This essay is based on the argument that Wilkie Collins, in his novel The Woman in White (1859), the first sensational novel and prequel to the detective genre, challenges stereotypical female roles in his presentation of the two sisters Laura Fairlie and Marian Halcombe. Through a comparative analysis of the two sisters, it is shown that Laura represents the traditional Victorian woman, while Marian challenges these ideals, and, through her, Collins creates a new type of literary heroine. The relationship between the sisters is also examined in more detail than has been done before. In addition to this analysis, the essay also contains a didactic chapter which demonstrates how a teacher can use The Woman in White in the language classroom as well as showing how this will benefit the development of students’ language, critical thinking and knowledge of literature.

This study analyzes female friendship in four novels written by black diasporic women and examines the impact of race, class and gender on women’s relationships. The novels emphasize how women face the challenges of patriarchal institutions and other attempts to subjugate then through polygamy, neo-colonialism, constraints of tradition, caste prejudice, political instability and the Biafra war. This dissertation uses characterization and plot analysis to explore the different stories and messages the novels portray. As findings this study foregrounds the healing powers of female bonding, which allows women to overcome prejudice and survive, to enjoy female empowerment, and to extend female friendship into female solidarity that participates in nation building. However, another conclusion focuses on the power of patriarchy which constitutes a threat to female bonding and usually causes women’s estrangement.

Report-in-lieu-of-Thesis (M.P.H.)--University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth, 2008. / Title from title page display. Bibliography: p. 58-61.

abstract: This thesis examines why young Western Muslim women from the UK are drawn to join and support ISIS in its established territories in Syria and Iraq and identifies their role within these territories. The critical role of technology, specifically social media, in facilitating the recruitment, radicalization, and mobilization of young Muslim women online to join ISIS is also explored. Females emigrating from the UK appear equally drawn to ISIS's ideology and state-building mission as Muslim men. Claims from the media suggest women serve as 'fighters,' however this research finds that women are not permitted by ISIS to participate in fighting. Using Britain as a case study, this study analyzes the social media content of eight young British Muslim women, known as female migrants, for themes motivating them to mobilize. Themes, culled from the literature, include Muslim attitudes and perceptions in the UK regarding Islamophobia or religious discrimination, the erosion of multiculturalism, identity and belonging, and finding purpose in the ummah, and measures whether these variables influence women to mobilize. Excerpts from blog posts and original tweets from their Tumblr, Twitter, and ask.fm accounts provide the actual voices of British female migrants choosing to live within ISIS territory and offers insight on their role as female migrants. Research suggests that, for British Muslim women in the UK, Muslim identity and belonging, both individually and within the ummah, along with attitudes and perceptions of religious discrimination (Islamophobia) and the failing of multiculturalism are influencing them to join ISIS. Additional motives for migration found within the study are based on the following beliefs: that the ummah is under attack, a strong desire to help build a new society, their religious duty as a Muslim, and the opportunity to belong and find purpose in the new "caliphate sisterhood." The role of female migrants residing in ISIS territory is domestic in nature, where they primarily function as wives and mothers of jihadists, as well as serve in online roles as propagandists, proselytizers, and recruiters for ISIS. The strong online presence of women demands an effective counter narrative to deter prospective female migrants from emigrating. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Global Technology and Development 2015

Premenstrual syndrome (PMS) was originally coined to describe the various changes that many women experience the days before their period. Today, we understand PMS as a complex phenomenon that not only involves the materiality of the body, but also discursive ideas and cultural mythology around women and femininity. The field of PMS-research is fragmented and includes a medical, a social constructivist, and, more recently, a material-discursive-intrapsychic perspective. This study takes its starting point in the latter approach, which allows for a multidimensional analysis of both material, discursive, and psychological aspects of PMS. To avoid pathologization, the use of premenstrual change, rather than -syndrome when discussing material experiences of menstrual cycle-related experiences, is supported and encouraged. Theoretical concepts such as bio-power, the body politic, and sexual difference, are used to make sense of the material which consists of three semi-structured group discussions and one interview with seven German women between 21 and 30. The study centers around how these women negotiate and make deliberate choices around PMS and menstruation, including embracing and/or resisting PMS as a material-discursive concept. The study aims at gaining insight into how we can make sense of PMS as a social and embodied phenomenon. Findings suggest that rather than considering premenstrual change as disempowering or as splitting menstruators lives into bad days and normal days, it can be viewed as a translator between the needs of body, psyche, and being. Premenstrual change, together with menstrual cycle-related pain, can furthermore form the basis for a supportive sisterhood.

This study explored the value of team sport in the lives of seven urban living/playing Indigenous women attending three open talking circles to discuss the influence of personal sport stories, definitions and experiences of wellness, and, prioritizing sport into adulthood. With a strengths-based approach and guided by the Indigenous methodologies that reflect the often-transformative journey of the Indigenous re-searcher, seven themes emerged from the stories, capturing the resilient and relational stories of these women: (1) Cgwesgwsénk (Sunny side of the mountain), acknowledges the overarching benefits of team sport participation and the strength-based perspective that the women shared. (2) Ec k yúcwementwecw-ep (Take care of each other), reflects the connectedness present in all of the women’s stories, thus woven throughout the following five themes as well. (3) Ye⁊éne ren ú⁊q̓wi (This is my sister), recognizes the sisterhood created through team sport in the city. (4) Cnéwelc (Follow the trail), captures the role model relationships the women shared as well as their feelings about being a role model. (5) Letwílc (Healthy once again), shares the views of wellness and how continually pursuing sport directly influences our wellness. (6) Ct̓éxelc (Swim up-stream) acknowledges the many adversities for sport participation. Yet, the narrative revealed how women continue to overcome barriers in pursuit of sport. Finally, (7) Ct̓̓íxwtsnem (Raise one’s voice loudly), poses the question ‘who needs to hear about this work and these stories of strength and sisterhood in sport in the city?’ This work contributes to the relatively sparse body of literature acknowledging Indigenous women and sport, and creates space for the voices of Indigenous women, both in the game and in the academy. / Graduate

This study is a feminist reading of Jane Smiley's novel A Thousand Acres. It focuses on the Cook sisters and their lives in a farming community at a time that coincides with the end of second wave feminism. In particular, it pays attention to the absence of sisterhood among the three sisters in the novel. It analyses first each individual sister including their different approaches to sisterhood and then their failure to unite in the type of strategic, politically motivated notion of sisterhood that was promoted by second wave feminism.          By looking at different reasons why the sisters cannot establish a strong sisterhood my essay aims to demonstrate that A Thousand Acres not only criticises patriarchal society in its portrayal of the Cook family but also, and more importantly, that it criticises second wave feminism by pointing out its failure in terms of promoting a sense of sisterhood.

Esse trabalho discute a performance ritual e musical durante a Festa da Boa Morte e Glória realizada anualmente na segunda quinzena de agosto na cidade de Cachoeira, Recôncavo da Bahia. Elaborada através de elementos simbólicos, culturais, religiosos e de resistência política e social, a Festa da Boa Morte compreende performances musicais dentro de uma complexa performance ritual que é ao mesmo tempo coletiva e absolutamente restritiva. A Irmandade de Nossa Senhora da Boa Morte é um coletivo de mulheres idosas, todas religiosas enquanto praticantes do candomblé e do catolicismo popular. Como grupo a Irmandade é considerada elite na luta e resistência do negro contra o sofrimento e a escravidão no Brasil. As irmãs foram e são mulheres diferenciadas em vários sentidos: aos olhos da sociedade colonial eram chamadas de negras do partido alto; miticamente transgressoras da ordem masculina são consideradas iamis e organizadas em sacerdócio religioso unindo diferentes nações são donas do axé ou eleyes. As irmãs antigas compraram as alforrias de outros sacerdotes e sacerdotisas africanos, se comprometeram em garantir funerais dignos a si mesmas e aos seus, e mantém uma festa associada aos seus antepassados femininos (eguns) e aos seus orixás durante rituais católicos públicos e do candomblé (secretos). Segundo as irmãs, elas cumprem uma promessa feita pelas mais antigas: se todos os escravos fossem libertos elas cultuariam Maria na vida e na morte. Personagens narrando e encenando repetidamente performances, as irmãs desenvolvem seqüências rituais e musicais que vão da anunciação da morte ao velório de Nossa Senhora no primeiro dia da Festa. No segundo dia é realizado o enterro, e, no terceiro, demonstram sua crença na vida após a morte através da glorificação e assunção de Maria aos céus. Esses são os três principais momentos do ritual público, aos quais se seguem outros três dias de samba de roda que se fundem aos rituais secretos, já em desenvolvimento antes da Festa. O encerramento é marcado pela entrega de um presente às águas, para os orixás femininos Nanã, Iemanjá e Oxum. / This work discusses the musical and ritual performance during the Sisterhood of Good Death Celebration, which occurs in the second half of August in the city of Cachoeira, Recôncavo Area of Bahia. Involving symbolic, cultural, religious, social and political elements, the Sisterhood of Good Death Celebration engages musical performances inside a complex ritual performance that is at the same time collective and absolutely restrictive. The Sisterhood of Good Death is a collective of elderly women, all of them religious while devoted to candomblé and popular Catholicism. As a group, the Sisterhood is considered the elite in the stuggle of black people against oppression and slavery in Brazil. The Sisters were and still are distinguished women in many different ways: during the colonial period, they were called black women from the partido alto; mythically transgressing the dominant masculinity, they are considered iamis and organized in a religious ministry that congregates different candomblé nations. They are also the ones who possess the axé (eleyes). In the past, the sisters bought the manumission of other priests and priestesses, and commited to guaranteeing dignified funerals to themselves and to their people. The Celebration is associated with their female antecessors (eguns) and to their orixás during public catholic rituals and secret candomblé ceremonies. According to the sisters, they are living up to a promise made by their antecessors: If all the slaves were freed, they would all worship Mary in life and in death. Characters narrating and staging repeated performances, the sisters develop ritual and musical sequences which go from the annunciation of the death of the Virgin Mary to her vigil on the first day; on the second she is buried and on the third the Sisters demonstrate their belief in life after death through the glorification and elevation of Mary. These are the three most important moments of the public ritual, followed by three days of samba de roda . The samba takes place parallel to the development of the secret rituals started before the Celebration. On the last day of feast, the sisters deliver a gift to the waters, destinated to the female orixás Nanã, Iemanjá and Oxum.

Feminist “Sisterhood” has been a debatable term throughout multiple generations and its ideology is mostly rejected by feminists in the younger generation. The concept mainly denotes a sense of collectivity and it is viewed as a gendered term due to its coinage by second wave feminists as a response to patriarchy. Hence, “Sisterhood” authorizes a collective identity that portrays women as victims and thereby the ideology that is associated with this term reduces the complexity and fluidity of female identity. Various representations of female bonds, in the political, literary and filmic spheres, have valued the idea of collectivity among females, even up to our present day. In order to deconstruct the attempts to redeem “Sisterhood” as an all-inclusive term, I trace representations of the ideology of “Sisterhood” in selected literary, theatrical and televisual works from multiple generations to argue for the rejection of this term and the inability to validate it as inclusive due to its insistence on a collective identity that imposes a blindness to and an underrepresentation of otherness. I explore how “Sisterhood” results in the objectification of females’ experiences in order to serve identity molds that restrict a female’s representation as an individual. I highlight this problematic ideology in Jane Eyre (1847) by Charlotte Brontë and a theatrical adaptation of the novel by James Willing and Leonard Rae (1879); The Women of Brewster Place (1982) by Gloria Naylor; Big Little Lies (2014) by Liane Moriarty and an adaptation of the novel as a miniseries on HBO (2017). While deconstructing the ideology of perceiving female bonds through the lens of “Sisterhood,” I conclude that the concept is problematic in relation to the portrayal of “other” females, and I demonstrate how it is also flawed on a general level since it takes away from the individuality of each woman portrayed throughout this ideology in order to meet specific commonalities among her “sisters.” Although the ideology of “Sisterhood” is outdated and restrictive, we can’t deny, as I further explore, that the investment in portraying it has contributed to raising important female issues.

In order to determine how female athletes and women’s sports are framed in sports magazines, a textual analysis was conducted on three popular sports magazines (ESPN Magazine, Sporting News, and Sports Illustrated). The researcher analyzed the texts within these three magazines and found four emergent themes commonly applied to women in sports: mental weakness, male reference, motherhood and sisterhood, and celebrity. The research found both consistencies and inconsistencies in the thematic framing utilized among the three publications. The textual analysis also revealed a tendency for the sports media to reference individual sports more than team sports. Knowing the exact frames utilized in these magazines, allows the researcher to suggest solutions that may alleviate the negative portrayals of female athletes and women's sports in sports magazines. The results from this study also provide a foundation for those who wish to further explore and raise awareness on this issue.