Syftet med den här uppsatsen är att granska hur genus och genusrelationer uttrycks i svenska, medeltida ballader. Genom att förstå balladkaraktärernas handlingar som performativa, ämnar uppsatsen undersöka hur maskulinitet och femininitet etableras och omförhandlas i balladernas narrativ genom att kartlägga handlingsmönster. Av betydelse är att belysa hur karaktärernas handlingsmöjligheter påverkas av faktorer såsom kön, social status och familjerelationer, men även jämföra hur genusmönster i balladen reflekterar eller utmanar normer och ideal i det senmedeltida samhället. Uppsatsen åskådliggör hur män och kvinnor har möjlighet att utöva och förhandla om makt på olika sätt. Genom detta rör man sig bort från uppfattningen om passivitet och maktlöshet som analogt med femininitet, och aktivitet och makt som synonymt med maskulinitet. Resultaten uppvisar därmed en problematisering och nyansering av genusuttryck i medeltida ballader som saknas i tidigare forskning, och framhäver fördelarna att bedriva ett mer inkluderande synsätt gentemot den här typen av källmaterial inom historievetenskapen.

AFRIKAANS: Die teenwoordigheid van vroue in die massamedia, en spesifiek in televisie, is vroeg in die een-en-twintigste eeu groter as ooit vantevore. Reekse waarin uitbeeldings van vroue beperk was tot dié van meestal onderontwikkelde, periferale of sekondêre karakters, is iets van die verlede. Die wyse waarop vroue in televisie uitgebeeld word is dus uiters belangrik aangesien so ’n groot hoeveelheid televisiereekse spesifiek die vrouegehoor teiken wat, hetsy aktief of passief, met wat hulle in hierdie reekse sien omgaan. Boodskappe wat deur televisiereekse versprei word, sal waarskynlik onbewustelik ’n uitwerking hê op hoe vroue hulleself beskou, hoe hulle ander vroue beskou, sowel as op hulle houding jeens kwessies soos feminisme en vroulikheid. Die doel van hierdie studie is om dominante diskoerse oor feminisme en vroulikheid wat deur hedendaagse televisiereekse aan die samelewing voorgehou word, te ondersoek. Die studie konsentreer spesifiek op drie gewilde en veelbekroonde Amerikaanse televisiereekse van 1997 tot 2012, naamlik Ally McBeal (Kelley 1997- 2002), Sex and the City (Starr 1998-2004) en Desperate Housewives (Cherry 2004- 2012) – reekse wat al drie as sogenaamde zeitgeist-televisie beskryf kan word. Die artikulering van feministiese doelstellings, hetsy dié afkomstig uit die tweede generasie of uit meer onlangse bewegings in feminisme, val onder die soeklig en die wyse waarop hierdie doelstellings aangespreek word, word bespreek. Deur aspekte wat teoreties nóύ verband hou met feminisme (aspekte soos melodrama as ’n vroulik-geïdentifiseerde genre en verbruikerswese) te identifiseer, word daar aangvoer dat die drie reekse beslis in ’n feministiese sfeer geposisioneer is. Die teenwoordigheid van hierdie aspekte in die drie reekse het dan ook dieperliggende narratiewe oor feminisme blootgelê – narratiewe waarvan die alledaagse kyker waarskynlik nie bewus sal wees nie, maar wat onderbewustelik moontlik ’n invloed kan hê op kykers se denke oor en begrip van feminisme. Die belangrikste gevolgtrekking van hierdie studie is dat die drie gekose televisiereekse op verskillende en uiteenlopende wyses met feminisme en vroulikheid omgaan. Verder ondersteun die studie die uitgangspunt dat daar ’n behoefte is aan kritiese debat rakende die uitbeeldings van feminisme en vroulikheid in hedendaagse voorbeelde van populêre massamedia. ENGLISH: The presence of women in mass media, specifically in television, in the twenty-first century is larger than ever and the days of series featuring women that are generally underdeveloped, peripheral or secondary characters is a thing of the past. The way in which females are portrayed in television is thus of the utmost importance since such a large number of television series cater to an extensive female audience, who engage (whether actively or passively) with that which they see. Messages received from popular television series are likely to inadvertently have an effect on how women view themselves, how they view other women, as well as their attitudes towards issues like feminism and femininity. The purpose of this study is to examine dominant discourses on feminism and feminity that are being propagated by contemporary television series. The specific focus of the study falls on three highly successful and critically acclaimed television series running from 1997 until 2012, namely Ally McBeal (Kelley 1997-2002), Sex and the City (Starr 1998-2004) and Desperate Housewives (Cherry 2004-2012) – series that have all been described as so-called Zeitgeist television. The articulation of feminist goals, whether from the second wave or more recent feminist movements, is examined and the ways in which these goals are addressed are discussed. By identifying aspects that are theoretically related to feminism (aspects like melodrama as a female identified genre and consumerism), it is argued that these three series are definitely positioned in a feminist sphere. The presence of these aspects also uncovered deep-seated feminist narratives – narratives that the everyday audience member will most likely not be aware of, but which could unconsciously influence viewers’ thoughts on and understanding of feminism. The main conclusion of this study entails that the three chosen television series deal with feminism and femininity in very different and diverse ways. Furthermore, the study supports the view that there is a need for critical debates on the representation of feminism and femininity in contemporary examples of popular mass media / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / Visual Arts / unrestricted

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". / Arts, Faculty of / French, Hispanic, and Italian Studies, Department of / Graduate

The aim of this bachelor thesis was to examine how Swedish tabloids portrayed Sweden’s greatest female boxers Mikaela Laurén and Klara Svensson the time before and the time after their great meeting at Hovet the 10th of September. We examined the following questions: Which gender roles are given to Sweden’s greatest female boxers Mikaela Laurén and Klara Svensson in Swedish tabloids and how is the interplay between media and the figures in the text described in the Swedish tabloids?   We used narrative analysis to investigate 14 texts from Aftonbladet and Expressen which were related to the match at Hovet. We found that the two boxers were portrayed differently. Laurén was portrayed as the bad girl who had to fight hard to get to where she is. She is tough and she is the one that comes with mean comments and gives media the real intrigues and she likes to use props. She believes she has a greater purpose, to get female boxing acknowledged on the media agenda. Svensson is portrayed as the good girl, she is more girly and is portrayed as if she seems to think that she is a better person than Laurén and therefore pity her when Laurén creates drama in the media. Svensson tries to convince the media that she is a tough girl but is still portrayed as more girly. Both Laurén and Svensson were also portrayed with their roles outside of boxing, as girlfriends which is common for female athletes. The meeting seems to be perfect for both the media and the boxers team. The meeting is portrayed as the final battle between good and evil.

Made available in DSpace on 2017-06-01T18:08:38Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Maria Araujo.pdf: 667357 bytes, checksum: f60127390e48fbadda923c3d53fd0613 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2003-03-28 / This work analyzes, according to Freudian texts, the route to become a woman , its contributions and impasses today. It s in the encounter with the feminine, attempting to understand the meaning of fantasies and hysterical symptoms, that Freud found out the inconsciousness, the trauma, sex, that drove to childhood sexual experiences. Studying sexuality in perversion, we face childhood sexuality and its many-formed perverted nature. Sexuality leaves then, perversion field to come into impulse and desire field. In this context, Freud develops a theory of feminine sexuality referred to castration and phallic primacy, only way to the acquisition of a normal feminism. Reflecting and analyzing to become a woman according to Freud, sent it to the society of spectacle and narcissism worship. Woman, through this path, has conquered many spaces, creating new social links: has left private space, meant by marriage and motherhood, to be at the spectacle scenery. Viewing this scenery in the consumers´ universe society and its consequences in the feminine subjectivity, tending to analyze in details woman s relation with her own body and sexuality, stressed by sexual excess and tied to an ideal body, source of sorrow and pain. At present-day, that s the image of woman-body-sex that comes up with masks and technological devices, searching the desired-perfect body, trying to deceive failure incompleteness, death. It s body-sex as object of desire and consumption, that sells anything and becomes other s object of pleasure. It shows an open-wide sexuality, primitive, without limits. It changes from a hysterical to a body-sex woman, the one that plays the whore in the masculine fantasy, legitimated by the social, idealized and feminine model. Feminism meaning what the seduction and erotism game owns as the most sublime, mysterious and gorgeous-showed in a subtle erotic gesture, a neckline,a revelation has no value today. The woman shows, through her highly erotized body, the necessity of searching other knowledge s, before new forms of erotization she faces / Este trabalho analisa, partindo de textos freudianos, o percurso do tornar-se mulher suas contribuições e impasses na Contemporaneidade. No encontro com o feminino, na tentativa de compreender o significado das fantasias e sintomas histéricos, Freud descobriu o inconsciente, o trauma, o sexual, que remetiam às experiências sexuais infantis. Ao estudar a sexualidade nas perversões, depara- se com a sexualidade infantil e sua natureza perverso- polimorfa. A sexualidade deixa, então, o campo da perversão para se inscrever no campo pulsional e do desejo. Nesse contexto, Freud desenvolve uma teoria da sexualidade feminina referenciada à castração e à primazia fálica, único caminho para a aquisição de uma feminilidade normal. Reflete-se e analisa-se o tornar-se mulher em Freud, remetendo-o à sociedade do espetáculo e à cultura do narcisismo. A mulher, nesta travessia, conquistou vários espaços, criando novos laços sociais: abandonou o espaço privado representado pelo casamento e a maternagem, para ocupar a cena do espetáculo. Ao contextualizar-se à cena do espetáculo no universo da sociedade de consumo e suas conseqüências na subjetividade feminina, passa-se a analisar mais detalhadamente a relação da mulher com o seu próprio corpo e com a sua sexualidade, marcada pelo excesso sexual e escravizada a um corpo idealizado, fonte de angústia e sofrimento. Na Contemporaneidade, é a imagem da mulher-corpo-sexo que se apresenta, com as máscaras e os adereços tecnológicos, na busca do corpo perfeito e desejado, na tentativa de tamponar a falta, a incompletude, a morte. É o corpo-sexo, enquanto objeto de desejo e de consumo, que vende qualquer coisa e se constitui em objeto de gozo do outro. Revela-se uma sexualidade escancarada, primitiva, sem nenhum limite. Passa-se da mulher- histérica para a mulher corpo-sexo, aquela que ocupa o lugar da prostituta na fantasia masculina, legitimada pelo social, idealizada e modelo de feminilidade. A feminilidade significada naquilo que o jogo de sedução e erotismo possui de mais sublime, misterioso e belo --- expresso na delicadeza de um gesto erótico, de um decote e de uma revelação encontra-se destituída de seu valor na Contemporaneidade. A mulher evidencia, através do corpo excessivamente erotizado, a necessidade de se buscar outros saberes, frente às novas formas de erotização , que se apresentam

Drawing on the work of Julia Kristeva, Luce Irigaray, Hélène Cixous and media philosopher Jean Baudrillard, this article concentrates on John Webster’s tragedies and – after a short discussion of Shakespearean tragedies as well as of The White Devil – argues that The Duchess of Malfi is a unique English Renaissance tragedy insofar as it presents an unprecedented conception of feminine identity, which is linked to an affirmative understanding of female sexuality, to a non-traditional understanding of motherhood and to the notion of the abject. As a consequence of this, the supposed irregularities or ‘flaws’ of the play can be explained as the semiotic pulsation of drives interfering with the symbolic order, while the play in its totality demonstrates that it is the negated “peculiar organisation of abjection which actually founds the signifying economy of our culture” (A. Smith).

Följande studie är en undersökning kring hur en del av dagens mest populära musikvideos inom den svenska hiphop-genren reproducerar normativa könsstereotyper. Under år 2019 dominerade svensk hiphop de svenska topplistorna och den både produceras och konsumeras i dagsläget av unga människor. Trots genrens popularitet har mycket kritik riktats mot den. Genren är ur vissa aspekter mansdominerad, heteronormativ och sexistisk. Det är dessutom ett känt faktum att könsnormativa stereotyper frekvent förekommer i musikvideos. Einár, Ant Wan och Z.E är ett urplock ur Sveriges mest populära rappare med miljontals streams och visningar på sina videos. De har därmed en stor räckvidd och således ett stort inflytande. Syftet för studien är därför att undersöka på vilka sätt dessa artisters musikvideos reproducerar könsstereotyper. Vi undersöker också dessa representationer i samband med hur samhället ser på genus och jämställdhet idag. Med hjälp av semiotiken som metod och genus som teoretiskt perspektiv analyserades musikvideorna tillhörande de tre populäraste svenska hiphop-låtarna år 2019. Efter analysen kunde vi konstatera att de normativa könsstereotyperna byggs i videorna främst genom att ge könen motsatta karakteristiska drag. Detta gäller hur de olika könen klär sig, beter sig, filmas samt hur mycket de inkluderas. En missvisande och enformig bild av respektive kön kom dessutom till uttryck, vilket skapar en stark kontrast med nuvarande debatter om behovet av att dekonstruera könsstereotyper. / The following study examines how today's most popular music videos in the Swedish hip-hop genre reproduce normative gender stereotypes. In 2019, Swedish hip-hop dominated the country’s music charts and today it is both produced and consumed by young people. Despite the genre's popularity, much criticism has been addressed towards it. The genre is in some aspects male-dominated, heteronormative and sexist. It is also a known fact that gender normative stereotypes frequently appear in music videos. Einár, Ant Wan and Z.E are a selection of Sweden's most popular rappers with millions of streams and views on their videos. Therefore, they have a very large reach and influence. The purpose of the study is therefore to analyze how these artists' music videos reproduce gender stereotypes. We also examine these representations in connection with how society views gender and gender equality today. By using semiotics as a method, the music videos that belonged to the three most popular Swedish hip-hop songs in 2019 were analyzed. After the analysis, we were able to state that the normative gender stereotypes are built into the videos mainly by giving the sexes opposite characteristic features. This applies to how the different sexes dress, behave, are filmed and how much they are included. A misleading and monotonous picture of the sexes was also expressed, which creates a strong contrast with ongoing debates of the need to deconstruct gender stereotypes.

Ce travail de thèse questionne la perception de la féminité et sa relation au maquillage. Cette recherche est initiée par l’étude de l’impact du maquillage sur la modification d’une caractéristique du dimorphisme sexuel : le contraste facial (CF) (Russell, 2003, 2009). Nous avons démontré que malgré la pertinence du CF, celui-ci est insuffisant pour rendre compte du lien maquillage/féminité. Ces résultats nous interpellent quant à la seule présence du maquillage pour évaluer la féminité sans se référer aux caractéristiques biologiques. Le maquillage, par sa représentation sociale, est fortement lié à celle de la féminité. Le soin du corps qu’il représente en fait un élément central pour la féminité des femmes. Huguet et al. (2006) démontre l’existence d’un stéréotype « ce dont on a pris soin est bien » pouvant être activé par la présence de maquillage. Nous avons démontré l’existence d’une norme sociale astreignant les femmes à se maquiller pour être féminine, où le maquillage est une condition nécessaire pour obtenir non seulement des jugements de féminité élevés mais également un ensemble de caractéristiques positives. La perception de la féminité intègre dans son processus de réalisation à la fois des indices perceptifs mais fait également appel aux connaissances disponibles en mémoire, les stéréotypes, les représentations et les normes sociales rendues accessibles par le maquillage. Nous pouvons alors conclure que le maquillage n’est pas, par nature, féminin et positif mais qu’il est utilisé comme un élément de référence dans une conception multidimensionnelle de la féminité. / This project questions the perception of femininity and its relationship to make-up. It is prompted by the impact makeup has on the alteration of a sexual dimorphism characteristic : the facial contrast (FC) (Russell, 2003, 2009). We have shown that in spite the FC’s prominence, it remains insufficient to account for the link between make-up and femininity. The results challenge the presumption that makeup is present in assessing femininity, without taking into account biological characteristics. By its social representation, make-up is strongly linked to the idea of femininity. Because makeup is representative of self body-care in women, it becomes a central element for the representation of femininity. Huguet et al. (2006) demonstrates the existence of a stereotype such as « what has been cared for is good », which can be activated by the presence of makeup. We have demonstrated the existence of a social norm that compels women to wear make-up in order to be feminine exists, where makeup becomes a necessary condition for obtaining not only feminine judgements, but also a set of positive characteristics. The process of acknowledging the perception of femininity incorporates perceptive characteristics, as well as using available knowledge in memory, stereotypes, social representations and social norms brought to the fore by makeup. We can then conclude that make-up is not feminine and positive by nature, but that is used as a reference element in multi-dimensional perceptions of femininity.

MGS / Institute for Gender and Youth Studies

Using a method of reflexive ethnography, this thesis deals with a question of masculinity performace in the Czech extreme metal milieu (to be specific I am concerned with the brutal death metal and related sub-genres). Participants of the brutal death metal subculture either in the position of performers or audience are with a very few exceptions men. Brutality, harshness, extremeness and other values are the main aesthetic criteria, which - as we can observe while doing the research - the participants connect with a coherent collection of ideas about a certain ideal of dominant manhood. To achieve these values to the greatest extent possible the musicians use particular musical features and topics of the compositions; and so does both the musicians and the audience via their visual image, with using specific kind of behaviour and having fixed movements and dancing during the music production. On the basis of an analysis of these values and means of their manifestation I am concerned with the question of what specific characteristics the masculine identity, which is performed in the given subculture, has. My research data show that these are: 1) mutual affinity with the other participants, 2) power as an ability of an aggressive attack as well as one's own endurance, and 3) coarseness, lack of...