Poststructuralist accounts of gender provide a useful theoretical space to unpack the workings of power and domination as they structure the organization of our language, representations, concepts, and discourse in general. One significant flaw of this theory is a failure to adequately account for the social realm of embodied individuals, social interactions, and interpretive moments. In this paper, I offer conventional femininity as a particular type of gendered habitus that highlights this theoretical flaw as it necessarily links what is promising and useful about poststructuralist accounts of gender with the physical, social, interactive, and interpretive everyday lives of women.

Magister Artium - MA / The legacy of apartheid is one that has left traces of racial oppression and inequitable distribution of state resources across the landscape of the country. Cape Town in particular is a city of many contrasts with grand residential estates often tucked far away from decaying townships and forgotten slums outside of the CBD. One particular domain that epitomizes the continuing inequality between racial groups is that of education. Even though South Africa officially achieved independence in 1994, little is known about changes in the status quo at many formerly white schools. The all-girls high school of Sans Souci Girls High School (SSGHS) in Cape Town recently came to light as a site of conflict and tension with learners taking to Twitter to voice their anger towards what they deemed as unfair and racialized practices at the school. This thesis investigates the protest of young black learners at SSGHS, with particular focus on the languages used, videos and images uploaded as well as the complementary and contradictory online press releases. The study further explores the ways in which racialized and gendered practices are resemiotized and (re)contextualised through the protest. The use of online platforms such as Twitter and the emergence of protests at institutions across South Africa has become a regular feature of South African media reports. Under the banner of decolonizing education, many of these anti-establishment movements have become quite effective in getting their voices heard, both locally and internationally. Of interest to this study is whether and how the protest at Sans Souci fits into a larger paradigm of decolonizing education and furthermore, what these protests contribute to a larger conversation regarding gender, racial tensions and naturalised racialized discourses and practices at formerly white schools. It is hoped that a multimodal discourse analysis of images, videos and comments online will provide much-needed information about the semiotics of protest and transformation at the school as they emerge on the internet.

I hereby declare that this research report Is my own work. It is being submitted for the degree of Master of Arts (Clinical Psychology) at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. It has not been submitted before for any degree or examination at any other university. / This study is a constructive application of Feather's (1985) investigation of the relationship between masculinity, femininity, self-esteem and subclinical depression. As such, it aimed at testing the generaliseability of Feather's finding that self-esteem is "a crucial variable to consider when accounting for the negative linkage between masculinity and depressive symptoms" (Feather 1985 p 498). Data was collected by means of questionnaires administered to English-speakirlg, unmarried, "white", female students (age range 19 - 23) registered at the University of the Witwatersrand (Johannesburg, South Africa). The subjects were all studying English at the second or third year level and at least one of each subject's parents was employed in a professional or managerial capacity. The questionnaire consisted of a form obtaining biographical information, the Beck Depression Inventory, the Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inventory and the Bem Sex Role Inventory (the latter rneasuring masculinity and femininity). Complete data was obtained for 103 students. Questionnaires were completed in the subject's own time. Results obtained from the calculated statistics (descriptive, correlation, partial correlation and analysis of variance) led to the conclusion that Feather's principal findings can be ganeralised, at least to the student population investigated here. Hence, given the potential implications of Feather's research for intervention in and prevention of depression, additional effort is Justified to investigate the assumed causal relationship underlying his work and to focus upon clinically depressed individuals. Perhaps the chief conclusion arising from this study, however, is that the nature of the relationship between sex-role orientation and psychological well-belnq needs to be more fully explicated to account adequately for the complexity of psychological life. More specifically, for example, there is a need to define the roles of various mediating variables other than self-esteem in the relationship between sex-role orlentatlon and psychological well-being. It is suggested that a combination of a qualitative with a quantitative approach may be necessary to adequately account for the complexity of the area . / Andrew Chakane 2018

Thesis advisor: James R. Mahalik / Epidemiological studies consistently identify markedly higher rates of depression and anxiety in women than in men. Susan Nolen-Hoeksema's (1991) response styles theory posits that women's higher use of rumination contributes to these differences in rates of depression. The purpose of this dissertation was to extend this theory with the inclusion of conformity to gender role norms as a meaningful predictor of women's and men's tendencies to use of a variety of cognitive emotion regulation strategies, including rumination. The current study also sought to examine relationships among cognitive emotion regulation strategies and both depression and anxiety. Adult women and men (N = 754) completed an online survey including measures of conformity to masculine and feminine gender role norms, 10 cognitive emotion regulation strategies (rumination, distraction, self-blame, acceptance, positive refocusing, refocus on planning, positive reappraisal, putting into perspective, catastrophizing, and other-blame), depression, and anxiety. Results of regression analyses indicated that use of particular cognitive emotion regulation strategies predicted levels of depression and anxiety. Specifically, self-blame, rumination, and distraction were associated with higher levels of both depression and anxiety. Other-blame was also associated with higher levels of anxiety. In contrast, acceptance and refocusing on planning were associated with lower anxiety scores. Women were more likely, by a small margin, to endorse use of both rumination and distraction, however, significant sex differences in reported levels of depression and anxiety were not found. Further, conformity to gender role norms did not explain the sex differences that were found in the use of rumination and distraction. Finally, analysis of a structural equation model, designed to examine an extended version of response styles theory, supported the regression findings and provided additional information about the relationships among conformity to gender role norms, cognitive emotion regulation strategies, and symptoms of depression. Implications for clinical practice and suggestions for future research are discussed, including the importance of exploring alternative meaningful components of within-group variability for women and men. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2013. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Counseling, Developmental, and Educational Psychology.

Thesis advisor: Juliet B. Schor / Thesis advisor: Leslie Salzinger / <bold>White Weddings: Fantasy, Femininity and Consumer Desire</bold> Patricia Arend Advisors: Juliet B. Schor and Leslie Salzinger The white wedding, the dominant form of marriage ritual in America, is a key site for the study of gender inequality because it ritualizes, dramatizes and makes pleasurable patriarchal gender relations. While men and women are becoming more equal in education, the labor force and other social institutions, many women are opting for a traditional, highly gendered wedding ritual. This dissertation unpacks this paradox through the use of qualitative methodology on women's subjectivity and subconscious experience. My methodological strategy includes participant observation, survey research, free association narrative interviewing and photo-elicitation. These varied methods reveal not only that the majority of my respondents desire a traditional, white wedding complete with a standard package of goods and practices, but that in so enacting heteronormativity they seek a singular emotional and romantic experience. Study participants express varied attitudes to their own desire, however. Those without major ambivalence--both straight and a few lesbians--take their desire for a white wedding for granted, an attitude emerging with apparent seamlessness from their emotional experiences attending other people's weddings, the sharing of wedding-related evaluations, perspectives and activities through female-centered social networks, and their prior consumption of wedding related media. Wedding media are consumed by engaged women like an instruction manual, while others often view it with other women, socially. Not all of the participants' relationships to this ritual is so straightforward. Some feel guilty for wanting a wedding they have come to see as sexist or wasteful. They cope with this guilt through a complex process of dissociation and projection focused on other women- a process we find in other aspects of consumer society as well. In addition, a much smaller number of women who identify as lesbian selectively do not conform to the full white wedding format and feel good about their choices. Yet none of these women desire the "camp" elements found in previous studies of lesbian commitment ceremonies and most incorporate some aspects of the white wedding, indicating a trend toward greater conformity. Identifying as a feminist was not correlated with a desire for a particular type of wedding or the experience of desire, which I argue relates to the complex historical context of the movement for marriage equality, the cooptation of feminism by advertising as the "new consumer feminism" and contemporary third wave feminism, which emphasizes individual identity and a liberal politics of choice. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2011. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Sociology.

The thesis explores current debates about postfeminism, social class and new forms of femininity within the context of young women’s social drinking practices. A pervasive culture of intoxication has emerged amongst contemporary young drinkers where drunkenness is constructed as integral to a good night out. This is played out in highly visible public displays where gender, femininities and class are performed, positioned and reconfigured. The culture of intoxication therefore provides a productive arena to undertake an in depth analysis of how postfeminism works and how different social groups of young women navigate gender relations, new formations of femininity and class within this terrain. Data are in the form of middle-class and working-class young women’s accounts of their social drinking in bars and clubs within a relatively small city in the South West of England. The data was collected through 2 phases of semi-structured focus groups with 6 friendship groups of 24 women between 19-24 years of age. A Foucauldian discourse analysis was employed to identify key discourses in young women’s talk, focusing on the intersection between postfeminism and the culture of intoxication. These young women are called on to occupy positions of excess through drinking practices and display a hyper-sexualised form of femininity. This produces an impossible dilemma for young women. The young women drew on four discourses to construct drunkenness as a cultural norm. Within these discourses a particular level of drunkenness was constituted as highly desirable but also as a precarious risky state. Femininity was defined around a ‘right’ look and a ‘wrong’ look within two interlinking discourses and the young women drew on discourses that re-inscribed the gendered politics of drinking. The working-class and middle-class young women drew on different discourses to articulate class differentiation and class was reproduced through highly coded terms. There was an absence of feminist discourse throughout the young women’s accounts and this was involved with re-producing the sexual double standard and with constructing classed postfeminist subjectivities. The thesis concludes by considering the implications of a new classed femininity within an absence of feminist discourse in the context of postfeminism.

No description available.

No decorrer da história, os diversos grupos sociais sofrem valorizações, desvalorizações e transformações em seu papéis sociais. No jogo político, econômico e social, à mulher também foram designados padrões de comportamento e a maternidade é considerada, para várias culturas e por longos períodos, o principal desígnio feminino. No Brasil, interesses do Estado, da Igreja e da Ciência contribuem, desde a organização Colonial até possivelmente nossos dias, com alguns importantes fundamentos no que se entende por ser mãe. Mais recentemente, a sociedade sofreu mudanças que derivaram em uma nova inserção social para a mulher provocando um jogo de corroborações e transformações na maneira de ser mãe. Este trabalho pretende buscar um entendimento do que se pensa sobre ser mãe, no grupo entrevistado. Uma reflexão sobre o conjunto de idéias trazido com relação à maternidade, dos elementos que o constituem, suas articulações, levando-se em consideração as influências histórico-sociais. O método utilizado situa-se no âmbito da pesquisa qualitativa. Foram entrevistadas 15 jovens mães, em duas etapas de entrevista, a partir de um roteiro de perguntas abertas que buscava incentivar suas vivências enquanto mães, o sentido a isto atribuído. As narrativas indicaram os temas de reflexão deste trabalho, a saber: a eternização de ações e sentimentos, a responsabilidade na educação, as dificuldades advindas das tarefas com o filho e o trabalho, a família, a projeção daquilo que é visto como nocivo à relação mãe/ filho. Enfim, a meada ideológica da maternidade, interpenetrando o ser e o fazer no cotidiano desta mãe. Podemos dizer que, tanto o desejo de ser mãe como a maneira de sê-lo sofre influências muito antigas e ainda muito atuantes, o que, neste momento de transição dos papéis sociais, faz com que se crie um descompasso entre a antiga e a atual condição da mulher também no seu modo de ser mãe. / Different social groups have been increasing and decreasing their value as well as presenting changes in their social roles, through history. In the political, economic and social game, patterns of behaviour were designated to women and the motherhood has been considered, for many cultures and for a long period, the most important feminine attribute. Since the colonial Brazilian period, State, Church and Science’s interests have been providing some important ideas related to being mother. Recently, society suffered changes that for the woman mean new social status what contributes to reassuring and transforming the way of being mother. Qualitative methods were chosen to analyse the data from this study. Fifteen young mothers were interviewed following a opened questionnaire, trying to get the women’s experiences as mothers. The discourses indicate the reflection themes presented in this work: actions and feelings that were presented as eternal, the responsibility in education, the difficulties in conciliating work and child’s care, family, projection of bad aspects related to mother/child relationship. Lastly, the motherhood’s ideological net’s influences in being and building the mother’s every day life, and vice-versa. Therefore, regarding the social roles in this transitional moment, there are old and still active ideas affecting the present woman’s status as a mother in her being mother’s wish and in her way of being it.

Emerging research highlights the social penalties for men and women who commit cross-gendered behaviors. Here, I examine how and when two contextual mechanisms (competence and credentials) alter people's perceptions of cross-gendered behavior and render actors as less gender-atypical and more gender-typical. In Study 1, I tested the hypothesis that incompetence in cross-gendered behaviors would communicate same-gendered qualities by contrast. In Study 2, I tested the hypothesis that an actor who commits a cross-gendered behavior will receive less gender-inconsistent evaluations if they first demonstrate gender-typical traits. Moreover, Study 2 examines whether or not these credentialed actors change the perception of the behavior's alignment with conventional gender stereotypes. Results were largely mixed but generally failed to support hypotheses. The Discussion focuses on how future research can address these questions.

This research paper examines the implications of a feminist appropriation of the fetish and the use of the theory of abjection, as a disruption of phallocentric binary labelling and its notion of idealised femininity. The paper is divided into two sections. The first section includes an analysis of Emily Apter's articles 'Fetishism and Visual Seduction in Mary Kelly's Interim' and an analysis of Janine Antoni's installation 'Gnaw' which form a contextualisation of the issues on which my own visual research is based. These issues revolve around the creation of multiple subject positions for women as both artist and spectator, the recuperation of the seductive image without creating the same power relations apparent in the male gaze and the deployment of an abstract visual femininity to scopically seduce the viewer. In section two, part one, Praveen Adams' article 'The art of analysis: Mary Kelly's Interim and the discourse of the analyst is examined. In this article Adams uses Lacan's theory of discourse to hypothesise that the space of production in Interim is an analogue to the space of production in pyschoanalysis. Part two consists of an examination of the application of the same structural analysis to Antoni's 'Gnaw' and my own 'Compulsive Beauty,' and explores the possibility of a new contextual analysis of feminist art / Master of Arts (Hons)