<p>According to the latest refugee statistics from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR 2011), the number of people forcibly displaced worldwide has reached 43.7 million, the highest number in 15 years. Roughly 80% of this population are women and children. Afghanistan continues to be the place of origin for the largest number of refugees under UNHCR responsibility across the globe. From 1979 to 1990, the largest and most enduring forced migration in human history occurred when 6.2 million Afghans were displaced and fled their homeland to neighbouring countries such as Pakistan and Iran.</p> <p>During the processes of conflict, upheaval, exile, and resettlement, refugee women face numerous traumatic events and are exposed to various challenges at every stage of their refugee journey. Very little scholarly research has examined their strengths and resiliency during this time.</p> <p>The primary purpose of this study is to provide insight into the challenges that Afghan refugee women have faced during pre-migration, exile, and resettlement. Specifically, this inquiry using feminist theory and method examines (a) their experiences in all three contexts in which they have lived and managed, (b) the significant roles that they have played, and (c) the coping mechanisms that they have used to overcome the problems in these situations.</p> <p>The sample for this interpretive qualitative research was drawn from Afghan refugee women in the city of Hamilton and the Greater Toronto Area in Ontario, Canada. The study was conducted with six in-depth, semi-structured interviews. The results provide contextually laden detail of the Afghan refugee women’s unique lived experiences. The results revealed Afghan refugee women as resilient and as strong leaders. The dominant discourse that portrays Afghan women as weak and oppressed should be challenged. Implications for social work practice, education and policy are identified, and recommendations for improved services are outlined.</p> / Master of Social Work (MSW)

No description available.

This thesis is a subset of a larger “parent” project under the direction of my supervisor, Dr. Cecilia Benoit. The purpose of the larger project is to seize an unique research opportunity that has emerged with the development and implementation of the HerWay Home (HWH) program, a community-based initiative for pregnant and early parenting women who face substance use and other challenges in the Greater Victoria Area. My research has capitalized on the pre-implementation phase of the HWH program between 2010-2011. Thirteen in-person semi-structured interviews were conducted with women who would likely be clients for the HWH program, based on their pregnancy experiences, substance use concerns and other life challenges. The goal of this research has been to explore these women’s pregnancy and postpartum narratives and investigate what, in their view, should be crucial components of the HWH intervention in the short and longterm. My findings indicate that, consistent with the literature on pregnant and early parenting women facing substance use and other life challenges, a range of complex, intertwined disadvantages exist in their lives that translate into multiple barriers to accessing continuous health and social care during their pregnancy and after the birth of their child. An adapted model of the Health Lifestyle Theory is used to frame the analysis of the data collected from this research. The results from this research support the argument that the life choices of the participants are constrained by structural life chances and socially determined inequities that systematically disadvantage and disempower them. The findings also reveal an implicit sense of agency in the women’s narratives, as well as key specifics about what they view as the main gaps in care and their desired program services. The findings will be relayed to HWH organizers, and used to inform the development and implementation of the program’s services. / Graduate

Gendered poverty among the elderly is a statistical fact. Previous studies have identified inequitable treatment of women and insufficient income for unattached elderly women among the most serious shortcomings of the retirement income system. Despite pension reform over the past decade, the gender gap has widened for elderly Canadians whose incomes fall below the poverty line. This thesis seeks to understand the relationship between the laws that govern Canada's retirement income system and the over-representation of elderly women among Canada's poor, and to explore why the retirement income system continues to deliver benefits in a manner that, though expressed in gender neutral language, is systemically unfair to women. The benefits of Canada's retirement income system may be accessed through workforce participation and, in a more limited way, through a spousal relationship. Familial ideology is used as the theoretical framework to examine the role of the laws that govern access to benefits in reinforcing and perpetuating assumptions about women that undermine their economic autonomy. This examination reveals that gendered economic inequality is embedded within Canada's retirement income system because it accepts the social and economic construction implicit in familial ideology of women as economically subordinate to, and dependent upon, men. The relationship between gender inequality and the two modes of delivery of retirement income benefits, during retirement as pension benefits and prior to retirement as tax subsidies that enhance taxpayers' opportunities to accumulate retirement savings, is also explored. A tax expenditure analysis exposes the bias against the economically disadvantaged (mostly women) inherent in delivering benefits as tax subsidies. Additionally, familial, public/private and restructuring ideologies are used as methodological tools to interrogate the reform process which, although ignoring gender issues, paradoxically deepened and compounded the systemic inequalities for women that existed prior to reform. The thesis concludes by offering suggestions for developing a progressive agenda for advancing gender equality within the retirement income system. The limitations of legal action as a strategy for implementing this type of agenda are discussed, and political action is designated as the most promising strategy for achieving progressive reform.

Physical education is a profession where heterosexuality has historically been regarded as normal, if not compulsory. The location of female physical education (PE) teachers at the nexus of discourses about masculinist sport, women's physical education and pedagogies of the body has exerted unique historical pressures on their sexualities. In North America and Western Europe, female PE teachers have frequently been suspected of being lesbian. This suspicion has enveloped lesbian teachers in a shroud of oppressive silence, tolerated only as an 'open secret' (Cahn, 1994). This study examined the life histories of six women from three generations who had taught physical education in western Canada. Previous life history research has focused exclusively on lesbian PE teachers (Clarke, 1996; Sparkes, 1992, 1994a, 1994b; Squires & Sparkes, 1996; Sparkes & Templin, 1992) which risks reinforcing a hierarchical relationship between 'lesbian' and 'heterosexual'. Accordingly, three women who identified as 'lesbian' and three as 'married' or 'heterosexual' were involved in this study which incorporated poststructural, psychoanalytic and queer theories about sexual subjectivity into a feminist approach to life history. The notions of 'understanding' and 'overstanding' were used to analyze data which meant interpreting not only had been said during the interviews but also what was left unsaid. The women's life histories revealed how lesbian sexualities have been marginalized and silenced, especially within the physical education profession. A l l the women grew up in families where heterosexuality was normalized, and all except one experienced pressure to date boys during their high school education in Canada. As teachers, identifying as a 'feminist' had a greater affect on their personal politics and approaches to teaching than their sexual identities. The life histories also provided limited support to the notion that PE teacher's participation in various women's sports accentuated the suspicion of lesbianism. For two of the 'lesbian' women, team sports continued to provide valuable lesbian communities from the 1950s to the present day. In contrast, one 'lesbian' women established her lesbian social network through individual sports and urban feminist groups. The 'heterosexual' women had all participated in gender-neutral sports. Overall the sporting backgrounds of these teachers did little to dispel the long-standing association between women's sports and lesbianism which, in turn, has affected female PE teachers. Drawing on queer theory and the notion of 'overstanding' data, deconstructive interpretations suggested how heterosexuality had been normalized in several institutional discourses within women's physical education. These interpretations undermined the boundaries of 'the closet', sought out an absent lesbian gaze and suggested that homophobia has been, in part, rooted in the social unconscious of the physical education profession.

No description available.

This thesis is a subset of a larger “parent” project under the direction of my supervisor, Dr. Cecilia Benoit. The purpose of the larger project is to seize an unique research opportunity that has emerged with the development and implementation of the HerWay Home (HWH) program, a community-based initiative for pregnant and early parenting women who face substance use and other challenges in the Greater Victoria Area. My research has capitalized on the pre-implementation phase of the HWH program between 2010-2011. Thirteen in-person semi-structured interviews were conducted with women who would likely be clients for the HWH program, based on their pregnancy experiences, substance use concerns and other life challenges. The goal of this research has been to explore these women’s pregnancy and postpartum narratives and investigate what, in their view, should be crucial components of the HWH intervention in the short and longterm. My findings indicate that, consistent with the literature on pregnant and early parenting women facing substance use and other life challenges, a range of complex, intertwined disadvantages exist in their lives that translate into multiple barriers to accessing continuous health and social care during their pregnancy and after the birth of their child. An adapted model of the Health Lifestyle Theory is used to frame the analysis of the data collected from this research. The results from this research support the argument that the life choices of the participants are constrained by structural life chances and socially determined inequities that systematically disadvantage and disempower them. The findings also reveal an implicit sense of agency in the women’s narratives, as well as key specifics about what they view as the main gaps in care and their desired program services. The findings will be relayed to HWH organizers, and used to inform the development and implementation of the program’s services. / Graduate

This thesis analyses the relation between the phenomenon of job scarcity and discrimination against women in the labour market. Job scarcity, that is the inadequate quantity of available jobs relative to the number of persons able to hold them, which is a chronic problem, has played an important role in the development of discrimination. The hypothesis of the thesis is that a positive relation exists between discrimination against women and job scarcity: as employment opportunities deteriorate discrimination intensifies. / The thesis verifies the discriminatory effects of job scarcity by examining the process of job allocation in the economy. An historical study covering the end of the last century to the crisis of the 1930's is the vehicle used to examine the employment rationing mechanisms that consolidated discriminatory practices.

No description available.

Gendered poverty among the elderly is a statistical fact. Previous studies have identified inequitable treatment of women and insufficient income for unattached elderly women among the most serious shortcomings of the retirement income system. Despite pension reform over the past decade, the gender gap has widened for elderly Canadians whose incomes fall below the poverty line. This thesis seeks to understand the relationship between the laws that govern Canada's retirement income system and the over-representation of elderly women among Canada's poor, and to explore why the retirement income system continues to deliver benefits in a manner that, though expressed in gender neutral language, is systemically unfair to women. The benefits of Canada's retirement income system may be accessed through workforce participation and, in a more limited way, through a spousal relationship. Familial ideology is used as the theoretical framework to examine the role of the laws that govern access to benefits in reinforcing and perpetuating assumptions about women that undermine their economic autonomy. This examination reveals that gendered economic inequality is embedded within Canada's retirement income system because it accepts the social and economic construction implicit in familial ideology of women as economically subordinate to, and dependent upon, men. The relationship between gender inequality and the two modes of delivery of retirement income benefits, during retirement as pension benefits and prior to retirement as tax subsidies that enhance taxpayers' opportunities to accumulate retirement savings, is also explored. A tax expenditure analysis exposes the bias against the economically disadvantaged (mostly women) inherent in delivering benefits as tax subsidies. Additionally, familial, public/private and restructuring ideologies are used as methodological tools to interrogate the reform process which, although ignoring gender issues, paradoxically deepened and compounded the systemic inequalities for women that existed prior to reform. The thesis concludes by offering suggestions for developing a progressive agenda for advancing gender equality within the retirement income system. The limitations of legal action as a strategy for implementing this type of agenda are discussed, and political action is designated as the most promising strategy for achieving progressive reform. / Law, Peter A. Allard School of / Graduate