This is a book of poems.

This dissertation examines the anxieties that the contemporary genre of women’s fiction known as "chick lit" expresses about female sexuality, women and work, and the relationship between female identity and the global consumer marketplace. Furthermore, this project argues that chick lit can be productively traced to male-authored canonical texts that establish tropes and themes that chick lit novelists still grapple with at the turn of the twenty-first century. Chick lit heroines have benefitted from feminist progress, but they frequently participate in a backlash against the advances that empower them to pursue sexual pleasure outside marriage, find fulfilling careers, and challenge constructions of identity. Chapter 1 examines scholarship on constructions of gender and sexuality, affect theory, and Marxist theories. It also explores historical context through critiques of popular women writers. Chapter 2 argues that Samuel Richardson’s Pamela (1740) establishes the first-person confessional narrative voice and a sexualized secondary female character who is punished for her non-normative sexuality. Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones’s Diary (1996) and Lauren Weisberger’s The Devil Wears Prada (2003) demonstrate that female sexuality must still be negotiated and contained in postfeminist culture. Chapter 3 explores how work contributes to female agency in literature. Theodore Dreiser’s Sister Carrie (1900) depicts a heroine who successfully manages her gender, race, and class performances in order to thrive in an urban space, while Kate Reddy, from Allison Pearson’s I Don’t Know How She Does It (2002), must pass as a non-mother in order to participate in the affective economies that prevail in the gendered workplace. Chapter 4 analyzes the role of consumer culture in female subject formation in a capitalist material culture. In Truman Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1958) and Blake Edwards’s film version (1961), heroine Holly Golightly’s proximity to the luxury retailer legitimates her identity. But in Sophie Kinsella’s Confessions of a Shopaholic (2000), heroine Becky Bloomwood struggles against a shopping addiction and strives to define herself outside of the discourse of consumerism. Overall, this dissertation provides an important contribution to the conversation on women’s writing and contemporary identity formation because it addresses literary criticism, contemporary culture, and constructions of female subjectivity.

This thesis applies the radical feminist perspective set out by MacKinnon (1993) and Dworkin (1995), to analyze the construction of female sexuality within popular Canadian men’s pornographic magazines and non-pornographic magazines. A mixed methods approach was used to analyze the images and text within the feature articles of the selected magazines. Results revealed that women continue to be constructed as sexual objects within both categories of magazines, but the earlier link identified by MacKinnon and Dworkin between violence and sexuality was on longer apparent. Instead, women were a sexual puzzle that the magazines attempted to unpack. Rather than a strict dichotomy between pornographic and non-pornographic magazines, a continuum of grey emerged whereby the level of explicitness between the two magazines increased as the continuum progressed from left to right, thereby demonstrating the pornographication of mainstream media, as per McNair (2002).

This thesis applies the radical feminist perspective set out by MacKinnon (1993) and Dworkin (1995), to analyze the construction of female sexuality within popular Canadian men’s pornographic magazines and non-pornographic magazines. A mixed methods approach was used to analyze the images and text within the feature articles of the selected magazines. Results revealed that women continue to be constructed as sexual objects within both categories of magazines, but the earlier link identified by MacKinnon and Dworkin between violence and sexuality was on longer apparent. Instead, women were a sexual puzzle that the magazines attempted to unpack. Rather than a strict dichotomy between pornographic and non-pornographic magazines, a continuum of grey emerged whereby the level of explicitness between the two magazines increased as the continuum progressed from left to right, thereby demonstrating the pornographication of mainstream media, as per McNair (2002).

This thesis applies the radical feminist perspective set out by MacKinnon (1993) and Dworkin (1995), to analyze the construction of female sexuality within popular Canadian men’s pornographic magazines and non-pornographic magazines. A mixed methods approach was used to analyze the images and text within the feature articles of the selected magazines. Results revealed that women continue to be constructed as sexual objects within both categories of magazines, but the earlier link identified by MacKinnon and Dworkin between violence and sexuality was on longer apparent. Instead, women were a sexual puzzle that the magazines attempted to unpack. Rather than a strict dichotomy between pornographic and non-pornographic magazines, a continuum of grey emerged whereby the level of explicitness between the two magazines increased as the continuum progressed from left to right, thereby demonstrating the pornographication of mainstream media, as per McNair (2002).

In Western culture menstruation is considered to be a curse, an illness, or at least an aspect of feminine “nature” best suppressed. In this thesis I argue that the menstrual taboo has been oppressive to women. Through a closely reading of Sigmund Freud’s writing on femininity, I argue that Freud depicts a monstrous aspect of femininity, connected with the mother and female castration, which he believes must remain repressed. I propose that he is unable to detect a direct connection between female castration and menstruation, because he is himself unconscious of the operations of the menstrual taboo. / I draw on Freudian theorist Claude Dagmar Daly who critiques Freud’s negligence regarding the menstrual taboo, and pinpoints a “menstrual complex” at the heart of Freud’s Oedipus complex. In fleshing out the monstrous menstruating mother at the heart of the Oedipus complex I work with French feminist theorists Julia Kristeva, LuceIrigaray, and Hélène Cixous and trace this figure to the hysteric. Drawing on French feminist Catherine Clément’s writing on the hysteric, I reveal a marginalised space of feminine Nature that opens up in the splitting of the hysteric from the sorceress. I argue that the figure of the sorceress presides over an extremely important aspect of feminine Nature associated with women’s “blood magic.” / I use the term “blood magic” to describe a periodic magical power that is an aspect of feminine Nature, which has been repressed in Western culture. The roots of the term “blood magic” are in anthropological accounts of menstrual rituals. My use of the term Nature denotes the possibility of the expression of a femininity by women, where as “nature” is evidence of the colonisation of femininity by the dominant phallocentric culture in the West. A sacred space of feminine Nature that resides on the borders of culture cannot be accessed and returned to culture until it has been dislodged from the patriarchal depiction of menstruation as a monstrous threat to civilization. / I find that the hysteric provides an historical instance of feminine disorder linked to the sorceress that allows me to explore the domain of the sorceress and what I have referred to as “blood magic.” In order to develop this positive reconstruction of the menstrual taboo I draw on several case studies in which women’s menstrual cycles are ritualised for women’s empowerment. It is in relation to this sacred ritual space of femininity that I call for women to write their own feminine imaginaries, in connection with their menstrual cycles. Moreover, I argue that this constitutes the expression of an authentic account of female sexuality by women, which is dually the writing of a menstrual dialectic. Authenticity in these terms refers to the expression of the menstrual aspect of female sexuality by women. It therefore requires that women recognise the value of articulating the menstrual aspect of female sexuality.

La thèse examine les effets du fantasme sur la sexualité féminine de certaines femmes névrotiques rencontrées à l’occasion de ma pratique clinique. Le fantasme est une structure axiomatique singulière de rapport avec l'Autre, qui a une dimension réelle, symbolique et imaginaire. Freud, (1908a/2006), dans Fantasmes hystériques et ses relations avec la bisexualité, avait déjà indiqué que la satisfaction sexuelle est composée par l'activité physique fusionnée à l´évocation d'un fantasme. Dans 1919a/2006, il annonce qu´il y a un fantasme qui permet l´avenir de la jouissance. Le surprenant est que cette jouissance est masochiste. Lacan prend les coordonnées de cette structure grammaticale qui se répète et propose le mathème du fantasme, $ <> a, qui résume le berceau du sujet du désir devant l´objet a dans un rapport spécifique avec l'Autre. Cela est la structure perverse et axiomatique du sujet, puisque qu´elle décrit, pour les femmes névrotiques écoutées, leurs positions inconscientes constantes de jouissance par rapport à l'Autre. Lacan appelle ce fantasme de "celui qui reste", parce qu’il manifeste "un rapport essentiel du sujet au signifiant" (LACAN, 1957-1958, Leçon de 12 Févr. 1958, Séminaire 5: 243fr). Jacques-Allan Miller dit que ce fantasme "nous amène à la dimension éthique de la psychanalyse" (MILLER, 1983/1987: 96). Cette recherche étudie donc des effets de cette position fantasmatique unique de jouissance sur la sexualité féminine et sur les autres domaines de la vie - l'amour, le travail. / The thesis examines the effects of fundamental fantasy in female sexuality in the field of neurosis. The fundamental fantasy is an axiomatic structure of relationship with the Other, which has a real, symbolic and imaginary dimension. Freud (1908a/ 2006), in Hysterical fantasies and their relation to bisexuality, had already indicated that sexual satisfaction is composed of physical activity fused to the evocation of a fantasy. In 1919a / 2006, he announced the discovery of a specific fantasy that allows access to the female and male sexual satisfaction. The most surprising, revealed to him during analysis, was that the sexual satisfaction in question was masochistic. Lacan takes the coordinates of this fantasy structure, and proposes the fantasy matheme, $ <> a. This structure summarizes the coordinate singularities of sexual satisfaction and desire. Lacan calls this fantasy of "that which stays", once it expresses "an essential relationship of the subject to the signifier" (LACAN, 1957-1958 / 1999: 252). Jacques-Allan Miller says that this fantasy "brings us to the ethical dimension of psychoanalysis" (Miller, 1983/1987: 96). This research studies the effects of this fantasy in female sexuality, love and work after listening women in the field of neurosis.

This thesis applies the radical feminist perspective set out by MacKinnon (1993) and Dworkin (1995), to analyze the construction of female sexuality within popular Canadian men’s pornographic magazines and non-pornographic magazines. A mixed methods approach was used to analyze the images and text within the feature articles of the selected magazines. Results revealed that women continue to be constructed as sexual objects within both categories of magazines, but the earlier link identified by MacKinnon and Dworkin between violence and sexuality was on longer apparent. Instead, women were a sexual puzzle that the magazines attempted to unpack. Rather than a strict dichotomy between pornographic and non-pornographic magazines, a continuum of grey emerged whereby the level of explicitness between the two magazines increased as the continuum progressed from left to right, thereby demonstrating the pornographication of mainstream media, as per McNair (2002).

Patterns of masculine and feminine portrayals can be found everywhere, yet one place sociologists tend not to look is in novels. Young adult novels have generated 27 million dollars in e-books alone in 2011, with paranormal romances and dystopian genres making up the majority of the sales (Scott, 2013). Understanding these novels is sociologically important because they are reaching wider audiences with their adaptation into Hollywood blockbusters. While the novels demonstrate stronger characteristics given to women, the messages about the ideal male in the novel often reflects one who is putting the female in danger. A content analysis of ten popular paranormal young adult novels demonstrates patterns of the construction of gender. Drawing on Radway’s (1984) analysis of romance novels and Connell’s, (2005) and hook’s (2004) theories of masculinities, this paper explores the messages in paranormal fiction geared to a mainly young adult female reading audience. My preliminary findings demonstrate thus far that these books reflect unhealthy ideas about relationships, violence, the body, and sexuality. The novels portray masculine bodies as hard, dangerous, and seductive. They also share a storyline consisting of the fear of getting killed by someone they are in love with.

Orientador: Mariele Rodrigues Correa / Resumo: Este trabalho tem como objetivo a compreensão dos sentidos da sexualidade feminina para mulheres idade igual ou superior a 60 (sessenta) anos. A sexualidade para este público específico é, em boa parte, coberta pelo véu da invisibilidade. Nossas participantes da pesquisa são testemunhas da passagem do tempo e possuem suas trajetórias de vida contornadas pelo meio sociocultural, onde cada uma, de acordo com sua experiência, imprime diferentes significados na vivência da sexualidade. Por conseguinte, refletir sobre a sexualidade feminina na velhice alimenta o desejo de apreender de que maneira as mulheres idosas vivem, experimentam, simbolizam e ressignificam o efeito do envelhecimento na expressão da sexualidade no contexto social contemporâneo. Falar sobre a sobre sexualidade é falar sobre si e nos propicia a construção da subjetividade em diferentes etapas - da infância à velhice, reunindo aspectos corporais, simbólicos e psíquicos. Herdeiras de padrões sociais, culturais e científicos as participantes dessa tese narraram suas histórias permeadas de silêncios, estereótipos e preconceitos. Para tanto, trouxemos o diálogo entre Psicologia e algumas áreas do conhecimento para fundamentarmos, cientificamente, nossas questões e a metodologia da Narrativa para nos amparar na busca das histórias e memórias das participantes. Elegemos a sexualidade como representante de construção subjetiva de mulheres idosas e por meio desse viés apreendemos que para além do critério, eminentemente... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: This paper aims to understand the meanings of female sexuality for old women, that is, aged 60 years or over. Sexuality for this particular audience is largely covered by the veil of invisibility. Our research participants are witnesses of the passage of time and have their life trajectories circumvented by the socio-cultural environment where each one of them, according to their experience, gives different meanings in the experience of sexuality. In order to promote the leading role of the elderly, this theme carries with it a multiplicity of factors to be researched, such as: ageing population, sexuality, gender differences. Therefore, reflecting on female sexuality in old age feeds the desire to learn how older women live, experience, symbolize and resignify the effect of aging on the expression of sexuality in the contemporary social context. To talk about sexuality is to talk about oneself and it allows us to construct subjectivity in different stages - from childhood to old age, bringing together bodily, symbolic and psychic aspects. Inheritors of social, cultural and scientific patterns, the participants of this thesis narrated their stories permeated with silences, stereotypes and prejudices. For this purpose, we chose the dialogue between Psychology and other areas of knowledge such as Anthropology, Social Sciences and others, to scientifically ground our questions we chose the Narrative methodology to support us in the search for the stories and memories of the part... (Complete abstract click electronic access below) / Doutor