The purpose of this exploratory study was to examine differences between female and male aggression; to examine the effect various aggression, dominance, and couple variables have on female physical aggression; to identify which combination of these variables bests explains female aggression in a sample of couples seeking therapy for domestic violence/anger management; and to identify the influence of male physical aggression on the predictor variables. Overall, based on women's reports, 74.6% (n=63) of the women and 86.2% (n=74) of the men in this sample used at least one act of physical aggression against their partner in the past year. With the exception of slapping and using a knife or gun against partner, men perpetrated individual acts of physical aggression significantly more than did women. Aggression, dominance, and couple variables were found to be significantly correlated with and predictive of female physical aggression. Overall, this study found that 55% of the variance in women's use of physical aggression was predicted by women's psychological aggression, husband demand/wife withdrawal communication pattern, male and female jealousy, and women's disparagement of their partners. Male physical aggression only added 3% of the variance when added to this combination of variables. Since women's physical aggression is explained by various relationship dynamics the theory that women are aggressive only in self-defense is questioned. / Master of Science

Female entrepreneurship, as a subject of the academic research, has gained a lot of popularity in the recent years. A considerable amount of attention to this field has been caused by the growing recognition that female entrepreneurship has a profound impact on the economic development. Nevertheless, the potential of female entrepreneurs is far from being fully realized in many economies. Having chosen Russia as the area of investigation, the researchers intend to examine female entrepreneurship and discover specific obstacles contained in it. Therefore, this study aims at discovering preventing factors that dissuade Russian women from stepping into entrepreneurship. For the purposes of this work,qualitative research approach is followed, with the actors view and qualitative content analysis being applied. Case studies and interviews are used to collect data about female entrepreneurs' opinion on the general state of female entrepreneurship in Russia, their attitudes toward it and assumptions about existing barriers.               The results of the research demonstrate that distinguished and describedbarriers of female entrepreneurship hold different level of influence. The researchers also emphasize that actual barriers do not fully comply with those that are generally perceived by Russians and broadly described by scholars. From the study it is revealed that the most influential barriers are the following: managerial incompetence together with financial illiteracy, mistrust to the government and the myth of female entrepreneurship, with corruption and social prejudices being of less significance. The conclusion can also be drawn that the revealed myth of female entrepreneurship influences women's attitude towards entrepreneurship in Russia to much more extent than other obstacles. Some recommendations regarding possible alterations to current state of female entrepreneurship in Russia as well as suggestions to future female entrepreneurs, such as improving entrepreneurial environment, educational toolkit for female entrepreneurs, the importance of telling inspirational stories, are presented.

Advertising has a powerful role in today’s society, especially since we are constantly surrounded by it. Advertisement does not only encourage people to make decisions about their purchases but has a big impact on the culture (Lin & Yeh, 2009; Lindner, 2004). Hence, it is a big factor of creating norms and ideas of what is feminine and masculine; thus affecting the perception on gender within societies. Unfortunate is however that to be able to cut through the enormous advertising clutter that people are exposed to daily, advertisers tend to use sexual content and portrayals as tactic, leading to an obscure ideal (Dahl, Segupta & Vohs, 2009; Cortese, 2008; Connell & Pearse, 2015; Butler & Almqvist, 2007). This quantitative and qualitative study examines from a Gender and Feminist theory perspective how women are portrayed sexually and stereotypically in advertisements within Mexican fashion magazines. The advertisements found within the seven biggest fashion magazines in Mexico are being studied both through a quantitative content analyse and qualitative text analyse using a semiotic approach. The result of the study shows that the content of advertisements in Mexican magazines frequently portray females in a sexualised and stereotypical way. Within our qualitative result six different stereotypes could be found. Furthermore, our quantitative result shows that the most commonly portrayed female within the advertisements are White. Henceforth, our result shows that a female ideal where the most crucial attributes are: to be sexy, beautiful, obtain an attractive appearance and to be White.

Past research has confirmed that workplace design affects employee productivity. It is known to affect the employees both psychologically and professionally. Past researchers have looked at it from ergonomic, architectural and other perspectives. However, this research is limited to certain professions such as nursing and construction. However, the research indicates that sing workplace design it is possible to improve productivity of employees in other professions as well. This research aims to focus on how workplace designs can improve productivity of teachers. Teaching is an intellectual/ non manual work and hence design considerations for teachers should be more psychological in nature. Little research has been conducted on improving workplaces designs for non manual workers. Also past research has not paid sufficient attention to gender aspects of workplace design. This research looks at how designers’ consideration of culture, gender and profession of the occupants at the time of designing will affect employees’ perception of the psychological, social and functional quality of their workplace and consequently their productivity. This research primarily fills three gaps in existing literature: Firstly, it focuses on gender of occupants and how considering this during workplace design can affect the productivity of employees. Secondly, it looks at impact of workplace design on teachers, who carry out intellectual non manual work. Thirdly, this study is conducted in context of Saudi Arabia with an aim to reduce the scarcity of similar research in context of Saudi Arabia. Data or this research was collected in two stages. Firstly, female academics provided self-observation data in form of comments using a mobile app which was developed specifically for the purpose of this research. This data was quantified using thematic analysis approach and quantified data was analysed using regression analysis. The second aspect of this research included collecting quantitative data using semi-structured interviews with designers who have worked on designing all-female universities in Saudi Arabia. This research finds that by taking cultural, gender and professional factors into consideration it is possible to improve the social, psychological and functional experience of occupants of the workplace and this is likely to improve their ability to achieve organisational and personal objectives. This research, thus concludes that cultural, gender and professional consideration affect the employees; ability to contribute to employees’ and organisational outcomes.

From a social constructionist understanding of social reality, this research explores how the female entrepreneurs and female entrepreneurship are represented in official discourses. From the view point of post-structuralist feminism, this research takes the position that discourses are linguistic practices that create truth effects. It finds that the texts on the official website, including the policies and the female entrepreneurs¡¦ stories, have the potential to reproduce the stereotype of gender.

With the rise of feminism, the number of working women has increased significantly. Relatively, the proportion of women who act as supervisors has been increasing continuously and obviously. In many well-known international enterprises, many high-ranking female leaders have emerged, displaying their unique characteristics of management and leadership, leading companies to increasingly thriving. The study mainly explored the leadership styles of female leaders and gender role related matters. The study objects were high-ranking female leaders. By the means of field interview, female leaders in various industries were interviewed. The data collected and contents of interviews were cross compared with the self-assessment of the interviewees. This study explored through three aspects as below: 1. Leadership styles of female leaders 2. Impact of gender role 3. The gender role impact of female leaders on the leadership style Based on the individual leadership characteristics and gender identity, main leadership styles and commonality were summarized. Critical successful factors were explored through the characteristics, style and experience of successful female leaders. This study adopted the methods of qualitative research, case study and semi-structured intensive interview. The findings of this study are listed as below: 1. The leadership style of high-ranking female leaders: Democratic leadership is the main style, supplemented by autocratic leadership to guide the subordinates to negotiate, reach a consensus and achieve goals. 2. Work-centered leadership style: Most female leaders adopt work-centered style which can easily achieve the goal of work. 3. Mainstream of transformational leadership: The study found out that all female leaders adopted transformational leadership uniformly. The main reason is that it is more suitable for working environment and it is effective in developing team consensus. 4. Glass ceiling effect: Owing to the change of gender stereotype, professional capabilities and work performances were the main basis for promotion. Gender isn¡¦t the main factor to be considered any longer.

School board members, superintendents, and assistant superintendents from Region XX, Education Service Center in Texas were surveyed to examine their perceptions regarding the underrepresentation of women in the role of superintendency. Individual t-tests were performed and frequency data were utilized to obtain group means. When compared, the administrative group indicates that there is a significant difference (p<0.05) between genders. Female administrators cite concerns with factors hindering their career advancement to the superintendency. Research findings of this study included: 1. Data from this study reveal women's concerns with limited time for career mobility, career aspirations being placed behind family responsibilities, and family commitments being a priority to career advancement. 2. Data from this study suggest that women have concerns with factors they encounter with mentors, networking systems, sponsorship, and support systems within their organizations. 3. Results reveal that women have inexperience in fiscal matter compared to men. Fiscal matters are a major concern and a priority for both school board members and administrators. 4. Results indicate that females are capable of performing the superintendent job duties. 5. The results indicate that women are their own worst critic and rate themselves lower than their male counterparts. The following are recommendations for further study: 1. Further statistical study on in-depth interviews of current female superintendents could be conducted related to barriers encountered during their superintendency in all Education Service Center Regions in Texas. 2. Critical analysis could be made on the actual selection process of the superintendency for several districts within the Education Service Center Regions in Texas. 3. Further research studies could be conducted of networking and mentoring systems already in place. These kinds of studies can add to the review of literature as to their effectiveness in assisting women in administration.

published_or_final_version / Sociology / Master / Master of Social Sciences

Thesis (M.A.)--Carleton University, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 89-95). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Thesis (M. Soc. Sc.)--University of Hong Kong, 1992.