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In this study I explore narrative resistance in three Canadian novels: Margaret Atwood's The Edible Woman , Adele Wiseman's Crackpot and La Rivière sans repos by Gabrielle Roy. I argue that the first two novels counter the dominant constructions of the virgin as the thin, acquiescing body and the whore as the out of bounds, devouring body respectively. I also reflect on whether these texts recognize the importance of a common narrative that speaks to the specificities of female experience, helping us move beyond the dominant constructions that continue to frame our day-to-day lives. La Rivière sans repos is a postcolonial narrative, but it is also a text about mothers. It exposes the containment Western consumerism has placed on the role of mother, the subsequent devaluing of that role and consequently a devaluing of the women who fill that role. Throughout this study I draw from recent theorists who combine feminist perspectives with theories on the body including Susan Bordo and Elizabeth Grosz along with feminist literary critics such as Linda Hutcheon and Patricia Smart. By incorporating feminist theory and theory on the body along with literary criticism I approach the texts with an interdisciplinary analysis that offers a new reading of these narratives. Feminist thought was only just emerging into our cultural consciousness, and theory on the body was little known when Wiseman, Atwood and Roy were writing these novels in the late 1960's and early 1970's. Classical texts reflect and create the construction of women as objects of beauty, who are selfless, inherently weak and needy or they condemn us as "bitchie", manipulative and threatening if expressive of our desires. I seek alternatives to such cultural constructions by exploring how the three novels present and represent the body in relation to female subjectivity and agency by writing against classical representations. In my reading of The Edible Woman I suggest that Atwood's protagonist deviates from the virgin stereotype by following the knowledge of her body rather than that of her intellect. In Crackpot I argue that the fat, sexual body of Wiseman's Hoda asks the reader to question assumptions about normative beauty, female sexuality and marginalization. In La Rivière sans repos I explore how Roy places mother at the centre of the text, which allows for an exploration of the contrast between mothering as experience and motherhood as institution. Each novel proposes a complexity to our experience that has generally been limited to virgin, whore and mother and, consequently, I argue that each offers a discourse of resistance and the possibility of social, cultural and political change.

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An exploration of Chinese paper cutting technique in relation to body and clothing / Program: Konstnärligt masterprogram i mode- och textildesign

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Abortion is a dilemma that women may encounter. The perceptions towards abortion are likely to be shaped by women¡¦s marital statues. Since the 1960s, feminists claim that women should own the right to their bodies, with a particular emphsis on pregnant women and their decisions to have abortion. By saying this, however, there are still pressing structural constraints that regulate women¡¦s bodies and their entitlement for such right. This research is therefore to investigate Taiwanese women¡¦s experiences with abortion, revealing social constraints and cultural cohesions, which determine women¡¦s experiences with abortion. In the context of Taiwan, unmarried women with pregnancy are still considered as ¡§deviants¡¨. Little research has been conducted in order to explore women¡¦s experiences with abortion. In order to contribute such research gap, this study wants to look at (1) how marital status might influence women¡¦s attitudes towards abortion, (2) how women¡¦s marital statuses may contribute to their decisions for abortions (3) how abortions might affect women¡¦s lived experiences? By examining these three questions, this research tried to explore women¡¦s autonomy through their own rights to bodies and abortions. It is suggested that regardless their marital statuses, women rarely own their bodies and the right for abortion. Fertility freedom is a basic human right grounded to women. Yet, in order to obtain such right, women have to constantly battle against husbands and their families, medical authorities, and even the state. Unmarried women with pregnancy, rather than their male partners, are still stigmatized and morally condemned . In addition, research in abortion rarely addresses how men perceive such experience. This is nevertheless important. In particular, by comparing men¡¦s and women¡¦s accounts for abortion, we can understand how gendered inequalities and gendered stratifications are operationalized through patriarchal values. Rather than women themselves, their male partners often make the final decision on abortion. In saying this, yet, this research also explores how ¡¥being a responsible man¡¦ becomes a mainstream gendered language for these men to appropriate in order to construct their masculinity.

The research in this thesis (composed of a written element, audio documents and a live performance) focuses on the relationship of the female speaking voice to her own body and others’ bodies within the particular temporality of performance space. Arguing that the female voice can be theorised as a resistant theatre material, which through its volatile nature can escape attempts at control, the work here develops practical strategies and methods for discovering how the voice eludes any easy identification or ownership as part of a feminist agenda. Following Michelle Duncan who writes that ‘voice puts matter into circulation, matter that is more, or other than language,’ the research undertaken investigates how this matter can be manipulated in performance so that the sound material of the voice makes meaning. Concentrating on how a female body might ‘handle’ the voice as matter, with the body in question being both performer of voice, and director/designer of voice, the work develops a methodology of the “auditorcomposer,” the female body who speaks through careful listening to others’ voices. Introducing the model of the auditor-composer through a rethinking of the character of Ophelia, both the practical and textual research undertaken then investigate how bodies compose through longdistance time and space, activating the return of past voices to reverberate in the present. Animating and patterning elements of the theoretical projects of Gina Bloom and Elin Diamond and using Gertrude Stein as a theorist of motion and return, the research argues that the material movement of sound happens in the continuous present, and as such the single voice cites many voices in the action of its live sounding

I argue that to understand the gender dynamics of New Orleans, Hurricane Katrina, and the storm's aftermath, one must interrogate the cultural conflation of the black female body and the city's legacy to explore what it means and how it situates real black women in social, cultural, and physical landscapes. Using a hybrid theoretical framework informed by Black feminist theory, ecocriticism, critical race feminism, and post-positivist realism, I explore the connections between New Orleans' cultural and historical discourses that gender the city as feminine, more specifically as a black woman or Jezebel, with narratives of real black females to illustrate the impact that dominant discourses have on people's lives. I ground this work in Black feminism, specifically Hortense Spillers's and Patricia Hill Collins's works that center the black female body to garner a fuller understanding of social systems, Kimberlé Crenshaw's concept of intersectionality, and Evelyn Hammonds's call for a reclamation of the body to interrogate the ideologies that inscribe black women. In addition, I argue that black women should reclaim New Orleans' metaphorical black body and interrogate this history to move forward in rebuilding the city. As an ecocritic and feminist, I understand the tension involved with reading a city as feminine and arguing for this reclamation, as this echoes colonial and imperialist discourses of conquering land and bodies, but I negotiate these tensions by specifically examining the discourse itself to expose the sexist and racist ideologies at work. / Master of Arts

In her article “Visual pleasure and narrative cinema” (1975) Laura Mulvey explains how film portrays the female characters as passive sexualised objects, on display for the male (erotic) gaze. Although, Mulvey did make amendments to the original article after it was criticised, her original article is still influential and referenced in academic writing on film. This dissertation investigates how the three selected mainstream American films, namely, Alice in Wonderland, Monster and Transamerica, have female protagonists who deviate from Mulvey’s initial standpoint and enact a new dynamic, whereby the female characters possess active bodies. In order to explain this new dynamic, the dissertation provides an overview of relevant theory in order to establish the necessary analytical tools to investigate the representation of the female body. These tools are taken from feminist notions of the body, most importantly Mulvey’s notions, in order to establish what constitutes an active female body that subverts the male gaze. This subversion is most notable when examining the iconography of the active female body. The dissertation also draws from the overview the importance of place and space, the embodiment of the characters’ inner workings in specific locations, and their relationship with the locations in which they are depicted. Since all three films include a physical journey on which the respective protagonists embark the examination of borders and border crossings is included. The dissertation shows that journeys bring with them the opportunity for the body to be active, as each female protagonist is on a journey to self-discovery. The changing settings in which the protagonists find themselves are an embodiment of their inner workings. Topographical borders mark the entering of new locations. However, concomitant symbolic and epistemological borders are also crossed. The female protagonists need to make choices concerning their lives and as a consequence alter the representations to reflect bodies that subvert the male gaze. These female bodies are active. However, they are active in different ways. Alice, from Alice in Wonderland, delves into her psyche to emerge a changed and independent Victorian woman. Bree, from Transamerica, heals the relationships with her family and is able to have her gender reconstructive surgery to become a physical woman. These two female protagonists have positive representations of the active female body. The protagonist from Monster, Aileen, is represented in a constant state of abjection and her active body is portrayed in a negative light. Whether represented in a positive or egative light, these chosen films all portray an active female body that does subvert the male gaze, and hence represent a new dynamic different from the one Mulvey described. / MA (Language Practice), North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2014

Subjects rated 12 female body shapes with respect to their physical attractiveness, and the extent to which they would be expected to possess various personality characteristics. The shapes were varied using 3 levels of overall weight and 4 levels of body shapeliness. The sample was modified to control for socioeconomic factors and results are based on 297 undergraduates from Caucasian, African American, and Hispanic racial backgrounds. Loglinear analyses revealed that men and women, regardless of racial background, rated shapely underweight females as most physically attractive, sexy, and ideal for a woman, followed by normal weight figures of similar proportion. African Americans, women in particular, judged the shapely normal weight figures more favorably than the other subjects. Multidimensional scaling and subsequent frequency analyses showed that those figures judged as most attractive, sexy, and ideal were also expected to be fairly emotionally stable, and most successful and interpersonally competitive, but least faithful, kind, and family-oriented. Overweight female shapes, while rated as least physically attractive, sexy, and emotionally stable, were expected to be most family-oriented, kind, and faithful. Shapely normal weight figures were judged to be attractive and sexy, and were assumed to possess a moderate amount of the personality traits in question. The results suggest that Caucasian and Hispanic subjects prefer shapely underweight women, while African Americans, particularly women, find shapely underweight and shapely normal weight women to be physically appealing. African American women also rate shapely normal weight women favorably with respect to personality traits. This perceptual difference may help inoculate them from developing eating disturbances and account for the low prevalence rate of eating disorders in African Americans compared to women of other racial backgrounds. It is suggested that future research identify those beliefs, values or behaviors that seem to inoculate African American women from developing eating disorders. Once identified, mental health professionals may facilitate their development in those women who are likely to have eating problems.