This study examines how working women are represented in the news media, and its main aim is to determine to what extent ‘social class’ figures in the representations of women in news content. Using language, visual and narrative analysis, the thesis comprises four case studies each focusing on portrayals of different women from different socio-economic backgrounds determined by their occupation. The first two case studies examine portrayals of low paid working women through coverage of the National Minimum Wage introduction into Britain in April 1999 and the Council Workers’ Strike in England and Wales in 2002. The latter two case studies focus on women in particular professions: elite businesswomen, military women and women war reporters. The study concludes by noting that multiple voices occur in news texts around the key contrasting themes of progress/stagnation and visibility/invisibility and which can give contradictory discourses on the intersection of gender and class. From the massification and silencing of working class women, to the celebrity and sexualisation of the business elite, and the professional competency news frames of middle class women, class was shown to be a determining factor in how women figure in news content. However, these class determinants combined with other news frames pertaining to gender, whereby powerful and established myths of femininity can come to the fore. These myths can be particularly powerful when women enter non-feminine work ‘spaces’ such as business and the military, and class, particularly in the latter case, can tend to slip out of view, as sexist coverage is commonplace and debates are formed about the right and wrong behaviour for women.

This thesis examines six trans feminine informants in New York City's experiences of oppression, trans-misogyny, femi-negativity, racism, and classism, as well as their experiences of community support, conflicts and resistance practices through the lens of the term sisterhood and the practice of sisterhooding. Focus has also been placed on the informant's views on allyship and coalition, and their relationship to other communities, such as the trans masculine community. The research has been conducted through in-depth, semi-structured, qualitative interviews with six trans feminine activists in New York City. The informant group was heterogenous in regards to age, race/ethnicity, as well as in regards to where in the city they resided and which parts of the movement they were engaged in. My findings follow Jenny Gunnarsson Payne's (2006) theory on sisterhood as an empty signifier, as my informants had different definition's of the term and concept of sisterhood, and while all of them expressed ambivalences towards the term and concept, they also all used the term to varying degrees. Several saw advantages in using the term to describe kinship and solidarity between trans feminine people. The participating informants in the study listed several different conflicts within trans feminine movements. Many of them were generally skeptical to conflicts, especially to those related to cattiness, competition, language and terminology – sentiment's which I agree with, albeit with the addition, which some of my informant's also stressed, that certain conflict's regarding differences in oppressions related to intersectional hierarchies, may be necessary. In the concluding chapter I argue for an understanding of trans-sisterhood based both on an understanding of similarities and difference's in experience and an understanding of solidarity that prioritizes the voices, perspectives and leadership of the most marginalized. My informant's described grave street harassment, employment discrimination and experiences of desexualization from gay/queer men and hypersexualization from so-called tranny chasers. Because of the lack of previous research on trans femininities from the perspective of an understanding of the specific oppressions of trans-misogyny and femi-negativity, this thesis has had a broad, rather then detailed, perspective and following in the foot steps of Julia Serano (2007) argues for an analysis on the position of trans women and other trans femininities beyond the gender neutral category of transgender. A majority of my informants sharp statements on the subordination of trans femininity to trans masculinity supports my argument for the need of more research in the field of trans femininity studies with perspectives from both transgender studies and critical femininity studies. / Genom djupintervjuer undersöker uppsatsen sex olika transfeminina informanter i New Yorks erfarenheter av förtryck, trans-misogyni, femi-negativitet, rasism och klassism, såväl som deras erfarenheter av stöd, konflikter och motståndspraktiker, vilket sker genom ett undersökande av deras inställning till termen systerskap och den systerskapande praktiken. Fokus har också legat på informanternas syn på allierade, koalitioner och deras relation till andra grupper, som till exempel transmaskulina personer. För att fånga in en intersektionell bredd av erfarenheter var informantgruppen heterogen i förhållande till ålder, “ras”/etnicitet, samt i förhållande till var de bodde i staden och vilka delar av rörelsen de var engagerade i. Informanterna beskrev grova erfarenheter av trakasserier på gatorna och diskriminering på arbetsmarknaden, samt erfarenheter av hypersexualisering från så kallade tranny chaser's och avsexualisering från homosexuella och queera män. I linje med Jenny Gunnarsson Payne's (2006) teori om systerskap som tom signifikant, hade mina informanter många olika definitioner av begreppet systerskap, och medan många av dem uttryckte ambivalenser i förhållande till termen, använde sig alla av begreppet i varierande grad. Flera av dem såg stora fördelar i att använda termen för att beskriva samhörighet och solidaritet mellan transfeminina. Mina informanter listade flera olika konflikter inom de transfeminina rörelsen och var allmänt skeptiska till konflikter, framförallt till de som handlade om elaka attityder, tävlande, språk och terminologi – vilket jag håller med dem om, med tillägget, som en del informanter också tydliggjorde, att visa konflikter gällande intersektionella hierarkier kan vara nödvändiga. Jag argumenterar  för en förståelse av trans-systerskap som baseras både i en förståelse av likheter och skillnader i erfarenheter sam i en förståelse av solidaritet som prioriterar perspektiven och ledarskapet av de mest marginaliserade rösterna. Uppsatsen har ett brett perspektiv eftersom det tidigare gjorts väldigt lite forskning om transfemininiter utifrån den specifika förståelsen av trans-misogyni och femi-negativitet. I likhet med Julia Serano (2007) argumenterar jag för ett analyserande av transkvinnors och andra transfemininas situation bortanför trans som könsneutral kategori och får stöd i majoriteten av mina informanters skarpa uttalanden om den hierarkiska underordningen av transfemininitet gentemot transmaskulinitet. Slutligen menar jag att det behövs mer forskning inom fältet transfemininitetsstudier med perspektiv både från kritiska femininitetsstudier och transstudier.

From 2002 to 2006, ten Palestinian women committed suicide attacks against Israeli civilians and military personnel, resulting in more fatalities and wounded noncombatants on average than attacks by male perpetrators. Rather than examining individual women’s motivations to become a suicide bomber, this research endeavor seeks to shift focus from this prevailing analytical approach to a sociological analysis of how militant organizations frame female participation to the public. Social movement perspectives and an extension of Erving Goffman’s work on frame analysis theoretically inform an examination of media produced by the two non-secular militant organizations of Hamas and Palestine Islamic Jihad. Organizations attempt to mitigate the “broken frame” introduced by female incorporation into an overwhelmingly male enterprise by strategically creating new frames that exalt and reinterpret extant social norms. Organizations frame female perpetrators as un-feminine individuals prior to their actions but, through the act of martyrdom, frame them as feminized symbols of the threat posed to Palestinian society, and its gender order, by Israeli military presence in the occupied territories. Martyrdom is framed, physically and symbolically, as a transformative experience. An application of frame analysis to violent social movements offers researchers the opportunity to understand how groups attempt to garner support and advance their interests within their populations and abroad. / text

Bakgrund: Utifrån erfarenheter och teoretisk kunskap har sjuksköterskestudenter uppmärksammat hur stereotyper kring kön finns starkt närvarande i sjukvården. Vården är dominerad av kvinnor men styrs av maktstrukturer utifrån patriarkala hierarkier. Problem: Kan förutfattade meningar om vad som är manligt och kvinnligt bli ett hinder för personcentrerad vård? Förminskas patienten från att vara en individ till att bli en generalisering utifrån genusnormer? Kan sjukvården bortse från fördomsfulla vårdkulturer gällande könsstereotyper i mötet med patienten? Syfte: Att beskriva hur sjuksköterskor upplever att genus påverkar den personcentrerade vården. Metod: Examensarbetet är en empirisk intervjustudie som använder en kvalitativ manifest innehållsanalys av obearbetat material. Urvalet består av sjuksköterskor inom svensk somatisk vård. Resultat: Vårdares och patienters kön har stark inverkan på vårdens utformning samtidigt som det florerar uppfattningar hos sjuksköterskor att en förutsättningslös attityd kan överbrygga könets betydelse. Slutsats: Genus måste belysas starkare, både i forskning och klinisk praxis då genus har en direkt och indirekt inverkan på den personcentrerade vårdens kvalitet. Sjukvården måste bli bättre på att medvetandegöra genus då rådande genusnormer ofta är osynliga och måste belysas kontinuerligt för att inte åter bli osynliga och genom detta orsaka diskriminering och vårdlidande. / Background: Experience and theoretical knowledge made nursing students aware that gender stereotypes are present in health care. Health care is dominated by women but controlled by patriarchal hierarchies. Problem: Can prejudice on masculinity and femininity hinder person-centered care? Is the patient being reduced from being an individual to becoming a generalization of gender norms? Is it possible for health care systems to ignore the impact of prejudiced gender cultures and still give patients qualitative treatment? Aim: To describe registered nurses experiences of how gender affects person-centered care. Method: An empirical interview study with a qualitative manifest content analysis of unprocessed data. The selection comprises registered nurses in Swedish somatic health care. Result: The gender of health care personnel and patients strongly affects the formation of health care relationships. Simultaneously there is preconception among nurses that an unbiased attitude can overlap the consequences of gender. Conclusion: Gender needs to be illuminated, in scientific research but also in practice. The health care system needs to develop its awareness of gender because prevailing gender norms are often invisible and need to be continuously illuminated in order to prevent gender bias, discrimination and care suffering.

This thesis takes its departure in 15-year-old students’ learning about the human body. During a semester I followed most of the sciences taught in one class of grade 9 students. I have chosen to illustrate lessons and analyse using the influence of feminists perspectives different situated actions in this science classroom practice, thereby raising a number of didactic questions focusing on the limits and possibilities of school science teaching. With the help of different analytic tools I have made close readings of transcribed situations presented in four studies. The results show ways in which science content becomes relevant to students’ experiences, but also how students’ unique voices may shift focus from the expected science content. Overall, the results show how some discursive performances that are often taken for granted in science education are filled with explicit and implicit norms about how things should be for example in relation to femininity and masculinity. These performances may affect how students come to regard themselves and the world around them. However, the results also point out opportunities for changing these discursive performances. One way of doing this, which emerges from my results, is to create possibilities for acts in situations of equal subject positions, where different kinds of positions are welcomed. This is an approach where the content of science education involves and transforms the experiences of students’ social lives, where students’ actions in encounters with the differences are regarded as an important part of meaning making. Therefore, I suggest that ongoing negotiations in teaching should be taken into account, be regarded as a significant part of the learning processes and, through this, open up new possibilities of widening what kind of meaning making becomes available for the students. This, in turn, may create a space with unimagined ethical opportunities by paying attention to disparities, i.e. to others who may act from a different logic than we are used to, in other words: welcoming and involving differences. / At the time of the doctoral defense, the following papers were unpublished and had a status as follows: Papers 2, 3 and 4: Manuscripts.

There appears to be little doubt about the nature of the relationship between the fashion model and the young girl in contemporary Western culture. Dominant literature, emerging from medico-psychological and feminist research, situates the model as a disorderly influence, imbued with the capacity to infect and, hence, distort the healthy minds and bodies of 'suggestible' young girls. Opposing these perspectives is a smaller, more recent body of literature, emerging from post-feminist work that argues that the model-girl relationship is a delightful influence. Thus, the contemporary field of scholarship reveals an increasingly dichotomous way of thinking about fashion model influence: the model influences young girls in ways that are disorderly or delightful, never both. This thesis argues that to assume that the model-girl encounter is 'neatly' disorderly or delightful is shifty at best. It suggests that, in their rush to judge the fashion model as either pernicious or pleasurable, existing literature fails to account for the precision with which young girls know the fashion model. Using poststructuralist theory, the thesis argues that 'influence' may be more usefully thought of as a discursive effect, which may produce a range of effects for better and worse. Following Foucault (1972), fashion model influence is interrogated as a regime of truth about the model-girl encounter, constituted discursively under specific social, cultural and historical conditions. In so doing, the thesis makes different sense of fashion model influence, and questions influence as an independently-existing 'force' that bears down on vulnerable young girls. Drawing on a poststructural conceptual architecture, this thesis re-conceptualises the model-girl encounter as a pedagogical relationship focused on the (ideal) female body. It suggests that the fashion model, as an authoritative embodied pedagogue, transmits knowledge about 'ideal' feminine bodily conduct to the young girl, as attentive gazing apprentice. Fashion model influence is re-interrogated as the product of certain forms of disciplinary training (Foucault, 1977a), with young girls learning a discursive knowledge about how to discipline the body in ways that are properly feminine. Such a perspective departs from the notion that fashion model influence is necessarily disorderly or delightful, and makes possible a re-reading of influence in terms of learning outcomes. A problematic arises conceptualising the fashion model in this way. To consider the model as a 'good' teacher breaches a number of discursive rules for best pedagogical practice in postmodern times: She is not a pedagogue of the mind; she is not student-centred, facilitative, asexual, interpersonally engaged, relational, or authentic. To create a space for thinking differently about the model as a teacher, then, the thesis looks to ancient historical times and places in which female-to-female and body-to-body pedagogies were practised and understood. The first phase of the research project embedded in this thesis defamiliarises pedagogical work using historical texts from ancient Greece. It examines in particular the erotically embodied pedagogical relationships conducted between older, authoritative elite prostitutes known as hetairae, and their younger female apprentices. The discursive rules governing these pedagogical relationships are examined with a view to diagnosing the model-girl encounter in terms of these rules. These rules are then used to interrogate ethnographic data generated through observation of the model-girl encounter in situ in a modelling course, and through focus group interviews with groups of young girls. Working through notions of corporeal embodiment, self as art, desire, discipline, stillness, spectacle, the gaze and the conduct of conduct, the study interrogates the model-girl encounter as a contemporary pedagogical encounter. To avoid reaffirming more traditional binaries, the reading of data is ironic, working within and between binaries such as disorder/delight. Three ironic categories of femininity are produced out of the analysis: unnaturally natural, stompy grace and beautifully grotesque. These categories 'speak' the fragmentation, fissure, contradiction, inconsistency and absurdity that permeate the talk of young girls and model-girl pedagogy in the modelling classroom. Thus, the thesis offers up an analysis of the model-girl encounter that refuses the neatness and uni-dimensionality that characterises existing literature.

Thesis (PhD)--Macquarie University, Faculty of Arts, Department of Media, Music, and Cultural Studies, 2009. / Bibliography: p. 303-332. / Carnal transcendence and sexual difference -- An amorous exchange -- Angels playing with placentas -- Fluid subjects -- Poetics -- Oneiric spaces -- Conclusion. / Carnal transcendence imagines a world in which the carnal has the weight and value of transcendence, and the divine is as liveable and readily evoked as the carnal. Carnal transcendence offers a means of thinking through difference in the work of Luce Irigaray, who asks: "why and how long ago did God withdraw from carnal love?" (1991a, p 16). This thesis argues that Irigaray enables her readers to explore the relationship between carnality, transcendence and difference, but resists elaborating it in her work. Carnal transcendence as difference risks remaining an exercise in rhetoric, rather than the transformative and creative philosophy that Irigaray imagines. -- Irigaray's resistance to the carnal is evident in her arguments for sexual difference, which offers our "salvation" if we think it through, and heralds "a new age of thought, art, poetry, and language: the creation of a new poetics" (1993a, p 5). Note the language of transcendence used here. When considered in the light of carnal transcendence, sexual difference imagines a differently sexed culture. This thesis argues that Irigaray's writing is contradictory on this point: it articulates the plurality of women's sexuality, but emphatically excludes theories of sex and gender that emphasise multiplicity. This thesis challenges these limitations by exploring the possibilities of the "other" couple in Irigaray's writing-mother and daughter - for thinking through carnal transcendence as difference. -- This thesis not only explicates a theoretical model for carnal transcendence as difference; it also attempts to put into practice a poetics - a playful rewriting of theory. This celebrates the carnality of Irigaray's writing - evident in her complex imagery of the two lips, mucus, the placenta and angels-and enables an exploration of the philosophical space of the "new poetics" that Irigaray is attempting to engender. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / 332 p. ill (some col.)

Thesis (MA)--Stellenbosch University, 2012. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This thesis investigates the ways in which white subjectivity is shaped by colonial and imperial spaces. Jean Rhys’s Voyage in the Dark (1934), Marguerite Duras’s The Sea Wall (1952/1967) and Marlene van Niekerk’s Agaat (2004/2006) are vastly different novels from multifarious literary traditions, yet they join each other through their protagonists: white creole women. In this study, I engage most prominently with white creole female subjectivity, framing my study with theories of the subject proposed by Homi Bhabha and Judith Butler. In order to interrogate creolité, I draw on Bhabha’s concept of “thirdness” – a category signifying a position in-between binary categories of representation – and Butler’s conceptualisation of subjectivity/subjection, through which she highlights the ambivalences of the process of interpellation. I also read through lenses proposed by whiteness studies in the United States and South Africa, approaching creolité not as an indication of racial hybridity, but rather a term connoting cultural and political in-betweenness. As my discussions of the novels illustrate, white creole femininity in the (post)colony is a subject position through which intricate webs of “complicity and resistance” (Whitlock 349) have to be negotiated. Looking at the white creole women as textual constructs embedded in genres which advance a particular set of politics, I explore the ways in which the authors, through their novels and protagonists, navigate various political and cultural ambiguities and inconsistencies. Establishing the theoretical framework in the introductory first chapter, in Chapter 2 I read Rhys’s novel as a modernist text that elicits a particular postcolonial politics. I link the protagonist’s social alienation in London and the Caribbean to the experience of the middle passage; this is followed by an exploration of her sexuality with reference to the figures of the European prostitute and the ‘Hottentot’ Venus. In Chapter 3 I investigate Duras’s novel and trace the ways in which a family of impoverished “Colonial natives” (Duras 138) continually fail to establish themselves as ‘legitimate’ white colonials in (French colonial) Southeast Asia. Lastly, in Chapter 4, I approach Van Niekerk’s novel not only as a feminist re-writing of the plaasroman, but also as a “complicitous critique” (Warnes 121) that reflects nostalgically – yet critically – on Afrikaner nationalism. I show how the novel registers a vision of the quotidian that is uncomfortable and unhomely. Together, the three novels speak in highly comparable and complex ways about how white creole women experience (un)homeliness in the (post)colony. This thesis probes the extent to which the novels negotiate ‘home’ (or the lack thereof): displaced, alienated and often expressing forms of nostalgia, the protagonists struggle to establish forms of belonging in spaces within which they oscillate between opposed cultures, ideologies and politics. Ultimately, my study is crucially underscored by the question of displacement and estrangement (in various guises), and the way in which they inflect the establishment and performance of femininity. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie tesis ondersoek die wyses waarop koloniale en imperiale ruimtes wit subjektiwiteit beïnvloed. Jean Rhys se Voyage in the Dark (1934), Marguerite Duras se The Sea Wall (1952/1967) en Marlene van Niekerk se Agaat (2004/2006) is uiteenlopende romans uit verskeie literêre tradisies: nietemin sluit hulle by mekaar aan deur hul hoofkarakters – wit kreoolse vroue. ‘n Bespreking van wit kreoolse vroulike subjektiwiteit vorm die grondslag van my studie, en ek struktureer dit rondom Homi Bhabha en Judith Butler se teorieë van subjektiwiteit. Ek benader kreoolsheid deur middel van Bhabha se konsep van “thirdness” – a kategorie wat ‘n plek tussen binêre opposisies aandui – asook Butler se teorie van “subjectivity/subjection” waarin sy the ambivalente proses van interpellasie belig. Verder lees ek die tekste met behulp van benaderings soos uiteengelê deur blankheid studies in die Verenigde State en Suid-Afrika. Ek beskou (wit) kreoolsheid dus nie as ‘n aanduiding van ras-hibrideit nie, maar eerder kulturele en politieke ambivalensie. My bespreking van die drie romans illustreer postkoloniale wit kreoolse vroulikheid as ‘n subjek-kategorie wat verwikkeld is in vorms van medepligtigheid én opstandigheid (Whitlock 349). Ek beskou die karakters as literêre konstrukte wat ingebed is in genres met spesifieke politieke standpunte. As sodanig, dink ek ook na oor die wyses waarop the outeurs, deur middel van hul romans en hoofkarakters, uiteenlopende politieke en kulturele teenstrydighede uitbeeld. In Hoofstuk 1 lê ek ‘n teoretiese raamwerk uiteen, en in Hoofstuk 2 beskou ek Rhys se roman as ‘n modernistiese teks wat terselfdertyd opvallende postkoloniale politieke temas bevat. Ek vergelyk die hoofkarakter se posisie as sosiale verstoteling in Londen en die Karibiese Eilande met die ervaring van die “middle passage”; daarna vergelyk ek haar seksualiteit met dié van die wit Europese prostituut en die ‘Hottentot’ Venus. In Hoofstuk 3 bespreek ek Duras se roman, en verken die wyses waarop ‘n gesin van “Koloniale inboorlinge” (Duras 138) in Suidoos Asië deurentyd misluk om rykdom en sosiale aansien te bekom. Laastens, in Hoofstuk 4, interpreteer ek Van Niekerk se roman nie net as ‘n feministiese herskrywing van die plaasroman nie, maar ook as ‘n “complicitous critique” (Warnes 121) wat nostalgies, maar ook op ‘n kritiese wyse, oor Afrikaner-nasionalisme nadink. Ek argumenteer verder dat die teks ‘n ongemaklike beeld van die alledaagse, asook die identifisering met die eie, skets. Wanneer die drie romans tesame beskou word, is dit duidelik dat hulle op hoogs vergelykbare en komplekse maniere nadink oor hoe wit kreoolse vroue hul sosiale en politieke posisies in (post)koloniale ruimtes ervaar. Hierdie tesis ondersoek die wyses waarop die romans tuisheid (of die gebrek daaraan) te bowe kom: die hoofkarakters is dikwels misplaas, vervreem en nostalgies, en is dikwels verwikkeld in ‘n stryd om te behoort, midde-in teenoorgestelde kulture, ideologieë en politieke standpunte. Ek baseer my tesis op die groter oorkoepelende problematiek van ontheemdheid en verveemding (in verskeie gedaantes), en hoe dit vorm gee aan die vestiging en beoefening van vroulike subjektiwiteit.

People spend substantial parts of their life in a close dyadic relationship. The results range from the fulfillment of emotional, intellectual, social and physical needs, to physical and emotional abuse. The study clarifies the association between sex-role identity type, with its two traits (masculinity and femininity), and relationship satisfaction, at the dyadic level. The latter implies a focus on the identical (or different) levels of presence of the two constructs among partners in couples. Extraneous factors and personal (non-dyadic) effects are covered in addition. The two main variables are evaluated with the Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI) and Spanier's Dyadic Adjustment Scale (DAS). In each case, a second instrument was administered for validation. The survey-type study followed a correlational, cross-sectional design. The main purposes have been to test new theoretical frameworks against empirical data, and knowledge production. A three-pronged approach included: an extensive literature review to identify methodological and knowledge gaps; a theory-driven design and methodology to ensure a sound study; and empirical data collection to verify the theoretical position through hypothesis testing. Likely sources of bias were countered by involving balanced numbers of male and female, and homosexual and heterosexual respondents, from non-student populations, over a wide age range, and living in close relationships spanning at least two years. The correlational design and relatively small sub-samples dictated the application of descriptive frequencies, and chi-square, variance (ANOVA) and regression analyses, as statistical techniques. The findings emerged as more similar than different for homosexual and heterosexual participants. This implies that homosexuals are not a deviant group, but equally able to achieve happiness. Congruent (identical) sex-role identity traits between partners were not strong(est) in predicting satisfaction. However, femininity and androgyny, as highest adaptive type, and identical sex-role identity types between partners did. As a result, the initial sex-role identity congruence theory has been modified into the adaptive femininity trait theory. Married heterosexual women face a predicament. While for them an undifferentiated sex-role identity type correlates with their husbands' happiness, and their own unhappiness, the inverse applies to their femininity and androgyny. The practical implications of this and other conclusions are also detailed. / Psychology / D. Litt et Phil (Psychology)

Etre mère est une aspiration pour de nombreuses femmes, même si à Douala, elles continuent de payer du lourd tribut de leur vie, l’accouchement. Paradoxalement, la réalité vécue par elles, enceintes et le personnel affecté à leur prise en charge reste méconnue ou ignorée par le grand public. Afin de comprendre ce phénomène, nous avons mené une enquête sur la base d’observation et d’entretiens avec les femmes enceintes, le personnel médical et paramédical et la parentèle de la parturiente de mars 2008 à décembre 2010 dans cinq établissements hospitaliers de la ville de Douala et ses environs. Cette recherche appréhende les éléments du discours pour re-construire le contexte anthropologique qu’il génère et dont il est le produit. Elle a permis de comprendre la contradiction entre la valorisation du statut de la parturiente et l’a-normalité des comportements pendant la parturition. Il en résulte un problème de concordance entre des attitudes culturellement marquées et des normes sanitaires. Les femmes, sans toutefois ignorer leur vulnérabilité et les conditions qui favorisent une fin heureuse de la grossesse, ne commencent que tardivement les consultations prénatales. / Becoming a mother is the yearning of many women, even though in Douala, they continue to heavily pay with their very lives the act of childbirth. Paradoxically, the reality about what they go through while being pregnant, and the personnel assigned to manage them remains unrecognized or ignored by the general public. In order to understand this phenomenon, we carried out an enquiry based on observations and discussions with pregnant women, the medical/paramedical personnel, and the relatives of the parturient from March 2008 to December 2010, in five health institutions in the town of Douala. This research takes into account the various elements of discussion to rebuild the anthropological context generated by it, and of which it is also the product. It enables us to understand the contradiction between the valorisation of the parturient status, and the behavioural abnormalities during parturition. As a result, a concordance problem arises between the culturally marked attitudes, and the health norms. Though being vulnerable and aware of the conditions that favour a happy end of the pregnancy, the women still begin prenatal consultations late.