Suchergebnisse

In recent years, top-level women officials have become increasingly prominent in Hong Kong. Media discourses are also largely positive towards them. This study thus analyses how women officials are constructed as ‘perfect women’ in two Hong Kong newspapers. It shows that the newspapers affirm women officials as having both masculine and feminine characteristics, and as having both a successful career and a harmonious family. Yet the potential ideological implication of this seemingly positive image is explored by putting the image back into the larger context of gender relations in Hong Kong. It is argued that the perfect women image fails to problematize, or even trivializes the work–family tension that many women in society face, and thus potentially contributes to the reproduction of gender inequality. This study also discusses the image-construction process in relation to the officials’ public performance in terms of a Bourdieusian conceptual framework.

Based on the historical experience of Russia, the article puts forward and proves the thesis that the Rurikovich period is one continuous process of building the Russian multi-ethnic state: Novgorod - Kiev, Rostov - Suzdal, Vladimir - Moscow. Russians, Belarusians and Ukrainians as branches of one tree are the heirs of Ancient Rus, which obliges them to jointly develop the Russian world.

On the basis of historical sources and scientific literature the article describes the territory of Russian principalities in the IXXII centuries (the Old Russian state.) It is shown that in the IXXII centuries Ukraine as a state did not exist and the Moscow Principality gained strength and became the spiritual and political center of Russia. As the center of Russia, Moscow then provided all assistance to those who formed the Ukrainian state. The part of the Ukrainian political elite is acting counterhistorically when it denies the Russianness of their territorial roots.

During the 1650s and 1660s, the Dutch Republic witnessed a wave of moral panic created by moralists. Every natural disaster, economic setback, and war that the Republic was involved in was considered to be a sign of God's wrath on Holland's newly acquired freedom, wealth, and secular society. Much of the finger-pointing was directed toward Holland's young people, who were accused of being vain, defying the Sabbath, visiting the theater, gambling, drinking, and fornicating. These accusations were, however, misplaced. This article examines the moral crusade of the 1650s and 1660s, and discovers that moralists were more upset that the Dutch Republic became a secular society and did not evolve into a theocratic state or "Dutch Israel," as they had hoped. Holland's youth were used as a scapegoat to create moral panic among political leaders, so they would reform Holland's secular society. © 2005 Sage Publications.