Using selected stories by two North African women writers, Alifa Rifaat of Egypt and Assia Djebar of Algeria, this study, entitled ‘Islamic culture and the question of women’s human rights in North Africa: a study of short stories by Assia Djebar and Alifa Rifaat’, analyzes the creative representation of contemporary Muslim society and its treatment of women. The continued marginalization of women in Muslim societies has led to the rise of feminist movements in North Africa and the Middle East. Muslim women, like their Christian counterparts, have made a most remarkable appearance on the African literary scene by producing literature that interrogates a system in which women are denied the rights to life, equality and freedom, which are the inalienable rights of all Islamic adherents. Thus, North African women’s writing reveals a disparity between Islamic culture, which is based on the Qur’an and upholds equal rights for all believers, and Muslim culture, which denies women access to full rights. The writings of Alifa Rifaat and Assia Djebar espouse the need for a transformation of Muslim culture such that the practices of Muslims effectively harmonize with the teachings of the Qur’an. The stories selected for analysis illustrate that while Rifaat uses the conservatist approach or womanist thrust in her criticism of Muslim culture, Djebar adopts a more radical approach that is ultimately feminist. Nevertheless, both writers address similar issues affecting women in Muslim societies, such as forced or arranged marriages and the suppression of female sexuality. The first chapter situates the argument within gender discourse and the human rights framework, providing a critical appraisal of women in Islam from pre-Islamic times to modern days. To contextualize the literary scene, the second chapter positions Muslim women’s writing within the broad corpus of African feminisms, using the works of Nawal el-Saadawi, Mariama Bâ and Zaynab Alkali to chart the many challenges facing Muslim women today. Chapters Three and Four focus on the selected literature of the chosen writers, Alifa Rifaat and Assia Djebar, respectively, showing how each writer uses her art as an instrument to combat social injustices against women. The concluding chapter establishes the points of convergence and divergence between Rifaat and Djebar and, ultimately, draws attention to the dire need for all Muslims to respect the human rights of women. This study, therefore, blends literary interpretation with sociological findings to assess the extent of the failure of Muslims to endorse the principle of equality for all humans irrespective of race, class, or gender. Essentially, it seeks to raise consciousness on women’s rights in Islam. / Dissertation (MA (Pan African Literatures))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / English / MA / unrestricted

Prior to the 1960s and 1970s most studies of time undertaken in the West treated it as an objective phenomenon, devoid of ideological inscriptions. Second Wave feminists challenged this view, arguing that time is not neutral but one of the mechanisms used by patriarchal cultures to subjugate women. The argument was that temporal modes, like everything else in patriarchal reality, had been gendered. Linear time was masculine because it was associated with the male-dominated public domain in which science, commerce and production took place. The natural world, mysticism, the private domain, domesticity and women were relegated to a cyclical temporality that was gendered feminine. In her paper “Women’s Time” Julia Kristeva suggests that three generations of feminism can be identified according to the attitude each takes to time. I use her hypothesis as a framework in order to examine the positions regarding time taken up by various feminist groups during the Second Wave. I identify liberal and socialist feminisms with Kristeva’s first generation because they criticised the fact that women had been left out of linear time and the public domain and demanded that women be reinserted into linear time. I argue that Kristeva’s second generation is represented by cultural feminists of the Second Wave who recognised an alternative women’s time and suggested that women celebrate their connection with it, defying the authority of patrilinear time to dismiss “women’s experiences”. I then propose that the perspective of Kristeva’s third generation may be identified in the work of six authors of feminist speculative fiction who were writing during the Second Wave; this perspective entails a synthesis of the two previous opposing viewpoints. This can be identified in these novels because the female protagonists are first empowered through their access to an alternative (“feminine”) temporal space that subverts the authority of patriarchal culture embedded in linear time and then they move back into patrilinear time, claiming active roles and challenging patriarchal ideology. In this thesis I thus focus on the feminist examination of time during the Second Wave and consider how it was reflected in selected works of feminist speculative fiction written at the time. The authors discussed are Octavia Butler, Marge Piercy, Joanna Russ, Ursula Le Guin, Tanith Lee and Sheri Tepper. / Thesis (DLitt)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / English / unrestricted

Bakgrund: Nästan hälften av de svenska kvinnorna har blivit utsatta för våld eller hot om våld någon gång under sin livstid. Våld mot kvinnor i nära relation är ett globalt hälsoproblem och ett av de största hoten mot kvinnors hälsa. Syfte: Att undersöka patienters upplevelse av att få frågan om våldsutsatthet som en del av anamnesen. Metod: En integrativ litteraturöversikt av elva vetenskapliga artiklar. Sökningar gjordes med hjälp av databaserna PubMed och CINAHL. Resultat: Det huvudsakliga resultatet var att patienter ställer sig positiva till att rutinmässigt bli tillfrågade om erfarenheter av våld. Patienternas åsikter och upplevelser av att få frågor om våldsutsatthet som en del av anamnesen påverkas av frågeställningarnas kontext - vem som ställer frågor, hur frågorna ställs och i vilket sammanhang. Sammanfattning: Våld är ett strukturellt, organisatoriskt och individuellt problem. Våldet är ett folkhälsoproblem och ett utbrett samhällsproblem och vården misslyckas i många fall att fånga upp och hjälpa våldsutsatta. Vårdpersonal känner sig osäkra på att ställa frågor om patienters erfarenheter av våld och större kunskap inom ämnet kan stävja den osäkerhet och rädsla som finns för att beröra våld i nära relation. / Background: Nearly half of the Swedish women have been victims of abuse or threat of abuse during their lifetime. Intimate partner violence is a global health problem and one of the greatest threats to women’s health. Aim: To investigate patient’s experience of being asked about abuse as part of medical history taking. Method: A integrative review of eleven scientific articles. Searches were made using the PubMed and CINAHL databases. Results: Patients were positive about being routinely asked about experiences of abuse. Patients’ opinions and experiences of getting questions about violence as a part of medical history taking are influenced by the context of these questions – who asks, how the questions are asked and in what context. Conclusion: Violence is a structural, organizational and individual problem. Abuse is a public health problem and a widespread social problem. In many cases, healthcare fails to identify and help affected women. Healthcare professionals feel insecure about asking questions about patients’ history of abuse and larger knowledge can curb the uncertainty and fear that exist in order to deal with intimate partner violence.

This study explores and describes the perceived needs of women living with HIV/AIDS in Saskatchewan. A purposive sample was used to recruit women to participate in three focus groups. A total of eleven women from urban and rural areas of Saskatchewan participated. Based on seroprevalence estimates this number may represent one third to one half of all expected cases of women with HIV/AIDS in Saskatchewan. Recursive analysis was used to validate the themes identified in the first two focus groups with participants in a third focus group. Content analysis of the data identified four themes from the women's experiences: 1) medical needs, 2) economic needs, 3) mental health needs, and 4) service needs. The results support previous studies which indicate that women with HIV have a number of unmet heeds. Women from rural areas were found to have more unmet needs and limited access to appropriate services and supports than urban women. Three types of coping strategies were found to be used by the women in getting their needs met: avoidance, maintenance, and mastery. Those who utilized a mastery coping strategy were more successful in having their needs met than those who did not. A number of individual, organizational, systemic, and policy interventions are identified to assist women in moving towards mastery coping strategies. Social workers can work at the clinical, family group, and policy levels to improve the situation for women living with HIV/AIDS in Saskatchewan. / Arts, Faculty of / Social Work, School of / Graduate

Gender-Based Violence (GBS) is one of the most important obstacles in theway to development. The model of communication for social change (C4SC),under an approach of civil rights, presents an unavoidable opportunity for communicators to take over the urgent ethical demand of placing their work atthe service of public politics in order to fulfill this goal; but mainly in order tostrengthen the women agency in order to promote their empowerment. Herethe model of C4SC is overlaid on the case of sexual harassment on the streets,in order to identify the strategic lines that can be used for addressing other casesof gender-based violence. / La violencia basada en género (VBG) es uno de los principales obstáculos aldesarrollo. El modelo de comunicación para el cambio social (C4SC) bajo unenfoque de derechos presenta una oportunidad insoslayable para que los comunicadores asumamos la urgencia ética de poner a la comunicación al serviciode políticas públicas que aborden este reto, pero sobre todo, para fortalecer lacapacidad de agencia de las mujeres con miras a su empoderamiento. Aquí sesuperpone el modelo de C4CS al caso del acoso sexual callejero a fin de identificarlíneas estratégicas que sirvan para el abordaje de otros casos de VBG desdela comunicación.

The study aimed to analyze females and males in mixed-sex conversations and same-sex conversations using cooperative speech, competitive speech, interruptions, and similarities and differences in their communication styles in the Tv series modern family. Men and women are said to use different speech styles regarding cooperative, competitive, and interruptions. I used three conversations taken from Season 1 Episode 24, Family Portrait, for mixed-sex conversations in my analysis. I also used three same-sex discussions taken from Season 3, Episode 5, Hit and Run, and Season 1, Episode 11, Up all night. The result shows similarities in both same-sex and mixed-sex conversations regarding women’s use of cooperative speech styles and men’s use of competitive speech styles and interruptions. However, my study found differences regarding women in mixed-sex and Same-sex conversations when it comes to interruptions. Women interrupt in mixed-sex discussions and not in same-sex discussions. Therefore, my analysis of the series modern family is in line with previous research on gender and language.

Few would deny that the Republic of South Africa (South Africa) has achieved a lot in its quest to improve the pressing social challenges (such as poverty; illiteracy; HIV/AIDS; crime prevalence; preventable diseases, and high levels unemployment). It must be firmly said that these social ills generally affect everyone – particularly the historically marginalised group in South Africa. However, there are also few who would deny that South African women (including the girl-child), as it is the case elsewhere in Africa suffer disproportionately that their male counterparts. Some have supported the view that gender discrimination is the main source of women’s disempowerment today. For instance, society has accepted consciously or otherwise that women are inferior to men and as such cannot take part both in public and private spheres of life. It is nevertheless not the object of this study to delve into to the complex and often misunderstood causes of women’s marginalisation in South Africa. / Thesis (LLM (Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa))--University of Pretoria, 2011. / http://www.chr.up.ac.za/ / nf2012 / Centre for Human Rights / LLM

This study will look at the possible interpretations and implementation methods that a state may adopt in accordance with internationally recognised standards and best practices. This will be in light of the special context of Africa and specifically as regards the disposition of women in the HIV and AIDS pandemic. The author critically analyse article 14(1)(e)of the African Women’s Protocol and establish possible interpretations that best advance the public health goal of arresting the spread of HIV in Africa / Thesis (LLM (Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa)) -- University of Pretoria, 2008. / A Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Law University of Pretoria, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree Masters of Law (LLM in Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa). Prepared under the supervision of Dr. Patrice E. Vahard of the Faculty of Law, Addis Ababa University / http://www.chr.up.ac.za/ / Centre for Human Rights / LLM

This research seeks to establish a postfoundational practical theology and the corresponding narrative approach to the contextual experience narratives of Jeju women. Its approach helps the readers to understand the co-researchers’ interpreted experience and to open their future narratives. This research attempts to discover the privileged values, themes, and social-constructed meaning of the co-researchers’ narratives. The postfoundational epistemology, which is proposed by Van Huyssteen and the “Seven movements” proposed by J.C Müller, has been used as a guideline. The research begins with the co-researchers’ storied experiences as a basic source of context. The co-researchers' context of Jeju Island has a very unique tradition, culture, religion and history. In order to investigate how they interpret their experiences situated in their own contexts, the researcher not only considers Paul Ricoeur’s hermeneutic theory of three mimesis, composed of pre-figuration, configuration, and re-figuration, alongside social constructionism, but also employs Michael White’s narrative therapy theory of deconstruction and re-authoring conversation for delineating thickened and alternative stories. The examination of the research context of Jeju Island, its history of Sasamsageon, as well as its tradition and culture in chapter four are conducted for the purpose of understanding and discovering the necessary meaning of the co-researchers’ narratives and values. In order to listen to the Jeju women’s experience narratives in their contexts, I have chosen four people who have lived in Jeju Island for a long generation. According to the perspective of the narrative approach, an attempt is made to focus on the personal meaning-making that the co-researchers assign to specific events in their lives and on how the co-researchers tell the story of these meaning-making and interpret their experiences. These co-researchers’ stories are to say about their relationship with their families and communities. The stories also include some background of their lives, particularly concentrating on the recent struggles they experienced and their understanding of their own relationships with God. Based on the co-researchers’ narratives and the process of the research, in regard to the goal of this postfoundational narrative research, i.e., looking for the meaning of the co-researchers’ narratives and creating new meaning through discourse, in chapter six, I present not only the interpretation of what they say, but also the meaning and understanding of the co-researchers’ own stories that are developed by means of discoursing with the given context. This research is presented for how to cultivate the alternative interpretations, which allowed the co-researchers to explore preferred views of their futures through discourse and conversation. And then I explicate the three interventions and interactions used for empowering and opening to the better future. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2014. / gm2014 / Practical Theology / unrestricted

As a life-limiting illness mediated by rapid advancements in biomedical technologies, metastatic breast cancer (MBC) now presents in increasingly unexpected ways where women are living longer. These women’s lives may not fit well with established healthcare and societal understandings of an advanced breast cancer, including disease progression and prognosis. This qualitative inquiry aims to think differently about women’s daily lives with an ongoing MBC. While also considering the underexplored context of these women living in smaller communities. I explored communities on Central Vancouver Island, which is on the west coast of British Columbia, Canada. The research question directing my inquiry was: how are women, who are living with MBC as a life-limiting illness over an extended period, produced as both living and dying subjects? Informing this research was a feminist relational materialist approach with a healthcare practitioner orientation, primarily informed by Braidotti. I used multiple data collection methods centred around sequential interviews with 14 women who had been living relatively well with MBC for at least two years. Working with relational materialist and post qualitative principles, analysis disclosed the importance of temporal pulses and bodily transpositions in women’s lives. Temporal pulses speak to how time was laden with tensions such that a distinctive part of living with ongoing MBC was an embodied sense of fluctuating time. There was also the idea as to how, at any given moment, women could bodily know their illness and mortality through varying frequencies of the presence and/or absence of markers of living and dying, often at the same time. Bodily transpositions speak to how life-limiting illness was not so much about women moving from one set of circumstances to another as part of a clean-edged transition. Rather, the women navigated daily life with few set waymarkers. Within this context, ‘hope’ took on new forms and living with their advanced breast cancer became a kind of endurance demarcated by what I refer to as generative living. These findings call into question the ways in which MBC gets talked about in categorical terms as palliative or end of life, and/or as chronic. Findings are an opportunity for healthcare practitioners, policymakers, and interdisciplinary leaders to further understand MBC specific to our contemporary context. Project findings renew discussions of how best to support women’s needs, including the ways MBC is talked about. There is also the opportunity to direct further research into MBC as an example of today’s shifting boundaries of living and dying (which I am framing as living<=>dying). / Graduate