<p>The present study predicted that gender, relationship status, sexual orientation, and sexual debut would have an impact on number of sexual partners, which would then affect self-esteem, sexual satisfaction, and sexual self-efficacy. Through an online survey, participants anonymously responded to statements related to these concepts in order to test relationships among demographics and the number of sexual partners as well as among the number of sexual partners and self-esteem, sexual satisfaction, and sexual self-efficacy. Overall, men were much more influenced by their relationship status and number of sexual partners than women, implying that the men are still affected by the sexual double standard through the praise they receive for having many sexual partners.</p>

Despite heightened efforts to increase gender parity, organizations in the technology industry are struggling to implement and enact Gender Diversity and Inclusion policies (GDIPs). This purpose of this dissertation was to enhance understandings of obstacles to policy enactment and unearth ways in which organizations can create more equitable work environments. Specifically, this project investigated how members of technology organizations construct knowledge about Gender Diversity and Inclusion policies through their personal experiences, attitudes and beliefs, and interactions with others within and external to their organization. Utilizing a critical-interpretivist and intersectional feminism as ontological and epistemological frameworks, this dissertation study draws from structurating activity theory (SAT; Canary, 2010) and theories of organizational identification (Scott, 2007) to explore issues of policy knowledge construction, implementation, and enactment. Completed in two phases,this dissertation employed a mixed-methods design. Phase One used DeVellis’ (2017) framework to develop a Gender Diversity and Inclusion policy attitude scale (GDIPAS) to evaluate how personal opinions about GDIPs and larger constructs like sexism, feminism, identification, and social desirability contribute to the policy knowledge construction process. Phase Two used a parallel analysis design to quantitatively (i.e., surveys) and qualitatively (i.e., interviews) investigate how members of tech-based organizations construct GDIP knowledge through intra- and extra-organizational interactions, as well as personal beliefs and attitudes (Teddlie & Tashakkori, 2009). Phase One resulted in five-factors underlying Gender Diversity and Inclusion policy attitude: perception of policy abuse, policy familiarity, perception of workforce gender inequity, policy support, and perception of organizational gender diversity. Results from Phase Two indicated that members of technology organizations interact within and across activity systems to construct knowledge about GDIPs through structural contradictions that (re)produce barriers to policy implementation and enactment.This project contributed to organizational communication theory by investigating the role of organizational identification in the policy knowledge construction process. Further, this dissertation extended SAT by identifying two new structural contradictions and a primary system-level contradiction, and by centralizing power in the investigation of policy knowledge construction. Methodologically, this dissertation offers a new policy attitude measure for scholars and practitioners. Finally, results of this project provide practical insights into barriers to policy implementation and enactment.

Reviewing literature on the histories of and the attitude studies about transgender people, the use of ‘they’ as a gender-neutral third-person singular pronoun, prescriptive grammar ideology, and aversive prejudice theory provides insight into how these topics are interrelated and relevant to current issues surrounding nonbinary transgender people. This review inspired my research study. My participants (n = 722) completed an online survey in which they reported demographic variables and answered scales that measured ‘they’ attitudes in generic and queer contexts, attitudes toward trans people, and prescriptive grammar ideology. I found that the majority of participants approved of using the singular ‘they’. Regression analyses revealed that in a queer context, negative attitudes toward 'they' were best predicted by trans prejudice, while in a generic context, both valuing prescriptive grammar and anti-trans prejudice similarly predicted 'they' attitudes. This indicates that negative attitudes toward the singular 'they' are not merely an issue of taking a principled stance against "improper grammar". Additionally, both sexual orientation and gender (trans vs. cisgender) moderate the relationship between prescriptive grammar ideology and 'they' attitudes. Age, sexual orientation, and education level also influenced my pattern of results such that older participants, queer people, and more highly educated individuals were more likely to have positive attitudes toward the singular ‘they’. These findings have implications for LGBTQ+ individuals’ relationships with cisgender and heterosexual people as well as for theories of prejudice, particularly with regard to the increasingly important area of attitudes toward people with diverse gender identities.

<p>The narrative of the Ecuadorian César Dávila Andrade (Cuenca, Ecuador 1918 - Caracas, Venezuela 1967) is of great importance for the literature of his country; however, it has not been studied very frequently, as critics have focused on his poetry. This has mainly shown Dávila Andrade as a poet, rather than a narrator. However, his short stories constitute a considerable body of work and must be considered for a global understanding of his work. This dissertation aims to show that the short stories have to be considered an important part of the literary work of Dávila Andrade. Furthermore, the dissertation is part of a process of a contemporary rereading of Ecuadorian canonical authors; specifically, I propose an innovative analysis, based on abjection, gender and body, of texts that have traditionally been studied from narratological and stylistic perspectives only. For this study, I selected stories from different periods in Davila Andrade's career: “Un centinela ve la vida aparecer” (1966), “El hombre que limpió su arma” (1966), “Cabeza de gallo” (1966), “La autopsia” (Revista Tomebamba 1943), “Autopsia” (1952), “Las nubes y las sombras” (1952), “Un cuerpo extraño” (1955), “El último remedio” (1955), “La batalla” (1955), “La mirada de Dios” (1949), and “Ataúd de cartón” (1952). In these short stories, abjection is a subversive category that allows the author to question the constitution and ontology of reality. Julia Kristeva’s theoretical proposal defines abjection as what reminds the individual of a state of being of undifferentiation (before and after existence), in which he/she ceases to be; the presence of the abject puts at risk the existence of the subject within a social system. Specifically, the body in different states in the Davilian narrative is the main abject element that disfigures the categories and hierarchies of symbolic systems (patriarchy and religion are some examples). The Davilian body is essentially feminine and constitutes abjection; it is presented as a border space where reality loses its contours. Similarly, the diseased body and the corpse are constant elements in the Davilian narrative, inhabitants of unstable worlds, which invade places and the characters’ psyches. In conclusion, Dávila Andrade's short stories are occupied by the abjection of bodies, which functions as a concept that allows the dismantling of imposed, closed systems, based on hierarchies, such as patriarchy and religion.</p>

<div>This project engages in an intersectional and interdisciplinary tracing of the emerging field of feminist game studies and the epistemologies and methodologies that exist within this field. Through such tracing, this project asks—what are feminist game studies’ epistemological goals and frameworks? What methodologies can the field draw from in order to achieve these epistemological goals? Ultimately, this project argues that feminist game studies enacts an epistemology of feminist worldbuilding—that is, an inclusive, embodied, space-claiming mode of producing knowledge—and achieves this worldbuilding through methodologies of intersectional disruption in order to perform disruptive feminist interventions into video game culture. </div><div><br></div><div>In the first chapter of this project, I make use of a methodology of narrative autoethnography to discuss my experience with online harassment as an inroad into interrogating the bodies at risk in gaming spaces in order to make a case for the need for feminist interventions to disrupt the violent structures within video game culture. The second chapter traces the ways hegemonic, patriarchal frameworks in game studies epistemologically deprivilege material, representational analyses of bodies and culture in the study of games and, instead, argues for the implementation of intersectional approaches to video game culture. The third chapter maps the intersectional feminist methodologies that can be implemented in feminist game studies in order to perform generative and disruptive interventions into video game culture and build feminist worlds. </div><div><br></div><div>In the fourth chapter, I apply some of these methodologies of disruption to the alienation of mothers in the gaming industry’s workplace culture and representations of mothers in the games Among the Sleep and Horizon Zero Dawn in order to intervene into video game culture’s prejudicial attitudes regarding labor, mothers, and women. The final chapter continues my autoethnographic work through the connection of my experiences with online harassment to previous experiences with gendered violence and trauma in order to underscore the stakes of feminist game studies praxis. In all these ways, I argue that feminist game studies builds worlds by performing interventions into video game culture through intersectional and pluralistic methodologies of disruption, for such methodologies imagine new, inclusive models of existence and futurity in video game culture.</div>

Indigenous Australian women who perform contemporary music are acutely aware that Aboriginalist discourse has created unrealistic expectations and public perceptions of Indigenous Australian performance. The theory of Aboriginalism is critiqued and interrogated in this thesis in relation to Indigenous Australian women, performance, and race. This thesis addresses the complex and contradictory ways that Aboriginalist discourse fixes non-Indigenous expectations of Indigenous Australian performance, gender, and race by exploring how the performers themselves work within and against these Aboriginalist constructions through their music. One of the immediate effects of Aboriginalism is that it silences Indigenous Australians. In academic discourse and popular media, the voices of Indigenous women who perform contemporary music are rarely heard and often overlooked or ignored. This thesis aims to redress and understand this gender imbalance by focusing on Indigenous women and their contemporary music and illustrate how Indigenous Australian women performers are enacting new types of agency to negotiate their way through, around, and over one-dimensional Aboriginalist constructions of themselves to self-define more positive and diverse identities as Indigenous Australian women. This thesis is divided into four parts. Part One (Chapters One, Two, and Three) provides necessary background to the study. Chapter One introduces the topic and poses research questions in relation to Aboriginalism, Indigenous women, and contemporary performance. Chapter Two examines a number of themes which emerge in the existing literature relating to Indigenous Australian musicians performing contemporary music. Chapter Three locates Indigenous Australian women in this academic discourse and explores some possible reasons for the increasing number of contemporary music recordings by Indigenous Australian women since the 1990s. Part Two (Chapters Four, Five, and Six) positions this study theoretically and methodologically. Chapter Four outlines the theoretical framework that informs this project while Chapter Five discusses the methodological issues and challenges I faced throughout the research process. Chapter Six introduces the Indigenous women performers who took part in this study. This chapter uses the literary convention of a “playlet” by weaving together comments of Indigenous Australian women performers from one-on-one interviews I conducted, media excerpts about the performers, as well as my own questions and comments into a conversation which tells a story about the performers’ backgrounds, experiences, albums, and achievements. Part Three (Chapters Seven, Eight, and Nine) comprises the analysis chapters and examines Aboriginalism in relation to race, gender, and performance. Each of these chapters utilise theoretical discussions of Aboriginalism, excerpts from interviews with Indigenous women performers, song texts, and media representations to examine how Indigenous women perform within and against Aboriginalism. Chapter Seven focuses on how Indigenous women performers resist Aboriginalist constructs of race through performance while Chapter Eight turns the gaze to gender and Aboriginalism to explore how the performers challenge Aboriginalist representations of Indigenous women by attempting bring Indigenous women’s experiences, history, and topics to the foreground through song. Chapter Nine examines the way in which Indigenous women performers steer their way through Aboriginalism in music performance by blurring musical boundaries and drawing on a diverse range of musical styles. Finally, Part Four (Chapter Ten) discusses the possibilities of moving beyond Aboriginalism and reflects on my own contribution to discourse concerning Indigenous women performers.

Indigenous Australian women who perform contemporary music are acutely aware that Aboriginalist discourse has created unrealistic expectations and public perceptions of Indigenous Australian performance. The theory of Aboriginalism is critiqued and interrogated in this thesis in relation to Indigenous Australian women, performance, and race. This thesis addresses the complex and contradictory ways that Aboriginalist discourse fixes non-Indigenous expectations of Indigenous Australian performance, gender, and race by exploring how the performers themselves work within and against these Aboriginalist constructions through their music. One of the immediate effects of Aboriginalism is that it silences Indigenous Australians. In academic discourse and popular media, the voices of Indigenous women who perform contemporary music are rarely heard and often overlooked or ignored. This thesis aims to redress and understand this gender imbalance by focusing on Indigenous women and their contemporary music and illustrate how Indigenous Australian women performers are enacting new types of agency to negotiate their way through, around, and over one-dimensional Aboriginalist constructions of themselves to self-define more positive and diverse identities as Indigenous Australian women. This thesis is divided into four parts. Part One (Chapters One, Two, and Three) provides necessary background to the study. Chapter One introduces the topic and poses research questions in relation to Aboriginalism, Indigenous women, and contemporary performance. Chapter Two examines a number of themes which emerge in the existing literature relating to Indigenous Australian musicians performing contemporary music. Chapter Three locates Indigenous Australian women in this academic discourse and explores some possible reasons for the increasing number of contemporary music recordings by Indigenous Australian women since the 1990s. Part Two (Chapters Four, Five, and Six) positions this study theoretically and methodologically. Chapter Four outlines the theoretical framework that informs this project while Chapter Five discusses the methodological issues and challenges I faced throughout the research process. Chapter Six introduces the Indigenous women performers who took part in this study. This chapter uses the literary convention of a “playlet” by weaving together comments of Indigenous Australian women performers from one-on-one interviews I conducted, media excerpts about the performers, as well as my own questions and comments into a conversation which tells a story about the performers’ backgrounds, experiences, albums, and achievements. Part Three (Chapters Seven, Eight, and Nine) comprises the analysis chapters and examines Aboriginalism in relation to race, gender, and performance. Each of these chapters utilise theoretical discussions of Aboriginalism, excerpts from interviews with Indigenous women performers, song texts, and media representations to examine how Indigenous women perform within and against Aboriginalism. Chapter Seven focuses on how Indigenous women performers resist Aboriginalist constructs of race through performance while Chapter Eight turns the gaze to gender and Aboriginalism to explore how the performers challenge Aboriginalist representations of Indigenous women by attempting bring Indigenous women’s experiences, history, and topics to the foreground through song. Chapter Nine examines the way in which Indigenous women performers steer their way through Aboriginalism in music performance by blurring musical boundaries and drawing on a diverse range of musical styles. Finally, Part Four (Chapter Ten) discusses the possibilities of moving beyond Aboriginalism and reflects on my own contribution to discourse concerning Indigenous women performers.

Indigenous Australian women who perform contemporary music are acutely aware that Aboriginalist discourse has created unrealistic expectations and public perceptions of Indigenous Australian performance. The theory of Aboriginalism is critiqued and interrogated in this thesis in relation to Indigenous Australian women, performance, and race. This thesis addresses the complex and contradictory ways that Aboriginalist discourse fixes non-Indigenous expectations of Indigenous Australian performance, gender, and race by exploring how the performers themselves work within and against these Aboriginalist constructions through their music. One of the immediate effects of Aboriginalism is that it silences Indigenous Australians. In academic discourse and popular media, the voices of Indigenous women who perform contemporary music are rarely heard and often overlooked or ignored. This thesis aims to redress and understand this gender imbalance by focusing on Indigenous women and their contemporary music and illustrate how Indigenous Australian women performers are enacting new types of agency to negotiate their way through, around, and over one-dimensional Aboriginalist constructions of themselves to self-define more positive and diverse identities as Indigenous Australian women. This thesis is divided into four parts. Part One (Chapters One, Two, and Three) provides necessary background to the study. Chapter One introduces the topic and poses research questions in relation to Aboriginalism, Indigenous women, and contemporary performance. Chapter Two examines a number of themes which emerge in the existing literature relating to Indigenous Australian musicians performing contemporary music. Chapter Three locates Indigenous Australian women in this academic discourse and explores some possible reasons for the increasing number of contemporary music recordings by Indigenous Australian women since the 1990s. Part Two (Chapters Four, Five, and Six) positions this study theoretically and methodologically. Chapter Four outlines the theoretical framework that informs this project while Chapter Five discusses the methodological issues and challenges I faced throughout the research process. Chapter Six introduces the Indigenous women performers who took part in this study. This chapter uses the literary convention of a “playlet” by weaving together comments of Indigenous Australian women performers from one-on-one interviews I conducted, media excerpts about the performers, as well as my own questions and comments into a conversation which tells a story about the performers’ backgrounds, experiences, albums, and achievements. Part Three (Chapters Seven, Eight, and Nine) comprises the analysis chapters and examines Aboriginalism in relation to race, gender, and performance. Each of these chapters utilise theoretical discussions of Aboriginalism, excerpts from interviews with Indigenous women performers, song texts, and media representations to examine how Indigenous women perform within and against Aboriginalism. Chapter Seven focuses on how Indigenous women performers resist Aboriginalist constructs of race through performance while Chapter Eight turns the gaze to gender and Aboriginalism to explore how the performers challenge Aboriginalist representations of Indigenous women by attempting bring Indigenous women’s experiences, history, and topics to the foreground through song. Chapter Nine examines the way in which Indigenous women performers steer their way through Aboriginalism in music performance by blurring musical boundaries and drawing on a diverse range of musical styles. Finally, Part Four (Chapter Ten) discusses the possibilities of moving beyond Aboriginalism and reflects on my own contribution to discourse concerning Indigenous women performers.

Indigenous Australian women who perform contemporary music are acutely aware that Aboriginalist discourse has created unrealistic expectations and public perceptions of Indigenous Australian performance. The theory of Aboriginalism is critiqued and interrogated in this thesis in relation to Indigenous Australian women, performance, and race. This thesis addresses the complex and contradictory ways that Aboriginalist discourse fixes non-Indigenous expectations of Indigenous Australian performance, gender, and race by exploring how the performers themselves work within and against these Aboriginalist constructions through their music. One of the immediate effects of Aboriginalism is that it silences Indigenous Australians. In academic discourse and popular media, the voices of Indigenous women who perform contemporary music are rarely heard and often overlooked or ignored. This thesis aims to redress and understand this gender imbalance by focusing on Indigenous women and their contemporary music and illustrate how Indigenous Australian women performers are enacting new types of agency to negotiate their way through, around, and over one-dimensional Aboriginalist constructions of themselves to self-define more positive and diverse identities as Indigenous Australian women. This thesis is divided into four parts. Part One (Chapters One, Two, and Three) provides necessary background to the study. Chapter One introduces the topic and poses research questions in relation to Aboriginalism, Indigenous women, and contemporary performance. Chapter Two examines a number of themes which emerge in the existing literature relating to Indigenous Australian musicians performing contemporary music. Chapter Three locates Indigenous Australian women in this academic discourse and explores some possible reasons for the increasing number of contemporary music recordings by Indigenous Australian women since the 1990s. Part Two (Chapters Four, Five, and Six) positions this study theoretically and methodologically. Chapter Four outlines the theoretical framework that informs this project while Chapter Five discusses the methodological issues and challenges I faced throughout the research process. Chapter Six introduces the Indigenous women performers who took part in this study. This chapter uses the literary convention of a “playlet” by weaving together comments of Indigenous Australian women performers from one-on-one interviews I conducted, media excerpts about the performers, as well as my own questions and comments into a conversation which tells a story about the performers’ backgrounds, experiences, albums, and achievements. Part Three (Chapters Seven, Eight, and Nine) comprises the analysis chapters and examines Aboriginalism in relation to race, gender, and performance. Each of these chapters utilise theoretical discussions of Aboriginalism, excerpts from interviews with Indigenous women performers, song texts, and media representations to examine how Indigenous women perform within and against Aboriginalism. Chapter Seven focuses on how Indigenous women performers resist Aboriginalist constructs of race through performance while Chapter Eight turns the gaze to gender and Aboriginalism to explore how the performers challenge Aboriginalist representations of Indigenous women by attempting bring Indigenous women’s experiences, history, and topics to the foreground through song. Chapter Nine examines the way in which Indigenous women performers steer their way through Aboriginalism in music performance by blurring musical boundaries and drawing on a diverse range of musical styles. Finally, Part Four (Chapter Ten) discusses the possibilities of moving beyond Aboriginalism and reflects on my own contribution to discourse concerning Indigenous women performers.

Indigenous Australian women who perform contemporary music are acutely aware that Aboriginalist discourse has created unrealistic expectations and public perceptions of Indigenous Australian performance. The theory of Aboriginalism is critiqued and interrogated in this thesis in relation to Indigenous Australian women, performance, and race. This thesis addresses the complex and contradictory ways that Aboriginalist discourse fixes non-Indigenous expectations of Indigenous Australian performance, gender, and race by exploring how the performers themselves work within and against these Aboriginalist constructions through their music. One of the immediate effects of Aboriginalism is that it silences Indigenous Australians. In academic discourse and popular media, the voices of Indigenous women who perform contemporary music are rarely heard and often overlooked or ignored. This thesis aims to redress and understand this gender imbalance by focusing on Indigenous women and their contemporary music and illustrate how Indigenous Australian women performers are enacting new types of agency to negotiate their way through, around, and over one-dimensional Aboriginalist constructions of themselves to self-define more positive and diverse identities as Indigenous Australian women. This thesis is divided into four parts. Part One (Chapters One, Two, and Three) provides necessary background to the study. Chapter One introduces the topic and poses research questions in relation to Aboriginalism, Indigenous women, and contemporary performance. Chapter Two examines a number of themes which emerge in the existing literature relating to Indigenous Australian musicians performing contemporary music. Chapter Three locates Indigenous Australian women in this academic discourse and explores some possible reasons for the increasing number of contemporary music recordings by Indigenous Australian women since the 1990s. Part Two (Chapters Four, Five, and Six) positions this study theoretically and methodologically. Chapter Four outlines the theoretical framework that informs this project while Chapter Five discusses the methodological issues and challenges I faced throughout the research process. Chapter Six introduces the Indigenous women performers who took part in this study. This chapter uses the literary convention of a “playlet” by weaving together comments of Indigenous Australian women performers from one-on-one interviews I conducted, media excerpts about the performers, as well as my own questions and comments into a conversation which tells a story about the performers’ backgrounds, experiences, albums, and achievements. Part Three (Chapters Seven, Eight, and Nine) comprises the analysis chapters and examines Aboriginalism in relation to race, gender, and performance. Each of these chapters utilise theoretical discussions of Aboriginalism, excerpts from interviews with Indigenous women performers, song texts, and media representations to examine how Indigenous women perform within and against Aboriginalism. Chapter Seven focuses on how Indigenous women performers resist Aboriginalist constructs of race through performance while Chapter Eight turns the gaze to gender and Aboriginalism to explore how the performers challenge Aboriginalist representations of Indigenous women by attempting bring Indigenous women’s experiences, history, and topics to the foreground through song. Chapter Nine examines the way in which Indigenous women performers steer their way through Aboriginalism in music performance by blurring musical boundaries and drawing on a diverse range of musical styles. Finally, Part Four (Chapter Ten) discusses the possibilities of moving beyond Aboriginalism and reflects on my own contribution to discourse concerning Indigenous women performers.