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Women are under-represented in both numbers and at the command level of police agencies after over 40 years of women in policing. The national average for women in policing, as reported by the 2012 Federal Bureau of Investigation Uniform Crime Report, was 11.9%. Women in state police and highway patrol agencies are well below the national average, particularly in the southern states where the percentage is below 6%. This study uses qualitative data to examine the role of gender and the gendered organizational structure and culture of police agencies through interview data from 24 women troopers and one academy cadet who are or were employed in seven southern state police and highway patrol agencies between 1972 and 2012. The data from their lived experiences indicate that women continue to encounter barriers and challenges to recruitment, employment, assignment, retention, and promotional opportunities. Understanding how women experience paramilitary policing institutions and the gendered nature of a male-dominated workforce can be used to argue for meaningful social and organizational changes in state police and highway patrol agencies and, by association, the profession of policing. Keywords: gendered roles, gendered institutions, gendered structure organizations, gendered culture, police, troopers, state police, highway patrol, women police, leadership, hegemonic masculinity, gender

Race- and gender-related contextual factors influence Black women’s sexual behaviors, attitudes, and outcomes. Contextual factors of Black women’s sexual behaviors include stereotypes, microaggressions, ethnic identity, and self-concept. Little to no research has examined race- and gender-specific microaggressions (i.e., gendered racial microaggressions; GRM) impact on Black women's sexual health. Responsively, using an intersectional approach, this study hypothesized that ethnic identity’s influence on the relationship between GRM and sexual behavior (i.e., condom use, lifetime sexual partners) is conditional on self-conceptualization moderated effect on ethnic identity and sexual behavior. Participants included 124 unmarried Black women, recruited from mTurk, a southeastern university and community. Moderated moderation analyses revealed the relationship between GRM and number of lifetime sexual partners is conditionally based on one's level of ethnic identity and self-conceptualization. Findings could potentially enhance existing HIV interventions by increasing awareness of GRM and implementing coping strategies to combat GRM’s effect on sexual behaviors.

This dissertation investigates the interaction of gender and party in the political communication of members of Congress (MCs). The study focuses on the tweets of all MCs in the House of Representatives during two weeks of the 114th Congress (9,374 tweets from 431 MCs). I conduct an in-depth content analysis of these tweets to extract important message characteristics related to issue areas, electoral behaviors, and constituency targeting. I find that MCs emphasize their partisan ties when they tweet about women’s or men’s issues, but Democratic congresswomen and Republican congressmen go further to address feminine and masculine issue areas respectively. In their electoral behaviors, congresswomen posted more advertising tweets than congressmen, especially Republican congresswomen. Republican congresswomen took individual credit for legislation at high rates and shared very little, while Democratic congresswomen shared credit almost as much as they took individual credit. Furthermore, while both Democratic and Republican congresswomen see themselves as “surrogate representatives” (Carroll 2000) of the women beyond the boundaries of their districts, Democratic congresswomen target national constituencies significantly more often than their colleagues. These results provide evidence that gender is not enough to understand how MCs communicate – the key lies at the nexus of gender and partisanship.

Work and its effect on women’s empowerment and gender equality has been a long, on-going debate since the middle of the 20th century – not at least in development contexts, where women have been recognized to play a crucial role. The discussion has moved from only emphasizing women’s participation in the labor market, to also stress the need to recognize and value the unpaid, domestic work that women perform every day. Many feminist scholars have witnessed how the neglecting of housework and childcare has left women with a double burden, since men’s responsibility in the family and household has been rather stagnant. Therefore, by interviewing 17 married, self-employed women in Kampala, Uganda, this study explores women’s reasons and experiences of organizing reproductive and productive labor, and their solutions for balancing the two working domains. Many scholars draw upon norms, attitudes and traditions, when explaining the gendered division of labor. This study shall argue too that it is indeed gender stereotypical perceptions that maintain the gendered patterns of reproductive labor. However, the results also point to a material, income-related dimension of gender equality – in a context where income is often a determinant of the woman’s workload within the household.

The dialectic about body and 'self' osculates between material and conceptual paradigms. The breaking down of the poles between mind and body has stimulated a range of debates about subjectivity, desire, and knowledge. The body viewed as an anatomical specimen in the history of Western culture fails to acknowledge the corporeal other, it also does not acknowledge the way in which it has been constructed in a framework based on masculine desire and knowledge. This dissertation explores the profiles of the psychological 'body image' as a pathway to two different conceptual frameworks about the body. Firstly by using vision as a mode of investigating the relationship between the corporeal gendered 'self' and the anatomical other in Western culture. Then using the conceptual understanding of the 'body image' to extend beyond the limits of vision to a vaporous, more ethereal account of self. This concept blurs the edges of the corporeal self by using the olfactory as the basis for crossing the 'unseen' boundaries of body space and subjectivity. / Master of Arts (Hons) (Visual Arts)

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.

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.

This research examines the effect of gender on perpetration characteristics and empathy in a sample of juvenile sex offenders in Massachusetts using feminist criminological and gendered theory perspectives. Through the use of ordered logistic regression, I evaluate whether or not a perpetrator’s gender has an impact on the characteristics of the offense (such as the use of penetration, fellatio, genital touching, or masturbation) or the levels of empathy and remorse experienced by the offender. The results show that gender only has a significant effect on penetrative acts and remains non-significant for the remaining variables. I have concluded that the non-significance of gender lessens the dissimilarities between juvenile male and female offenders, suggesting that the female offenders are less influenced by gendered socialization. Future research should focus less on the differences between boys and girls and more on those variables that are significant: prior victimization, behavior problems, and problems in school.

This thesis explores the various discursive strategies that black women employ when they encounter street harassment from men. To investigate the ways in which these women choose to respond to men’s attention during social interactions, I examine their perception of social situations to understand how they view urban spaces and strangers within these spaces. Drawing on qualitative interviews that I conducted with 10 black women, I focus on how the unique convergence of this group’s racial and gender identities can expose them to sexist and racist street harassment. Thus, I argue that black women face street harassment as a result of gendered and racialized power asymmetries. I found that black women rely on a variety of discursive strategies, including speech and silence, to neutralize and negotiate these power asymmetries. They actively resist reproducing racialized and gendered sexual stereotypes of black women by refusing to talk back to men who harass. Understanding silence as indicative of black women’s agency, not oppression, remains a key finding in this research.