This thesis studies how financial incentives affect women's fertility timing decisions. Each chapter investigates this question by looking at a policy that exogenously increased fertility related financial incentives. The timing impacts of these policies are estimated using a discrete-time proportional hazard model with unobserved heterogeneity. In the first chapter, the impact of the 1999 UK Working Families Tax Credit (WFTC) on the timing of birth is studied. This paper employs the 1991-2003 waves of the British Household Panel Survey and identifies the policy impact of WFTC by observing the change in the timing of birth using a difference in differences estimator. The main finding of this paper suggests little evidence of changes in the timing of all birth parity apart from first birth. Such a finding is likely to be explained by the policy design of WFTC that increased not only the fertility but also the labour supply incentives simultaneously. Moreover, a further analysis highlights the importance of other policies, which also in uenced women's labour supply during the period of study. The second chapter, on the other hand, studies the impact of the 1977-2001 US infertility health insurance mandates, which regulated the insurance companies to cover for infertility treatment cost. Although the majority of the past literature has studied impacts on older women who are likely to seek treatment, this paper proposes that the mandates may have had a wider impact on the US population. Specifically, it may have given an option for younger women to delay birth since these policies reduced the opportunity cost of having a child in the future. The chapter employs the 1980-2001 Panel Study of Income Dynamics. Results suggest a significant delay of 1-2 years in the time of first birth among highly educated white women.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that Home Education in England and Wales is growing in popularity. Despite this apparent growth, there is currently little research into home education in the UK from a sociological perspective. Based on data collected in an in-depth qualitative study of home educating groups and families during 2007, this thesis examines the motivations, practices and experiences of home educating parents. Despite the 'alternative' image of home education, constructions of parenthood within home education are highly gendered, with mothers and fathers tending to take on traditional gender roles. Mothers therefore perform the majority of the intense physical and emotional labour of home education. Home education expands the motherhood role beyond that predominantly found in contemporary society (providing fulfilment for many mothers), while simultaneously reinforcing normative images of motherhood. Where fathers are involved in the day-to-day process of home education this tends to be in a secondary role with mothers maintaining a significant role in the home education process. Home education is therefore a meeting point for mothers' constructions of childhood, motherhood and education. These constructions can be split into three 'types': 'Natural', 'Social' and 'Last Resort'. The interrelation of motherhood, childhood and education within home education and their co-location within the family means that notions of pedagogy and education become an extension of the socialisation process focussed on the individual child rather than education being seen as a separate process. Home education is therefore a project of motherhood which focusses on family and self and relies on the maintenance of a balance between personal labour and fulfilment.

Literary representations of female philanthropy challenge the separate spheres dichotomy that we continue to associate with nineteenth-century literature and society, as the work of the philanthropic heroine instead depicts a diversity of social spaces located between the family home and the worlds of commerce and politics. These social spaces – one of the most important being the parish – are represented as highly receptive to the influence of middle- and upper-class women by the writers of my study, thereby demonstrating how female authors could formulate the geography of their fictions to support their participation in contemporary social debate. In this thesis I use the term ‘parochial spheres’ to describe these spaces, which include the landed estate, the village and the military regiment. My emphasis on parochial spheres calls attention to the gentlewoman’s relationships with rural and provincial environments. I use the concept of ‘borderline’ female citizenship to think about these relationships, as it indicates the potential power of the philanthropic heroine in her community, as well as the likelihood of power contests between the female philanthropist and her male contemporaries. The writers of my thesis are mainly drawn from the Victorian period. However, I also examine works by Hannah More, and the image of the philanthropist across the period. More is crucial to the representation of female philanthropy, as female authors interact with a tradition of conservative reform popularised by the Evangelical polymath at the beginning of the period. Embedded within this tradition is the narrative of maternalism, which enables women writers to depict their heroines as the protective conservers of the social order, but also as the generators of new, feminised solutions to public questions of reform. These fluctuations between conservation and reform reveal the significance of the parochial sphere to women’s writing during the Victorian period.

This thesis uses a range of recent television and film texts to interrogate postfeminist media formations of masculinity. In particular, this work focuses on increasingly prevalent media narratives that are about producing men as suitable romantic partners for postfeminist women. Arguing that existing literature on postfeminism ignores or trivialises the issue of masculinity, this thesis addresses new cultural formations of masculinity that are linked not only to postfeminist discourse, but also related cultural and economic shifts such as post-industrialisation and the rise of neo-liberal cultural politics. Analysing texts from the mid-1990s to 2012, the work argues that such representations are rife with tensions and contradictions. They represent in part an ungendering of previously feminine arenas (such as the makeover, and the home) yet are also marked by a discourse that requires the reassertion of sexual difference and the maintenance of heteronormativity. As such, the urge towards coupling becomes central to these formations, across the range of texts discussed within this thesis. The thesis argues that postfeminist media representations of masculinity are often characterised by an interplay between dominant, residual and emergent formations. In the makeover show, the mission is to improve a man to satisfy his existing partner (perhaps as preparation for a proposal) or to ready him for entry into the dating market. In the lifestyle show, the advice given on how to manage domestic labour is committed to encouraging harmony between the heterosexual couple. The homebuilding sitcom focuses on the challenges of the transition between youth and the establishment of a family unit: finding the right partner, settling down, building a home, having children. The Hollywood romantic comedy, even in its recent, male-centred incarnations, still presents successful coupling as integral, essential, and inevitable, even if its attitude to the union is sometimes ambivalent. In all of these television and film genres, there is a considerable focus on how men must change in order to become, and stay, "marriageable". This emphasis on coupling is paired with images of singledom as failure, a pathologisation which, this thesis argues, is rapidly becoming ungendered. The example texts' reinforcement of compulsory heterosexuality, their focus on a particular 'life-stage' (the early stages of independent living) and the increased focus on men's private lives means that domestic space and the home become key sites in which these tensions and battles are played out. This thesis examines the central role of the home, its decor, arrangement and labour, as both one of the major negotiations of coupling and as an aesthetic strategy for representing different formations of masculinity and postfeminist dilemmas of masculinity within this group of texts.

The thesis explores the construction of gender in the Hollywood Teen Movie, often perceived as 'the odious norm' of Hollywood cinema with little to warrant serious analysis.[1] Although Timothy Shary's work has done much to promote the genre as an area of academic enquiry, there have been few sustained textual analyses of the Teen Movie. Through close textual analysis of seven representative case studies, this thesis stages an encounter between Butler's work on gender and the Teen Movie. Butler’s theorisation of performativity denaturalises and deconstructs the assumption of heteronormativity, enabling a detailed analysis of the genre's 'sexual coming-of-age narrative'.[2] Further, the textual analyses complicate and augment aspects of her theories. Following a review of the literature on the Teen Movie, and an examination of Butler's oeuvre, the thesis is divided into three sections. Firstly, the prom is explored as a typical narrative conclusion to the School Film. Secondly, the following chapter analyses star performance and film acting in the youth delinquency film. The final chapter examines the genre’s construction of the past in the "nostalgic" teen movie. The original contribution to knowledge is twofold: the thesis significantly expands existing work on the Teen Movie, and uses the depth and range of specific examples from the case studies to complicate Butler's work. Textual analysis of each film’s construction of heteronormativity demonstrates that this normative and mainstream genre offers a more complex and critical presentation of heterosexual norms than previously appreciated. The thesis rethinks the norm by demonstrating the complexity of normative culture, which demonstrates a range of examples that call for a reconsideration of Butler's theorisation of gender norms.

Sexual health behaviour and the choices people make are influenced by whole range of factors including social grouping, education, peer pressure and access to services/information. Report on the health of the public in Britain have shown that sexual ill health is unequally distributed across society (Department of Health 2001; Royal College of Nursing 2001). people from socially disadvantaged and marginalised groups experience the highest levels of sexually related illness. Quantitative studies form the main pool of information available in relation to sexual health and risk. They have demonstrated that in some areas of the country the infection rates for STI's are up to twelve times higher in men from black Caribbean communities (Fenton, Johnson et al. 1997; Lacey, Merrick et al. 1997; Low, Daker-White et al. 1997). At present there is very little published qualitative information on the factors affecting sexual health decisions, especially in relation to black Caribbean communities. The research study focuses on black Caribbean men. A qualitative approach is used to identify and explore the key factors influencing the health decisions and risk activities of black Caribbean men in relation to sexual health. Social construction theory provides the theoretical underpinning for this study alongside aspects of feminism, criticalist and ethnicities based approaches. The stereotype of black Caribbean men as sexually insatiable and irresponsible emerged as a key feature of the social scripts associated with their sexual behaviour. The themes 'The nature of the stereotype', 'Living with the stereotype' and 'Hearing the silences' discussed in the data chapters explore the impact of the stereotype on the sexual health decisions of black Caribbean men. The experiences highlighted through the themes expose the importance of the political, social and personal context associated with specific sexual scripts on the sexual health decisions of black Caribbean men. Of key importance in these socially determined scripts are the screaming silences contained within them. The findings are reviewed in the light of current sexual health policies to consider how sexual health services and professionals can best provide for the sexual health needs of black Caribbean men. The thesis adds to current knowledge in sexual health and ethnicities in concluding that the sexual health decisions of black Caribbean men take pace in the context of the real or imagined expectations that society has of them. Individuals sexual decisions therefore occur in light of shared and personal appraisal of socially determined relevant issues. This forms the context in which sexual scripts are given meaning and sexual decisions take place. The study compliments the established pool of quantitative data available linking issues of sexual health and ethnicity in Britain. The findings presented within the thesis reveal a range of issues to initiate further qualitative research in the area and provides a lead for British based thinking on adult sexual health decisions and ethnicity.

Disabled women’s social history of institutionalisation and spatial segregation has, over time and space, set them apart from mainstream society and rendered them invisible in the spaces and places of everyday life. In more contemporary times, when disabled women ‘invade’ reproductive spaces, their presence as prospective parents, ‘becoming mothers’ or mothers, is often regarded as ‘out of place’. This study hence incorporates a historical review that traces the spatial realities of disabled women’s and girl’s lives between 1796-1910 in Glasgow and Edinburgh. This reveals the development of social stereotypes and misunderstandings of disabled women’s lives and bodies, particularly their assumed asexuality and inappropriateness for undertaking reproductive or mothering roles. Disabled women’s ‘voices’ are to the fore in the contemporary chapters of the thesis, reflecting the reproductive and non-reproductive experiences of 27 disabled women resident in the Glasgow and Edinburgh areas. These narratives offer an insight into the embodied experiences of ‘disability’ in private and public space. Being placed sexually ‘off limits’, and rendered ‘out of place’ in and by reproductive or mothering environments, constitute some of the social and spatial barriers to motherhood encountered by disabled women. It is hoped that this study contributes to the process of recovering the forgotten histories and neglected experiences of disabled women, particularly in terms of their social exclusion, infantilisation and desexualisation that have reduced disabled women’s participation in child-rearing and motherhood across time and space. The chronological framework of this study reveals slow but positive changes in social attitudes towards disabled women expressing reproductive choices, raising children and creating a ‘place’ for themselves as mothers in contemporary society.

This thesis explores responses to rape in the Acholi sub-region of northern Uganda, based on three years of participant observation plus in-­depth interviews with a random sample of 187 women from two villages. The issues examined lie at the intersection of two ongoing discussions in scholarship and practice and contributes to each of them: wrongdoing and justice, and sexual violence and rape. Northern Uganda is at the heart of international justice debates. Fierce controversy followed the 2005 announcement of the International Criminal Court’s intervention in ongoing conflict between the Lord’s Resistance Army and the Government of Uganda. Two opposing representations of Acholi society emerged: that Acholi were innately forgiving -­ able to deal with mass crime through traditional justice; or that they needed and often supported formal legal justice. But this missed crucial aspects of Acholi realities, which this study illustrates, most basically the profound value of social harmony, and a deep distrust of distanced authorities to dispense justice in their interest. Many scholars and practitioners assume that in the aftermath of crime, justice must be done. Amongst Acholi, I have found, the primary moral imperative in the wake of wrongdoing is not punishment of the perpetrator or individual victim’s rights but the restoration of social harmony. Experience of rape and harm it causes are predicated on understandings of wrongdoing related to challenges posed to social harmony. Similarly, an appropriate remedy depends not only on the act of forced sex itself, but also on the social role of the perpetrator and social context. This thesis adds empirical, locally-­grounded, and culturally-­specific evidence in support of a more complicated and nuanced explanation of rape and its aftermath than is familiar in the analytical/normative frameworks familiar in post-­atrocity justice debates or anti-­rape feminist activist discourse. It suggests reimagining the meanings of these phenomena along lived continuums: before, during and after war; and acknowledging the role of sex, power and politics in all sexual experiences on a spectrum of coercion and enthusiastic consent.

The growing complexity in working arrangements has made it difficult to target employment legislation effectively. Utilisation of the existing provisions of Community law requires a reorientation of the traditional conceptualisation of gender relations. This is possible through the application of broad principles, as provided for by the Treaty and the general scheme of Community law, to specific circumstances. The Court of Justice occupies a unique institutional position in this respect as the only authority capable of undertaking such a task coherently and consistently. This thesis considers the Court’s reasoning in a group of cases concerning the right to equal treatment of women workers classified as ‘atypical’ on account of their working arrangements. The purpose of the thesis is to uncover the extent to which the Court’s adjudications on cases referred under the Article 234 procedure can be characterised as having a common output amounting to an identifiable jurisprudence on gender relations. In order to accomplish this task, a systematic analysis of a range of cases conforming to certain specified criteria is undertaken through which the Court’s application of certain key principles is examined. The findings reveal inconsistencies in terms of the Court’s theoretical dogma and its conceptualisation of the basic tenets of equality which are not discernible from an assessment of its judgements alone. It is concluded that a reassessment of the relative positions and roles of women and men within contemporary society is required in order to enable a more effective application of the law in this respect, starting with the standardisation of ‘atypical’ working arrangements.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how experiences of violence, which have been secret in the past, can be articulated that they may become resources for theological reflection and Christian action. The research technique employed is ethnography, which is used to uncover the violence experienced in the lives of Dalit Christian women in Kerala State of India. Part one of this thesis concerns methodology. Chapter two examines how other women theologians working amongst poor and marginalised women from non-western cultures have sought to make women’s experience visible and have emphasised its theological significance. This chapter explores what I can gain from the work of these women that will help me to develop my own research on Dalit Christian women. Chapter three describes the research setting by explaining the context for this research, the researched community of Dalits and the location, where Dalit women gathered together. This chapter demonstrates my relations, as an ethnographer, to Dalit Christian women who have converted to Christianity from the Pulaya caste. Finally, this chapter justifies the research strategies employed in this research. Part two of this thesis contains my field research. Chapter four is about meta-ethnography generated at a one-day seminar and two Bible studies. In chapter five Dalit Christian women, who are the survivors of various kinds of violence, tell their life stories in their own words. In this way Dalit women started to uncover the secret and hidden experience they had in the past. Part three of this thesis is the analysis of data and conclusion. Chapter six analyses the significant themes, which have emerged from my research into the life experiences of Dalit women. It demonstrates that Dalit women’s experience and the cultural traditions of Dalit community are important resources for the development of a Dalit Feminist Practical Theology. Finally, in the light of my research, I make concrete strategies for action that could bring hope and transformation in the lives of Dalit women who are experiencing violence.