This thesis explores the oppression of women within the gender institution of patriarchy in Margaret Atwood¡¦s dystopian novel The Handmaid¡¦s Tale, and their resistance to this male-dominated society. As a feminist writer, Atwood is very much concerned about the issue of gender, which she foregrounds in The Handmaid¡¦s Tale. In my analysis, I apply some theories of radical feminists and the French feminist who devote themselves to the study of gender--Kate Millett, Adrienne Rich, Catherine MacKinnon, and Hélène Cixous. Millett focuses on women¡¦s subordinated position that leads to women¡¦s oppression in patriarchy. Rich and MacKinnon focus on how women are controlled and oppressed in maternity and sexuality within the patriarchal society of gender inequality. Cixous challenges the validity of gender by pointing out its characteristic fluidity through creating woman¡¦s own writing in order to redefine female selfhood for women¡¦s resistance. The thesis is composed of five chapters. The Introduction presents the background materials about Atwood and The Handmaid¡¦s Tale, the motivation of the thesis, and the resonance between The Handmaid¡¦s Tale and certain feminists¡¦ theories. The first chapter analyzes the formation of the unbalanced power relations between the sexes in which women are subordinated to men through the socialization. Moreover, because of women¡¦s subordination, women are modulated as mothers through socially institutionalized motherhood such as the Wives and the Handmaids in Gilead. The second chapter further analyzes how women are formulated as sexual objects through the experience of sexual objectification within the institution of heterosexuality, such as the mistresses and the prostitutes of Gilead. The third chapter discusses how female orality empowers women to resist their patriarchal society in The Handmaid¡¦s Tale. The protagonist Offred, by ¡§writing her voice¡¨ through storytelling, resists patriarchal oppression, restores her body and self, and transforms herself from a victim in a claustrophobic world of male domination to a heroine of femininity. Moreover, her act of writing by her voice also reflects women¡¦s histories of repression, which should be reconstructed in a culture in which only males are literate. Offred¡¦s oral act of storytelling, to the reader, may also signify her resistance to reconstruct women¡¦s repressed histories. The concluding chapter reiterates the research of The Handmaid¡¦s Tale with a synthesis of Atwood¡¦s and some of the prominent feminists¡¦ points of view, namely Millett¡¦s, Rich¡¦s, MacKinnon¡¦s and Cixous¡¦s, toward the oppression and resistance of women within the institution of gender. This study hopes to explore and thus illuminate the nature, the functioning, the operation of socially constructed male domination, and then proceed to search the possible solution, or the ¡§voice;¡¨ however feeble it is, the author, or the protagonist conceives to defy the oppression imposed on women.

The purpose of the study was to develop and test a self-report instrument that describes the frequency that intrapartum nurses perform labor support and physiologic interventions and the nurses' beliefs of the helpfulness of their interventions. The Labor Support and Physiologic Intervention Scale (LSPIS) uses a Likert-style format in a 5-category range of answer options to collect data on nurses' practices to enhance the progress and process of women's labors. Social support theory and physiologic theory provided a conceptual foundation, while the scientific literature on labor support and intrapartum care provided a basis for the original 57 items used in the pilot (n=10) and the Phase I study (n=307). Five labor support experts evaluated the items, with an interrater agreement of .95 and a content validity index of .93. The 57-item LSPIS had an internal reliability of .93 and .95 for the frequency and helpfulness portions (respectively). Exploratory factor analysis identified a 6-factor solution accounting for 48% of the variance that matched the social support and labor support dimensions. The LSPIS was revised and shortened to 26 items based upon the Phase I data analyses. The Phase II study had 472 respondents recruited from two professional listserves. The internal consistency reliability of the revised LSPIS was .90 and .91 for the frequency and helpfulness portions (respectively). Construct validity was evaluated by exploratory factor analysis, which found several acceptable factor solutions that were consistent with the theoretical framework. A six-factor solution accounted for 59% of the variance and had the following components: instrumental or physical support, emotional support, partner support & information/advice, advocacy, mother-directed pushing, and sustenance. Known groups technique and content analysis of nurses' responses to open-ended questions further evaluated construct validity, while discriminant validity was ascertained using a short version of the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale. Further data analyses explored relationships among LSPIS scores and various organizational, geographic, and provider variables. In both phases, instrument psychometrics were acceptable and the scale demonstrated acceptable content and construct validity. Further revisions and future uses of the instrument can be guided by the recommendations provided. / text

Chapter 1 evaluates the effect of relaxing fiscal rules on policy outcomes applying a quasi-experimental research design. We implement a "difference-in-discontinuities" design by combining the before/after with the discontinuous policy variation generated by the implementation of the Domestic Stability Pact on Italian municipalities between 1999 and 2004. Our estimates show that relaxing fiscal rules triggers a substantial deficit bias, captured by a shift from a balanced budget to a deficit that amounts to 2 percent of the total budget. The deficit comes primarily from reduced revenues as unconstrained municipalities have lower real estate and income tax rates. The impact is larger if the mayor can run for reelection, the number of political parties seated in the city council is higher, voters are older, the performance of the mayor in providing public good is lower, and cities are characterized by historical deficit, consistently with models on the political economy of fiscal adjustment. Chapter 2 studies the electoral response to the Ghost Buildings program, a nationwide anti tax evasion policy in Italy, which used innovative monitoring technologies to target buildings hidden from tax authorities. The difference-in-differences identification strategy exploits both variation across towns in the ex ante program scope to increase enforcement as well as administrative data on actual building registrations. After the policy, local incumbents experience an increase in their reelection likelihood. These political returns are higher in areas with higher speed of public good provision and with lower tax evasion tolerance, implying complementarity among enforcement policies, government efficiency, and the underlying tax culture. Chapter 3 examines reasons for cross-country variation in maternity leave provision. We show that the less tolerant a society is of gender-based discrimination, the longer the maternity leave it will optimally mandate. We collected new data on the number of gender-differentiated personal pronouns across languages to capture societies' attitudes toward gender-based discrimination. We first confirm, using within-country language variation, that our linguistic measure is correlated with attitudes toward gender-based discrimination. Then, using cross-country data on length of maternity leave we find a strong correlation between our measure of attitudes and the length of maternity leave. / Economics

Abstract Is there a special discourse surrounding female politicians in Sweden? And if so, what is the current climate for female political leaders? The purpose of this article is to examine the portrayal in the public media of Anna Kinberg Batra, Ebba Busch Thor and Annie Lööf. The common denominator is that they are all heads of a political party, Anna Kinberg Batra being the chairwoman of the Moderate Party, Ebba Busch Thor being the chairwoman of the Christian Democratic Party and Annie Lööf chairwoman of the Central Liberal Party. The article includes mainly printed news from the midst of 2014 to may 2015. The chosen and applied method for this article is a discourse analysis. The article portrays the fact that female political party leaders in Sweden face a different situation than their male counterparts. Media knowingly or unknowingly chooses to focus on many attributes regarding the female politicians that are not in any way relevant for their profession such as outfits, nails and daycare, to name a few. This article has resulted in the conclusion that inequalities regarding a fair portrayal in media between the two sexes, still persist and that women active in political societies still have different expectations to live up to than their male counterparts.

Background The Millennium Development Goals call for two-third and three-quarter reductions in Perinatal Mortality Rates and Maternal Mortality Ratios. The main strategy towards achieving these reductions is to increase access to skilled attendance. However, it cannot be confirmed that all health professionals are skilled in managing women in labour, nor that they are functioning in enabling environments. To measure the provision of skilled attendance, this study was undertaken in five Level 1 Hospitals in the uThungulu Health District of KwaZulu-Natal. The objectives of the study were: 1. To establish perinatal outcomes for each Level 1 Hospital in uThungulu Health District. 2. To evaluate the quality of intrapartum care provided in Level 1 Hospitals in uThungulu Health District. 3. To evaluate the obstetric knowledge of health workers attending births in Level 1 Hospitals in uThungulu Health District. 4. To evaluate the obstetric skills of health workers attending births in Level 1 Hospitals in uThungulu Health District. 5. To evaluate the environment in which births are attended in Level 1 Hospitals in uThungulu Health District. 6. Compare the quality of care, the knowledge, skills and environment with perinatal outcomes. Methods Perinatal outcomes (PNMR, FSBR, ENNDR and PCI) were calculated for each hospital; maternity case records of women who have delivered in these Level 1 Hospitals were audited to assess the quality of intrapartum care; obstetric knowledge and skills of midwives were assessed; as was the enabling environment within which midwives worked, which included a measurement of their workload. A correlation between perinatal outcomes and the quality of intrapartum care, knowledge and skills and the enabling environment was performed to determine whether variables were associated. Results The overall PNMR for five hospitals in uThungulu Health District was 31 per 1000 births. Three hospitals demonstrated PNMRs below 30 per 1000, while the other two showed rates above 45 per 1000. The combined FSBR for the five hospitals was 6 per 1000 births, the combined ENNDR was 12 per 1000 live births. The PCI in all hospitals ranged between 3 and 4. An audit of maternity case records revealed that all hospitals have a high overall mean percentage score per record. However, analysis of subsets showed good performance in recordings on the labour graph, but poor performance in the admission assessment and in the management of labour. The Kruskal-Wallis Non-Parametric Test showed a statistically significant difference in overall scores amongst hospitals (p=0.01), suggesting differences in performance in all five hospitals in terms of the quality of care provided. Overall, all hospitals scored poorly on tests of obstetric knowledge and skills. There were no statistically significant differences in the overall knowledge median scores and subsets median scores amongst hospitals (p=0.07), indicating that all five hospitals performed on a similar level in terms of obstetric knowledge. However, all hospitals performed differently in relation to obstetric skills, as there was a statistically significant difference in the overall skill median scores amongst hospitals (p=0.002). Three hospitals met the enabling environment standard. All hospitals but one scored poorly on referral, and the availability of supervision on both shifts. One hospital scored poorly on drugs and supplies. Overall no hospitals reported the presence of all the elements of the enabling environment. Three hospitals had acceptable workloads. No association could be detected between variables. However, there were trends that can be traced in different hospitals. Conclusions In South Africa, from the Demographic and Health Survey, 84% of deliveries are assisted by skilled attendant. While an attendant may be present, one cannot say that skilled attendance has been provided, as it has been shown for uThungulu Health District. / Thesis (MMed.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2010.

The South African mining industry has been a male dominated environment for a very long time. With changes in government policy and legislation, discriminatory laws forbidding women to work underground have been repealed and the mining industry have since been trying to accommodate women. Unfortunately there is an imbalance to this general trend of increase shown by the consistently low numbers of female employees within the mining industry. It was far-fetched for management to perceive that women can ever play a role in the underground mining industry. Unfortunately the perceptions of management is having an enormous impact on the attitudes of the rest of the employees in this industry. This leads to discrimination in the mining industry that will make it difficult for the women seeking financial stability. The whole mining industry should learn to adapt to this idea of women in mining. Employing women in the mine is a challenge of the mindset of viewing mining as a men's world. The objective of this research was to determine the experience of women in the platinum mining industry in South Africa as well as the impact that women entering the mining industry could have on the mines in terms of the working conditions, harassment, physiological aspects, ergonomics, physical strength, discrimination etc. The research method for this article consists of a brief literature review and an empirical study. A qualitative design has been used on an availability sample (N = 14) females in the platinum mining industry. The qualitative research makes it possible to determine the subjective experience of women working in the platinum mining industry. The literature focused on previous research on the experience of women entering the mining industry as an employee. vii The outcome of this research was that the male worker attitude and discrimination have an enormous impact on women that are entering the mining industry. One of the more difficult hurdles to overcome is the harassment that women need to deal with The women are also facing a huge challenge in terms of their physical strength not being adequate in order to perform up to a minimum of eight hours per day in the harsh working conditions including the ergonomics of the mining industry. Most of the women are entering the mining industry for financial reasons in order to survive in the South f i c a n Economic environment of today. After a hard day performing these physical activities they need to face their responsibilities at home in order to manage a work-home life balance. Management need to start seeking solutions to make the mining industry a more women free environment for example focussing on facilities for women. The fact that women were appointed into the mining environment covering traditionally male sectors, also speaks to a commitment to changing the face of the mining industry. Recommendations for future research were made. / Thesis (M.A. (Industrial Psychology))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2005.

The main research question in this thesis is do immigrant new mothers use maternity and parental leave benefit differently from native new mothers. I use Employment Insurance Coverage Survey micro data from 2000 to 2009 and fixed effect models to investigate the different weeks taken by new mothers and the different amount of benefits received during the leave period between immigrant new mothers and native new mothers. The results in my thesis show that immigrant new mothers received lower amount of benefit during the leave than native new mothers. There are no significant differences by the duration of the leave have taken between immigrant and native new mothers. I also find that the higher education a new mother received before they were pregnant, the higher benefit amount they could receive.

Motherhood is a contemporary topic that affects the majority of women in Germany, and yet the experiences and struggles of working mothers often remain taboo or are in conflict with social conventions and established traditions. If one adds to this mothers’ wishes or needs to pursue a career, challenges occur: conflicting priorities, the family structure, social perceptions and pressures, and reconciling and balancing the multi-faceted demands on a woman’s life. „Eine Poetik der Mutterschaft“ breaks the silence around these concern and explores the poeticity of motherhood in German literature and the artwork of two female authors, who pursued their personal and career goals and did not conform to the ideal image of motherhood in Germany: Else Lasker-Schüler (1869-1945) and Marie Luise Kaschnitz (1901-1974). Both women were working mothers, who had different motherhood experiences and challenges. The dissertation begins with a close look at these authors’ biographies, their personal experiences of pregnancy, birth, and motherhood. Next comes an analysis of the literary and artistic works with examples of how motherhood informs their works and creative process, how images of maternity are utilized to communicate a message, and some metaphorical meanings of motherhood in the selected works. I argue that the creative process is a parallel to motherhood itself, and I show how this is connected to the metapoeticity of the works. This dissertation highlights the ways in which Lasker-Schüler and Kaschnitz, like other historical working mother-artists such as Käthe Kollwitz, become role models and inspire women in contemporary times, enabling women to draw strength from each other and to continue to stretch the boundaries of traditional and ideal perceptions of mothers and motherhood. / Thesis (Ph.D, German) -- Queen's University, 2012-04-13 11:13:43.731

Prior research from the U.S. and abroad reveals a sizable lesbian earnings advantage over otherwise-similar heterosexual women. Using data from the 2000 U.S. Census and 2005-2010 American Community Surveys, we estimate traditional earnings equations and find robust evidence of a lesbian premium, corroborating the findings of previous studies. Using within-sample maternity incidence as an estimate of employers' forward-looking expectations, we then examine whether differences in the perceived likelihood of an employee requiring maternity leave, here-labelled 'maternity risk', contribute to the lesbian pay gap. Results from a direct assessment suggest that maternity risk adversely affects income, and that accounting for near-term differences in maternity risk reduces the lesbian premium by approximately ten to fifteen percent. Further analyses, using proxy variables for differential maternity risk, yield similar results. As such, the persistent finding of a lesbian earnings advantage in previous studies can be attributed, at least in part, to employers' aversion to maternity risk and its associated costs. These findings are also of critical importance to the general labour-market discrimination literature. Given the adverse earnings effect of maternity risk, our analysis suggests that estimates of the well-established gender earnings disparity are likely to be considerably smaller when incorporating maternity risk into the analysis. Absent the ability to adequately control for maternity risk, strict attention should be paid to potential upward bias in estimated earnings differentials. Moreover, policymakers should consider the broader implications of maternity-leave policy on the labour-market outcomes of females. In this respect, maternity-leave policy may influence the hiring and promotion decisions of employers, thereby indirectly affecting sexual-orientation and gender equality in the labour market. However, further research in this area is still required, given the limitations inherent in the direct and indirect analyses.

Det senaste årtiondet har inneburit stora förändringar för homosexuella när det gäller lagar och förordningar. Bland annat är rätten till att bli föräldrar numera juridiskt accepterat. Flera homosexuella par väljer därför att skapa familj. Syftet med litteraturstudien var att beskriva lesbiska kvinnors upplevelser i samband med mödravården och förlossning. Sammanställningen resulterade i fem huvudkategorier, Kommunikation, Bekräftelse, Försvar , Kunskap och Öppenhet, vilket bearbetades utifrån Imogene Kings omvårdnadsteori. Resultatet visade på att flera kvinnor hade upplevelser av positiv karaktär men att det även fanns många som berättade om negativa upplevelser. Heteronormativitet var ett ständigt återkommande tema som genomsyrade samtliga kategorier. Vårdpersonalen förutsatte ofta att de lesbiska kvinnorna var heterosexuella utan att ta hänsyn till andra möjligheter. Denna studie visar på att vårdpersonal bör vara medvetna om sitt sätt att kommunicera och att se det unika i varje individ. Positiva upplevelser framkom när barnmorskan tydligt bekräftade de lesbiska kvinnorna som blivande föräldrarna. En god omvårdnad förutsätter att vårdpersonal har kunskap om heteronormativitet och att det skapar hinder för vården av lesbiska kvinnor. / The last decade has brought great changes for homosexuals in laws and regulations. Among other things, the right to be parent is now legally accepted. Many gay couples have therefore decided to create a family. The purpose of this study was to describe lesbian women´s experiences in connection with prenatal care and childbirth. The compilation resulted in five main categories: Communication, Acknowledgment, Defense, Knowledge and Openness, which was worked up from Imogene King´s theory of caring. The results showed that several women had experiences of positive character, but that there also were many who talked about negative experiences. Heteronormativity was a constantly recurring theme that permeated all categories. Caregivers often assumed that the lesbian women were heterosexual without regard to other possibilities. This study shows that health professionals should be aware of their own way to communicate and to ensure the uniqueness of each individual. Positive experiences emerged when the midwife is clearly confirmed the lesbian women as prospective parents. Good care requires that health professionals are aware of heteronormativity, and that creates obstacles to the care of lesbian women.