Diss. Linköping : Linköpings universitet, 2008.

This thesis investigates an adult education program led by Casa de la Mujer, a women’s organization in San Juan del Sur in the south of Nicaragua. At this centre, women acquire vocational skills and engage in workshops about women’s rights, domestic violence awareness and sexual and reproductive health. Several gender and development scholars suggest that empowerment can be achieved through women’s informal education programs that aim to facilitate critical learning for consciousness-raising and self-awareness. This was the topic of my field research at this centre. I conducted semi-structured interviews and participant observation to gain an understanding of how those in the program feel that their participation has impacted their gendered power social relations and livelihood opportunities. My research indicates that despite facing various barriers, through the skills development and gender training programs participants of Casa de la Mujer are able to act as agents to make strategic life decisions.

<p>In this study, I explored the experiences of gender and power relations among a group of black women holding leadership positions in six government departments in the Western Cape. South Africa is in a process of transition and, to create a departure from the past, key objectives focus around the transformation of gender disparities and the eradication of racism and other forms of inequality and discrimination in all spheres of this society. There are many methods utilized to increase the number of women in leadership positions in the private and public sectors. However, there is a lack of research regarding the social environment for women once they have entered into these structures (Angevine, 2006). This study made use of a feminist qualitative methodology which guided the research. Six semi-structured, open-ended interviews were conducted in order to carry out an in-depth exploration of participants&rsquo / experiences. After the participants had given consent, the interviews were audio-recorded, then transcribed verbatim. Data was analyzed in accordance with qualitative thematic analysis. All standard ethical considerations to protect the participants and the researcher were taken into account and practised throughout the research. The findings show evidence that black African women leaders in government departments have internalized learnt subservient characteristics / and that this serves to undermine their authority as leaders. Specifically, larger social power relations and traditional forms of authority undermine their capacity to express authority in work environments. They also experience both subtle and blatant racist and sexist prejudice in the form of stereotypes and hostility in the workplace. A minority of women managers actively oppose the gendered notions that undermine their leadership. Ultimately, black African women managers are not accepted or supported as legitimate leaders in the workplace. Women leaders are perceived to be incapable of performing effectively as leaders because of gender and racial stereotypes that serve as hindrances to their expression of leadership. The study found that some participants conform to the socially constructed notion of maintaining a work-life balance and this poses a challenge for such leaders. Those who are married attempt to balance career and life by maximizing on their management of their time. A number of women had made the personal decision to remain single in order to focus explicitly on their careers.</p>

This thesis is an ethnographic study of the lives of thirty community HIV educators in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Compared to quantitative studies this is a small number, but by keeping the number of participants small it has been possible to obtain an extensive understanding of the lives of each individual, which helps to explain why they make the decisions they do. The reason for choosing community HIV educators as the participants in this study is because it could be stated from the outset that they are well-informed about HIV prevention and, depending on the specific NGO they work for, they have been recipients of either ‘female empowerment’ or ‘responsible masculinity’ programmes. This is significant because early HIV prevention interventions have assumed that providing individuals with HIV awareness and gender equality programmes would lead to the implementation of HIV preventative behaviour. Studying the willingness and ability to implement HIV prevention practices of these particular individuals could therefore help to answer the question whether HIV awareness and gender-related programmes are indeed sufficient to create HIV preventative behaviour change. Furthermore, it was useful to hear from these participants what they experience as enabling and restricting factors when it comes to implementing HIV preventative behaviour. The core research question is: How do community HIV educators in KwaZulu-Natal negotiate HIV prevention in their everyday intimate relationships? The data presented in this thesis was collected during ten months of participant observation amongst community HIV educators whilst they were at work, at home, or out with their peers. To further aid the general understanding of Zulu culture, the researcher lived as part of a Zulu family for six months. The thesis presents several examples of community HIV educators who do not consistently use condoms in their everyday lives despite the fact that they promote the use of condoms. How is it possible that those who speak of being transformed as a result of HIV awareness and female empowerment or responsible masculinity programmes, and who promote condom use in their communities, do not always consistently use condoms in their personal lives? This thesis is concerned with trying to resolve this apparent illogicality. It argues that when individual interventions fail to lead to behaviour change it is because individuals act in relation to other people instead of in isolation. The thesis draws on the work of Bourdieu, particularly his concepts of habitus, field, and capital, to explain how structural factors influence individual practice. This means that the negotiation of HIV prevention is affected by what is generally considered appropriate in terms of existing dispositions. Hence the perception of a particular HIV prevention practice as either appropriate or inappropriate affects the ability of an individual to implement this practice. Examples are provided of how, when it comes to the practice of condom use, which has generally been perceived as inappropriate, structural factors have a restricting effect on HIV prevention. This thesis also provides examples of how, when it comes to the practice of medical male circumcision and virginity testing, which have generally been perceived as appropriate, structural factors actually have an encouraging effect on HIV prevention. As a result this thesis argues that instead of addressing individuals, HIV prevention interventions should address the collective. However, this thesis also argues that an increase in economic, cultural, social, and symbolic capital can suppress the effect of structural factors. To support this argument the thesis attends to individuals who, when they can afford to do so as a result of having capital at their disposal, deviate from collectively determined ideal practice, for example by discreetly negotiating HIV counselling and testing with their sexual partners.

Several cases of single repeat offenders in urban space have raised public concern in Sweden during recent decades. Few studies have been conducted on consequences of the kind of ‘hostage situations’ that emerge when one individual offender causes fear and affects a larger group of people in a specific place. The concern of this thesis is to examine consequences of the Haga Man phenomenon: the case of a serial rapist operating between 1998 and 2006 in Umeå, a medium-sized Swedish city. This thesis explores some of the ways not only women but also men in Umeå responded to this specific situation, the threat from a single repeat offender, and how fear of crime and changing public crime discourses influenced gendered power relations. The thesis examines different aspects of fear and safety in public space, such as the views of those who are fearful; of those who are feared; perceptions of both women’s and men’s bodies; their emotions and experiences in relation to fear of violence in public spaces; and the significance of space and place for our understanding of fear. The empirical data of this thesis consist of in-depth interviews with a total of 47 women and men in Umeå. The thesis is based on four empirical studies. The first (Paper I) sought to identify similarities and differences across narratives in terms of the major components of young people’s talk about fear.  In their stories women positioned themselves as fearful and in need of protection, while men in their stories positioned themselves as fearless protectors. Men and women reproduced ways of speaking considered appropriate to their gender, thus performing masculinity and femininity through their talk. Paper II, examines consequences of the Haga Man phenomenon on constructions of white masculinities. Three masculine positions; the dangerous stranger, the suspect and the protector were identified. These three constructions of masculinity were not clear-cut or ‘belonging’ to specific men – several of the interviewees articulated various forms of masculinities but stressed them in different ways depending on, for instance, age and/or ethnicity/race. Paper III, focuses on changing perceptions and representations of female and male bodies, and illustrates how a change took place; from a focus on how women should conduct themselves to be safe, towards men’s bodily behaviour in order to present themselves in non-threatening ways. In Paper IV, women’s fear of violence is discussed in relation to Swedish gender equality discourses and contextual constructions of femininity. The results show the difficulties of claiming the official position of a gender-equal femininity. Several female respondents expressed an ambivalent attitude about their own fear; they felt afraid, but also felt that as (equal) women they should be able to do what they wanted, whenever they wanted.  Result from this thesis shows that this situation produced a shared approach to fear for women of different ages, classes and ethnicities in Umeå. The similarity in the women’s responses to the threat from the Haga Man is as an expression of a normative femininity. The male respondents did on the other hand express complex emotional positions as they talked about their own fears, women’s fear of unknown men and how they felt they were under suspicion and compared to the perpetrator. As this thesis provides an understanding of how men and women responded and reacted to the threat from the Haga man, it contributes to a better understanding of how fear of violence affects people in their everyday lives.

Although interpersonal communication studies have focused on various aspects of interpersonal relationships, research on the player identity and gendered emotional manipulation in romantic relationships has received little attention. This narrative research inquiry was undertaken to explore perceptions of men and women related to the player identity and gendered emotional manipulation. This investigation used social construction as a theoretical perspective to understand three areas of investigation that include: the existence and relevance of the player identity, the player’s relation to emotionally manipulative behaviour, and the connection between socially constructed gender conventions and the player identity. Hesse-Biber’s (2006) feminist interviewing approach guided semi-structured interviews with six male and six female participants. Respondents reported the existence and relevance of the player identity in romantic relationships today, connecting this identity to emotionally manipulative behaviour, as well as relating this identity to traditional gender conventions. Finally, implications for men and women in romantic relationships today and future areas of research are discussed in light of these findings.

Submitted by Juliana Cristina da Fonseca Baptistini null (1301357@fclar.unesp.br) on 2018-01-24T01:00:04Z No. of bitstreams: 1 JulianaBaptistini-Dissertação-VersãoFinal.pdf: 7753409 bytes, checksum: 80ecd616246c5b1a033543af2d1fd251 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Aline Aparecida Matias null (alinematias@fclar.unesp.br) on 2018-01-24T10:14:48Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 baptistini_jcf_me_arafcl.pdf: 7753409 bytes, checksum: 80ecd616246c5b1a033543af2d1fd251 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-01-24T10:14:48Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 baptistini_jcf_me_arafcl.pdf: 7753409 bytes, checksum: 80ecd616246c5b1a033543af2d1fd251 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-12-07 / Os blogs como fenômeno contemporâneo disponibilizam recursos para o registro de expressões a bel-prazer; modos de pensar apresentados podem ser conhecidos a partir de discursos textuais publicados em espaços reservados aos comentários. Neste contexto, sob o prisma dos resquícios históricos das desigualdades de direitos, o presente estudo tem por objetivo analisar comentários publicados em blogs que tratam de assuntos de sexualidade e gênero, buscando investigar subjetividades acerca dos papéis sociais que permeiam as relações de gênero difundidas no ciberespaço, bem como as construções de significados socioculturais, visando compreender as percepções acerca das relações sociais rumo à construção de uma sociedade mais equânime entre homens e mulheres. Para compor o corpus da pesquisa foram analisados 61 comentários publicados em blogs populares delimitados pelo recorte das relações feminino-masculino, os quais tratam de significações relativas às representatividades sociais de gênero demarcadas pelas subjetividades fundadas que denotam os conceitos de diferença, igualdade, desigualdade e equidade. A partir do método de análise de conteúdo de Laurence Bardin, os dados digitais coletados foram organizados em quatro categorias: representação social, percepções das relações de gênero, motivações das desigualdades e perspectivas de equidade entre homens e mulheres. Os resultados desvelaram padrões sociais alicerçados numa perspectiva binária revelando sentimentos de insatisfação diante da imposição de modelos socioculturais de feminilidade e masculinidade. Pôde-se observar que as subjetividades carregam resquícios históricos fundados pelo patriarcado e pautados nas relações de poder. Descortinam-se sob o padrão heteronormativo subjetividades hegemônicas que exacerbam valores provenientes de ideologias que disseminam percepções definidas como verdades absolutas, compreendidas a partir das diferenças biológicas entre homens e mulheres. Entendendo o blog como recurso propiciador de ideários e das possibilidades que o ciberespaço oferece no tocante à propagação de saberes, esta pesquisa busca contribuir com possíveis transformações sociais. Com a produção do e-book intitulado “Blogs para a equidade de gênero: possibilidades em democratizar reflexões”, conduzido por uma linguagem objetiva e entusiasta é proposto a ampliação de reflexões no ciberespaço cuja intenção é provocar iniciativas que estimulem debates frutíferos para a desconstrução de hierarquizações e distinções baseadas e sedimentadas no sexo biológico. / Blogs as a contemporary phenomenon provide resources for registering expressions at will; presented ways of thinking can be known from textual discourses published in spaces reserved for comments. In this context, under the prism of the historical vestige of inequalities of rights, the present study has the object to analyze comments published on blogs dealing with sexuality and gender issues, seeking to investigate subjectivities about the social roles that permeate the gender relations propagated on cyberspace, as well as the constructions of sociocultural meanings, aiming to understand the perceptions about social relations towards the construction of a more equitable society between men and women. To compose the corpus of the research, 61 comments that were published in popular blogs were analyzed delimited by the cut of the female-male relations, which deal with meanings related to the social representations of gender demarcated by stablished subjectivities that denote the concepts of difference, equality, inequality and equity. From Laurence Bardin's method of content analysis, digital data collected were organized into four categories: social representation, perceptions of gender relations, motivations of inequalities and perspectives of equity between men and women. The results show social patterns grounded on a binary perspective revealing feelings of dissatisfaction against the imposition of sociocultural models of femininity and masculinity. It could be observed that subjectivities carry historical vestige founded by patriarchy and based on power relations. Under the heternormative pattern it is evidenced hegemonic subjectivities that exacerbate values derived from ideologies that disseminate perceptions defined as absolute truths, understood from the biological differences between men and women. Understanding the blog as a propitiator resource of ideas and the possibilities that cyberspace offers with regard to the propagation of knowledge, this research seeks to contribute with possible social transformations.With the production of the e-book titled "Blogs for Gender Equity: possibilities in democratizing reflections", conducted by an objective and enthusiastic language, it is proposed the magnification of reflections in cyberspace in which intention is to provoke initiatives that stimulate fruitful debates for the deconstruction of hierarchy and distinctions based and sedimented on the biological sex.

A partir du cas des saisonnières marocaines travaillant sous contrat dans la fraisiculture intensive, cette thèse explore la manière dont le recrutement se fonde sur leur place dans les rapports de sexe (mères avec enfants en bas âge) et la réduction de leur séjour au travail à des fins de contrôle de la mobilité des étrangers (assignation à circuler). On s'intéresse à la manière dont l'utilitarisme migratoire s'appuie sur des rapports matériels de sexe et des représentations de genre, les effets que cela produit en matière d'invisibilisation et de mise à l'écart de ce groupe de travailleuses ainsi qu'en matière de flexibilité dans l'organisation du travail. Enfin, on aborde, dans ce contexte particulier, la manière dont la vie des saisonnières s'articule autour d'une conciliation, parfois impossible à trouver, entre rôle domestique ou familial et salariat saisonnier. / Studying the case of seasonal female workers under contract in intensive strawberry culture, this thesis intends to explore the way in which recruitment is based on their place in sex relations (mothers of young children) and on the reduction of their stay to work in order to control foreigners mobility (assignation to circulate). The thesis presents how migratory utilitarianism uses material sex relations and gender representations to render workers invisible, captive and flexible. Finally, we abord in this specific context the way in which seasonal workers life is articulated and tries to conciliate, sometimes impossibly, a domestic or family role and seasonal wage.

Esta Dissertação de Mestrado propõese a analisar os “novos contos de fadas” com vistas a examinar as representações de infâncias e de relações de gênero e sexualidade, presentes nestes artefatos da nossa cultura. Neste trabalho, se reconhecem os contos de fadas contemporâneos como “novos contos de fadas”, colocando-os em suspeição, a partir do estudo realizado acerca de sua produtividade como texto cultural. A seleção dos livros é diversificada e nela se procurou escolher livros indicados à faixa etária das séries iniciais ou anos iniciais (610 anos) do Ensino Fundamental, publicados a partir da década de 90, os quais apresentam histórias de diferentes autores, publicadas por editoras distintas; de uma mesma coleção; de autores/as estrangeiros/as (obras traduzidas) e nacionais. A metodologia utilizada é a da interpretação textual, tanto em relação às narrativas quanto às ilustrações. Para isso, esta pesquisa conta com o referencial teórico dos Estudos Culturais em Educação, dos Estudos sobre Narrativas e dos relativos ao Gênero e à Sexualidade, em uma perspectiva pósmoderna e pósestruturalista. Questões relevantes deste estudo são: como os sujeitos infantis são representados por diferentes discursos, entre eles, os que “povoam” os livros infantis? Quais modelos de ser menino e menina, ou ser homem e mulher nos são ensinados através dos “novos contos de fadas”? A dissertação está organizada em seis capítulos. Neles são apresentados: a trajetória da pesquisadora, bem como a escolha e justificativa do tema de pesquisa; a história da literatura infantil, destacando conceitos importantes para o estudo, como os de conto, contos de fadas e “novos contos de fadas”; a história das infâncias; a história dos estudos de gênero e sexualidade; as conclusões do estudo. Articuladas às histórias de infâncias e à história dos estudos de gênero e sexualidade, estão as análises dos “novos contos de fadas” e suas representações de modos de ser criança e modos de viver a feminilidade e a masculinidade. Concluise com esta pesquisa que os “novos contos de fadas” ensinam sobre diferentes modos de ser criança. Com base nos autores estudados, percebemse representadas nas histórias as infâncias: desrealizadas e hiperrealizadas, protegida, parcialmente protegida, desprotegida, marginalizada, pública; chegando a representar as múltiplas infâncias da contemporaneidade, ou seja, aquelas constituídas por múltiplos discursos. Este corpus de textos analisados mostra uma criança saudável, feliz, sapeca, criativa, esperta, inteligente, dinâmica, corajosa, mas também, às vezes, uma criança ingênua e frágil, precisando da proteção adulta. As múltiplas infâncias dos “novos contos de fadas” são representadas por crianças que brincam, ficam tristes, mostramse sonhadoras, ciumentas, lidam com a morte, freqüentam a escola, enfim, representam os modos de ser e viver na contemporaneidade. Concluise, também, que os “novos contos de fadas” ensinam que não há um jeito único, nem mais verdadeiro, de ser homem e de ser mulher e que se podem experimentar vários modos de viver a sexualidade no diaadia. Algumas histórias não operam muitas transgressões de gênero e outras rompem com os discursos hegemônicos em torno da sexualidade, ao repensar “novos padrões”. / This master’s dissertation has proposed to analyse ‘new fairytales’ to examine representations of children and gender and sexuality relations, found at these artefacts of our culture. In this work, one has acknowledged the contemporary fairytales as ‘new fairytales’, suspecting of them, from the study conducted about its productivity as cultural text. Book selection is varied, and one has sought to choose books proper for the age range of early school years (six to 10 years old) in the primary school, published from the 1990s on, which feature different authors’ tales in different publishing companies; in a same collection; by foreign male and female authors (domestic and translated works). The methodology used has been that of textual interpretation, whether regarding narratives and illustrations. In support of this, the research has relied on the theoretical referential of the Cultural Studies in Education, Studies on Narratives and Gender and Sexuality, in a postmodern and poststructuralist perspective. The following are relevant questions of this study: how infantsubjects are depicted in different discourses among them, those who ‘inhabit’ the children’ books? What patterns of being a boy and being a girl, or being a man or a woman are taught through ‘our fairytales’? The dissertation is organized in five chapters. In them are: the research path and choice and justification for the subject matter; the story for the children’s literature, highlighting important concepts for the study, such as the tale, fairytales and ‘new fairytales’; children’s history; history of the study of gender and sexuality; final conclusions. Articulated to the children’s stories and to the history of the study of gender and sexuality, are analyses for the ‘new fairytales’ and their representations of styles of being a child and male and female ways of living. One has concluded that the ‘new fairytales’ teach us about different ways of being a child. Based on the studied authors, one has perceived childhoods represented in the stories: unaccomplished and hyperaccomplished, protected, partially protected, unprotected, marginalised, public; which come to represent multiple contemporary children’s ages, that is, those shaped by multiple discourses. This analysed set of texts has showed a healthy, happy, forward, creative, wise, intelligent, dynamic, courageous, but sometimes also artless, frail child who needs adult protection. Multiple childhoods in the ‘new fairytales’ are represented by playing, sad, daydreaming, jealous children dealing with death, attending school, that is, representing being and living styles in contemporary times. One has also concluded that the ‘new fairytales’ teach us that there is no one single ways, not even truest, of being a man and a woman, and that one can try several ways of enjoying sexuality in daily life. Some stories do not work with breaking of the gender, and some break with hegemonic discourses on sexuality, by rethinking ‘new patterns’.

Esta Dissertação tem como objetivos identificar e analisar os discursos da masculinidade presentes no livro didático "Primeira Arithmetica Para Meninos", organizado pelo engenheiro, educador e escritor brasileiro José Theodoro de Souza Lobo. Esse livro, editado pela Livraria Selbach & CIA, foi aprovado pelo Conselho de Instrução e por uma comissão da Escola Militar do Rio Grande do Sul para ser adotado nas escolas públicas e nas escolas particulares nessa Província. Com base nas teorizações sobre as relações de gênero, segundo o viés pós-estruturalista, metodologicamente, foi desenvolvido um movimento que denominei analítico-descritivo-analítico, documentando e sistematizando o conjunto de informações focadas nesse livro didático e ampliadas por demais fontes, entre elas, legislação da época, cartas-parecer e manual de civilidade. Essas fontes, necessárias ao objetivo em questão, foram tomadas como monumentos no sentido foucaultiano. A escolha do livro didático "Primeira Arithmetica Para Meninos" deu-se por considerá-lo um artefato cultural, compreendendo que nele circularam discursos que implicaram - direta ou indiretamente - a produção de identidades de gênero, de acordo com determinados modos de ser menino. Foram estabelecidos quatro focos de análise: O ensino de Matemática no livro didático "Primeira Arithmetica Para Meninos", em que descrevo e analiso alguns aspectos em relação aos conteúdos desenvolvidos nos três primeiros capítulos do livro; O nome de autor, em que examino de que maneira, em que condições e segundo quais regras foi produzido, utilizado e valorizado o livro didático "Primeira Arithmetica Para Meninos"; A inferiorização da identidade feminina, em que verifico que saberes foram produzidos e veiculados através do livro didático de Matemática sobre feminilidades, determinando "modos de ser mulher"; A constituição da masculinidade, em que analiso a contribuição desse livro didático no fortalecimento de uma educação diferenciada para meninos, problematizando as significações criadas sobre "modos de ser menino" dados como normais, corretos, naturais, únicos. Por fim, concluo que esse livro didático, através de um conhecimento matemático - Aritmética - desenvolvido para meninos, permitiu a circulação de discursos que contribuíram para a produção de masculinidades, em consonância com o proposto pela legislação e pelas orientações estabelecidas nos manuais de civilidade da época. / This dissertation aims at both identifying and analyzing discourses of masculinity in the didactic book named "Primeira Arithmetica Para Meninos", organized by the engineer, educator and writer José Theodoro de Souza Lobo. This book, published by Livraria Selbach & CIA, was approved by Conselho de Instrução and a commission from Escola Militar do Rio Grande do Sul to be adopted in public and private schools in that province. Based on theories about gender relations, according to the post-structuralist view, in terms of methodology, I have developed a movement that I have characterized as analytical-descriptive-analytical, documenting and systematizing the set of information focused on that didactic book and broadened with the help of other sources, such as regulations, reports and civility handbooks that were current at the time of its publication. Those sources, which have been necessary to the achievement of the objective of this study, have been taken as monuments, in the Foucauldian sense. The didactic book "Primeira Arithmetica para Meninos" has been regarded as a cultural artifact that spread contents implying - both directly and indirectly - the production of gender identities, in accordance with certain ways of being a boy. Four focuses have been set for analysis: 1) Mathematics teaching in the didactic book "Primeira Arithmetica Para Meninos", in which I have described and analyzed some aspects of the contents developed in the first three chapters of the book; 2) The author's name, in which I have examined how, and under which conditions and regulations, the didactic book "Primeira Arithmetica Para Meninos" was produced, used and valued; 3) Lowering of the female identity, in which I have observed which knowledges were produced and spread through the Mathematics didactic book concerning femininities, thus determining "ways of being a woman"; and 4) The constitution of masculinity, in which I have both analyzed the contribution of this book towards the strengthening of a differentiated education for boys, and problematized significations created about "ways of being a boy" taken as normal, correct, natural, and unique. Finally, I have concluded that this didactic book, through a mathematical knowledge - Arithmetic - developed for boys, allowed for the circulation of discourses that contributed to the production of masculinities, in accordance with what was proposed by regulations and guidelines pointed out in civility handbooks from that time.