Focusing on the stories of three women shaped by the expectations and attitudes of the times in which they live, my novel covers the periods 1921-1937, 1937-1972, and 1973 and participates in the discourse on women's changing historical circumstances and new class and gender identities. It therefore can be read in the category of a novel of manners or a middlebrow novel. My purpose has been to explore, through creating my own characters and story, the dramatic social, cultural and economic changes that have taken place in the middle part of the twentieth century for Western women. In tracing the trajectory from one generation to the next, my fiction responds to and is inflected by the style of narration obtaining at the time. It engages, for instance, with the "reality" constructed by writers such as Virginia Woolf, Christa Wolf, and Margaret Drabble within the genre of women's fiction: of women writing for each other, in a small-scale and intimate way, and integrating the story of an individual life with the circumstances of the time. My aim has been, through writing fiction, to re-examine certain concepts of the past for myself and for the contemporary reader in order to reach slightly different conclusions and to begin to understand the past in a new way.

An emerging body of research on signaling theory applies evolutionary psychology to explain the purpose of a signaler's use of a luxury brand. However, in response to visible signals displayed by an unknown woman's use of a luxury brand, the male receivers' decoding (perceptions) and reactions (counter-signals) on the signals are ignored in previous research. This research has the overarching objective of filling this research gap through the lens of evolutionary psychology. Through a series of experiments, it was found that an unknown woman using a luxury (vs. non-luxury) brand results in men believing that she is more likely to be in a committed relationship. Also, there is a moderating effect of an unknown woman's overall physical attractiveness on the effect of her use of a luxury (vs. non-luxury) brand on men's intentions to attract her; and men's attracting intentions mediate the moderating effect of an unknown woman's overall physical attractiveness on the effect of her use of a luxury (vs. non-luxury) brand on men's intentions to display material resources or physical fitness. These research findings not only offer theoretical contributions to signaling theory, but also generate managerial implications and future research directions.

This empirical study attempted to develop an original theoretical framework aiming at understanding the psychosocial changes that occurred in the long - term among families living in a post conflict setting. During the last fifteen years, Kosovo has been transitioning from warfare and organized violence to stabilization and state building under the supervision and with the support of the international community. Drawing on different contributions from analytical psychology, attachment theory and the systemic family theory , the theoretical framework focused primarily on family relationships and observed them through both a psychological and a psychosocial perspective. The empirical study attempted to observe the complex relational matrix interconnecting individuals and families with their broader context encompassing societal, economic, cultural and political facets. A total of thirty-five families belonging to different ethnic and socio-economic groups participated in the study, originating from different areas of the region . They were exposed to war events with different intensity and to gross violations of human rights that occurred between the years 1998-1999. The research explored the process of psychological and psychosocial transformation that occurred in family life by focusing on the quality of family attachment behaviours between children and caregivers and on care - giving/parenting styles. Moreover, the impact of the process of 'internationalization' was taken into account, which has been defined as the whole of the interactions involving the local population and international community, taking place both in Kosovo as well as in third countries. The role of technology and social media in providing opportunities for regular contacts with relatives and friends living abroad and strengthening further family relationships was also considered. The results showed that when families were exposed to harsh daily stressors, marginalization and discrimination even before war-related events they were more likely to display limited family psychosocial functioning, inadequate parenting and caregiving and mothers to report more frequently psychopathological symptoms of depression and anxiety. Secondly, attachment security within family and responsive parenting styles appeared to have a mediational role towards potentially traumatic experiences and adverse environmental conditions by enhancing the capacity of positively coping with adversities at both a personal and family level. Thirdly , the long-term effects of war experiences seemed to be also linked to changes in the society, in particular to the transformations caused by the process of 'internationalization', such as the promotion of a human rights based culture, law enforcement and infrastructural interventions aiming at developing communication systems and information technology. The study discusses the potential factors supporting lasting resilience and the Adversity Activated Development responses in individuals and families.

Submitted by Edileide Reis (leyde-landy@hotmail.com) on 2013-04-30T12:58:34Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Ludimila Couto.pdf: 797129 bytes, checksum: d8d746abd83ade14eff4e9d55a092301 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Maria Auxiliadora Lopes(silopes@ufba.br) on 2013-06-11T15:05:37Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Ludimila Couto.pdf: 797129 bytes, checksum: d8d746abd83ade14eff4e9d55a092301 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2013-06-11T15:05:37Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Ludimila Couto.pdf: 797129 bytes, checksum: d8d746abd83ade14eff4e9d55a092301 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2007 / A presente pesquisa tem como objeto de investigação a formação escolar das mulheres ferroviária de Alagoinhas - BA. O trabalho de investigação centrou-se nas nuances dos processos de escolarização e profissionalização dessas mulheres, no período de 1950 a 1970, e buscou evidenciar as inter-relações de ambos processos com a incorporação feminina no mercado formal de trabalho, a partir do universo ferroviário. Utilizamos como recurso metodológico a História Oral e, através dela, enfocamos as Histórias de vida dessas personagens na perspectiva de entender o mundo ferroviário e o mundo escolar, a partir da experiência feminina. No intuito de definir um quadro geral de formação escolar e profissional feminina, nesse período, partimos de uma análise minuciosa de suas trajetórias scolares. Esta análise buscou evidenciar as particularidades e especificidades de suas experiências individuais e entender que essas mulheres, como alunas, já encaravam a formação escolar na perspectiva de conseguir ampliar suas formas de incorporação no mercado de trabalho, com melhores cargos e funções. Portanto, esta pesquisa nos leva a concluir que a emancipação econômica feminina tornou-se possível a partir de um trabalho remunerado e sua autonomia intelectual, por meio da escolarização. A consolidação dessas mudanças significou a ruptura de uma ideologia estabelecida sobre ser mulher, ser homem, suas capacidades e seus papéis sociais. / Salvador

Critics from Virginia Woolf and David Cecil to Lyn Pykett and U. C. Knoepflmacher, among others, have been mesmerized by the eccentric but transcendent world of Brontë’s Wuthering Heights and the Gondal poems. Despite allusions and references to various modernist elements in Emily Brontë’s novel and poetry, there has not been extensive analysis of her work in connection to modern writers of the early twentieth century. I believe that a multi-themed analysis of such components is necessary to reassess her position in the canon and establish her as a precursor to the modernists. This dissertation examines Brontë’s deliberate invitation of, and simultaneous resistance to, interpretation—qualities that align her novel and verse more with Modernist literature than that of her contemporaries. I argue that Emily Brontë had an unusual and forward-looking focus that is revealed in her treatment of children, women, and the struggles of isolated beings in the dark, foreboding and often impressionistic world of Gondal and Wuthering Heights. Her elucidation of the gap between the mundane and the spiritual, the use of farcical elements against the sublime are also precursory to modernism. This dissertation assesses the various themes, angles and techniques that Brontë employs in presenting a strange atmosphere that is representative of a future world.

Wonder Woman is seen as the embodiment of feminism in the comic world and her placement as the secretary of the Justice Society of America is seen as a crime against her character. Many blame Gardner Fox for this decision, but I argue that accusing him of sexism is an oversimplification. My work seeks to fill in the lack of knowledge regarding his writing of Wonder Woman and restore his name. While scholars are right to be attentive to the use of demeaning stereotypes that have long been used to keep women from access to power, the way in which Gardner Fox wrote Wonder Woman, conveys a sense of respect for women and their contributions to society in general; therefore, assertions that he is a sexist are not only misleading but inappropriately degrading the work of a man who was trying to accurately represent the women he saw around him.

Recent French feminist thinkers have begun to expand upon a feminist perspective in philosophy which attempts to negotiate on the one hand, the implicit valuing of autonomy, universality and abstraction when these are coded as masculine, and yet on the other hand, can resist the dissemination of meaning into the free play of circuits of desire or signification. In the context of ethics, this perspective constitutes a challenge to more traditional ethical conceptions of the agent, of ethical action, and to the very parameters of the philosophical enterprise itself. It is such a perspective which forms the starting point of this study. This study begins by articulating the paradoxes of a feminist perspective in philosophy, in the context of the work of Simone de Beauvoir, paradoxes which entail a re-examination of the parameters of philosophy as a discipline. The codification of Woman as Other simultaneously positions women as a necessary complement in dualistic divisions but also as a symbolic “otherness”. The ambiguity of such codifications may be taken up strategically for its critical and developmental potentials in relation to philosophy. In the following chapters, the development of sexual identity as it is theorised in psychoanalysis is used to furnish a notion of 'the feminine/matemal' as symbolically negative and critical, but also located in the materiality of the body. Recent radical perspectives in phenomenology are also drawn upon to indicate a re-thinking of the epistemological ordering of subject/object, of sexual identity and of ethics, which still retain the importance of embodiment and sexual difference. The apparent requirement of some ethical 'foundation' for the development of new perspectives in ethics is examined, particularly when this is consciously or unconsciously built upon 'the feminine/matemal', either as nature or as 'divine'. Feminist perspectives in philosophy make deliberate use of such symbolic codifications, 'miming' more traditional theories of ethics, in order to draw attention to the debt owed to the forgotten 'otherness' of philosophy. It is concluded that such strategies, while complex, metaphoric and evasive, present a challenge to the discipline of philosophy and begin the project of developing theories of ethicality for feminist theory.

Magister Artium - MA / We Dare Not Say is an anthology of seven interlinked short stories with the general theme of intergenerational trauma among coloured families in Cape Town. The stories are arranged in a montage of internally, variably and externally focalised narratives that span over a century, from 1900 through to 2015, and are fictionalised accounts of real events, categorising them as biographical fiction. Some of the specific topics covered in the stories include incest, molestation, substance abuse, mental illness and humour as a coping mechanism. The body of work is conceived in the context of the twentieth century trauma narrative, the complexities of which run as undercurrents through most of the important English literary works created in South Africa since the 1800s up until John M. Coetzee, but which has often lacked a female perspective, especially women of colour. The stories in this volume aim to depict a group of people, who, through centuries of oppression in the form of serfdom, servitude and segregation, have developed various coping mechanisms to make sense of their own identity in an absurdly cruel social landscape. The stories focus on the inward turning of violence, substance abuse, silence and humour as survival mechanisms after generations of trauma that have been, in a sense, the hallmarks of coloured South Africa. The stories are told using a split narrative method, showing multiple viewpoints of the same story with perspectives ranging from young to old, crossing the gender divide in both time and space. Ultimately, We Dare Not Say, is a depiction of the complexities of lives lived under oppression, and the triumphs and challenges faced in trying to resolve, live through or deny the effects of such oppression on a group and the individuals that make up that group.

MONTEFUSCO, Erica Vila Real. A negação do envelhecimento e a manutenção da juventude veiculados em revistas femininas: um estudo de psicologia social. 2013. 125f. – Dissertação (Mestrado) – Universidade Federal do Ceará, Programa de Pós-graduação em Psicologia, Fortaleza (CE), 2013. / Submitted by Márcia Araújo (marcia_m_bezerra@yahoo.com.br) on 2013-11-27T11:50:06Z No. of bitstreams: 1 2013-DIS-EVRMONTEFUSCO.pdf: 4892574 bytes, checksum: 1674acca027d806a067e8984b3358f2d (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Márcia Araújo(marcia_m_bezerra@yahoo.com.br) on 2013-11-27T13:49:45Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 2013-DIS-EVRMONTEFUSCO.pdf: 4892574 bytes, checksum: 1674acca027d806a067e8984b3358f2d (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2013-11-27T13:49:45Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 2013-DIS-EVRMONTEFUSCO.pdf: 4892574 bytes, checksum: 1674acca027d806a067e8984b3358f2d (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013 / No presente trabalho, buscou-se investigar questões relativas à manutenção da aparência jovem e verificar como elas são divulgadas em mídias direcionadas ao público feminino. Nossa proposta de pesquisa ancorou-se na análise de reportagens e de peças publicitárias, pesquisadas durante o ano de 2011 em três revistas femininas de grande circulação nacional: Claudia, Boa Forma e Plástica e Beleza. O estudo dos enunciados teve como base a Teoria Crítica, cujos principais expoentes são Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Herbert Marcuse, Walter Benjamin e Jürgen Habermas, além deles também se baseou na análise semiótica de José Luiz Aidar Prado, da Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo. O material foi organizado e discutido com base em cinco categorias de análise: “Efetividade dos resultados/resultados científicos”, “Novas tecnologias”, “Promessas que supostamente podem ser cumpridas versus possibilidades reais”, “Segmentação de mercados” e “Celebridades como modelos”. Apesar do fato de o Brasil ser um país em processo de envelhecimento, percebe-se uma resistência, especialmente por parte das mulheres, em relação a essa fase da vida. Em meio a uma lógica que abrange liberdade de escolha e ao mesmo tempo rigidez de padrões, percebemos como a mídia direcionada ao público feminino indica “receitas” e produtos mediante os quais as leitoras podem supostamente melhorar suas vidas, suas aparências e vivenciar o bem-estar prometido pelo mercado. Através deste estudo, acreditamos ter sido possível suscitar reflexões acerca da temática não apenas do corpo saudável, belo, feminino e jovem, mas nos questionar também acerca da visão de envelhecimento que a mídia nos fornece e como somos por ela influenciados.

GOMES, Debir Soares. Tecendo Sonhos com Fios de Resistência: o caso das Mulheres Rendeiras do Assentamento Maceió - Itapipoca/CE. 2014. 254 f. : Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Federal do Ceará, Pró-Reitoria de Pesquisa e Pós-Graduação, Programa Regional de Pós-Graduação em Desenvolvimento e Meio Ambiente, Fortaleza-CE, 2014. / Submitted by demia Maia (demiamlm@gmail.com) on 2016-05-10T12:27:11Z No. of bitstreams: 1 2014_dis_dsgomes.pdf: 5008218 bytes, checksum: 0a3c90952e81434ff069eb6a157b5551 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by demia Maia (demiamlm@gmail.com) on 2016-05-10T12:29:10Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 2014_dis_dsgomes.pdf: 5008218 bytes, checksum: 0a3c90952e81434ff069eb6a157b5551 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-05-10T12:29:10Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 2014_dis_dsgomes.pdf: 5008218 bytes, checksum: 0a3c90952e81434ff069eb6a157b5551 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014 / The studies focused on the relations between genders in the rural areas reveal that the women act more and more in the development of sustainable production systems, in the transformation of economy, in the appreciation of their work and in the recognition of their role as a social subject for the social, economic, environmental and political development of the rural spaces.This work raises reflections about the organization of the lace-making women of the Maceió Settlement, located 60 km from the headquarters of the Itapipoca county and approximately 200 km from the city of Fortaleza, capital of Ceará State. Directly envolved in political, economic and social problems, that affect the environmental resources of the community, tey act on three fronts of distinct actions: on the maintenance of the culture of the lacemaking craft activity; on the defense of a free beach through the occupation and the construction of a camp in a coastal strip of land submitted to estate speculation; and, in the planning and execution of a productive project that involves the management and cultivation of seaweed. Through a qualitative metodology, employing the method of Case Studying and techniques of semi-structured interviews and participant observation, the general objective of this study is to investigate how is the organization of lace-making women of the group “Weaving Dreams”, through the meanings assigned to their social, economical, political, cultural, environmental actions in the construction of a peasant territory. In this perspective, the seeked specific objectives are: to build the trajectory of the group, its history, ogranization and struggle; Identify the references that guide the symbolic dimension of the actions of the women; Analyze the motivations that mobilize the women to alternate and update their actions in the group. The discussion about the construction of the peasant territory is brought to debate by the types of inclusion in the spaces of power by the women and by the struggles that involve the contruction of territorialities. Collectively ogranized, the women produce a material value, but mainly, symbolic, to relate their craftsmanship of lacemaking with a peasant territorialization. / Os estudos que enfocam as relações de gênero no meio rural revelam que as mulheres atuam cada vez mais no desenvolvimento de sistemas de produção sustentáveis, na transformação da economia, na valorização do seu trabalho e no reconhecimento do seu papel como sujeito social para o desenvolvimento social, econômico, ambiental e político dos espaços rurais. Este trabalho suscita reflexões sobre a organização das mulheres rendeiras no Assentamento Maceió, a 60 km da sede do município de Itapipoca e aproximadamente 200 km da cidade de Fortaleza, capital do Estado do Ceará. Inseridas diretamente em problemáticas de natureza política, econômica e social que atingem os recursos ambientais da comunidade, elas atuam em três frentes de ações distintas: na manutenção da cultura da renda de birro; na defesa por uma praia livre através da ocupação e da construção de um acampamento numa faixa litorânea de terra ameaçada pela especulação imobiliária; e, no planejamento e execução de um projeto produtivo que envolve o manejo e cultivo de algas marinhas. Por meio de uma metodologia de natureza qualitativa, empregando o método de Estudo de Caso e técnicas de entrevistas semi-estruturadas e observação participante, o objetivo geral deste estudo é investigar como se constitui a organização das mulheres rendeiras do grupo “Tecendo Sonhos”, por meio dos significados atribuídos às suas ações sociais, econômicas, políticas, culturais, ambientais, na construção de um território camponês. Nesta perspectiva, busca-se como objetivos específicos: Construir a trajetória do grupo, sua história, organização e luta; Identificar as referências que orientam a dimensão simbólica das ações das mulheres; Analisar as motivações que mobilizam as mulheres para alternarem e atualizarem suas ações no grupo. É trazida para o debate a discussão sobre a construção do território camponês, a partir das formas de inserção nos espaços de poder pelas mulheres e das lutas que envolvem a construção de territorialidades. As mulheres, organizadas coletivamente, produzem um valor material, mas principalmente, simbólico, ao relacionarem seu trabalho artesanal da renda de birro com uma territorialização camponesa.