Abstract not available

Women architects are effectively absent from architectural history in Australia. Consulting first the archival record, this thesis establishes the presence of 230 women architects qualified and/or practising in NSW between 1900 and 1960. It then analyses some of these early women architects' achievements and difficulties in the profession, drawing on interviews with 70 practitioners or their friends and family. Finally it offers brief biographical accounts of eight leading early women architects, arguing that their achievements deserve more widespread historical attention in an adjusted canon of architectural merit. There are also 152 illustrations evidencing their design contributions. Thus the research draws on quantitative, qualitative, biographical and visual modes of representation in establishing a historical presence for these early women architects. The thesis forms part of the widespread political project of feminist historical recovery of women forebears, while also interrogating the ends and means of such historiography. The various threads describing women's absence and presence in the architectural profession are woven together throughout the thesis using three feminist approaches which sometimes harmonise and sometimes debate with each other. Described as "liberal feminism", "socialist feminism" and "postmodern feminism", they each put into play distinct patterns of questioning, method and interpretation, but all analyse historiography as a strategy for understanding society and effecting social change.

This thesis examines the politics of deconstruction within the interdisciplinary field of Women’s Studies and the question as to whether deconstruction has a politics, or can enhance the political goals of western feminism. This thesis argues that philosophy, and deconstruction in particular, is extremely useful for re-thinking feminist issues, especially around subjectivity and agency, but is not always seen to be so by some Australian feminists. As a result, Australian feminism, like feminism in other Anglophone countries, founded on the dichotomy of sameness-difference, has run out of theoretical and political steam. This thesis explores deconstruction within feminist debates and practices from the mid-1980s to present. In exploring both the contribution of deconstruction to rethinking difference and agency, and the failure on the part of most Australian women’s studies programs to apply the full potential of deconstruction, an argument is put forward for the value of deconstruction as a way of rethinking the question of woman’s subordination. While this is not a new area of study, this thesis focuses on the political efficacy of deconstruction, which is not always directly addressed in feminist texts. The first three chapters focus on the ways deconstruction has been interpreted, often negatively, by Anglo feminists or feminists in the English speaking world. It identifies the central issues taken up by feminist critics of deconstruction; argues that confusion has arisen largely due to interpretative misunderstandings of Derrida’s central tenets; and presents an elucidation of the radical potential of deconstruction for a feminist politics, especially in relation to female subjectivity. The last two chapters turn their attention to the debates over the meaning of deconstruction and the ways deconstruction entered the academy in Australia through Women’s Studies courses. They examine the specific discursive and institutional frameworks that aided or impeded the critical reception of new theoretical directions in Australia; argue that deconstruction entered Australian feminist discourse mainly in response to a dissatisfaction with the philosophy of Marxism/socialism; and detail major influences and theoretical works that made possible a more positive reception of deconstructive tenets within Australian feminism. The thesis concludes with a brief discussion of the crosscurrents between Australian and international feminist philosophy and outlines how deconstruction might continue to advance feminist understandings of subjectivity and enhance feminist practice. / Thesis(Ph.D.)-- School of Social Sciences, 2007.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--McMaster University, 2006. / Supervisor: Pamela Sugiman. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 148-159).

<p>The object of the essay was to investigate the argumentation in the bill, the comments from unions and the authorities, among others and the motions concerning the bill. To analysis this argumentation I have been using feminist theory, specifically Carole Lee Bacchis ”What’s the problem”-aproach. I also used Maud Eduards and Diane Sainsbury to complete my theory. They describe men as the norm of the society and women as deviant. The questions I have been investigating in the texts are</p><p>- What’s the problem?</p><p>- Who or what caused the problem?</p><p>- Who or what is responsible for the problem?</p><p>- Who has the responsibility to change the problem?</p><p>- What problem is not mentioned?</p><p>- Are men mentioned as a gender and a group?</p><p>- Are women mentioned as a gender and a group?</p><p>- How are men and women described?</p><p>The investigation found that the problems that was presented in the theory was very mush present in the text that I investigated. Women are seen as passive and as willingness victims of their employers. Men on the other hand are active and are mentioned as the opposite of these women. The results however varied depending on which text was studied, but the main picture remained the same.</p>

I offer a personal and prehistoric exploration of the concept of immanence, the principle of a divine force living, remaining, and operating within living creatures, inherent in the human, including the female; a unifying force that connects humans to each other, to nature, and to the earth. I examine the concept in three contexts: First, I share my own awakening to the earthly divine and my re-connection with the life-giving energies of the prehistoric Goddess, with my fellow human beings, and with the earth. Second, I describe the emergence of gender studies in the field of archaeology. Third, I examine a variety of theories that purport to explain the prehistoric shift away from cultures founded on egalitarian, immanent ways of living to the patriarchal, transcendent paradigms that currently dominate Western civilization In my examination of immanence, I highlight the damage done by hierarchical social structures and philosophical systems which separate humanity from the earth and from each other. However, the primary purpose of this examination is to illuminate the joy and the inherent good in rediscovering more egalitarian social structures and in reconnecting with one's own self, with humanity, and with the earth. The chapters are connected by an underlying theme of transformation from a state of separation and transcendence to one of connection and immanence. In chapter 1 I describe my personal, feminist transformation and re-engagement with the world during my journey through graduate school. I share my discovery of the prehistoric, life-nurturing spirituality of the great Goddess, my inquiry into the nature of gender studies in archaeology, and my connection with the Women Studies community at OSU. In the first half of Chapter 2 I detail the emergence of gender studies in archaeology and draw on various archaeological and feminist sources to describe challenges to many of the assumptions about sexuality, gender roles, reproductive priorities, and social structures of ancient cultures which are contained in traditional (androcentric) archaeology. In the second half of the chapter I present theories, gleaned from a review of archaeological and feminist literature, of the documented worldwide prehistoric shift away from egalitarian, life-giving, earth-centered social and spiritual frameworks toward hierarchical, life-threatening, male-centered social and religious frameworks. I conclude with observations about the political nature of my personal transformation and give examples of the trend toward reviving immanent social and spiritual practices in modern Western society. Rather than a definitive argument about the cause or causes of humanity's loss of an immanent world view, my thesis is offered as a sharing of my experiences, feelings, observations. and intuitions It is subjective and emotional as well as academic and rational It is intended to stimulate thought and discussion, and to offer hope to others who are rediscovering the joy of engagement on this earthly plane. / Graduation date: 1999

No description available.

There are conflicts between waged labour and motherhood that make it difficult for women to seize independence as workers and at the same time be mothers. These conflicts manifest themselves in women’s everyday practices as well as in feminist theory and in the women’s movement. The purpose of the thesis is to study the construction of motherhood and labour, and how the meanings attributed to motherhood and labour uphold women’s subordination. It is a study of how motherhood and labour are used to naturalise the gender order and make it legitimate. This is done by analysing texts on childminders encompassing the period 1967 to 1999. In Sweden, childminders are often perceived as solving the conflict between waged work and motherhood in a specific way. Employed by the municipal authorities, childminders work at home, taking care of other people’s children as well as their own. However, solving one dilemma, they find themselves in another. Working with children in the confinement of the home is not seen as a “real job” as long as it is connected to motherhood. The struggle of the childminders to count as “real” workers is a tale of their separation from motherhood. In the study, perceptions of motherhood and labour are seen as expressions of gender relations, which means that motherhood and labour are seen as equally gendered and structured. In political theory, labour is seen as the key to property in the person, as well as representing labourers’ contribution to society. This understanding of work renders it crucial to theories of democracy, as it legitimises the worker’s political participation. The dissertation shows how this theoretical function of labour rests on   constructing motherhood as the other, and mothers as incapable and illegitimate political subjects. Three key distinctions between motherhood and labour are distinguished and analysed. The first deals with the perception of motherhood as “being” and labour as “doing”. The second focuses on the conception that labour is a goal-oriented, rational activity whilst motherhood is seen as biologically determined with its own intrinsic values. In this view, motherhood can therefore not be understood as an activity that aims to transform. The third distinction is the opposition between the irreplaceability of the mother and the replaceability of labour power. The thesis concludes that strategies defining mother-like activities as labour presume that these activities are distinguished from motherhood. Paradoxically, when women in general become working mothers, leaving children at day-care, the biological aspect of motherhood is stressed, upholding motherhood as an institution. The differences construed between motherhood and labour are often naturalised and ascribed to women’s biology and double hardships: that they need to be both mothers and workers. This formulation makes it possible to manoeuvre and control women. Labour and motherhood can be used against each other in ways that grant men control over women, and at the same time deprive women of their power to act. Patriarchal power seems to be necessary to maintain the present underpinnings of democratic theory.

The purpose of this research was to determine if there is a model of ideal femininity communicated through advertising in girls’ and women’s magazines. To assess the representations of women in magazine advertisements, a content analysis of advertisements appearing in three top-selling, demographically-defined women’s magazines (Girls’ Life, Seventeen, and Cosmopolitan) was conducted. Using feminist theory and hegemony theory as critical lenses, advertisements were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. Each advertisement was assessed using five criteria: physical characteristics, social context, personality and attitude, and subtext. Using this data to establish the dominant representations of women, it was determined that there is a model of ideal femininity which is developed through establishing common ideals shared by all three magazines and by gradually introducing new ideals which correspond to shifts in real-world interests and experiences of women. It was concluded that a model of ideal femininity is developed through advertising in girls’ and women’s magazines, this model is used as a guide to direct girls and women towards specific ideal preferences, attitudes and behaviours, and this model continues to emphasise traditional cultural values and gender ideals which are not necessarily reflective of the range of roles women assume in today’s society.

This discursive policy study has its starting point in the criticism of the Swedish gender-equality policy is depoliticised. The purpose of this study is to investigate how the Swedish gender-equality policy was problematised and designed during the 2000s. The purpose of this paper is also to investigate whether the Swedish gender-equality policy can be defined as a depoliticised policy or not. The research questions of this study are: What´s the problem of gender-equality represented to be in the specifics policies and what effects are produced of this representation? Can gender policy, as it is designed in the various policy documents, be understood as a depoliticised policy, in the sense that sex is not articulated on the basis of a conflict dimension? To find the answer of theese questions I use the method ”Whats´s the problem represented to be", which is an inductive approach where the researcher sets selected questions to its material. The result of this study shows that the problem of gender-equality usually is represented in three different ways. The first finding is that the problem is descbribed in terms, that there is an uneven distribution of power between man and women. The second results shows that the problem with the unequal society is explained in terms that there´s is a lack of quality and knowledge. The last representation is described in terms that there is a problem for the democracy and the growth. The study result also shows that the Swedish gender-equality policy mostly can be understood as a de-politicised policy. / Denna studie är en diskursanalytisk policystudie som tar sin början i kritik om att den svenska jämställdhetspolitiken är avpolitiserad och saknar maktkritiskt innehåll. Syftet med denna uppsats är därför att undersöka hur den svenska jämställdhetspolitiken problematiserats och utformats under 2000-talet. Syftet med denna uppsats är också att undersöka om den svenska jämställdhetspolitiken kan definieras som ett avpolitiserat politikområde. De frågeställningar som studien ämnar svara är följande: Hur representeras jämställdhetsproblemet i de olika policydokumenten och vad blir effekterna av denna representation? Kan jämställdhetspolitiken, så som den är utformat i de olika policydokumenten, förstås som ett avpolitserat politikområde, i den mening att kön inte artikuleras utifrån en konfliktdimension? För att söka svar på dessa frågor används metoden What´s the problem represented to be? som är en induktiv strategi där forskaren ställer valda frågor till sitt material. Resultatet av undersökningen visar att jämställdhetsproblemet huvudsakligen framställs i tre olika typer av representationer. Dessa tre har jag valt kalla: maktfördelningsproblem, bristande kvalité- och kunskapsproblem och demokrati- och tillväxtproblem. Studiens resultat visar också att den svenska jämställdhetspolitiken mestadels kan förstås som ett avpolitiserat politikområde.