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This study considers the history and cultural specificity of women-owned sex stores in the United States, and the particular model of sexual retailing that has evolved alongside these businesses—what I refer to as the Good Vibrations model, a “tasteful,” educationally based, and quasi-therapeutic approach to selling sex toys designed to appeal “especially but not exclusively” to women. Drawing upon extensive participant observation research, in-depth interviews, and archival materials, I examine how discourses of sexual liberation, education, feminism, and consumer-capitalism coalesce within these retail environments, helping to establish what one proprietor describes as the “alternative sex vending movement.” I trace the emergence of public discourses about female masturbation and orgasm in the early seventies, and explore how these ideas were incorporated into sexual consciousness-raising groups, sex therapy programs and, eventually, women-run vibrator businesses. I analyze the underlying “sex positive” philosophies, representational strategies, and retail norms and practices that define the Good Vibrations model, and consider how ideas about gender, class, and sexual taste are mobilized by various storeowners and staff in an effort to cultivate “respectable” retail environments that stand in contrast to the stereotype of sex stores as inherently base and “sleazy.” I argue that for many women-owned sex toy stores in the US, including Good Vibrations and Toys in Babeland, the marketplace doubles as a platform for sex activism and education, which has enabled these businesses to carve out a distinct and profitable niche in the sexual marketplace. By way of contrast, I discuss the impact that anti-vibrator statutes have on sexual speech and retailing in Texas, one of several states in the US where it is illegal to sell sex toys. Despite the growth and commercial success of women's sex businesses over the past thirty years, my research suggests that there is nothing straightforward about practicing sexual politics through the market; indeed, it is a project fraught with challenges and contradictions as storeowners and staff attempt to negotiate the shifting terrain of identity politics on the one hand, and the tensions between feminism, consumer-capitalism, profitability, and social change on the other.

This social historiography tells the story of the origin of the Newborns' and Mothers' Health Protection Act of 1996. In the 1980s when the federal government reduced allocations to states' Medicaid programs as a cost saving measure, hospitals, initiated early discharge of patients to save costs. Given four million births annually, childbirth is the most frequent reason for hospitalization in the United States. Hospitals discharged Medicaid insured mothers and newborns very early at twenty-four hours for a normal birth and seventy-two hours for a cesarean. Other insurers adopted similar managed care strategies in the early 1990s. By 1995, unionized nurses from New Jersey, bolstered by a national outcry against early maternal discharge, and individual states legislative actions, met with staff in Senator Bradley's (Democrat, NJ) Washington, DC office to request a federal law that would extend hospital length of stays for maternity patients. The result was the creation of the Newborns' and Mothers' Health Protection Act of 1996 (Newborn's Act). Insurers must now reimburse hospitals a minimum length of maternity stay of forty-eight hours for a normal birth and ninety-six hours for a cesarean birth. This historical investigation found that a revival occurred in professional nursing organizations' voice in health care policy. The American Nurses Association, the National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners, and the Association of Women's Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nursing, not only testified at the congressional hearing for the Newborn's bill, but also helped craft the bill that became law. One nursing specialty, Public Health Nursing, at one time a cornerstone for autonomous nursing practice, was omitted from the NMHPA policymaking. As a nursing section of the American Public Health Association, it is now considering options to become more visible in health care policy development. Second, this study suggests that the federal government may have attempted price-fixing when it recommended in 1982, and again in 1983, that other insurers also limit reimbursements to hospitals to contain costs. In one last finding, congressional lawmakers omitted costly Medicaid insured mothers from the NMHPA law, but regulations formulated in 1999 captured this vulnerable group of mothers and newborns.

As the human race approaches the 21st Century, the world's spiritual, political, social, economic, educational, and scientific philosophies appear out of balance with the emerging global consciousness brought forth by today's advancing technologies. Former President Bush's New World Order is really the same old nation state order of international anarchy. All the ancient problems seem to have reached a critical point. Now, a critical idealism in education, which is a call for spiritual action, is necessary in order to have the power to bond like-minds to cure our ancient social diseases. The scientific and social movement which scientist James Lovelock named the Gaia theory, named after the Greek Goddess of the Earth, is on the verge of creating world-wide evolutionary change. My dissertation attempts to help create a Gaian philosophy of planetary education based on love between the sexes by analyzing the function of epic poetry.

The study focuses on the perceptions of women who are managers in the Executive Branch of Massachusetts State Government. In particular, several formal and informal organizational systems that help or hinder the career advancement of women into upper level positions are explored. Three questions were addressed: (1) How do female managers gain familiarity with various aspects of the workplace such as organizational culture and access to resources? (2) What sorts of flexible work options and benefits would be particularly important or useful to career-oriented female managers? and (3) What steps do organizations take (or should organizations take) to insure the existence of and appreciation for workforce diversity and the equitable treatment of all employees? A representative sample of 500 research participants was randomly selected from the total population of women who are managers in the Executive Branch of Massachusetts State Government. A mailed questionnaire was distributed to each of the women in the sample. A return rate of 68 percent was achieved. Some of the highlights are: the research participants' view of their place of employment is regarded as cooperative, flexible, and empowering; the availability of supportive people is perceived as emanating from the workplace; and an informal source of information about their workplace is available. There was also evidence of a willingness to help, support, and mentor others, especially women, and a high degree of compliance and support of affirmative action and antiharassment policies by employees in their workplace. The data also indicated a need for: more women in top executive positions; a more systematic use of training to encourage professional growth and enhance career mobility; a more systematic use of and evaluation of flexible work options and support mechanisms; and a greater use of and refinement of male/female mentoring, role modeling, and support.

This study presents a selection of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century German women dramatists and their works. The texts were not located within what we know as literary history, but rather within the context of the contemporary German theatre and the social conditions governing the writing and publishing of plays by women. The majority of these dramatists are unknown today. Research in this area is made more difficult by the widespread anonymity of female playwrights throughout both centuries (of 242 authors, 191 used pseudonyms). This is one of the reasons why a study of their work has yet to be conducted, and the reason why there is more need for a broad and general introduction than for investigations focusing on single authors. Although most of these authors and plays have been forgotten, many can still be located. In my research, I have located approximately 1,600 plays by 242 female playwrights; half of these texts were available through the Interlibrary Loan System in the United States. I have chosen to analyze texts by selected authors in the categories of comedy, drama, tragedy, historical plays, dramas about artists, mythological and biblical plays, dramatic fairy tales and allegories, and children's theatre. The plays are presented in chronological order in each chapter and described with an emphasis on thematic development within the genre. As a point of departure, I have included a description of the conditions of theatre performance in both centuries. The appendices contain biographical information about the fifty dramatists whose works are introduced here (Appendix A) and a complete list of female dramatists, with names (including pseudonyms, stage- and maiden names), dates, dramatic works, and the location of the works (Appendix B). Where applicable, I have supplemented my investigation with related materials by the playwrights themselves or their contemporaries, retaining the emphasis on the dramatists and their plays, since my aim is to make them accessible to our thinking, and to provide future researchers with biographical and bibliographical material on them.

This dissertation presents the results of a study designed to explore women's experience of spirituality in the light of current thought on women's psychological development. While women's development and women's spirituality are both newly emerging fields of study with growing bodies of literature, little has been done to integrate them. The dissertation included a broad review of the literature of women's development and women's spirituality in which a dominant theme of relationship emerged. Qualitative research was done with eight participants. Data consisted of in-depth interviews which were condensed into profiles, and then analyzed for themes, sequences and patterns of spiritual development. From the comparison of the analyses with each other and with the theories of psychological development two central themes were chosen for elaboration in the dissertation: a theme of experiential spirituality manifested in everyday life, and a pattern of developing self-identity through expanding awareness of self-in-relation. Expanding awareness of self-in-relation was explicated through the use of a visual model. Four domains of self-in-relation were identified: Self-in relation to self, to other, to the transpersonal realm, and to the Universal. Movement through the domains was complex and interactive rather than linear, and indicated deepening awareness of self, experienced as self-in-relation. Self-in-relation to the Universal was proposed as the definitive awareness for a spiritual orientation toward life. This awareness had a profound effect on other relationship domains. The results also suggested that the theoretical models of the Stone Center, Belenky et al and Gilligan, could each be extended to include another level or aspect of development associated with spiritual awareness.

Gender surfaced as an issue in the 1984 Presidential campaign due to the nomination of Geraldine Ferraro, the differences among the male candidates, the expected gender gap, and the "feminization" of the Democratic Party. Using Newsweek, Time, and CBS Evening News, the constructions of gender are interpreted using Kenneth Burke's cluster criticism. Two research questions were addressed: (1) How was gender constructed by the media? (2) What were the rhetorical implications of this study? The study suggests that when women are accepted into Presidential politics, they must balance "feminine" traits with "masculine" ones. Male candidates are expected to primarily exhibit "masculine" traits. Gender was not only a trait that candidates had, it was also constructed by the media as having an influence on how voters perceive and act upon the issues. Finally, the study concludes that male and female candidates used language to express gender characteristics and can overcome negative perceptions by voters with rhetorical strategies.

From the earliest draft of her first novel through her last published work, Virginia Woolf treated science--particularly evolutionary theory--as a powerful discourse that claimed the authority to explain reality and which legitimized the patriarchal social structure. While appreciating the richness of Darwin and later evolutionary writers, Woolf consistently criticized science in general and evolutionary discourse in particular as expressions of patriarchal values. In turn-of-the-century Britain, biology, medicine and the theories that directed social policies were imbued with various interpretations of evolution, most of which considered white northern European men the apex of evolution. Belief in the possibility of devolution prompted evolutionary minded social thinkers to warn that global societal degeneration would ensue if "lesser races" followed their own paths without European guidance and if women of any race or class turned their limited energies to educating themselves and entering professional work rather than bearing and rearing children. Woolf grew up in an intellectual Victorian circle involved in evolutionary fervor and the reification of the sciences that both objectified her as a female and provided her imagination with new realms of experience. Woolf read Darwin and the science and social theory of the late nineteenth century, and as scientific writing itself became more specialized, she continued to read about science throughout her life. Through extensive and usually ironic revisionist readings of evolutionary concepts, Woolf anticipated the feminist critiques of science of the late twentieth century. The Voyage Out, Mrs. Dalloway and Between the Acts, along with their published drafts, are the works in which Woolf most clearly involves science in her social criticism and evolutionary discourse in her treatment of science. In those three sets of works, Woolf critically examines the cultural values that made evolutionary theory such a compelling social force. In these same works, she also creatively appropriates evolutionary writing, particularly Darwin's, to evoke connections among eons of time, vast reaches of the earth and relationships among different types of beings.