Yang Hu

Mainstream theories tend to consider housework a form of labor and its gendered division a result of resource exchange or bargaining and an act of “doing gender.” These theories, however, insufficiently reflect the centrality of housework in many women’s lived experiences of marital violence, particularly in the Global South. Our in-depth interviews with 22 women survivors of marital violence from Assam, India, show that housework features prominently in the women’s experiences of marital violence. Drawing on our interviews, we show that marital violence can manifest in and through housework in three interlinked dimensions: (1) the coercive enforcement of how, when, and to what standard housework is performed; (2) the physical and mental harms inflicted in and through housework; and (3) the restrictions it imposes on women’s capabilities in other life domains. Uniting gender research on housework and marital violence, our study shows how a violence lens helps render visible the ways in which housework may be organized, enforced, and experienced for some women. In doing so, it highlights that the mundane (housework) and the extreme (violence) are not separate regimes of gender control and demonstrates how they intersect to (re)produce domestic gender inequality.

Aneuploidy with chromosome instability is a cancer hallmark. We studied chromosome 7 copy number variation in gliomas and in primary cultures derived from them. We found tumor heterogeneity with cells having Chr7-CNV commonly occurs in gliomas, with a higher percentage of cells in high-grade gliomas carrying more than 2 copies of Chr7, as compared to low-grade gliomas. Interestingly, all Chr7-aneuploid cell types in the parental culture of established glioma cell lines reappeared in single-cell-derived subcultures. We then characterized the biology of three syngeneic glioma cultures dominated by different Chr7-aneuploid cell types. We found phenotypic divergence for cells following Chr7 missegregation, which benefited overall tumor growth in vitro and in vivo. Mathematical modeling suggested the involvement of chromosome instability and interactions among cell subpopulations in restoring the optimal equilibrium of tumor cell types. Both our experimental data and mathematical modeling demonstrated that the complexity of tumor heterogeneity could be enhanced by the existence of chromosomes with structural abnormality, in addition to their mis-segregations. Overall, our findings show, for the first time, the involvement of chromosome instability in maintaining tumor heterogeneity, which underlies the enhanced growth, persistence and treatment resistance of cancers. © 2013 Hu et al.

The ways in which partners manage their money provide important clues to gender inequality in and the nature of couple relationships. Analyzing data from nationally representative surveys (N = 11,730 couples), I examine changes across British cohorts born between the 1920s and 1990s in their household financial management, and how the changes vary across individuals and couples occupying differential income positions. The results show divergent, nuanced cohort trends toward gender equality in couples’ money management. Across successive cohorts of low-earning women, there has been a subtle relaxation in the form of male control, reflected in a decrease in the proportion of men adopting “back-seat” management by retaining the majority of the couple’s money while delegating the chore of managing daily expenses to their partners. By contrast, the empowerment of high-earning women is reflected primarily in an individualization of financial management, evident in a cohort decrease in joint financial management and an increase in independent management. The trend of individualization is particularly prominent among couples in which both partners have equally high earnings. The findings provide new insights into and important extensions of the theorization of gender relations in and the individualization of couple relationships.