Reality television programming chronicling the daily workings of multiple birth families within American culture has gained notoriety in recent years. Such programs, especially Discovery Health and TLC's 17, 18 Kids and Counting and TLC's Jon and Kate Plus Ei8ht, film, edit and broadcast the "everyday" life of these families. This research study focuses attention on hegemonic ideologies surrounding family values, motherhood, gender roles and religious faith, illuminated through textual and audience analysis. Working from an interdisciplinary approach combining feminist media and cultural studies, this study finds that hegemonic notions of family values, gender representations, religious faith and conceptions of motherhood are evident to varying degrees in the television texts and accepted by fans who negotiate their meanings online. / by Emily M. CIttadino. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2010. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2010. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

<div>This project engages in an intersectional and interdisciplinary tracing of the emerging field of feminist game studies and the epistemologies and methodologies that exist within this field. Through such tracing, this project asks—what are feminist game studies’ epistemological goals and frameworks? What methodologies can the field draw from in order to achieve these epistemological goals? Ultimately, this project argues that feminist game studies enacts an epistemology of feminist worldbuilding—that is, an inclusive, embodied, space-claiming mode of producing knowledge—and achieves this worldbuilding through methodologies of intersectional disruption in order to perform disruptive feminist interventions into video game culture. </div><div><br></div><div>In the first chapter of this project, I make use of a methodology of narrative autoethnography to discuss my experience with online harassment as an inroad into interrogating the bodies at risk in gaming spaces in order to make a case for the need for feminist interventions to disrupt the violent structures within video game culture. The second chapter traces the ways hegemonic, patriarchal frameworks in game studies epistemologically deprivilege material, representational analyses of bodies and culture in the study of games and, instead, argues for the implementation of intersectional approaches to video game culture. The third chapter maps the intersectional feminist methodologies that can be implemented in feminist game studies in order to perform generative and disruptive interventions into video game culture and build feminist worlds. </div><div><br></div><div>In the fourth chapter, I apply some of these methodologies of disruption to the alienation of mothers in the gaming industry’s workplace culture and representations of mothers in the games Among the Sleep and Horizon Zero Dawn in order to intervene into video game culture’s prejudicial attitudes regarding labor, mothers, and women. The final chapter continues my autoethnographic work through the connection of my experiences with online harassment to previous experiences with gendered violence and trauma in order to underscore the stakes of feminist game studies praxis. In all these ways, I argue that feminist game studies builds worlds by performing interventions into video game culture through intersectional and pluralistic methodologies of disruption, for such methodologies imagine new, inclusive models of existence and futurity in video game culture.</div>

Mass Effect is a Science Fiction/Action Role Playing/Third Person Shooter video game series that takes place in the year 2183, in which the player assumes control of Commander Shepard. Players can choose to customize the character based on his/her gender, appearance, sexual orientation, background origin and occupation. The choices that show up in the game are also based on how the player wants their version of Shepard to interact with other characters and allows players some leeway to shape their own narrative. The series also discusses and acknowledges issues of race, gender, subjecthood and sovereignty, politics and sexual orientation within its narrative. This analysis focuses on the text of the series and its implications concerning hegemonic reinforcement and/or resistance in terms of race, gender, sexual orientation, politics, and warfare tactics. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2014. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

The Discourse of the Divine: Radical Traditions of Black Feminism, Musicking,and Myth within the Black Public Sphere (Civil Rights to the Present) is an exploration of the historical precursors and the contemporary developments of Black feminism in America, via Black female musical production and West and Central African cosmology. Historical continuity and consciousness of African spirituality within the development of Black feminism are analyzed alongside the musical practices of two Black female musicians, Nina Simone and Me’shell Ndegéocello. Simone and Ndegéocello, The High Priestess of Soul and the Mother of Neo-Soul, respectively, distend the commodified confines of Black music and identity by challenging the established norms of music and knowledge production. These artists’ lyrics, politics, and representations substantiate the “Signifyin(g)” elements of West and Central African feminist mythologies and music- making traditions. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2015 / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

This research provides a feminist perspective on the lowest paid sector of the United States long-term care industry, Certified Nursing Assistants. This research adds to current feminist scholarship on the modern professional caregiving industry by focusing on the perspective of the workers. As the population of older adults requiring care is expected to increase over the coming decades, the demand for paid caregivers will increase as well. Historically, care work was an expected duty done freely by the women of the family, but today much of the vital intimate caring labor is relegated to paid caregivers. I examine how alternative social, political and economic frameworks can transform United States society’s attitude towards the increasingly relevant issue of caring labor. I argue that incorporating a feminist perspective will be helpful in developing a sustainable model for caring labor that acknowledges the dignity of both patients and their caregivers. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2016. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

The purpose of this study is to examine the work-life balance experiences of Black females school leaders. Due to the inherent intersectionality of race and gender that is experienced by Black females, a study of their unique experiences with work-life balance is valuable to the field of educational leadership. The responsibilities associated with school leadership positions are extensive and those school leaders who also have spouses and children must figure out a way to fulfill responsibilities associated with each role. Work-life balance is important to understand for school leaders whose career responsibilities may interact with those associated with their personal lives. The theoretical framework, Black Feminist Thought, guided the data collection and analysis processes, and provided the basis for the resulting narrative findings. This study gave voice to an otherwise silenced, marginalized group, Black female school leaders. All data was synthesized into narratives and from these narratives came six themes: (1) Familial Sacrifice; (2) Servant Leadership; (3) Informal and Formal Work-life Balance Policies; (4) Notion of Self-Care; (5) Upbringing and Black Females’ Prideful Identity; and (6) Black Females having to prove themselves. While this study does not show evidence of school leaders having achieves work-life balance, the findings will inform the practices of perspective Black female school leaders and add the voices of Black female school leaders to the literature on Black female school leader’s experiences with work-life balance.

The subject of my thesis project is black nonfiction, namely the essay, memoir, and autobiography, written by black authors about and during the Post-Civil Rights Era. The central goals of this work are to briefly investigate the role of genre analysis within the various subsets of nonfiction and also to exemplify the ways that black writers have taken key genre models and evolved them. Secondly, I aim to understand the historical, political, and cultural contributions of the Post-Civil Rights Era, which I mark as hitting its stride in 1968. It is not my desire to create a definitive historical framework for the Post-Civil Rights Era, but instead to understand it as a period of transition, revolt, and transformation which asked many important questions that have remained unanswered. I apply multiple theoretical frameworks to my research — like queer theory, Afro-pessimism, fugitivity, and more — to offer insights into the nonfiction works of writers such as James Baldwin, Audre Lorde, Angela Davis, Alice Walker, Larry Neale, and Toni Cade Bambara. It is my hope to continue the work of such scholars as Hortense Spillers, Angela Ards, and Margo V. Perkins, by illustrating not only how these authors offered literary and aesthetic innovations, but also, through the archiving of their life experiences in print, create theories and practices for survival, forged in the past, which impact our current moment, and inspire us as scholars and activists to do the same.

Includes 2 previously published journal articles by the author: Women in architecture: a personal reflection ; and, "Half the sky, but no room of her own", as appendices. Includes bibliographical references (p. 233-251) An examination of some texts influential in the discourse of Australian architecture in the twentieth century. Explores from a feminist standpoint the gendered nature of discourse in contemporary Western architecture from an Australian perspective. The starting point for the thesis was an examination of Australian architectual discourse in search of some explanation for the continuing low numbers of women practitioners in Australia. Hypothesizes that contemporary Western architecture is imbued with a pervasive and dominant masculinity and that this is deeply imbedded in its discursive constructions: the body housed by architecture is assume to be male, the mind which produces architecture is assumed to be masculine. Given the cultural location of Australian architecture as a marginal participant in the wider arena of contemporary Western / international discourses, focuses on writing about two iconic figues in Western architecture; Le Corbusier, of international reknown; and, Glenn Murcutt, of predominantly local significance.

Includes 2 previously published journal articles by the author: Women in architecture: a personal reflection ; and, "Half the sky, but no room of her own", as appendices. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 233-251) / [xxiv], 252 p. : ill. ; 30 cm. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / An examination of some texts influential in the discourse of Australian architecture in the twentieth century. Explores from a feminist standpoint the gendered nature of discourse in contemporary Western architecture from an Australian perspective. The starting point for the thesis was an examination of Australian architectual discourse in search of some explanation for the continuing low numbers of women practitioners in Australia. Hypothesizes that contemporary Western architecture is imbued with a pervasive and dominant masculinity and that this is deeply imbedded in its discursive constructions: the body housed by architecture is assume to be male, the mind which produces architecture is assumed to be masculine. Given the cultural location of Australian architecture as a marginal participant in the wider arena of contemporary Western / international discourses, focuses on writing about two iconic figues in Western architecture; Le Corbusier, of international reknown; and, Glenn Murcutt, of predominantly local significance. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, School of Architecture, Landscape Architecture and Urban Design, 2003

Kvinnor på ledande positioner är få i svenskt arbetsliv. Det finns ett växande intresse för att förstå vad detta kan bero på. Vilken roll spelar kvinnornas inställning till karriär? Vilken roll spelar familjen? Direkt och indirekt diskriminering mot kvinnor beskrivs och diskuteras, liksom kvinnors upplevelser av fördelarna med att vara kvinna i arbetet. Kvinnor i mansdominerade yrken och miljöer utvecklar speciella strategier för att hantera kopplingen mellan sin egen identitet som kvinnor och det faktum att de befinner sig i en minoritetssituation. Denna avhandling grundar sig på en undersökning om kvinnliga civilekonomers och civilingenjörers karriärutveckling. I tolkningen av resultaten används feministisk teori på området organisation. Kvinnornas situation i karriären synliggörs. Boken riktar sig till alla som är intresserade av området "kvinnor och karriär", till exempel kvinnor och män i arbetslivet, liksom organisationsforskare och kvinnoforskare. / <p>Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögskolan, 1992. Spikblad saknas</p>