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Genital Sensation sets out to review the practice of "cunt art" as a diverse range of feminist performative works that represent the female genitalia and questions whether vulvar works can disrupt the phallocentric models of exclusion, absence and lack. Working from a poststructuralist perspective and drawing on notions of the feminist nomad and transdisciplinarity as a related methodology (Braidotti, 1994), this project assembles the criticisms and politics involved in this explicit display of the female body. Bringing some of the most potent and commonly disputed issues in feminist debate to the forefront, this study tackles the controversies which surround the use of the female body in performance art. Using a framework of performativity and embodied interpretative exchange, via Schneider (1996 also Grosz, 1994), to refuse the distance of disembodied viewing, via Jones (1998 1999), this project investigates the performance of sex, difference, cultural assumptions and iconoclasm through feminist employment of this explicitly marked body. This text, divided into investigations of the disruptive body, considers the cultural iconoclasm of cunt art and phallocentric exclusion of women via the work of Irigaray (1996) and Braidotti the artistic iconoclasm and pornographic alignment of cunt art through Nead (1997) and McNair (1996) and the feminist iconoclasm of cunt art, in addition to the abrasive and subversive possibilities constituent within a practice that challenges the invisibility of the vulva and notions of the forbidden. This project proposes the female body as "political fiction" that reflects particular cultural values and considers ideas of feminist re-reading and feminist writing through Irigaray and Cixous (1983). Ultimately the recurrent focuses of this study are difference and female subjectivity that revolve around disrupting notions of lack or absence through the personal and political agency affected by these works.

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My PhD research explores the role of men's subjective accounts of interactions with the women they date, especially with reference to whether they experience women to have power in dating relationships. It comprises a qualitative analysis of the responses gained from semi-structured interviews conducted with 20 British men and 10 Pick Up Artists (men who attended classes to learn how to increase their confidence when dating women) all aged 21-40. Current debates around gendered power are largely focused on female subjectivities, and are core to political and theoretical differences between second and third-wave/post-feminisms. I argue that in order to understand the workings of (heterosexual) gendered power relations, we must pay attention not only to issues of structural power but also to men's perceptions of the lived experiences of such relationships. At a time of increased uncertainty about gendered identity and increased pressure to see the ‘self' as a project, such perceptions may be both very varied and at variance with accepted structural analyses of gendered power. Following three introductory chapters in which I trace the debates around masculinity and a contemporary social order focused on risk and individuality, I analyse the interviewees' responses in order to explore how the men position themselves within the gender and dating discourses that are available to them. The effects of what Ulrich Beck described as ‘individualism' and the use of ‘constructed certitude' are explored, as is how the men deal with conflicting ideas borne out of living in an age when ideals from both hegemonic and inclusive masculinities co-exist. Whether men acknowledge their own insecurities or whether they focus on perceived external triggers, such as female culpability, and whether men respond to insecurities by focusing on an active process of overcoming them (thus remaining inside hegemonic ideas), is also a focus. Subject areas explored include the role of homosocial behaviour in dating, the gendered dating process, the power of female beauty, men's bodily anxieties, media representations of dating, men's body image, unwanted pregnancies and female aggression. I conclude that we cannot dismiss men's perceptions of female power in dating as mistaken, as has been argued. If men's realities include such perceptions, then their un/willingness to relinquish 'more' power needs to be understood if equality between the sexes is to be increased.

This thesis examines the particular sphere of gender equality working in UK local government in relation to feminist ideas and activism. In doing so it addresses questions about the nature and legacy of the Women's Liberation Movement (WLM), as well as how we should understand those engaged with feminist issues but organised in apparently non-traditional ways and locations. It also considers the significance of national legislation in shaping how this area of work has developed, with reference to the most recent Equality Acts. Taking as my starting point classic debates about organising for social change within the WLM, I undertook a qualitative comparative analysis of local government gender equality working. This examined three councils during the period in which they first created municipal feminist women's initiatives, and the present day. To do this I undertook interviews with those working during both time periods, and gathered contemporary and archival texts relating to the councils' work on gender equality. I suggest that the council gender equality initiatives, and those working within them, present an interesting way to complicate several boundaries; those usually defining the feminist movement and its organising; social movements in relation to the state; and feminist activity in relation to professionalism. I argue for the significance of the municipal feminist initiatives for present day work on gender equality, particularly in terms of their organisational position and form. I explore the utility of, and problems with, recent legislative developments in relation to gender equality, suggesting they have played an important role in standardising the work that takes place. I also examine the processes through which the concepts and practices of local government gender equality working have developed. In doing so I argue for the non-linear way this takes place and the importance of individual workers in shaping this arena. Finally, I present the idea of the ‘professional feminist' as a way to understand the workers who identify as feminists. This challenges the terms of the early WLM but does so through drawing out and reconciling professionalism with feminist ideas.

This doctoral thesis is the first comprehensive, feminist, qualitative study to take a cross-class and cross-generational perspective in exploring women's experiences of gender, contraception and sexuality, as manifested in their narratives about real life and contraceptive advertisements, in post-independence Bangladesh. The existing scholarship on Bangladesh in the areas of gender, sexualities and contraception (see for instance, Caldwell et al., 1998; Cash et al., 2001; Karim, 2012; 2014; Khan et al., 2002; Rashid and Michaud, 2000; Rashid, 2000; 2006a; 2006b) remains largely restricted to providing a cross-class and cross-generational analysis. In fact there is no study that has focused on the experiences of sexuality in the upper class in Bangladesh. Despite their limited focus on the social classes and generations, the studies generalise and conclude that a highly gendered ‘sexually suppressed culture' (Karim, 2012:40) exists in Bangladesh. Moreover, feminist media studies in Bangladesh (Ahmed, 2002; Ahmed, 2009; Begum, 2008; Gayen, 2002; Guhathakurota, 2002; Nasreen, 2002:95; Parveen, 2002) have repeatedly questioned the gendered stereotypes re/produced by the media (including advertisements) but without considering the context of production and/or audience reception of such representations. In contrast, my thesis, studying forty years (from 1971 to 2011) analyses interviews with women (across three social classes and generations) and a corpus of 166 contraceptive advertisements; it also takes into account the production issues. Women's interpretations of these advertisements with regard to their ‘lived realities' in the heteronormative sexual structure of Bangladesh, provide nuanced insights to supplement the existing literatures on gender, media, contraception and sexuality studies. The thesis concludes: women are not entirely powerless in their sexual encounters, rather, the power balance shifts based on women's various identities and the multiple determinants which shape their everyday lives. However, the ‘representation' through contraceptive advertisements operates through a patriarchal ‘circuit of culture' (Du Gay et al., 1997), which only presents a circumscribed ‘reality' and offers a predominantly gendered construction of idealised femininity, masculinity and heteronormative sexuality.

This thesis explores online practices of women in Québec, a culturally and historically distinct province in Canada that is undergoing rapid social and technological transformations, and analyses the discourses that emerge. It zeroes in on blogging, as a facilitator for exploring, constructing and challenging gendered identities. It draws on and contributes to a growing body of literature that investigates and legitimises women's online writings, an area that remains under analysed. This online ethnography was accomplished through face-to-face interviews with 23 Frenchspeaking women bloggers, home visits and an analysis of their blogs. Using feminist critical discourse analysis, the thesis analyses how informants locate themselves inside and outside traditional and mainstream discourses of femininities. It first explores how participants discuss their blogs using domestic metaphors, thereby linking their online expressions to ideas and ideals of the home. Second, it reveals how bloggers share a common concern with putting forward a favourable self, emphasising personal qualities such as education, respect, affability, and impressive online networks. Third, it analyses self-improvement narratives in participants' interviews and blog entries, examining recurring discussions of personality, values and views; body size and image; emotional and mental health; and professional and homemaking skills. The last chapter underlines how blogging provides women with opportunities for networking, a place to discuss challenges and with a means to claim time for themselves. The thesis draws out the complex engagements in an activity they find pleasurable despite working within mainstream gender role constraints and still facing a digital divide. In both discourse and practice, participants seem at ease with blogging but remain highly influenced by traditional discourses. This gives rise to a sense of contradiction where they feel like they exist, have a public life and make a contribution but also exhibit a sense of compulsion and regulation. They break out of the limits of normative femininities perhaps – at the same time creating new 'women's worlds' – even as the use of blogging reinstates and produces conservative forms of self-management.