Theatre is often an invitation to enter the black home subject to its violations and crisis; this thesis repositions the black home and body in contemporary American and British theatre as constructed by the narratives and transgressions of the moment they are in. I examine Suzan-Lori Parks’ In the Blood, Katori Hall’s The Mountaintop and Sabrina Mahfouz’s Chef as sites of memory, nostalgia, and trauma where what is considered “home” resists the safety of concrete walls and a white picket fence. Instead, I argue the playwrights suggest, with their black female protagonists, that home transcends the material. Parks, Hall, and Mahfouz each meditate on what it means for black women to dwell in unsafe places, the home you don’t want to return to. This is significant in that it encourages a respect for the lived experiences and cultural knowledge acquired in autonomous homes and bodies of black women whose narratives have often been made invisible.

Master of Science / Department of Food, Nutrition, Dietetics and Health / Mark Haub / The coronary microcirculation is the principle site of blood flow control and myocardium oxygen delivery within the coronary artery tree. Coronary arteriole tone is determined by three major endothelium derived vasoactive substances: endothelin, nitric oxide (NO), and reactive oxygen species (ROS). The effects of these substances change with aging and differ between sexes. Endothelin-1 (ET-1), the primary endothelin isoform in the coronary circulation, acts on smooth muscle receptors endothelin-A (ET[subscript A]) and endothelin-B (ET[subscript B]) to induce vascular smooth muscle (VSM) contraction and vasoconstriction. Whereas ET-1 activation of the ET[subscript B] receptor on the endothelium initiates a cascade of events leading to NO production via endothelium derived NO synthase (eNOS) enzyme activation and VSM relaxation. Aged males maintain ET[subscript A] receptor expression and higher levels of vasoconstriction than do age-matched females. High levels of ET[subscript A] receptor activity are associated with hypertension, myocardial infarction, coronary artery spasm, atherosclerosis, and finally heart failure (HF). Additionally, NO can displace ET-1 from the VSM ET[subscript A] and ET[subscript B] receptors. Thus, with reduced eNOS activity and decreased NO production, there is a simultaneous loss of vasodilatory capacity and increase in vasoconstrictive capacity. In both rodent and human models aged males and females ROS production increases with age. ROS, such as superoxide, scavenge NO, decreasing its bioavailability and producing peroxynitrite. Peroxynitrite is a potent reactive nitrogen species that leads to endothelial cell apoptosis and eNOS enzyme dissociation, potentiating superoxide production and NO reduction. It has been shown that the reduction in NO bioavailability may be a primary mechanism of coronary artery disease. However, the ROS hydrogen peroxide, also increased with aging, produces a potent vasodilatory effect in the coronary microcirculation and seems to be one mechanism that buffers the loss of NO-induced vasodilation. In postmenopausal women diminished estrogen levels further reduce eNOS production of NO. Males, however, tend to experience decrements in arteriole function a decade before women and estrogen may be one mechanism preserving vascular health into middle age that separates the chronology of coronary artery disease between sexes. Determining the mechanisms of disease onset that accompany the aging process will provide insight into potential therapies to preserve endothelium dependent dilation with aging such as exercise, dietary NO supplementation, and increased dietary anti-oxidant consumption.

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The dissertation employs three major resources, viz. wills, poll tax returns and deposition material from the Church court, to explore a range of issues relating to the role of women in the urban economy of later medieval England. Despite the use of York material by way of a case study, an attempt has been made to set this evidence within a wider national and, to a more limited degree, European context. The relationship between women's economic opportunities and the prevailing marriage regime, and the social arrangements that underpin that regime, have been explored. Consideration has been given to the institution of service as a life-cycle function for both sexes, the nature and duration of service, the mechanisms by which servants were hired, and the relations between. servants and employers. The range of female economic activity has been fully examined and evidence presented for both regional and secular variation. The case argued is that the early emotional independence from I parents created by service, and the possibility of real economic independence outside marriage through servanthood and other employment, permitted women a degree of freedom to reach their own decisions about marriage and choice of marriage partner. This view implicitly challenges those analyses of nuptiality that ignore gender-specific differences in economic and emotional circumstances. The evidence assembled suggests that a characteristically north-western marriage regime prevailed within urban Yorkshire from the later fourteenth century, and points to a significant proportion of women achieving adulthood without ever marrying. The evidence further suggests profound changes in the status and opportunities of female workers in response to wider demographic fluctuations. It may be that in certain Northern towns of the ear ly fifteenth century women enjoyed a fuller economic role than at any subsequent period before the latter part of this present century. By the end of that century, however, women's economic role was becoming marginalised and women may have become more dependent upon marriage : Similarly the status of female servants was eroded and more women may have been forced into prostitution and associated petty crime as males displaced them from more rewarding (and legal) economic activity.

This thesis considers Thomas Middleton’s female trickster figures using A Mad World, My Masters, and No Wit No Help Like a Woman’s as example plays. I argue that by having his female characters successfully live by their wits, using their wit to manipulate custom in their intrigues, Middleton allots his women, who are not formally educated, a sophisticated understanding of social and gender politics. This level of understanding requires the women to possess a substantial amount of inherent intelligence and reason, offering a view of women’s capacity for intelligence that diverges considerably from traditional early modern English views.

The role of work-family reconciliation policies in female employment and fertility recuperation in selected EU member states Kamila Utegenova Abstract Currently an increasing number of parents, in particularly women, experience conflict in work-family balance, which significantly affects the level of fertility in developed countries. The European Council is actively involved in solving this problem, since the general welfare of the country may directly depend on the balanced population reproduction. This work is aimed at identifying the effects of the special measures taken to improve women's employment efficiency - in the spheres of childcare arrangements, parental leave and gender equality. Keywords: fertility, employment, work-life balance, European Union member states

This study compared the prevalence of eating disorder behavior between collegiate athletes (n = 206) and college female nonathletes (n = 197). Numerous eating disorder studies conducted on the female college population have shown this population to be at greater risk of developing eating disorders than the general population. Furthermore, some studies have found that women athletes are even at higher risk of eating disorders, but the research has produced conflictual and inconclusive evidence. In this study, it was hypothesized that athletes would have higher rates of disordered eating. However, a reverse outcome occurred. The t-test conducted on the EAT-26 scores from the two groups showed that the nonathletes females displayed significantly higher eating disordered behavior than the female athletes. Additionally, relationships between sports advocating body leanness as possible risk factors of eating disorders were investigated and no significance was found. The study did find a link between age and eating disorder behavior among nonathletes. Traditionally, it has been assumed that collegiate female athletes are more likely to develop an eating disorder because of the intense training and performance demands that are added to the normal stressors of college life. This study challenges this assumption. The implications from the current study suggest additional research is needed to further investigate the specific environmental elements that may predispose subpopulations of college women to develop eating disorders. / Ph. D.

Studies on female sex offending have been limited for a number of reasons, such as societal perceptions that females are incapable of engaging in such behaviors because of their role as caretakers and nurturers in society. However, over the past few decades, studies examining female sex offenders have increased, revealing that females do commit sexual offenses and differ from their male counterparts. We examined offender, victim, and offense characteristics of female sex offenders who were convicted from 1995 to 2013 (N = 223) in Arkansas and were sentenced to serve time in prison or placed on probation. We focused on the similarities and differences of solo and co-female sex offenders because we know from previous studies that the pathway of offending can differ between solo and co-female offenders, yet few studies have exclusively compared the similarities and differences among female sex offenders. Our data were collected from offender files that included basic personal offender information, offender survey and social history, criminal history, incident reports while incarcerated, court records, police investigation reports, initial offender and victim statements (prior to offender incarceration), and probation/parole reports. We believe the results of this study will provide further insight into the types of female sex offenders as well as the possible differences between co- and solo-offenders in relation to their victim preferences, risk levels, rehabilitation amenability, and recidivism propensities.

Throughout their respective bodies of work, both Toni Morrison and Gloria Naylor invoke recurring images of the mirror and the mirror-gazing act. Because of the preponderance of these images and because of how they inform our deeper understanding of character, theme, and genre, I argue that these images constitute an important trope in Morrison and Naylor\'s fiction. Although the mirror trope pervades both writers\' bodies of work, it has not garnered significant scholarly attention, particularly with respect to the ways in which the trope highlights an intertextual dialogue between two essential writers of the 20th century American narrative. In this project, then, I conduct an in-depth but by no means exhaustive exploration into the mirror trope. I am specifically concerned with how each writer brings this trope to bear on issues of representation, the politics of recognition, and the dilemma of black female subjectivity and agency in a racist and misogynistic American society. I argue, then, that because the mirror trope is where patriarchal and racist structures of power collide, it signifies a critical point of intersectionality between race and gender. For that reason, the mirror emerges as a space of contestation within these narratives. / Master of Arts

That women experience different and even more challenges within the corporate environment than men do is no news. For female entrepreneurs, the challenges they experience entering the entrepreneurial setting have been and are still being researched. Studies show that specifically female entrepreneurs face challenges such as balancing work and family, lack of networks, and creating credibility and legitimacy. However, how these challenges differ for women who innovate within companies in an intrapreneurial setting is a subject that needs more research. To explore and further understand these challenges a qualitative study has been executed with semi-structured interviews of female intrapreneurs. The findings of this study reveal that there seems to be a similarity between the challenges that female entrepreneurs and female intrapreneurs experience. These challenges were balancing work and family/social life, the glass ceiling phenomenon, creating internal credibility and legitimacy, and networking. However, it also shows that there are some perceived differences and challenges, namely, external credibility and legitimacy, raising funding, and policies applied differently to female intrapreneurs. Lastly, two unique challenges were found for females in intrapreneurship, namely, the company culture and the lack of role models. Moreover, a pattern that repeatedly came up was empowerment among women, which might not necessarily be viewed as a challenge. These findings give a reasonable indication of the challenges for women in intrapreneurship and help give direction for future research within this field.