Hurricane Katrina made landfall 60 miles east of New Orleans, Louisiana, on August 29, 2005. The storm revealed the reality of the socio-economic state of tens of thousands of African Americans living in the city of New Orleans, especially African-American women. This study examines the state of development of African-American women who lived in the Lower 9th Ward area of New Orleans prior to, during, and after Hurricane Katrina. This study was based on the premise that African-American women who lived in the Lower 9th Ward were significantly more affected by Hurricane Katrina than any other group in the area because of their race, class, gender, and state of development. A narrative analysis was chosen as the method for this study. The data were collected from interviews was analyzed to explore how Hurricane Katrina impacted these women’s state of development, or the lack thereof. The researcher found that Lower 9th Ward African-American women were impacted by Hurricane Katrina more than any other group because of their underdeveloped state. The conclusions drawn from the findings suggest that the African-American women from the Lower 9th Ward area lived a life comparable to that of women in developing countries, while living in a First World country. The reality of their underdeveloped state allowed for Hurricane Katrina to impact them more negatively than any other group by leaving them unable to regain normalcy in some areas of their lives, especially those areas influenced by their race, class, and gender.

In the world of Henry James's novels, characters are often placed in difficult situations where their happiness depends on their ability to make a free choice. Female characters are manipulated and diminished by a patriarchal system that not only seeks to subordinate their will, but also to objectify them, to place them on the shelf as a trophy. Fathers and husbands are typically the controlling agents, but James also presents women who appropriate the dominating role. With varying degrees of success, each female character rejects the status of trophy. Instead, each attempts to make choices and determine her own future. James allows for ambiguity and nuanced resolutions. With ambiguity comes hope in the steadfastness of Catherine Sloper in Washington Square, in the tragic heroism of Isabel Archer in The Portrait of a Lady, and even in the sacrificial loss of Verena Tarrant for Olive Chancellor in The Bostonians.

Writers and historians from earlier centuries imagined Anne Boleyn as a villain; a forward and evil woman intent on destroying Henry VII and his image. Modern accounts have been more accommodating, offering that she was misunderstood due to the constraints of the times. In an attempt to discover the historical Anne, I will be comparing and contrasting how she has been perceived in fiction and non-fiction literature, and will examine how the perception of Anne has shifted through time.

Lisa Henderson, LOVE AND MONEY: QUEERS, CLASS, AND CULTURAL PRODUCTION. New York: New York University Press, 2013; 201 pp. ISBN: 9780814790588, $23.00 paperback.

The series Adam Ruins Everything (ARE) provides an opportunity to contemplate White, hipster masculinity and its professed progressivism in U.S. culture. As seen in ARE, hipster masculinity claims—in part—to possess an enlightened social politic, challenging sexism, racism, and heterosexism, yet the figuration of the White, cisgender-male hipster we get seemingly adopts feminist positions as means to insulate and expand his own social privilege. Using rhetorical strategies to win debates against cultural hegemony, the hipster of ARE becomes a superior masculinity, a trusted voice to guide and liberate White women and people of color, centering himself as the source of a singular truth. The essay provides the opportunity to consider ongoing tensions and ironies between men/masculinity and feminism.

Social psychology researchers have become increasingly interested in the role of essentialist beliefs in predicting attitudes toward social groups. However, there is little agreement about what the term actually means, whether it means different things for different groups, what endorsement of essentialism (or its sub-components) means for attitudes, and how much this varies depending on the relevant social context. This underlying lack of clarity helps to explain some of the difficulty in understanding the relationships between essentialist beliefs about sexual orientation and attitudes toward gay men and lesbians. In the current project, I suggest a fundamental shift in the approach to this issue. Specifically, I examine the effects of essentialist beliefs related to gender (rather than essentialist beliefs related to sexual orientation) on heterosexist attitudes. In study one, I explore the interrelationships among gender- and sexual orientation-related beliefs and attitudes toward gays, revealing that essentialist beliefs about gender are more consistent and unitary in their relationship to heterosexism than the sexual-orientation related analogues. In my second study, I demonstrate a causal link by manipulating essentialist beliefs about gender. Increasing the salience of gender essentialist beliefs produced higher heterosexism scores relative to decreasing the salience of such beliefs. Taken together, these studies demonstrate the interconnectedness of sexism and the gender hierarchy with heterosexism and discrimination against gays. More importantly, study two forecasts a possible intervention strategy for reducing anti-gay prejudice.

Irrespective of professional experience and educational background, gender pay disparity is a problem in the federal government. Women have to overcome salary barriers, such as agency segregation, position segregation, and invisible barriers known as the glass ceiling and the glass wall. Recent studies have indicated that human capital variables, people skills, discrimination, and policies all contribute to gender pay disparity in America's workforce. However, there are limited studies that focus on the indirect factors that also contribute to gender pay inequality. The purpose of this quantitative research was to investigate the relationship between wages and job responsibility (as defined by an employee's job series) for all federal employees within the GS14 pay grade working in the state of Virginia. The data source for this retrospective study came from the December 2014 archived federal employee records that were retrieved from the Office of Personnel Management website. Ordinary least square regression modeling was used to analyze the data collected from the Office of Personnel Management central personnel data file. The results from the data analysis demonstrated a significant relationship between job responsibility and wages. The results from the data analysis demonstrated that men earned higher wages than did their female counterparts and were given more authority in the technical and professional job series. This study promotes positive social change because it confirms and extends understanding of the gender wage gap in the federal workforce. The findings from this research encourage policy makers to revisit existing policies and implement new policies aimed at ensuring women receive pay equal to their male counterparts.

Walden University College of Social and Behavioral Sciences This is to certify that the doctoral dissertation by Sylvania Ann Jones has been found to be complete and satisfactory in all respects, and that any and all revisions required by the review committee have been made. Review Committee Dr. Anthony Perry, Committee Chairperson, Psychology Faculty Dr. Stephen Burgess, Committee Member, Psychology Faculty Dr. James Carroll, University Reviewer, Psychology Faculty Chief Academic Officer Eric Riedel, Ph.D. Walden University 2017 Factors Related to Muscle Dysmorphia Symptomology in Adolescent Males by Sylvania Ann Jones BS, Wayland Baptist University 1999 MA, Wayland Baptist University 2009 MA, Webster University 2006 Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Psychology Walden University December 2016 The prevalence of muscle dysmorphia symptomology in adolescent males continues to increase, and yet remains under diagnosed in adolescents, supporting the need for a study to increase the understanding of the factors related to muscle dysmorphia symptomology. The purpose of this quantitative survey research study was to determine variables that predict the muscle dysmorphia symptomology in a nonclinical sample of high school adolescent males. The psycho-behavioral model of muscle dysmorphia was used as the conceptual model to explain the psychological factors such as self-esteem and body dissatisfaction and behavioral factors such as bodybuilding dependence that were hypothesized to be related to muscle dysmorphia. Quantitative surveys included the Body Dysmorphic Examination Self Report, Body Esteem Scale for Adolescents and Adults, Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, Body Building Dependence Scale and a researcher-developed demographic survey. The study participants included a sample of 97 high school males. Multiple regression analysis was used to determine the relative strength of the variables in predicting muscle dysmorphia. The results showed that there were several significant predictors of muscle dysmorphia symptomology including race/ethnicity, level of body dissatisfaction, and body building dependence. Sexual orientation and self-esteem were not significant predictors of muscle symptomology. The current study filled the gap in the literature regarding factors that predict muscle dysmorphia among adolescent males. This information supports the development of professional practice and psychoeducational programs designed to assist adolescent males with muscle dysmorphia. This study benefits this cohort by presenting awareness of muscle dysmorphia.

Jane Austen's attitude toward the position of middle-class women at the end of the eighteenth century is examined in the context of her life and thought and the women characters in her six novels. Comparisons are made with the position of women today regarding marriage, work, and the goals of the women's liberation movement. Jane Austen shared with feminists a recognition of the need for self-fulfillment. Because she was a realist, she provided fulfillment for her heroines through the only vehicle that was available to most women of her time--marriage. The solution she worked out for satisfying this need in her own life was to maintain her identity as single women, a member of a family and community, while writing under the protection of anonymity. This compromise was necessary at a time when women's opportunities for meaningful work were severely limited. Because of the nature of her genius, she was able to work within the confines of society, but she was acutely aware that most women were not so fortunate. The young women in her novels ask repeatedly when men will learn to seek rational women companions rather than elegant females. he latter had been encouraged by men to subvert their intelligence, thereby weakening their integrity, a situation which Jane Austen deplored. were she alive today, she would welcome the widening opportunities for women to develop as complete human beings.

Sexuality in the early novels of Robert Penn Warren is generally not appealing, intimate, or indicative of love between partners, in part due to the seeming coldness of the female characters and the near-asexuality of the males. However, when both social and personal interactions between the characters are analyzed semiotically according to the theories of Julia Kristeva, a pattern emerges which explains the harshness of the bond between men and women.