In this qualitative study, five stories of work meaning are explored. Grounded in phenomenology and guided by a constructivist, feminist perspective, its purpose was to describe how mid-life women subjectively understood, interpreted and defined work meaning, after a voluntary transition to work---in either paid or non-paid arenas---which held more personal significance. Following Seidman's (1998) tenets for in-depth phenomenological interviewing, the sessions enabled the women to expand upon the conversational narrative (Kvale, 1984, 1996; Ochs, 1997). The existential dimensions of lived time, lived space, lived body and lived relation provided a systematic structure for developing a thematic textual understanding. Descriptions and interpretations of the women's mosaic and metaphoric accounts were woven together with the researcher's own experience in a narrative structure, revealing everyday, ordinary aspects of work meaning. The analysis uncovered several themes concerning metamorphosis, re-discovery and reclaimed purpose. The results indicated perspectives which coincide with some aspects of both traditional theories of adult development and relational theories of female development. Where they denote a difference is in the centrality of work as a construct that has greater continuing meaning for women's individual psychological development and identity than traditional concepts of mid-life maintenance and decline have allowed. The women in the study did not separate work and enjoyment, and pursued personal meaning and emotional, artistic and intellectual self-fulfillment through work as a way of integrating categories of identity. They were living consciously, activated by an appropriate use of self. By giving voice to this under-represented group, the study makes the work meanings of mid-life women intelligible to educators, career development practitioners and policy makers.

Cultural fragmentation in Postmodern America has led to a destabilization of the political sphere and created a climate of change and possibility, one in which socialist-feminist Donna J. Haraway labours to redefine feminist politics by constructing a borderless and especially, genderless, cyborg subjectivity. "Cyborgs" and "serials" are figures of social and fictional "reality," that, together, reflect the normalizing, hierarchical, and psychologically traumatic aspects of operational Harawayan cyborgology. Chapter 1 explores the practical limits of the hybridity and fluidity characteristic of Harawayan cyborg subjectivity and politics to suggest that processes of political normalization are far less easily dismantled in practice than they are in theory. This discussion focuses on the persistent influence of sex/gender dualism on hierarchical structures in technoculture, a persistence illustrated in science fiction novels by James Tiptree, Jr. and Vonda McIntyre. Chapter 2 looks at how race influences the divergence of feminist agendas by engendering the mutually exclusive, racially influenced perspectives of both Harawayan cyborg politics and radical U.S. feminism. Two science fiction stories by Octavia E. Butler, a black American writer, illustrate the translation of gender hierarchy into racial hierarchy. A sensitivity to this rearticulation of oppression seems to be missing from cyborg politics. Finally, Chapter 3 investigates the psychoanalytic trauma of fragmentation, multiplicity, and fusion through the psychopathology of serial killers in order to question Haraway's emphasis on, what is for her, the "liberating" and "creative" quality of a psychological state that is, for these criminals, the source of psychosis and aggression. This chapter explores what I consider to be the "serial" side of Harawayas "cyborg," in a crime fiction novel by Gordon Lish.

Many women currently occupy the position of high school principal, and the number of studies conducted with women educational administrators has increased to reflect that reality. In the past, women who became school administrators had to have succeeded according to rules that they had no part in making; they were accommodating the demands of administrative roles shaped by men (Young, 1995). Since Young wrote that conclusion in 1995, the landscape has changed, and even more women occupy educational administrative positions. This study attempted to ascertain to what extent and in what ways women are now able to shape administrative roles to suit themselves; in terms of their leadership approach, and their conception of power, and authority. The qualitative study is based on data collected from semi-structured, open-ended interviews with five women high school principals, as well as observations conducted at their work place. The aim of the study was to further our understanding of how they enact their role as the principal of a high school. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

This study of British women writers of the Great War highlights the connections between literature and social history in the first quarter of the twentieth century. An examination of The Tree of Heaven (1917), The Return of the Soldier (1918), The Crowded Street (1924), and Mrs. Dalloway (1925) will reveal the manner in which male and female gender roles were subject to acute interrogation in wartime and post-war British society. Chapter 1 surveys literary and cultural scholarship on the Great War in order to emphasize the failure of gender-specific narratives of social change to address the complex dynamics of gender conflict which characterized the period. Chapter 2 investigates the non-combatant communities of women created through the gender-segregation of the War, revealing that the constructions of feminism in The Tree of Heaven and The Crowded Street are contextualized within their appropriation of military models for female collectivity and interaction. Chapter 3 focuses on the relationships between non-combatant women and shell-shocked veterans in The Return of the Soldier and Mrs. Dalloway, illustrating that the male and female subjects of these texts are constructed in terms of their mutual subjection to the discursive institutions of the State in wartime and post-war society. All four texts provide both Modernism and feminism with a compelling, if contradictory, dimension which needs to be recovered.

Conflicts between seniority and employment equity became evident after the United States adopted laws in the 1960s prohibiting discrimination in employment. Seniority rights sometimes slowed down or prevented the integration of Blacks and women in the workplace; in times of layoffs, they insured that recently-hired employees from these groups were the first to go. This led to innumerable law suits culminating in a series of U.S. Supreme Court decisions in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The potential for similar conflicts is even greater under Canadian anti-discrimination provisions because Canadian laws contain no counterpart of the general seniority exemption which is included in U.S. law. In spite of this, not a single case concerning indirect discrimination by seniority systems has been reported in this country. The few reported cases involving seniority and discrimination dealt with crude questions such as separate seniority units for women and men. The main elements demonstrated in this thesis are: (1) that seniority rules have harmful effects on Canadian women; (2) that these harmful rules constitute unjustified adverse impact discrimination under Canadian law; (3) that laws prohibiting adverse impact discrimination by seniority rules are not enforced in Canada; and (4) that many measures could be taken to reduce the negative impact of seniority systems on women while retaining the beneficial effects of the seniority principle. These points are developed in five chapters. Chapter I provides background information on the nature and coverage of seniority rights, the arguments for and against them and the way in which they are applied. Chapter II assesses the impact of seniority on women to correct its unjust effects on them. Chapter III reviews the legal history of the conflict between seniority and equality rights in the United States. In Chapter IV, we consider whether unmodified seniority rules constitute unjustified adverse impact discrimination under the following Canadian laws: (1) laws on the duty of fair representation of labour unions; (2) human rights acts; and (3) the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. At the end of Chapter IV, and in Chapter V, we describe changes which could be made to correct present injustices. Some, like the adoption of proactive employment equity laws with vigorous sanctions and powerful implementing agencies, aim at correcting the lack of enforcement. Other proposed changes involve a broad range of modifications to seniority systems to reduce or eliminate their negative impact on women, as well as alternatives to seniority-based layoffs. Our conclusion is that if such changes were made, the seniority principle could at last become the essential protector of vulnerable workers it was originally meant to be. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

Abstract Not Available.

Using literature, official documents, interviews, and participant observation, several dimensions of rural women's autonomy in the Tilli area of Ghana's Upper East Region were studied. The three hypotheses tested were: (1) Women have been and remain jural minors. (2) Paradoxically however, they are expected to exercise considerable autonomy in specific areas. Furthermore, they demonstrate a number of individual and collective strategies which enable them to exert their will in other areas in spite of social constraints. (3) The effects of encroaching capitalism on northern women's autonomy have not been uniform. Communities in this area differ considerably from those in southern Ghana, and have been described in the literature as organized along patriarchal, patrilineal, and patrilocal lines. The research demonstrated that, indeed, women were jural minors, although their particular life circumstances were also influenced by factors such as ethnicity, social strata, age, marital status, religion, and individual personality. Certain categories of women--those pregnant or breast-feeding, the handicapped, the elderly, widows and divorcees, ethnic minority women, and women resident in the subvillages--were found to be particularly disadvantaged. Yet women were far from powerless overall, nor were they apathetic or retiring. The findings of the research both enrich the database available to development planners, policy makers, project administrators and service providers, and suggest directions for future research. At the same time, they challenge certain assumptions and generalizations about Ghanaian and African women found in both feminist and development literature.

The Canadian government's Task Force Report on Federally Sentenced Women, Creating Choices (1990), presents a clear mandate for correctional reforms that provide women-centred therapeutic programming to address the issues of women's exploitation and abuse. This shift in correctional policy away from the traditional sexist and neglectful models of previous government reports is the result of a collective effort of women's groups and community services as well as the voices of the prisoners interviewed from across Canada. How have the experiences of federally sentenced women and the principles and strategies of feminist therapy emerging from the shelters for battered women and victims of sexual violence transcended the prison context? This qualitative study of five feminist counsellors in the Prison for Women discusses their analytic frameworks, principles, and strategies for working with federally sentenced women in an institutional setting. An important concern is the impact of the prison setting on the strategies of feminist therapists. As clinically trained professionals who share a feminist ideology, the therapists have created an expert discourse on the impact of childhood sexual and physical abuse upon women's behaviour. The respondents accounts of the lives of federally sentenced women reconstruct their mental health "needs" and justify their behaviour in the context of victimization.

This study explores the political discourse on women in prison and the issue of co-corrections in Canada. Tentative propositions were generated regarding the nature of the official rhetoric, feminist position and female inmates' perspective on the treatment of Canadian female prisoners and the issue of shared services. First, provisional generalizations were developed through a review of the American literature dealing with female imprisonment and co-corrections in the United States. Subsequently, through an analysis of the major Canadian penitentiary reports, official female offender reports, relevant parliamentary debates, and an interview with a group of women in P4W, the generalizations were tested against the Canadian context. An effort has been made to develop a substantive theory of the political discourse on women in prison and the issue of co-corrections in Canada. Generally, the tentative framework generated through the analysis of the American literature and the debates on co-corrections in the United States was validated. Some peculiar Canadian features, however, did prompt a revision of the original 'model'. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

La premiere partie de la these s'interesse aux positions politiques des auteures de notre corpus. Celles-ci ont ete divisees en trois categories, soient feminisme egalitaire, radical et socialiste. Notons que les feministes radicales ont ete sous-divisees en deux categories, les feministes neutralistes et les feministes de la femelleite. Chaque chapitre est divise en trois parties. La premiere vise a donner une idee generale des questions d'interet, revendications et strategies politiques preconisees par les feministes en question. La derniere section s'interesse au lien entre le langage et l'oppression, et donc, a la facon dont le langage participe a l'oppression des femmes. La deuxieme partie s'interesse a la position theorique des feministes. La seconde typologie presente deux categories: les feministes deterministes et les feministes contextualistes. Dans le cas des feministes deterministes, elles sont persuadees que la langue porte en elle une vision sexiste du monde, et que cela contribue a maintenir les femmes dans une position de domination. Les contextualistes le langage voient plutot comme le reflet des rapports de pouvoir entre hommes et femmes. Le langage participe bien a l'oppression des femmes, mais le probleme se situe donc au niveau du discours. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)