Journal articles on the topic 'Female conscript'

Abstract:Claims of sexual violence against female conscripts by military commanders abound in the Eritrean National Service (ENS), but hitherto there has been no attempt to subject these claims to rigorous empirical scrutiny. This article is a partial attempt to fill the gap. Based on data collected through snowball sampling from 190 former conscripts in the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Norway, South Africa, Kenya, and Sweden who fled from the ENS, supplemented by data from systematically selected key informants who were interviewed in depth, it examines the extent to which female conscripts serving in the ENS were subjected to sexual violence and harassment by their commanders, including at the Sawa military training camp. The extensive data, based on the perceptions and experiences of respondents who served on average about six years, suggest that sexual abuse is rampant throughout the ENS, particularly among female conscripts who are assigned to work at the camp subsequent to the six months of military training.

We consider the multifactorial effects of the military class, including the soldiers of the Russian army and their families, as well as indefinite, spare and retired soldiers, military disabled, on the social and cultural, ethnic and confessional, social and class development of the Central Black Earth Region. Included in it Voronezh, Kursk, Orel and Tambov Governorates were the largest densely populated, agricultural regions, traditionally used by the government for military procurement, cantonment of troops and other military mobilization activities in the Russian Em-pire in the 18th – early 20th century. The military factor had almost continuous impact on all as-pects of life of the Central Black Earth Region population, forming in its inhabitants a special character, endurance and stamina, which allowed to be quite successful in a peaceful, “non-military” life. We give the evaluation of historiographical approaches and interpretation of sources on the role of the military class in the Center Black Earth Region development in domestic and foreign historiography. We pay special attention to the impact of recruitment on the daily life of the population in the cities of the region and rural areas. We reveal the historical and legal aspects of changes in the legal status of male and female representatives of the “military class” in the agrarian society in the Imperial Russia. We clarify military and statistical indicators of military class representation in the social structure of the provincial society during the period of conscript obligation and in post-reform Russia, as well as the complexity of accounting for family members of military servicemen during the service and after retirement. The involvement of archival docu-ments, statistical and other published materials allowed for a successful reconstruction of the so-cial and legal regulation and the position of the military class in the Center Black Earth Region of the considered chronological period. We draw conclusions about the prospects of studying the post-reform ethnic and social, social and cultural, class and legal features of the military class life in a non-belligerent provincial society. We prove that the military class was a special social institu-tion in the Russian province of the Imperial period of Russian history.

BACKGROUND:Respiratory diseases are responsible for a significant proportion of serious morbidity among adolescents. There are few reports on the prevalence of common respiratory disorders in this population. The previous studies focused on specific diseases and screened relatively small samples.OBJECTIVE:To define the prevalence of different common respiratory disorders among 17-year-old Israeli conscripts.DESIGN:All 17-year-old Israeli nationals are obliged by law to appear at the Israel Defense Forces recruiting office for medical examination. Respiratory disease specialists evaluated and classified nominees with suspected respiratory disorders.RESULTS:A high prevalence of respiratory morbidity was found among 94,805 17-year-old conscripts (61.5% male, 39.5% female). The most prevalent diagnosis was asthma (in 8% of male and 6.8% of female subjects). Fifty-five per cent of the asthma patients suffered from moderate to severe disease. The prevalence of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease was 0.03% for the male and 0.01% for the female subjects. A difference in morbidity patterns between male and female adolescents was noted, particularly in the prevalence of chest deformation and spontaneous pneumothorax.CONCLUSIONS:The most prevalent respiratory disorder among 17-year-old Israeli conscripts was asthma. One-half of the asthma patients in this study suffered from moderate to severe disease. The prevalence of other respiratory disorders was much lower.

On December 1, 1920, the patient Efrem Ignatiev, 22 years old, was admitted to the Obstetric and Gynecological Clinic of Kazan University, who was sent to the Krasnokokshai military commissar to establish his gender. In the documents sent with the patient, there was an act of the medical commission on military fees, from which it was clear that on November 22, 1920, a citizen of the Vyatka province, Krasnokokshaisky district, the village of Miklinoy, Efrem Ignatiev, who was born in 1899, was subjected to examination of the state of health when conscripted for military service, and during the examination it turned out, it was said in the act of the commission, that gr. Ignatiev has predominantly female organs and underdeveloped male organs. On this basis, the commission decided to send the aforementioned Ignatiev to the Kazan Obstetric and Gynecological Clinic, as a hermaphrodite, to establish gender.

The dynamics and structure of the dismissal of officers and military personnel of the Russian Armed Forces for health reasons in 2003-2018 are analyzed. It was established that the average annual dismissal rate for officers was7,981,10, contract servicemen 3,920,32, conscripted military personnel 17,571,19, female military personnel9,141,37. The polynomial trend of dismissal of all categories of military personnel showed decreasing trends. The level ofdismissal of military personnel by the leading classes of diseases and nosologies (groups in chapters) is presented. The indicatorsof the causes of dismissal were correlated with the chapters and nosologies of the International Statistical Classification ofDiseases and Health Problems, 10th revision. The 1st rank of dismissals for health reasons for officers was taken by indicatorsof diseases characterized by high blood pressure (I10-I15), the 2nd - coronary heart disease (I20-I25), the 3rd - diseases ofthe esophagus, stomach, and duodenum (K20-K31); contracted military personnel have diseases of the esophagus, stomachand duodenum (K20-K31), diseases characterized by high blood pressure (I10-I15), neurotic, stress-related, and somatoformdisorders (F40-F48); in conscripted servicemen - neurotic, connected stress, and somatoform disorders (F40-F48), diseasesof the esophagus, stomach, and duodenum (K20-K31), behavioral disorders in adulthood (F60-F69); among female militarypersonnel obesity and other types of excess nutrition (E65-E68), diseases characterized by high blood pressure (I10-I15),inflammatory diseases of the female pelvic organs (N70-N77). Prevention, timely treatment and rehabilitation of leadingnosologies will contribute to improving the health and professional longevity of the Russian Armed Forces.

This paper employs social theory and empirical observation, juxtaposing Israel as a ‘racial state’ (Goldberg, 2002) and the concept of femina sacra, a female version of Agamben's homo sacer or ‘bare life’ (Agamben, 1998), to think about some aspects of Israeli feminist peace activism since the onset of the second Intifada. Although Israeli feminist peace activism seems to discursively vacillate between essentialist motherhood narratives and subversive draft resistance practices, reading draft resistance narratives of young Israeli women conscripts, the paper tentatively suggests that where the state positions itself above morality, while evoking morality in its defence, feminist ‘peace activism’ in Israel/Palestine, though providing a potent counter-narrative to the Zionist narration of nation, does not destabilise the racial state, which is apparently gradually destroying itself while wilfully destroying its Others. I conclude by asking whether morally positioning itself in contrast to the racial state, such resistance can be theorised as gendered.

This study investigates the ideological implications of Real Men, a Korean reality show that portrays the experiences of celebrities who join the military as new conscripts. We situate the popularity of Real Men in the context of the changing gender geography of Korea. Through an analysis of the official Real Men online bulletin board, we explore how the male audience’s discourses regarding the authentic military experience and ideal soldiers are related to their desire to restore hegemonic masculinity. Our findings suggest that Real Men became a vehicle that was used to demand women’s appreciation of the difficult work of men in the military. A desire to be symbolically remunerated for military service involved the positioning of women as primary caregivers who fulfill traditional female roles. By calling for the restoration of traditional gender roles, the male viewers attempted to recover the hegemonic masculinity that they perceived to be under threat from changing gender relations.

Abstract In this study, the existence of reading difficulties (RD) among young adults and the relation between RD, cognitive abilities and length of service period were examined. The aim was to study the manifestation of reading difficulties with young adult males, the connection between different cognitive abilities and reading comprehension and decoding skills, and to determine whether the membership of different reading skills groups was related to the length of the service period, which is partly dependent on the scores of cognitive assessment in military service, Basic Test 1. The participants in this study (N=1399) were Finnish adolescents (mean age 20 years, sd .61) participating in compulsory military service. Every Finnish male citizen is obligated to undergo military service and because RD is more common in males than females, warfare becomes more technological and military training is increasingly based on written material that requires reading skills, it is very reasonable to study RD with persons in military service. Results showed that reading difficulties persist into adulthood, but some regional differences were found, and reading difficulties (especially decoding difficulties) had only a minor direct connection to the length of the service period.

Image of maternal love in Grigory Chukhray’s The QuagmireMemories of the Great Patriotic War contributed to the making of a national identity in Soviet Russia, and clear gender roles are evident in Soviet propaganda war art. The image of male soldiers demonstrates the obligation to defend the fatherland against the outside enemy. On the other hand, there are images of a mother cheering for her son or a mother lamenting over a fallen soldier. It is clear that the female image belongs to the reproductive function of motherhood. The establishment presents an ideal and urges the public to internalize it by themselves. Grigory Chukhray’s film The Quagmire’s 1977 mother, however, hides her young son, who was conscripted to the front. The film casts doubt on the Soviet war myth and asks “Why do mothers have to be reconciled to lose their sons in order to defend the fatherland?” That’s why the military purged the film from the screen. Obraz miłości macierzyńskiej w filmie Grigorija Czuchraja TrzęsawiskoWspomnienia i obrazy Wielkiej Wojny Ojczyźnianej odegrały ważną rolę w kształtowaniu tożsamości obywateli Rosji Radzieckiej. W sowieckiej propagandzie wojennej wyraźnie widać hierarchię genderową. Wizerunek żołnierza mężczyzny odnosi się do obowiązku obrony ojczyzny przed zewnętrznym wrogiem. Natomiast wizerunek matki wiwatującej na cześć zwycięstwa syna lub rodzicielki lamentującej nad poległym żołnierzem kojarzony jest z macierzyństwem. Film Grigorija Czuchraja Trzęsawisko Трясина opowiada historię matki ukrywającej powołanego do wojska i wezwanego na front syna. Film, który wkrótce po premierze wycofano z dystrybucji, stawia pytania dotyczące funkcjonowania radzieckich mitów wojennych oraz sytuacji kobiet, które nie chcą się pogodzić ze śmiercią swych synów broniących ojczyzny.

ABSTRACT Introduction Back pain is a major reason for sick leaves and disability pension in primary health care. The prevalence of back pain among adolescents and young adults is believed to be increasing, and back pain during military service predicts unspecified back pain during later life. The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence and risk factors of back pain among conscripts in compulsory Finnish military service during the period 1987-2005. Materials and Methods The Finnish Defence Forces recruit all men aged 18 years for compulsory military service, and new conscripts enter the service twice a year. Before entering the service, all conscripts must pass a medical examination and conscripts entering the service are generally healthy. Health care in Finnish military service is organized by the public Garrison Health Center, and all medical records are stored as part of the Finnish health care operation plan. For this study, we randomly selected 5,000 men from the Finnish Population Register Centre, according to their year of birth from five different age categories (1969, 1974, 1979, 1984, and 1989). Results We gathered 4,029 documents for the analysis.The incidence of back pain varied between 18% and 21% and remained unchanged during the examination period.The risk factors for back pain were smoking (risk ratio 1.35,P-value <.001),elementary school only as education (risk ratio 1.55, P-value <.001), and back problems reported before military service (risk ratio 2.03,P-value.002).Half of the back pain incidences occurred during the first months of service. Conclusions The prevalence of back pain among male Finnish military service conscripts has not changed in the last 25 years. Twenty percent of conscripts suffer from back-related problems during their military service. The majority of the visits to health centers occurred in the first service months. The risk factors for back pain include smoking, low education level, and musculoskeletal disorders in general. Educating the young people about harms of tobacco and supporting education is a way to influence the back pain prevalence. Strength of this study is a good generalized population sample of young Finnish adult males because of the fact that the Finnish military service is compulsory for all men. All medical records of all visits to the Garrison Health Care Centre were available, and all the conscripts filled the same pre-service questionnaire, minimizing the possibility of selection bias. The sample size was also large. Weakness of this study is that the service time changed during the study period and in the latest conscript group born in 1989, data collection and the data available for this cohort was limited, because nearly half of the conscripts had not yet started their service. The Finnish military service is compulsory only for men and because of the low number of female conscripts, they were excluded from this study. Diagnoses were also missing from 70% of the back-related visits, and these visits were recorded as back pain-related visits according to the reason for seeking care.

Abstract Funding Acknowledgements Type of funding sources: None. BACKGROUND - Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) is a genetic cardiovascular disease associated with increased morbidity and mortality, and may be the most common cause of sudden cardiac death (SCD) in the young. PURPOSE - To characterize detailed family history, symptoms, hospital utilization and ECG-changes before SCD due to HCM. METHODS - Cases were identified using the SUDDY.se cohort database, a nationwide comprehensive cohort consisting of 903 individuals aged 0-35, who suffered from SCD, in Sweden 2000-2010. The database also includes five population-based controls from Statistics Sweden, per case, together with parents of cases and controls (n = 15 633). Our database encompasses data from mandatory national registries together with the autopsy reports, medical records, ECGs (also military conscript), and detailed family history from an interview-based questionnaire (relatives, post-mortem). All individuals with autopsy findings or clinical diagnosis pre-mortem consistent with HCM were included in the study. RESULTS- HCM was the cause of death in 38 cases, (38/903, 4,2%); 31 male and 7 female, mean age 22 years. The majority of cases (27/38= 71%) presented with possible cardiac symptoms (Including chest pain (10/27 = 26,3%), syncope 22%, palpitations 37%), prior to death. A majority,69%, were attending hospital or outpatient care (vs 21% in controls) within 180 days prior to death. The majority of cases (68%) died during recreational activity (n = 14; 37%) or exercise/competitive sports (n = 12; 31%). In seven of the 12 sports-related cases, death occurred during competitive sports, with basketball being the most common sport (43%). Almost half of the cases had a known cardiac disorder prior to death (15/38, 39%), where HCM was diagnosed premortem in nine cases (9/38, 24%). In addition, we found that over half of the SCD-cases with HCM, presented with an abnormal ECG (n = 22; 58%) prior to death, 12 (55%) in the absence of symptoms. Half of the cases (n = 19) had a positive family history (1st-3rd generation) for heart disease. CONCLUSION(S) - In this nation-wide study of SCD due to HCM, more than 2/3 of cases, had experienced cardiac symptoms prior death, and a high percentage was seeking hospital or outpatient care, in the last 6 months prior to death. A positive family history for cardiac disease, as well as ECG-abnormalities, was seen in half of the cases, respectively. These findings demonstrate that clinical screening including ECG and family history is of great importance in identifying individuals at risk of SCD due to HCM. Such screening, as well as increased attention to possible cardiac symptoms in the young, should possibly be expanded beyond professional athletes to aid prevention of SCD in the young population with HCM.

China’s frontier construction through the PRC era, involving the often-violent expansion of Han cultural and political space, has been undertaken primarily by subaltern Han people from rural areas of China. Female domestic labor has been essential to this colonial endeavor. The focus of the article is Han people associated with the organization that makes frontier construction its raison d’être, the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, or bingtuan. More often pushed by circumstance than drawn by nationalistic fervor to settle on the backward frontier, these people and their offspring nevertheless became a significant part of the affective base of Han settlement in Xinjiang. By “affective base,” I mean that this (now multigenerational) population possess a sense of belonging in and of Xinjiang that bolsters the idea of Xinjiang as an integral part of China and challenges non-Han claims of exclusive moral ownership. The ultimate construction is achieved.

BackgroundThe Israel Defense Force is the only military organisation in the world that mandatorily conscripts women since its founding. Despite legislative changes, the percentage of women serving as combat soldiers is low, and the dropout rate is high. Women in these professions experience a complex and unique adaptation process.AimsTo characterise the experiences of female combat soldiers adjusting to combat roles in comparison with male soldiers and non-warfighter female soldiers.MethodA pilot study was undertaken in order to inform further research. Mental health officers in the women’s units conducted group interviews. These were composed of four stages: projection, reflection, processing and formulating solutions.ResultsThe themes apparent in the interviews conform to phenomena appearing in the literature such as tokenism, disruption of gender identity and internalisation of the superiority of male values. In addition, we identified distortion of body image and increased burnout.Discussion and conclusionsThe study points to the significance of gender aspects in the mental adaptation process of women in combat positions. Issues pertaining perceptions of inequality should not be deemed to be purely sociological, but rather as a gateway facilitating adjustment. This should be taken into account in future research and in the formulation of support strategies.

Abstract Background Gene coding mutations found in sodium glucose co-transporters (SGLTs) are known to cause renal glucosuria. SGLT2 inhibitors have recently been shown to be effective hypoglycemic agents as well as possessing cardiovascular and renal protective properties. These beneficial effects have to some extent, been attributed to weight loss and reduced blood pressure. The aim of the current study was to evaluate the prevalence of renal glucosuria amongst a large cohort of Israeli adolescents and to investigate whether renal glucosuria is associated with lower body weight and lower blood pressure values. Methods Medical and socio-demographic data were collected from the Israeli Defense Force’s conscription center’s database. A cross-sectional study to evaluate the association between conscripts diagnosed as overweight [BMI percentiles of ≥ 85 and < 95 and obesity (≥ 95 BMI percentile)] and afflicted with renal glucosuria was conducted. In addition, we assessed the association of renal glucosuria with elevated diastolic and systolic blood pressure. Multinomial regression models were used. Results The final study cohort comprised 2,506,830 conscripts of whom 1108 (0.044%) were diagnosed with renal glucosuria, unrelated to diabetes mellitus, with males twice as affected compared to females. The adjusted odds ratio for overweight and obesity was 0.66 (95% CI 0.50–0.87) and 0.62 (95% CI 0.43–0.88), respectively. Adolescents afflicted with renal glucosuria were also less likely to have an elevated systolic blood pressure of 130–139 mmHg with an adjusted odds ratio of 0.74 (95% CI 0.60–0.90). Conclusions Renal glucosuria is associated with lower body weight and obesity as well as with lower rates of elevated systolic blood pressure.

Abstract Introduction Academic achievement (AA) is associated with smoking rates. Can we determine the degree to which this relationship is likely a causal one? Methods We predict smoking in male conscripts (mean age 18.2) assessed from 1984 to 1991 (N = 233 248) and pregnant females (mean age 27.7) receiving prenatal care 1972–1990 (N = 494 995) from AA assessed in all students at 16. Instrumental variable (IV) analyses used the instrument month-of-birth as in each school year, older children have high AA. Co-relative analyses used AA-smoking associations in the population, cousins and siblings to predict the AA-smoking relationship in MZ twins, thereby controlling for familial confounding. Results In males, higher AA was associated with a substantial decrease in risk for smoking (odds ratio [OR] [95% confidence intervals [CIs]] per standard deviation [SD] = 0.41 [0.40–0.41]) while the parallel figures obtain from our IV and co-relative analyses were 0.47 (0.39–0.57) and 0.51 (0.43–0.60), respectively. In females, these figures for pre-pregnancy smoking were, respectively, 0.39 (0.39–0.39), 0.50 (0.46–0.54) and 0.54 (0.51–0.58). Results for heavy versus light smoking suggested a causal effect but were inconsistent across methods. However, among females smoking prior to pregnancy, AA predicted a reduced risk for continued smoking with ORs for uncontrolled, IV, and co-relative analyses equaling, respectively, were 0.54 (0.53–0.55) 0.68 (0.56–0.82) and 0.78 (0.66–0.91), respectively. Conclusions Two different methods produced consistent evidence that higher AA has a causal effect on reducing smoking rates and increasing cessation rates in smoking pregnant females. Improving AA may result in meaningful gains in population health through reduced smoking. Implications This study provides consistent evidence across two different methods that high AA is causally related to reduced rates of smoking and increasing rates of smoking cessation among pregnant women. Our results suggest that interventions that improve educational achievement in adolescence would reduce tobacco consumption, thereby improving public health.

Introduction. The article is devoted to the analysis of the content of the institute of legal restrictions imposed on a woman who is in the civil service and performs tasks in the field of public administration. On the basis of the provisions of acts of international law and the laws of Ukraine on Civil Service, found that for women - civil servants subject to special legal restrictions, which are provided by law bans involvement of women in certain forms of their professional duties and tasks for narrowing their total workload to preserve their health and create conditions for full implementation of the social function of the mother. The main results of the study. It is proved that the relevant legislation on public service both Ukraine imposed restrictions on female civil servant to attract her to the tasks of public administration and, at the same time, it focused on social protection. This approach is contributes to the establishment of a regime of "normal living conditions for civil servants. In particular, under the law relating to limiting women's participation in official missions, limiting working hours for women, limitations associated with the transfer of female civil servant to another location and so on. Particular attention is paid to the specifics of women's performance in the field of public administration of defense and national security. It is established that many legal restrictions for women in these areas are not always observed. In particular, attention is focused on unequal age conditions for concluding a contract for military service for women, the established age limit for female conscripts, regardless of service, and the ability of men to serve in the army for 15 years longer than women. The latest changes in the legislation to correct this situation are also disclosed. Conclusions. It is noted that the legal restrictions provided for in the legislation, which are provided for women involved in public administration, despite their positive impact, narrow in some way the scope of their professional opportunities, as well as limit the actual ability to exercise power. However, their inherent social nature and the state must provide adequate compensatory mechanisms stimulating professional activity of women civil servants and minimize the impact on female civil servant consequences relevant restrictions. In its turn, optimal administration of such measures is intended to increase not only the professional performance of women as public administrators, but also enhance the social effectiveness of public administration in general.

Tsiang, Sarah. Warriors and Wailers: One Hundred Ancient Jobs You Might Have Relished or Reviled. Illus. M. Newbigging. Toronto: Annick Press, 2012. Print. I did not confirm that there really are 100 jobs in this colourful and well-illustrated little book but there certainly are many, and a wide variety. The index does list the title’s “wailer” but not “warrior.” In fact, there are several warrior-ish jobs such as watchtower guard, female warrior, military service-conscripted, Shaolin warrior monk, and even a few illegal warrior-like positions (e.g., assassin, pirate admiral, and rebel leader). This book is one in a series of “jobs in history” books by Annick Press but is not merely a formulaic adaptation. These really are ancient Chinese jobs and many probably did not exist elsewhere (e.g., pearl maker, jade worker, lacquer worker, acupuncturist, or bone diviner). It also seems the jobs are arranged in an appropriate order, reflecting decreasing rank and honour from the Emperor and imperial jobs, through scholars and servants, to peasant farmers, then artisans and craftspeople, and finally, merchants who did not grow or make anything (with some illegal jobs at the end). The short introductions to the Chinese dynastic method of counting years, education, rank and honour, religion and schools of thought are really helpful in providing context to a culture that is quite different for most readers. If I could suggest one addition, it would be a consideration of how we know today about jobs that existed between the Han and Tang dynasties (206 BCE to 907 CE) more than 1000 years ago. The answers (presumably a combination of the ancients’ meticulous record keeping and desire for meaningful artistic ornament, combined with conscientious preservation, and modern skills in the humanities and social sciences) would shed further light on interesting jobs, careers, and intellectual pursuits for today’s students. There may be a few, minor short-comings. One is a subtle, underlying theme suggesting more individual choice of careers than there actually was. Another is some job “descriptions” refer to something that maybe happened only once in history – not really an everyday job. Also, the examples of Chinese script, while illustrative, seem to be just a little off in terms of balance or correct stroke order. But these are minor. Overall, this book is a wonderful introduction to Ancient China that should stimulate further exploration into the fascinating study of History. Recommended: 4 out of 4 starsReviewer: David SulzDavid is a Public Services Librarian at University of Alberta and liaison librarian to Economics, Religious Studies, and Social Work. He has university studies in Library Studies, History, Elementary Education, Japanese, and Economics; he formerly taught in schools and museums. His interests include physical activity, music, home improvements, and above all, things Japanese.

SCULLY: I said, I got the lab to rush the results of the Szczesny autopsy, if you're interested.MULDER: I heard you, Scully.SCULLY: And Szczesny did indeed drown, but not as the result of the inhalation of ectoplasm as you so vehemently suggested.MULDER: Well, what else could she possibly have drowned in?SCULLY: Margarita mix, upchucked with about 40 ounces of Corcovado Gold tequila which, as it turns out, she and her friends rapidly consumed in the woods while trying to reenact the Blair Witch Project.MULDER: Well, I think that demands a little deeper investigation, don't you?SCULLY: No, I don't.— The X-Files, “All Things” (0717) IntroductionMikel J. Koven argues that “The X-Files [1993-2002, films 2005, 2010, revived 2016-2018] was the American television series that defined the zeitgeist of the 1990s” (337) by tapping into “pre-millenium paranoia and the collapse of traditional beliefs” (338). In each episode, “True Believer” and FBI agent Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and his partner, the skeptical and rational Dr Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson), travel through a post-Cold War American landscape that is manifesting varying levels of anxiety about the century to come. The series is preoccupied with a series of questions that have, by the second decade of the twenty-first century, come to be answered fairly definitively. Have aliens visited Earth? (Well, if you believe a team of Harvard scientists, maybe [see Freeman], but there is no evidence of alien colonisation just yet.) Does the US government have its citizens’ best interests at heart? (In its current incarnation, no.) Will climate change have monstrous consequences? (Yes, we’re seeing them.) What do we do about the shady forces operating in post-Soviet Union Russia? (God knows, but they seem to be doing a good job of changing the shape of “democracy” in an increasing number of countries.)These broader socio-political aspects of The X-Files have been explored in a number of studies (see Koven; Moses; Wildermuth). In this article, I focus in more closely on some of the ways in which the character of Scully can be read as a complex engagement with a particularly 1990s version of third-wave feminism. I suggest that the type of feminism embodied in the character of Scully taps into the zeitgeist of the 1990s, a decade characterised not only by a growing media-driven “backlash” against feminism (see Faludi), but also by emergent third wave of feminism driven by movements such as “Riot Grrrl” (centred on openly feminist bands like Bikini Kill and Huggy Bear) and the various, and often contested, feminisms endorsed by a new generation of writers like Susan Faludi, Naomi Wolf, and even Katie Roiphe. Part of Scully’s longevity as a feminist icon can be attributed to the fact that while she is not without her own contradictions and complexities, she emerged from a televisual landscape dominated by particularly insipid representations of professional women. Scully, with her combination of lively wit and serious scientific mind, represented a radical imagining of professional femininity in the 1990s.Working against the Backlash: Scully and the Power of ProfessionalismBy the late 1980s, the political gains made by the second-wave feminism in the 1960s and early 1970s had come increasingly under fire in a “backlash” that “worked to revoke the gains made by the feminist movement” (Genz and Brabon 53). L.S. Kim argues this backlash is reflected in the fact that while strong female characters had always been a feature of US television (e.g. Mary Tyler Moore), in the 1990s televisual landscape feminism was often made popular in a type of “postfeminist discourse in which it is acceptable to be pro-woman but not to be feminist” (319). The quintessential example of this trend was David E. Kelley’s series about a Boston lawyer, Ally McBeal (1997-2002), in which McBeal’s primary dilemma is presented as being that she has “too many choices, too much freedom, and too much desire” which leads to “never-ending searching and even to depression and dysfunction” (Kim 319). McBeal’s professional success never seems to compensate for her various romantic disappointments and these remain the focal point of Kelley’s series.Part of what sets Scully apart from a character like McBeal is her unerring professionalism, and her strong commitment to equality in her relationship with Mulder. Scully displays none of McBeal’s neuroses, and she is unapologetically feminist in her disposition. She also understands implicitly the pivotal role she plays in the partnership at the heart of the X-Files. Scully is, then, a capable, professional woman who not only remains professional at all times, but who also works as a powerful grounding force to her partner’s more outlandish approaches and theories. As series creator Chris Carter has been forced to concede on numerous occasions, without the rational and practical figure of Scully in the morgue to (usually) prove and (sometimes) disprove Mulder’s theories, The X-Files as we know them would cease to exist. In fact, and somewhat paradoxically, in order to best understand Scully as a character, one needs to recognise the significance of the relationship between Scully and Mulder that lies at the heart of the series. The sheer force of Scully’s professionalism, and its resistance to being conscripted straightforwardly into a traditional romantic plot, becomes an important contributor to the powerful sexual tension between Mulder and Scully that came to define the series. Scully also, as critics and commentators were quick to point out, takes on the traditionally masculine role of skeptical scientist on the series, with Mulder positioned in the typically feminine role of intuitive “believer” (in, among other things, aliens, Chupacabra, big foot, and psychic powers). There are, of course, problems with this approach, but for now it is enough to simply point out that this positioning of Mulder and Scully is an important feature of the internal structure of The X-Files and speaks to an awareness of, and desire to challenge, the traditional association of women with intuition and men with rationality. Indeed, Linda Badley points out that the relationship between the two agents is “remarkably egalitarian, challenging traditional gender roles as portrayed on television” (63).Scully and Mulder’s relationship, a relationship that is at once personal and professional, is also grounded in genuine equality and respect. Mulder never undermines Scully, he (occasionally) knows when to bow to her superior scientific reasoning, and his eventual love for his partner is based in his understanding that Scully’s skepticism offers the perfect counterpart to his openness to the paranormal. In fact, one might say that Mulder, at least in part, falls in love with Scully’s professionalism and with her commitment to scientific reasoning. Mulder admits as much himself in the film The X-Files: Fight the Future (1998): “as difficult and frustrating as it’s been sometimes, your goddamn strict rationalism and science have saved me a thousand times over. You kept me honest. You made me a whole person.” In this calculation, Scully is not only Mulder’s equal, she is his missing piece. While she might sometimes grumble about merely playing Watson to Mulder’s Holmes (see “Fight Club” [0720]), Scully’s role is much more important than this, and Mulder (and the viewer) knows it.In the context of the televisual landscape of the 1990s, this representation of Scully as a character who is every bit as intelligent and as integral to the action of the series as her male partner, was incredibly powerful. It marked Scully as a third-wave feminist character in an era dominated by women who seemed to conform to the kind of problematic post-feminism embodied by Ally McBeal. In a recent interview, Gillian Anderson acknowledged the significant role Scully played in opening up possibilities for the representation of women on television in the 1990s. She observed, “a lot of women felt that they saw something recognisable for the first time [in Scully and] there were a lot of young women whose eyes were opened to feeling like they were finally represented in some way on television” (Anderson in Idato n.p.) Many women saw themselves in this character, and there can be little doubt The X-Files spearheaded a shift towards a more representative approach to the writing of female roles in US television in which layered and complex characters such as Scully became the norm rather than the exception. Rosalind Gill, for example, notes that “quality television” has “evolved since the 1990s into a site of rich and complex representations of gender including Homeland, Veep, House of Cards, Orange is the New Black, Transparent, and The Good Wife” (620).One of the other pervasive positive effects associated with the character of Scully is that she functioned, and indeed continues to function, as a role model for women in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics). A recent report commissioned by 21st Century Fox, the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, and J. Walter Thompson Intelligence found that “Scully’s media depiction of a high-achieving woman in STEM asked a generation of girls and women to imagine new professional options… Scully also influenced a generation of young women to study and pursue careers in STEM” (3). Although this report is not entirely impartial (21th Century Fox owns The X-Files), it found that “among women who are familiar with Scully’s character, 91% say she is a role model for girls and women” (5). This finding tallies with those of a variety of earlier online observers who noticed Scully had become a touchstone character “who inspired an entire generation of young women to pursue medical, scientific, and law enforcement degrees as positions” (Consalvi). To an extent not seen before in the history of television, Scully became an important role model for young women in the STEM professions. Scully’s fictional professionalism helped to create a new generation of real-life female STEM professionals.But it is worth remembering that in other respects, Scully is a complicated feminist heroine. This is largely because The X-Files’ production team’s own feminist credentials were often less-than-inspiring. The series was created by a man, and was written and directed predominantly by men in all of its various filmic and televisual incarnations. As Anderson herself pointed out on her Twitter feed for 29 June 2017, of the 207 episodes of X-Files produced, only 2 were directed by women (fig. 1). Famously, when the X-Files began in the early 1990s, Anderson was paid far less than her co-star Duchovny and was even asked to stand behind him on camera. The actor agitated successfully for equal pay after three years in the role, and for the right to stand beside her televisual partner, rather than behind him, even if, somewhat astonishingly, Twenty First Century Fox also offered Anderson less than Duchovny to reprise her famous role in 2016. (Anderson eventually received equal pay for equal billing.)Fig. 1: Gillian Anderson tweet, 29 June 2017.It ought to be remembered, then, that Scully’s feminism is predominantly a construction of men, overlaid with the undoubted feminine empowerment brought to the role by Anderson. As far back as 1998, Linda Badley noticed that for Scully/Anderson “the transference of ‘feminist’ characteristics between character and star is unusually strong—to the extent that a discussion of one must refer to the other. And Anderson/Scully is instantly recognisable as an icon of popular feminism” (62). But in more recent years, Anderson has made even clearer her own feminist leanings. She has done this through the publication (with Jennifer Nadel) of the explicitly feminist We: The Uplifting Manuel for Women Seeking Happiness (2017); by taking up more explicitly feminist roles, such as that of Stella Gibson in the acclaimed BBC series The Fall (2013-present); and through her Twitter feed. The significance of Anderson’s online feminist presence is highlighted by Lauren Modery, who notes: “the next time you’re having a day where you’re not sure if you’re being the best feminist you can be, just ask yourself “what would Gillian Anderson do?” and go to her Twitter account” (Modery). Scully’s 1990s Feminism in a Twenty-First Century ContextFor much of the series, Scully’s feminism can be viewed as a form of the “New Feminism” that Stephanie Genz and Benjamin Brabon associate with the late 1990s and with Natasha Walter’s book The New Feminism (1998). This “New Feminism” attempts to break from second-wave feminism by decoupling the personal from the political (64). Badley, for example, points out that Scully’s feminism is strictly based on individual empowerment: “rather than challenge patriarchy directly or join forces with women activists, Scully channels her anger/ambition into fitting into the system” (70). But equally, Scully’s feminism could be seen as a prototype of the kind of “neo-liberal” feminism that theorists such as Angela McRobbie associate with the present moment, a feminism which “discards the older, welfarist and collectivist feminism of the past, in favour of individualist striving” (4). Certainly, over the course of the 25 years, The X-Files has been in existence, we have seen little evidence that Scully has female friends (or indeed, that she interacts with anyone much outside of Mulder and her family).When other women do enter the picture, such as when Mulder’s one-time lover and co-founder of the X-Files, Diana Fowley appears in the fifth season of the series (see “The End” [0520]), Scully is often positioned in an antagonistic relationship with them. In this context, it is notable that “All Things,” a seventh-season episode directed and written by Anderson, places Scully’s interaction with Colleen Azar, a woman from the American Taoist Healing Centre, at the centre of the narrative. Azar’s exhortations to Scully to “slow down” are presented as the wise words of a female ally in this episode, and Scully does well to heed them. This episode, consciously I think, works as a counter to the more typical representation of Scully as being in competition with women for Mulder’s interest, evident in episodes like “Alpha” (0616) and “Syzygy” (0313). In this respect, Anderson appears to be aligning Scully with a feminism that is much more inclusive than it appears in other, male-written, episodes.From the vantage point of the second decade of the twenty-first century, one of the more problematic elements The X-Files has to do with its representation of sex and sexuality. Sex, in the world of The X-Files, is very 1990s in orientation. In fact, it echoes the way in which sex operated in the Clinton impeachment: denial, denial, denial, even in the face of clear evidence it took place. We see this most obviously in “All Things,” which begins with a shot of Scully getting dressed in front of a mirror, that pans to a shot of an undressed Mulder in bed. This opening seems to suggest the two had spent the night together, but nothing overtly sexual actually takes place in the episode. Indeed, any sexual activity that ever takes place in the X-Files happens off camera, but it is nonetheless worth pointing out that while the equally solitary Mulder is repeatedly characterised in the series by his porn fetish, Scully’s sexuality is repeatedly denied or diminished in the series. Moreover, any overt expression of Scully’s sexuality (such as in “Milagro,” [0618] where she falls for a writer living next door to Mulder) typically ends badly, with Scully placed in peril by her sexual desires.Scully’s continued presence in the twenty-first century, however, means that while her character is rooted in what we might call a “1990s feminist disposition” (she prides herself on being a “woman in a man’s world”; she demonstrates little interest in stereotypically feminine pursuits such as shopping or make up; her focus is on work, rather than romance), she has also been allowed the room to grow and develop. Perhaps most notably, the 2018 Scully is allowed to embrace her sexuality. Sexual activity still appears off screen, of course, but in “Plus One” (1103), we see her actively pursue sex with Mulder (twice!), while her vibrator makes an unapologetic cameo appearance in “Rm9sbG93ZXJz” (1107). Given that we live in a decade saturated in sexual imagery, it makes no sense for 2018 Scully to be as chaste and buttoned up as she was in the 1990s.Finally, in a series in which the wild speculation of the conspiracy theories is almost always true, Scully’s feminist commitment to rationality, science and the power of logic might appear to be undermined at every turn. Badley, for example, reminds us that while Scully may “have medicine and the law on her side ... Mulder’s vision is validated by Chris Carter, as the prologue to nearly every episode reminds us” (67). This is highlighted in “Field Trip” (0621) when Scully wonders, “Mulder, can’t you just for once, just ... for the novelty of it, come up with the simplest explanation, the most logical one instead of automatically jumping to UFOs or Bigfoot or…” Mulder simply counters with:Scully, in six years, how … how often have I been wrong? No seriously, I mean, every time I bring you a case we go through this perfunctory dance. You tell me that I’m not being scientifically rigorous and that I’m off my nut, and then in the end who turns out to be right like 98.95 of the time? I just think I’ve ... earned the benefit of the doubt here.Interestingly enough, however, it is Scully who solves the mystery at the heart of this particular episode of X-Files—Mulder and Scully are indeed trapped inside a giant fungus, being slowly digested by its gooey secretions.And while Mulder’s viewpoint is most often endorsed in the series, the chaos of the Trump administration illustrates perfectly the dangers behind the valorisation of the irrational over the rational. In a decade in which rationality itself is coming under increasing threat—by “fake news”; through a hostility towards the science of climate change; in the desire to wind back further the gains of the feminist movement—we need to remember the importance of the strong and abiding relationship between rationality and feminism. This is a relationship that goes at least as far back as Mary Wollstonecraft’s (1759-1797) Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), is at the heart of the feminist gothic writings of women like Ann Radcliffe (1764-1823) and Mary Shelley (1797-1851). This commitment to the power of rationality lives on in the character of Dana Scully.Conclusion: Scully as Twenty-First-Century Feminist IconI have argued throughout this article that there are limitations of the kind of feminism embodied in Scully, but it is clear that she has come to represent a type of woman who refuses to let men dictate her behaviour, and who maintains her professionalism even under the most difficult of circumstances. A host of Scully memes now circulating on the web celebrate the character’s competence, intelligence, and compassion (figs. 2, 3, and 4). The character of Scully now exists far beyond the confines of the television screen and the imaginations of her predominantly male authors. Scully’s continuing relevance to twenty-first century feminists is reflected in this meme recently placed by Anderson on her Twitter account in response to the allegations of sexual misconduct directed at US Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanagh (fig. 5). Rarely have the 1990s seemed so relevant to the present moment.Fig. 2: Scully meme, Meme Generator.Fig. 3: Rustnsplinters, “Scully Motivational.” Deviant Art.Fig. 4: E.H. Redlum, “Scully: Meme Style.” Deviant Art.Fig. 5: Gillian Anderson tweet.ReferencesBadley, Linda. “Scully Hits the Glass Ceiling: Postmodernism, Postfeminism, Posthumanism, and The X-Files.” Fantasy Girls: Gender in the New Universe of Science Fiction and Fantasy Television. Ed. Elyce Rae Helford. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000. 61-90.Consalvi, Sydney. “The Scully Effect Continues: How The X-Files’ Dana Scully Changed Television Forever.” Odyssey. 9 Aug. 2016. 1 Dec. 2018 <https://www.theodysseyonline.com/scully-effect>.Faludi, Susan. 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