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This essay examines the relation between scientific inquiry and philosophical thought in the context of a Thomistic account of human sexual difference. I begin by considering Thomas's own view and its explicit though brief appeal to biological observation. In particular, I focus on his claim that being male or female stems more from a substance's matter than from its form. Then, I look at a fairly recent exchange between William Newton and myself, in which, drawing upon Thomistic thought in the context of contemporary science, we argued opposing positions. Mine held that sex stems more from form than from matter, while Newton maintained that Thomas's original position is better. In reviewing this exchange, I note strengths in Newton's argument and suggest a further distinction, even while concluding that my fundamental position is still a better account. Lastly, I turn to further questions and the necessity of continued partnership between philosophy and science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cet article concerne les défis actuels pour la psychanalyse que constituent le genre et les incongruences de genre. En effet, bien que le terme genre soit de plus en plus utilisé, il reste un concept plus difficile à définir et à circonscrire qu'il n'y paraît au premier abord. Afin d'apporter un éclairage sur ces sujets, il sera exposé le changement au combien important, qu'est le passage du paradigme du syndrome transsexuel à celui de la santé transgenre. Cet exposé sera alors étayé par deux vignettes cliniques : celle de Claudia dont la transition s'inscrit dans un parcours transsexuel et celle de Rose dont la transition paraît plus s'apparenter à un parcours transgenre. Les vignettes cliniques de Claudia et de Rose permettent d'illustrer ce qui se rapporte à une manière différente d'appréhender la différence des sexes : entre une abstraction qui épouse les contours d'une différence des sexes conçue comme binaire pour Claudia, et un genre fluide pour Rose. Suite à ces remarques, il est proposé de revenir sur le concept de genre afin de mieux le cerner et de le concevoir, notamment dans sa rencontre clinique et théorique avec la psychanalyse. Le genre est alors conçu comme un concept frontière, renvoyant à un troisième corps social au croisement du sentiment personnel et subjectif et du sociopolitique. En référence à la narratologie, le genre est défini comme une construction personnelle et/ou collective visant à donner une cohérence à la différence des sexes, et étayé par une réalisation par la perception, aide possible à la liaison de l'excitation sexuelle associée aux questions relatives à la différence anatomique des sexes d'un point de vue psychanalytique, qui concerne autant l'analysant que le psychanalyste. This article is concerned with the current challenges to psychoanalysis that gender and gender discordance represent. Indeed, although the term gender is increasingly used, it remains a concept that is more difficult to define and circumscribe than it first appears. In order to shed light on these issues, the important shift from the transsexual syndrome paradigm to the transgender health paradigm will be discussed. This presentation will then be supported by two clinical vignettes: that of Claudia, whose transition is part of a transsexual journey, and that of Rose, whose transition seems to be more akin to a transgender journey. Claudia's and Rose's stories allow us to illustrate a different way of apprehending the difference of the sexes: for Claudia, an abstraction that follows the contours of a difference of the sexes considered as binary, and, for Rose, a conception of gender as fluid. Following these reflections, it is suggested that we return to the concept of gender in order to better define and conceptualize it, particularly in its clinical and theoretical encounter with psychoanalysis. Gender is thus considered as a frontier concept, referring to a third social body at the crossroads of personal and subjective feeling and the socio-political. In reference to narratology, gender is defined as a personal and/or collective construction aiming to give coherence to the difference of the sexes and supported by a realization through perception. Gender can be thought of as an aide to the binding of sexual excitation associated with questions relating to the anatomical difference of the sexes from a psychoanalytical point of view, which concerns both the analysand and the psychoanalyst. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper is the last of a series of three papers, constituting a whole project of translation and commentary composed of translated extracts from the "Catalogo no. 2 – Le madri di tutte noi", published by the Milan Women's Bookstore in 1982. The idea for the project was conceived by Silvia Niccolai and Angela Condello, who selected the extracts and provided the written commentaries on the original texts. The Yellow Catalogue, in which we find collective discussions, pages of personal diaries and, overall, the enterprise of a group of women debating over their literary symbolic mothers (who to read? And why?), is an interesting example of a political use of literature. After four decades from its publication, it still proposes inspiring and fresh suggestions for feminist political action and critique, while representing an interesting occasion for researching the philosophical roots of feminism. In particular, the debate on the literary "mothers," i.e. on the female authors that can contribute to the formation of a feminine symbolic, shows the kind of concerns of difference feminism in Italy (especially during the Seventies). The text offers, in other words, the opportunity to enter a world that nowadays – with the new, varied streams of feminism and the battles over the neutralization of sexual identity – is less frequent, and nevertheless we find it important in order to understand the social, political and cultural power of feminism. The project is composed like follows: Paper No. 1, In search of a feminine symbolic, by Angela Condello, already published on Law& Literature and Paper No. 2, From Novels to the Figures, themes and strategies for a political practice. Paper No 2 is structured in two parts. Part One, entitled "Interest in Reality." For every woman's autobiography, by Silvia Niccolai, is already published in Law & Literature; Part Two is the present paper: coauthored by Angela Condello and Silvia Niccolai, it addresses issues of sexual difference, identity and ambiguity, and the theories behind the idea of body and life at the core of the Catalogue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes various attempts on the part of continental philosophers to locate a thinking of sex in the work of Martin Heidegger. Its analysis centers mainly on those attempts made by Jacques Derrida and Catherine Malabou, who read into Heidegger discourses of sexual difference and sex change, respectively. This article shows how such attempts—which challenge the conventional assumption of the absence of such figures in Heidegger's writings, as well as Heidegger's own insistence upon the irrelevance of sex as such to the study of fundamental ontology—are in fact concerned less with locating a Heideggerian view on sex and gender, and more with barring the ontological capacity for change from sex and gender as forms of identity, let alone modes of being in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to investigate the assertion of gender difference and gender identity in contemporary Romanian feminist poetry, taking the works of Medeea Iancu, Iuliana Lungu, Mădălina Oprea, and Nóra Ugron as its starting point. This study will underline recurring thematic patterns, highlighting the priority awarded, within these poetry collections, to matters pertaining to textuality, as well as to the peripheral position of women writers within the literary field. As a result of the uneven development of Eastern Europe's women's movement(s) during the postcommunist transition, Romanian feminism can be described as a synthesis between Second- and Third Wave feminist themes (Miroiu), namely as having haphazardly imported both issues pertaining to "difference-" and to intersectional feminism. The emphasis local feminist poets place on positing difference, as well as on embracing a fluid identity, has motivated the usage of a theoretical framework based on the concepts of "sexual/gender difference", and justified the attempt of linking these literary projects to the tradition of so-called "French post-structuralist feminism". Lastly, this study proposes an overview of the possible political relevance that "neomaterialist" (Braidotti) strands of feminism may hold today, as well as an outline of some of the limitations that they pose. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SUMMARY Female willows exhibit greater drought tolerance and benefit more from exogenous acetic acid (AA)‐improved drought tolerance than males. However, the potential mechanisms driving these sex‐specific responses remain unclear. To comprehensively investigate the sexually dimorphic responsive mechanisms of willows to drought and exogenous AA, here, we performed physiological, proteomic, Lys‐acetylproteomic, and transgenic analyses in female and male Salix myrtillacea exposed to drought and AA‐applicated drought treatments, focusing on protein abundance and lysine acetylation (LysAc) changes. Drought‐tolerant females suffered less drought‐induced photosynthetic and oxidative damage, did not activate AA and acetyl‐CoA biosynthesis, TCA cycle, fatty acid metabolism, and jasmonic acid signaling as strongly as drought‐sensitive males. Exogenous AA caused overaccumulation of endogenous AA and inhibition of acetyl‐CoA biosynthesis and utilization in males. However, exogenous AA greatly enhanced acetyl‐CoA biosynthesis and utilization and further enhanced drought performance of females, possibly determining that AA improved drought tolerance more in females than in males. Interestingly, overexpression of acetyl‐CoA synthetase (ACS) could reprogram fatty acids, increase LysAc levels, and improve drought tolerance, highlighting the involvement of ACS‐derived acetyl‐CoA in drought responses. In addition, drought and exogenous AA induced sexually dimorphic LysAc associated with histones, transcription factors, and metabolic enzymes in willows. Especially, exogenous AA may greatly improve the photosynthetic capacity of S. myrtillacea males by decreasing LysAc levels and increasing the abundances of photosynthetic proteins. While hyperacetylation in glycolysis, TCA cycle, and fatty acid biosynthesis potentially possibly serve as negative feedback to acclimate acetyl‐CoA biosynthesis and utilization in drought‐stressed males and AA‐applicated females. Thus, acetyl‐CoA biosynthesis and utilization determine the sexually dimorphic responses of S. myrtillacea to drought and exogenous AA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Oviposition site selection by parents is an important factor that affects offspring survival and parental fitness. The relative importance of sexes in oviposition site selection in anurans is rarely evaluated, especially in species with resource‐defense mating systems, where males defend territory containing eventual oviposition sites before advertising for females. Using a phytotelm‐breeding frog (Kurixalus eiffingeri) with male territoriality, we examined 310 bamboo stumps (potential for oviposition sites) to determine whether male and female choice of oviposition site based on physical characteristics (stump height, inner diameter, stump depth, water depth, and water volume). We found that males preferred a site with higher stumps that were deeper and contained more water, while females showed no preference for sites based on the characteristics observed. Although we do not exclude the possibility that K. eiffingeri female oviposition site selection can be relied on and/or correlates to male advertisement calls, this study is one of few studies to examine the role of both sexes in oviposition site selection simultaneously, and provides empirical evidence that oviposition site selection is primarily determined by males in an amphibian with a resource‐defense mating system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The feminisation of religion is a category used for organizing the knowledge on sexual difference in modern imaginary. Concerning Spain at the turn of the twentieth century, the analysis of data on the participation of men and women in pious activities can serve to enrich the study of the feminisation and re-masculinisation of religion. First, it allows us to assess that the pious practices related to the most significant dates in the Catholic calendar was, regularly, similar for both sexes. Moreover, the use of data can test the hypothesis that sometimes there existed a notion of feminisation of religion even in a context where there was no substantial difference de facto between sexes concerning religious practice. This phenomenon could be explained by such a notion being imported from places where such a trend was indeed underway. I do not argue for a return to the ways and methods typical of social history in its heyday; what I strive for is to engage with the current lines of research on the feminisation and re-masculinisation of religion and carry out a nuanced analysis of the available data that would enrich or modify the prevailing interpretation of both phenomena.

This essay traces the genealogy of the concept of "gender" through the twentieth century, from its origins in the existentialist philosophy of Simone de Beauvoir through Judith Butler's gender theory, and into the contemporary emphasis on gender as a subjective identity. After sketching the origins and key claims of this gender paradigm, the essay compares these claims with the underlying worldview and theological anthropology of Genesis, showing points of contrast in the two paradigms' understandings of creation, reality, embodiment, sexual difference, language, and freedom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kelly Reichardt pays attention to women's actions and subjectivities, often when they are alone, but not at the expense of men. It takes seeing her films more than once to understand how intricately her characters are pieced together through unexpected shot progressions, a non-linear sensibility and the overall logic of Reichardt's mise en scène. That so many points in her films lead to 'not knowing' may have something in common with her preference for a-sexuality, a much more radical, subtle project than sex role reversal. Reichardt's body of work, as a whole, operates through a mise en scène of sexual difference that is irreducible to a theme or an overt subject. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay examines the relation between scientific inquiry and philosophical thought in the context of a Thomistic account of human sexual difference. I begin by considering Thomas’s own view and its explicit though brief appeal to biological observation. In particular, I focus on his claim that being male or female stems more from a substance’s matter than from its form. Then, I look at a fairly recent exchange between William Newton and myself, in which, drawing upon Thomistic thought in the context of contemporary science, we argued opposing positions. Mine held that sex stems more from form than from matter, while Newton maintained that Thomas’s original position is better. In reviewing this exchange, I note strengths in Newton’s argument and suggest a further distinction, even while concluding that my fundamental position is still a better account. Lastly, I turn to further questions and the necessity of continued partnership between philosophy and science.

The text explores what I call the 'anal body and politics', that is the potentiality and the political implications of the body when mapped and morphologically rearticulated from another standpoint than the hegemonic ones of the Phallic body, the frontal body, the heteronormative body, the reproductive body, the (liberal) individual body and so on. Instead, the anal body proposes something more vital to the body itself, without reinforcing a hetero-racialcapitalistic logic of reproduction, self-possessiveness, verticality, and property/propriety. The body that could be, and continues, as always already, being a multitudinous body of differences, transversally configured in provisional, yet unstable, unity; the body which brings the politics of co-existing and transindividuality. I develop my argument by reparative reading, from behind, of feminist theories of sexual difference, followed by a critical excavation of the politics of refusal specific to the anti-social thesis in queer theory, and 'rehabilitation' of the forgotten liberationist theory of Guy Hocquenghem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to common sense, fashion and feminism do not get along. Often in history, male fashion designers have exploited the female body for their artistic whims, and just as often, women have refused to comply with the dictates of fashion as the embodiment of an aestheticizing and fetishistic male gaze. However, on many occasions, feminists have reappropriated and resemantized the domestic practices of knitting, sewing and embroidery, conceptualizing them as different ways to think about politics, community, the self, and relationality. Among the many philosophers and activists of Italian second wave feminism, the most influential is undoubtedly Carla Lonzi. Over the years, Carla Lonzi has almost been turned into an idol, exploring every nuance of her thought both in feminism and art criticism. However, her image has remained unexplored, probably considered not particularly relevant. Through her work, this article analyzes the complex dynamics between fashion and feminism, and reconstructs Carla Lonzi’s wardrobe starting from the photographs in her books and in archives, interpreting it with the help of her diary Taci, anzi parla, and of her collection of poems Scacco ragionato.

Technofeminism has long known that it must be a multi-scalar feminism, that is, able to think, encounter, and negotiate these increasing scales of complexity that comprise our world, from the pharmacological to the planetary-computational. We read technofeminism as constitutively defined by its commitment to both realism and anti-essentialism, and contemporary technofeminisms to be epitomised by, on the one hand, the flat vitalist ontology of new materialism, and on the other, the trans-scalar rationalism of Xenofeminism. By examining these contemporary technofeminisms through contemporary theorisations of the concept of scale, we show that they have a problem with what the latter identify as ‘scalar collapse’; these technofeminisms conceptualise the multi-scalarity of reality, in the last instance, via a collapse into either the ‘master scale’ of new materialist ‘matter’, or via the ‘trans-scalar zoom’ of Xenofeminist rationalism. As such, they recoil from the reality of scalar differences, undermining their commitment to realism (and therefore technics), as well as reducing scalar difference to one unitary, ‘metaphysical’ ground, placing them back within an essentialist collapse. Through examining contemporary theorisations of scale, we claim that in order to avoid such scalar collapse, any truly multi-scalar theory must think difference as both ontogenetic, in the Simondonian sense, and irreducibly at-least-two, in the sense of Irigaray’s concept of sexuate difference. Against any concerns that Irigaray’s notion of sexuate difference may be essentialist or determinist, we show that the ontogenetic character of this difference means it is irreducible and yet also open-ended, that is, open to multiply complex, topologically scalar transformations throughout subsequent individuations. It is this thinking of difference as this ontogenetic ‘at least two’ that can enable contemporary technofeminisms to be truly multi-scalar feminisms.

This article proposes a feminist reading of Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams and Other Prose Writings (1977) by Sylvia Plath. Its main purpose is to deconstruct Ted Hughes’ critical analysis of Plath’s stories which claims their aesthetic « weakness » (« Introduction », Johnny Panic). Moreover, this paper analyzes a selection of Plath’s stories by showing their political dimension and their connections with several concepts of the sexual difference feminism. In conclusion, this article retraces the evolution of Plath’s political awareness as well as her new interest in History and in her contemporary socio-political world.

The attempt to rearticulate traditional conceptions of nature can be both a useful strategy and a stumbling block when it comes to feminist examinations of the continuity between the objectification of women's bodies and the domination of nature. This paper contributes to existing debates by providing a critique of what I term the "duality view" of nature: a view stipulating that nature is primarily characterised by a stable sexual duality, and advancing that the objectification of women's bodies arises because the specificity of "femaleness" is ignored and duality is therefore neglected. I focus, specifically, on Alison Stone's interpretation of Luce Irigaray, insofar as the account emerging from Stone's interpretation clearly outlines the principles that most versions of the duality view should endorse. I problematise this account by showing that it becomes inconsistent with the critique of objectification which grounds it in the first place. I conclude by advancing that, overall, a view insisting on a natural sexual duality because of normative reasons conflicts with the feminist considerations at its basis. I also suggest that while the present analysis is primarily condemnatory, it can contribute to the development of feminist philosophies of nature by fleshing out avoidable pitfalls. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the possibilities of using the Italian feminist praxis of affidamento, or entrustment, as a curatorial methodology, arguing that it has the capacity to transform galleries into spaces where the generative potential of social differences is foregrounded – rather than repressed – and where intergenerational knowledge, and its attendant affects, can be shared. Reflecting on my role as a founding member of the feminist working group EMILIA-AMALIA, which, since 2016, has organized free film screenings, public talks, collective meals and writing workshops, I chart the ways Italian feminist philosophy has informed the group's curatorial work and ask whether affidamento offers a model for pedagogical participation within the gallery that recognizes and validates the varied, and often conflicting, needs and desires of generations of feminist practitioners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The treatment of sexual difference in the criminal code of Laws is intriguing. In Lg. 872d1-873, it is proposed as the fairest penalty for those who commit matricide to be born as part of the female nature and be killed by their offspring. It is also notable that, although this criminal code has been the subject of detailed analysis by some scholars, a great silence surrounds this passage. This is eloquent as to the hermeneutical difficulty that any problem involving the representation of women and the feminine represents for the study of Greek philosophy. My proposal is to open some lines of exegesis that can contribute to an analysis of the content of the text. I show that the treatment of matricide, besides referring to the irreducibility of the sexes, can be read in a socio-political key if we consider the elements that are associated in Greek literature with motherhood as an institution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Knowledge of life history is important for understanding population ecology. The genus Diploderma is one of the most diverse genera in the family Agamidae, and no data on the life history traits of Diploderma species have been reported to date. Here, the age and growth of a population of D. micangshanense were revealed using skeletochronology for the first time. Females have greater snout-vent length (SVL) than males, but the mean SVL did not significantly differ between the sexes. Age ranged from one to four years in both sexes, and mean ages were 2.24 ± 0.10 years for males and 2.28 ± 0.12 years for females. No significant sexual differences were detected in either age structure or mean age. Age and body size were significantly positively correlated in both sexes. The growth coefficient k (males: 0.510; females: 0.441) and growth rate (males: 4.33 ± 0.38; females: 4.91 ± 0.39) were similar in both sexes. These results have implications for the population dynamics and management of this species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to analyse the discourse employed by the female lyrical voices in the medieval Anglo-Saxon elegies The Wife's Lament and Wulf and Eadwacer. Through the idea of female body self-awareness as the origin of écriture féminine proposed by Luce Irigaray and Hélène Cixous, leading figures in French feminism of the sexual "difference", we will determine that the discursive use applied by female elegiac voices diverges from that used by male elegiac voices and that, thus, it provides a means to find a female identity beyond the patriarchal gender constructs of medieval Anglo-Saxon society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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BACKGROUND: The quantitative recruitment of motor units depends on specific demands, including movement velocity. DNA microarrays differ according to sex, and these sex-related differences affect the fiber type composition. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study is to demonstrate inter-sex differences in the isokinetic parameters, isokinetic phases, and muscle activities and to investigate the correlation between muscle activity and isokinetic data. METHODS: A total of 41 healthy adults (20 male, 21 female) performed concentric knee extension at angular velocities of 60 ∘ /s, 180 ∘ /s, and 240 ∘ /s. The outcome measures consisted of the isokinetic peak moment (PM), normalized PM (PM/BW), total work, and power, alongside the acceleration, iso-speed and deceleration, sub-phases. Muscle activity was recorded from the rectus femoris, vastus lateralis, and vastus medialis using surface EMG. RESULTS: There were significant two-factor main effect and interaction between sex and angular velocity on the power of knee extension and isokinetic phase (p < 0.05). As the velocity increased, the increase in power of males was greater than that of females. In contrast, with the increase in velocity, PM, PM/BW, and total work decreased, but no significant interaction was observed between velocity and sex. At high velocity, males showed higher acceleration ability than females. CONCLUSION: The sex-dependent responses to velocity were more affected by differences in total movement time than force production. Fast isokinetic exercise should consider the acceleration ability rather than the ability to produce force. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite being denied access to ordained positions of power, and limited to occupying lay positions, women numerically outnumber men in the Catholic Church in Belgium. Furthermore, their involvement in the Church mostly takes place in what can be considered gender stereotypical domains, such as education and care-providing services. This article explores how Catholic lay women navigate the Belgian Catholic Church and how they reconcile their religion-based aspirations to be involved in the Church, on one hand, and their lack of ordained authority, on the other. Based on empirical research (including in-depth interviews, (online) observations, and informal conversations), this article foregrounds and analyses the narratives of Catholic lay women who are active in the Church. Drawing on difference feminism scholarship and on Braidotti's postsecular analysis, the article argues that the narratives under consideration should not be read through a secular-liberal conceptualisation of gender equality, but rather through a lens that allows the subjectivities and everyday realities of religious women to be made visible and to be acknowledged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Premise: Pollinators with flower constancy and long nectar‐feeding organs should favor less or no sexual dimorphism in the individual flowers of dioecious plants. This hypothesis is deduced because such pollinators can discriminate between intersexual flower size differences, and morphological differences between male and female flowers often diminish pollen transfer. Methods: We compared floral traits and pollinator behavior between male and female flowers in the hawkmoth‐pollinated species, Trichosanthes cucumeroides. In field studies, we removed petal fringes on both sexes and observed pollinators to assess the role of elaborate petal fringes in pollinator attraction and pollination success for each flower sex. Results: Female flowers had a similar front flower size and fringe extension as male flowers, supporting our hypothesis. In contrast, females allocated fewer resources to floral biomass. Additionally, they had smaller and narrower petal lobes, lower fringe density, shorter tubes with inferior nectar rewards, and lower display size than males, which is inconsistent with the hypothesis. Nocturnal hawkmoths prefer flowers with long fringe extensions. Fringe removal significantly decreased hawkmoth visitations to both female and male flowers but reduced success only in females. A literature survey indicated that female flowers of specialist‐pollinated species are similar in size or larger than the males and thus tend to attract more pollinators compared with female flowers of generalist‐pollinated species. Conclusions: Female flowers have evolved fringe extensions that are similar to those of male flowers, likely increasing pollinator attraction even slightly, and had less biomass in other floral parts and produced less nectar compared with male flowers. Our findings imply that female‐biased resource limitation and flower‐size sensitivity of pollinators together exert sex‐specific selection of floral traits in T. cucumeroides. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hematological parameters are essential indices for assessing the function of blood and reflecting not only the health status of animal but also their physiological adaptation to the environment. Herein, the composition of blood cells and the hematological parameters of wild Batrachuperus karlschmidti were examined for the first time, and the effects of sex, body size, body mass, and age on the hematological parameters were explored. The morphology and morphometric data of the blood cells, as well as the hematological parameters, of B. karlschmidti were slightly differ from those of its congener. However, hematological differences between sexes were only found in erythrocyte and leukocyte count, and mean cell volume (MCV), which possibly reflecting the need for better oxygen distribution and stronger immune protection for reproduction. Hematocrit (Hct) and mean cell hemoglobin (MCH) were strongly dependent on body mass. These also might have been attributed to higher oxygen requirements with larger body masses. This is a pilot project exploring the hematology of this species that may help establish hematological parameters in future for supporting species protection and monitoring studies, as well as help understanding the physiological adaptation of this species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this essay, I suggest an entangled analysis of sexual difference theory via Luce Irigaray and creolization via Édouard Glissant. I argue that these two distinct discourses share a critical stance against Western sameness and assimilation into a closed metaphysical system. However, each is born of particular historical socio-political struggles that should not be collapsed. I bring them together to demonstrate that their claims are productively entangled and that a critical re-reading of melancholia can unite readers to locate sources of sexual-racial-colonial violence in disparate locations and epochs, holding collective memory and acting beyond critique. Relying on Francoise Vergès’s account of métissage and anamnesis, I will suggest that Antillean geographical vantages reveal complexities of racial and colonial relation to one’s mother, the state, and the sea. By interrogating psychoanalytic and linguistic claims, I forward a South-South circulation of coordinated but distinctive political reimaginations that challenge static notions of race, gender, and sexual difference.

The aim of this paper is to analyze the complex construction of sexual difference in Spain during the eighteenth and at the turn of the nineteenth century. Accordingly, a combined analysis is performed on the religious discourse of traditionalist Catholicism and that of the country's Enlightenment currents, plus their evolution, for they were the main perspectives from which the models of femininity and masculinity were constructed at the time. The intention is to demonstrate that the conceptualization of sexual difference in the transition to modernity was a convoluted process in which, notwithstanding the fact that they involved a key change in the way of understanding the body, gender and the relationship between the sexes, the Enlightenment's visions did not replace anti-modern religious discourses. Quite to the contrary, it is contended here that those models coexisted precariously in the protracted dissolution of the old, absolutist regime, which requires examining them under a relational prism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Variation in body color occurs in many animals, and its function differs by species. Some species use multiple colors to create different effects. Most dragonflies change their body color unilaterally with maturation, whereas in a few species these changes are reversible. Both sexes of the damselfly Indolestes peregrinus show temperature‐dependent reversible body color changes, with a brown color when the ambient temperature decreases and a blue color when the temperature increases. To elucidate the temperature range at which this color change occurs and the exact elapsed time for the color change, laboratory experiments were conducted to determine whether the time required for body color change was related to ambient temperature and whether sex differences affected this duration. The body color and time required for the change were recorded under four temperature conditions. Bluing was completed in a few minutes, whereas browning took several hours. Moreover, sexual differences were observed, whereby males showed a more rapid transformation to blue than that of females. Our results suggest that the rapid bluing has some importance in this species, especially in males. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Faye Bodley-Dangelo argues that in his passive depiction of Eve in the Church Dogmatics Karl Barth truncates the agency of all women, thereby creating conflict between his theology of sexual difference and his theological anthropology, and denying women image-bearing humanity. This article challenges Bodley-Dangelo's characterisation of ideal agency as active self-assertion and self-determination, arguing that for Barth the ideal agent – for which the paradigm is Christ – is one who self-dispossesses in response to the determining claim of the peculiar other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The researchers intend to analyze John Fowles’ The French Lieutenant's Woman to depict how the female protagonists reject the notion of being eunuchs and experience liberation and revolution within the social context. To carry out this study, the researchers analyze the female characters. This masterpiece revolves around the notions of love and sexuality. The French Lieutenant's Woman has been analyzed from different aspects of feminism. However, in this research, the purpose is to depict how Victorian women are able to break the phallocentric discourse by negating sexual differences and becoming eunuch subjects. The beginning of the novel shows Charles’ engagement with Ernestina mostly based on the social doctrines of the Victorian era. In fact, there is no love between them and what binds them together is social expectation. Ernestina is the symbol of a woman who desires to be a female eunuch and obey the principles of the nuclear family. On the other hand, Sarah is a rebellious character who selects love over the social doctrines of Victorian society. The present research is conducted based on Luce Irigaray and Germaine Greer's theories in which the role of Victorian women is analyzed.

Abstract Flowers play a central role in plant reproduction by dispersing and receiving pollen grains delivered by animal vectors or air. They are rich in various nutrients, and therefore, provide an ideal habitat for many microbes. Recent studies have revealed that flower microbial communities can be highly variable among species, individuals, or even floral parts. However, sexual differences in flower microbial communities have rarely been investigated. In this study, we analyzed the flower prokaryotic communities of a dioecious plant (male and female flowers are produced on different individuals), Mallotus japonicus, in its natural habitat in Otsu, Japan. Using 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing, we found a differentiation in microbial communities between male and female flowers. Procaryotes on male flowers were relatively diverse, and included several dominant amplicon sequence variants (ASVs), mainly from the Gammaproteobacteria. These ASVs were also found on the body surface of flower visitor insects, suggesting that the visitors dispersed these microbes when they visited the flowers. On the other hand, female flower samples were overwhelmingly dominated by a single bacterial sequence from the Alphaproteobacteria, which showed a peak of relative abundance at the middle of the flowering season. The bacterium had already been present at anthesis, and its relative abundance on flower visitors was low. Flower visitors may have little effect on the microbial composition on female flowers. The lower diversity of microbes on female flowers than on male flowers suggests that the female flowers function as a stronger filter, possibly related to a strong defense against antagonists. These differences may be associated with different reproductive strategies of male and female flowers. This study indicates that dioecious plants provide unique opportunities to study roles of microbes in the evolution of floral traits that have mostly been overlooked in pollination ecology.

This essay proposes that the conceptualization of the "sexual" in psychoanalysis must be studied in its polysemy and complexity. It aims to identify some problematic knots in Freud's and Lacan's work when claiming the relationship between sexuality and the unconscious. It examines Oedipus and the castration complex in Freud's, and the formulae of sexuation and the logic of not-all in Lacan's. Finally, it establishes some links between psychoanalysis and the thinking of authors such as Butler and Preciado, among others from the Ljubljana philosophical school, in order to argue that sexuality is an epistemic-political field of action that confronts the biopolitical and historicist approaches with the negative ontology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The researchers intend to analyze John Fowles' The French Lieutenant's Woman to depict how the female protagonists reject the notion of being eunuchs and experience liberation and revolution within the social context. To carry out this study, the researchers analyze the female characters. This masterpiece revolves around the notions of love and sexuality. The French Lieutenant's Woman has been analyzed from different aspects of feminism. However, in this research, the purpose is to depict how Victorian women are able to break the phallocentric discourse by negating sexual differences and becoming eunuch subjects. The beginning of the novel shows Charles' engagement with Ernestina mostly based on the social doctrines of the Victorian era. In fact, there is no love between them and what binds them together is social expectation. Ernestina is the symbol of a woman who desires to be a female eunuch and obey the principles of the nuclear family. On the other hand, Sarah is a rebellious character who selects love over the social doctrines of Victorian society. The present research is conducted based on Luce Irigaray and Germaine Greer's theories in which the role of Victorian women is analyzed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the philosophical, psychoanalytical, and linguistic framework of Luce Irigaray's project, the notion of mimesis holds a fundamental place. Exhibited by the author as a methodological research resource and as a political praxis, it is a strategy that seeks to dislocate the discursive order that sustains our Western culture, eminently phallocentric and patriarchal. This antidote against uniformity and the original-copy logic that governs our tradition is deployed in her work by virtue of three dimensions (Schor, 1993): masquerade, sly mimesis, and joyful reappropriation or positive difference. In what follows, and articulating these three senses, I am interested in mapping this notion by virtue of some moments of Irigaray's project, attending to its genealogical, ethical, and political aspects. Irigaray's wager on the transformative and creative sense of the resource of mimesis, as opposed to the sense of specular imitation that runs through our single-subject tradition, reflects the double task of his endeavour: the profound critique of the foundations of the Western tradition of thought and the need to generate the conditions for transforming an entire culture [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Estudos Feministas is the property of Revista Estudos Feministas and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Rivista Italiana di Filosofia Politica is the property of Firenze University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Rivista Italiana di Filosofia Politica is the property of Firenze University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Effects of wind erosion on growth and adaptability have been widely reported in many plants, but little attention has been paid to dioecious plants. Recent studies have shown that sex-specific responses to environmental changes in many plants exist. To explore sexual differences in response to wind erosion, female and male Salix gordejevii saplings growing on inter-dune land (no erosion) and on the windward slope of the dune (20cm wind erosion) in Hunshandake Sandy Land were chosen and their morphology, biomass and physiological traits were investigated, respectively. Wind erosion significantly reduced plant growth, biomass accumulation, gas exchange and chlorophyll fluorescence, and obviously disrupted osmotic regulation function and antioxidant enzyme system in both sexes, especially in males. Under wind erosion condition, females exhibited higher sapling height (SH), basal diameter (BD), leaf dry mass (LDM), root dry mass (RDM), total dry mass (TDM), root percentage in total dry mass, net photosynthesis rate (Pn), maximum efficiency of photosystem II (Fv/Fm), effective quantum yield of PSII (ΦPSII), relative water content (RWC) of leaves, superoxide dismutase (SOD) and peroxidase (POD) activities, but lower malondialdehyde (MDA), proline as well as soluble sugar content than did males. However, no significant sexual differences in most of these traits were observed under no erosion condition. Our results demonstrated that females possess a greater resistance to wind erosion than do males, with females having a better photosynthetic capacity, stronger water retention capacity and more efficient antioxidant system to alleviate negative effects caused by aeolian environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on interdisciplinary research on the conservative “gender ideology” trend that has appeared in several Latin American countries in the last five years, this article argues that childhood(s) are at the centre of this trend as captive subjects and hostages of a symbolic struggle. The documentary analysis of different judicial, legal, political or educational elements, focused on three specific cases — Brazil, Peru and Mexico —, allows an examination of sexual difference as an unquestionable truth and of the parental hierarchy as the foundation of the generational power struggle.

In the early 1970s, as the industrial economy crumbled around Detroit and its suburbs, Dr. H. C. Tien, an independent electroconvulsive therapist who ran the Michigan Institute of Psychosynthesis in Lansing, MI, advocated a "cybernetic" approach to family psychiatry. In Tien's practice, one can learn how the liberatory kernel of religion and the truth of sexual difference—key components of moral treatment in nineteenth-century asylum reform—became amplified by emerging paradigms of neural nets and information processing. In Tien's practice—what he called Electric Love Therapy—electric shock treatment became a technology of conversion and, more precisely, of sexual differentiation and spiritual cultivation. Tien's is a disturbing example of how the regulation of sexuality and gender as private matters serves as resource and spur to secular demands to proprietize religion as an interior matter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Phototaxis, population dynamics and the sex structure of Exolontha castanea Chang adults were investigated in in sugarcane fields using light traps equipped with a self-ballasted high-pressure mercury vapor lamp (SHMVL) and a frequency oscillation pest-killing light trap (FOPLT) from 2016 to 2019. Results showed that adults of E. castanea displayed phototaxis, and the number of female adults trapped accounted for more than 95% of the total, clearly evidenced that there were sexual differences in the phototaxis. The flight period of adults occurred from late April to late June, and multi-peaks were observed during this period. While the sex ratio (female/male) of the natural population approached 1: 1, these results indicated that the phototaxis of females caught was significantly higher than that of males, and it had nothing to do with the number of males and females in the field. Thus, we can conclude that the implementation of light traps could be an effective strategy for controlling E. castanea in the future, as it is the females that return to the sugarcane fields to lay their eggs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the criticism by Paul B. Preciado, as well as some of its ramifications, in respect of psychoanalysis, which was presented at a conference held at the École de la Cause Freudienne, on November 19th, 2019. We intend to recognize and welcome Preciado's commentary and, in a more comprehensive manner, achieve this through the contemporary perspective of other disciplines, while also considering the possibility of the development of a new epistemology that sets the multiplicity of bodies and sexualities in contrast to the reading undertaken regarding the sexual difference within the psychoanalytic field. For this purpose, we critically analyze the response of three psychoanalysts to Preciado's intervention, and we discuss the issue with the epistemology of sexual difference while situating it in the contemporary dialogues between psychoanalysis and queer studies. Finally, we establish an interpretation of the sexual difference linked to the concept of apparatus, which is proposed by Michel Foucault; namely, as a political epistemology, and as a historically contextualized grammar of subjectivities, among others that are also possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Natural selection favors animals that evolve developmental and behavioral responses that buffer the negative effects of food restrictions. These buffering responses vary both between species and within species. Many studies have shown sex‐specific responses to environmental changes, usually in species with sexual size dimorphism (SSD), less found in species with weak or no SSD, which suggests that sizes of different sexes are experiencing different selections. However, previous studies usually investigated development and behavior separately, and the balanced situation where males and females of sexually dimorphic species respond in the same way to food restriction remains little known. Here, we investigated this in Phintelloides versicolor (Salticidae) that presents sexual dimorphism in color and shape but weak SSD. We examined whether food restriction induced the same responses in males and females in development duration, adult body size and weight, daily time allocated to foraging, and hunting. We found food restriction induced similar responses in both sexes: both exhibited longer development duration, smaller adult body size and weight, higher probability of staying outside nests and noticing prey immediately, and higher hunting success. However, there were sexual differences regardless of food condition: females showed faster development, smaller adult body size, higher probability of staying outside of nests, and higher hunting success. These indicated the differential selection on male and female sizes of P. versicolor could be under a balanced situation, where males and females show equal developmental and behavioral plasticity to environmental constraints.

In order to investigate the relationship between feather mites and their hosts taking into account host ecology I examined relationships among feather mite load, and sex, age, wing length and body‐condition in the white wagtail Motacilla alba lugens. I captured 288 wagtails in January (the first period) 2002 at a communal roost in Osaka, central Japan. All the wagtails were ringed individually, aged as yearlings (first‐winter) or adults (older) and sexed. I measured wing length, tarsus length and body mass, calculated a body condition index (BCI) and determined the feather mite loads (FML) of each individual by visual examination of the flight feathers of one wing, giving a score using the range 0–5. I recaptured 121 wagtails after an average of 45 days (the second period), and redetermined their FML. FML was not correlated with wing length or body‐condition. Yearlings had higher FML than adults in both periods. Males had greater FML than females in the second period. No significant differences in FML between the first and second periods were detected among yearling females, or adult males, but adult females had significantly lower FML and yearling males had significantly higher FML than the other age–sex classes in the second period. The sexual difference was caused by the lower FML of adult females and the higher FML of yearling males. The BCI of yearling males was the lowest among the four combinations of sex and age‐class. I conclude that wagtails may be able to prevent overpopulation of feather mites on their own plumage. The ability to control mite populations may be related to the condition of the host. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Entramado is the property of Universidad Libre Seccional Cali and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)