Despite considerable improvements in women’s social and material conditions, progress has stagnated since the 1990s. Women remain disadvantaged compared to men across a range of domains, including political representation, division of labor, and workplace hiring and promotion. Although scholars have studied attitudes toward women more generally, understanding men’s attitudes toward women is especially important for advancing gender equality since men are often in positions of power with the resources and influence necessary to effect large-scale change. Previous research has measured demographic correlates of men’s gender attitudes, but scholars have yet to examine how gender attitudes are dynamic across contexts, shaped not only by the social characteristics of actors themselves but also by the context in which—and the women about whom—men express these attitudes. This dissertation draws on theories of status processes and social identity to examine how and under what conditions men support equality with women. Employing three complementary studies, this research takes an innovative, mixed-methods approach that combines in-depth interviews with experimental design. Specifically, it examines how men’s gender attitudes are shaped by 1) their audience 2) the target of their attitudes, i.e., the women in question and 3) men’s own life experiences. Together, these studies contribute a deeper understanding of the processes underlying men’s support for gender equality, suggesting actionable paths forward for addressing persistent gender inequities. Chapter 1 develops a synthesis of scholarship on gender attitudes and inequality with research on group processes and intergroup relations. I argue that relational, group-level theories of status, social identity, and symbolic boundaries can enrich our understanding of the persistence of gender inequality. In Chapter 2, I argue that expressing support for gender equality earns men social rewards. Results from an original survey experiment reveal that men who espouse egalitarian attitudes toward women are attributed greater status, considerateness, and authenticity. These findings provide the first causal evidence of the measurable social and symbolic rewards that men accrue by espousing egalitarian gender ideals. They also demonstrate a novel and paradoxical mechanism of status enhancement—egalitarian attitudes earn men status over other men at the same time that these men repudiate the legitimacy of their group advantage over women. Chapter 3 examines what impediments to addressing gender equality men anticipate. Drawing on 49 in-depth interviews, I find that men’s conversion of gender-egalitarian attitudes into actions that address gender inequality in daily life is contingent on perceived risks (social and material) and barriers (interpersonal and structural). The findings reveal how individual, relational, and institutional mechanisms impact men’s support for gender equality. Chapter 4 shifts the focus to the target of men’s gender attitudes, i.e., women. I employ an original experimental design to test how men’s levels of support for gender equality depend on the race and class identities of the women who stand to benefit. Results reveal previously obscured heterogeneity that helps explain persistent gender inequality despite men’s seemingly widespread support for egalitarian gender attitudes. Chapter 5 concludes with a discussion of implications and potential directions for future research.

D.Litt. et Phil. (Sociology) / Inquiry that seeks to understand young people’s engagement in risk behaviours is numerous. Concern for and interest in young people has stimulated a wide range of debates about what makes young people do the things they do. Despite the plethora of research in this area there are still gaps in our knowledge, primarily because much of the research has sought to understand young people by looking at their decision making from the outside. This study departs from what has gone before by applying a youth development approach to understanding youth risk. In order to do so it sought to delve into the worlds and lives of a few young people living in an informal settlement in Gauteng, South Africa. The key question that the study poses pertains to how young people understand and negotiate risk as an aspect of their everyday identity-work. It is thus important to note that youth in this study is not understood simply as a particular age range or a phase that exists between childhood and adulthood. Rather it is understood as a life stage that carries with it particular experiences, needs and processes. In particular for the purposes of this study identity-work is understood to be an intensive process during the life stage of youth that involves drawing on culturally and socially available labels (McCall, 2003), definitions and markers of identity and testing them in their social networks in a process of reflexivity towards developing a self-identity (Giddens, 1991). In order to generate a deep understanding of the lives and worlds of young people, this study employed a critical ethnographic design, combining the usual methods of ethnography such as observation and interviews, with innovative methods that sought to challenge commonly held perceptions of research that young people might have had, and to encourage them to participate in the research. The study found that risk is understood in multiple ways. Young people understand and internalise the risk prevention messaging that is often targeted at them but they also have other perceptions of risk that ‘experts’ tend to overlook. Most important of these were their perceptions of risk that were influenced by their socio-economic surroundings – risks that were foremost in their lives because of their day-to-day struggles to manage them. The study also demonstrates the ways in which risk is negotiated as a feature of identity-work in three ways – in identity-work that has to do with masculinity and femininity, in identity-work pertaining to who one is within a family, and in identity work that involves their roles in the community. One of the main recommendations arising from this research is the need for integrated interventions that combine the prevention models that are currently employed, with locally specific interventions aimed at enhancing the protection and preparedness of young people in order to reduce their vulnerability. By conceptualising young people and the phase of ‘youth’ differently, and applying a youth development approach to understanding youth risk, it is hoped that an innovative way of considering how young people make decisions regarding risk has been opened for future consideration in research.

The purpose of this thesis is to explore how stay-at-home fathers view their role as the primary caregiver, and how they encounter opposing masculinity issues. This is explored through discussion about daily life, the decision to stay home, and household labor, a particularly interesting reflection of gender roles and equality. The two research questions used to explore this included: How do stay-at-home fathers understand their masculinity and social role? How does talk about the negotiation of household labor in stay-at-home father/career mother families illustrate masculinity issues? Through an analysis of interviews of eight present or past stay-at-home fathers, I capture the ways that these fathers describe and discuss the stay-at-home parent role. By looking at how these men define and interpret the specific challenges they face while in this role, I help tell the stories of stay-at-home father/career mother families, and understand whether these families, too, experience Hochschild's "stalled revolution."

Thesis (MA (VA)(Visual Arts))--University of Stellenbosch, 2006. / This thesis considers radical and reactionary political strategies for questioning systems of gender/sexuality categorisation and finds both wanting in terms of the cultural insularity and mainstream assimilation each respectively engenders. An alternative is posited in the form of radical assimilation, a theory borrowing the best elements from both approaches. The remainder of the study is focussed on the search for personal and iconographic strategies to pursue a politic of radical assimilation in my creative production. These strategies are finally exemplified and manifested via discussions of the practical corpus of artworks that aided in the formation of this politic. The discursive framework in which this theorization occurs includes considerations of queer theory and photography (especially domestic photography and portraiture) and subjective contextualization (invoking the domestic uses of images), and all should be seen as constituting a personal discursive framework: an attempt to counter the reductive scope an uncontextualised analysis of my work allows. This study is accordingly an explication of the processes that turn the personal into the political; a critical affirmation of difference; and an attempt to narrow the distances between us.

This dissertation explores how female-born or female-bodied gender variants perform and represent their masculinities in American performance art and drag king shows. A drag king refers to a woman or female-born person who performs their gender as fluid, usually wearing masculine costumes and make-up. I focus on how race, ethnicity, and class are involved in performing female masculinities on stage, and how the intersections of other social vectors produce myriad differences in terms of stakes, styles, and forms of masculinity. I examine how female-born queer performers foreground the constructed nature of masculinity, and how they redefine established categories of gender and sexuality through performance. I argue that queer performances of female masculinities deconstruct the heteronormative gender binary and embody alternative configurations of sex, gender, class, race, and sexuality. In my first chapter, I address Peggy Shaw's Menopausal Gentleman (1997) and To My Chagrin (2003). I examine how she portrays aging white butch masculinity, sexuality, and emotion, through the reinterpretation of menopause and musings on her own whiteness. My second chapter provides a critical reading of kt shorb's [sic] of chicks, dicks, and chinks (2005) and D'Lo's Ramble-Ations (2006). Investigating the effeminization of Asian masculinity and multicultural racial performativity, I illuminate how Asian-American female masculinities are differently constituted in the interplay between class, ethnicity, diaspora, and cultural identities. In my third chapter, I analyze the 6th (Chicago, 2004) and 8th (Austin, 2006) International Drag King Extravaganza showcase performances. I describe how they reveal the theatrical nature of masculinity, and how they mark race, class, and ethnicity. In addition, I discuss how they valorize gender fluidity and multiplicity, staging queer desire and pleasure. Throughout this dissertation, by offering complex illustrations of masculine genders of the female body or the gender-ambiguous body, I contend that female-born gender variants disrupt the equation of masculinity to maleness through their theatrical performances of masculinities. I conclude that performing female masculinities can foster the critical artfulness of gender by engaging in social criticism of gender, class, race, ethnicity, and sexuality.

This thesis provides a sociological understanding of how conventional knowledge of sexuality negates the identity formation of black gay men in contemporary South Africa. It investigates the coming out experiences of six black gay men in order to reveal the disjunctures between being black and being gay. The theoretical formation of disjuncture is pursued through examining a number of sociological, historical, psychoanalytical, and feminist approaches to identity, sexuality, and society; featuring specifically the theories of George Herbert Mead, Michel Foucault, and Judith Butler. The chosen research paradigm is symbolic interactionism, postulating both „pragmatist‟ and „empiricist‟ trends that lead to both interactionist and structuralist forms of argumentation. The interactionist approach to sexuality is central to the deconstruction of sexual conventions. It involves conceptualising modern sexuality in the landscapes of African colonial history and the global gay and lesbian movement. The prescribed literature on homosexuality is thus reviewed in conjunction with the South African gay and lesbian struggle, so as to spawn themes and perspectives for conducting life story interviews. The use of the life story interview favours the participants‟ own view of the studied phenomenon, yet aims to depict the structural influence on homosexual identification. Following the qualitative research tradition, the data analysis is based on the interpretation of narratives. It illustrates interpersonal relationships and microscopic experiences that lead to the self-acceptance and self-actualisation of homosexuality. Within these processes, various disjunctures that exist between the cultural sanction of lifestyle and individual choice, between parents and children, between religious belief and personal desires, and between gender identity and sexual orientation are disclosed. The findings are associated with the historical transformation of masculinity in South Africa, sex role performance, and the heterosexualisation of desire. The solution to the proposed research problem is discussed through concepts of socialisation and gender conformity.

O reconhecimento da identidade de gênero e o uso do nome social são algumas das principais pautas do movimento trans e LGBTI e contribuem para a diminuição da opressão e exclusão desse grupo social. Essas demandas foram parcialmente atendidas com a publicação do Decreto Nº 8.727, que dispõe sobre o uso do nome social e o reconhecimento da identidade de gênero de pessoas trans em órgãos públicos federais, suscitando diversas reações-respostas nas diferentes esferas sociais. A presente pesquisa teve como objetivo analisar os discursos sobre a identidade de pessoas trans em textos online, mais precisamente a partir das relações dialógicas entre o Decreto Nº 8.727, de 28 de abril de 2016, e notícias do jornalismo online. Nesta análise, foram considerados dados de pesquisa, além do referido decreto, dez notícias do jornalismo online, publicadas entre abril de 2016 e agosto de 2017, que tematizam questões relativas ao uso do nome social e ao reconhecimento da identidade de gênero, buscando verificar que relações de diálogo se tecem entre os enunciados e o Decreto Nº 8.727. A ancoragem teórico-metodológica da pesquisa teve como embasamento os estudos do Círculo de Bakhtin (BAKHTIN, 2012[1920-1924; 2014[1927]; 2015[1930-1936]; 2014[1934-1935]; 2016[1952-1953]; 2015[1963]; 1987[1965]; 2015[1979]; BAKHTIN/VOLOCHÍNOV, 2014[1929]; VOLOCHÍNOV 2013[1930]; MEDVIEDEV, 2016[1928]), além de estudos acerca da identidade a partir da perspectiva da Linguística Aplicada e seus diálogos interdisciplinares (BHABHA, 2014; MOITA LOPES, 2003; 2006, 2010, 2013a, 2013b; RAJAGOPALAN, 2003) e também sobre as questões da transgeneridade e do gênero social (BUTLER, 2015; BENTO, 2008, JESUS, 2010a; 2010b; 2012a; 2012b; JESUS, ALVES, 2010; LOURO, 2016). Com relação às regularidades discursivas, observouse a reenunciação das teorias de gênero e sexualidade e a tentativa de neutralização por parte do discurso jornalístico, tornando opacas suas valorações. Além disso, tem-se o reenquadramento de discursos acerca da identidade de pessoas trans como estratégia discursiva por parte dos veículos de comunicação, evidenciando posicionamentos axiológicos de naturezas distintas. Nesses discursos, em alguns momentos, o Decreto Nº 8.727 e o uso do nome social eram tratados como ferramentas importantes de cidadania e visibilidade para o movimento trans, instituindo o sujeito trans como um sujeito de direito; em outros, tanto o uso do nome social quanto as vivências de gênero que extrapolam a cisnormatividade eram questionados. / The recognition of gender identity and the use of the social name are some of the main guidelines of the trans and LGBTI movement and contribute to the reduction of the oppression and exclusion of this social group. These demands were partially met with the publication of the decree, which deals with the use of social name and the recognition of the gender identity of trans people in federal public agencies, provoking diverse reactions in the different social spheres. The present work had as main objective to analyze the speeches about the identity of trans people in online texts, more precisely from the conexions between Decree N. 8.727, of April 28, 2016, and news of online journalism. In this analysis, we have selected, in addition to the aforementioned decree, ten news articles on online journalism that discuss issues related to the use of social name and the recognition of gender identity, seeking to verify that dialogue relations are woven between the statements and Decree No. 8.727. To reach our goal, we opted for theoretical-methodological anchoring in Bakhtin Circle studies (BAKHTIN, 2012 [1920-1924, 2014 [1927], 2015 [1930-1936], 2014 [1934-1935], 2016 [1952-1953 (1990), [1929], and also studies of identity from the perspective of the Applied Linguistics, (BHABHA, 2014, MOITA LOPES, 2003, 2010, 2013a, 2013b; RAJAGOPALAN, 2003) and also on issues of transgender and social gender studies (BUTLER, 2015, BENTO, 2008, JESUS , 2010a; 2010b; 2012a; 2012b; JESUS, ALVES, 2010; LOURO, 2016). The data gave rise to some regularities, such as the reenactment of theories of gender and the attempt to neutralize the journalistic discourse, making their valuations opaque. In addition, there is a reframing of discourses about the identity of trans people as a discursive strategy on the part of the communication vehicles, evidencing axiological positions of different natures. In these discourses, we noticed how Decree No. 8,727 and the use of the social name were treated as important tools of citizenship and visibility for the trans movement, instituting the trans subject as a subject of law; at the sime time, both the use of the social name and the experiences of gender that extrapolated the cisnormativity were questioned.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / This study is a hermeneutic phenomenology of transgenderism as it is valued and appreciated by adults who self-identify along the transgender spectrum. As a population-at-risk due to a social environment reliant on a dualistic notion of gender, transgender people are of particular concern to social workers, who are charged with identifying and building on client strengths. Yet the preponderance of the academic literature has reinforced a negative, problematic, or even pathological view of transgenderism. The literature also has tended to focus narrowly on transsexualism, leaving a gap in our knowledge of other forms of transgenderism. The present study—grounded primarily in the philosophy and methodology of Heideggerian phenomenology, but also drawing on Gadamerian hermeneutics—sought to understand the lived experience of transgenderism as it is appreciated by a range of transgender adults. A purposive sample of fifteen self-identified transgender adults who reported appreciating being transgender was recruited using snowball sampling across three Midwestern states. Each participated in an individual, open-ended interview designed to tap their lived experience with transgenderism as a valued aspect of life. Transcribed interview data were analyzed using Heideggerian hermeneutic phenomenological processes as suggested by various researchers in nursing, social work, and other disciplines. The results of this study suggest that intimate connections (with one’s self, with others, and with a larger purpose) constitute the essence of the lived experience of appreciating one’s transgenderism. These findings help prepare social workers to recognize the strengths of the transgender population and to engage in culturally competent practice. In addition, this research offers new knowledge for improving social work curricular content on transgenderism and for justifying trans-inclusive social policies. The study also contributes to the overall research literature on transgenderism and qualitative methods.