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This study is a radical interactionist analysis of family conflict. Drawing on both a negotiated order perspective and Athen's theory of complex dominative encounters, this study analyzes the role that domination plays in conflicts among intimates. As the family engages in repeated conflicts over roles, the family also engages in negotiations over the family order, what role each party should play, interpretations of past events, and plans for the future. These conflicts take place against a backdrop of patriarchy that asymmetrically distributes power in the family to determine the family order. The data from this study come from a content analysis of mothers with substance use problems as depicted in the reality television show Intervention. The conflicts in these families reveal that these families develop a grinding family order in which families engaged in repeated conflict but also continued to operate as and identify as a family. These conflicts are shaped by and reinforce patriarchal expectations that mothers are central to family operation. The intervention at the end of each episode offered an opportunity for the family to engage in a concerted campaign to try to force the mother into treatment and reestablish the family order.

Prior to the passage of the 20th amendment to the US Constitution in 1920, several states had extended the suffrage to women. Helen Laura Sumner (later Woodbury), a student of John R. Commons at Wisconsin, undertook a statistical study of the political, economic, and social impacts of the granting of voting rights to women in the state of Colorado, and subsequently defended the results against numerous attacks. In this paper, we present a brief account of the struggle for women’s equality in the extension of the suffrage and examine Sumner’s critical analysis of the evidence as to its effects, as well as the counterarguments to which she responded.

The criminal justice system uses oversimplified stock narratives that place women who kill into limiting categories of ‘bad’, ‘mad’ and/or ‘victim’. These narratives deny women's agency by portraying their actions as lacking humanity, rationality and/or intentionality. Many feminist scholars argue that new narratives are needed to recognise women who kill as fully human, volitional subjects. This chapter uses the case of Maria Barberi to examine why and how defences founded on a victim-based agency fail. In 1895, Barberi killed Domenico Cataldo in a Manhattan barroom after enduring months of psychological, physical and sexual abuse. Her defence was grounded in the unwritten law – a widely held belief that people had the right to avenge their honour (when impugned by infidelity, seduction or sexual assault) with lethal violence. The case went through four stages: the initial trial, resulting in a murder conviction and death sentence; a nation-wide clemency campaign; an appeal; and a retrial, resulting in an acquittal. Throughout this process, Barberi's agency was undermined by negative stereotypes of gender and ethnicity, the political goals of women's rights activists, and Barberi's own self-interests. Ultimately, this case demonstrates that agency-based narratives are both difficult to deploy and desperately needed.

Today, appearance is an integral aspect of a politician's image and personality and therefore his or her brand (Budesheim & DePaola, 1994; Sanghvi & Hodges, 2015; Smith & French, 2009). While appearance is critical to political marketing, most of the research focusing on appearance in politics is experimental in nature (Lenz & Lawson, 2011; Olivola & Todorov, 2010; Todorov et al., 2005). This study investigates the importance of appearance for marketing politicians through a qualitative interpretivist framework that offers implications for theory. Moreover, this chapter offers a specific focus on the importance of appearance for female politicians.

Research shows women face greater scrutiny on their appearance (Carlin & Winfrey, 2009; Sanghvi, 2018). This chapter examines myriad of issues women in politics face based on their appearance. It also examines how women have successfully managed the issue of appearance at local, state and national levels. Thus, this study delivers a multifaceted view of the topic and facilitates the understanding of how appearance management enters into the political marketing process.