The national curriculum states that the school actively should promote that women and men have equal rights and opportunities and that there is a responsibility to counteract traditional gender patterns. However do research observations show that teachers often treat girls and boys differently. Studies show that the teachers are influenced by their conceptions and their expectations of gender behavior. The aim of this study is to examine how teachers in preschool and primary school discuss gender awareness and how they state that they work with gender awareness according to the curriculum goals of counteracting the traditional gender patterns. The study is inspired by the phenomenographic research approach and the empirical material has been collected by qualitative interviews with eight teachers in preschool and primary school. The empirical material has together with earlier research and theories been analyzed and discussed in order to reach a conclusion. The results show that the interviewed teachers have different views in what gender and gender awareness means. This resulted in that the teachers stated different ways of working with and counteracting traditional gender patterns and with a different commitment. Despite the teachers commitment to gender awareness they admitted that they some times, even if they did not want to, treated the pupils differently based on their gender. They explained this by saying that they also were a part of a society affected by traditional gender patterns.

Since Elaine Showalter's proposal of "gynocriticism", a considerable amount of work has been done in English-speaking countries to establish the existence o f a "female tradition" in literature. In France, where feminist critics have focussed on new ways "to write the feminine", there has been relatively little interest in reexamining the production of lesser-known women writers. The canon of French literature remains comparatively unchallenged, and few people are aware o f the many women who wrote at the beginning of the twentieth century. This dissertation is a contribution to the rereading of three of such authors, looking at the representation of femininity in relation to feminism. Three novels, one by Sidonie Gabrielle Colette, one by Marcelle Tinayre and one by Lucie Delarue-Mardrus. The careers of these "femmes de lettres", all established before World War I, were comparable, yet two o f them have been forgotten. These novelists remained ambivalent in relation to feminist efforts at that time to achieve the emancipation o f women. Despite their own relative freedom and lack of conformity in their lives, and the criticism o f established norms embedded in their narratives, all three kept their distance from feminism as a movement. The three texts compared here all have conservative endings, in spite of other elements that challenge the status quo. A t the core of their ambiguity is the tension between two concepts which remain in conflict today: on one hand the feminist agenda aimed at greater freedom and autonomy for women is based on the idea that gender roles are constructed, whereas on the other hand the concept of femininity is inseparable from the idea of an "essential" woman, represented, in the early 1900's in France by a particular nationalist concept of the French Woman. A close look at critical texts published in the first part o f the twentieth century shows the weight of that concept in the evaluation o f women's writing of that period. The growth in the number and reputation o f women writers ("femmes de lettres") was accompanied by a declaration o f the need to maintain French femininity ("l'etre femme"), and individual women authors like Colette, Delarue-Mardrus and Tinayre were caught in a dilemma. They all proclaimed their allegiance to the French ideal of femininity, while contributing to its denial and renewal by their own performance as successful women writers. Their representation of femininity as performed in their novels (as it was in their lives) shows the various ways in which it was possible to negociate a compromise between being feminine and challenging that concept through writing. These texts also demonstrate that women's literary production of that period in France is far more diversified than standard anthologies of French literature would lead us to believe. Colette appeals to reader's senses and aims to seduce, Tinayre appeals to reason and aims to convince, while Delarue-Mardrus appeals to the emotions and aims to move. All three, combine the "feminine" and the "feminist" in different ways, constructing literary models that represent a range of responses to a similar problem: how to remain a woman while contesting the notion of "woman".

Cette étude porte sur la culture de travail des femmes qui ont été à l’emploi du grand magasin Dupuis Frères de Montréal entre 1920 et 1960. Nous nous intéressons aux particularités du travail salarié féminin dans le domaine de la vente au détail au Québec, mais aussi à la nature et à l’évolution de cette culture de travail de même qu’à ses liens avec les changements qui surviennent à l’époque dans la construction des nouvelles normes de la féminité respectable. D’une part, notre but est de montrer que pour les travailleuses de Dupuis, leur emploi leur permet de gagner leur vie certes, mais aussi de l’agrémenter, de se divertir au moyen de loisirs organisés par l’entreprise et de créer des liens entre elles. À travers la culture de travail qu’elles y développent, ces femmes se créent une identité particulière. Nous soulignons aussi que Dupuis Frères, dans un esprit paternaliste, encadre de près ses employées et exploite leur culture de travail afin de s’assurer de leur loyauté et de maintenir sa bonne réputation auprès de l’opinion publique. D’autre part, nous cherchons à prouver que même si la culture des femmes à l’emploi de Dupuis au cours de cette période est largement influencée par la domesticité et l’idéologie des sphères séparées, caractéristiques de la féminité « traditionnelle » dominante, elle intègre néanmoins de plus en plus, surtout à partir de la Deuxième Guerre mondiale, de nouvelles dimensions plus « modernes » de la féminité qui ne remplacent pas l’idéal de la mère-ménagère, mais qui viennent plutôt s’y greffer et qui rendent, du coup, leur identité féminine plus complexe. / This study is about the work culture of the women who were employed by Dupuis Frères, a famous Montreal department store, between 1920 and 1960. We will focus on the features of this particular type of paid work, that is women’s work in retail in Quebec. We will also insist on the nature and evolution of that work culture and on the fact that it was influenced, during this period, by the transformations that occurred in the construction of new forms of respectable femininity. First, our goal is to show that these Dupuis Frères women employees didn’t work for the sole purpose of earning a living, but did also in order to live a more pleasant life, to entertain themselves by participating in leisure activities organized by their employer and to create new bonds among themselves. With this work culture that they developed, these women workers also created themselves a new particular identity. We also want to show that Dupuis Frères, with its paternalistic management, was controlling its employees and was exploiting their work culture to ensure the employees’ faith in them and maintain the company’s reputation. Second, we want to prove that even if the work culture of the women working at Dupuis Frères, during that period, was influenced by domesticity and the separate spheres ideology (features of the dominant « traditional » femininity), it was more and more incorporating, mostly from Second World War, new dimensions of a more « modern » femininity that were not replacing the mother-housewife ideal, but that rather were making their feminine identity more complex.

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal

From the first to the fourth century AD, male perceptions of female sexuality underwent a radical change with the advent of Christianity. This thesis is an investigation into classical male and Christian male perceptions of female sexuality, to determine the manner and extent to which this change in perceptions took place. The investigation will be two-fold, studying both the laws that established these perceptions, as well as representations of female sexuality within specific, subjective male-authored texts. A study of the marriage legislation of Augustus and a male writer of the early Empire, Apuleius, shows an underlying pattern of thought, or paradigm, of female sexuality among classical males. Female sexuality was perceived as existing for the sole purpose of procreation, and males in positions of authority thought that it needed to be under male control in order to ensure acceptable sexual behaviour. They believed this would be best achieved by situating it under the authority of the family. With the advent of Christianity, however, a new competing paradigm on female sexuality emerged, which challenged the perceptions of men of the classical era. The church fathers spurned the classical view of female sexuality by instead advocating lifelong celibacy. They too, believed female sexuality had to be controlled, but they placed it under the authority of the church, and outside the family. Since the basis of the classical and Christian patterns of thought differed so markedly, especially when the Christian paradigm was first being formulated in the second century, it was inevitable that they would come into " conflict. Advocates of the classical paradigm tried to suppress Christianity by persecuting its supporters. Some Christian women became victims of this conflict. This thesis will also include an example of this conflict - the martyrdom of the female Christian Perpetua, who left a record of her persecution in the form of a diary. The conversion of the Emperor Constantine to Christianity in the fourth century brought about the end of the conflict ana a victory for the Christian paradigm. The church fathers suggest that the shift from classical to Christian was total and complete. However, closer examination of Constantine's legislation and the work of the influential church father Jerome shows that while this shift was complete in theory, it did not extend very far into social and legal practice. Although the Christian ideals of the church fathers were a major component of thenew paradigm, it also came to be composed of classical notions - now motivated by Christian thought - that were held by Constantine and the upper classes. It was these classical notions that shaped the social reality of life in the fourth century AD. The nature and extent of the paradigm shift was therefore radical and far-reaching in theory, but not in practice. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, Durban, 2002.

This thesis explores how the body and femininity are constructed by starting from the subjective experiences of 12 young women labelled with an intellectual impairment. The methodological approach is inspired by so-called participatory research. The study combines the concepts of (dis)ability and gender from a sociological perspective. It shows how the young women negotiate norms regarding the body and femininity to pursue the coveted body and femininity ideals, but also to do the opposite: resist these ideals. The thesis is based on the following four articles: Theorizing the Body: Conceptions of Disability, Gender and Normality addresses different perspectives on the body in relation to conceptions of disability, gender and normality. The article highlights the importance of integrating disability and gender when exploring an understanding of conceptions and constructions of the body. Negotiating Normality: The Complexity of Showing (off) Bodies identifies four different strategies the young women use to make themselves visible as fashionable young women of today, e.g. as non-disabled. It shows that these strategies comply with conceptions of fashion, and that they are at the same time expressions of different marks of resistance.                                                                            Risky Transitions in an Ableist Environment: The Experience of Frequent Critical Looks presents an exemplification of social construction of the body by focusing on critical looks. The concept of critical looks is analysed from an intersectional perspective, specifically in relation to how (dis)ability, gender and, to some extent, age interact. It shows how the body is made visible by being stared at, both to oneself and to others depending on place and interactions. Reflections on Collaborative Research: to What Extent, and on Whose Terms? discusses the possible methodological and ethical dilemmas found in different research phases, and in relation to the participants, in collaborative research within disability research. It shows that collaborative research can benefit from being problematized and discussed further regarding the categorization of disability as well as participation.

Traditionally, much criminological research has focused on male complexities of confinement, sidelining the experiences of federally and especially provincially incarcerated women in Canada. This thesis seeks to capture some of the experiences and challenges faced by incarcerated women as they attempt to negotiate agency and maintain choice and control over their health and bodies while inside correctional institutions. In order to do so, this study draws from Foucaultian-inspired concepts of discipline, governance, regulation, power, and resistance as a means to theoretically analyze the daily, often strategic, actions of women prisoners. This research is qualitative, and emerges from the data secured through in depth interviews with twelve previously incarcerated women, who were asked to speak of their experiences inside Canadian prisons with respect to issues of choice and control over hygiene, diet, exercise, and access to over-the-counter medication. The data were coded and organized into three substantial themes: opportunity for choice or learned dependence, the ‘layering’ of punishment, and creating space for agency. The analysis revealed that incarcerated women attempt to manage and maintain control over their health but meet ongoing punitive carceral responses when making decisions about their bodies that conflict with institutional mandates, discourses, or goals. Without the opportunity to perform culturally accepted norms of health and femininity, women in prison fail to achieve a positive or ‘good’ womanly status, which comes to impact their self-worth, self-esteem, and identity. These findings create direct implications for Corrections, as they inevitably produce docile and institutionally dependent women rather than responsible and productive citizens, the stated rehabilitational goal of correctional services.

In this thesis, I critique the representation of pre-adolescent and teen femininity in M and the influence of the teen fan genre on identity development. This discussion revolves around a social semiotic analysis of four texts and two sub-texts, and a social semiotic auto-ethnographic exploration of my experience as a reader of teen fan publications. Among the texts, a feminine identity is represented through eight interlocking semiotic themes: fashion and beauty, celebrity idolization, entertainment, consumerism, heterosexuality/romance, friendship, celebrity as occupation, and affluent lifestyle. My research findings show that the portrayal of femininity in M is a narrow and unrealistic ideal. Conveyed through celebrity worship, femininity is a highly (hetero)sexualized, racialized, thin, able-bodied, affluent, mass-mediated, and (self-)commodified ideal that perpetuates age ambiguity As the discussion of my adolescence shows, the representation of femininity in the teen fan genre can thwart creativity and contribute to a negative self-concept. Finally, teen fan magazines were important in assisting in the creation of a (pre-)adolescent feminine self, but it was only one institution in which my identity formed. My self-concept emerged from social regulation via the interconnected relationship among teen fan magazines, mall and school cultures, and family.

The purpose of this study is that through a discourse theoretical perspective, analyze young girls 'statements about living with self-injuring by sexual behavior. The aim is to locate the discourses that surround them, visualize how discursive constructions affect these young girls' identity as victims and/or actors in relation to self-injury, the sexual violence and in meetings with the professionals within the health authorities. In addition discourse theory as an analyze method, the authors also use Nils Christie's (2001) theory of the ideal victim and Ingrid Landers (2003) theoretical perspectives on normative femininity. The authors of the study show a diversity of discourses that surround the young girls. All discourses contain normative actor- and victim’s positions that young girls constantly are obliged to relate to, which partially conflict with social constructions of the idea of victim and femininity. These positions are assigned, claimed or opposition to, and characterizes not only the young girls self-image, but also how professionals within the health authorities look at them and what support and assistance that’s offered or deprived. Finally, the authors argue for a broader approach to young girls who self-injuring by sexual behavior, they can be both victims and actors and advocates a questioning of oppressive norms to detect and identify the young girls who self-injure by sexual behavior, when it is a prerequisite to widen their options and discretion.

A schooling system that claims to offer its students the opportunities to develop their talents and help towards self-determination in their adult lives might be expected to have a career structure itself that demonstrated these virtues, one in which there was equality of the genders in positions of influence and leadership, and no gender stereotyping of roles. Apart from the fairness and consistency of that expectation, it is also reasonable to expect the neutral template of teacher employment and textbook selection in schools. Many children may grow up with few books in their homes but lots of those in their schools. Many of the textbooks used in elementary schools, according to recent studies, contain gender stereotypes. In these, females are rarely found as central characters and when they appear at all, they are often passive figures dependent on male characters. Women are frequently shown in domestic roles / in most textbooks it is assumed that only males &#039 / go out to work&#039 / whereas daughters are the best helpers of their mothers whose sons are allowed to do what they wish. In the light of those allegations, this research is designed as a case study which addresses itself to the aim of looking into stereotyped gender role presentations existing in elementary school textbooks used by the students studying at 1st-5th grades in 2001/2002 academic year of an elementary school placed in Burdur and to see whether these students are affected by the exposure of those stereotyped gender role presentations. For this purpose, the textbooks being studied are analyzed according to pre-set categories to deduce how they include stereotyped gender role presentations and the evaluation of the effects of that exposure on students are made by asking 1st-3rd grade students to draw and 4th-5th grade students to write compositions on a given topic. This study also attempts to find out both whether Turkish elementary school teachers teaching at 1st-5th grades are aware of stereotyped gender role presentations in those textbooks that they use and their own points of view about stereotyped gender role presentations via interviews carried out with them. In conclusion, stereotyped gender role presentations are encountered in those analyzed school textbooks studied at 1st- 5th grades in 2001/2002 academic year of the elementary school placed in Burdur and the perceptions of those presentations are also obtained in the drawn and written productions of the students studied at the same school. Through the teachers&#039 / interviews, various kinds of perceptions towards gender role concept and its stereotyped presentations that take place in those textbooks are observed in their sayings