to come to the conclusion. The study involves the interviews of women in a rural village as well as a control group consisting of men and women. Currently the women living in the region in question commonly have abortion in attempt to control their fertility, so it is assumed that the practice has gone on for a long time. However the author points out 3 reasons why this is not necessarily the case: the circumstances that now provoke women to have abortions did not manifest themselves in the pre-colonial era; the cultural and economics situation of pre-colonial women was such that abortion would be useless and absurd; and reliable field work failed to disclose any significant incidence of pre-colonial abortion. The author questioned the reliability of a male researcher interviewing male informants about the past practice of women. It is possible that pre-colonial women performed abortions without their husband's knowledge. The author feels that this is not likely because there are no indications of knowledge of this practice and the odds are not in favor of total ignorance. Simply put, if women were having abortions, eventually some men would have found out about it. Abortion in pre-colonial Ghana was probably rare and only performed in circumstances where pregnancy would lead to shame and hardship for woman. Adultery and pre-puberty rite pregnancies were the most common reasons for pre-colonial women to have abortions.     

抗日根据地时期的女性离婚问题——以晋西北(晋绥)高等法院25宗离婚案为中心的考察

中共晋西北抗日民主政权建立后即颁布《晋西北婚姻暂行条例》,对女性离婚权予以法律上的肯定。一批农村妇女以情感、经济等原因向丈夫提出离婚,根据地婚姻观念或离婚现象呈现出与以往不同的景观。由于离婚案件频频发生,影响了中共抗战大局,中共中央于1943年发表关于各抗日根据地妇女工作方针的四三决定,修正过去激进的婚姻变革路线,以将妇女关注的重点由婚姻问题转向生产建设并缓解根据地两性之间日益紧张的矛盾。这种策略性的政策转变引起法院对待离婚案件的处理发生演变,即不同时期性质相同或相近之案件,其审理结果迥然相异。这亦说明婚姻变革须立足于现实的客观实际。     

"From Farm to Factory: Transitions in Work, Gender, and Leisure at Banning Mill, 1910 1930s"

Abstract This study explores new and traditional forms of leisureenjoyed by white southern rural millhands at Banning Mill between1910 and the 1930s. As they moved from farm to factory, millhandsexperienced unfamiliar working conditions, changes in genderroles in and outside the home, and an increase in leisure time.While both farmers and millhands had opportunities to socialize,this study will compare traditional forms of entertainment availableto farmers with similar and new recreations found in rural millvillages such as Banning Mill in Carroll County, Georgia. A comparison of leisure activities also reveals new ways inwhich rural cotton millhands separated themselves in socialsettings. Gender divisions in village recreation reflect changingroles at home as men and women coped with the transition fromfarm to factory in different ways. Specific or individual interestscreated an atmosphere in which wives, husbands, teenagers, andchildren typically socialized with members of their own sexand age. Juxtaposing the ways in which men and women chooseto spend their free time suggests husbands had a more difficulttime adjusting to work and life in mill villages than theirspouses or children.     

Husband's Circular Migration and the Status of Women left behind in Lamerd District,Iran

Iranian women often serve as temporary heads of household as husbands work elsewhere, returning home at intervals for several months. Results of this preliminary study in Lamerd District in Fars Province, with a high incidence of such patterns, show that, overall, wives of migrants are not ‘left-behind women’ as reported in other countries when husbands migrate. Rather, wives of migrating husbands report a higher level of satisfaction with economic resources and no greater physical or mental health problems relative to those in non-migrant relationships. Counter to expectations, autonomy reported by migrants' wives does not differ from that reported by wives of non-migrant men. Data suggest that work-migrant males, in particular urban migrants, may be more exposed to sexually transmitted diseases. Our findings are limited, being based on data on experiences of women in one district in Iran. There is need for more comprehensive studies based on representative samples.     

Medicalising the Jewish Ritual Bath: Women,Health and Purity in the Late Ottoman Empire

Menstrual impurity is among the most important religious practices in Jewish lore. Examining two case studies of Judeo–Spanish Ottoman Jewry: discussions of the temperature of the ritual bath water; and purity, hygiene and the collective of the Jewish body, this article demonstrates that menstrual impurity in Ottoman Judaism underwent an intensive medicalisation process. This process reframed menstruation from a religious concern to one involving medicine, health and hygiene. This article offers a glimpse of how non-Western Jews dealt with European conceptions of medicalisation, actively debating them according to their Ottoman cultural surroundings. Moreover, it illuminates the mechanisms women used to negotiate their immersion and command their own bodies, emphasising their anxieties, demands and resistance.     

Marital sexual relationships and birth spacing among two Yoruba sub-groups

Discussion focuses on the marital sexual relationships (MSR) and the timing of the next child among the Ekiti and Ikale subgroups of the Yoruba (Nigeria). Contrasts in postpartum sexual practices between the 2 groups allows for demonstration of the importance of parents' perception of their child's growth and their observance of prohibitions on sexual intercourse during the wife's lactation as factors shaping their decision to have another child. It is argued that the similarity in birth spacing among the 2 groups, derived from contrasting attitudes to postpartum abstinence, is evidence of an explicit decision on the timing of the next child. Such a decision considers the role of the child's growth and social development as it affects adults in the performance of their daily social and economic routines and goes beyond an unquestioned response to quasi-religious taboos. A questionnaire was administered in the local dialect to 535 Ekiti women and 460 Ikale women, currently married and aged 14-49 years. Appropriately modified male questionnaires were completed for 398 and 380 husbands of eligible women in the respective locations. Due in part to conservatism in sexual behavior and family formation, the main features of Yoruba postpartum practices such as extended and demand breastfeeding, the taboo on sexual intercourse during lactation, and the devotion to child welfare are believed to, and do, occur in Ekiti. Socioeconomic development has brought many changes, but the combination of these practices with the high infant mortality resulting from limited access to modern health care and the lack of basic amenities assures that children are born at substantial ages apart. The need for the surviving child to reach a consciously determined age and/or stage of growth and development assures the adequacy and rationality of child spacing in this age conscious society. The Ikale are an exception to the general rule concerning sexual abstinence during lactation. The theme of a mother's trials and concern over her children is also valid with the Ikale. The Ikale mother supplements the natural protection offered by postpartum amenorrhea with the use of traditional methods of contraception, most notably the rhythm method. The crude birthrates for the 2 groups were hardly different--54.7 in Ekiti and 54.4 in Ikale. There was only a negligible difference in fertility rates. In both groups only negligible proportions of women would breastfeed for less than 6 months. Only 7.4% of Ikale women would breastfeed beyond 2 years, but 12.9% of Ekiti women were breastfeeding that long. In Ikale there was a higher awareness of the association between extended breastfeeding and the delay in the onset of menstruation. The main implication of this discussion is to challenge the emphasis on lactational abstinence as the main determinant of changes in fertility behavior. The Ikale case shows that such an assumption is not valid.     

Gender and food security in Bangladesh: the impact of climate change

Food security remains a critical global issue, made more difficult because of the rising world population, climate challenges affecting food production and a focus on market-based solutions that undermine subsistence production in vulnerable rural areas. Particularly affected are countries across Asia where poverty, hunger and malnourishment affect a significant proportion of the population. Drawing on Sen’s entitlement theory, we argue that a shift in focus from national food production to intra-household food access enables a critical reflection on consumption smoothing strategies adopted at this level. In particular, we draw attention to the tendency for women and girls to eat less as an intra-household adaptation strategy. We present findings from our research in rural areas of Bangladesh and note that adaptation strategies adopted by households in response to food insecurity. We note that strategies designed to address food insecurity must include gender mainstreaming to ensure that women and girls are not taking a disproportionate responsibility for intra-household food security.     

Nobody asked the mother: women and maternity on Simbo,western Solomon Islands

This article's focus is on the role of mothers in Simbo, one of the New Georgia islands in the western Solomon Islands. Mother's role is examined from the standpoint of the actual experiences of motherhood and mother's perceptions and reactions to child rearing, child care, burdensome tasks, and social participation. Anthropological studies emphasize non-Western notions of maternity or romanticize the primitive. Obscured in the process is who these women really are. Western feminist accounts of Third World women emphasize the oppression and uniformity of the "natural" mother. This characterization of Simbo women is presented as a single non-Western view and is unrelated to a global vision. Simbo women as mothers feel oppressed and are envious of Western notions of parenting, yet at the same time feel that Western child rearing deprives the child. Maternity is a state of ambivalence, where women feel both love for and oppression by children, spouses, and other women. The tasks and responsibilities of childbearing are more difficult because of increased fertility and changes in social practices. Women without children are viewed with sympathy and mild condescension. Changes in social practices are in part due to the presence of missionaries after 1903 and the over 200 year involvement of the islands in world trading. The most significant impact on women post-Christianity is the change from the emphasis on female-child relationships to male-female relationships. Pre-Christianity, marriage ceremonies stressed equality of spouses and their kin groups. New customs emphasize brideprice and the husband's authority over women's bodies. The change in power affects fertility levels, child care, women's work, and contraception. Men today do less labor relative to women and, when husbands are absent due to temporary labor migration, women may not have any help. The nuclear family is responsible for all labor. Women specifically tend the gardens and house, care for children, and care for ill members of the family. The concept of maternity changes with the stage in the life cycle. The first child is the easiest because grandmothers help with infant care. Children are both indulged and then resented when the demands interfere with activities or the children are too difficult.     

Entertaining a Dangerous Guest: Sacrifice and Play in the Ma'pakorong Ritual of the Sa'dan Toraja

Ma'pakorong is a Toraja ritual performed in honour of the goddess of pox, Puang Ruru‘. She is invited into the village to be entertained with music, cockfighting, and food offerings before being escorted away with the expressed hope that she will not return for seven years. Ludic and sacrificial elements are inextricably interwoven in the rite, particularly in the cockfight, and I analyse these apparently contradictory elements in relation both to recent theoretical writings, and to the Toraja ritual cycle as a whole, drawing parallels with ritual contests in some other Indonesian societies. Besides dealing with illness, conceived as categorical disorder and excessive ‘heat’, the rite is ultimately concerned with the enhancement of fertility, and emphasises community benefits instead of the intense status competition which predominates at mortuary rites.     

Migrants and the diffusion of low marital fertility in Belgium

Although the diffusion of fertility behavior between different social strata in historical communities has received considerable attention in recent studies, the relationship between the diffusion of fertility behavior and the diffusion of people (migration) during the nineteenth century remains largely underexplored. Evidence from population registers compiled in the Historical Database of the Liège Region, covering the period of 1812 to 1900, reveals that migrant couples in Sart, Belgium, from 1850 to 1874 and from 1875 to 1899 had a reduced risk of conception. The incorporation of geographical mobility, as well as the migrant status of both husbands and wives, into this fertility research sheds light not only on the spread of ideas and behaviors but also on the possible reasons why the ideas and behaviors of immigrants might have been similar to, or different from, those of a native-born population.     

解读1948年“杨妹事件”始末

1948年4月,重庆女子杨妹“九年不食”的报道见诸报端。随之,全国各地相继有自称不食者出现,社会各界及政府对此异常关注,全国范围内一度掀起了为期数月关注杨妹的热潮。“杨姝事件”的发生及其影响得以迅速扩大是当时国统区恶劣的经济环境及生存条件之下民众心理与关切的集中反映。人们对“杨妹不食”的极大兴趣及杨妹等不食者“不食反为食”的矛盾心态及动机,无不从一特定角度描绘出国统区民众当时真实的生活及心理状态。     

IS THE GENDER DIVISION OF LABOUR CHANGING IN JAPAN?

The paper examines potential changes in housework and employment among married couples in Japan. The data are from national surveys in 1994 and 2000 of persons aged 20–49. Wives’ housework hours decreased and the proportion of husbands doing any housework increased. A majority of wives are employed, many work full-time and husbands work long hours and many return home late in the evening. While wives do less housework if they are employed, husbands’ housework does not respond to their wives’ employment. Large gender differences persist, with wives’ employment associated with family constraints. In general, changes were the same across categories of the population, though three of five significant interactions with time involved wives’ education. A positive relationship between wives’ education and any housework by husbands becomes stronger over time. The results suggest gender inequality in housework may decrease in the future, with potential relevance to future marriage and fertility.     

浙江三泉村700年变迁模式试探

三泉村自南宋淳熙八年(1181)建村,至明嘉靖三十四年(1555),先后产生了2名进士、1名举人,但随着人口的繁衍,村区人口无传率上升,夫妇年龄差增大,人文逐渐衰弱,700年问历经了盛衰变迁。这一变迁模式对于以农业为主业的传统山村社会具有一定的普遍意义。     

试论《语丝》时期江绍原的“天癸观”研究

在民俗学研究中国化的早期阶段,江绍原是最先引进国外人类学方法系统研究中国礼俗迷信的拓荒者,他对中国人“天癸观”的研究特别引人注目。当时处于民俗学运动中心的江绍原在成为《语丝》周刊主要撰稿人之后,开始扩大范围征集有关月经的礼俗迷信材料,取得了一定的成绩。尽管后来他计划写作的《血与天癸》不幸夭折,但他在月经礼俗迷信研究方面的大胆尝试具有深远的学术影响。     

Eating,serving, and self-realisation: food and modern identities in contemporary Indian women's writing

The ‘new Indian woman’ is often invoked in popular and academic discourse as the embodiment of a modern nation—the ‘new India’. Feminist studies of this figure typically focus on the body of the imagined ‘new woman’ as a site upon which modernity is inscribed, allowing little room for the agency of women who actively contest imposed identities and roles in the quintessentially modern project of self-determination. In this article I argue that narratives of food in contemporary fiction and fictionalised autobiographical writing by Indian women challenge both dominant feminist critiques of the ‘new woman’, and influential accounts of modernity as ‘rupture’ in masculinist theoretical literature. In these texts food, and particularly the practice of serving food to others, is used by women as a tool for gaining independence, as a weapon to combat oppression, and as a means of negotiating migrant identities, among other things. The texts thus demonstrate the importance of appreciating the gendered nature of modernity, recognising women's modernities to be genuinely transformative of the individual, as well as continuous with traditional and conventionally feminine practices rather than necessarily opposed to them.