Women workers, typically, are disadvantaged in the workplace and in the trade union movement. In an attempt to explain the relationship of female employees to the unions, this thesis investigates the significance of gender for an employee's involvement in trade unionism. The importance of the sex variable for both the individual's union membership choice and rate of participation in trade union activity is explored. The aim of the study is to reach a much better understanding of the most important influences on women's position in the unions, and thereby provide some insight into the apparent failure of the trade union movement to gain equality for women with men in the employment sphere. Chapters two and three depict women's situation in the workplace and in the trade unions, in order to illustrate the importance of the study. Chapters four and five present a theoretical framework for the empirical analyses, discussed in chapters six to nine, concerning influences on the employee's propensity to unionise and union participation. Both crosstabulations and discriminant analyses are employed to establish the most important determinants of these two variables. Influences on the worker's attitudes to trade unionism are also discussed. Chapters ten and eleven present the results of a survey of nine large trade unions, conducted in an attempt to account for the inadequacies of the independent variables used in the quantitative analyses to explain fully the relationships explored. The thesis concludes that the lower level of involvement of women workers in trade unionism may be explained mainly in terms of differences between the sexes in hours worked, earnings and industrial relations traditions in male and female-dominated work. Also, however, significantly lower favourability to trade unions expressed by the women workers is found to contribute to the male/female union membership and union participation differentials. The thesis argues, in chapter twelve, that this apparent difference in satisfaction with trade unions between the men and women studied is, most probably, a result of traditional union culture, particularly the male-domination of the unions, and the unequal position of women in the trade union movement.

Malignant Catarrhal Fever (MCF), an often-lethal infectious disease, presents as a variable complex of lesions in susceptible ungulate species. The disease is caused by a -herpesvirus following transmission from an inapparent carrier host. Two major epidemiological forms exist: wildebeest-associated MCF (WA-MCF), in which the virus is transmitted to susceptible species by wildebeest calves less than approximately four months of age, and sheepassociated MCF (SA-MCF) in which the virus is spread by sheep (primarily adolescents). Due to the lack of an in-vitro propagation system for the causative agent of the more economically significant SA-MCF, and with the expectation that cross-protective immunity may be provided, vaccine development has focused on the more easily propagated alcelaphine herpesvirus-1 (AlHV-1) that causes WA-MCF. In 2008 a direct viral challenge trial showed that a novel vaccine, employing an attenuated AlHV-1 (atAlHV-1) `C5000 virus strain, protected British Friesian-Holstein (FH) cattle against an intranasal challenge with virulent AlHV-1 `C5000 virus. For cattle keeping people living near wildebeest calving areas in sub-Saharan Africa an effective vaccine would have value as it would release them from the costly annual disease avoidance strategy of having to move their herds away from the oncoming wildebeest. On the other hand, an effective vaccine will release herd owners from the need to avoid MCF, allowing them to graze their cattle alongside wildebeest on the highly nutritious pastures of the calving areas. As such conservationists have raised concerns that the development of a vaccine might lead to detrimental grazing competition. The principle objective of this study was to test the novel vaccine on Tanzanian shorthorn zebu cross cattle (SZC).We did this firstly using a natural challenge field trial (Chapter Two) which demonstrated that immunisation with the atAlHV-1 vaccine was well tolerated and induced an oro-nasopharyngeal AlHV-1-specific and -neutralising antibody response. This resulted in an immunity in SZC cattle that was partially protective and reduced naturally transmitted infection by 56%. We also demonstrated that non-fatal infections occurred with a much higher frequency than previously thought. Because the calculated efficacy of the vaccine was less than that seen in British FH cattle we wanted to determine whether host factors, particular to SZC cattle, had impacted the outcomes of the field trial. To do this we repeated the 2008 direct viral challenge trial using SZC cattle (Chapter Four). During this trial we also investigated whether the recombinant bacterial flagellin monomer (FliC), when used as an adjuvant, might improve the vaccine’s efficacy. The findings from this trial indicated that direct challenge with pathogenic AlHV-1 is effective at inducing MCF in SZC cattle and that FliC is not an appropriate adjuvant for this vaccine. Furthermore, with less control group cattle dying of MCF than expected we speculate that SZC cattle may have a degree of resistance to MCF that affords them protection from infection and developing fatal disease. In Chapter Three we investigated aspects of the epidemiology of MCF, specifically whether wildebeest placenta, long implicated by Maasai cattle owners as a source of MCF, might play a role in viral transmission. Additionally, through comparative sequence analysis, at two specific genes (A9.5 and ORF50) of wild-type and atAlHV-1, we investigated whether the `C5000 strain, the source of which was taken from Africa more than 40 years ago, was appropriate for vaccine development. The detection of AlHV-1 virus in approximately 50% of placentae indicated that infection can occur in-utero and that this tissue might play a role in disease transmission. And, despite describing three new alleles of the A9.5 gene (supporting previous evidence that this gene is polymorphic and encodes a secretory protein with interleukin-4 as the major homologue), the observation that the most frequently detected haplotypes, in both wild-type and attenuated AlHV-1, were identical suggests that AlHV-1 has a slow molecular clock and that the attenuated strain was appropriate for vaccine development. In Chapter Five we present the first quantitative assessment of the annual MCF avoidance costs that Maasai pastoralists incur. In particular we estimated that as a result of MCF avoidance 64% of the total daily milk yield during the MCF season was not available to be used by the 81% of the family unit remaining at the permanent boma. This represents an upper-bound loss of approximately 8% of a household0s annual income. Despite these considerable losses we concluded that, given an incidence of fatal MCF in cattle living in wildebeest calving areas of 5% to 10%, if herd owners were to stop trying to avoid MCF by allowing their cattle to graze alongside wildebeest, any gains made through increased availability of milk, improved body condition and reduced energy demands would be offset by an increase in MCF-incidence. With the development of an effective vaccine, however, this alternative strategy might become optimal. The overall conclusion we draw therefore is that, despite the substantial costs incurred each year avoiding MCF, the partial protection afforded by the novel vaccine strategy is not sufficient to warrant a wholesale change in disease avoidance strategy. Nonetheless, even the partial protection provided by this vaccine could be of value to protect animals that cannot be moved, for example where some of the herd remain at the boma to provide milk or where land-use changes make traditional disease avoidance difficult. Furthermore, the vaccine may offer a feasible solution to some of the current land-use challenges and conflicts, providing a degree of protection to valuable livestock where avoidance strategies are not possible, but with less risk of precipitating the potentially damaging environmental consequences, such as overgrazing of highly nutritious seasonal pastures, that might result if herd owners decide they no longer need to avoid wildebeest.

This thesis investigates the publishing history of a significant New Woman author of the Edwardian period, Katherine Cecil Thurston (1875-1911). Until now Thurston's literary career has been the subject of little academic investigation. It is the aim of this thesis to contextualise her life and work within that of a New Woman writer and explore her relationship with those involved in the publishing process. By examining the narrative of Thurston's work and her interaction with Edwardian society we see how such New Woman authors contributed to the development of women's writing. The focal argument of the thesis is that Thurston used her femininity to generate an audience of female readers while at the same time creating alternate visions for women's lives, thus championing the cause of feminism. Thurston challenges many of the traditional, established views of the late Victorian period; however she was keenly aware of the need to operate within the bounds of traditional gender roles in order to ensure the publication of her work and the support of her conservative readership. Through her relationships with her publishers and readers we see how the opening decade of the twentieth century was fraught with unease and doubt about women's role within it. This thesis builds on recent studies by feminist critics in terms of rehabilitating women writers who have been omitted or lost from literary and publishing history. This research adds another author to that body of work and broadens our level of understanding of the position of woman authors of the period. By establishing the details of Thurston's life and work, this thesis aims to open new channels of investigation and as such amounts to a significant contribution to our awareness and understanding of New Women authors.

Using the concept of coping strategies, this thesis is essentially concerned with the way young women in Mozambique achieve social well-being during the life event of unintended pregnancy. Unintended pregnancy in Mozambique places significant strain on informal and formal relationships, educational access, economic stability and the maintenance of good health. It also has significant implications for young women’s roles, responsibilities and status within families and communities (CEDAW 2005). Twenty one qualitative semi-structured individual interviews were completed with young women (16-19 years old) who have recently had an unintended pregnancy, as well as eight focus groups using a vignette with young women (16–21 years old) from youth associations and fourteen individual interviews with key informants (those working in the area of sexual and reproductive health with youth and adolescents). From these three forms of rich data, the relationships young women have with others, the negotiations they engage in and the coping strategies they employ are illuminated. This research contributes to an increased understanding of unintended pregnancy and the ways young women respond and ‘cope’ with this life event (as a process) largely via different forms of social interaction. The chosen methodology was designed to elicit this type of knowledge drawing on different disciplinary interpretations of coping strategies. Although unintended or early pregnancy in young women has developed as a key social development concern in recent years (Hainsworth 2002; Mahy 2002; Westoff 2003; UNFPA 2007), this research indicates that policy strategists in Mozambique struggle to develop adequate and effective intervention in response. The narratives shared by young women, and the analysis developed through chapters four to seven builds a complex picture for intervention, as family relationships remain a major factor for social and economic well-being. The socially and culturally constructed nature and predominant location within families mean that macro strategies and community level intervention has limited impact during unintended pregnancy. Strengthening relational strategies (both formal and informal) through social development intervention is therefore necessary for young women to access social and organisational resources for coping and social well-being. By using the concept of coping strategies, the juxtaposition of ‘copers’ and ‘non-copers’, the relationship between agency and structure, the strategies employed at different levels, the significance of social interaction and coping as a process has been opened up to scrutiny. This thesis not only evaluates and critiques models of social development, but also argues that the concept of coping strategies can be usefully applied to inform social development in ways that address both individual and collective wellbeing.

No description available.

The upheavals of the cataclysm of the First World War reverberated through every comer of British society, how society was reconstructed afterwards is the subject of enormous critical debate. This study examines how masculinities were disrupted and. reconstructed during and after the war. It is a study of British men, previously civilians, who became servicemen in the First World War. It aims to map the continuities and discontinuities in the construction of their masculine identities during war and in its aftermath in the 1920s. Pioneered by feminist scholars concerned with analysing the historical construction of femininity, the study of gender relations has become a significant area of historical enquiry. This has resulted in a substantial body of historical scholarship on the history of masculinities and the increasing visibility of men as gendered subjects whose masculinities are lived and imagined. This thesis is informed by, and engages with, the histories of masculinities. It also draws on recent historical research on the cultural legacy of the war. The first chapter explores the subjectiver esponsesto becoming a soldier through an examination of personal memoirs; largely unpublished sources drawn from memories and written or recorded by men as narratives of their wartime experiences. The subject of the second chapter is shell shock. The outbreak of shell shock among the troops aroused anxieties about masculinity. The competing versions of masculinities which emerged in military and medical discourses is examined. Returning to individual memoirs, the chapter examines how men produced their own representations of the shell shocked man contesting other versions. Chapters 3 and 4 focus their attention on the relatively neglected subject of ex-servicemen's organisations and the collectivities of ex-servicemen. During and after the war a movement of ex-servicemen emerged to campaign for justice and fair treatment. Comradeship underpinned the attempt to forge an ex-serviceman identity and an examination of veterans' publications, a largely neglected source, has revealed the tensions and conflicts which contested this form of masculine identity. Masculine identities, as citizens and workers, presented a challenge to the potential for a unified, apolitical movement. Unemployment was a challenge to male identities traditionally secured through work and masculine codes of independence. Unlike many studies, this thesis intentionally straddles war and peace. It begins in 1914 and ends a decade later in a society restored to peace but still essentially in the shadow of war.

The present doctoral thesis is a study on women in Graeco-Roman Egypt and, in particular, it is aimed at investigating the social and legal status of women through the lens of women's reproduction.

The association between consuming alcohol and experiencing non-consensual sex is now largely established. Little research however has addressed English students' experiences of nonconsensual sex when drinking and the alcohol related strategies used to procure intercourse. Study one of the PhD therefore carried out an online survey to address students' (N= 1,079) attitudes, understandings and experiences of alcohol involved non-consensual sex, also gaining insight into men's non-consensual encounters; a previously neglected participant group. The consumption of alcohol plior to rape impacts on perceptions of complainant credibility and academics have questioned the contribution of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 in the prosecution of alcohol involved rape cases specifically. Study two consequently carried out interviews with barristers (N= I 4) to establish the baniers that exist to the successful prosecution of alcohol involved rape cases, the application and usefulness of provisions introduced by the 2003 Act and where problems in the law of intoxication were still perceived to exist. Research documents that individuals endorse beliefs around false rape allegations being frequently made and surmise that alcohol consumption increases the potential for a false rape report. Study three therefore carried out focus group discussions with students to develop further understanding of alcohol involved non-consensual sex and the perceived role of alcohol within the false rape reporting process. Findings indicated that 30.7 percent (N=329) of participants had experienced at least one act of alcohol involved non-consensual oral, anal, or vaginal sex since the age of 14, that provisions introduced by the 2003 Act were not always being utilised as intended and that it was the perceived impact of alcohol on sexual inhibitions that was deemed central in encouraging individuals to behave in ways they would not if sober, regret those actions the next day, and increase the potential for a false rape report to be made. Studies emphasised that alcohol consumption disproportionately impacted on the credibility of the complainant, rather than the culpability of the defendant, and that future messages must emphasise the responsibility placed on defendants to take proactive steps in ensuring consent.

Rape and sexual violence have long been acknowledged in feminist literature as a silenced social problem which requires long term strategies for prevention, prosecution and support. Social sciences more generally, however, have had a more ambivalent relationship with the theoretical and conceptual development of research in this area. Outside of feminist sociology and criminology there has been little engagement, yet sexual violence remains a prevalent social problem in all regions of the globe. The latter half of the twentieth century saw quick and significant changes to the structures of states as the result of localised and international conflicts, many of which continue or are experiencing post-conflict transformation that has resulted in global growths in refugee populations as a result of forced migration. Alongside this has been an increasing globalisation of rights based approaches related to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, the Geneva Convention of 1951 and the development of United Nations Resolutions and the establishment of the International Criminal Courts. Focussing on Merseyside as a case study, a main area of dispersal in the UK, this thesis critically examines domestic responses to women's asylum applications and support for women survivors of conflict related sexual violence. Using qualitative activist methodologies from a feminist standpoint perspective, it explores support available through interviews with local governmental and non-governmental organisations working within sexual violence support, asylum, and/or women's organisations before applying a structural analysis of long term impacts of sexual violence through an oral history with Hawwi, an Ethiopian rape survivor and asylum seeker in . . Merseyside. It concludes that, despite international developments, women's rights continue to lie marginalised in these arenas within and outside of academia. As such, important gaps in response exist with regard to sexual violence in conflict, but also in Merseyside. It concludes that, like rights based developments, considerations for applications continue to overlook the gendered experience of conflict, particularly with regard to the widespread perpetration of sexual violence. As such, limited resources for support exist for women survivors in Merseyside which can have detrimental effects on women's emotional, psychological and physical health as well as having wider social impacts beyond the individual.

This thesis reports on a study that aimed to add to the understandings about head lice that were already available in society. Previous accounts of infestation had focused largely on its social and expert medical perspectives and there was limited comment on the experience at a personal level. In order to address this Liverpool mothers and grandmothers were asked about their perceptions and understandings of what it meant to experience head lice. The women's experiences spanned most of the twentieth century and this provided the study's historical dimension. The inquiry used hermeneutic phenomenology as a way of investigating highly personal aspects of an experience that had not been explored before. By using an approach that drew on hermeneutic phenomenology and anthropology it was possible to explore aspects of the experience that generated culturally specific beliefs and understandings. Lambert and McKevitt, (2002) argue that in doing this a phenomenon defines itself. In this inquiry the boundaries of mother's understandings concerned with the experience of head lice were unknown. Hermeneutic phenomenology allowed these hidden understandings to emerge. Van Manen's (1997) framework for phenomenological inquiry was used to guide the study and Colaizzi's (1978) method for the interpretation of the women's stories was used to highlight the understandings that emerged. The women who took part were of different ages though all had lived, been mothers and experienced head lice during the twentieth century. They were asked to tell their stories and these were recorded, transcribed and interpreted. The interpretation of their narratives generated themes of understandings. These included understandings about the responsibilities of being mothers and giving care, beliefs and views about the insect and infestation and the meaning and impact of social stigma. The understandings that the women expressed were concerned with their individual responses to infestation. Essential feature shared by them represented a complex interplay of guilt feelings about themselves as poor mothers and the importance of the responsibilities they felt they had to prrtect their children, their families and society from head lice. Their own mothers played a significant role in fashioning their understandings as did their childhood experiences. Images of others outside the family who had infestation were linked to stigma, poor mothering and to lay epidemiology. The women talked of other mothers' responsibilities to prevent and treat infestation and how this created a feeling of lack of control. They also told of the need to remove all traces of infestation from their home and with it the influence and presence of what constituted their image of an infested family. The women shared their stories, but as Widdershoven (1993) points out these have little value unless their relationships to other sources of experience are also considered in some way. Therefore the women's understandings were placed into context by examining the way in which they linked to other available discourses about head lice. A search was made of the social, historical and expert medical sources available during the twentieth century; local Liverpool sources were consulted wherever possible. The understandings that emerged from these were then considered alongside those of the women. There was a link between the women's understandings and those in the social discourse concerning the public health role of women during the twentieth century. Infestation was used as a measure of mothering by social discourses and the women alike. This gave healthcare practitioners and society the opportunity to comment on, influence and control what went on in the family. Stigma, exclusion and labelling were evident in both the social discourses explored and the women's stories particularly in relation to experiences of school and the school nurse. Personal and social discourses about prevention, detection and treatment reached no overall consensus with evidence based approaches being used alongside those influenced by myths and more socially constructed understandings.