Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2005. / Supervisor: Charlotte Canning. Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

This thesis is both an empirical history of white women in Queensland colonialism and a theoretical history of colonialism and imperialism in the late nineteenth century. It is a feminist history which seeks to fill the gap in our understanding of white women and 'race' in the contact zone in Queensland in the nineteenth century. At this level the thesis restores historical agency to women and reveals women's history as a powerful alternative to traditional colonial histories. It also positions this Queensland history within a global discourse of critical imperial histories that has emerged over the past decade, seeking to understand how British imperialism and Queensland colonialism shaped and informed each other in a two way process. The central themes of the thesis are 'race' and gender. I examine the ways in which white women deploy imperial ideologies of 'race' in the contact zone to position themselves as white women. 'Race' and gender are explored through the ways in which white women negotiated, in their writing, their relationships with Indigenous people and Pacific Islanders on the frontier and in the contact zone. The white women whose texts are examined in this thesis engaged with 'race' difference in their autobiographical accounts and these accounts, on many levels, allow us to rethink colonial history. I argue that colonialism is paradoxical and that white women experienced this colonial paradox in their daily lives and negotiated it in their writing. The white women whose writing is studied here were decent people with good intentions. They were simultaneously humanitarians (to differing degrees) and colonists. They were dependant for their livelihoods upon a violent colonisation and yet they were sympathetic to the Aboriginal people they interacted with. Often they were silenced in their opinions on the violence they witnessed. Writing was a means of navigating these contradictions. White women were in a relatively powerless position in the contact zone and there was little they could do to mitigate the violence that they saw. The tensions that resulted from living in the colonial paradox on frontiers and in the contact zone, of being a colonists and humanitarians, and of living in an uncontrollable existential situation is expressed in the writing of these women. This history offers us a more holistic understanding of the complexity of colonialism in Australia.

Dissertation (PhD)--Unviersity of Stellenbosch, 2008. / Bibliography. Also available via the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2005. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes bibliographical references (p. 233-245).

This research is a qualitative, heuristic study involving in-depth interviews with eight white, professional heterosexual women in interracial relationships. The women were found through an opportunistic or snowball approach. The participant women were in the age range 25-60. Six were married and two were in long term relationships. All women had children, seven having mixed-race children between 18 months and 23 years of age. Four women had partners of African-Caribbean heritage, three had partners of African heritage and one had a partner of Nepalese heritage. The women shared their reflections on having to confront the realities of racism, coming to terms with their own ambiguous racial position, facing the notion of whiteness and considering their social position as white women. The research was conducted using a heuristic methodology to explore white women's experiences, using creative images and personal reflective and reflexive narratives integrated throughout the text. The research offers insight into how the social experiences of being in an interracial relationship impacts on white women; as individuals, partners and in their role of mother. Implications for themselves as mothers and parenting their children in a racist context are explored and discussed. The findings suggest the women can feel caught between the known (whiteness) and the unknown (blackness). Having crossed a 'socially unaccepted racialised boundary' and challenging explicit dominant social, gendered and racialised beliefs, the women stepped into the unknown involving experiences of changes in status, challenges to assumptions of their maternal competence and living in a world which involved a continuous process of deconstruction and reconstruction of a new, unforeseen racialised identity. The white women moved from being an 'insider' within their own dominant social experiences, to becoming an 'outsider' within another cultural context, sometimes experiencing uncertainty about where they belonged. The white women experienced a shift of reference group orientation, with a new experience of continuous external scrutiny unfolding. These newly encountered social and personal events challenged the white women to review how they previously saw themselves, with this all impacting on their previously taken for granted social status. These experiences impacted at emotional and cognitive levels. As a consequence, the white women often found themselves occupying a liminal or unknown space where a process occurs of attempting to come to terms with the new experiences, new learning and adopting alternative strategies to deal with these different experiences. Implications for counsellors working with white women in interracial relationships are considered and suggestions for therapeutic engagement are made.

In this thesis I examine the contemporary nexus between White women and the raced and classed institution of White womanhood. More specifically, I focus on White Australian women who are middle class, rich in cultural capital, and generally consider themselves to be progressive; that is race privileged women but women who are not usually associated with overt racism. My analysis unfolds White Australian women in the discursive context of the ideologies of feminism and feminist-influenced anti-racist politics, as well as the ideologies of femininity. The thesis shows how this nexus is enacted through a vision of White women as Good as expressed in the political commitments, mentalities, relationships, narratives and corporeality of such women. The research problem that I identified and worked through in the thesis is as follows: for middle class White women, (who can be seen and see themselves as generic 'women'), Whiteness has been seen and played out as Goodness. Further, in the playing out of this Goodness White women accumulate and defend the prestige and privileges of Whiteness. Specifically, I argue that Whiteness is reproduced in some of the discourses and practices of White feminism, by the progressive White women involved in anti-racist politics, and in the femininity industry and the ways it is taken up. The nub of the problem I identify is that White women's involvement in the structures and narratives that support Whiteness is often grounded in the very qualities of character and conduct that emerge from the colonial and class-constructed ideal of White womanhood and which have historically distinguished them from denigrated others. These qualities- notably virtue, innocence and self-restraint- whilst differently nuanced in other contexts are an ongoing expression of the uses made of White womanhood as the visible sign of race and class superiority. The work examines four key periods: the Australian colony of PNG during the decolonising 1960's and 1970's; the high years of 1970's and 1980's feminism; the race debates of the 1990's; and the bodily practices of present day White women gripped by fears of fat and aging. I explore the ways in which White women's Whiteness is played out in benevolent Black/White relationships, the over-reach of difference feminism, particular kinds of anti-racist identities and activism, and body-improvement practices. In all these cultural sites, White women's Whiteness is often represented as a kind of moral being and deployed as moral authority in ways that are consonant with the raced and classed construction of White women as moral texts. My research approach was determined by the research problem I identified. Given my argument that White women mis-recognise Whiteness as Goodness in a race-structured society, then the collecting of data through interviews or surveys would have yielded material subject to this blindness. Instead, I explored sites and material where moral claims were being pressed, and case studies where 'women' were enacting themselves or being represented or interpellated as moral texts. My selection of primary source material ranges from feminist newsletters, women's and other magazines, literature, film, event programs and flyers, radio and television broadcasts, newspapers and websites, as well as reflections on my own experiences. Secondary source material includes feminist theoretical texts as well as texts drawn from a range of other disciplines, and other historical background materials. I lay out and support my arguments using a technique not dissimilar to collage, aiming to construct a picture that is compelling in its detail as well as coherent in its overall effect. This thesis is a contribution to the de-naturalisation of Whiteness. Navigating a course between the opposing hazards of essentialising Whiteness and understating its effects in contemporary Australian society, I have brought into clearer view some of the strategies which maintain the authority of Whiteness.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Mississippi State University. Department of Instructional Systems, Leadership, and Workforce Development. / Title from title screen. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.) University of Missouri-Columbia, 2006. / The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file viewed on (June 27, 2007) Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

No description available.

In Boston Massachusetts, Black and White women aged 50-74, experience limited access to breast cancer screening. The purpose of this quantitative study was to investigate whether there is a correlation between breast cancer screening access to personal healthcare providers among Black and White women, aged 50- 74, in Boston, MA. The study focused on whether there was a correlation between breast cancer screening access and socioeconomic status among women, and whether a correlation existed between breast cancer screening and their educational levels. The study was informed by the health belief psychological framework. The study consisted of secondary data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System with a sample size of n =1815, 18 years and above. Exclusion criteria consisted of adults under age 40, women above age 74 diagnosed with cancer, and had mastectomies previously. A chi square test examined the relationship between the independent and dependent variables. The key results showed a significant relation between race and access to healthcare providers. The study also found a significant relationship between low income levels and limited access. The study results portrayed a nonsignificant relationship between breast cancer screening and educational levels among black and white women. The results concluded that access to healthcare providers was significant among the races as well as their income levels. The study contributes to social change by promoting awareness through education of individuals, communities, organizations and the society at large.