Doctrinal and Lived Suffering

This article explores the significance of the Thai Buddhist temple for Thai women's sense of safety in Finland. Despite the growing popularity of Buddhism in the country, research literature and media have largely ignored the religiosity of Thai women, focusing instead on negative stereotypes. The article highlights the importance of Buddhism and the temple in the lives of Thai women who have migrated to European countries and challenges biased portrayals of Thai women in previous research. Based on ethnographic research at the Thai temples in Finland and life story interviews with twelve Thai women. The article argues that the temple plays a crucial role in promoting a sense of safety among Thai women by providing a sense of home, belonging, and meaning. The temple's material and symbolic characteristics, in addition to its communality and relationality, work together to connect individuals with the temple's religious significance, contributing to the women's sense of security. These findings speak for the fact that when facing the challenges of Thai women or other religious and ethical minorities, it is necessary to also look to their religion as a source of mental and spiritual well-being.

Pregnancy loss among Muslim women: A narrative review

Gender & HistoryVolume 24, Issue 1 p. 231-232 REVIEWS Intersections of Gender, Religion and Ethnicity in the Middle Ages edited by Cordelia Beattie and Kirsten A. Fenton First published: 26 March 2012 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0424.2011.01679.xRead the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume24, Issue1April 2012Pages 231-232 RelatedInformation

This chapter addresses the intersection of religion, migration, gender, and sexuality as an important way to visibilize their impact upon immigrants’ lives. It highlights two aspects: (a) how religious practices become a source of strength for immigrants; and (b) it also reveals the extent to which immigrants’ experiences vary according to their gender, sexual orientation, and displayed gender identity. Taking into account the experiences of heterosexual and queer immigrants, the analysis focuses on the way that dynamics of displacement impact both females and males. The chapter concludes that the intertwining of migration with religion, gender, and sexuality emphasizes spaces of resistance, (re)negotiation, and (re)construction in the experience of transnational immigrants that allows for furthering strategies of identity formation amidst host societies.

Mainstream pornography is popular, freely accessible, and infused with themes of male dominance, aggression, and female subservience. Through depicting sex in these ways, mainstream pornography has the potential to influence the further development of harmful sexual scripts that condone or endorse violence against women and girls. These concerns warrant the adoption of a harms-based perspective in critical examinations of pornography's influence on sexual experiences. This chapter reports on findings from interviews with 24 heterosexual emerging adults living in Aotearoa/New Zealand about how pornography has impacted their lives. Despite a shared awareness among participants of mainstream pornography's misogynistic tendencies, and the potential for harm from those displays, men's and women's experiences were profoundly gendered. Men's reported experiences were often associated with concerns about their own sexual behaviors, performances, and/or abilities. Conversely, women's experiences were often shaped by how pornography had affected the way that men related to them sexually. Their experiences included instances of sexual coercion and assault which were not reported by the men. These findings signal the need for a gendered lens, situated within a broader harms-based perspective, in examinations of pornography's influence.

Reviewed by: Patriots, Prostitutes, and Spies: Women and the Mexican-American War by John M. Belohlavek Mark Bernhardt (bio) Patriots, Prostitutes, and Spies: Women and the Mexican-American War. By John M. Belohlavek. (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2017. Pp. 320. $45.00 cloth; $45.00 ebook) John M. Belohlavek sets out to examine how American and Mexican women served their families and countries during the Mexican-American War and responded to the military conflict. He rightly asserts that there is a growing body of scholarship on women's lives during the American Revolutionary and Civil War eras, but women's experiences during the Mexican-American War remain understudied and his objective is to bring "the lives of those who lived in anonymity together with those of the few celebrities" in one volume (p. 18). Alongside the stories of well-known women from the period, such as Susan Magoffin and Jane Storm Cazneau, he also includes those of midwestern mothers fearing for their sons' safety on the frontlines, New Mexico wives trying to keep family businesses operating, and [End Page 534] American and Mexican women who travelled with the armies. The book is divided into eight themed chapters, which provide a diverse range of perspectives. The first discusses American women's opinions of the war. Chapter two describes how Mexican women interacted with Americans and aided the Mexican army. In chapter three, Belohlavek details the experiences of American women who traveled through northern Mexico. Chapter four tells about American women living and working in Mexico, providing services to the American army or having taken jobs in Mexican factories before the war. What female newspaper reporters and editors wrote about the war is the subject of chapter five. Chapter six examines the views American soldiers had of the Mexican women they encountered. Belohlavek analyzes American war-themed literature written by women or about women in chapter seven. He follows this with a similar analysis of poetry and songs produced both in the United States and Mexico in the final chapter. Belohlavek located an impressive array of sources through his research, including diaries, letters, newspaper articles, memoirs, songs, poems, serials, and novels to document how the war impacted women's lives on both sides of the border and the opinions some women expressed about it. However, though he makes the effort to include Mexican women's voices, Mexican women are more often viewed through the eyes of American men, and overall the book provides much more information about American women's views and experiences. There are some minor problems. The author delves into a number of topics that are irrelevant to the book's subject matter. For example, in the introduction he states that "by briefly exploring the political, economic, and social nature of the two countries, we can obtain a clearer picture of how they [Mexico and the United States] came to clash and determine whether a realistic alternative presented itself" (p. 3). Considering that Belohlavek provides only a short summary of the scholarship on the causes of the war and its inevitability with no new insights of his own or explanation of the connection to his [End Page 535] research, it seems unnecessary to address this issue at all. Similarly, while his brief discussion of the quality of Mexican army bands is interesting, he does not demonstrate how this information meaningfully contributes to his study. Such asides at times disrupt the flow of the narrative. There is also a notable contradiction to one of the chapter's arguments. Belohlavek states that most women endorsed the war with Mexico (p. 21). However, he also accepts Peggy Cashion's well-researched findings that indicate most women opposed the war while still supporting the well-being and safety of American soldiers (p. 42). Overall, the book provides much needed research on an understudied topic. There is room for a lot more work in this field, especially concerning the experiences of Mexican women, but Belohlavek's contribution here helps serve as a solid foundation for future studies. Mark Bernhardt MARK BERNHARDT teaches history at Jackson State University. He is the author of several articles about the press coverage of the Mexican-American War. Copyright...

To provide evidence on how women's circumstances and experiences influence their smoking behaviour in pregnancy, including their attempts to quit. Women in disadvantaged circumstances are more likely to smoke prior to pregnancy; they are also less likely to quit in pregnancy and, among those who quit, more likely to resume smoking after birth. Although there is a rich seam of qualitative research on their experiences, it has yet to be bought together and synthesized. The synthesis was conducted using meta-ethnography. A comprehensive search of five electronic databases (inception to May 2012) was completed to identify qualitative research exploring pregnant women's experiences of smoking in pregnancy. Following critical appraisal, 26 studies reported in 29 papers were included in the review. Over 640 pregnant women were represented, the majority drawn from disadvantaged groups. We carried out the synthesis using meta-ethnography. Four dimensions of women's circumstances and experiences of smoking in pregnancy were highlighted: the embeddedness of smoking in women's lives, questioned only because of pregnancy; quitting for pregnancy rather than for good; quitting had significant costs for the woman and cutting down was a positive alternative; the role of partners and the broader dynamics of the couple's relationship in influencing women's smoking habits. Syntheses of qualitative research have an important role to play in producing the evidence base for midwifery, nursing, and public health policy and practice. The four dimensions identified in this review have implications for the design and delivery of interventions to support women to quit smoking in pregnancy.

The often-cited finding that is a problem particularly afflicting women is one that mainstream theoretical approaches have been unable to explain satisfactorily. Such theories have been critiqued as inherently dualist and reductionist and as employing concepts that are implicitly androcentric. Mainstream theories promote a view of depression as a form of individual disorder or psychopathology, capable of being understood without regard to the broader sociocultural context. Neglected within mainstream theory and research on depression are social-structural and discursive conditions that regulate women's lives and shape their experiences. Research informed by feminist standpoint and social constructionist epistemological perspectives provides one avenue for offsetting the limitations of mainstream approaches. At this juncture, forms of inquiry drawing on qualitative methodologies offer more useful, and potentially more emancipatory, strategies for understanding depression in women than mainstream approaches, because they can more fully acknowledge the lived experiences of women.In this article, I analyze limitations of the currently dominant, or mainstream, approaches to understanding and explaining in women. (f.1) Based on this analysis, I argue for the need to develop alternative theoretical and methodological perspectives. The limitations of mainstream approaches become apparent when the assumptions implicit in these approaches are considered from feminist standpoint and social constructionist perspectives. Within clinical psychology and adjacent fields, much research, and the practice it informs, is grounded in mainstream frameworks. When depression is conceptualized within mainstream frameworks, the accounts produced serve to medicalize and pathologize both women's bodies and women's experiences. From a feminist perspective, such approaches are viewed as lacking in emancipatory potential, because they do not share a feminist concern with women's empowerment and are more likely to collude with, than pose challenges to, oppressive conditions in women's lives. Not only are mainstream approaches likely to disempower depressed women, they also disempower women in general, because they promote androcentric, homogenized, decontextualized, reductionistic, and dualistic ways of understanding women's lived experiences and embodied lives.WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT DEPRESSION IN WOMEN?A short answer to this question is: not very much. In mainstream research on depression, gender is either ignored entirely or addressed only in terms of a female/male dichotomy, defined by individual of assignment. In the first case, research is conducted as though participants are interchangeable without regard to gender, on the assumption that theories of depression apply equally well to both females and males. In the second case, individual research participants are categorized as either female or male, and gender is addressed in this limited way by testing for sex in depression. Attention then focuses on whether differences are present between males and females in the rate or severity of depression (usually defined, respectively, as presence of diagnosable depressive disorder or level of self-reported depressive symptoms). And a consistent finding has been that rates or levels of depression are higher among women than men (cf. Bebbington, 1996; McGrath, Keita, Strickland, & Russo, 1990; Nolen-Hoeksema, 1990; Weissman et al., 1993).(f.2)Among mainstream depression researchers, there is also a consensus that reported evidence of differences in rates or levels of depression cannot be explained (or explained away) as merely the product of measurement or other methodological artifacts. Such evidence of differences in rates or levels of depression between women and men is now generally interpreted as reflecting a true difference and attention has shifted to the problem of accounting for the preponderance of women among the depressed. …

Caregivers of persons with Alzheimer's disease (AD) provide an inordinate and escalating level of care. It has been postulated that: (1) religious beliefs and/or spirituality may assist individuals in their caregiving efforts; and (2) coping strategies may vary depending on ethnicity. The intent of this pilot study was to examine these theories by interviewing five African-American and five white caregivers of persons with AD using demographic and open-ended questions regarding spirituality, religious practices, and ethnicity. Five themes were identified regarding the development of the caregivers' beliefs and practices: 1. later life development of beliefs; 2. religious training and practices; 3. family influences; 4. impact of ethnicity on caregiving; and 5. impact of spirituality and religion on caregiving. All caregivers felt their spirituality and/or religious practices shaped how they approached providing care and all reported that they were influenced by their ethnic background. Most stated that religious practices and spirituality affected how they felt about providing care and that religion and spirituality helped them deal with difficult challenges. Through a better understanding of the importance of different coping mechanisms among caregivers, professionals are able to provide more sensitive care to persons of diverse groups.

Although a recent surge in the literature has begun to address the existence and needs of the growing population of lesbian, bisexual, and queer (LBQ) older women, there is little established research that has examined their contextualized lived experiences. This absence of information about what aging is like for LBQ women in the current socioreligious climate can lead to misperceptions being perpetuated about the possible interconnections/disconnections among sexual orientation, spirituality, and aging. Therefore, based on the need to deconstruct these misconceptions and present counternarratives to dominant discourses, the following composite ethno-screenplay scenes, restoried from life story interviews, contextualize and illuminate understandings of the experiences of aging, sexuality, and spirituality in the lives of LBQ-identified women in the Southern Bible belt.

This paper draws upon recent research that explored Muslim youth identity constructions in southern Ghana. At a time when Muslim youth are often demonised and Islam is represented as incompatible with western democratic ideals, the research explored the intersections of nation, religion, ethnicity and gender in identity narratives of female students in high school and higher education in southern Ghana. After describing the Ghanaian socio-historical context, we outline the post-structural and post-colonial theories used to understand key concepts such as identity and youth. We then describe our methodological approach before presenting our intersectional analysis of data from the focus group discussions. This highlights female youths’ deep commitments to nation and religion, the marginalisation of young Muslim females in this Christian-majority context, and finally, the identity tensions articulated by participants between different Islamic traditions. We further show how all of these identity constructions were intersected by gender.

PurposeMetastatic breast cancer [MBC] is the leading cause of cancer death in women globally with no cure. Women diagnosed with MBC endure a catastrophic upheaval to multiple aspects of their life and a radically transformed future landscape. Evidence suggests that the provision of care for women living with metastatic breast cancer is inadequate, socially isolating and stigmatising. To date, this topic has received little research attention. To increase understanding of the experiences of women living with MBC, a synthesis of current evidence is required. This paper presents a review of qualitative evidence on women’s experiences of MBC.MethodsA qualitative evidence synthesis [QES] was conducted to synthesise primary qualitative research on the experiences of women living with MBC. Searches were performed of electronic databases Medline, Medline Ovid, PsycINFO, Psych articles, PubMED, CINAHL Complete, Scopus and grey literature databases. The methodological quality of the included studies was appraised using a modified version of the Critical Appraisal Skills Programme [CASP]. Title, abstract, and full-text screening were undertaken. A ‘best fit’ framework approach using the ARC [Adversity, Restoration, Compatibility] framework was used to guide data extraction and synthesis. Confidence in the findings was assessed using the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation, Confidence in the Evidence from Reviews of Qualitative research [GRADE-CERQual].Results28 papers from 21 research studies containing 478 women’s experiences of living with MBC were deemed suitable for inclusion in this qualitative evidence synthesis. Findings are presented in a new conceptual framework RAAW [adapted from ARC] for women living with MBC under themes: Reality, Adversity, Adjustment and Wellbeing. Findings revealed that a diagnosis of MBC impacted every aspect of women’s lives; this is different to a diagnosis of early breast cancer. An overarching theme of lack of support extended across various facets of their lives. A lack of psychological, emotional, and psychosocial support was evident, with a critical finding that models of care were not fit for purpose. Deficits included a lack of information, knowledge, inclusion in shared decision-making and MDT support, specifically the need for palliative care/oncology support access. Some women living with MBC wanted to be identified as having a chronic illness not a life-limiting illness. Culture and socioeconomic standing influenced the availability of various types of support. The impact of treatment and symptoms had an adverse effect on women’s quality of life and affected their ability to adjust.ConclusionThis review synthesised the qualitative literature on the experiences of women living with MBC. The ARC framework used in the synthesis was adapted to develop a revised conceptual framework titled RAAW to represent the evidence from this review on experiences for women living with MBC; Reality & Adversity: A diagnosis of MBC; Adjustment: Living with MBC; Wellbeing: Awareness, meaning, engagement [RAAW; MBC].

The birth rate among unmarried United States teens has been sufficiently high over the last several decades that large numbers of public and private agencies have implemented a range of primary prevention strategies in hopes of reducing the number of adolescent pregnancies. Prevention strategies reported in the literature have varied in philosophy, purpose, structure, and content (Orbuch, 1989). Some interventions have focused solely on education and some on getting adolescents to abstain from coital activity, whereas others have concentrated on teaching adolescents cognitive and interpersonal skills thought to decrease the chance of youthful pregnancy. This article reviews published evaluations of these primary prevention strategies with a two-fold purpose. First, it will identify prevention efforts that have been adequately evaluated and whose results have been published in peer reviewed journals, with a primary focus on those programs that have demonstrated some level of behavioral success with sexual activity and birth control use. Behavioral outcomes are focused on here because the relationship between these variables and pregnancy is clearer than the relationship of other variables, such as attitudes or behavioral intentions. Second, the applied implications of these findings will be explored. The Need for Primary Prevention The need for pregnancy prevention efforts among U.S. youth has been consistently documented since the early 1970s. Although the age of first coitus and the frequency of coitus for adolescents in our society is comparable to other Western developed countries, the pregnancy, abortion, and birth rates among our youth far outstrip these other nations (Jones et al., 1985). The most recent figures can be extrapolated to suggest that over one million teens in the U.S. will become pregnant annually in coming years (Henshaw & Van Vort, 1989). Moreover, the most recent trend has been for single mothers to keep their children rather than relinquish them through adoption (Miller & Moore, 1990). This movement significantly contributes to increases in the number of children in poverty conditions. Many of these mothers are at serious risk for giving birth to additional children while single, thereby compounding their families' life challenges. The differences in adolescent pregnancy rates between the United States and other Western countries have often been pointed out (cf. Hayes, 1987). Such disparate figures raise serious questions about why differences exist. Jones et al. (1985) compared the U.S. to six other Western nations and concluded that differences in how the problem was defined contributed to the discrepant rates in teen pregnancies. They found that teen sexual activity, although not always seen as appropriate, is accepted as inevitable in most other countries. Although the value of abstinence and postponing coitus is often stressed, policy makers in these nations believe that programmatic emphasis needs to be centered on preventing pregnancies among adolescents because of potential costs to youth, their offspring, their families, and society. The U.S., however, has yet to clearly define the focus of the problem and attempts to do so are highly politicized. Whereas there are some who take a stance similar to that found in other Western countries, others feel that the problem rests in preventing sexual intercourse from occurring among youth. Unfortunately, the discourse surrounding problem definition is rarely dispassionate. Quite the opposite, the announcement of any intended adolescent pregnancy prevention effort within a community is likely to be met with impassioned rhetoric from concerned groups of citizens who strongly believe their approach is the correct one (cf. Kenney, 1986; Kirby, Barth, Leland, & Fetro, 1991). The ramifications of this social and cultural environment on practice will be explored later in this article. BASIC RESEARCH EVIDENCE ON THE EVIDENCE OF SEX EDUCATION One source of evidence about the relationship between sex education and pregnancy prevention comes from several national probability surveys that have been intermittently conducted since the mid-1970s. …

This text seeks to raise questions about the possible traces of coloniality in the lives of women in some specific Central American spaces: the communities participating in the project Education, Spiritualities and Resistance: Towards Pedagogies of Hope. From a methodological option that favors a reflection nourished by the voice of women from communities in resistance in conversation with the voice of academic women, we propose paths toward a feminist decoloniality, valuing the resistance and decolonial spiritualities that are born and develop in Central American communities. Academically, this conversation was nourished by a feminine and feminist perspective from the ethics of care (Silvia Elena Guzmán and Sharon López), the economy (Corina Rodríguez), decolonial processes (Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui), theology (Silvia Regina de Lima Silva), and from a particular epistemic and pedagogical view of women (Lorena González). The experience and everyday life of women who organize for resistance in Central America generate hope and challenge the academy to strengthen and/or recover pertinence, social relevance and credibility. The relevance of this work lies in establishing a bridge of dialogue between ancestral memory and the experiences of women in their communities, with a feminist academic reflection.

The instrumental use of Muslim women’s experiences as a symbol and justification for Western countries interventions is not a new business and was not employed for the first time in the post September 11th “war on terror” campaigns. Indeed, the production of stereotypes of Muslim women in political platforms can be tracked back to different colonial enterprises. Clearly, as Lughod (2002) has highlighted, the consistent resort to a cultural framing through the equation women/religion/suffering has always been a tool to hide political and economic interests and consequently to bury more complex political and historical developments. In the academic sphere, debates on Muslim women also widened. However, as Lila Abu-Lughod (2002) contended, the efforts were almost put solely on denouncing the great violent and oppressive contexts where those women were living under the barbaric violations perpetrated to them by Islamist movements. Otherwise, if a scholar tried to problematize the cultural framing of Muslim women’s questions, she (or he) would very likely be accused of cultural relativism (Lughod, 2002). Therefore, a sole and unproblematic focus on the suffering of Muslim women is not only futile, but also contributes to reify the old Orientalist perceptions on Islam and Muslim women, and to provide intellectual foundations for Western imperialist wars. The objective of this article, on the contrary, is to raise another set of questions, which I believe to be more urgent. These questions aim at both unpacking Muslim women as a discursive category, and understanding the major challenges their experiences impose on secular feminist conceptions of agency. I contend that addressing these questions is more urgent for different reasons. Firstly, I argue vigorously that apart from the obsessive and somehow blind criticism that religion is inherently patriarchal and consequently oppressive to women, scholarship especially from within feminist theory remained oblivious to a more systematic and self-reflexive engagement with religion and Muslim women. In addition, I argue that surprisingly, even in a period of post-Orientalist deconstruction, which supposedly would have already dismissed those essentialist and repressive accounts of Muslim women and Islam, subtle but very important remnants can still be found on the so called “corrective” postcolonial feminist scholarship on Muslim women. Indeed, there is a plurality of work on Muslim women in the social sciences. However, they are scattered and apparently separated by their own agendas and claims, with very few attempts at dialogue or debate. Hence, a systematic account of this diversity has been missing, one which could provide an up to date appraisal of the state of scholarship and activism on Muslim women, and build a firm foundation for advancing knowledge both of the subject itself and on interdisciplinary efforts like the one I advance here. Therefore, while doing a systematic and critical literature review, oriented specifically by an interdisciplinary approach, I expect this article to fill part of this gap and raise crucial questions in order to build knowledge of the intersection between Muslim women’s studies and feminist theory. It is here where more research is certainly needed in order to reduce the gulf that exists between both areas. The introduction of this article outlines briefly the ways through which Muslim women have been approached as a discursive category, constructing stereotypes of Muslim women in political platforms, as well as on the academic stage. Politically, the production of stereotypes can be tracked back to different colonial enterprises and more recently to the interventions by Western countries that comprised the “war on terror” campaign. On the academic stage, these stereotypes were reproduced in the sole efforts to denounce the great violent and oppressive contexts where those women are living, as previously mentioned. The first section is concerned with the exclusion of religion and more specifically of Muslim women’s experiences from history and feminist knowledge production, including IR feminist studies. I acknowledge that the ontological and epistemological openness in feminist and gender studies in international relations and other areas ensured the recognition of the existence of differences and of multiple “layers” of identities which affect sexed bodies in distinct ways. These were crucial to challenge Eurocentric narratives as the only legitimate source of knowledge production. However, I put forward in this section that despite a greater plurality in feminist studies, there is still a silence from feminist theorists regarding religious women’s experiences, and hence, the importance of religion to women (Salem, 2013). Using the work of Phyllis Mack (2003) I argue that one of the reasons for this gap resides in the metanarrative of secularization, which is the basis of secular feminist scholarship. Within this analytical framework, I analyse how the conceptions of agency and emancipation underlying the different strands of secular feminism are limiting to the different voices and experiences of Muslim women. The second section addresses the challenges Islamic feminism imposes to feminist notions of agency. As religion is seen as inherently patriarchal and oppressive to women, Islamic feminism or any other effort to pursue gender equality from within an Islamic framework would be taken as contradictory or incompatible. By locating the struggle within a religious framework, and at the same time claiming for the existence of what seems to be the untouchable foundations of Islam, Islamic feminists are cast away from secular feminisms. I argue that those experiences of activists and scholars make serious challenges to the notions of agency based on rationality and secularity as the only pillars whereby women can struggle for and reach gender equality. As a result, Islamic feminism(s)’s experiences also help to unsettle and complicate some binaries which feminist theory has been contributing to reify, such as secular/spiritual; reason/obscurantism; science/religion; freedom/oppression; modern/backward. In the third section, the article discusses some of the piety women’s movements anchored on Saba Mahmood’s work on pietistic agency, firstly in order to highlight the inability of most feminist scholarship in capturing the diversity of Muslim women’s voices; second to denounce the perilous nature of encapsulating women’s agency solely within “the entelechy of liberatory politics”. These movements advance very different agendas and orientations from the Islamic feminist ones. Those agendas are precisely what denounce the subtle but very important remnants of Orientalist assumptions, particularly its adherence to secular-liberal values, and the teleological conceptions of modernity (Lakhani, 2008). I conclude the article arguing that rather than neglecting the important achievements feminism promoted in the lives of women in different parts of the world, the main intention of this work was to provincialize (to borrow the expression from Chakrabarty) the secular and liberal accounts of agency, feminism, empowerment, freedom and so on, locating them in the historical, political and cultural context that produced the desires that animate them.