The Collection tells the story of Barbara, a fifty-something, Christian, teacher, wife, and mother, as she is forced to return home after her estranged father's death. Named executrix of his estate, Barbara navigates family secrets, repressed childhood trauma, and her mentally ill father's legacy. Using Attachment Theory and Intergenerational Theories of Personal Development, this research discusses the development and relationships of the characters in The Collection to demonstrate the connections between their child and adult selves—specifically, the role of Barbara's parents and childhood in her suppressed anger. Framed within the context of Carolyn G. Heilbrun's feminist critique of women writers and women characters, this paper connects socio-psychological theories to investigate how the patriarchal gender norms Barbara's mother instilled in her daughter result in Barbara's suppressed anger, strained interpersonal relationships and adult religiosity. The relationship between adult Barbara and her aging mother is discussed in context of these theories and compared against women characters in Siri Hustvedt's The Blazing World and Elizabeth Strout's Olive Kitteridge. Finally, the paper calls for further research into and understanding of the causes and effects of women's anger, as well as an essential shift in how both men and women are permitted to express emotions.

This thesis explores advertising as a ‘soft’ mode of governance understood in terms of a form of power which avoids instruments of coercion, involving instead certain practices of freedom and forms of pleasure. The main concern of the thesis is to analyse the mechanisms through which techniques of such ‘modest’ power interact with techniques of representation in order to define forms of femininity and shape self-fashioning practices of female consumers. The study is based on a comprehensive survey of a sample of television advertisements broadcast in Britain on three television channels with national coverage in May 2001 as well as on the analysis of a selected body of advertising trade literature. It draws on theoretical and methodological approaches from social anthropology and various strands of cultural studies. The thesis reveals that the way advertising attempts to influence consumers is in line with some aspects of neo-liberal style of governance. It argues that such a mode of governance seeks to regulate women’s ethical sensibilities by outlining the space of desire, power and pleasure, by stimulating the will for self-improvement and by providing advice about how women should think of and shape themselves.

Purpose This dissertation focuses at assessing the efficacy of shorter time intervals in the treatment of medical abortions along with the use of various follow up methods. Methods This initial part of dissertation was carried out as an extensive study of literature, followed by observational study on shorter time intervals and follow up methods for the feasibility of the study. The main dissertation met its research aims through an RCT of 121 women comparing shorter to standard time intervals and assessing the various follow up methods at the end of 2 weeks. The qualitative component of the study was achieved by conducting in-depth interviews of women undergoing medical abortion on various aspects of medical abortions with emphasis on shorter time intervals and follow up. Findings This research produced a number of key findings: the RCT showed that both treatments have equal efficacy and acceptability with minor differences in their side effects however the sample size was small to generalise the findings; the follow up methods showed varied responses with preference to confirmatory investigations at 2 weeks follow up. Conclusions The main conclusions drawn from this research were that shorter time intervals can be offered as an alternative to standard treatment intervals in well informed women, however a larger RCT is needed. In order to provide these treatments as outpatient robust follow up methods will need to be incorporated into the abortion services.

This thesis is concerned with 1) establishing the origins of sex-gender differences and with ascertaining if these are changeable; 2) the structure and function of the postmodern patriarchal family and its role in sex-gender development and sex-gender stereotyping; 3) the role of education in sex-gender/other stereotyping; 4) the development of an holistic inclusive pedagogy; and 5) the implementation of this pedagogy. The thesis is structured around six research questions. The first three research questions What are the origins of sex-gender differences?, What is the structure of the postmodern patriarchal family and what functions does it have? and What role do the patriarchal family and its patriarchal structure play in sex-gender development and sex-gender stereotyping? guide an interdisciplinary enquiry that provides the basis for the development of an holistic inclusive pedagogy. The fourth question What role does education play in sex-gender stereo-typing? delineates the context out of which an holistic inclusive pedagogy is developed. The last two research questions What kind of pedagogy is needed to ameliorate the injustices students suffer as a result of sex-gender/other stereotyping? and How can an holistic inclusive pedagogy raise learner’s-teacher’s awareness of sex-gender/other stereotyping? are concerned with the creation of an holistic inclusive pedagogy, its salient features, philosophical and epistemological assumptions and aims, etc.

The review examined the efficacy of parenting group programmes for foster and adoptive parents at improving the attachment relationships of fostered / adopted children. The reviewed evaluations of the programmes’ efficacy were mostly of a low methodological quality. The quality of the evidence base is currently considered too limited to make conclusions regarding the programmes’ efficacy. An evaluation of the efficacy of the ‘Fostering Attachments’ programme for foster and adoptive parents is reported. Twenty-five carers / parents were allocated to one of two groups which attended the programme, one of which remained on a waiting-list for six months before the programme. Participants were assessed pre-, post-, and eight months following invention and over the waiting-list period. Outcome variables included: children’s emotional and behavioural difficulties and relational security; placement stability; carers’ stress levels, mind-mindedness, sense of self-efficacy, competence and confidence in their parenting. Carers’ sense of competence and confidence improved immediately and eight months following intervention. Sense of self-efficacy improved eight months following, but not immediately post-intervention. In conclusion, the intervention appears affective at improving carers’ sense of competence and confidence, but not at improving the other outcome variables considered. Confidence in this conclusion is moderated by the methodological limitations.

The idea of cross-class families has been controversial over the last three decades. In class analysis literature, the debate was intertwined with issues on the cross-gender class comparison and women’s social class. This thesis will try to deal with the ambiguity in previous cross-class-family studies, which distracted a lot of energy from developing the knowledge of cross-class families. Through the social capital perspective, this thesis examines three key critiques to cross-class families: (1) All families are class homogeneous; (2) Sharing resources is equivalent to class similarity; (3) The occupations of the female and the lower-occupation partners have no empirically significant contribution to their own social class. Through the latest waves of the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) and an updated British occupational class scheme, National Statistics Socio-economic Classification (NS-SEC) 2000, the thesis examines the three matters. It concluded that there are substantial amount of families where the male and female partners were different significantly in terms of social capital and social class. Couples share social resources may have significant difference in social class. This sharing may only suggest correlations. The occupations of the female and lower-occupation partners should not be ignored in the measurement of their own socio-economic positions.

Through interview generated narratives of subjects of three generations of urban middle-class Bengalis living in Kolkata, India and other auto-ethnographic narrative texts; this research seeks to examine generation, gender and class specific meanings of intimate heterosexual identities and relations. It focuses on the ways in which subjects negotiate institutionalized heterosexuality or hetero-normativity within everyday practices of intimacy. Subjects’ on-going negotiations that tell stories of multiple and contradictory subjectivities, are analysed to show how personal narratives of intimacy vary across a range of conflicting and competing colonialist, nationalist and trans-nationalist discourses of heterosexuality. Through analysing stories of homosocial intimacy, heterosexual coupling and expressions of intimacy; the research examines the power and vulnerability of ‘doing gender’, illustrates how ‘practices of intimacy’ overlap with ‘family practices’ and demonstrates that expressions of intimacy are socially ordered and linguistically mediated. The research critiques the ‘individualization thesis’ of reflexive modernization by showing how practices of intimacy are socio-culturally embedded within family relations, both real and imagined. By appreciating multiple meanings of power and agency, it also critiques a colonial-modernist notion of linear progress by illustrating the shifting meaning and the mutual co-constitution of the categories of ‘past’ and ‘present’, ‘tradition’ and ‘modern’, ‘East’ and ‘West’.

This thesis investigates discourses of age and gender as realised in language used by and about ageing women, with a particular focus on the inseparable and reciprocal relationship between the private voices of individual lived experience of age(ing), and public discourses of ageing generated by the beauty and media industries. Research data collected and analysed for this thesis has three components: spoken data from 19 face-to-face qualitative interviews (the private voices), and a range of anti-ageing skincare and selected media texts (two forms of public discourse). The primary focus for the research is mid-life women, (aged 42-56) transitioning between youth and old(er) age. Principal findings suggest that for them ageing is a complex, non-unitary process, influenced by powerful cultural discourses which idealise youthfulness and problematise ageing, delivering gendered aesthetic judgements which profoundly shape individual discourses and evaluations and can be tracked in specific language features. Appearance is the ‘dominant signifier of ageing’, its changes constantly monitored in daily “mirror moments” and negatively evaluated through comparative language of ‘pinnacle’ and ‘loss’ as pressure of the cultural lens on the personal gaze drives an obligation to conform to external expectations. Here, the intersection of ageing and gendered selves, mediated through the cultural/media mirror, is articulated through conflicting discourses of reluctant acceptance and anxious resistance, in a continuing process of self-evaluation made more complex by the external pressures of beauty discourses and ambivalent media. There are implications both for gender and linguistic studies, not least as age-related stereotypes are increasingly challenged by a growing community of baby-boomers transitioning through mid-life to old(er) age.

This exploratory theory building research examines women’s leadership journeys within Higher Education in the UK. It takes a critical management perspective and draws on Bourdieu’s Social Action theory to provide a view through a new lens to answer the following question. Why, despite advances in equality legislation and policy, are there still so few women in powerful leadership positions in the UK HE sector? A positive deviance sampling approach was used to identify women who have reached very senior positions in HE in pre-1992 universities in the UK. Analysis of career narratives was conducted focusing on women’s world views and drawing on their sensemaking to provide new insights into how gender and power shape the modern, complex world of work. Findings demonstrate that structural power inequalities persist resulting in discrimination and sexism throughout women’s career journeys. Bourdieu’s concepts of the field, capital, habitus and symbolic violence are used to shine a light on the key role of cultural hegemony and symbolic violence. The concept of the internalisation of structural constraints, resulting in psychological constraints to agency and action is introduced.

This thesis seeks to examine the interrelationships between gender, migration and rural livelihoods in Ghana. The central argument of the study is that policy making on migration and livelihood, tends to ignore gender as a critical issue in development planning. The study suggests that effective development policy interventions should take into consideration the dynamics of gender relations because men and women experience migration differently. Employing primary and secondary data, the study demonstrates that when men and/or women migrate, there are consequences for households. For those migrating, this can result in either empowerment or increased vulnerability. And for the agricultural households in the sending areas, the departure of men and/or women affects their livelihood and division of labour. Our investigation shows that migrants are predominantly males, with a relatively smaller but increasing number of women. Drawing on earlier studies, the thesis argues for a more systematic examination of the consequences of migration on rural households, particularly on the economic livelihood and household responsibilities of women. By understanding the conditions of rural households, development practitioners are in a better position to design gender appropriate policies and projects. This approach will significantly improve the economic situation of rural communities and maximize their development dividends. The study has practical significance as it sheds light on the options faced by rural women, and the adjustments they make, when confronted with male out-migration.