Lynchings and race riots symbolize the most offensive and tragic aspect of racism in the American South at the turn of the 20th century. Many historians and sociologists have researched the motivations behind lynching in American history and discovered complicated political, social and economic contexts for this phenomenon. Yet, however significant these contributions may be toward deepening our understanding of lynching, they tend to focus excessively on the cause of lynching, thereby ignoring the truly unique characteristics of lynching.
This essay pays less attention to the causes of lynching than to the effects of the actions of lynchers and the discourses produced by those who justified lynching of black people. In casting light on the Black Rapist Myth, in which black men were considered to be growing more brutally lustful toward white women and more inclined to rape them, we can discover complex effects of lynching practices in terms of gender, sexuality, race and class.
The Black Rapist discourse functioned in four ways: to justify disenfranchisement of African- American citizens; to terrorize and drive a dividing wedge into the solidarity of the Black community; to elevate white women onto the pedestal of "white chastity and purity," thereby containing them within the regime of white patriarchal supremacy; and to undermine interracially cooperative political and social movements such as the Readjusters, the Greenback-Labor Party, the Knights of Labor and the Populists.
The discourse of the Black Rapist and lynching suggests that gender and sexuality historically interact with other socially constructed categories such as race and class. Further, the Black Rapist Myth implies that gender and sexuality are truly constitutive of racial formations in American history.

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When Japanese large scale migration to Hawaii began in 1885, women were included in a ratio of 25%, but only as wives of the contract workers. The reason for this quota was that sugar plantation owners didn't think women were strong enough to work on the plantations and preferred single men in order to keep fees, wages and housing costs low. Their policy changed after owners realized that unattached men were less likely to remain on the plantation and that women could be a stabilizing force.
In nineteenth-century Japan, it was natural for women to work in the fields. Also given the lowest wages because of their ethnicity, earnings from wives were essential to make a living. However, during the Oahu strike of 1909, Japanese strike leaders demanded pay raises in order to support their families and communities by making women dependent and helpless as the women in the U.S.
Subsequently the Oahu strike of 1920, in an atmosphere of international attention to female workers, strike leaders, the American born Nisei and Issei with an American education, viewed women workers to be in need of pay raises and better conditions but also maternity leaves. Women were encouraged to band together, and many attended several meetings held for them. They made donations and collected strike support funds. At the protest march, women participated by wearing their unique work clothes. Although strike leaders stressed the role of women in managing the family budgets and caring for families, there were numerous opportunities for women to be engaged. It is possible that due to this strike, women could realize they were also workers who contributed to the sugar economy and to the entire Japanese community in Hawaii.

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The topic of masculinity has not received much attention in Japan. It tends to be overlooked as an intrinsic or desirable attribute of men, although masculinity can have some influence as an ideology.
Considering masculinity as a historical phenomenon, this article attempts to expose its original development, its redefinition during the early twentieth century and its characteristic "weakness-phobia" within a historical context. Shonen Sekai, or Youth World, the most popular magazine among children around the time of the Sino-Japanese and the Russo-Japanese wars, is examined from the angle of masculinity.
At the time of the magazine's inception, many expectations and duties were assigned only to boys and statesmen and military personnel were presented as models for boys. Later when girl readers could not be ignored, columns for girls were established. Through short stories and articles, girls' roles and desirable attributes were defined and the gender boundary was clearly drawn. Boys' deviations from that boundary could be judged feminine or weak and undoubtedly put them in an unfavorable light. This insinuates "weakness phobia" into boys.
Along with supporting imperialism and colonization in East Asia, Shonen Sekai highlighted gender ambiguity in Korean boys and girls and characterized Chinese boys as cowards. The concept of "a strong masculine Japanese boy" came to be highly valued. In fact, the Russo-Japanese war was justified by the logic that to fight against the strong (Russia) protecting the weak (China, Korea) was "true masculinity."
Thus in contrast to the perceived weakness of girls or non-Japanese, the concept of Japanese hegemonic masculinity had been formed, distinguishing itself by "weakness phobia." Masculinity demonstrated its influence in connection with a nation, politics and foreign policy.

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This article examines the historical transformation of mothers' pension programs into Aid to Dependent Children (ADC) of the United States Social Security Act of 1935. The mothers' pension system, which aimed to provide widows with cash assistance so that they could care for their children at home, was one of the most significant achievements of women's reform movements in the Progressive Era. By 1935, mothers' pension laws had been enacted in 46 states, but they failed to give subsistence to single mothers because of the shortage of financial resources and lukewarm public interest. The Great Depression further damaged the mothers' pension programs leaving many destitute women to general relief.
The U.S. Children's Bureau, which had been a strong advocate of mothers' pensions since its inception, worked closely with the Committee on Economic Security (CES) appointed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to draft the ADC plan. Its director, Kathleen Lenroot, expected that the enactment of ADC would "nationalize" mothers' pensions under the supervision of the bureau and realize the "whole child approach" that they advocated as experts on the issue.
However, the bureau's initiative was opposed by the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA), which attempted to establish a "generic" public assistance system under its leadership. The final report of the CES accepted most of FERA's recommendations because FERA was playing a leading role in giving cash assistance to impoverished families during the Great Depression,
Deliberations in Congress further emasculated the plan proposed by the Children's Bureau. Lawmakers, mostly from southern states, limited the amount of assistance and eliminated the provision of minimum subsistence. Motivated by racial prejudice against African American women who they feared would leave wage work for ADC, they succeeded in decentralizing ADC giving each state the right to determine the details of ADC according to the "local situation."

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This paper discusses the negative images of women that served to maintain the status quo of masculinity in ancient Greece through the usage of the term Φαρμακον (medicinal herb). The Greek term Φαρμακον, which refers to a medicinal herb, also implies a toxic drug (poison), a curse and a spell. Examples of such herbs include μωλν (fabulous herb), μανδραγορας (belladonna) and πανακεια (universal remedy). In ancient Greece, when men used the term Φαρμακον, it simply meant "medicinal herb" of the sort used to cure injuries sustained during war. The men who could treat injuries with medicinal herbs possessed intelligence as well as medical knowledge and skill; thus Φαρμακον in this context implied the pure meaning of medicinal herb.
Conversely, in ancient Greece women who used medicinal herbs to seduce men were described as witches. Therefore, when women used the term Φαρμακον, it implied herbs such as φαρμακαλνγρα (noxious medicine) that contain toxins and consequently, Φαρμακον was used to describe a spell or curse. In other words, the term implied a way of deceiving men or a special device used to fulfill some women's greed. Dialogue of Circe in Homer's Odyssey and Medea in Euripides' Medea contain such witch-like images of women who manipulated toxic herbs. This paper considers an episode involving Circe in which Φα ρμακον is used as a toxic herb by women and explores various portrayals of Circe ranging from sexual goddess to prostitute.
By comparing the usage and implications of the term Φα ρμακον, the paper illustrates the two distinctively polarized images: men, who act rationally, and women, who act irrationally. The paper concludes that these opposing images of men and women, which were disseminated by appealing to theater and court audiences, as well as through rumor, seem to have served the function of maintaining the status quo of masculinity in ancient Greek society.

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