Thesis (M.A.)--Rutgers University, 2009. / "Graduate Program in Women's and Gender Studies." Includes bibliographical references (p. 59).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--York University, 1998. Graduate Programme in Psychology. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 157-168). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/yorku/fullcit?pNQ39293.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Queensland, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references.

Title from PDF of title page (University of Missouri--Columbia, viewed on Feb 18, 2010). The entire thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file; a non-technical public abstract appears in the public.pdf file. Thesis advisor: Dr. Paul Bolls. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (B.A.)--Haverford College, Dept. of History, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references.

While focusing on the professional lives of women faculty, little of the scholarship addresses how faculty women mobilize or how and with whom they create networks in order to work in academe. It is the extraordinary dimension of women who collectively act on and in academe and society in which I am interested. Through an exploratory comparative case study, I seek to understand the relationships and activism of faculty women in order to shed light on what women are doing to address issues of equity and discrimination and on how women succeed. I will use semi-structured individual interviews and document and observational analyses from two Research I feminist faculty grassroots organizations to provide a deeper understanding of how particular feminist faculty organize in a climate that is entrenched in the patriarchy. From this study, I hope to show that feminism and activism can have a meaningful place in the academy. Moreover, I hope to provide examples of what academic feminism looks like. Finally, I hope that this study will make significant recommendations for those in higher education to assist in eroding the patriarchal systems embedded in academe.

There is a need for the continued exploration of gender inequities within substance abuse treatment centers that affect service delivery, and recovery among incarcerated African-American women. As a result of incarceration, these populations of African-American women are forced into recovery and are less likely to sustain their abstinence and relapse which increases their risk of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) upon release. This phenomenon of exploration also addressed how these women perceived their susceptibility of risk to HIV and Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) infection. In addition, there are various factors as well as programmatic barriers that existed which pose as barriers to women who seek treatment for substance abuse. Eliason (2006) reported that African-American women have decreased recovery rates in substance abuse treatment due to gender inequities and culturally insensitive interventions. This study explored the factors that contribute to the manner in which African-American women seek and complete substance abuse treatment services as well as address service delivery, relapse, and overall perception of HIV risk among 20 incarcerated African-American women who are were over the age of 18 and self identified as having used an illegal drug such as crack/cocaine, marijuana, methamphetamines, and heroin. Each participant was carefully screened and selected to ensure meeting the criteria for participation in the study. Finally, the significance of the findings is discussed along with the implications for Social Work Policy, Planning, and Administration.

This dissertation examines a series of specific problems affecting England's queens regnant, which arose because of their gender. As queens regnant fulfilled the office of king, we shall refer to them as female kings, and examine their careers within the context of English kingship. The analysis offered here combines gender analysis with political history to explain how female kings were able to perform a male gendered role. The introduction surveys secondary literature concerned with European kingship and queenship, and gender studies of European women, to create an historical context within which to examine female rule in English history. While this dissertation does not include an original study of the career of Elizabeth I (1558-1603), the introduction demonstrates how gender analysis has transformed current understanding of Elizabeth I's efforts to rule a male dominant state, and seeks to apply this methodology to England's other female rulers: the empress Matilda, "Lady of the English" (1141-1148), Mary I (1553-1558), Anne (1702-1714), and Victoria (1837-1901). The main issue tying these various chapters together is the construction of female sovereignty through time. The changing social and legal status of women over the course of English history affected the strategies by which all these women attempted to mitigate social antagonisms and legal restraints to female rule, a historical problem peculiar to England's female kings. In the second chapter, the empress Matilda's efforts to create a singular identity outside the bonds of marriage are identified for the first time, while in the third chapter, Mary I's efforts to create a viable model of female rulership in her anomalous position as a single woman are explored. The fourth chapter examines the marriage of Queen Anne and her husband, Prince George of Denmark, and suggests how precedent and personality contributed to the further evolution of female kingship. The final chapter revisits Queen Victoria's Bedchamber Crisis of 1939, and suggests how gender affected the outcome of a curious and misunderstood political crisis, offering a unique example of the further evolution of female kingship in British political history.

This dissertation places gender at the center of multiple articulations of power that constituted the imperial relationship between Wales and England, as well as the self-fashioning development of Welsh nationalism between 1847 and 1945. Research in both Welsh and English language sources and the materials of Plaid Cymru: the Nationalist Party of Wales reveals that Welsh women, as both ideological symbols and actors, played crucial roles in the formation of Welsh nationalism. This dissertation challenges the notion of a homogenous 'British' identity during the nineteenth century, placing Welsh nationalism firmly within a larger comparative framework of imperial and post-colonial movements, particularly using gender to constituting power relationships between various groups of men. Yet Welsh nationalism differed from other movements in that no major articulation of feminist agendas occurred within the nationalist movement between 1880--1945, particularly within Plaid Cymru. The conservative gender roles disseminated by nationalist groups based itself instead on hegemonic Victorian English gender roles of the early nineteenth century as outlined in the periodical Y Gymraes, syncretically combined with an emphasis on Welsh women as primary communicators and representatives of Welsh culture via their weaving and wearing of flannel and the pointed Welsh hat. Both practices sprang from nationalist fervor of Lady Llanover, often dismissed as a dilettante. These themes dominated nationalist publications and party doctrine until 1945, despite women's contributions of labor and financial support that kept Plaid Cymru viable during its formative decades.

This study offers a feminist reading of Katherine Anne Porter's Miranda stories and includes in its discussion "Old Morality," "Pale Horse, Pale Rider," and the stories of The Old Order as well as the "implicit" Miranda stories "Flowering Judas" and "Holiday." Focusing on questions of gender politics, the study traces the ways the representatives of patriarchal culture within Porter's texts attempt to circumscribe Miranda in traditional gender roles and examines the extent to which Miranda succeeds in asserting her independence. Central to the analysis is the argument that gender politics do not rely on methods of subjection and repression but instead employ strategies of subversion to effect Miranda's self-subjugation to and self-containment within the social order. The theoretical basis for this argument lies in the discourse theory of Mikhail Bakhtin and Michel Foucault's concept of power. Following Miranda's life chronologically, the study explores its main stages: her upbringing in the confining context of the family, which attempts to insert her into the prevailing sexual economy and traditional gender roles; her flight into the world and into a life of social and intellectual independence but also sexual self-abnegation; her escape from language into silence as a result of her marginalization; and her subsequent return to the world as a more assertive woman.