This thesis discusses the results of a survey given to college women focusing on the various roles women must play, with a focus on their economic aspects.

Using Richmond as a case study, this thesis seeks to answer the following question: what was the effect of the First World War on elite white Richmond women's roles as southern women? This thesis argues that, while white southern women's roles had been changing since the Civil War, it was not until World War I that southern women's traditional roles were challenged by ideas of national patriotism and citizenship. This thesis traces the trajectory of change from the last decades of the nineteenth century, when Richmond women began to join women's organizations and participate more fully in public life, through World War I. This thesis argues that during the war, national organizations that formed chapters in Richmond challenged the predominant ideas about women's public responsibilities, which had focused on their city, state, and region. This war relief work with the Red Cross and governmental programs like Liberty Loan drives encouraged women to work beyond traditional domestic roles and challenged conceptions of southern womanhood. This thesis contends that, while some women adapted more fully to these changes, all Richmond women integrated new ideas about national womanhood into their identities, creating a new southern woman who was both southern and American. / Master of Arts

The premise of this dissertation is that the political literature and rhetoric of the two opposing sides (femininism and anti-femininism) in the struggle over the recognition and advancement of the rights of women in America illuminate the existence of at least two traditions of American political thought and practice. These two traditions are based on distinct epistemological premises about how an object or person is considered to be known. The epistemological categories explicated by F. S. C. Northrop ("concepts by postulation" and "concepts by intuition") and two of the categories of legal and ethical views developed by Northrop ("abstract contractual" and "natural history") provide the framework within which feminist and antifeminist political literature and rhetoric are examined. It is argued that feminism is informed by an abstract contractual legal and ethical view based on a postulational epistemology which considers the truly known individual to be an instance of deductively postulated universal laws. Anti-feminism is argued to be informed by a natural history legal and ethical view based on an intuitional epistemology which considers the truly known individual to be as given by the senses (which are informed in what is directly observed by customs and tradition). The distinct epistemological premises of feminists and anti-feminists and their divergent legal and ethical views are shown to inform and structure their positions on the issues of political authority and political membership, equality of rights before the law, and of the status of woman as a distinct and individual person. It is demonstrated that feminists define women as autonomous individual persons who are, for political and legal purposes, essentially similar to men. Thus, political authority relations, political membership, and rights before the law must recognize the equality, individuality, and autonomy of each person. Anti-feminists are shown to define women by their reproductive difference from men and to argue that men and women are, thus, essentially dissimilar. Woman, by nature, belongs in a family headed by man, which family is the unit of society and polity. Woman's rights and her relation to the polity are directly linked to her nature as mother-wife.

Poems contains fifty-two poems and an afterword that explains some of the ideas that prompted the poems as well as some information about the poetic techniques and allusions. Their primary purpose is to communicate the experiences of a woman living in a patriarchal society, which contemporary American society certainly is. The poems expose how a young woman fits into such a society as a human being and an artist . They stress the need for women writers to play ever-increasing roles in society.

This study discusses diaries by three Mormon women on America's southwestern frontier. These diaries cover a period stretching from 1880-1920. The study explores how these diarists (in a culture that was and remains highly communitarian and which valued, for women, the primary roles of helpmeet and mother), leave the imprint of individual as well as cooperative consciousness in private writings. As authors, diarists display remarkable persistence in maintaining and elaborating on a daily text. Since diaries are a type of private writing engaged in even by women who--because of education, social class, or life circumstances--do little other writing, women's diaries offer significant clues to women's writing strategies and goals. Most study of women's diaries positions these texts as footnotes to history or the literary canon. This study discusses the interplay between persona, tone and style, a diarist's life experience (pioneering, for example) and Mormon expectations for women. Consistently positioning women as helpers in building a millenial kingdom, Mormonism deemphasizes the very act which keeping diaries encourages them to begin: placing the self in a position of (literal) authority. In these diaries, the writers have been able to include or omit what they choose from daily narrative, signaling meaning through shifts in style or tone. As writers, these women function as authorities in their individual and communal lives. Three diaries form the core of this study. The Udall diary is taken from a published version edited by her granddaughter, Maria S. Ellsworth. The Chase diary comes from the University of Utah's archives, from among papers of the diarist's husband, George Ogden Chase. The Willis diary was edited from manuscript and donated for this study by Kim Brown, who supplied photocopies of both her typescript and the original Willis manuscript.

The ideology of motherhood in the United States makes it seem as though motherhood is a natural role for women. The ideology holds mothers solely responsible for the well being of their children. Combined with the ideology of blaming the victim, the ideology of motherhood causes a great deal of guilt in women as mothers cannot possibly live up to the unrealistic expectations set up in the culture. In this study, I have used two case studies to illustrate the impact of the ideology of motherhood on the lives of these particular women. Utilizing the theories of Michel Foucault and Antonio Gramsci, I will show how the ideology is constructed, internalized, and enforced in the United States.

The purpose of this study was to determine if a 5-month progressive-resistance exercise program would affect measures of activities of daily living (ADLs) and functional stability in elderly women. All subjects were ambulatory women, 80 to 93 years old, who lived in assisted-care facilities. Eight exercise and 7 control subjects completed the 5-month study. Exercise subjects participated 3 times weekly in progressive resistance of the lower extremities and upper extremities. ADLs were assessed by the Barthel Index, and functional stability was assessed by timed measures of rising from a chair, walking, and standing, feet together, with eyes open and eyes closed. All subjects were tested at 0, 10, and 20 weeks. Using repeated measures analysis of variance, significant differences were seen only in an overall Group effect (p<.0005). The Eyes Open stance (p=.02) and Walk (p=.01) measures contributed most to this effect. The lack of significance in other analyses may have resulted from low sample size, high variation of scores, initial group differences, or perhaps an ineffective treatment program. / Graduation date: 1997

Families of remarriage constitute a growing number of American families. The spiraling divorce rate of the 1970s was accompanied by a concomitant increase in the number of remarriages. Forty percent of American families today contain at least one spouse that has been previously married, thus studying relationships within families of remarriage is crucial to understanding the experiences of both children and adults in American families. This study uses a life-span perspective to examine the qualitative accounts of 62 women 43 of whom divorced, spent some time as a single parent of at least one child, and remarried and 19 of whom had divorced and did not remarry. Some of those women also had a remarriage end in divorce. Both qualitative and quantitative analysis techniques were used to both explore relationships within families of remarriage, and differences between those women that remarried and those who remained single parents. Quantitative analyses revealed that women who did not remarry were better educated and had more conflict with their former spouse over time. Women who were younger when they became a single parent for the first time, had more children, had jobs rather than careers, and had less education reported more marriages overall. Qualitative analyses showed that particular problem areas in families of remarriage centered around the adjustment period between the children and the new partner, finances, and communication. Remarriages that failed were characterized by problematic relationships between children and their mother's partner. As this was predominantly a white, middle-class sample, generalizations to other populations should be made with caution. Directions for future research are discussed. / Graduation date: 1994

Black women in the United States belong to several demographic groups that are marginalized and devalued by society (Fleming, 1983; Helms, 1979; Hargrove, 1999). Membership in marginalized groups (i.e., race, gender, or class) and feelings about belonging to such groups may have a significant impact on the identity development of Black women and their body image satisfaction (Turner, 1982; Helms & Richardson, 1997). For groups experiencing multiple sources of oppression, multiple factors should be examined while exploring body image satisfaction (Thomas, Witherspoon, & Speight, 2004). This study examines body image and racial body attitudes of Black women through the constructs of racial identity, feminist attitudes, and socio-economic status (SES). Using several sampling methods, the researcher recruited 164 participants from the student population at the University of Texas at Austin and from predominately-Black local churches. Four hierarchical regression procedures assessed the impact of the predictor variables (racial identity, feminist attitudes, and SES) on the outcome variables (body image and racial body image) as they were added to the equation. Results indicated that racial identity was not predicative of body image attitudes; however, racial identity was predictive of racial body image attitudes. Feminist attitudes did not predict body image, but did predict racial body image. SES was divided into two variables--income, and racial diversity composition of high schools attended by participants. Income levels were predictive of neither body image nor racial body image among this sample of Black women. However, the racial diversity composition of high schools attended by these participants did significantly affect racial body image. Additionally, racial diversity of high schools significantly moderated the relationship between racial identity and racial body image. This study suggests that racial identity and racial diversity of environment is predictive of racial body image. Furthermore, racial features are more salient to Black women and may not be captured on the frequently used body image attitudes measures. / text

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