Kam Yip Lo Lucetta. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 201-207). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Chapter ONE --- INTRODUCTION: THE GENDERS THAT HAVE NO NAMES --- p.1 / After the Title: Some Linguistic Troubles --- p.2 / Who are masculine women? --- p.4 / Research Areas --- p.5 / Methodology --- p.6 / Informants --- p.11 / Relations: Informants and the Researcher --- p.18 / Chapter TWO --- LITERATURE REVIEW --- p.21 / Overview --- p.22 / Ethnographic Studies --- p.27 / Queer Studies --- p.30 / Chinese Gender Studies --- p.36 / Living Genders in Contexts --- p.39 / Chapter THREE --- THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK --- p.41 / The Sex/Gender Framework --- p.43 / The Destabilization of Sex --- p.47 / The Gender Which is Performative --- p.51 / The Identity Forever in Motion --- p.56 / After the Earthquake: Birth at the Rupture --- p.62 / Chapter FOUR --- GENDER DISCOURSES IN HONG KONG --- p.65 / The Cultural Superiority of Masculinity --- p.71 / Tomboy as a Phase Before Mature Femininity --- p.74 / The Degenderization of Ageing Women --- p.75 / Masculine women are lesbians --- p.78 / Defeminization as a Protective Strategy Against Male Sexual Assault --- p.80 / Women with a plain and practical dressing style are the capable work type --- p.83 / Masculine women are easy-going and can be buddies to both sexes --- p.85 / Failed Adulthood --- p.86 / Failed Womanhood --- p.86 / Women dress and behave like men are pathological beings --- p.88 / Women dress and behave like men want to be men and be a rival to men --- p.89 / Negotiations in the Media --- p.90 / Chapter FIVE --- TACKLING LABELS： PUBLIC NAMES AND SELF RECOGNITIONS --- p.99 / The Public Labels --- p.100 / Self Recognitions --- p.108 / Chapter SIX --- ACCOMMODATING MASCULINITIES： NEGOTIATIONS IN FAMILY AND THE PUBLIC --- p.119 / Family --- p.120 / Public Mis-recognition --- p.148 / Chapter SEVEN --- ACCOMMODATING MASCULINITIES: NEGOTIATIONS IN LOVE AND SOCIAL NETWORKS --- p.162 / Courting Relationship --- p.162 / Social Networks --- p.169 / Chapter EIGHT --- RECOGNITIONS THROUGH MIS-RECONGTION --- p.191 / The Engendering Process --- p.192 / Theory and Living Practices --- p.194 / The Mere Facts of Mis-recognition --- p.197 / New Significations of Masculinity --- p.198 / Bibliography --- p.201 / Appendix 1: Profile of the Researcher --- p.208 / Appendix 2: Negotiating Gender: An On-going Dialogue Between Selves --- p.211

The emergence of higher education opportunities in rural areas of Mexico such as throughout the state of Oaxaca has opened new opportunities for young women's professional development and new individual and community identities. I explore tensions between the collective imaginary of rural Mexico and rural women's emerging sense of independence and self-determination in light of higher education's expanding opportunities. Educational opportunities lead to community formation around commonality of experience in addition to ascribed community relationships and roles. I situate this analysis within the context of the Universidad Tecnológica de los Valles Centrales de Oaxaca (UT), a small university in San Pablo Huixtepec, Oaxaca, Mexico. Through interviews and participant observation, I answer the following questions: (1) How is rural women's identity produced through policy, geography, and social influences? (2) In what ways do college women experience change in terms of family relationships and professional trajectories? and (3) How do changes in rural women's collective identity through professional development contribute to social movements for gender equality? This thesis provides a broader examination of the implications of shifts in family trajectory for belonging and women's identity in Mexico, contributing to larger discussions regarding higher education in rural areas, women's experiences and interactions within institutions, and women's collectives as venues for societal transformation. In conclusion, I offer recommendations for educational policy that supports women's identity development, promotes gender equality, and encourages women's leadership.

The purpose of the study is to explore the life experiences, identities, and self-esteem of a group of Mexican women who attend Even Start, a family literacy program. The study also focuses on the effect that the program has on the women's self-identities. I chose qualitative research considering I was interested in their phenomenological experience. In order to gather data I interviewed ten women, conducted a focus group with the women who were not interviewed, and did participant observation while the women were in class. The Mexican women I interviewed came to this country hoping to improve their socioeconomic status. Most of them had relatives in the US and the support that they gave them made it easier for them to come and get established. As a result of being away from their people and their culture, they had a hard time, particularly at the beginning. Their illegal status and the fact that they didn't speak English complicated things even more. In spite of the many difficulties they had to face, their experiences in this country have allowed them to improve their socioeconomic situation and to achieve greater levels of independence. In regards to their self-esteem, most of my informants have positive self-images. The few that have lower levels of self-esteem were often mistreated by caregivers and their families were dysfunctional in some way. Even though a few have lower levels of self-esteem, all my informants felt loved by their parents and other family members. Because of this and because they were raised in social environments that fostered interdependence, my informants have generally developed into responsible and reliable people who work towards their goals. Their identities mirror their society and in particular their social network. At the core of 'who they are' are traits of the identities of caregivers that through active choices (Blumstein 1991) they came to internalize. Even Start plays a crucial role in their self-identities for two main reasons. First, in the program the women are taught English which is the basic tool they need in order to communicate and move around in this country. Second, the women are around people from their country. By feeling they belong to a larger community, the women feel supported and find strategies to cope with their reality. At the same time, being around other Mexicans strengthens their Hispanic identity. The following are recommendations that could be used by Even Start to enhance the women's self-esteem. (1) Incorporate more one-on-one activities to enable students to learn at their own pace and to help participants with special needs to work without feeling a sense of pressure. (2) Provide the women with the opportunity to improve their literacy skills in Spanish and to strengthen their knowledge in basic areas. (3) Include activities that would allow the participants to release stress and thus to improve their ability to concentrate. (4) Provide the students with skills that will enable them to find jobs or get promoted. Although the literature on self-identities was useful to conducting this research, the fact that scholars have approached the topic mainly from an intellectual perspective has resulted in an understanding of the self often disconnected from reality. Among the main contributions of this research is the realization that adult experiences such as migration and participation in a literacy program play a crucial role in people's self-esteem and identities. / Graduation date: 2004

Not available / text

Thesis (M.A.)--Baylor University, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 73-79).

Women's magazines are popular cultural forms which offer readers representations intended to advise women on how to work towards and achieve idealised femininities. They perform such a function within the wider socio-historical context of gender relations. In a country such as South Africa, where patriarchal gender relations have historically been structured to favour men over women and masculinity over femininity, the representation of femininity in contemporary women's magazines may serve to reinforce or challenge these existent unequal gender relations. Informed by a feminist poststructuralist understanding of the gendered positioning of subjects through discourse, this study is a textual analysis that investigates the subject positions or possible identities offered to readers of Destiny, a South African business and lifestyle women's magazine. Black women, who make up the majority of Destiny's readership, have historically been excluded from the formal economy. In light of such a background, Destiny offers black women readers, through its representations of well-known business women, possible identities to take up within the white male dominated field of business practice. The magazine also offers 'lifestyle content', which suggests to readers possible ways of being in other areas of social life. Through a method of critical discourse analysis, this study critically analyses the subject positions offered to readers of Destiny, in order to determine to what extent the magazine's representations of business women endorse or confront unequal gender relations. The findings of this study are that Destiny offers women complex subject positions which simultaneously challenge and reassert patriarchy. While offering readers positions from which to challenge race based gender discrimination – a legacy of the apartheid past – the texts analysed tend to neglect non-racially motivated gender prejudice. It is concluded that although not comprehensively challenging unequal gender relations, the magazine whittles away some tenets of patriarchy.

A presente dissertação tem como objetivo geral detectar e analisar a construção de uma nova identidade psicossocial e ético-religiosa feminina, através da vivência e das representações que a universitária católica recifense faz sobre as orientações do magistério da Igreja Católica concernentes à mulher diante os desafios do mundo contemporâneo. O trabalho visa resgatar as principais orientações da Igreja sobre mulher depois do Concílio Vaticano II, levantar dados sobre a realidade da mulher brasileira nos campos de corporeidade, sexualidade e saúde reprodutiva e confrontar o magistério da Igreja com a espiritualidade vivenciada pela mulher ante os desafios que enfrenta hoje. A hermenêutica de gênero é usada como instrumento de interpretação na análise do magistério da Igreja e dos resultados da pesquisa. As duas instituições de ensino superior (IES) de orientação religiosa católica, a Universidade Católica de Pernambuco (CATÒLICA) e a Faculdade Frassinetti de Recife (FAFIRE), participantes da pesquisa de campo, colaboraram na verificação, junto às suas alunas católicas, da construção da sua identidade psicossocial e ético-religiosa e da vivência da sua espiritualidade feminina. Como parte da metodologia, foi realizada uma pesquisa de campo com a aplicação de um questionário fechado de 31 questões a uma amostra aleatória de um total de 178 universitárias, das duas IES. Houve análises quantitativa e qualitativa de dados, com a proposta de posterior transferência de resultados às IES e outras instituições/conselhos interessados no tema. Os resultados demonstram os elementos constitutivos da nova identidade da universitária católica recifense nos aspectos psicológico, social, ético-religioso e cultural no enfrentamento de desafios contemporâneos diante do Magistério da Igreja Católica podem contribuir para estimular a reflexão sobre possíveis estratégias integradoras da vivência da nova identidade psicossocial e ético-religiosa feminina na mesma. / The principal objective of this dissertation is to detect and analyse the construction of a new psicological, social and ethicalreligious identity of the female catholic university student in Recife. By means of her life style and conceptual representations, she evidences a confrontation between the Catholic Churchs magistery and the challenges she faces in todays world. This academic work proposes to indicate the Catholic Churchs principal orientations about women elaborated since Vatican Council II, to identify problemas faced by women referring to corporality, sexuality and reproductive health and to confront the Churchs teachings with the living spirituality of the women as they face challenges in the modern world. Gender hermeneutics is used as the interpretative instrument of analysis of the Churchs magistery and the results of the reseach. A characterization of the two Institutions of Superior Education, the Catholic University of Pernambuco (CATÒLICA) and the Frassinetti College of Recife (FAFIRE), where the survey was conducted, has been elaborated, as well as the verification of the catholic female students construction of their new psychological, social and ethical-religious identity, and the day by day living of their feminine spirituality. The methodology of the research involves a field survey of 178 catholic women, from the two educational institutions, by means of a questionnaire with 31 closed questions. The conclusions are a result of quantitative and qualitative analyses, which will later be socialized with the educational institutions and other institutions and councils interested in this theme. The results of the research are the identification of the psycological, social, ethical, religious and cultural elements constituting the new identity of the female catholic university student in Recife as she faces contemporary challenges in her relation with the Catholic Church magistery. It is hoped that these results will contribute to a reflection about possible integrative educational and pastoral strategies to help catholic women live their new identity in this complex world.

A revolução tecnológica e os movimentos feministas ocorridos durante o século XX, somados ao fenômeno da globalização do início do século XXI, resultam na alteração da identidade dos indivíduos e a ressignificação de seus espaços de habitar, especialmente, no que diz respeito à condição a que estiveram submetidas as mulheres, sob a égide da dominação masculina. Este trabalho investiga como ocorrem as formas de representação dos espaços de habitar ficcionais em suas dimensões regionais, naturais e domésticas e a condição da identidade feminina, na literatura de escrita feminina contemporânea, tendo como objeto de estudo a obra literária A audácia dessa mulher (1999), de Ana Maria Machado. A partir de uma abordagem culturalista, utilizamos os conceitos de subjetividade dos espaços ficcionais, além de aspectos da filosofia fenomenológica e da geografia humanista, bem como pressupostos da crítica literária feminista, estabelecendo relações com o contexto sócio-histórico representado no romance, examinando como as personagens femininas e seus respectivos espaços de habitar se relacionam. Também verificamos como cada espaço se constrói a partir de determinada condição histórica, social e cultural, culminando na constituição de ambientes simbólicos ricos em significações, a partir das identidades impostas e/ou assumidas, dependendo da época de existência das personagens, cada uma em seus momentos específicos de vivência. / Submitted by Ana Guimarães Pereira (agpereir@ucs.br) on 2016-11-23T15:49:58Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao Ana Lucia de Salles.pdf: 1055119 bytes, checksum: cc5656f36168cee54005a491286bf756 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-11-23T15:49:58Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao Ana Lucia de Salles.pdf: 1055119 bytes, checksum: cc5656f36168cee54005a491286bf756 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-11-23 / The technological revolution and the feminist movements that happened during the 20th century, added up to the globalization phenomena in the early 21st century, result in the change of identity of individuals and in resignification of the spaces of inhabiting, especially, when it comes to the conditions which women had been through under the aegis of male domination. This project investigates how the ways of representation of fictional spaces to live occur in their regional, natural and domestic dimensions, and the condition of the female identity in the contemporary female written literature, having as study object the literary work A audácia dessa mulher (The boldness of this woman) (1999), by Ana Maria Machado. From the culturalist approach, we used the concepts of fictional spaces subjectivity, besides aspects of phenomenological philosophy and humanist geography, as well as assumptions of feminist literary critics, establishing relations with the socio-historical context represented in the romance, examining how the female characters and its spaces of inhabiting relate. We also verify how each space is built from an specific historical, social and cultural condition, culminating in the constitution of symbolic environments rich in signification, from the imposed and/or assumed identities, depending on the existence time of the characters, each one in their specific moments of living.

A revolução tecnológica e os movimentos feministas ocorridos durante o século XX, somados ao fenômeno da globalização do início do século XXI, resultam na alteração da identidade dos indivíduos e a ressignificação de seus espaços de habitar, especialmente, no que diz respeito à condição a que estiveram submetidas as mulheres, sob a égide da dominação masculina. Este trabalho investiga como ocorrem as formas de representação dos espaços de habitar ficcionais em suas dimensões regionais, naturais e domésticas e a condição da identidade feminina, na literatura de escrita feminina contemporânea, tendo como objeto de estudo a obra literária A audácia dessa mulher (1999), de Ana Maria Machado. A partir de uma abordagem culturalista, utilizamos os conceitos de subjetividade dos espaços ficcionais, além de aspectos da filosofia fenomenológica e da geografia humanista, bem como pressupostos da crítica literária feminista, estabelecendo relações com o contexto sócio-histórico representado no romance, examinando como as personagens femininas e seus respectivos espaços de habitar se relacionam. Também verificamos como cada espaço se constrói a partir de determinada condição histórica, social e cultural, culminando na constituição de ambientes simbólicos ricos em significações, a partir das identidades impostas e/ou assumidas, dependendo da época de existência das personagens, cada uma em seus momentos específicos de vivência. / The technological revolution and the feminist movements that happened during the 20th century, added up to the globalization phenomena in the early 21st century, result in the change of identity of individuals and in resignification of the spaces of inhabiting, especially, when it comes to the conditions which women had been through under the aegis of male domination. This project investigates how the ways of representation of fictional spaces to live occur in their regional, natural and domestic dimensions, and the condition of the female identity in the contemporary female written literature, having as study object the literary work A audácia dessa mulher (The boldness of this woman) (1999), by Ana Maria Machado. From the culturalist approach, we used the concepts of fictional spaces subjectivity, besides aspects of phenomenological philosophy and humanist geography, as well as assumptions of feminist literary critics, establishing relations with the socio-historical context represented in the romance, examining how the female characters and its spaces of inhabiting relate. We also verify how each space is built from an specific historical, social and cultural condition, culminating in the constitution of symbolic environments rich in signification, from the imposed and/or assumed identities, depending on the existence time of the characters, each one in their specific moments of living.

This study sets out to uncover the thus far unexplored affinities between the works of Carlo Emilio Gadda and Michel Leiris, two key figures of twentieth-century literature whose place within the broader European literary panorama has been largely overlooked. Through an inquiry into three interconnected areas – the question of 'community'; the relationship between male self and female other; and writing as a space in which a fractured experience of subjectivity is both played out and exposed – I argue that their works are underpinned by a parallel tension, between a nostalgia for a lost experience of unity and a recognition of its impossibility within a fractured modernity. Chapter One examines the relationship between the individual and the communal. With a focus on Gadda's Giornale di guerra e di prigionia, and Leiris's involvement in a series of key intellectual, literary and political societies of the 1930s and 1940s, it argues that while both authors were drawn to a form of communal integration, both were ultimately thwarted in their attempts to reinstate it. Chapter Two continues this inquiry into the relationship between self and other through an examination of the dysfunctional relationship between individual (male) self and (female) other. With a focus on Leiris's L'Age d'homme and Gadda's Quer pasticciaccio brutto de via Merulana, it questions the extent to which any authentic relationship between male self and female other is ruled out, and examines the association between sexuality and fear that underpins their approach to the sphere of the female at large. The final chapter examines the implications of the authors' shared loss of faith in the notion of a unified, authentic experience of selfhood for their approach to the literary act itself. Through a study of these three key areas, this study thus sets out to respond to the need for further contextualisation of these two key figures of the twentieth-century European literary panorama, in the conviction that a comparative examination will shed new light both on their individual works and on their shared affinity with a number of key tenets of twentieth-century European thought.