According to tradition, Chinese women are submissive; they are neglected in the UK Chinese community and relatively invisible in British society. Whilst there is sufficient evidence to support the view that Chinese women immigrants experience difficulties in their daily lives, little is known about these women as a unique group. This qualitative narrative inquiry sets out the untold stories of three Chinese immigrant women, including the researcher, and explores the influence of their cultural values on their adjustment needs during their settlement in Britain.

This thesis explores the demographic, geographical, economic and social experiences of service for early modern women. Considering service as a holistic experience, it challenges several orthodoxies in existing literature on service, including the typical profile of the female servant, the organisation and structure of service and the experiences of female servants in the early modern community. Using depositional evidence from the church courts of the dioceses of Gloucester and Exeter, it calls for a reinterpretation of service, reintegrating female servants into community economies and social networks. The first section of this thesis provides an outline of the methodology used and, importantly, analyses patterns of litigation and the demographic, social and economic profiles of witnesses and litigants who appeared in the church courts. The second section focuses on demographic and economic patterns of female service, demonstrating the significance of other experiences outside the ‘life-cycle’ model. It considers the economic conditions in which women entered service and the social backgrounds from which they came. The third section focuses on service as a form of work, unpicking what is meant by ‘service’, and considering how female servants found employment, how much they were paid and how long they remained with particular employers. The section challenges the traditional gendered dichotomy between service in husbandry and domestic service by analysing the types of work that they undertook. The fourth section considers female service from the perspective of geography and space, examining the distances travelled by female servants to show the varied experiences of mobility in service. The section also explores mobility on a parish level, exploring the spaces and locations in which female servants were described within the depositions to highlight the social and economic presence of these women within community spaces, not just the household. The final section moves away from the historiographical focus upon the relationships that female servants built with members of the household, in which the vulnerability of these women is consistently stressed. This section demonstrates that this was but one experience of service, and instead considers relationships forged outside the household with neighbours, friends and other community members.

Bibliography: leaves 438-482 / vii, 482 leaves ; 30 cm. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of Asian Studies, 1994

Les femmes, au Maroc, constituent une population hétérogène. Celles, qui, depuis l'indépendance, ont bénéficié de l'éducation puis accédé aux études supérieures, ont pu investir de nombreuses professions qu'elles exercent aujourd'hui parfois en nombre. Pourtant, certaines professions supérieures, comme la profession comptable, notamment dans son segment supérieur, l'expertise comptable, restent des bastions masculins. Les femmes y sont arrivées très lentement et restent en faible nombre, en particulier au stade de l'inscription à l'Ordre des experts-comptables. Cette étude se situe au croisement d'une sociologie des professions et d'une sociologie du genre. Elle montre comment l'intérêt s'est récemment porté sur la sociologie de la profession comptable dont le développement est lié à la libéralisation du marché et comment les modèles professionnels imposés par la colonisation à certains pays comme les pays arabes, dont le protectorat français au Maroc, ont influencé l'institutionnalisation des professions nationales. La place des femmes dans la profession comptable a été très peu étudiée et n'a encore fait l'objet d'aucun travail au Maroc. Aussi ce travail a eu également pour but l'étude de la profession, notamment au niveau de son segment supérieur, l'expertise comptable, au prisme du genre. A partir d'entretiens auprès de femmes mais également d'hommes comptables et experts-comptables à différentes étapes de leur vie professionnelle, ce travail montre la diversité des expériences et des vécus. Il analyse et interprète les trajectoires des femmes, que celles-ci soient linéaires ou qu'elles empruntent des voies alternatives qui les éloignent de l'inscription à l'Ordre. Certaines femmes feront l'expérience d'une accumulation de freins et obstacles qui remettent aujourd'hui en question la classique métaphore du « plafond de verre». D'autres au contraire, suivront des trajectoires linéaires qui leur permettront des carrières de réussite et l'accession à la stature de femmes « dirigeantes ». Les mécanismes susceptibles d'expliquer la diversité de ces parcours, dont les cursus, les conditions de travail, la place que la société fait aux femmes marocaines et la recherche permanente à laquelle s'astreignent les femmes d'un équilibre entre leur vie professionnelle et leur vie familiale, sont analysés dans ce travail. / Women in Morocco constitute an heterogeneous population. Those who, since the independence of the country, have benefited from education and accessed higher education, have been able to invest sometimes highly many professions. However, some higher professions like accounting, remain male bastions. Women have come to them very slowly and remain very few, especially when registering at the College of Accountants (Ordre).This study lies at the crossing of the sociology of professions and the sociology of gender. Starting from the development of the sociology of professions, first the Anglo-Saxon then the French one, it shows how interest has recently focused on the sociology of the accounting profession, the development of which is linked to the market liberalization and how professional models imposed on countries such as the Arab countries by colonization influenced the institutionalization of the national profession. In Morocco, the accounting profession was born with the French protectorate.The place of women in the accounting profession has been very little studied and it hasn't been the subject of any work in Morocco. Thus, this work also aimed to study accounting, through the prism of gender. From interviews with accountants, women but also men, at different steps of their professional life, this work shows the diversity of experiences. It analyzes the trajectories of women, either they have been linear or they have borrowed alternative routes that take them away from the registration to the College (Ordre). Some women have experienced an accumulation of disadvantages that would today question the classical metaphor of « glass ceiling ». Others on the contrary, have followed linear paths that have led them to successfully careers and to the stature of « leaders ». Mechanisms able to explain the diversity of courses, including curricula, working conditions, the women permanent search for a balance between their professional and their family lives and the place that society allows them are analyzed in this work.