This thesis explores how five Canadian women directors who define themselves as feminists have engaged with work from the traditional Western theatre canon. However, that world actually is created by the social expectations, cultural mores, and theatrical conventions of its time. Audiences have been indoctrinated to accept unquestioningly the value of these texts while the plays’ valorized status masks social constructs that are continually reinforced and surreptitiously naturalized through their repetition. At the crux of this thesis is the notion that while repetition is used as a tool for social instruction, it can also be used as a tool for social change. Therefore, I explore how the Canadian feminist women directors whom I have interviewed use the uniqueness of performance in different ways to challenge social structures within canonical texts. In the individual chapters, each director first shares her education, training, experience, and influences; then she articulates her own feminist perspective and discusses its impact on her career and work process; and finally she reflects on how she directed a text from the Western theatre canon and used the liminal space of performance to challenge the text’s embedded gender constructs. At the end of each chapter, I present the critical response I found for each production, including reviews, individual statements, and academic investigations, and assess the extent to which the director’s intent was understood by her audience and reviewers. In the final chapters, I examine each individual director’s interview responses in the context of the others’ and situate them within the spectrum of feminisms. In general, the directors used liminal space to expose gender as a construction and destabilize social expectations based on gender. However, what also emerged from these interviews is that while there is no broad consensus of what constitutes ‘feminist’ work, each director must temper her feminist perspectives if she wants access to the upper echelons of directing in Canada and the benefits that it entails. / Arts, Faculty of / Theatre and Film, Department of / Graduate

The aim of this study was to examine the changing image of women in the oeuvre of Francis Imbuga. Focusing on seven stage plays and two novels published between 1976 and 2011, the study examines the depiction of female characters within the social, cultural and political contexts of post-independence African societies. The depiction of female characters in literature has attracted the attention of numerous scholars globally, particularly with regards to negative female stereotypes in male authored works. This study explores Imbuga’s attitude towards female stereotypes and gender inequalities in literary texts. Using an eclectic framework that includes feminist criticism, feminist stylistics, gender theory and the formal strategies of literature, the study examined gender relations in these texts through the analysis of language and discourse of characters. Further, the study uses the interpretive methods of textual analysis to categorize these works into three phases based on their portrayal of female characters. This method reveals a systematic transformation in the characterization of women from disadvantaged positions in the patriarchal society to more prominent positions in the contemporary society. The study demonstrates that Imbuga makes a positive response to feminism and devices a unique perspective on feminism that celebrates both the domestic and public roles of female characters. In this sense, the female characters contribute to the moral content and aesthetic values of Imbuga’s works. The study concludes that Imbuga views the transformation of female characters in literary texts as part of the broader social change that is desirable in the society. Ultimately, this vision involves shifting focus from the preoccupation with gender inequalities to concern for the welfare and dignity of the human person. Based on the conclusions, recommendations for further study include investigation into the educative and social role of the performing arts as a means of raising consciousness on issues such as HIV/Aids, use of indigenous knowledge in solving contemporary issues, incorporation of African morality and traditions in contemporary literature and a comparative study of Imbuga’s feministic vision with that of other writers.

Since the turn of the millennium, studies have demonstrated a relationship between gender and corruption, finding that in countries where female political participation is higher, indicators of corruption are lower. This thesis approaches this debate in two ways, quantitatively and qualitatively. A multivariate regression analysis updates data for the year 2015 and incorporates underexplored institutional variables. Results show that the proportion of women in politics is positively and significantly correlated with reduced corruption, even when controlling for these institutional variables. The findings from this analysis are applied to a focused comparison of two countries, Rwanda and Haiti, which have very different female representation and corruption outcomes, despite the presence of a very similar institution, a 30 percent legislated gender quota. Using feminist institutionalism as a theoretical guide for the analysis, this thesis demonstrates that institutions such as democracy and auditing standards moderate the relationship between female representation and corruption outcomes. On that basis, it concludes that while increasing female participation in politics can modestly contribute to reducing corruption, linking female participation to strengthening democratic governance and institutionalizing accountability can further reduce corruption in some developing country contexts.

This thesis demonstrates that “Pleasure and Necessity”, a section of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, both should and can be re-written, bringing the female reader out of the margins and into the texts of Hegel’s Absolute system. First, I demonstrate that the Phenomenology is a Bildungsroman that is both important for the reader’s philosophical education and Hegelian science itself. I provide an interpretation of “Pleasure and Necessity”, demonstrate that this section alienates the female reader, and discuss why Antigone is not a solution to this problem. Rather, I conclude that this stage should be re-written. Furthermore, I argue that “Pleasure and Necessity” can be re- written because the Phenomenology already contains the outline of its own re-writing insofar as it corresponds to the Logic. Finally, I re-write “Pleasure and Necessity” as “Impulse and Ought”, using new figures to re-stage the logical operation that occurs in the original text.

My thesis analyzes James Joyce’s engagement with Catholic-nationalist Ireland’s (mis)understanding of women in Dubliners, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and Ulysses. I argue that, while Joyce shows both men and women struggling against the constraints of Catholic-nationalist gender roles, he implies that neither can be free from those constraints until Irish artists seek to more thoroughly understand women. After explaining how Catholic-nationalist rhetoric influenced the Irish understanding of women, I argue that Joyce not only recognizes and engages with Irish gender oppression but also believes that Irish art both constructs and is constructed by this oppression. With analyses of some of Joyce’s female characters, Stephen Dedalus, and Molly Bloom, I demonstrate how Joyce critiques Irish culture’s concept of women and Irish art’s representation of them, and then establishes a new paradigm of artistic representation.

This study examined the biases of individuals regarding what is perceived as feminine and what is masculine, as well as the freedoms and limitations of being labeled a tomboy. This research examined the associations among several factors: perceptions of masculine and feminine traits, perceptions of lesbian and gay identity, self-identification, and the confluence of tomboy and lesbian identity. Students in high enrollment psychology courses at a large southeastern metropolitan university (N = 385) participated in an anonymous online survey. A series of hypotheses were generated but results were highly inconsistent. Possible reasons for these inconsistencies are explored with an eye toward the need for future research in this area.

Down Among the Women (1972), Female Friends (1974), and Remember Me (1976), three of Fay Weldon’s early novels, share similar themes, narrative voices, and stylistic elements. Although the novels explore different aspects of women’s lives, the similarities call for a study of Weldon’s early techniques and contribution to twentieth-century literature. I study Weldon’s early works to reveal her belief that feminism evolved through small, individual changes rather than general societal upheaval. I center my study on motherhood and wifehood in Down Among the Women, friendship in Female Friends, and motherhood in Remember Me. In each novel, women make changes in these specific areas of their lives, and through these changes, Weldon rewrites traditional women as newly defined feminists. My readings of each novel support my contention that although the women are not reformed in every facet of their lives, Weldon defines them as feminists because they have actively redefined at least one firmly rooted feminine role to benefit themselves.

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