Abstract not available

This research study explores the relationship between cultural representations of heterosexual male sexuality and heterosexual men’s sexuality. A critical realist framework is adopted to facilitate the examination of this topic with qualitative and quantitative methods; an analysis of representation in men’s magazines, an analysis of men’s accounts produced in individual and group interviews, and an analysis of a large-scale survey are undertaken. The findings of this study demonstrate that across age and relationship context, there is considerable variation in men’s experience of sexuality, negotiation of representations and in the consequences they experience. The findings of the study are significant for understanding heterosexual men’s subjectivity and sexual practices; the implications for sexual relationships , sexual coercion and violence, and for sexual health and education are considered throughout. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) (Psychology)

Androcentric by nature, traditional leisure research assumed male researchers knew the meaning of leisure activities for women, that home and work were separate spheres for women, and that the dimensions of men's leisure were also common to women's leisure. Feminist interest in leisure increased with the realisation that women's leisure was a product of social forces. Thus differences in women's perceptions and experience of leisure reflected wider social divisions which contributed to the construction and maintenance of inequalities. Women both as narrators of their own leisure experiences, and as researchers of other women's experiences, found little evidence in women's everyday lives of leisure as traditionally defined by male researchers. A gap exists between women's leisure experiences and the theoretical constructs available to them to talk about and investigate their experiences. This gap can be narrowed by talking with women about the feelings they associate with leisure and the contexts in which they experience these feelings in relation to the beliefs associated with motherhood, family and work. The use of memory work in the study of emotion and gender suggested a method through which feminist goals and principles could be linked to a study of feelings, contexts and meanings. Using memory work in this way involved the establishment of the memory work groups; collection of written memories according to certain rules; collective examination of the memories by co-researchers for the common meanings used in their construction; appraisal of memories by the researcher in the context of existing leisure theory; and group discussion of the researcher's appraisal and negotiation by group members of a collective account of the memories. Memories were written to trigger words which have some association with leisure and to others viewed as the antithesis of leisure. For co-researchers the interactions of feelings of pleasure, relaxation, enjoyment, obligation and entitlement in containers represented by social settings, activities and physical locations were given meaning as leisure by the feeling of being free from obligation and free to choose and to implement that choice. The research supported the interlinking of values/entitlement, containers/opportunities and feelings (both positive and negative) as elements contributing to the gendered meaning of leisure. Women's desire to achieve balance in their lives mediates these interactions. An exploration of the tensions and problems encountered as a feminist doing research revealed resolution of some of these issues was possible. Others needing further reflection and wider discussion include : how do we create conditions in which participants become co-researchers with the power imbalance between all participants minimised?; how do we balance the requirements of postgraduate research/academic scholarship with the needs of co-researchers?; and what do we really give back to coresearchers?

Androcentric by nature, traditional leisure research assumed male researchers knew the meaning of leisure activities for women, that home and work were separate spheres for women, and that the dimensions of men's leisure were also common to women's leisure. Feminist interest in leisure increased with the realisation that women' s leisure was a product of social forces. Thus differences in women's perceptions and experience of leisure reflected wider social divisions which contributed to the construction and maintenance of inequalities. Women both as narrators of their own leisure experiences, and as researchers of other women's experiences, found little evidence in women's everyday lives of leisure as traditionally defined by male researchers. A gap exists between women's leisure experiences and the theoretical constructs available to them to talk about and investigate their experiences. This gap can be narrowed by talking with women about the feelings they associate with leisure and the contexts in which they experience these feelings in relation to the beliefs associated with motherhood, family and work. The use of memory work in the study of emotion and gender suggested a method through which feminist goals and principles could be linked to a study of feelings, contexts and meanings. Using memory work in this way involved the establishment of the memory work groups; collection of written memories according to certain rules; collective examination of the memories by co-researchers for the common meanings used in their construction; appraisal of memories by the researcher in the context of existing leisure theory; and group discussion of the researcher's appraisal and negotiation by group members of a collective account of the memories. Memories were written to trigger words which have some association with leisure and to others viewed as the antithesis of leisure. For co-researchers the interactions of feelings of pleasure, relaxation, enjoyment, obligation and entitlement in containers represented by social settings, activities and physical locations were given meaning as leisure by the feeling of being free from obligation and free to choose and to implement that choice. The research supported the interlinking of values/entitlement, containers/opportunities and feelings (both positive and negative) as elements contributing to the gendered meaning of leisure. Women's desire to achieve balance in their lives mediates these interactions. An exploration of the tensions and problems encountered as a feminist doing research revealed resolution of some of these issues was possible. Others needing further reflection and wider discussion include : how do we create conditions in which participants become co-researchers with the power imbalance between all participants minirnised?; how do we balance the requirements of postgraduate researchlacademic scholarship with the needs of co-researchers?; and what do we really give back to coresearchers?

Abstract In places such as Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom, girls are increasingly hailed as contemporary educational success stories and are positioned as presenting ‘ideal’ and ‘good’ student subjectivities. While it is not all girls who are succeeding in schools in these places, the middle-class girls who are more likely to succeed academically are often still constrained in classroom spaces. These constraints are exemplified in comments from the participants in this research who suggest that these girls are responsible, do not push boundaries, are not entertaining, interesting or lively, and have nothing to say. This is in contrast to the perceptions they have of boys as entertaining, lively, interesting, boundary-pushing, verbal and irresponsible. This thesis explores the ways that students in the case study school fill their classroom spaces, and suggests that many female students are constrained within these spaces, partly due to immediate constraints (such as uniforms), but also due to broader discourses of sacrifice and entitlement. This feminist research project draws on poststructuralism in looking at the ways one group of 14-15 year old middle-school students at an elite private school in Australia made use of their classroom spaces. While this was a gender-focused study, other aspects of difference between students were persuasive in shaping and constraining student subjectivities. These differences between students related to race/ethnicity, class and gender, as well as to alliances between students and familiarity with the structures of schooling. These differences between are made sense of in relation to discourses of sacrifice, as well as in relation to discourses of entitlement. Rather than residing in fixed subject positions, it is within the way that differences between subjects are made meaningful that the impact of discourses of entitlement and sacrifice can be observed. In this research, entitled subjectivities, such as the ‘entertainer’ or the ‘lad’, were less accessible for girls, as well as for students designated ethnically/racially marginal/Other, for students who were unfamiliar within the hierarchies of the class and the school, and for students who lacked influential alliances. This ‘entertaining’ subjectivity formed the most popular and valued subject position for certain boys. While in some ways this subjectivity worked against academic application, ‘entertainers’ were popular with students and staff. This subjectivity, however, involved the objectification of students deemed less desirable in their subjective presentation. It also often disrupted the learning context. The entertaining subjectivity exercised entitlement and rendered many students sacrificial due to the denigration of others that was often a part of being entertaining as well as due to the necessary toleration of noise and disruption. Disruption partially explains the allure of the entertaining subjectivity – it can present a valued disruption to the routines of the classroom. It often involves (and plays a role in constituting) students deemed popular and worth watching in the classroom space and thus is tied up with popularity. That this subjectivity is inaccessible for many students indicates constraint. This research calls into question the claim that girls are educational success stories. Instead, the ‘success’ of middle-class girls is complex and must be contextualized. Many of the girls and a number of the boys within this research accessed discourses of sacrifice as a protective posture, as a way of minimising the disruptive potential of their success, application and/or desires, and as a way of embracing an acceptable subjectivity. The consequences of taking a sacrificial position in relations of power are particularly clear in more physical subjects where many of these students were observed as less confident in the use of their bodies; but the consequences are subtly influential in an array of learning contexts through physical constraint, immobility, low-level volume and tolerance of entitled subjectivities. Thus discourses of sacrifice and entitlement are indicative of competing discourses and political struggle. This research concludes that attention needs to be paid to the ways that students resist dominant versions of gender. While some of the students in this research resisted these dominant versions, resistance often has the contradictory effect of reinforcing dominant discourses. Schools, particularly teachers, can play a role in harnessing the transformative potential of points of resistance, opening up the possibilities for student subjectivities, particularly in terms of reducing the constraints that inhibit engagement with education. A feminist politics of difference and a recognition of female masculinity and male femininity presents productive ways of thinking about differences between students in contrast to a current state of affairs in which difference doubles as deficit. Such a process of discursive destabilisation problematises notions of gender, particularly those notions that constrain students. Embracing female masculinities and male femininities may enable a more ‘feminine’ approach to learning from boys, and a more ‘masculine’ approach to physical participation from girls. In problematising notions of gender, and explicitly labelling behaviours within one body as masculine and feminine, possibilities for student subjectivities will be broadened.

<p>Människor bedöms ibland enbart utifrån sitt kön och denna studie syftade till att undersöka dessa könsstereotypa värderingar. Deltagarna, 172 högskolestudenter (129 kvinnor, 43 män) i Sverige, fick på Schein Descriptive Index skatta antingen sig själva, kvinnor eller män i allmänhet på 92 egenskaper. Detta för att utreda om kvinnor och män bedömdes olika av andra och/eller sig själva, om bedömningen av könen stämde överens med kvinnors respektive mäns självskattningar samt om den egna könstillhörigheten påverkade skattningarna. Resultatet visade att kvinnor och män skattades som mer olika jämfört med vad självskattningarna visade samt att deltagarna var mer ense om kvinnors egenskaper än om mäns egenskaper. Vissa resultat stämde överens med tidigare forskningsresultat och andra inte, vilket ger motivation för utökade studier.</p><p>Key words: gender-stereotypes, stereotypes, in-group, out-group, Schein Descriptive Index.</p>

<p>My study deals with a genre of Japanese comics called yaoi, or boys’ love. My aim is to study masculinities appearing in this genre and how they interact. In my stories, a younger boy and an older one, or a grown man, fall in love and sometimes come as far as intercourse. The young boy behaves in a way that could be interpreted as him being a girl under cover. Because of that I also discuss if yaoi is a challenge to heteronormativity, or if it actually confirms it.</p><p>In support of the view that the boy could be read as a girl is the inequality in power between the two lovers, but also the way the young boy is depicted; he is always drawn as smaller, with large eyes, whereas the older part is taller with broad shoulders. The older boy/man may represent one of two kinds of masculinity. Either cruel, brutal and violent, or kind but manly. Both these kinds of personality are very protective, sometimes in a way difficult to separate from controling, and they also harass the younger part with kisses and caresses and sometimes rape. The younger boy represents a masculinity which is more passive and sensitive. The harassment and even the rapes are accepted without further comments as acts of love.As I see it, with the help of Janice Radway, the young boys’ accepting of their lovers scorn and violence, legitimizes male dominance over women and subordinated masculinities. That’s why yaoi may be seen as confirming heteronormativity instead of questioning it.</p>

No description available.

<p>Syftet med uppsatsen är att undersöka hur flickor och pojkar tillskrivs kön i barnböcker och läroböcker, men även att se hur de själva konstruerar kön. Ett delsyfte är att se om det finns någon skillnad i hur kön tillskrivs beroende på vilken ålder böckerna riktar sig till, och om det finns någon skillnad i hur barnen själva tillskriver sig kön beroende på ålder.</p><p>Jag har valt att undersöka barnböcker och teckningar av sexåringar, läroböcker för årskurs 4 och 9, samt lucktest till elever i årskurs 4 och 9. De infallsvinklarna som jag valt att undersöka är: utrymme, handlingar, egenskaper och aktivitet.</p><p>Resultatet visade att pojkarna får mer utrymme än flickorna i allt undersökningsmaterial, förutom teckningar. Utrymmet blir mer än utrymme eftersom den som ges mest också är den vars egenskaper förstärks. Det är även viktigt att undersöka hur flickor och pojkar upptar sitt utrymme.</p><p>Teckningarna visar att flickor vid sex års ålder aktiverar sig med kläder, accessoarer, leker husliga lekar och har egenskaper som förstärker deras karaktär. Pojkar i sexårsåldern aktiverar sig med actionleksaker, bygga, spela och har egenskaper som förstärker agerande. Dessa saker skapar olika referensramar för vad barnen vill jobba med när de blir äldre. Genom att en flicka börjar aktivera sig med typiska pojklekar visar hon att pojkens lekar är något att eftersträva, men om en pojke leker med flickans lekar så kan det finnas en risk för att han nedvärderas.</p><p>Det finns en tendens på att flickor rör sig inom fler områden än pojkar. Men ju äldre pojkarna blir desto mer rör de sig också inom fler områden. Detta gäller både handlingar, egenskaper och aktiviteter.</p><p>Sammanfattningsvis är det viktigt att inte hålla isär flickan och pojken och se dem som varandras motsatser, eftersom man då inte bara begränsar flickans möjligheter i livet, utan också pojkens.</p>

No description available.