By Pierre Bourdieu (London: Routledge, 2010), xxx + 607 pp. £15.99 paper. A combination of social theory, statistical data, illustrations, and interviews, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judg...

Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste

This is a review of Collected Works of John Tate. Parts I, II, edited by Barry Mazur and Jean-Pierre Serre. American Mathematical Society, Providence, Rhode Island, 2016. For several decades it has been clear to the friends and colleagues of John Tate that a “Collected Works” was merited. The award of the Abel Prize to Tate in 2010 added impetus, and finally, in Tate’s ninety-second year we have these two magnificent volumes, edited by Barry Mazur and Jean-Pierre Serre. Beyond Tate’s published articles, they include five unpublished articles and a selection of his letters, most accompanied by Tate’s comments, and a collection of photographs of Tate. For an overview of Tate’s work, the editors refer the reader to [4]. Before discussing the volumes, I describe some of Tate’s work. 1. Hecke L-series and Tate’s thesis Like many budding number theorists, Tate’s favorite theorem when young was Gauss’s law of quadratic reciprocity. When he arrived at Princeton as a graduate student in 1946, he was fortunate to find there the person, Emil Artin, who had discovered the most general reciprocity law, so solving Hilbert’s ninth problem. By 1920, the German school of algebraic number theorists (Hilbert, Weber, . . .) together with its brilliant student Takagi had succeeded in classifying the abelian extensions of a number field K: to each group I of ideal classes in K, there is attached an extension L of K (the class field of I); the group I determines the arithmetic of the extension L/K, and the Galois group of L/K is isomorphic to I. Artin’s contribution was to prove (in 1927) that there is a natural isomorphism from I to the Galois group of L/K. When the base field contains an appropriate root of 1, Artin’s isomorphism gives a reciprocity law, and all possible reciprocity laws arise this way. In the 1930s, Chevalley reworked abelian class field theory. In particular, he replaced “ideals” with his “idèles” which greatly clarified the relation between the local and global aspects of the theory. For his thesis, Artin suggested that Tate do the same for Hecke L-series. When Hecke proved that the abelian L-functions of number fields (generalizations of Dirichlet’s L-functions) have an analytic continuation throughout the plane with a functional equation of the expected type, he saw that his methods applied even to a new kind of L-function, now named after him. Once Tate had developed his harmonic analysis of local fields and of the idèle group, he was able prove analytic continuation and functional equations for all the relevant L-series without Hecke’s complicated theta-formulas. Received by the editors September 5, 2016. 2010 Mathematics Subject Classification. Primary 01A75, 11-06, 14-06. c ©2017 American Mathematical Society

The collected works

The author has done a Herculean job of interviewing more than 1000 Japanese women over 20 years. The inquiries were to establish what knowledge these women had about the menopause and the symptoms they experienced. Women from all walks of life were included. Each chapter has a theme, and narratives from selected women are included to describe and emphasize the point being made. Statistics are detailed in one chapter, and the rest of the book is devoted to narrative description. A detailed picture of life in Japan evolves from this. Changes in society are well outlined, allowing one to better understand how the nuclear family is evolving and the problems that have resulted. Information is given about the position of various members of the family and the extended family. Emphasis is placed in this narrative on the role of women—their work habits and daily living experiences, particularly during the midlife

Encounters With Aging: Mythologies of Menopause in Japan and North America

https://biblio.ugent.be/publication/1901880/file/6761175.pdf

Human Development Report 2010: een verhaal van vooruitgang?

Menopause is a natural part of the aging process in women and is defined as occurring 12 months after the last menstrual period marking the end of menstrual cycles. Menopause has a negative impact on the quality of life (QoL). Various generic and specific questionnaires have been used for assessing different dimensions of QoL in menopausal women. The purpose of this systematic review was to identify those general and specific instruments, and to determine the factors that affect QoL in menopausal women. We assessed eight specific and three general tools and found that some general and specific instruments, such as the 36-item short form (SF-36) and the Menopause Specific Quality of Life Questionnaire (MENQOL), were mostly used for assessment. The specific tools available were diverse. Employment status and a high educational level in menopausal women were considered to be protective factors in improving QoL. Identification of predicting factors of QoL, such as body mass index, race, age, duration of menopause, and social and occupational variables can help to improve the QoL of these women allowing planning of psychological consultations and practical interventions.

Assessment of Questionnaire Measuring Quality of Life in Menopausal Women: A Systematic Review.

Class, gender and culture in the experience of menopause. A comparative survey in Tunisia and France

Objective Because the experience of menopause varies by ethnic group, society, and social class, we sought to compare quality of life (QoL) at menopause between Tunisian and French women. Methods This secondary analysis of existing data collected in two independent, cross-sectional surveys (the French GAZEL cohort and a representative sample of Tunisian women) compared both samples for six dimensions of the Women's Health Questionnaire while taking into account social and demographic characteristics and menopause status with multivariate logistic models. Results Comparison of 1,040 Tunisian women aged 45 to 64 years with 774 French women aged 48 to 53 years showed that Tunisian women had a significantly lower QoL than the French women in every dimension (low QoL for Tunisian vs French, odds ratio [95% CI]: somatic symptoms, 2.1 [1.6-2.7]; depressed mood, 3.6 [2.8-4.7]; anxiety, 2.4 [1.8-3.3]; vasomotor symptoms, 1.7 [1.3-2.3]). QoL was also lower for working-class women, but associations were weaker than for country (low QoL for working class vs middle class, odds ratio [95% CI]: somatic symptoms: 1.9 [1.5-2.4]; depressed mood, 1.5 [1.2-1.8]; anxiety, 1.8 [1.5-2.3]; vasomotor symptoms, 1.7 [1.4-2.2]). Associations between country and QoL were stronger in the working class than in the middle class. Conclusions This epidemiological study comparing France and a North African country sheds light on the major role of country of residence, social class, and their interaction in the experience of menopause. Levels of national wealth, human development, cultural constraints, and social and gender inequality are likely to explain how country and class affect QoL.

Comparative study of the quality of life associated with menopause in Tunisia and France.

Les notions de sante reproductive et de sante sexuelle ont ete elaborees dans le milieu des organisations internationales au cours des annees 1970 et 1980 (Giami, 2002), alors que les notions de droits sexuels et reproductifs viennent plutot des organisations feministes qui les ont utilisees des les annees 1970 pour revendiquer l’autonomie des femmes dans leurs choix reproductifs (Lottes, 2000). Consacres par la Conference de la population et du developpement du Caire (1994), la sante et les ...

La santé sexuelle et reproductive, champ d’exercice et d’affrontement des dominations de genre et de classe

https://www.cairn.info/load_pdf.php?ID_ARTICLE=LAUTR_070_0132a&download=1

Daniel Delanoë

Papers

Class, gender and culture in the experience of menopause. A comparative survey in Tunisia and France

Comparative study of the quality of life associated with menopause in Tunisia and France.

La santé sexuelle et reproductive, champ d’exercice et d’affrontement des dominations de genre et de classe

Ils ne savaient pas… Pourquoi la psy a négligé les violences sexuelles. Bruno Clavier Payot, 2022

Que sommes-nous face à la guerre ?