The thesis considers three women conferences arranged by the National Council of Women of Sweden (NCWS) in Stockholm at the turn of the 20th century. NCWS was a branch of the International Council of Women and at its height it was an umbrella-organisation for about forty Swedish women organisations. The focus is on the role of the conferences as arenas for women who wanted to prove their ability and competence in society. The content, the form and the function of the conferences are analysed. The question whether the conferences arranged by the NCWS reflected the ideas, dilemmas and strategies of the bourgeois women’s movement is addressed. A larger historical development is illuminated – the formation of the bourgeois women movements for the public sphere in the process of modernity. The thesis explores different theories and shows how the concepts of class, gender, public sphere, modernity and trans-nationalism were dealt with at the conferences. The women conferences have been treated as manifestations; as a quintessence of the ideas and ambitions of the movement. The thesis asserts that the ideology of the movements was formulated and expressed not only in spoken words, but also in festivities, symbols and sisterhood. The class identity was manifested in the form of which the conferences were conducted. On the one hand, the conference women showed loyalty to the conservative society and the rigid class position. On the other hand, the conference initiators wanted to improve women’s opportunities of becoming citizens and to move the boarders between the public and the private. Ideologies such as Internationalism and Scandinavism became important in creating a collective identity.

The aim of this dissertation is to describe and analyse the voting restrictions of the Swedish franchise reform of 1909. These restrictions required that the voter should be a male of good repute, who had paid his national and local taxes for three years before the election year, had done his military service, had not been declared incapacitated or bankrupt nor owed society any poor relief. In practice, this meant that some 20% of the adult male population were excluded from voting. This study explores both the ideological beliefs and political strategies behind these restrictions, and how the system worked in practice at the national and local levels. Since earlier literature has paid scant attention to the voter’s status as a citizen, this dissertation uses citizenship as one of its analytical tools. Although often described as universal suffrage for men, the 1909 Electoral Law was thus less radical than is usually assumed. As you had to have fulfilled certain obligations as a citizen in order to vote, it is hard to say that voting was a right. A central role in formulating these new conditions was played by the Riksdag’s moderate Conservative group. The reform therefore had the potential to preserve the political influence of the Right in the age of mass democracy, not least as the question of the unrestricted franchise for men and women could be deferred. However, the 1909 Electoral Law was not only aimed at reducing the political influence of the lower classes, but the proponents of the system also wanted to educate the citizens ideologically by constructing an image of the ideal citizen as a self-supporting male, who fulfilled his obligations to society. The National Women’s Franchise Association, whose campaign demanded suffrage for women on the same conditions as men, therefore had to relate to a political discourse dominated by (male) civic virtues and qualifications, and argue that women made a major contribution by fulfilling their special obligations to society. Also, the tax payment and poor relief voting restrictions in the 1909 franchise reform had an impact on the way proposals for women’s right to vote were formulated. The Social Democrats, whose electorate was heavily affected by the taxpaying qualification, in their programme for a constitutional reform demanded that this particular restriction should be abolished. To limit the number of party voters excluded from the polls, Social Democratic newspapers and election offices tried to mobilise disenfranchised workers to appeal the electoral register and get back on it. Those activities, which have been largely neglected in earlier research on the history of the Swedish Social Democratic Party, came to constitute an important element in the party’s election campaigns during the 1910s. In Sweden, the poor relief voting restriction (the pauper exclusion) was applied in a much more general way than in other countries, disqualifying recipients of very small or provisional amounts that had not been repaid as well as family providers who had received poor relief because of family members. The rules also proved very difficult to put into practice. The Social Democrats and many Liberals, but also leading members of the Swedish Poor Relief Association wanted to reform the law so that only those permanently supported by poor relief should lose their right to vote. Unlike the Social Democrats, the Liberals supported the taxpaying qualification as a necessary token of orderliness. However, they wanted the conscientious poor taxpayers to be distinguished from those who were neglectful and dilatory. As the Liberal-Social Democratic coalition government, which came to power in 1917, found out, this proved impossible. Instead, the taxpaying qualification was abolished in connection with the 1918-1921 constitutional reform, which also gave women the vote and limited the poor relief voting restriction to those permanently receiving support. In sum, the 1909 franchise reform did not constitute a sharp divide between the old system of income and property qualifications and twentieth century democracy. There was a clear continuity with the former system, in which you earned the right to vote by fulfilling your obligations. The 1909 reform did not lead to universal suffrage for men. Instead, it should be regarded as an intermediate stage in the development towards universal suffrage. Property and income qualifications for voters were abolished, but new qualifications and new mechanisms for exclusion were introduced instead. In this respect, Sweden was not unique. Before adopting universal suffrage, many countries combined universal suffrage with various voting restrictions. In Sweden, however, the right to vote came with an unusually large number of conditions.

The aim of this study was to find out how features that have been found to be typical of women’s language, such as hedges, tag questions and a high level of talkativeness etc., are represented in a popular TV series. Five cross-sex conversations from one episode of the sitcom The New Adventures of Old Christine were analyzed, and the results show that many of the features of interest, as for instance tag questions, minimal responses and indirect style, are unexpectedly used more frequently by men in this small investigation. In fact, the only feature that was used more frequently by the female main character was hedges. Several factors affect the results of the study, as for instance the fact that the conversations are fictional. The special characteristics of the speakers also affect the results, as well as the tone and the topic of the chosen conversations. Many of the features of interest were used to a very small extent, which is probably a result of the fact that the language in a sitcom is to be entertaining and rather quick, which leaves little or no room for the features studied.

ABSTRACT This work answers the question “Who was Frances Virginia?” by recovering the story of an Atlanta entrepreneur, Frances Virginia Wikle Whitaker, and her tea room foodservice business. It acknowledges “Frances Virginia,” as the public knew her; and focuses on her career as demonstrative of an under‐theorized form of women’s activism. Her education and proclivity in the once all‐female domain of home economics have important characteristics that are under‐ represented, and often misinterpreted, in today’s discourse. I use a womanist theoretical lens within a historical frame to examine her story as a home economist during the tea room movement of the U. S. feminist movement’s Transition Era, 1920s‐1960s. Together, these elements illuminate the significance of Frances Virginia and her particular form of activism.

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Historically, Black women have often been excluded from the discussion on leadership. This thesis argues that the leadership roles of the women in the Nation of Gods and Earths are consis-tent with the concepts of both Africana womanism and Black women’s leadership. However, through an analysis of Earth’s oral testimonies, this research concludes that though racism is the most pervading obstacle faced by Black people, The Nation of Gods and Earths must address and reevaluate the sexism that exists within its doctrine and practice. By doing so, the group can be-gin to recognize Black women’s leadership and utilize it more effectively. The Nation should collectively transform its gender inequality, in a way that does not compromise its culture, as a means of successfully sustaining and strengthening itself and the communities of which it serves.

Twentieth-century American literature is filled with new images of motherhood. Long gone is the idealism of motherhood that flourished during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in life and in writing. Long gone are the mother help books and guides on training mothers. The twentieth-century fiction writer ushers in new examples of motherhood described in novels that critique the bad mother and turn a critical eye towards the role of women and motherhood. This study examines the trauma surrounding twentieth-century motherhood and surrogacy; in particular, how abandonment, rape, incest, and negation often results in surrogacy; and how selected authors create characters who as mothers fail to protect their children, particularly their daughters. This study explores whether the failure is a result of social-economic or physiological circumstances that make mothering and motherlove impossible or a rejection of the ideal mother seldom realized by contemporary women, or whether the novelists have rewritten the notion of the mother’s help books by their fragmented representations of motherhood. Has motherhood become a rejection of self-potential? The study will critique mother-daughter relationships in four late twentieth-century American novels in their complex presentations of motherhood and surrogacy: Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye (1970), Kaye Gibbons’s Ellen Foster (1990), Dorothy Allison’s Bastard Out of Carolina (1992) and Sapphire’s Push (1997). Appropriated terminology from other disciplines illustrates the prevalence of surrogacy and protection in the subject novels. The use of surrogate will refer to those who come forward to provide the role of mothering and protection.

This study was a qualitative analysis of the covers of six lifestyle magazines, three addressed to women and three addressed to men. We have studied the cover photographs, the teasers and their relations.   The purpose of this study was to answer the questions: According to the magazines, what are male interests and what are typical female interests? Who is the ideal man and who is the ideal woman? Is there a certain way you need to look to be able to be on a magazine cover? And how often do the magazines encourage you to consume?   The study was based on thirty covers, five from each magazine. The Swedish magazines are VeckoRevyn, Amelia, Damernas Värld, King of Sweden, Café and the American version of GQ. We’ve used semiotics and rhetorical methods to analyze the material. We have studied the words in the teasers to find their connotations, we have studied the poses of the cover models and investigated their body language and counted how many times the magazines teases for something that will lead to you as reader having to buy something.   We found out that both male and female magazines use very stereotypical gender roles and they do not show any signs of changing, even though the society in general has broken free from many typical gender roles. They presented an ideal man that are very successful, handsome, well dressed, meat eating and interested in sports. He is neither black nor gay. The ideal woman is a slim, beautiful, successful, white, heterosexual woman who can joggle many things at once.

The purpose of this study was to determine the experiences, challenges and strategies for success of African American female senior-level executives at predominately white institutions (PWIs). This qualitative study used a phenomenological perspective to address the research questions, as phenomenology was uniquely suited to capture participants lived experiences (Guido, Chávez, & Lincoln, 2010; Perl & Noldon, 2000). The conceptual framework for the study was based on the theoretical concepts of black feminist theory, biculturalism and intersectionality. The combination of these theories was uniquely appropriate for researching the lived experiences of African American women (Barrett, Cervero, & Johnson-Bailey, 2003; Collins, 2000; Du Bois & Edwards, 2007). Black feminist theory addressed the lived experiences of African American women (Collins, 2000); intersectionality highlighted the oppression of African American women (Collins, 2000) and biculturalism explained how African American women adapt to be successful (Barrett, et al., 2003). The findings for this study of African American female senior-level executives at predominately white institutions include: regarding experiences (1) relationships and connection were essential; (2) strategic and political savvy were vital; (3) one must have an awareness of your perception; (4) higher education was an isolating place; (5) racism and sexism were still prevalent; and (6) work/life balance was a myth; regarding identities (7) creation of a professional identity as the primary identity at PWI; (8) race and gender as prominent identities; and (9) personal persona purposely protected from PWI; and regarding strategies to cope with challenges and celebrate successes (10) know yourself and focus on your goals; (11) identify something to ground you outside of the PWIs; (12) invest in your success through academic and professional preparation; and (13) advance to uplift others. / text

This dissertation looks at the responses of African American club women to the challenging racial environment of Kentucky from the late 1800s through the early decades of the 20th century. It explores their efforts to negotiate the dialectical relationship between local circumstances and national movements. While most discussions of club women argue that their work merely enabled respectability, this dissertation argues that its real significance lies in the way black club women established support systems and communication systems for other forms of activism. The black women's club movement is the communication arena which establishes networks for advancing the direct action protests of the modern Civil Rights Movement.