D. Litt. et Phil. / Psychogenic infertility is both a medically and psychologically complex issue for women who have tried for several years to have a baby. Irrespective of etiology, infertility may be a very intense and stressful experience for both partners, affecting their relationship, sexuality, self-esteem, body image and identity. The ‘not knowing’ of psychogenic infertility creates uncertainty and anxiety, and may represent a crisis for many women. Conceiving and raising a child has social and cultural meaning that may precipitate a sense of loss about her female identity if she is not able to have a baby. The study’s exploration of psychogenic infertility entails four aspects: - an investigation of both the overt and covert attitudes of psychogenically infertile women towards dimensions of the feminine role, and an assessment of this quantitative analysis to determine which of the feminine role factors are significant - an analysis of the twenty-one case studies to investigate the life scripts of each woman and how these relate to: her femininity and her acceptance of her feminine role; her sense of motherhood and her motherliness; her own mother-daughter relationship; and to her psychogenic infertility. - a narrative exploration with one woman which incorporates these significant factors together with elements of her life scripts, using an integrated scripts, psychodynamic and narrative approach for the analysis - a storied account of the narrative exploration with one psychogenically infertile woman, in an effort to explore the relationship between femininity and life scripts in the psychogenesis of unexplained female infertility, and to investigate the possible therapeutic value of a therapeutic intervention for women experiencing unexplained infertility, specifically an intervention that would integrate: exploration of life scripts, psychodynamic understanding and narrative re-storying of her infertility. Therapeutic intervention for women experiencing infertility is often focused on the stress experienced and on cognitive-behavioural ways of living with the distress. Literature to date does not indicate a therapeutic framework based on an approach that integrates elements of life scripts, psychodynamic, and narrative therapies to explore how scripts about femininity and motherhood may be unknowingly preventing the women from identifying with her female role of conceiving a baby.

This thesis focuses on how masculinity and femininity are constructed in alcohol advertisements in the print form, specifically in For Him Magazine (FHM) and Gentlemen’s Quarterly (GQ) . Alcohol advertisements address the reader in a way that sells the lifestyle that is associated with the product. Within the lifestyle depicted in the advertisement, there may also be an identity and a specific gender identity that the reader may be encouraged to incorporate in order to achieve the lifestyle associated with the advertised product. Advertising in general has often been implicated in constructing masculinity, and in particular, femininity in narrow or restricted ways. South African advertising has been found to depict women as passive sex objects and men as strong, intelligent and as the dominant gender. The mass media and advertising use and extend upon existing societal ‘norms’ and discourses regarding the construction of masculinity and femininity by sending these discourses or constructions back into society in the form of advertising. A discourse analysis was employed to investigate to what extent advertising has used gender based societal discourses as well as what dominant structures or portrayals of gender appear in South African alcohol advertising. By using the qualitative method of discourse analysis as well as a social constructionist paradigm, several discourses were identified. These included the discourses of patriarchy, violence as a masculine quality, men being unemotional and independent, women’s bodies as sexual objects, male companionship, a heterosexual norm, an anti-hegemonic masculinity and a discourse of glamorous heterosexuality. The results of the analysis discussed how in alcohol advertising, women are still constructed in a limiting and sometimes sexual manner whereas men are constructed in a more variable way. / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Psychology / unrestricted

The purpose of this study is to examine how discourses regarding gender and parenting are produced and reproduced in assessments about child custody, living and contact arrangements. These court ordered custody evaluations are essential for the courts making the final legal decisions in high-conflict cases where parents are questioning each other’s ability to parent, often accusing each other of various wrongdoings. For the social worker the aim is to assess the situation, focusing exclusively on the best interest of the child. We have looked at eleven evaluations and analysed these with the help of Fairclough´s Critical Discourse Analysis. When reading the assessments, we have focused primarily on the way the parents describe themselves and each other. Additionally, we have looked at how collateral sources (e.g. teachers, day-care personnel, physicians, therapists) describe the parents and lastly, how the social worker describes the parents. Using theories about construction of gender as well as research about parenting, families and the construction of motherhood and fatherhood we have been able to categorize common themes in the reports. These themes are, uninvolved fathers – responsible mothers, mothers who sabotage the father- child relationship, division of labour, values and identification and the best interest of the child. By exploring these themes, we have been able to identify and analyse prevailing discourses as well as counter discourses about gender and parenting. While we have recognized several discourses that can be connected to traditional gender roles, the assessments have also demonstrated the complex reality we live in where discourses about parenting are constantly being challenged and thus, keep changing.

The question of what constitutes femininity has been widely debated, not only in gender studies, but also in the broader social world. A venue for this debate is the 1985 documentary, Pumping Iron II: The Women, in which gender and femininity in particular become part of the central plot of the film when Bev Francis, a woman bodybuilder more muscular than any other competitor, enters the competition. While feminist scholars have analyzed gender and sport from a variety of interdisciplinary perspectives, little attention has been paid to female bodybuilding in particular. To fill this gap, this thesis will examine the ways in which Bev Francis’s portrayal in Pumping Iron II: The Women reinforces and challenges ideas about gender, femininity, and embodiment. In Pumping Iron II: The Women Francis performs gender subversion, actively rebelling against gender norms while the film adheres to rigid definitions of femininity, resulting in her punishment. I seek to understand how female bodybuilding symbolizes larger cultural tensions around feminine gender performativity.

Introduced Diploma thesis aims to analyze the schemes of online self-presented femininity on a social network site using depth analysis of chosen Profiles. The aim was to discover the concepts of online self-presentation using gender perspective. Facebook as a huge user based medium, which allows all its users to produce content, constitutes a potential to change stereotyped schemes in presenting femininity in media. In theroretical part I summarize the principles of Facebook functions, I engage in Goffman's (and his followers') dramaturgical metafor and I link it to the theories of Gender Advertisements, The Beauty myth and Male gaze. All of these theories I use in analytical part of the thesis.

Focusing on girls who compete in downhill longboarding, this thesis examines how women are pushed to display typically "male" characteristics in order to succeed. With contemporary western society viewing attributes such as speed, being competitive, overcoming fear and coping with pain as typically masculine traits, the main research goal of this inquiry is to find out how female riders cope with maintaining their femininity in the masculinized world of downhill longboarding. The main focus is on observing how female riders cope with being a good rider and being feminine at the same time, primarily through the way this double-faced pressure is projected in the bodies of female downhill longboarders.The theoretical part of this thesis is mainly focused on a sport as a gendered/masculinized field and the ideal form of the body constructed by the sociocultural pressure and instructions which are associated with it. The analytical part of this thesis is focused on the experiences of Czech female downhillers and the way in which they negotiate their femininity/masculinity, perceived or otherwise, and how the gender order is projected onto their bodies. This thesis aims to reveal the ambivalences caused by the pressure to women to maintain the hegemonic femininity and be masculinized competitive sport...

This study is a discursive analysis of the representation of the person Erika Girardi within the Reality TV show The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. With a theoretical perspective anchored within Judith Butler’s (1999) theory of performativity and Beverley Skeggs (2000) research of class within feminism. The aim is to find how Erika Girardi is discursively portrayed within the series as well as finding and analyzing the various subject positions found within the material. The results are presented as eight different subject positions; Housewife, Showgirl, Gold Digger, Southern Mother, Bad Bitch, Daughter,Empowered Woman and Good Friend. These positions are then decoded into the various signs which build these up as well as the nodal points which are further found within the discourse of the selected episodes.

In a series of body objects, this project aims to discover the specific emotion of hopelessness through the physical sensation of gravity. The project is investigating a femininity concept by exploring the emotions evoked when reading about the myth of Pandora and how she is used in academic reports such as Diseases of Women to argue upon discriminating arguments directed towards a female identity. The outcome of the workshops situate this project in a participatory driven field where somatic experiences make it possible to discuss sensitive topics such as hopelessness and gender equality. The outcome of the project is five sensorial body objects that suggest possibilities in designing wear to trigger emotions. It should be presented as a participatory installation in an exhibition.

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Frida Kahlo has become increasingly popular as a commodity to signify female empowerment or an exotic femininity, and her face has inspired numerous images by modern day artists and graphic designers. The market for posters and decorative objects which use new portraits of Kahlo is booming and often target young women as consumers.This study critically explores the ethnical, cultural and gender constructions of Frida Kahlo as a symbolic as well as literal feminist poster girl on the western market. Furthermore, it examines how these constructions function as postcolonial discursive practices. The study finds that as Kahlo is accepted as a western symbol, her embodied ethnicity and cultural belonging are erased and replaced by easily identified symbols of “strategic essentialism”, such as accessories and Mexican plants. The sexuality, frailty, and disabilities of her body are erased, and her features are westernised to make her more feminine and acceptable as a commodity. This in combination with reoccurring passivity mean that empowerment is portrayed as an act of being rather than doing and that the femininity is played up as an aspect of female empowerment.