Edited by: Judith Goetz and Stefanie Mayer

This new book brings together research and analyses from five continents in order to promote a global perspective on the thoroughly global phenomenon of the current culture wars around sex and gender. The contributions show how transnational networks spread discourses that were developed in the Global North, and how they become re-articulated in different national, political and religious contexts.In recent years, issues of gender and sexuality have become a political battlefield on which far-right, religious and conservative actors wage their war against liberal and left-wing ideas, as well as emancipatory movements. 'Anti-Gender' crusades, which had originally been launched by the Vatican, deeply impacted societies and politics especially as these discourses were adopted by the secular far-right. Campaigns against sexual and reproductive rights, against gender equality and sexual diversity were waged from Russia to the United States and from Latin America to Japan.

Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2024.

By Scott Phillips ,  Justin F. Marceau,   Sam Kamin ,  Nicole King

In this essay, we update and expand David Baldus’s famous study of Georgia homicides in the 1970s to uncover the impact of the race and sex of homicide victims on whether a defendant was sentenced to death and ultimately executed. We show that the odds of a death sentence were sixteen times greater if the victim was a White woman than if the victim was a Black man, even when other factors that might explain the disparity were taken into account. Furthermore, we identified a clear hierarchy among victims with regard to whether a death sentence was ultimately carried out. Among the defendants who were sent to death row for killing a White woman, 30% were executed. But the share drops to 19% if the victim was a White man, 10% if the victim was a Black woman, and 0% if the victim was a Black man. We then use contemporary, nationwide Supplemental Homicide Report (SHR) data to show that the effect we identified in Georgia in the 1970s generalizes to the nation as a whole and to the present day. We argue that these disparities, which cannot be explained by factors extrinsic to the victim’s race and sex, are further evidence that the ultimate question of who lives and  dies in our criminal justice system remains unconstitutionally tainted by outdated notions of chivalry and White supremacy.   

114 J. CRIM. L. & CRIMINOLOGY 67 (2024).

By Jenna Russo

While all UN multidimensional peacekeeping operations are mandated to prevent and respond to conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV), the missions in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and South Sudan, as well as in the Central African Republic, are also mandated to protect civilians from sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV). While SGBV is often used and understood interchangeably with CRSV, SGBV is broader in scope, as it encompasses nonsexual forms of gender-based violence and need not be connected to armed conflict.

This report examines how missions are implementing their mandates to protect civilians from SGBV, including CRSV, and assesses good practices, gaps, and opportunities for improvement. The report draws on lessons learned from the UN missions in South Sudan (UNMISS) and the DRC (MONUSCO). It considers how the complexities of preventing and responding to SGBV necessitate a whole-of-mission approach to the protection of civilians (POC) that encompasses not only physical protection from violence but also activities that address cultural norms related to gender, strengthen the rule of law, and enhance women’s participation. This report thus considers a range of protection activities carried out by missions, as well as structures and processes that promote the effective integration of gender into mission planning and activities.

The paper concludes with several recommendations for UN peacekeeping missions, the UN Department of Peace Operations (DPO), and member states on the Security Council to strengthen work on SGBV.

New York: International Peace Institute, 2022. 33p.

By Cynthia A. Olufade.

This book is based on Cynthia A. Olufade’s Master’s thesis ‘Oath taking and the transnationalism of silence among Edo female sex workers in Italy’, winner of the African Studies Centre, Leiden’s 2018 Africa Thesis Award. This annual award for Master’s students encourages student research and writing on Africa and promotes the study of African cultures and societies. This study aimed to interrogate the oath taking phenomena among Edo female sex workers in Italy. In a bid to understand how the oaths taken in Edo State, translates into an intangible aspect of the trafficking process. To achieve the aims of the study, the research utilised the qualitative method of data collection, it involved the use of in-depth interviews and observations. The study reveals that the transnational silence exhibited by different categories of actors in the Edo sex work network sustains the industry. The research also highlights that the oaths form only a part, albeit important of the construction of debt and bondage in the context of Edo transnational sex work. In light of its findings, the study concludes that the idea of transnationalism of silence is as effective as the oaths taken.

Leiden: Leiden University, 2020. 118p.

By Robert N. Willson.

“The following pages are published in the earnest hope that they may assist in the preservation of the American home circle through their influence upon the boy and the young man. Each of the four chapters was prepared for those who listened to it, and with no idea that it would eventually find its way into print. I have now arranged them in permanent form for the purpose of more widely introducing a difficult and delicate subject in a plain but thoroughly clean way. For years I have felt the need, as an individual and a physician, of a simple, and yet scientifically accurate, presentation of the world's great blemish, its causes, and effects, in such a form that I might safely place it in the hands of the American boy and girl. Each of the chapters comprising this little volume has been chosen with this end in view. Each has been utilized, moreover, in response to a desire, expressed openly and often, by men and women who have the integrity of American manhood deeply at heart.”

Philadelphia, Chicago, The J.C. Winston company , 1905. 174p.