<p>ABSTRACT</p><p>Title: Violence and women representation in video games (Vålds‐ och kvinnoskildringar i TV‐spel)</p><p>Number of pages: 42</p><p>Author: Karolin Bodling</p><p>Tutor: Göran Svensson</p><p>Course: Media and Communication Studies D</p><p>Period: Autumn 2005</p><p>University: Division of Media and Communication, Department of Information Science, Uppsala University.</p><p>Purpose/Aim: The aim is to investigate how violence and women are presented in video games and in game reviews.</p><p>Material/Method: The study includes theories that consider violence and gender in media and video games. The material of the essay exists of two games and five reviews. The method that is being used is a content analysis. The games that are being analysed are Jade Empire and Grand Theft Auto – San Andreas.</p><p>Main results: The video games are often connected to brutal violence but the analysis of the game Jade Empire shows that it is possible to hve control of the violence in the games and that the player has a possibility to choose the outcome of violence. In comparence to Jade Empire, Grand Theft Auto – San Andreas shows brutal violence as entertainment. The games that have been analysed shows women as stereotyped objects. The development of women in games has been going forward but the question is wheter it´s going forward in the right way; from an innocent princess to a sex object. There is a big difference between how the violence and women are being showed in the games and how they are described in the rviews, the reviewer is often neutral in his or hers judgement of the violence and the female characters in the games.</p><p>Keywords: video games, gender, violence, media, gender roles</p>

The gender order in urban India is changing rapidly. Several economic, political and sociocultural shifts have brought with them new opportunities and challenges for Indian men and women. This thesis attempts to understand some of these social and cultural changes from the perspective of a group of affluent young men in Delhi. By ethnographically studying young men and their masculinities in urban public spaces of leisure and consumption, this thesis explores some of their relatively new practices of consumption and embodied performances of gender, as well as its consequences on gendering a city space. Through focusing on newly commodified spaces like gyms, shopping malls, night clubs, bars, metro trains and cruising parks in Delhi, I argue that a politics of space, age, gender and class come together to mark men's identities, bodies as well as urban spaces, creating forms of belonging and exclusions in a neoliberal India. Within this context, I explore how ideas of what it means to be a young man are changing in a consumerist India and how this in turn shapes young men's relationships with other men, women, families and changing city spaces. Using ethnographic data collected over fourteen months of fieldwork in Delhi, along with visual and cultural analysis, this thesis lays bare the layers of masculine performances and reveals the everyday attempts at embedding and reproducing a heterosexist patriarchal social order under the guise of a 'new Indian man' and his 'new' India. In the process, I critically but empathetically explore the gendered hierarchies and anxieties that emerge in contemporary India and its consequences on various bodies and city spaces. The chief arguments are presented in five empirical chapters: 1) A 'New' Indian Man, 2) A Masculine Body, 3) Desexing a Masculine Body, 4) A Smart and Masculine City, and 5) A Safe/Unsafe City.

This study focused on the relationship between gender and science.The position taken was that this relationship is in need of theoretically informed clarification, from a perspective which allows for the questioning of taken-for-granted assumptions about knowledge. Thus, the sociology of knowledge, a discipline concerned essentially with the ideological basis of knowledge, provided the theoretical underpinnings for the study.The study's overall purpose was to advance understanding of the gender/science relationship through the development and testing of a theory. Secondary school science, an area in which the problematic gender/science relationship is of particular concern and an area which suffers acutely from lack of theory in this regard, was selected as the specific focus.The problem central to the study concerned the manner in which the structure of curriculum and assessment in secondary schools appears to influence the relationship between gender and science. In addressing this problem, the study involved two major tasks. The first task was to develop a theory which reconceptualises and integrates three strands of previous research, namely, (i) theories about the sociology of knowledge and the school curriculum, drawing initially on the research of Bernstein (1971b), Young (1971b) and Broadfoot (1979); (ii) empirical research, conducted mainly by science educators, concerning the manner in which science curriculum and assessment policy and practice appear to interact with gender; and, (iii) theories developed from the postmodernist feminist critique of science. The second task was to test this theory through a socio-historical analysis of patterns of sex differences in participation and achievement in secondary school science in one Australian State, namely Western Australia.The theory of the gender code of school science is the major outcome of the integration ++ / of the intellectual and empirical activities described in this thesis. Essentially, it is a conceptual, sociological framework in which gender is a central category. It is shown, in this study, to have both descriptive and predictive power with respect to the gender/science relationship at secondary school level.

<p>This thesis is based on material gathered during a field study in rural Sri Lanka, a Minor Field Study, (MFS) during April-May 2007. The core of the thesis deals with conceptualisations of empowerment and how they can be interpreted contextually from the perspectives of motherhood. The interplay of gender discourses with structural dimensions are analysed to see how these work to uphold ideals whilst posing contrary demands on mothers. Part of the focus has thus been to look at how discourses are adhered, aligned and adjusted to in various ways as strategies for survival in the context of poverty and marginalisation. The way social constructions perpetuate asymmetrical power relations as natural and normative is also discussed since this is central to how gender discourses are produced, upheld and reproduced. This study initiates in the every day experiences of mothers living in absolute poverty. Through narratives and participatory observations of their daily experiences contextual discourses, structural dimensions and agency are analysed. Their experiences are viewed as interconnected with the wider perspectives of political, economic and social conditions locally and globally. Analysis of these experiences against contextual discourses and structural implications attempts to identify possibilities and potential for empowerment. By raising central issues to the mothers regarding segregation, marginalisation and vulnerability, a more contextual understanding of how empowerment is constrained and facilitated is hopefully achieved. Furthermore, how women in this study respond and relate to these issues and whether empowering experiences can be traced even where overt challenges are absent. Finally, the thesis addresses the complexity of carrying out a study of this kind, where the prerogative to define and conceptualise lies with the researcher, the beholder, representing through this very role inequity in the division of power and privilege.</p>

ABSTRACT Title: Violence and women representation in video games (Vålds‐ och kvinnoskildringar i TV‐spel) Number of pages: 42 Author: Karolin Bodling Tutor: Göran Svensson Course: Media and Communication Studies D Period: Autumn 2005 University: Division of Media and Communication, Department of Information Science, Uppsala University. Purpose/Aim: The aim is to investigate how violence and women are presented in video games and in game reviews. Material/Method: The study includes theories that consider violence and gender in media and video games. The material of the essay exists of two games and five reviews. The method that is being used is a content analysis. The games that are being analysed are Jade Empire and Grand Theft Auto – San Andreas. Main results: The video games are often connected to brutal violence but the analysis of the game Jade Empire shows that it is possible to hve control of the violence in the games and that the player has a possibility to choose the outcome of violence. In comparence to Jade Empire, Grand Theft Auto – San Andreas shows brutal violence as entertainment. The games that have been analysed shows women as stereotyped objects. The development of women in games has been going forward but the question is wheter it´s going forward in the right way; from an innocent princess to a sex object. There is a big difference between how the violence and women are being showed in the games and how they are described in the rviews, the reviewer is often neutral in his or hers judgement of the violence and the female characters in the games. Keywords: video games, gender, violence, media, gender roles

This thesis is based on material gathered during a field study in rural Sri Lanka, a Minor Field Study, (MFS) during April-May 2007. The core of the thesis deals with conceptualisations of empowerment and how they can be interpreted contextually from the perspectives of motherhood. The interplay of gender discourses with structural dimensions are analysed to see how these work to uphold ideals whilst posing contrary demands on mothers. Part of the focus has thus been to look at how discourses are adhered, aligned and adjusted to in various ways as strategies for survival in the context of poverty and marginalisation. The way social constructions perpetuate asymmetrical power relations as natural and normative is also discussed since this is central to how gender discourses are produced, upheld and reproduced. This study initiates in the every day experiences of mothers living in absolute poverty. Through narratives and participatory observations of their daily experiences contextual discourses, structural dimensions and agency are analysed. Their experiences are viewed as interconnected with the wider perspectives of political, economic and social conditions locally and globally. Analysis of these experiences against contextual discourses and structural implications attempts to identify possibilities and potential for empowerment. By raising central issues to the mothers regarding segregation, marginalisation and vulnerability, a more contextual understanding of how empowerment is constrained and facilitated is hopefully achieved. Furthermore, how women in this study respond and relate to these issues and whether empowering experiences can be traced even where overt challenges are absent. Finally, the thesis addresses the complexity of carrying out a study of this kind, where the prerogative to define and conceptualise lies with the researcher, the beholder, representing through this very role inequity in the division of power and privilege.

This paper attempts to illustrate a gap when it comes to the knowledge about unpaid volunteers in Swedish organisations. The person-oriented explanations of individual preferences when choosing an orientation in which to volunteer does not suffice to explain and enlighten the fact that there is a gender-based division that orientates women towards voluntary work within organisations with a social direction, while men tend to choose sports-oriented voluntary tasks. This illustrates a pattern that is common in society in general. Eight interviews including four women volunteering in socially oriented organisations and four men in sports-oriented organisations have been conducted. An attempt has been made to explain results from earlier research as well as the respondents reasoning about their voluntary work with gender related theories. The aim has been to situate individual choices of preference to a larger context that illustrates those as not completely individual but also as formations that makes a symphony with the general ideas about feminine and masculine qualities.

Hunting is considered as the most masculine activity in our society. Historically, man has been described as the provider for his family, this in the forms of hunting and gathering. Today hunting is still associated with a male hunter, but women have started to infiltrate the hunting culture. In this study hunting culture is analyzed with a gender perspective. In a modern society with gender and equality as a big subject of debate it is interesting to examine this impact on a culture so linked with masculinity. By interviewing five female hunters, using a narrative approach and analyzing with gender theory, the results show that a masculine dominance undermines women and femininity in the culture of hunting. The results also show that women have constructed a feminine hunting form as a reaction to the male dominance.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 1999. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 238-265).

Diagnosis of psychological disorders is clearly gendered. To help explain these gender differences, previous research investigating actual and perceived gender differences in emotion will be detailed. Within a non-clinical setting, perceived gender differences in emotion appear larger and more consistent than actual gender differences in emotion. Gender stereotypes about emotions offer an explanation of this finding. The implications of these findings in a clinical setting are explored, specifically the impact of gender stereotypes about emotion on diagnosis and intervention.