This thesis is an account of women's international work at the League of Nations. While feminists' shift from the national to the international arena has been noted in studies on the inter-war women's movement, most often it has been interpreted as a reflection of the heightened salience of peace work in the aftermath of the First World War. This is an important observation but it overlooks the fact that women's activities at the League embraced the full spectrum of feminist causes: social reform, women's rights and peace. This thesis gives prominence to inter-war feminist activity played against the backdrop of institutional developments at the League which encouraged women to believe their goals could be advanced under its auspices. One of the major goals of the Women's International Organizations was to establish a political role for women in international affairs. The first chapter describes the efforts of women's organizations to secure the representation of women in the League of Nations. Many recently enfranchised women in Europe and North America identified the League as an institution toward which they should direct their newly won political influence. This is assessed in the context of ideas that emerged in the aftermath of the First World War about the transformation of the international sphere through the infusion of female values. The second, third and fourth chapters present a profile of the women's networks operating in and around the League. The study reveals a high level of interaction between the Women's International Organizations and women in official positions at the League. Chapter 2 examines the aims of the Women's International Organizations and exposes tensions between social feminist and equal rights feminist organizations that led to a struggle for influence at the League. The third and fourth chapters assess the impact of gender-stereotyping on patterns of appointments to the League. However much appointments to Assembly delegations and League advisory committees should have carried with them national allegiances, women delegates were often seen to represent women and this both positively and negatively affected women's participation. The remaining chapters assess women's impact on the development of League activities with particular attention to the implications of the idea that women as women had a special contribution to make at the international level. Chapter 5 explores the extent to which the assertion of difference enhanced women's influence with regard to the League's social and humanitarian work in the 1920s and enabled them to have several gender-specific concerns placed on the agenda. The Depression and the rise of reactionary ideologies influenced feminists to call for more decisive League action on the status of women in the 1930s. Most member states of the League, however, did not view the status of women as a subject for international consideration. Chapter 6 looks at the conflict between social and equal rights feminists over what League initiatives would prove most effective for advancing the status of women and traces developments that ultimately led to the League sponsored Inquiry on the Legal Status of Women in 1937. The seventh chapter assesses the impact of traditional associations between women and peace on women's peace activities at the League. Cultural representations of women as peace-loving had political relevance in the context of League activities and the League attempted to bolster support in the 1930s by intensifying collaboration with women. Significantly, the Women's International Organizations responded by asserting that only with equality would women's influence for peace be fully available. The interplay between equality and difference permeated women's international work at every level and the conclusion evaluates the way in which this tension influenced women's participation in and contribution to the activities of the League of Nations.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Toronto, 2004. / Adviser: Jack Miller.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Open University. BLDSC no. DX217762.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2003. / Document formatted into pages; contains viii, 256 p. Includes bibliographical references (p. 247-256). Abstract available online via OhioLINK's ETD Center; full text release delayed at author's request until 2006 Aug. 12.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2005. / Title from first page of PDF file. Document formatted into pages; contains xi, 260 p. Includes bibliographical references (p. 236-260). Available online via OhioLINK's ETD Center.

Thesis (M.A.)--Bowling Green State University, 2006. / Document formatted into pages; contains vi, 99 p. Includes bibliographical references.

Over the past years, particularly during 2018, Chilean society has experienced a robust feminist movement led by high school students. At the same time, mainstream society and researchers claim that Chile is experiencing a youth civic and citizenship education crisis, particularly among young women. I address this apparent contradiction by challenging the futuristic approach in citizenship education taken in the country and exploring how young women are currently politically engaged and challenge gender oppression within their high schools and their activist spaces. I have used a post-human and post-colonial feminist theoretical framework to answer the following research question, How do female public high school students in Chile who identify as feminist or politically active produce their gender/political subjectivities in the 2018 context of contentious feminist politics? And, sub questions; How do they do this while engaging with feminist discourses and practices in and outside of school? How do they do this while engaging with historical narratives? Finally, how do they do this while engaging with formal political education in school? A context of contentious feminist politics will be understood as a context where feminism is prevalent in public discourse, which forces people -in this case students- to take a stance concerning this subject. To answer the research questions, I conducted a critical ethnography, observing classes and other activities at Edelbina González High School, a Chilean all-female public high school with an active group of high school feminists. During my fieldwork, I invited six 12th-grade participants to be my focal group of observation and to take part in individual testimonios interviews and collective art-based testimonios workshops. Through these methods, I produced fieldnotes of observations, transcriptions and audio-recordings of the interviews and workshops, and photographs of the school space and students’ art pieces. I analyzed the data through a three-layer process using thematic coding analysis, narrative structural and content analysis, visual analysis, and “plugging in with theory” analysis (Jackson & Mazzei, 2012). This study engages with lengthy discussion regarding education and reproduction of gender regimes; it explores how oppressive systems transform but remain, particularly in regards to citizenship and formal political education through neoliberal discourses of girl empowerment. It also shows how feminist female high school students communally and creatively respond, theorize, and re-imagine political engagement within these frames, providing insights into what is, and what can be education for democratic citizenship and gender justice. The Feminist students in this study produced themselves as nomadic mestiza bodies engaging with pre-existing political frameworks but at the same time built something more. The students assembled themselves within an antagonistic us/them framework within the Chilean Student Movement, which considers the state and school as adversaries attempting to oppress them. Their high school attempted to reproduce them as feminine, successful, conflict-free neoliberal girls. Regardless, the feminist students displaced both the antagonistic and neoliberal model producing their gender/political subjectivities as nomadic, ever-shifting, vulnerable and strong, and connecting themselves with collective memories and historical narratives. The production of the feminist students’ gender/political subjectivities through “affectivism,” resistance, and political caring rendered the participants as nomadic mestiza bodies, always becoming, collectively connected and empowered by one another to produce political change.

Abstract not available

No description available.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2007. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.