No abstract available. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, Durban, 1996.

This dissertation explores the regulation of abortion in Canada following the landmark R v Morgentaler decision (1988), which struck down Canada’s existing abortion law, causing the procedure’s subsequent reclassification as a healthcare issue. The resulting fragility of abortion rights is still evident in the varying provincial regulations governing the nature of access to the procedure. While access has been accepted as the new terrain of abortion rights, research into this area to date has taken a largely national focus, surveying provincial barriers and compiling lists of potential motivations for differences in service. This dissertation builds on this work through the use of specific case studies of provinces representative of a spectrum of access in Canada – New Brunswick, Ontario, and Quebec. Through the use of original interview data, these cases are compared and contrasted on previously enumerated grounds believed to have an influence on the treatment of abortion. By isolating the impact of specific processes responsible for the regulation of abortion, through research into its treatment in politics, law, medicine, and public discourse, this study endeavours to offer a more nuanced explanation for varying levels of provincial access to abortion services. Ultimately it finds that a province’s social climate, characterized by attitudes towards the ongoing rights versus morality debate championed by pro- and anti-choice social movements, has had the greatest impact in shaping public perceptions of the procedure. These attitudes in turn have a profound effect on the nature of provincial access. Using a citizenship framework grounded in social reproduction, which understands anti-abortion politics as elements of backlash against progressive advances in women’s citizenship, this dissertation argues for the need to understand abortion as a right of women’s citizenship to address the precarious treatment of abortion services. Recognition of women’s unique reproductive abilities through a citizenship paradigm is necessary before women can hope to achieve equality. Only when abortion is entrenched as a right of citizenship and this understanding of the procedure is embedded in social perceptions, can women not only be treated as equal citizens, but also understand themselves to be equal citizens. / Thesis (Ph.D, Political Studies) -- Queen's University, 2012-11-22 11:41:49.524

This study develops three models of human rights determinants with the inclusion an untested variable, women in parliaments. The research is conducted on pooled cross-sectional time-series data from 130 countries between 1978 and 1996. For the purpose of analysis the Prais-Winsten Regression method with Panel Corrected Standard Errors was used. The women in power variable is hypothesized to be significantly, positively correlated with a state's propensity toward respect for human rights and is operationalized as percentage of women in parliaments. Three models incorporating as control variables previously identified correlates of human rights abuse were utilized to asses the impact of percentages of women in parliaments on two individual subsets of human rights: personal integrity rights and socio-economic rights. Two models were designed to measure the subset of rights categorized as personal integrity rights using two separate measures: State Department Scores and Amnesty International Scores. Model number three utilized the Physical Quality of Life Index to measure levels of socio-economic rights. Statistical significance was demonstrated by the women in parliament variable in all three models.

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal.

M.Comm. / The main purpose of this study is an evaluation and empirical analysis of the economical, social and political role of women in a South African context. The subject is a widely discussed topic both internationally and in South Africa. The increasing importance of women in the social, political and economic arena is being realized and taken as a given part of development in any country. Within the social structure of an economy, the importance of the education system cannot be over emphasized. Opportunities for women in this aspect has increased rapidly over the past two decades, but a significant gap still exists between men and women. The connection between poverty and education is discussed, and it is found that there is a definite correlation. The higher the level of education, the lower the level of poverty. The supply of adequate health services are also a problem in most countries, including South Africa. Important aspects such as abortions and violence against women are also under discussion. The political arena is most probably the area where women is the least represented. Opportunities are scarce and the political scene is still one of male dominance. However, South Africa is definitely seen as one of the leaders in developing counties in opening doors for women in obtaining seats in regional 'councils and parliament. Concerning women's economic role, women earn far less than men for similar type of work done, and men are usually placed in more challenging positions. The distribution of income worldwide as well as in South Africa is still not evenly spread

This thesis employs the most recent and best available data on human trafficking, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime’s Trafficking in Persons Global Report 2006, as well as nine independent variables to determine what their effects are on countries’ volumes of human trafficking outflows. By completing a cross-sectional analysis via an OLS regression, I found statistically significant support for three factors that I hypothesize lead to greater outflows of human trafficking. My findings suggest that countries that are less corrupt, have more seats in parliament held by women, and score higher on Cho, Dreher, and Neumayer’s Anti-Trafficking Policy Index are less likely to experience high outflows of human trafficking. Additionally, while they narrowly avoid statistical significance, this study also suggests that states that have a legal stance on prostitution and have fewer women employed in the non-agricultural sector experience less human trafficking outflows.

Since the transitions to democracy in Latin America, women in the region have undergone major changes in their roles in society. From traditionally only present in the home to participating in collective action efforts, and finally participating at increasing numbers in governments, women have made incredible strides in the Latin American region. Latin American countries have successfully advocated for the inclusion of women in government, but few studies in academia focus on determining whether their inclusion has made a difference in government processes or in society. Borrowing from the literature positing that women are behaviorally different from men as well as their identification with motherhood and as wives in their collective action efforts in Latin America, I argue that women have different concerns from men both outside and inside of the public sphere and therefore make a difference in government with regards to policy priorities and government budget allocations. Studying 18 Latin American countries, I find that there is a gender gap in public opinion, which demonstrates that women are more concerned with social welfare matters than men. I also find that female concerns are carried into their behavior once in government as observed by female legislators’ heightened support for social welfare policies. Furthermore, I find that women in legislatures affect government behavior differently from their male counterparts as observed with female legislators’ positive effects on the allocation of the budget towards social welfare areas.

Thesis advisor: Patrick Maney / Among American First Ladies, one presidential wife in particular consistently ranks among one of the most influential women to hold the office. Eleanor Roosevelt’s precedent-setting tenure in the White House established a lasting legacy that influenced many of the women who followed her. Two of these First Ladies, Betty Ford and Rosalynn Carter, are often overlooked in comparative studies of Eleanor Roosevelt with other presidential wives. Scholars typically highlight Hillary Rodham Clinton or Lady Bird Johnson, neglecting the First Ladyships of Ford and Carter. These two women, however, both pointed to Eleanor Roosevelt as an inspiration for their approach to the office. Both Betty Ford and Rosalynn Carter incorporated three main components of Eleanor Roosevelt’s impressive legacy into their tenures as First Lady of the United States: an ever-expanding public role, increased independence, and launching initiatives concerned with social welfare to improve the lives of their fellow Americans. All of these actions can be traced back to Roosevelt’s innovative First Ladyship and their appearance in the successive Ford and Carter administrations highlight the interconnectedness of all three First Ladies and their considerable impact on their country both during and after their time in the White House. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2012. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: College Honors Program. / Discipline: History.

This thesis examines the visual representations of elite women, who wielded and were seen to transgress, gendered political roles through their activity in the elite socio-political spheres of eighteenth-century and early nineteenth-century Britain. In analysing the portraits and satirical prints of this select breed of women, this study questions the common bifurcation of gender debates in existing secondary literature, which include, but are not limited to, the porosity of traditionally conceived public and private spheres, contested masculine and feminine identities, and the gendering of morals and vices. The study will explore how predominantly male artists represented these women alongside an examination of how elite women were able to manipulate and choreograph their own portrayal. As such, it will probe how these political women utilised portraiture as a crucial means of self-fashioning; and likewise how their satirical representation was routinely subjugated to the male gaze. In doing so, it will reveal the varieties, vagaries and subtleties of the political power held by women and how this could be iterated, celebrated, or criticised in the visual culture of late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth century Britain. Four case studies form this examination. The first, argues that three women from Rockingham-Whig social networks, Lady Elizabeth Melbourne, Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, and Hon. Anne Damer, used portraiture as a form of self-fashioning to both celebrate their friendship and declare their burgeoning political agency. Chapter two revisits the 1784 Westminster election, to probe the theme of rivalry in satirical prints representing female canvassers. It argues that the visual vocabulary expressed in such prints pertains to wider cultural debates concerning class and gender that crucially came to a head during this political event. The third chapter introduces the dialogues between portraiture and satirical prints through its examination of the visual media that politicised Scottish Pittite hostess, Jane, Duchess of Gordon. Whilst the duchess used painted portraiture to proclaim her adherence to culturally-inscribed gender roles, satirical prints attacked her for her perceived political access, acquired through her daughters’ marriages and through her close proximity with prominent members of the Pittite government. The thesis concludes with a study of arguably the most political woman in the period of study: Queen Charlotte, consort of George III. This chapter revisits her reputation, arguing that a close examination of visual culture reveals that the queen, long thought to be an uncontroversial figure, became deeply problematic after the king’s bout with ‘madness’. In seeking to connect the visual aspects of women’s political engagement, this thesis expands on previous work in gender, social, cultural, and art histories such as those by Elaine Chalus, Cindy McCreery, Marcia Pointon, and Kate Retford to further our understanding of women’s political activity and eighteenth-century visual culture.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-25T20:23:07Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 JACILEIA CADETE ABREU.pdf: 1176734 bytes, checksum: 26832f7ca152edbb09df390d43d4e166 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010-05-25 / Fundação Ford / This paper focuses on the women experiences working in partisan politics in São Luís do Maranhão. Through their narratives, we sought to understand and point out the strategies and capital used by them to step into and remain in the political space, which has traditionally been occupied mostly by men. The empirical field of research is the space of political action of a women s group in the city of São Luis in the years 2000-2004 and 2004-2008, periods decisively marked by moves that highlight the strengthening of the women s rights for political participation after decades of closures and silences of greater female participation in political spheres. The theoretical framework employed in this research lies in the concepts of social capital, trajectories, strategies, and habitus developed during the work of French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. This contribution allowed the development of research enabling the mapping of movement of the parliamentary investigated in their inclusion in political spaces, without losing sight of the plots prepared for them to manage the public and private lives. Life story provided the information necessary to understand the strategies used by these women in their political trajectories that are sheltered by specific social field. Thus, we used unstructured interviews as a procedure for data collection. The achievement of this work allowed understand, among others things, that in the case of investigated women, their insertion into the world of partisan politics occur because a number of reasons, among them, generally by parts of the male figures (husbands, parents or in-laws, etc.) that lead them to the political activity; another important finding is that the work indicated that the investigated people perceive politics as a "mission", as a place of generosity, solidarity, as a ministry, thus removing the representation of politics as an area par excellence of political vacation / Este trabalho focaliza as vivências de mulheres que atuam na política partidária em São Luís do Maranhão. Por meio das narrativas dessas mulheres, buscou-se perceber e apontar as estratégias e os capitais utilizados por elas para adentrarem e se manterem no espaço político que, tradicionalmente, é ocupado em sua maioria por homens. O campo empírico da pesquisa é os espaços de atuação política de um conjunto de mulheres na cidade de São Luís, nos anos de 2000 a 2004 e de 2004 a 2008, períodos decisivamente marcados por movimentos que evidenciam o fortalecimento dos direitos de participação política da mulher, após décadas de silenciamentos e interdições de maior participação feminina nos espaços políticos. O referencial teórico empregado nesta pesquisa se encontra nos conceitos de capital social, trajetórias, estratégias e habitus desenvolvidos ao longo da obra do sociólogo francês Pierre Bourdieu. Esse aporte conceitual permitiu o desenvolvimento da pesquisa possibilitando o mapeamento do movimento das parlamentares investigadas em sua inserção nos espaços políticos, sem perder de vista as articulações elaboradas por elas para administrarem a vida pública e a privada. A história de vida forneceu os elementos necessários para apreender as estratégias utilizadas por essas mulheres em suas trajetórias políticas que são abrigadas por campo social específico. Desta forma, utilizou-se de entrevistas não estruturadas como procedimento para coleta de dados. A consecução deste trabalho permitiu constatar, entre outros, que no caso das mulheres investigadas, suas inserções no mundo da política partidária se dão por uma série de razões, entre estas, geralmente, por partes de figuras masculinas (maridos, pais ou cunhados, etc.) que as encaminham para a atividade política. Outra constatação importante é que o trabalho apontou que as investigadas percebem a política como uma missão , como espaço de generosidade, solidariedade, como um apostolado, afastando, assim, da representação da política como um espaço por excelência da vocação política