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Women working in the current Canadian academic system face challenges which their male colleagues do not; one such challenge lies in dressing for work in the university setting. This paper examines the role dress plays in the workplace experiences of female professors at a large Canadian academic research institution. Through on-line and face-to-face focus groups as well as one-on-one interviews with 16 female professors, this study examines how these women decide what to wear to work. Using Goffman’s (1959) symbolic interactionist approach to self-presentation, in combination with Simmel (1957) and Blumer’s (1969) work on fashion, the various meanings attributed to women’s dress are explored. Women’s self-presentation in professional settings is significant, as theorized by Ridgeway’s (1991; 1993; 2011) theories of gender inequality in the workplace. Finally Scott’s (1990) theories of everyday resistance explore the potential for female professors to resist the dominant power structure through their choice of dress and self-presentation at work. The preliminary findings indicate that for those individuals for whom power and authority are not as accessible, dress and self-presentation can be avenues through which these individuals can access this authority and at times some may push back against the unequal power structures which exist in the current Canadian academic system.

Western and Eastern societies are known to vary in terms of their important values, identities and dress practices. The Muslim culture is a typical Eastern culture, in which the veil is the most visible symbol of a woman’s Islamic identity. Today many Muslims live in Western societies. The non-Muslim cultural context has resulted in Muslim women becoming acculturated to the new context and thereby having adopted new patterns of dress. South Africa is generally considered to be a Western society. South African Muslim women follow a variety of dress practices, and take part in the acculturation process to different degrees in order to adapt to the cultural context. Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world, but in South Africa Muslims are a minority group. While various international studies have focused on the values and identities that influence Muslim women’s dress practices, very few studies have analysed these aspects within a South African context. This research study fills an important contextual gap in existing knowledge on the behaviour of Muslim women in terms of their dress practices, as related to their values and identity. The study makes a contribution to the fields of culture and apparel behaviour research. e fields of culture and apparel behaviour research. Female Muslim students attending a university in Pretoria follow varied dress practices. While some individuals wear traditional Islamic garments, others follow Western fashion trends. These differences in dress can be attributed to the acculturation process. The campus environment is a multicultural context. Female Muslim students must decide to what extent they are willing to adopt the new values, identities and dress practices that surround them. The aim of this study is to explore and describe the relationship between values and identity in the dress practices of female Muslim students attending a university in Pretoria. The study’s literature review includes explanations of different value typologies, identity types and acculturation strategies. All of these concepts are related to dress. A cultural perspective served as the theoretical framework for the study. This perspective recognises the relationship between the material and non-material aspects of culture and provides a framework to determine how abstract concepts manifest in dress over time. The sample consisted of 200 female Muslim students enrolled at the University of Pretoria. Participants were all between 17 and 25 years of age. Non-probability sampling methods were used, including purposive and snowball sampling. Participants were asked to complete a self-administered questionnaire. An exploratory survey research design was followed with a quantitative approach to collect data. The results of the study revealed that participants could not be divided into three groups according to the different acculturation strategies, but rather into two groups, based on less modest and more modest dress practices. Only slight differences in values and identity were identified between the two groups. While the group who followed less modest dress practices placed more importance on social values, the group following more modest dress practices placed more importance on religious values and found a Muslim identity to be more predominant. All other values and identities were rated as being equally significant to both groups and were also ranked in the same order of importance. / Dissertation (MConsumer Science)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / gm2014 / Consumer Science / unrestricted

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This study investigated the effect of clothing, posture, and sex of subject on inferences concerning sexual orientation and gender role. Subjects were a convenience sample of 327 students. The study wa sa 2 (masculine/feminine clothing) X 2 (masculine/feminine posture) X2 (sex of subject) between subject experimental design. Perceptions of sexual orientation were measured by a single item anchored at one end by homosexual and the other end by not homosexual.

A 70-year-old, immunocompromised patient presented to the emergency room (ER) five weeks after she was started on clopidogrel. She complained of skin eruption, mouth ulcers, fatigue, and myalgia over the past two weeks. Labs showed severe hyponatremia, acute kidney injury, rhabdomyolysis, hyperkalemia, and elevated liver enzymes. She was treated with steroids and discharged after her condition improved. However, a month later, she returned to the ER, complaining of nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, dizziness, chills, and shortness of breath over the past two days. She was lethargic and had orthostatic hypotension. She deteriorated clinically within a few days, with worsening lethargy and the development of respiratory distress along with profound hypotension. She needed mechanical ventilation and vasopressors. In addition, she had melena, severe thrombocytopenia, and hemolytic anemia. With supportive care, she improved and was discharged after a long stay in the intensive care unit. Retrospectively, the first hospitalization was believed to be caused by drug reaction with eosinophilia and systemic symptoms (DRESS). Treating that with steroids compromised her immune system beyond her pre-existing primary immunodeficiency status. At the time of her second hospitalization, she met the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) criteria for a toxic shock syndrome (TSS) diagnosis. Her TSS started four days after a skin biopsy, which was done as part of her skin rash workup. It was thought that the source of the exotoxin that mediated her TSS was her skin, given the temporal relationship of the skin biopsy to her TSS. Another potential source of the exotoxin was the gastrointestinal tract, given the predominant gastrointestinal symptoms she had at the time of her second admission.

During the early twentieth century, Acadian women dressed up in a costume based on the main character from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s 1847 epic poem Evangeline at nation-building events to symbolize the Acadian people and its past. Acadians came to consider the Evangeline costume to be the national and historic dress of their people. Yet their ancestors never wore this outfit. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the Acadian settlers to what is today Canada’s Maritime region instead developed a distinct style of dress based on a mix of local and external influences, which differentiated them from their French origins and from the colonists in other North American settlements by the time most of the population was deported from the region during the Seven Years’ War. In the period following the Expulsion, Acadians continued to wear unique styles of dress which contributed to the sense of a distinct identity. Longfellow’s Evangeline drew on the Romantic Movement, however, and its tendency to view rural dwellers as simple and picturesque peasants wearing exotic costumes. Evangeline led to a reimagining of the Acadians as they became widely associated with their description in the poem, in part due to the popularity with Norman peasant costumes evoked in the poem. This is the version of their past that Acadians chose to emphasize during the twentieth century. This thesis traces the process of reimagining the Acadians’ past that occurred during the nineteenth century and the early twentieth century through a study of representations of Acadian dress in popular culture by both outsiders and members of the community. This thesis intends to shed light on why the Evangeline costume has come to symbolize the Acadian people and their past. During the late nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century, Acadians used Evangeline as a tool for nation building to bring together disparate communities to create a unified nation based on the values described in the poem. By wearing the costume and including it in nation-building events, Acadians portrayed the version of their history described in the poem. Additionally, it will be shown that even though the Evangeline costume does not reflect the historical record, Acadians preferred it because the costume represents what the community came to believe was a more suitable version of the past.

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