This thesis examines the heterosexual experiences of middle-class girls growing up in England between 1950 and 1980. Drawing primarily upon oral histories and Mass Observation testimonies, it explores the ways in which sexual discourses and practices shaped the adolescences lives of the post-war generation. Putting Laura Doan’s notion of ‘queerness-as-method’ into practice, the thesis uses the example of the youth sexual practice in the mid-twentieth century to reinforce claims that heterosexuality is unstable and dynamic. Paying particular attention to the logistics of sexual practice, the thesis makes two central arguments regarding youth sexuality at this time. Firstly, it argues that young women’s sexual lives were shaped by girls’ place in the life-cycle. Girls’ status as dependents and their lack of private space materially affected when and where they could engage in sexual activity. More than this, however, girls understood their adolescence as a period in which they were supposed to transition towards sexual maturity. Young women thus organised their sexual practice around the notion that they were ‘becoming sexual’. Secondly, this research demonstrates that teenage sexuality in the post-war period had an important social component. Far from being a product of individual morality, preference or personality and conducted in secret, girlhood sexuality was fundamentally social: girls’ sexual activities both defined and gained meaning from their relationships with their sexual partners, schoolmates and friends. Focussing on the politics of space, the thesis demonstrates how sexual activity was managed around competing imperatives of display and evasion as teenagers wished to hide their sexual behaviour from their parents but benefit from the social currency increasingly associated with sexual knowledge and experience. The thesis thus demonstrates the importance of understanding sexuality as being embedded within the social tapestry of individuals’ lives. For girls growing up between 1950 and 1980, questions of sex and sexuality could not be divorced from their roles and identities as not-yet-adults, girlfriends, daughters and friends.

This thesis provides a theological reading of Judith Butler's gender theory. In dialogue with ancient and modern writers, theologians, and philosophers, I argue that Butler's gender theory is a protological theory. Butler enters the originary scene to recreate the human so that gender and sex can be perpetually reconceived in ways that reflect mundane desire. I argue that Butler's gender theory is therefore susceptible to the theological criticisms of coveting and idolatry. However, the methodological decision to structure the engagement with Butler as a dialogue does not permit unilateral criticism. The criticism levelled at Butler's thought is reversed to query a traditional theology of gender. The critique and countercritique reveal two laws in operation that result in death in life: (1) the law of desire and (2) the law of Adam and Eve. Drawing on the Apostle Paul's New Testament letter to the Romans, I offer an alternative—the law of God—that does not jettison desire or the originary creation of humanity. The ethical implications of this thesis emerge from reflecting theologically upon these three laws. I conclude by developing a chastened Christian ethics of gender that relies on a fresh understanding of gender as man-and-woman in the world, which considers human existence as good regardless of its location (pre- or post-lapsarian), while at the same time recognising that human existence is troubled by the fall. This protological grounding of man-and-woman in the world enables the theological concept of the imago Dei to be explored in relation to Christ's redemptive work, rather than the generally accepted originary terms that frame what is right or wrong gendered existence. Butler's desire of desire is not repudiated, but acknowledged theologically as fundamental to humanity's God-given vocation: one desires God's desire, which is to desire righteousness or the originary human vocation to image Jesus Christ. A Christian ethics of gender is therefore chastened as gender is reconceived theologically as a vocation of becoming like Christ—discipleship. Those who hear and are claimed by the originary divine performative utterance that man-and-woman in the world is very good are called to receive their embodied existence as (created) good, yet troubled (by the fall), yet with the hope of one's final embodied glorification in Christ.

Yes / Gender archaeology has made significant strides toward deconstructing the hegemony of binary categorizations. Challenging dichotomies such as man/woman, sex/gender, and biology/culture, approaches informed by poststructuralist, feminist, and queer theories have moved beyond essentialist and universalist identity constructs to more nuanced configurations. Despite the theoretical emphasis on context, multiplicity, and fluidity, binary starting points continue to streamline the spectrum of variability that is recognized, often reproducing normative assumptions in the evidence. The contributors to this special issue confront how sex, gender, and sexuality categories condition analytical visibility, aiming to develop approaches that respond to the complexity of theory in archaeological practice. The papers push the ontological and epistemological boundaries of bodies, personhood, and archaeological possibility, challenging a priori assumptions that contain how sex, gender, and sexuality categories are constituted and related to each other. Foregrounding intersectional approaches that engage with ambiguity, variability, and difference, this special issue seeks to “de-contain” categories, assumptions, and practices from “binding” our analytical gaze toward only certain kinds of persons and knowledges, in interpretations of the past and practices in the present.

The global refugee crisis worsens day-by-day, with millions of refugees forced to seek safe haven abroad. Pre-migration trauma exposure contributes to disproportionately higher rates of psychopathology, especially among torture survivors and women. The extant literature has largely focused on the effects of pre-migration factors; however, increasingly, researchers recognize the critical impact of post-migration living difficulties (PMLD) in exacerbating refugee mental health. One example of a PMLD is stigma, defined as a socially devalued attribute (e.g., minority race, ethnicity, sex). A robust literature documents the deleterious effects of stigma on psychological functioning, but few studies of refugees have explored stigma, which is surprising because refugees often possess multiple stigmas. Given this gap in the literature, the present study examined the impact of stigma on psychological well-being in a sample of resettled refugees of mixed ethnic/racial and religious origins. Specifically, analyses tested (1) the independent effect of race among African and Asian refugees, (2) a linear model of multiple stigmas predicting mental health outcomes, and (3) between-group effects of race among Muslims and of religion among Asian refugees. Results showed that race significantly predicted posttraumatic stress symptoms among African and Asian refugees when controlling for sex and torture status, with Africans reporting higher levels of posttraumatic stress than Asians. Findings suggest that the effect of multiple stigmas on mental health outcomes is non-linear. Finally, results indicated that Muslim refugees experienced equivalent levels of anxious and general symptoms across racial groups; among Asians, significant between-group effects by religion were found for general symptoms. By understanding key factors impacting refugee mental health, more appropriate and efficacious interventions may be developed to treat this vulnerable population.

This dissertation is about biological sex and how we ought to make sense of it. By biological sex I mean those elements of an individual’s body that are involved in reproduction of the individual’s species; by make sense of it I mean the way in which the occurrence of these elements and their interactions are conceptualized in our minds. Given certain things that are known about sex and reproduction, I argue in this dissertation that sex, maleness, and femaleness ought to be conceptualized in a specific way: this specific way is what I call the multidimensional model of sex. My argument challenges what I call the folk understanding of biological sex, which is (generally speaking) the understanding that most people in most places have about what makes a person male or female. This understanding, I argue, takes the concepts MALE and FEMALE to be logically opposed and atomistic, and constitutive of categories with homogeneous members. I explore three important facts that challenge this understanding: 1) the emphasis on continuity within biological thought, 2) the understanding of sex differences within biology, and 3) the occurrence of intersexuality in human beings. Some authors have already proposed continuum-based understandings of SEX as a replacement for the folk understanding. I identify and discuss three of these: 1) the basic continuum model (Fausto-Sterling 1993, 2000; Blackless, et al. 2000; Kessler 1998; Preves 2003; Intersex Society of North America 2011a; Organisation International des Intersexués 2011a), 2) the multiple continua model (Stoltenberg 1989), and 3) the hybrid model (Stein 2001; Dreger 1998). Inherent to different degrees within each of these models is the belief that maleness and femaleness are somehow conceptually opposite (which is a belief also shared by the folk understanding). This belief, I argue, is not borne out in nature, as demonstrated in part by the occurrence of intersexuality in the species Homo sapiens, and the occurrence of hermaphroditism in other species. These occurrences, I argue, suggest another way to make sense of sex. The model of sex that I present is inspired by the occurrence of intersexuality and hermaphroditism, and also by Sandra Bem’s (1974) work on the concept ANDROGYNY. Bem reconceptualized masculinity and femininity as dimensions of psychological androgyny. I argue that the concepts MALE and FEMALE, and thus BIOLOGICAL SEX, can be understood in a similar way. I propose a multidimensional model of SEX that includes the concepts MALE and FEMALE as intersecting continua that create a space in which the separate features of an individual’s sex are each individually located. The dissertation concludes by discussing the moral implications of the multidimensional model, as some of our judgments about the rightness or wrongness of a person’s actions are related to our understanding of that person’s sex. But if the words male and female come to refer to individual parts of the body and not whole people (as I argue they would, if the multidimensional model were adopted), how would our ideas about the moral acceptability of certain actions and practices change? By examining this general question, I show that adoption of the multidimensional model of sex is important not just because it offers a more biologically accurate representation of sex: it is also important, I conclude, because there is good reason to think that adopting it could improve the quality of life for many.

This dissertation is about biological sex and how we ought to make sense of it. By biological sex I mean those elements of an individual’s body that are involved in reproduction of the individual’s species; by make sense of it I mean the way in which the occurrence of these elements and their interactions are conceptualized in our minds. Given certain things that are known about sex and reproduction, I argue in this dissertation that sex, maleness, and femaleness ought to be conceptualized in a specific way: this specific way is what I call the multidimensional model of sex. My argument challenges what I call the folk understanding of biological sex, which is (generally speaking) the understanding that most people in most places have about what makes a person male or female. This understanding, I argue, takes the concepts MALE and FEMALE to be logically opposed and atomistic, and constitutive of categories with homogeneous members. I explore three important facts that challenge this understanding: 1) the emphasis on continuity within biological thought, 2) the understanding of sex differences within biology, and 3) the occurrence of intersexuality in human beings. Some authors have already proposed continuum-based understandings of SEX as a replacement for the folk understanding. I identify and discuss three of these: 1) the basic continuum model (Fausto-Sterling 1993, 2000; Blackless, et al. 2000; Kessler 1998; Preves 2003; Intersex Society of North America 2011a; Organisation International des Intersexués 2011a), 2) the multiple continua model (Stoltenberg 1989), and 3) the hybrid model (Stein 2001; Dreger 1998). Inherent to different degrees within each of these models is the belief that maleness and femaleness are somehow conceptually opposite (which is a belief also shared by the folk understanding). This belief, I argue, is not borne out in nature, as demonstrated in part by the occurrence of intersexuality in the species Homo sapiens, and the occurrence of hermaphroditism in other species. These occurrences, I argue, suggest another way to make sense of sex. The model of sex that I present is inspired by the occurrence of intersexuality and hermaphroditism, and also by Sandra Bem’s (1974) work on the concept ANDROGYNY. Bem reconceptualized masculinity and femininity as dimensions of psychological androgyny. I argue that the concepts MALE and FEMALE, and thus BIOLOGICAL SEX, can be understood in a similar way. I propose a multidimensional model of SEX that includes the concepts MALE and FEMALE as intersecting continua that create a space in which the separate features of an individual’s sex are each individually located. The dissertation concludes by discussing the moral implications of the multidimensional model, as some of our judgments about the rightness or wrongness of a person’s actions are related to our understanding of that person’s sex. But if the words male and female come to refer to individual parts of the body and not whole people (as I argue they would, if the multidimensional model were adopted), how would our ideas about the moral acceptability of certain actions and practices change? By examining this general question, I show that adoption of the multidimensional model of sex is important not just because it offers a more biologically accurate representation of sex: it is also important, I conclude, because there is good reason to think that adopting it could improve the quality of life for many.

Thesis (M.A.)--Cleveland State University, 2008. / Abstract. Title from PDF t.p. (Mar. 17, 2009). Includes bibliographical references (p. 48-49). Available online via the OhioLINK ETD Center. Also available in print.

The global refugee crisis worsens day-by-day, with millions of refugees forced to seek safe haven abroad. Pre-migration trauma exposure contributes to disproportionately higher rates of psychopathology, especially among torture survivors and women. The extant literature has largely focused on the effects of pre-migration factors; however, increasingly, researchers recognize the critical impact of post-migration living difficulties (PMLD) in exacerbating refugee mental health. One example of a PMLD is stigma, defined as a socially devalued attribute (e.g., minority race, ethnicity, sex). A robust literature documents the deleterious effects of stigma on psychological functioning, but few studies of refugees have explored stigma, which is surprising because refugees often possess multiple stigmas. Given this gap in the literature, the present study examined the impact of stigma on psychological well-being in a sample of resettled refugees of mixed ethnic/racial and religious origins. Specifically, analyses tested (1) the independent effect of race among African and Asian refugees, (2) a linear model of multiple stigmas predicting mental health outcomes, and (3) between-group effects of race among Muslims and of religion among Asian refugees. Results showed that race significantly predicted posttraumatic stress symptoms among African and Asian refugees when controlling for sex and torture status, with Africans reporting higher levels of posttraumatic stress than Asians. Findings suggest that the effect of multiple stigmas on mental health outcomes is non-linear. Finally, results indicated that Muslim refugees experienced equivalent levels of anxious and general symptoms across racial groups; among Asians, significant between-group effects by religion were found for general symptoms. By understanding key factors impacting refugee mental health, more appropriate and efficacious interventions may be developed to treat this vulnerable population.

It is often acknowledged that the sexually intermediate body destabilises sexual dimorphisms, but, so far, little attention has been paid to the way sexual intermediacy relates to normative figurations of time. Focusing mainly on literary and cultural discourses from late Romanticism to Modernism, the thesis examines how constructions of sexual intermediacy have contributed and responded to shifting concerns with temporality. It also investigates the relationship between literature and science through a comparative engagement with evolutionary, psychoanalytic and sexological discourses. The individual chapters deal with the conflicted temporality of the substantiated androgyne; the haunted and uncanny materiality of the hermaphroditic body in late nineteenth-century science and literature; sexual intermediacy and the prescriptive linear narrative of the case history; the sexual, temporal and national crises of World War I; and sexual travels in time and space. Overall, the thesis illustrates that sex and time are intimately related and shows that the changing understanding of sexual intermediacy opens up a powerful critique of sexual and temporal structures.

The topic of the thesis is to monitor differences in communication between men and women. The theoretical part summarizes the information about communication in general and outlines the differences in communication between men and women. The empirical part is based on interview. We examine possible differences of verbal communication between men and women with university education. Following characteristics were examined: formality, expressions, vulgar, addressing, topics, and the role in communication and interruptions. The results provide information about relatively specific differences in verbal communication between men and women. It was found that men use significantly more technical terms, use more vulgar words, while women choose such expressions exeptionally. Men do not interrupt the other speaker, women interrupt in more than 50% cases.. The results confirm previously published findings on this topic.