Following the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, Afghan women suddenly gained high visibility all over the world. Since then, representations of Afghan women in the Western media and notably in the U.S. news media provide a critical concern to scholars. Much of the relevant literature on this topic speaks to the fact that the dominant portrayal of Afghan women in the Western media has shown them as passive victims of war and violence, to be liberated only by the Western military intervention. However, the question remains as to how the popular fictional narratives, as another vivid source of information, represent Afghan women to the Western readers. To address this question, A Thousand Splendid Suns, as a popular novel authored by Khalid Hosseini, an Afghan novelist, was selected. Bormannian fantasy theme analysis of this novel conveys the passivity of women in the context of Afghanistan. The findings reveal that the portrayals of Afghan women in the novel correspond with the images of Afghan women in the Western media. Moreover, an examination of a sample of book reviews of the novel unveils the important contribution of Khalid Hosseini to the Orientalist discourse.

Patterns of masculine and feminine portrayals can be found everywhere, yet one place sociologists tend not to look is in novels. Young adult novels have generated 27 million dollars in e-books alone in 2011, with paranormal romances and dystopian genres making up the majority of the sales (Scott, 2013). Understanding these novels is sociologically important because they are reaching wider audiences with their adaptation into Hollywood blockbusters. While the novels demonstrate stronger characteristics given to women, the messages about the ideal male in the novel often reflects one who is putting the female in danger. A content analysis of ten popular paranormal young adult novels demonstrates patterns of the construction of gender. Drawing on Radway’s (1984) analysis of romance novels and Connell’s, (2005) and hook’s (2004) theories of masculinities, this paper explores the messages in paranormal fiction geared to a mainly young adult female reading audience. My preliminary findings demonstrate thus far that these books reflect unhealthy ideas about relationships, violence, the body, and sexuality. The novels portray masculine bodies as hard, dangerous, and seductive. They also share a storyline consisting of the fear of getting killed by someone they are in love with.

The purpose of this work is to illuminate how white male hegemony over women and minorities is inscribed through the process of film representation. A critical interrogation of six film texts produced over the last decade yields pertinent examples of how the process of hegemonic negotiation works to maintain power for the ever changing modes of postindustrial masculinity. Through the process of crisis and recuperation the central male characters in these films forge new, more acceptable attributes of masculinity that allow them to retain their centrality in the narrative.

The central issue of this thesis is the complicated relationship between the colonized individual and the constitutive as well as emblematic female colonizer in Isak Dinesen's Out of Africa, Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea, Tayeb Salih's Season of Migration to the North, and Paule Marshall's The Chosen Place, The Timeless People. Each of these novels displays colonization by a female (or females) and relates back to historical colonialism, but each characterizes the relationship between the oppressors and oppressed differently. Dinesen's and Rhys's works stem from historical colonization in which European colonizers conquered and ruled other territories; Annette and her daughter Antoinette, females born into slave-holding families in Wide Sargasso Sea, are fictional but empowered as a result of an actual colonial past, while the colonizer in Dinesen's memoir is Dinesen (née Karen Blixen), for she recounts her own autobiographical experience as a plantation owner living in Kenya in the early 1900s. Salih's and Marshall's novels are also based on the damaging effects of a colonial history, but simultaneously portray women who suffer from subordination and oppression within their own communities; Marshall details the relationship between an African-Caribbean woman and an American female colonizer, while Salih presents the tumultuous affairs between four European female colonizers and an African-Sudanese man. Additionally, Salih's novel focuses on Othered Sudanese women who are expected to adhere to the patriarchal laws of the tribe, but who prove themselves as agents by disavowing these laws. This thesis relies on postcolonial, feminist, and womanist methodologies.

White evangelical culture is investigated here regarding the ways that its fundamental theological beliefs propagate and maintain patriarchal assumptions surrounding women. These beliefs further function to legitimate men’s sexual abuse of women and girls. While official theological evangelical beliefs may seem benign, and perhaps commendable to some, a closer examination suggests the mobilization of those beliefs create the foundation for enslavement and destruction of women. The fundamental beliefs undergirding evangelicalism propagate internalized oppression through patriarchal colonialism of women’s bodies, minds, and souls. Tactics of spiritual rape within White evangelical purity culture enact violence, control, and manipulation to appropriate and profit from the sacred power within the spirit of another. My analysis of #ChurchToo tweets demonstrates how formerly-evangelical women exorcize internalized patriarchal identities by reversing patriarchal myths, reclaiming, renaming and becoming Holy Haggard Hags who enact Righteous Fury through the Rage of Dreadful Women. Through the process of renaming and reclaiming, the confiscated and distorted power of the four Great Hags of Our Hidden History are recovered. The Myth of Evil Eve becomes “Ezer Kěnegdô,” Bathsheba the Innocent Lamb dethrones King David, Jezebel returns as a Confident, Clever, and Powerful Woman and her Spirit exorcises Satan’s Agents and Devouring Wolves, and Tamar the Trickster reappears as a Prophetess, with gifts to symbolize the collective power of sisterhood. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2021. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

This study attempts to shed light on the psychological mindsets of two minor femalecharacters in two fictional stories, Lady Capulet, the mother in Romeo and Juliet (1597), and Mrs Bennet, the mother in Pride and Prejudice (1813). The stories are set centuries apart by two different English authors. Romeo and Juliet was written by William Shakespeare and was published in 1597, whilst Pride and Prejudice was written by Jane Austen and was published in 1813. This essay will examine why the authors show the mothers with characteristic attitudes and habitual behaviours that inherently portray them as women affected by patriarchy. Lady Capulet is revealed as a mother who supports her husband in the arrangement of her daughter’s marriage, but as a mother who punishes her daughter for refusing to marry a man arranged by the father. Mrs Bennet is portrayed as a mother driven by materialistic gains, whose ultimate obsession is to find men to marry her daughters, a mother who also punishes her daughter for refusing to marry a man picked out by her. The authors are well renowned, and both tales are amongst the greatest romantic love stories of all times. Nevertheless, these stories do not support the feminist cause for equality of the sexes but instead create a reality of a society that was essentially patriarchal. Psychoanalytical feminist literary criticism reveals that the authors were deeply influenced by a patriarchal culture, which they have reflected and created in the mother characterisations of their stories.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / This study investigates the privileges and hermeneutical advantages enjoyed by a Phalo interpreter of practices in the bilbical text that are similiar to or the same as those found in Phalo's patriarchal culture. The study therefore probes the extent to which the Phalo interpreter could take advantage of these presumed similarities and sameness, the legitimacy and validity of claims of patriarchal bias attributed to the Phalo interpreter , and the extent to which such claims should be taken seriously by the house of Phalo

Frances has recently survived a near-fatal car accident, and a period of convalescence in which she was cared for by her eccentric mother. Now, with the help of her friend, Jane, she’s landed a job at an AIDS Service Organization where she has the opportunity to slowly come back to life. Touching on themes of female friendship, marriage, and intimacy through technology, and with undertones of capitalism, racism, and patriarchy, We Are Not Supposed to Be Happy is a love story in every direction.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / South Africans live in one of the most religious yet most violent societies the world over, with gender-based violence (GBV) against women in intimate relationships flagged as a national priority. Traditionally, and rightfully so, intervention programmes focused on women victim-survivors of intimate partner abuse (IPA). While intervention programmes for men who perpetrate IPA emerged more recently and signify an important paradigm shift in conceptualizing solutions to IPA, the literature reveals a gap in research about the role and influence of religiously pervasive contexts in communities where some of these programmes operate. South Africa claims to be a secular state; however, around 90% of its population are religious and close to 74% are affiliated with the Christian faith. Literature indicates that men who perpetrate IPA often use easily misinterpreted scriptures and religious teachings to justify their abusive behaviour.

Members of the LGBT community have historically been victims of marginalization and alienation to various degrees. Incidents such as the Stonewall Riots, pride marches, and manifestos, among others, have served as a way for the LGBTQ community to attempt to take a stand against the systems in place that perpetuate inequality. Factors such as identity and gender have directly impacted the level to which individuals are shunned from their families, communities and social nexus. The purpose of this dissertation is to explore how factors such as identity and gender impact a sense of integration in the LGBTQ community. In addition, this dissertation aims to determine the applicability of three conflict resolution theories: Structural Violence, Social Cubism, and Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, to the LGBTQ community. This study analyzes the history of the LGBTQ community, identity formation theories, gender expectations in society, and factors that lead to alienation and marginalization. This dissertation is a qualitative study which utilizes case study methodology to analyze the existing literature related to the aforementioned topics. In this study, the reader is provided with a detailed explanation of the applicability of the three theories, including the role of factors such as identity, gender, and integration versus tolerance in the LGBTQ community. The study concludes with an analysis of the theories, recommendations for future research, and insight for those who aim to resolve conflict in the LGBTQ community.