Title from first page of PDF document. Includes bibliographical references (p. 34-37).

The purpose of this study was to explore the nature of the relationship between mothers and their incestuously abused daughters. The research sample consisted of five adult daughters who in their childhood and/or adolescence, were abused by their biological fathers. The volunteer participants were in therapy at the time of the research interviews. The study employed a phenomenological method in order to allow the daughters to describe their experiences and perceptions of their mothers. By engaging in a dialogue with the daughters, the researcher attempted to explore the dynamics and impact of the mother-daughter relationships on the daughters. Results confirmed that these mother-daughter relationships were damaged. However, the daughters also expressed strong desires to heal their relationships with their mothers. In addition, the daughters identified important connections between their relationships with their mothers and the continued influence of this relationship on their experience of themselves in their current lives. The findings of this study have important research and therapeutic implications. The research findings strongly suggest that the relationship between daughters and their mothers in families where father-daughter incest occurs needs to be examined beyond individual family member's roles which have been the exclusive focus of existing research. Furthermore, the strong connections made by the participants of the present study between their relationships with their mothers and their sense of self, may be an important consideration in therapeutic work with this client population. / Education, Faculty of / Educational and Counselling Psychology, and Special Education (ECPS), Department of / Graduate

published_or_final_version / Literary and Cultural Studies / Master / Master of Arts

Beginning with mother/daughter film classics such as Stella Dallas (1937) and Mildred Pierce (1945), and moving to consider recent mother/daughter texts, Anywhere But Here (1999) and "Gilmore Girls" (2000 -), this thesis, in both its written and visual components, examines the multiple and often contradictory ways in which mothers and daughters have been represented in popular culture. Challenging the discourses that singularly stress struggle and separation, this research highlights representations that emphasize mother/daughter connection, and examines how such identification empowers mothers and daughters. This project is guided by cultural studies and feminist film theories. The first two chapters outline past and present paradigms of mothers and daughters respectively; the third chapter examines the goals and findings of the visual component.

Thesis advisor: Irene Mizrahi / This study, which is dedicated to the analysis of three novels by Carme Riera: Una primavera para Domenico Guarini, Cuestión de amor propio, and La mitad del alma, investigates the disappointments and disconnections that the protagonists suffer in their relationships with other characters and the influence of culture on those relationships. This study demonstrates that the breakdown of the relationships between daughters and mothers and between friends is the result of the patriarchal society of Francoist Spain that is hostile towards women. The repression that Riera’s narrators, who are all women writers telling their stories in a personal, intimate first-person narration, suffer under such a society not only causes them emotional problems, such as depression, frustration, lack of self-esteem, feelings of unworthiness and inferiority, but also prevents them from having meaningful relationships with other women as friends and daughters. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2009. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Romance Languages and Literatures.

This dissertation investigates the development of early modern Japanese joruri puppet theater in the eighteenth century, focusing on representations of female characters in the works of three major playwrights. Joruri developed as a theatrical form combining chanting, music, and puppetry that was regularly performed for urban commoners. The plays were also commercially printed for leisure reading. The genre achieved immense popularity and exercised significant influence over early modern popular consciousness. The contemporary bakufu government licensed theaters and controlled what could appear on stage. In the shadow of this censorship, joruri developed genre conventions that reinforced the social order based on Confucian ideals, a strict class and gender hierarchy in which individuals were of less importance than the family, clan, or state. For this reason, joruri is often viewed as becoming progressively more formulaic and conservative. However, I argue that joruri playwrights straddled the fence between preserving a formula that reinforces the Confucian ethical order and its rigid gender and class hierarchy in order to avoid being banned and subverting it to speak to the audiences' anxieties about authority and the existing societal order. The instances of subversion often involved renegotiation of the genre conventions surrounding female characters whose tribulations arose from their low positions in the social order and whose tragic circumstances were highlighted by the drama. By examining the representations of innovative female characters by three major playwrights over the course of joruri's development, I show that the essence of these plays lies in these moments when joruri creates an alternative world where the repressed voice emerges, gender and class expectations are revisited, and the societal status quo is called into question. Chapter One provides an overview of the history of joruri, particularly in relation to women, its major playwrights and theaters, and its formal conventions. Chapter Two focuses on the representations of prostitutes as heroines in love suicide plays by Chikamatsu Monzaemon (1653-1724). I argue that Chikamatsu subverted the contemporary class and gender hierarchy by depicting prostitutes, who were at the bottom of the social hierarchy, as morally exemplary romantic heroines. Chapter Three examines the recurrent representations of stepmothers in Namiki Sosuke's (1695-1751) plays in the context of the existing conventional representations of stepmothers in joruri. I argue that Sosuke's unconventionally realistic depictions of the dark psychology and transgressive behavior of seemingly-exemplary stepmothers highlight the conflict between individual desire and social obligation and call into question the absolute priority of social obligation. Chapter Four examines the work of Chikamatsu Hanji (1725-1783) written during a time when joruri and kabuki were engaged in a particularly strong cycle of mutual influence and borrowing. I argue that Hanji's reinvention of provincial daughters as unconventionally outspoken in the female realm of love, and yet pawns in the male realm of politics, subtly criticizes societal norms that subordinate the value of the individual to the maintenance of the social order. Through examination of how each playwright established and renegotiated joruri's genre conventions in creating his innovative female characters, this dissertation sheds light on the multiple functions of joruri: as didactic theater, popular entertainment, and a site for subtle criticism where early modern conceptions of gender and class and societal norms were reexamined and reimagined.

Thesis (Ph.D. (Clinical Psychology)) -- University of Limpopo, 2000 / Refer to document

The present study examined whether there was a relationship between daughters' eating disorder symptomology and maternal food control and health-conscious eating attitudes. Eighty-eight females with a continuum of eating disorder behaviors (DSM-IV eating disorders through nondieters) and 74 of their mothers participated. Participants completed the Anorexia Bulimia Inventory, two subscales from the Eating Disorder Inventory, the Three Factor Eating Questionnaire , the Family Environment Scale, the Maternal Food Control and Meal Preparation Scale, and the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale. Results indicated that, in general, daughters' reported eating disorder symptomology and perceived familial control were related. Some of the more specific maternal food control variables perceived by daughters were also related to their reported symptomology. Yet, maternal reports on these same variables tended not to correspond to daughters' reported symptomology. Specifically, regression analyses indicated that a combination of perceived high familial control, perceived low maternal concern with healthy meal preparation and restriction, and perceived high maternal anxiety regarding healthy eating predicted higher levels of reported anorexic symptomology. Similar variables predicted reported bulimic symptomology, but only increased general familial control predicted symptoms characteristic of both disorders. Analyses also revealed that daughters' eating disorder symptomology tended to be inversely related to responding in a socially desirable manner. Perceptual differences were noted and discussed between mothers' and daughters' reports of familial control. Lastly, mothers' report of food control was not correlated with reported familial control. This study was the first to examine the more specific maternal control issues, maternal health-conscious attitudes, and their relationship to daughters' maladaptive eating behaviors. The results of the present study are consistent with the speculation that a combination of daughters' perception of high familial control, high maternal anxieties about children's eating practices, and low maternal concern with healthy meal preparation might contribute to the development or maintenance of anorexic and bulimic symptomology. Finally, limitations were discussed and recommendations were made for future research.

Two companion pieces, a video documentary and written analysis, provide the text for this exploration of how women's life stories and the mother-daughter narrative are preserved through the transmission of inherited objects. The video documentary reveals the lives of six diverse women who each discuss the politics of receiving and passing on family heirlooms, and inevitably share the stories their artifacts represent, recalling details of their own lives and of their female ancestors. The written analysis, focused in the three key areas of Stories, Objects and Inheritance, is inclusive of research in reminiscence, oral history, storytelling by women of color, the mother-daughter bond, consumer behavior and exchange, ethnography, anthropology of gift-giving, and personal narrative by and about women. This project is informed from a feminist worldview, drawing on socialist feminism's connection of capitalism and material access to patriarchal domination of women. The research reflects the power of the stories. Women's personal narratives mirror the realities of their daily lives and exhibit a rich diversity of experience and culture. Further, as women's reminiscence and storytelling become and active part of a more inclusive historical archive, women of color's narrative and interpretive voices are also validated. The power of objects is revealed as they are passed through generational channel, gaining invaluable status and acting as an emblem of the spiritual nature of a kin group. Finally, the power of inheriting an inalienable possession is divulged, not just for one woman but also for her entire family system. When a woman inherits an object, she embodies a symbolic status ascribed to her simply by being a woman: keeper of the kin, guardian of the artifact, and guide in preserving and passing on the rituals and stories of women who came before. Inalienable possessions are bundled with personal biographies. Holding the artifact and ensuring the "rules" of transmission (such as passing it along gender lines or passing it on during a particular celebration or life transition) becomes more critical than preventing the object from breaking or landing in the wrong hands. Inheritance of an object is one sacred step in the family journey. The stories recounted by six women in this research are not the stories of all women, but speak to the politics and privileges of holding inalienable possessions that have been present for women for generations. Their stories and the supporting research move this niche of women's experiences from cupboards, basements, cedar chests and journals to the archives of a truer American history. / Graduation date: 2004 / 1 videocassette (100 min.), available at the OSU Circulation Desk.

The relationship between mothers and daughters has been shown to be generally positive and strong throughout the life cycle. The relationship may become strained, however, as mothers become dependent due to deteriorating health or chronic health conditions. It has long been recognized in both the gerontological and intergenerational literatures that caring for a dependent elderly parent can be burdensome and stressful for some caregiving adult daughters. Using the elaborated wear-and-tear hypothesis, this study examined longitudinally the impact of the amount of care given on 140 caregiving daughters' perception of the quality of their relationship with their elderly dependent mothers. It was hypothesized that increases in the amount of care given by caregiving daughters over time would lead to a corresponding decrease in relationship quality. It was also hypothesized that relationship quality and amount of care given would be stable over time. Results indicated that providing more care does decrease relationship quality between caregiving daughters and care-receiving mothers over time although it does not do so initially. Further, the results of study showed that relationship quality and amount of care given, on average, are stable over time. / Graduation date: 1997