Thesis (M.F.A.)--University of Utah, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves [51]-52).

Thesis (Th. M.)--Dallas Theological Seminary, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves [72]-77).

Universiẗat, Diss., 2004--Osnabrück.

This thesis draws on ethnographic research from three communities of conservative Christian women who find empowerment and agency through their religious traditions. Two communities are politically active, outspoken women who also believe strongly in "traditional" roles for women, and one community idealizes conservative standards of sexuality while accepting women who work as sex workers. These women did not view their positions as contradictory, rather, they used religious beliefs and religious practices to enact, embody or explain their complex genders and sexualities. This thesis draws on ethnographic, feminist and queer theories while showcasing the diversity within a movement largely believed to be monolithic. The researcher aims to encourage more dialogue between liberal feminists and conservative Christians.

This thesis looks at the representations of four contemporary Portuguese women writers, Helia Coreia, Lidia Jorge, Teolinda Gersao and Ines Pedrosa in literary histories, press critical commentaries and digital media. This study analyses how far a gendered critical view is present inch of the three different media and whether any alternative contextualisation exists that allows for a non-gendered, universal critical representation of female authorship. The process of canonisation within the Portuguese cultural field is studied here, following the fundamental changes in the critical landscape over the past thirty years, especially the new possibilities offered in electronic media. This thesis explores the juxtaposition between an elitist institutionalism, which can be found in academic, press and online criticism, and the presence of alternative critical voices in cultural criticism, that would adequately represent female authorship and open up the critical debate, so the traditional constructions of cultural value, such as a division into popular and quality literature, can be re-evaluated.

<p> This study is aimed at exploring a better understanding of gender-biased context in digital games. Based upon a female analysis of <i>Tomb Raider </i> series, this study attempts to compare the appearance and figure of female characters in video games by researching the representative game. A focus group with a group of women from different countries has been used to better understand how women feel and react to female images in the video game <i>Tomb Raider</i> and figure out how female protagonist Lara Croft changed in the video game. The thesis attempts to offer a better understanding of biased context in video games and to compare differences in dressed figures of female characters through the <i>Tomb Raider</i> series. From this, the sexualization of female figures and their images of power has positively changed during last two decades. Ultimately, the connotation of this thesis is to discuss the possibilities of negative effects on audiences in digital games, typically for the young generation.</p><p>

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This thesis is an ethnographic study of how gender inequalities are reproduced in the spaces of a progressive Secondary School in the UK. It explores how knowledge is constructed in a school committed to diversity and equality, and considers how and when gender becomes an obscured but pivotal point in the negotiation of power. Through observations of student and staff in lessons, focus groups and interviews, this research contributes to the understanding of how girls are expected to perform femininities in pedagogic spaces. Focusing on how girls read and make meaning of local knowledge I explore how their choices of accommodation or resistance to traditional femininities are shaped. Through a detailed ethnographic narrative of the girls’ lived experiences, this thesis maps the ways and the extent to which girls are willing to step outside traditional gender expectations. Mapping this movement highlights the girls’ enactment of agency and resistance to gender limitations in pedagogy that historically conflate masculinities with spaces such as science and athletics, naturalizing gender inequalities in the classroom. In doing so, this study contributes to the growing body of literature regarding the relevance of gender in pedagogic spaces and how it informs social status and power. Central to this argument is how girls work within and across different sets of competing discursive narratives as their intersectionalities create multiple and often conflicting expectations. As these multiplicities are revealed, the girls develop an awareness of the contradictions of traditional binary beliefs allowing them to deconstruct dominant gender narratives. Highlighting the girls’ alternative positional choices troubles normalizing gender notions exposing the schools’ taken-for-granted knowledge. In viewing the schools’ normalizing discourses as remarkable this thesis furthers the understanding of how schools become sites for the production of gender. By exploring how girls make meaning of their daily gendered experiences and how they conceptualize and navigate the successes or sacrifices of their actions, this research suggests further focus on girls’ empowerment with the goal of decreasing pedagogic inequalities.

Despite it being over a century since the first woman gained a pilot s licence, piloting remains a male-dominated profession. Worldwide, only 3% of airline pilots are women and, of these, only 450 hold the rank of Captain, a number who could easily be seated within a single A380. UK airlines are recognising that the low number and proportion of female pilots is an issue and some carriers, including easyJet, have introduced initiatives to promote gender diversity on the flightdeck. However, as there are few female pilots qualifying and applying for airline jobs, there is a compelling need to both examine why relatively few women consider a career as a pilot and then understand the challenges those who do make a non-traditional career choice and enter the profession face during their initial (ab initio) training in reconciling their developing professional identity as a pilot with their gender identity as a woman. The aim of this thesis is to explore the effects of women ab initio pilots minority status on their gender and professional identities. To address this aim, the thesis utilises the Theory of Tokenism, together with concepts of Gender Performativity and Professional Identity, to explore the experiences of ab-initio pilots at two UK-based Flight Training Schools. New empirical evidence, derived from in-depth interviews and surveys, found that female cadets perceive elements of their professional identities differently from men, and women cadets adopt a range of strategies to negotiate conflicts between their developing professional and gender identities. The research examines the experiences of these cadets to make both theoretical and empirical contributions to existing studies of gender-dominated professions as well as offering practical recommendations to airlines and flight training schools who are seeking to encourage more women to qualify as commercial airline pilots.