This thesis aims to explore the link between women’s descriptive representation and substantive representation in the 20th National Assembly of the Republic of Korea according to the different conceptualization of women’s substantive representation. First, the link between women’s descriptive representation and substantive representation is examined by investigating whether women legislators introduce bills for women’s interests and succeed in passing such bills more than men. Plus, women legislators’ impact on the introduction of bills for women’s interests and success to pass such bills is explored separately according to different definitions of women’s interests, feminist and traditional women’s interests. This thesis also seeks to compare the influence of quota women with non-quota women on introducing bills for women’s interest and being able to pass such bills. The effect of legislators’ gender and quota women on women’s substantive representation is analyzed by running multivariate OLS regressions. The result strongly supports the positive impact of female legislators on the substantive representation of women. The regression analysis result indicates that being female is positively and significantly related to all types of women’s substantive representation, except the introduction of traditional women’s interests bills. The positive effect of the female legislators is more robust on the introduction of feminist women’s interests bills than the passage of them. However, the positive effect of the female legislators is stronger on the passage of traditional women’s interests bills than the introduction of them. When I compare the connection between women’s descriptive representation and substantive representation according to the different definitions of women’s interests, female legislators are more positively related to feminist women’s interests than traditional women’s interests. The result mildly supports the positive moderating effect of quota women on the link between women’s descriptive representation and substantive representation. These findings indicate that women legislators and quota women improve women’s substantive representation in the Republic of Korea. Specific effects of female legislators and quota women on women’s substantive representation are varied depending on different aspects of substantive representation and different definitions of women’s interests.

This study investigates the representation of gender and sexuality in Brazilian popular comedies. Due to its responsiveness to contemporary trends, popular cinema is a privileged locus for the analysis of social and cultural change. Comedy, in particular, is a fecund corpus for the study of power relations due to its ambivalent relation with the hegemonic power. While inherently relying on the status quo, comedy constantly pushes the boundaries of the socially acceptable; by transgressing and therefore expanding the boundaries of traditional gender representations, new models of femininity and masculinity emerge in these films in line with the changes of their time. This argument is supported by the close analysis of ten influential films spread across the three most prominent cycles of Brazilian popular cinema history: the chanchada in the 1950s, the pornochanchada in the 1970s and the Globochanchada in the 2000s. In the light of Mikhail Bakhtin's theorisation on the carnivalesque, and with the support of psychoanalytical theory, this study demonstrates that times of profound economic and political change call for a revision of gender models, and that comedy has been the preferred genre for Brazilian directors to provide a means of addressing, and coping with, the new demands on femininity and masculinity.

Syftet med denna studie har varit att utreda och föreslå strategier för hur bolagsstyrelser kan öka sin mångfald och bli mer diversifierade. Vidare var syftet att undersöka och presentera hur styrelsearbetet skulle påverkas av den ökade diversifieringen. Vi har utfört en kvalitativ studie och använt intervjuer för datainsamling. Det insamlade empiriska materialet har sedan analyserats med utgångspunkt i de valda teorierna. I våra slutsatser kommer vi fram till att styrelsesammansättningen påverkar beslutsfattandet och att en ökad diversifiering ger positiva effekter på styrelsearbetet. De alternativa strategier som presenteras är att kvinnor måste lära sig maktspelet och söka sig till jobb där de har resultatansvar. Det näringslivet kan göra är att få ledningen att jobba aktivt med dessa frågor genom exempelvis belöningssystem. Valberedningarnas arbetssätt bör övervakas och kontrolleras i syfte att säkerställa att en utredning har skett på ett adekvat sätt. Staten kan skapa incitament genom skattereduktioner eller genom att agera i form av en stor inköpare som erbjuder värdefulla kontrakt. / This study aims to present and propose strategies on how corporate boards can become more diversified by increasing the representation of women. Furthermore we will investigate how the composition of corporate boards affects the decision making process. This thesis has a qualitative approach and the results are based on data from interviews. The conclusions of this paper are that greater diversification in the composition of corporate boards affects the decision making process in a positive way. The strategies proposed are that it is necessary for women to learn the power game and to have a position with responsibility over results. The companies have to get their management to actively work with this issue through reward systems. The work of the nominating committees should be monitored to ensure that the adequate method is used when nominating the directors.  Our last conclusion is that the government can create incentives by tax reductions or by using their role as an important purchaser that offers valuable contracts.

Scholars have been conflicted whether descriptive representation of women leads to substantive representation. A new way of measuring this relationship is through the relationship between women movements and female parliamentarians. Thus, this paper develops from the rethinking of the critical mass theory and uses the feminist demands stated by women organisations in Uganda. This in order to establish whether or not there exists an alliance between inside and outside actors as a measure of substantive representation of women. By applying this approach to transcripts from plenary debates in the Ugandan parliament, the study finds that several gender-related issues are addressed by female MPs. Using a frame analysis comparing the framing of problems between the women organisations and the female MPs, the paper discovers that the majority of issues addressed in the parliament is framed less radically by the female MPs. While the organisations frame the problems as being gender-related, mainly affecting rural women and girls, the MPs frame them more of concern for the whole population and as problems with economic implications for the country.

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / Este artigo apresenta os resultados de minha pesquisa de mestrado, que investigou a sobrevivência do mito clássico de Vênus e suas implicações para a representação da imagem da mulher em obras de arte que lhe fazem referência. Este trabalho tentará demonstrar como tal mito, tendo sido configurado - para o bem ou para o mal - como um paradigma de beleza, em grande parte influencia o ideal de "feminino" que foi espalhado ao longo do tempo, discutindo, assim, de que modo esse paradigma aparece e interfere na arte

Submitted by Maike Costa (maiksebas@gmail.com) on 2016-07-25T13:49:42Z No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivo total.pdf: 4326070 bytes, checksum: dc3f50c25b4f1608e696fb70296ec43d (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-07-25T13:49:42Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivo total.pdf: 4326070 bytes, checksum: dc3f50c25b4f1608e696fb70296ec43d (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-05-20 / According to Perrot (2012) women of all time have always worked, but in the past, these tasks were performed in the domestic sphere and ended up being invisible to the eyes of society. Today, however, women are in a unique professional stage in Brazilian history, and the impact of this is worth studying (Veja, 2000). Considering that, this research aims to contribute to the understanding of this social fact, investigating systematically how working women have been represented on Veja magazine covers until 2012 and the underlying discourse conveyed by the images. We analyzed a corpus of six covers that were selected because they had verbal and visual reference to women and the labor market. In this corpus, we investigated historical changes of women representation and also analyzed how women's representation were imagetically materialized by observing how the semiotic resources were mobilized in order to produce [potential] meanings. The theoretical framework used is social semiotics, more specifically the Grammar of Visual Design (KRESS and VAN LEEUWEN, 2006), that allows for a systemic investigation of images. As this is an interdisciplinary research, we also use historical studies (PERROT, 2012; PINSKY, PEDRO, 2013) and economic data about the inclusion of women in the labor market. We discussed the role of the media in society (CHARAUDEAU, 2013) and used important research in the field of multimodality and gender (ALMEIDA, 2006; BEZERRA, 2012). The results of the systemic analysis of the selected covers showed that there is a continuous and recursive flow of discursive changes, which at certain times produce empowered representations of women who work, but, in others, these representations are constructed to reinforce conservative views that insist on reminding women of the old social roles that were reserved exclusively for them. / De acordo com Perrot (2012) as mulheres de todos os tempos sempre trabalharam, só que, antigamente, esses afazeres eram realizados no campo da domesticidade, e acabavam sendo invisíveis aos olhos da sociedade. Hoje, no entanto, “as mulheres estão numa fase profissional sem igual na história brasileira, e o impacto disso ainda vai merecer muito estudo” (Veja, 2000, p.131). A fim de contribuir para a compreensão desse fato social que investigamos sistematicamente como a mulher que se insere no mercado de trabalho tem sido representada nas capas da revista Veja até o ano de 2012 e quais são os discursos subjacentes veiculados pelas imagens. Para tanto, analisamos um corpus de seis capas que foram selecionadas porque apresentavam verbalmente e visualmente referência à mulher e ao mercado de trabalho. A partir deste corpus procuramos apontar mudanças históricas no modo de representação da mulher que trabalha, assim como descrever como foi imageticamente materializada a representação da mulher, observando como foram mobilizados os recursos semióticos a fim de produzirem [potenciais] significados. O presente trabalho, que parte da semiótica social, filia-se a uma de suas ramificações que permite o estudo sistêmico das imagens através da Gramática do Design Visual de Kress e van Leeuwen (2006). Por se tratar de uma pesquisa interdisciplinar, utilizamos também pesquisas de cunho histórico (PERROT, 2012; PINSKY e PEDRO, 2013) e dados econômicos sobre a inserção da mulher no mercado de trabalho, também trazemos discussões sobre o papel da mídia na sociedade (CHARAUDEAU, 2013), e nos baseamos também em pesquisas importantes do campo da multimodalidade e de gênero (ALMEIDA, 2006; BEZERRA, 2012). Os resultados das análises sistêmicas das capas mostraram que há um fluxo contínuo e recursivo de mudanças discursivas, que em determinados momentos produzem representações empoderadas das mulheres que trabalham fora, porém, em outros, essas representações são construídas de modo a reforçar concepções conservadoras que insistem em relembrá-las os antigos papéis sociais que eram reservados exclusivamente para elas.

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / Este artigo apresenta os resultados de minha pesquisa de mestrado, que investigou a sobrevivência do mito clássico de Vênus e suas implicações para a representação da imagem da mulher em obras de arte que lhe fazem referência. Este trabalho tentará demonstrar como tal mito, tendo sido configurado - para o bem ou para o mal - como um paradigma de beleza, em grande parte influencia o ideal de "feminino" que foi espalhado ao longo do tempo, discutindo, assim, de que modo esse paradigma aparece e interfere na arte

The aim of this paper is to explore how the Rwandan state has motivated its increased prioritization of family planning (FP). The paper seeks to understand whether the state’s increased promotion of FP is a result of Rwanda’s strong commitment to gender equality or part of a broader development agenda. By applying theories of substantive representation of women and smart economics, the paper investigates if the state considers enhancing women’s sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) as a goal in itself or as a means to reach their broader development goals. The method which has been selected is text analysis. The texts which are analyzed are government documents from the time of the emergence of the FP programme. The main findings of this paper suggest that the state’s main motive for the increased prioritization of FP is driven by the development agenda rather than a gender-sensitive approach. Nevertheless, there are statements in the texts which the paper connects to theories of substantive representation of women, however, the development rational corresponding with the idea of smart economics is more recurrent. The paper finds that the hypothesis building on the theory of smart economics finds the strongest support and therefore suggests that the Rwandan states consider FP to be a means to achieve broader development goals.

When Ursula K. LeGuin revisited the world of Earthsea with Tehanu (1990), her return to an established classic of the fantasy genre came with a powerful desire to revisit its construction and reinterpret its assumptions from a female perspective. Drawn to the side of her dying former tutor, protagonist Tenar is repeatedly posed with the question of what to do with his lore books, which could never offer to her what they had his conventionally male students. Even if this time-honored tradition excludes her, however, Tenar cannot bring herself to discard or abandon the books, for all that they seem "nothing to her, big leather boxes full of paper." Traveling on foot, forced often to flee for her life and pack light, she feels compelled to carry these book on her back. For Tenar, the tomes are a considerably "heavy burden," and, given the context in which this novel appears, this female protagonist's struggle with the weight of traditional, respected patriarchal male text is particularly significant. In LeGuin's fantasy, the image of Tenar traversing her story with Ogion's great "lore-books" strapped to her back is emblematic of the struggle many authors have faced in negotiating the received texts and tropes of their generic inheritance in order to create female-centered fantasy. Indeed, the transformation of Ogion's great lore-books into Tenar's conflicted baggage literalizes what many other texts have more figuratively confronted. My dissertation, "A Noted Departure: Metafiction and Feminist Revision within a Tradition of Fantasy Writing," considers the compelling frequency of such self-conscious textual moments in female-centered fantasy of the 80s and 90s and argues for their importance as a writing strategy that challenges the assumptions of more formulaic fantasy texts and tropes, especially those that inform expectations about roles for women. Examining this moment in which the legacy of a revisionist feminist impulse converges with a post-modern, post-structural metafictional critique of traditional narrative forms and the ideologies they encode, my dissertation sheds light on many critically ignored self-conscious fantasy texts which feature heroines whose critical, textual negotiations bring readers to reconsider the nature of fantasy and the danger and wonder, the limits and liberty, of fictional representation. Taken together, as important and largely overlooked entries in a genre which thrives on the tension between tradition and innovation, these works represent a significant transitional moment in the fantasy genre, bridging the gap between a relatively limited female presence and a more contemporary diversity. My first chapter, "Doing the "Not Done": Wrede's 'Improper' Princess and her Whimsical Revision of Fairy-Tale Expectation and Convention," demonstrates the fluid link between the established tradition of feminist fairy tale revision and the self-critical generic departure my dissertation presents as an important literary moment in the fantasy genre. As the archive my dissertation constitutes might be understood as the answer to Angela Carter's frustrated plea that we must "move beyond revision," this chapter acknowledges the fairy tale's potency as a purveyor of romantic archetypes and, thereby, of cultural precepts for young women in a reading of The Enchanted Forest Chronicles (1990-5). In threading seemingly simple and conventional plotlines together with unexpected and innovative departures, Wrede upsets narrative expectation and undercuts generic convention, particularly those associated with the 'princess' trope. Achieving her critical commentary on the commonplaces of the genre by first invoking the traditional before establishing a heroine who positions herself against it, Wrede's plot also reveals the importance of textual negotiation and interpretation, and this chapter underscores the generative relationship this kind of critical interplay bears on the need for new plots and narrative options. Chapter two, "'In Search of 'Something New': Metafiction as Critical and Creative Discourse" offers a sustained discussion of the theoretical work of metafiction. Opening with an examination of the historical precedent of feminist metafiction and its desire to create an alternative tradition to a limited masculinist tradition in the 60s, 70s and early 80s, I demonstrate how aptly feminist metafiction aligns with a fantasist's impulse to challenge the same constraints within genre. Examining how metafiction can function as a critical and creative narrative strategy within a generic context, I adapt the conceptions of theorists such as Roland Barthes, Jean Genette, Gayle Greene, Amie A. Doughty, and Brian Stonehill to an understanding of how metafiction functions in fantasy. "Plotting Change, Imagining Alternatives: Metafiction as Revision in Feminist Fantasy," argues that while thematic or plot-based investigations into feminist fantasy are useful, understanding the way in which generic push-back occurs requires closer attention to the writing strategies which articulate such artistic feats and aesthetic negotiations. This third chapter examines several significant but critically ignored fantasy works which demonstrate how writers of this period signal their departure from generic tradition through key metafictional moments in which a heroine herself invokes text or turns, within her own story, to a text that exists within her own world. Alanna of Trebond in The Song of the Lioness series (1983, 84, 86, 88), Daikin of The Farthest Away Mountain (1976), and Talia in The Heralds of Valdemaar series ("Arrows Trilogy," 1987-88) all experience transformative and liberatory adventures that afford a break with tradition that is drawn along lines of both gender and narrative. Thus, texts occupy a central role in these adventures, providing opportunities to investigate the cultural role they play and the tensions they surface between providing inspiration and motivation on the one hand and limitations that must be overcome on the other. As revisionist quest-narratives which are also deeply internal feminist Bildungsroman, the frequently close relationship between heroine and text in these works is deeply telling; such metafictional moments allow their adventures to advance not only plot or individual story, but a critical conversation about the literary conventions and cultural traditions which condition their representation. In calling attention to the critical work of these metafictional moments, I reveal that the most fruitful feminist fantasy criticism must not be only about plot, but the possibility of plot. Indeed, as these heroines become legends themselves, their narratives not only deconstruct traditional discourses, engaging with the need to re-write tradition, to counter narrative expectation and convention with the creation of new stories; they also more collectively re-mythologize. In creating new stories and new patterns of storytelling, this chapter reveals how these writers do not just expose the cultural power of tradition and myth and critique the representation of women within them, but counter its absences and suppressions with their own mythopoesis. Taken together, such a wealth of significant but critically ignored examples demonstrates how writers employ metafiction as a strategy to enact criticism and imagine alternatives in the fantasy genre, particularly in terms of expanding narrative possibilities for heroines. My fourth chapter, "Convention Undone: UnLunDun's Unchosen Heroine and Narrative (Re)Vision," examines China Miéville's UnLunDun (2007) as a deliberate response to a tradition of fantasy writing, lampooning, in particular, the portal-quest fantasy. Revealing narrative adherence to traditional patterns as false and hollow, and those who trust them uncritically as foolishly naïve, Miéville reminds readers of the importance of innovation, of critical interaction with narrative tradition, and the unfinished nature of both narrative and identity. In a tour-de-force of a self-and-genre-conscious metafictionality, Miéville explores the pit-falls of expectation and the potential which comes from the creation of an alternative narrative--and with it, an alternative heroine in Deeba, whose journey works both with and against the perspective traditions of 'The Book' (a talking tome whose authority proves less than accurate). Ultimately, I argue that Deeba's quest and her transformation into a celebrated, unchosen heroine reveals the degree to which success lies in making the old useful again, and the narrative she reshapes is a vivid illustration of both what it means to revise or reimagine and the necessity of such a critical process. In a world of fragments and the discarded, this book speaks to the genre at large, asking what might be constructed from the inherited baggage of traditional understandings, and what can be done in spite of their limitations and previously established identities or functions. Commonly engaged in the construction of questioning, questing stories, the writers I study have crafted pioneering, uncertain heroines who act out a self-conscious awareness that presses against the genre's limits. As these writers must struggle with the loaded material they wish to weave into new story shapes, so, too, do their fictional creations meditate upon the way in which their journey or character diverges from the expected. These are heroines in the making, heroines whose identities are not fixed easily in text but who must constitute it through an engagement with texts both familiar and new. As books which are also about books, as stories which take story as explicit subject matter, these works feature textual negotiation as a necessary critical process at the level of plot. Moreover, in presenting such metafictions as a critical, questioning comparison to a traditional norm, generic expectation, or narrative inheritance experienced as limited or confining, these works also shed light on the possibility of alternative plots and call special attention to the kinds of artistic and ideological negotiations necessary for such stories to be told in our own realistic worlds as well as in our fantasies. Thus, my dissertation highlights the importance of a writer's impulse to reflect and revise the tradition in which they participate and underscores the creative and critical potential of furthering dialogue between texts and conventions. As my readings demonstrate, the fascination fantasy holds as an enduring art form may well be contingent upon the genre's potential for self-conscious interplay and its protean capacity to refigure narration as a meaningful form of discourse.

This thesis examines how contemporary femme fatales operate under patriarchal notions and expectations of gender and femininity to get away with their crimes. Whereas classic femme fatales were relegated to a tragic fate—either through death, incarceration or other forms of subjugation—contemporary femme fatales now have the narrative possibility of using their sexuality, intellect and agency to get away with their crimes at the expense of the male hero. Breaking with the traditional analysis centering around the femme fatale in her relation to men and male anxieties regarding feminine sexual difference, I propose a queer reading of the contemporary femme fatale that accredits the femme fatale for her active cunning and independence through an examination of her enhanced characteristics which make it possible for her to succeed under the continuous constraints of the patriarchy. The films examined are: The Last Seduction (1994), Gone Girl (2014), Body Heat (1981), Nightmare Alley (2021), Bound (1996) and Basic Instinct (1992). While the popularity of the femme fatale continues, there are still relatively few examples of femme fatales who get away with their crimes as well as a continued lack of scholarship that discusses the intricacies of the femme fatale absent from her theorization as a beacon of male anxieties. However, this project remains hopeful and advocates for a more diverse representation and an in increase scholastic conversation surrounding femme fatales in contemporary cinema.