abstract: The division of domestic labor has far-reaching implications for "private" life (e.g. relational satisfaction and conflict) and for "public" paid labor (e.g. time and dedication in the workplace and career advancement). Although several theories have been developed and tested, they do not sufficiently explain the consistent findings that women in mixed sex households perform a majority of the domestic labor. Without understanding the causes for differences in task performance, past research encouraging communicative solutions to ameliorate conflict was ineffective in changing task allocation and performance. Therefore, it is necessary to understand theoretical explanations that drive domestic labor behavior to develop effective solutions. The recent integrative theory of the division of domestic labor attempts to explain how individuals interact with household partners to allocate domestic tasks. Recognizing the complexity of the division of domestic labor, the integrative theory considers individual, dyadic, and societal factors that influence task allocation. Because clear differences in task performance have been found in mixed sex households, this study separates sex and gender as distinct variables by considering same-sex roommate relationships, essentially removing sex differences from the living arrangement. Furthermore, this study considers individual threshold levels as described by the integrative theory in order to test the theoretical underpinnings. Specifically, this study is designed to investigate the relationships between individual cleanliness threshold levels and gender, sex, perceptions of satisfaction, equity, and frequency of conflict in same-sex roommate relationships. Results indicate support of the integrative theory of the division of domestic labor. Regarding gender differences, partial support for the theory appeared in that feminine individuals have lower threshold levels than masculine individuals. Regarding sex differences, women possess lower individual threshold levels (i.e. more bothered when a task is undone) compared to men, which likely accounts for why existing research indicates that women spend more time performing domestic tasks. What is more, individuals with higher threshold levels report greater relational satisfaction. Further, individuals whose threshold levels differ from their living partner report lower relational satisfaction and greater conflict frequency. Finally, in terms of equity, both overbenefited and underbenefited individuals experience more conflict than those who feel their relationship is equitable. These results provide theoretical support for the integrative theory of the division of labor. Furthermore, the development and testing of a threshold measure scale can be used practically for future research and for better roommate pairings by universities. In addition, communication scholars, family practitioners and counselors, and universities can apply these theoretically grounded research findings to develop and test strategies to reduce conflict and increase relational satisfaction among roommates and couples. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Communication 2011

Most people in Sweden have come into contact with the narratives from the Bible, through a children’s bible book. There exists several different kinds of these books for children. Two of the most popular is Barnens bibel and Bibel för barn, which are the explored subjects of this essay. The narratives conveys different norms and values, and it is therefore legitimate to investigate what they convey about women and femininity. Five female characters; Eve, Sarah, Hagar, Naomi and Ruth are the focus of the study. The stories underwent a narratological analysis to clarify the narrative structure. Furthermore, sex- and gender theory were applied on the narratives and showed that they in general express a dominant male norm, and dichotomy between the sexes. Keywords: children’s bible, femininity, narratology, sex- and gender theory

This thesis aims to explore the categories of sexuality and gender through an analysis of Jeanette Winterson&rsquo / s well-known novels, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit and Written on the body, against the background of Butler&rsquo / s concept of performativity and Cixous&rsquo / s &eacute / criture feminine. By underlining the constructedness of these categories and questioning the boundaries of patriarchal concepts and transgressing them, Winterson deconstructs the binary oppositions created by phallocentric discourse and problematizes the verdict that sexuality is inborn. Instead of this ingrained notion, she asserts that gender and sexual identities are culturally and discursively constructed by the dominant discourse. Although the dominant discourse favors heterosexuality over homosexuality and degrades sexuality into a binary frame of oppositions such as masculinity/ feminity and male/female, Winterson, in her novels, seeks an alternative to escape this ideological binarism and achieves to subvert the binary oppositions by highlighting the fluidity of sexuality and gender, and by creating amorphous characters like the ungendered narrator in Written on the body or by bestowing on them bisexuality or homosexuality as in Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit. Hence, the main argument of this thesis will be to display Winterson&rsquo / s deconstruction and dissolution of the patriarchal categories in her novels and to emphasize her escape from the binary charade, in a fictional universe, with references to Butlerian performativity and Cixousian &eacute / criture feminine.

Thesis PlanB (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Stout, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Melbourne, Dept. of Psychology, 2006. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 213-232).

A partir du cas des saisonnières marocaines travaillant sous contrat dans la fraisiculture intensive, cette thèse explore la manière dont le recrutement se fonde sur leur place dans les rapports de sexe (mères avec enfants en bas âge) et la réduction de leur séjour au travail à des fins de contrôle de la mobilité des étrangers (assignation à circuler). On s'intéresse à la manière dont l'utilitarisme migratoire s'appuie sur des rapports matériels de sexe et des représentations de genre, les effets que cela produit en matière d'invisibilisation et de mise à l'écart de ce groupe de travailleuses ainsi qu'en matière de flexibilité dans l'organisation du travail. Enfin, on aborde, dans ce contexte particulier, la manière dont la vie des saisonnières s'articule autour d'une conciliation, parfois impossible à trouver, entre rôle domestique ou familial et salariat saisonnier. / Studying the case of seasonal female workers under contract in intensive strawberry culture, this thesis intends to explore the way in which recruitment is based on their place in sex relations (mothers of young children) and on the reduction of their stay to work in order to control foreigners mobility (assignation to circulate). The thesis presents how migratory utilitarianism uses material sex relations and gender representations to render workers invisible, captive and flexible. Finally, we abord in this specific context the way in which seasonal workers life is articulated and tries to conciliate, sometimes impossibly, a domestic or family role and seasonal wage.

No description available.

While researchers have documented elite Indigenous hockey players' experiences when they leave home to play sports in the mainstream context, to date they have not examined how these experiences may vary based on sex and gender. By using Tribal Critical Race Theory, Indigenous feminisms, and reflexive thematic analysis, in this thesis, I examined the challenges and benefits that First Nations elite hockey players experienced when they left home to play in the mainstream context and how these challenges varied based on sex and gender. The 20 participants (10 female, 10 male) all had challenges with language and their new environments. Interestingly, while all the male participants reported experiencing racism, only two of the female participants reported such experiences, and they were of a less overt nature. The benefits that were experienced by both male and female athletes included athletic and personal growth, new experiences, and support from home. While both male and female athletes reported accruing benefits from leaving home, I found that the female athletes had to leave home to pursue hockey due to a lack of opportunities available to them, opportunities that were often available closer to home for male participants. I also found that both males and females reported receiving a great deal of support; this is particularly interesting given male hockey's higher profile. Taken together, these findings add nuance to the existing literature on Indigenous hockey players' experiences in the mainstream context.

Yes / Bids for mutuality in sexual partnerships are key to AIDS campaigning slogans such as `negotiate¿, `know your partner¿ and `use condoms¿. This paper explores the contradiction between more mutuality in sexual relations and the gender power politics that render such mutuality difficult to achieve in Africa, as well as the caricatures of `African sexuality¿ that have pervaded some of the literature. It looks at the new discourses of sexuality delivered via NGOs and the state as well as the ways in which customary silences about sex are being broken by ordinary people. It asks whether, given the threat of HIV infection, people are talking in new ways about sexual relationships, and how this talk is gendered. It also addresses the challenge to African feminism of sexuality discourses and how these need to be rethought in the context of AIDS. It concludes that the prospect of death by sex is transforming discourses, challenging customary sexual practice and putting gendered inequalities in question.

Inspection of the published research shows that sex differences in cognition in the general population have been widely cited with the direction of the advantage depending on the domain being examined. The most prevalent claims are that men are better than women at visuospatial and mathematical tasks whereas women have superior verbal skills and perform better than men on tasks assessing episodic memory. There is also some evidence that women are more accurate than men at identifying facial expressions of emotion. A more in-depth examination of the literature, however, reveals that evidence of such differences is not as conclusive as would at first appear. Not only is the direction and magnitude of sex differences dependent on the cognitive domain but also on the individual tasks. Some visuospatial tasks show no difference (e.g. figure copying) whist men have been shown to be better than women at confrontation naming (a verbal task). Alzheimer’s disease is a heterogeneous illness that affects the elderly. It manifests with deficits in cognitive abilities and behavioural difficulties. It has been suggested that some of the behavioural issues may arise from difficulties with recognising facial emotion expressions. There have been claims that AD affects men and women differently: women have been reported as being more likely to develop AD and showing a greater dementia severity than men with equivalent neuropathology. Despite this, research into sex differences in cognition in AD is scarce, and conflicting. This research was concerned with the effect of sex on the cognitive abilities of AD patients. The relative performance of men and women with AD was compared to that of elderly controls. The study focused on the verbal, visuospatial and facial emotion recognition domains. Data was collected and analysed from 70 AD patients (33 male, 37 female), 62 elderly controls (31 male, 31 female) and 80 young adults (40 male, 40 female). Results showed those with AD demonstrate cognitive deficits compared to elderly controls in verbal and visuospatial tasks but not in the recognition of facial emotions. There were no significant sex differences in either the young adults or the healthy elderly controls but sex differences favouring men emerged in the AD group for figure copying and recall and for confrontation naming. Given that elderly men and women perform equivalently for these tasks, this represents a deterioration in women’s cognitive abilities, relative to men’s. Further evidence of such an adverse effect of AD was apparent in other tasks, too: for most verbal and visuospatial tasks, either an effect favouring women in the elderly is reversed or a male advantage increases in magnitude. There is no evidence of sex differences in facial emotion recognition for any group. This suggests that the lack of published findings reporting on sex differences in this domain is due to the difficulty in getting null findings accepted for publication. The scarcity of research examining sex differences in other domains is also likely to be due to this bias.