In Elegy 4.9, Propertius provides an aetiology for a detail of the cult of Hercules at the Ara Maxima: the prohibition on women attending the ceremony. He presents this particularity as a retaliatory measure taken by the hero himself, who reacted to the banning of any male from the space in which the cult of Bona Dea is celebrated. Propertius describes the priestess of Bona Dea as trying to prevent Hercules from entering the sacred space by arguing that female chastity must be respected. After having argued that there is no insurmountable difference between the sexes since there may be role reversal between men and women, Hercules forces the door. Propertius uses this episode located in ancient Latium to put forward some reflections on a (modern) topic, specific to the elegiac genre: sexual identity and gender relations. He presents an alternative point of view that includes both facets of what Augustus seeks to impose in his politics of promoting ancient social practices, essentially concerned with control over morality and sexuality: a strict conception of female morality, and a crucial questioning of gender conceptions: what makes the difference between the sexes? It is dress, behaviour or the body?

Eliminating cervical cancer is about more than just spending money. It requires reckoning with the many intangibles that get in the way of this cause. Widespread adherence to patriarchal value systems, for instance, not only threatens women’s health and well-being, but discourages them from freely pursuing the means to a cure. Persons with cervixes must confrontnot only archaic notions about their worth, but also many other hidden barriers to prevention. These include the fear and superstition that arise from lack of knowledge and medical misinformation, a lack of appreciation for self-care, the burden of unpaid work, and the vulnerability resulting from racial and gender inequality. Challenging these societal factors will increase the volume of women’s voices and ultimately save thousands of lives. But until society is ready to acknowledge and address these barriers – the patriarchal structures thwarting women’s autonomy and decision-making power, the stigma associated with this disease, the religious intolerances and traditional values contrary to its prevention – a cancer that strikes only those with a cervix will continue to kill.

In Late Imperial China sexual and domestic violence were understood in terms of the Confucian kinship system. Legally defined social status keyed to class structure (‘free commoner’ vs. ‘mean/debased’) had played a complementary role for much of the imperial era. But in the Qing dynasty it yielded to the primacy of gender roles defined in terms of normative kinship hierarchy – a shift from status performance to gender performance. The chief priority of Qing law was to ensure that males played their proper role as husbands and fathers, and that females played their proper role as wives and mothers. A related priority was to defend chaste wives and daughters, as well as vulnerable young sons, against the predatory threat of the single, rogue male (‘bare stick’) who was left outside the family order altogether. This shift in the law reflected not only underlying change in imperial ideology but also the long-term transformation of social structure and the mounting social crisis in China.