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Prior research has repeatedly documented the existence of gender inequality, discrimination, and harassment in the legal practice, an occupation that remains maledominated in terms of both numbers and organizational culture. Despite the availability of some legal remedies, women attorneys rarely sue their employers, and often do not challenge discriminatory behavior. In this dissertation, I explore this seemingly contradictory situation, where lawyers fail to employ the legal system on their own behalf, and I seek to determine whether the law can in fact be mobilized to challenge and perhaps change gender relations in the legal practice. Through ethnographic field research and content analysis of an Internet community, my research examines possible methods by which the law can serve as a tool to challenge gender discrimination. Further, I assess the manner in which the Internet community itself can serve as a vehicle for challenging gender inequality. In particular, I first explore the role formal litigation might play in promoting change for women attorneys, determining that attorneys in the Internet community are hesitant to employ litigation to challenge gender discrimination. This reluctance appears to result in large part from attorneys’ familiarity with the daunting task of establishing a discrimination case in the judicial system, as well as from a fear that the pursuit of litigation could inflict damage upon their legal careers. I then consider whether the law can serve as a useful tool to challenge inequality when legal discourse is employed within the Internet community to invoke a legal right to a discrimination-free workplace. I find that attorneys, despite their legal training, call upon both formal and informal notions of discrimination when confronted with circumstances colored with inequity. The Internet community itself provides a protected, semianonymous forum in which to engage in such discourse, thereby subverting many of the barriers that currently exist to challenging gender inequality in the legal practice. Further, the community serves as a resource to bring public attention to bear upon law firms, creating external pressures which encourage a reevaluation of both lay and legal understandings of prohibited gender discrimination.

This thesis looks at the empirical implementation of human capital theory in the form of the estimation of earnings functions for married males and females. Its main purpose is to investigate how any biases in estimation may affect males and females to different extents and thus lead to an inaccurate comparison between the two groups. It concentrates on the two productivity traits of education and experience. As such, it does not intend to provide a comprehensive account of male-female wage differentials, but looks instead at how any asymmetry of bias may feed through to measures of discrimination. This asymmetry in bias will, if uncorrected, give a false comparison of the two different groups' relative returns to schooling and experience. It is, as such, a cautionary tale which argues for the careful implementation of econometric techniques to earnings functions. A failure to correct for any asymmetry is likely to lead to inappropriate policy recommendations and may lead to inefficiency of policy in three potential and mutually exclusive ways. First, biases may artificially create differences between males and females where there are none, thus leading to the introduction of policy where inaction may be preferable. Second, biases may mask underlying differences, causing inappropriate inaction by government where action would indeed be merited. Third, biases may cause inaccurate measures of the relative returns to both education and experience and thus indicate falsely where it would be the most effective to target policy to reduce discrimination. This thesis has shown that, in order to suggest appropriate policy measures, so as to correctly introduce, implement and target policy, there is a need to apply appropriate econometric techniques and correct for biases.

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The aim of this study was to examine women in management positions in the Brazilian labor market, focusing on perception of their working condition but also challenges in a culture dominated by machismo and stereotypes. The data was conducted from a qualitative approach with a mix of snowball and convenience sample, by interviewing eight women with staff responsibilities in a wide range of sectors and branches. The result section revealed that the Brazilian society is characterized by a conservative approach and machismo, which create barriers for women to enter higher positions such as management.The combination of women being associated with household, caregiving and motherhood together with being submissive to men, reduces the chances to establish themselves in the labor market. However, the majority of the female leaders stated differences between male and female leadership, based on traditional ways of being leaders due to stereotypes.Although there are several aspects that create obstacles for women, there was one that stood out from the others, the sector they were employers in. Half of the participants worked in the private sector and the remaining half in the public one. Wishing for a life with family and improved working conditions could be achieved in the public sector and was highly unlikely in the private sector. These obstacles that women have to face and overcome make it hard to balance a career with a personal life.

This study was based on the present writer's perception that inequality in education is a result of people's negative traditional cultural attitudes to girls and women and that, to provide equal opportunities for both girls and boys, there is a need for changes in the primary and secondary school curricula that will alter peoples' attitudes. The thesis of this dissertation is that equal opportunities policies are often based on developed countries' models, recommended for implementation in developing countries' education systems by funding and research bodies. These policies do not take into account the perceptions of the key players in the implementation process and how their perceptions might influence the success or failure of intended measures to provide equal opportunities in education for boys and girls. It is hypothesised that in Uganda, the government has chosen affirmative action policies to reduce gender inequality in education but, from the perceptions of the key players, they have had unexpected consequences which reinforce past patterns of advantage and disadvantage for the targeted group. The advantages and disadvantages are grounded in the contradictory and paradoxical outcomes of internationally and nationally recommended educational policies. This is because policies deal with only one aspect of educational inequality, which is perceived in terms of girls' non-participation in education (access, enrolment and retention). They ignore the attitudinal problem, which is an outcome of the socio-economic, socio-cultural, and school related factors which not only further disadvantage girls but boys as well, thus creating more inequalities. The study focuses upon a cross-section of those who inform and implement policies in the Ministry of Education, those who implement policies at the district and school level and those whom policies target in the classroom. The data, which is selectively quoted in the study, was derived from standardised open-ended elite and group interviews. Key players' perceptions, which impact on the provision of equal opportunities in education, are discussed in relation to international and national policies in education. Particular attention is paid in the study to understanding key players' perceptions of the meaning of equal opportunities in education. This was considered as central to the successful implementation of equal opportunities measures in a way that will not disadvantage any group. It soon became clear from the perceptions on equal opportunities held by key policy makers and implementers in the Ministry of Education and at the district levels, that the problem was not changing attitudes, but increasing access, enrolment and retention for girls within the system of education. At the school level, the problem involved increasing: enrolment; retention; academic competition between boys and girls; participation of girls in school leadership; interaction; and strategies to reduce discrimination practices between boys and girls by their teachers. These perceptions were reflected in individual schools. Implications for theory and practice of equal opportunities in education are drawn from findings from the study.

This dissertation focuses on exploring boys’ perspectives of masculinity and gender inequality before and after participating in the Hero Empathy Bystander Programme for Boys. The purpose of this research was to explore the impact of this programme in facilitating a change in boys’ perspectives of masculinity, attitudes to gender inequality and views on gender-based violence. The researcher conducted a qualitative study and used the social learning theoretical framework to gain insight into the boys’ perceptions as revealed in the focus-group discussions held with them before and after the intervention. Through thematic analysis the researcher was able to identify boys’ perspectives of masculinity, attitudes to gender inequality and views on gender-based violence before the intervention and change in these perceptions after the intervention. This research formed part of a larger study. The intervention was implemented in 2018 by Action Breaks Silence, a non-profit organisation. Participants in the intervention were Grade 5 boys from ten different primary schools in Soweto and Atteridgeville, South Africa. A research team from the University of Pretoria held focus-group discussions with ten of the Grade 5 boys in each school that participated in the intervention. The researcher of the present study analysed the focus group data collected before and after the intervention using the thematic analysis method in order to explore, identify and report on emerging patterns (themes). The results revealed that the boys’ communities, families and peers had influenced the development of their perceptions of masculinity, attitudes to gender inequality and views on gender-based violence. Further, the data obtained from the discussions held before the intervention indicated that the boys perceived themselves in a superior position, and having the power to impose their views on girls and demand obedience and compliance from women. After participation in the intervention, a noticeable shift was observed in their perceptions of gender roles and gender stereotypes and the inappropriateness of violence and aggression towards girls. Some behaviour change was noted in how boys related to girls. However, this change brought challenges; because they deviated from the traditional group norm of masculinity, their peer groups viewed them as outsiders. / Mini Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2020. / HWSETA Postgraduate Bursary / Psychology / MA / Unrestricted