Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego and San Diego State University, 2005. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 108-117).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of North Texas, Dec., 2009. / Title from title page display. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Committee on Human Development, June 2000. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (M.A.)--Miami University, Dept. of Mass Communication, 2005. / Title from first page of PDF document. Document formatted into pages; contains [1], iii, 80 p. Includes bibliographical references (p. 68-80).

Women are subject to a number of societal recommendations about what it means to be an 'ideal' woman. These recommendations take the form of social scripts, constructing an idea of ideal femininity, which women must perform in order to be socially accepted and successful. 'Emphasized femininity', a white, Western, script of femininity is dominant and has been critiqued by feminists, social theorists, and individual women for the limits that it places on women's behaviour. As a result a number of alternative scripts of femininity have arisen. These scripts can provide alternatives to restrictive understandings of female sexuality and beauty - they can serve to challenge 'appropriate' feminine behaviour and hence allow women to live more freely. Raunch femininity is a contemporary alternative that uses sexually explicit public performance, and encourages specific body and dress norms, in an attempt to challenge the norms of emphasized femininity. This thesis looks at raunch femininity, specifically its norms of sexuality and beauty, in the hopes of understanding what the effects of such a script are on women's behaviour. Theoretical understandings and explanations of women's lives are often contradicted by reports that women provide of their lived experiences. For this reason, this thesis investigates the lived experiences of women who self-identify as subscribers to this script in order to assess to what extent superficial expressions of freedom have deeper effects on women's freedom. The tension between theory and empirical reports is evident. However, in many cases, the reports of research participants reveal that the script of raunch femininity, like other scripts of feminine behaviour, has its own limits that women must abide with in order to be accepted. This thesis argues that these limits outweigh the benefits of this script. / KMBT_363 / Adobe Acrobat 9.54 Paper Capture Plug-in

Orientador: Fernando Cury de Tacca / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Artes / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-26T08:23:45Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Jeolas_LuizCarlosSollberger_D.pdf: 126246647 bytes, checksum: 505828c024893f274e07b537a691cb82 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014 / Resumo: O objetivo desta pesquisa foi o de depreender convenções estéticas matizadas pela produção e circulação de um conjunto de imagens corpóreas de misses. Interponho ao projeto o conceito, por mim elaborado, de síndrome fotográfica de misses ¿ conjunto de sinais e sintomas resultantes dos processos de observações cinestésicos e sinestésicos das candidatas colaboradoras. Reinterpretei as observações e as reincorporei aos ensaios fotográficos depreendidos dos tri/binômios: miss deficiente visual travesti, miss travesti e miss mulher. Iniciei a pesquisa revolvendo bancos de imagens, álbuns de fotografias pessoais, revistas, sites e minha própria participação como fotógrafo documental em alguns desses eventos. Além disso realizei entrevistas com elas para sub-objetivar suas trajetórias de vida materializadas nas imagens aqui presentes. Através do conceito de síndrome fotográfica aproximei a dinâmica do ensaio fotográfico ao textual, ora pela ficcionalidade controlada, ora pela foto-etnografia, tentando não perder de vista o rigor em conceituar as devidas referências bibliográficas sem, entretanto, fixá-las. Um esforço em zelar pela fruição e polissemia entre texto e imagem resultantes da pesquisa. O resultado final sugerido pelo formato de um Novo Testamento, que também significa "boas novas", busca desestabilizar, pela inversão cronológica das trajetórias de vida neles constantes, a ideia de que esses concursos ou performances são anacrônicos ou apócrifos. A convenção sobre o anacronismo desses jogos de beleza que, via de regra, ocorrem em Centros de Convenções ou ginásios de esportes, refere-se ao formato dos concursos e, portanto, neles se encerra. Anacrônico ou convencional podem ser os eventos ou as performances estéticas dos corpos, mas o mesmo não se pode dizer dos conteúdos corpóreos contingentes em disputa. Hoje, exatos 150 anos depois do primeiro concurso de beleza da era moderna e dos mais de 3000 concursos oficiais espalhados mundo afora, audiência que só perde para a do futebol, esses concursos se revelaram e se revelam indissociáveis do advento do daguerreótipo e da fotografia, respectivamente. Se justapõem. Neles, "modelos" de beleza fruíram, replicaram e transformaram, em boa medida, arquétipos e tipos, através da intermitente fricção das imagens agenciadas nas trajetórias de vida das misses que instituíram "boas novas" visibilidades através de performances sempre políticas / Abstract: The aim of this research is to infer aesthetical conventions hued by the production and circulation of a set of corporeal images from participants in beauty contests (misses). In this project, I interpose the concept, elaborated by me, of photographic syndrome of misses ¿ a set of signs and symptoms resulting from synesthetic and synaesthesic processes of observations of the candidates who collaborated in the research. I reinterpret those observations and reinsert them in my photographic essays produced on the tri/binomials: miss visual impaired transvestite, miss transvestite and miss woman. I have started the research by searching about image banks, personal photographic albums, magazines, websites and my own participation, as one of these events¿ documentary photographer. Besides that, I interviewed the misses in order to sub-objectify their trajectories of life embodied in the images presented here. Through the concept of photographic syndrome I bring the dynamics of the photographic closer to the textual essay, sometimes by means of a controlled fictionality, sometimes through photo-ethnography, always looking for a rigorous conceptualization of the appropriate bibliographic references, and yet without making them steady. There was an effort to keep an observant eye on the fruition and polysemy between the texts and images resulting from the research. The final result suggestive of the format of a New Testament, which also means "good news", aims at destabilizing, by the chronological inversion of life trajectories it comprises, the idea that they are anachronic or apochryph contests or performances. The convention about the anachronism of these beauty contests ¿ which usually occur in Convention Centers or sports gymnasiums ¿ refer to the format of these contests and therefore are circunscribed by it. Anachronic or conventional might be the events or aesthetic performances of the bodies, but the same can¿t be said about the corporeal content in dispute. Today, exact 150 years after the first beauty contest of the modern era and after more than three thousand official contests held worldwide, with an audience that only loses for football, these contests revealed themselves inseparable from the advent of the daguerreotype and the photography, respectively. They are closely juxtaposed. These "standards" of beauty fructified, were replicated and have deeply changed archetypes and types, through the agency of recurrent friction of images in the course of their lives, which established "good new" visibilities through their always political performances / Doutorado / Artes Visuais / Doutor em Artes

The purpose of this research was to investigate contemporary conceptions of beauty and bodily modificatory behaviour of young, Black, South African women. In a society where a lot of emphasis has been placed on a woman’s physical appearance, it was important to determine how these young women feel about their bodily appearance and if whether this is influenced by their social milieu. Constructions of beauty are largely constructed around White womanhood, thus Black women might feel marginalised by the White majority’s Western beauty standards. Data for this research report was collected by conducting semi-structured interviews with six female, Black South African, first year psychology students at the University of the Witwatersrand. The participants received a 1% incentive for their participation which contributed to their end of semester mark. The findings of the study show that conformity to Western standards of beauty has a negative bearing on the participants perceptions of how they feel about their bodies. The media has also become influential in changing perceptions of beauty within Black South African contemporary culture. Salient features of beauty, such as hair and skin colour seem to be embedded in the historical processes of oppression.

Between 1939 and 1940 the United States Government conducted a study of the measurements of women’s bodies to establish a standardized system of garment and pattern sizes. The central theme of my research is to analyze the female figure in the context of a technology-driven global contemporary society. My thesis exhibition includes a body of work that echoes the pressures that Western Society employs by standardizing women’s appearances. The focus of the work is to confront the viewer with a visual examination, which illustrates the preconceived notion that Western Society portrays the female body as a commodity and exports those views to different cultures and societies. This calls to question: “who makes those standards endorsed by society and why women follow them?”. From the standardized measurements conducted by the United States Government, I generated a 2-D computer model of an outline of the generic female figure. Based on the 2-D representation, I constructed a series of ten 27”x36” inkjet prints and a 3-Dimensional prototype of the figurative form. The project consist on the manufacture of 14,698 molds base on the 3- Dimensional prototype -- 10% reduction of the size of the average female. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.F.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2014.. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

The main aim of this dissertation is to discuss the way women negotiate the cultural meaning of hair loss, alopecia, as a result of undergoing chemotherapy, and to understand, accordingly, how cancer's cultural effects regarding women can be deeply different from those of men. Very few studies have been done about the cultural impact and resonance of alopecia. It is often regarded as "secondary" to other effects of chemotherapy. Because, in many cultures, head hair for women expresses or manifests attractiveness and power, to be bald is to be deprived of the ability to fit into society, whether in the public or private sphere. The study examines the representation of such women in the media, audience/subject responses to these representations, and interrogates women's identities and representations in terms of Laura Mulvey's theory of the male gaze. Women who have experienced chemotherapy-induced alopec ia were interviewed in this regard. Other contributive feminist, cultural and/or media studies works, such as those by Suzanna Walters, Susan Bordo, Naomi Wolf, Donna Haraway, Stuart Hall, Kimberle Crenshaw, and Judith Butler, help facilitate the analysis. From these perspectives, a historical analysis takes into consideration the symbolic dimension of hair, especially women's head hair, within Western cultural history, particularly in France and a multicultural America. In addition, a textual analysis looks at women, cancer, and hair loss as represented in popular culture characters and personalities. The study insists on the necessity for women to resist to the culture industries and deconstruct the male gaze, as well as the female gaze, which can both contribute to, and perpetuate women's objectification. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2015. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Thesis (Ph. D.)--UCLA, 2008. / Vita. Title on DVD: Feminine beauty aesthetics: media representatives. Includes bibliographical references (p. 293-306).