Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Gender studies'

Furnishing Gender is a collection of furniture and objects of the home that have been deliberately altered to explore and expose pervasive aspects of toxic masculinity. The work within examines aspects of rape culture, queer culture, and hetero-normal constructs that link our realities to the lies of masculinity and gender difference. It is my intent that the viewer become uncomfortable and my hope that they not shy away from this discomfort, but accept the exhibition’s challenge to be vulnerable, genuine, and to engage in conversations that confront the conventions of traditional gender roles and biases.

Although Latinos have historically served in the U.S. military, recent increases in the number of Latinas who have been recruited for the military make it imperative to explore how this experience affects their well-being. The purpose of this study was to explore the experiences of Latinas who are serving or have served in the U.S. military, focusing on their identity and gender roles. I utilized a qualitative research design, wherein I interviewed four Latinas currently serving in the U.S. Army. The focus of the study was how Latinas experience their gender identity and gender roles through the perspective of identity theory and social identity theory. It also explored how they negotiate these aspects in a military environment. I used an interpretative phenomenological approach for this study, as this method allowed sufficient flexibility to delve into previously unexplored concepts in this population. Furthermore, I utilized the Marianismo Beliefs Scale (MBS; Castillo, Perez, Castillo, & Ghosheh, 2010) to perform data triangulation and to have a better understanding on how the women’s belief structures affect their experience. This research study is significant because it informed a salient gap in the literature regarding Latinas and the military. Furthermore, it will allow mental health practitioners to have a clearer understanding of how Latina military women experience military culture, which can affect treatment decision.

This thesis discusses how adidas differentiate their communication to reach women and make the adidas brand more appealing to females. The adidas brand has always had their main focus on sportswear for men. This has led to the brand being perceived as masculine and it makes it hard for the female consumer to identify with adidas. We have analysed six adidas adverts from the last five years to see what adidas have communicated to women. The main purpose of this thesis is to understand why adidas have not succeeded in communicating with women in the last five years.

The theoretical chapter is divided into three parts; Brands, Communication and Consumer Behaviour. The first part describes what a brand is, how it is built and continues with how a brand can be gendered. A brand is not very likely to keep a strong position if the values connected with the brand are not reinforced through communication. When forming a communication strategy, companies have to understand how consumers behave. When selling a gendered product, companies have to understand the distinction between men and women and how they differ in consumption.

Our discussion is based on the qualitative method of collecting data. The qualitative method was carried out through two panel interviews and one personal interview, and we also performed picture analysis on adidas’ advertisements. Ten open-individual interviews with ten different women were conducted; to get their opinions on the six adverts.

Adidas have presented five different identities over five years, each with diverse focus and with different brand associations. This has led to a lack of consistency and therein lies a part of the reason why adidas have not been successful in appealing to women.

Since 2005 adidas have a collaboration with Stella McCartney. This is an attempt to add design to adidas functional clothes and to make their brand more appealing to women. This collaboration will continue until 2010 and this could provide adidas with the uniformity they need.

This research aims to facilitate better understanding of perceptions of gender roles and gender equality among members of the Evangelical Church and to determine whether these perceptions differ by gender. The evangelical community?s ideologies and values have come to shape social and political dialogues within the United States. A key component of the faith is understanding the role each member plays within his or her family unit and community at large. The evangelical faith?s organizational structure and ideologies are informed by a patriarchal model that?s placed women at internal and structural odds, based on research exploring evangelically informed organizations. However, there is a gap in literature related to gender roles and equality within the faith, and how these perceptions may differ by gender and the influence a church?s organizational structure may have on these perceptions. This process involved the examination of perceptions of gender among evangelical Christians in a nationally representative sample. These findings informed a series of questions designed to explore, at greater depth on a regional level, the views of evangelicals regarding gender roles and gender equality within their organizations. The study provided a multidimensional construct of how the evangelical community defines themselves, understands gender roles and gender equality, and how these definitions affirm and conflict with definitions outside of the church as well as their own church?s leadership and organizational structure.

This thesis examined graduate level students' experiences of (mainly gender) diversity in the online classroom. The philosophical framework for this study came from John Rawls' work utilizing the veil of ignorance as a strategy to create more objective determinations free from situational and circumstantial biases. Both critical pedagogy and the theory that individuals construct social and cultural meaning through communication provided the theoretical foundations for the thesis. The study analyzed experiences of the students via their contributions to the online discussion boards. The study also utilized interviews of current and former students to discuss their experiences with diversity in their online classrooms. The study came from an understanding that diversity represents a unique component of the online classroom and rests in the idea that students can all benefit from the diversity of other students' experiences. This work provides a jumping off point of analysis on how best to facilitate discussions of diversity in the online classroom. Facilitating these discussions can become a primary way to break down systemic and institutionalized inequalities that exist for minority groups. Thus, this research, while not the end point, can provide a continued impetus to discover ways to make the online classroom a place of equalized learning to maximize its purpose for all students regardless of their identity. Chief findings in the study indicate the following (not-exhaustive) items: students overwhelmingly report that they value diversity conversations; students do not seem to think that conflicting ideas represent an inherent negative; and student's see the role of the instructor in facilitating, but not inserting personal commentary into the diversity discussions.

This study investigated middle and late adolescents’ judgments of and reasoning about an incident of homophobic harassment in four conditions, where the genders of the victim and perpetrator were varied (N = 104). Participants were asked whether they thought the victim in their scenario was upset, as well as whether or not the perpetrator had a negative intention. Social cognitive domain theory served as the framework for coding adolescents’ reasoning. In addition, adolescents’ endorsement of gender stereotypes was measured. As expected, having had a male victim, as opposed to a female victim, was related to lesser odds of believing the harassment was completely wrong among tenth graders, and lesser odds of believing the victim was upset. Participants in tenth grade were also more likely to use conventional reasoning in justifying their judgments about harassment than those in twelfth grade. Participants in the male victim/ perpetrator condition were less likely to believe the perpetrator had a negative intention than those in the female victim/ perpetrator condition. Contrary to expectations, endorsement of gender stereotypes was unrelated to the use of conventional reasoning. The effects of endorsement of gender stereotypes and use of moral reasoning in relation to judgments of harassment were significant among participants in the male victim condition, but non-significant among participants in the female victim condition.

This study had two purposes: to determine whether or not biological sex and/or gender identity impacted the way an individual would customize a video game avatar, and to focus on the components—length of time and number of customizations—of avatar design. In addition, an individual’s experience with video games—novice, casual, and hardcore—was considered throughout this study to determine a relationship between individuals and their avatars. This study was based on previous studies about how gender identity impacted individuals in virtual worlds. The video game Dark Souls (2011) was used for the stimulus and the (30-item) Bem Sex Role Inventory—a scale that measures gender identity—was used as the measure. While the research questions provided resulted in no correlation between sex, gender, and player experience, further research is needed to determine how the evolution of the gaming community and the gaming industry continues to impact both players and gaming research.

This study examines how conflict between public assumptions and media framing of a political candidate’s gender performance impacts public trust in the candidate, building upon prior research concluding that the Republican and the Democratic Parties are linked cognitively with ideas about gender, with people often associating the Republican Party with masculine characteristics and the Democratic Party with feminine characteristics. This study operates under the theory that conflict between media representation and participant assumptions will lead to lower levels of trust in a candidate whose gender is framed as conflicting with the underlying gendered assumptions of their party. In an experiment, subjects read one of six news articles describing a hypothetical presidential candidate and answered a questionnaire to measure their trust in the candidate. The results indicate that participants have a higher level of trust in the feminine-framed candidate and a lower level of trust in the masculine-framed candidate – in comparison to the baseline of a gender-neutral framed candidate – in both the Democrat and the Republican condition. Further analysis of the results suggest that while participants assume all candidates possess certain masculine traits often associated with leadership, the presence of feminine traits may increase a candidate’s perceived likeability, which in turn leads to the perception that the candidate has a higher degree of integrity, is more responsive to public concerns, and is ultimately more trustworthy. Additionally, the presence of masculine traits may threaten the candidate’s perceived trustworthiness without the presence of feminine traits to increase the candidate’s likeability. This study expands the current conversation about media and gender to look beyond a candidate’s sex and consider the media’s role in constructing and reinforcing a candidate’s gender performance. It also provides a foundation for future research about the media’s power to shape public perception of candidates and, by extension, the electoral process.

This communications study looks at gender-based self-reflexive theoretically guided practice, “praxis,” to explore the way in which a women's community media organization, femLINKpacific, pursues its goals of enhancing women's participation in governance structures and resiliency to extreme weather conditions. This study contributes to the nascent literature on mobile device and radio interaction by exploring the way in which women in rural Fiji utilize mobile devices to interact with femTALK, the community radio station of femLINKpacific. The study is based on the theoretical frameworks of inclusive innovation, post-development theory, and participatory communications theory in the context of gender-based ICT4D. Two main platforms, Mobile Suitcase Radio (MSR), a portable radio platform, and Women’s Weather Watch (WWW), a mobile-phone based weather reporting network, and an additional non-mediated communication venue of monthly women’s gatherings were explored through a 3-phase study, utilizing interviews and focus groups, with radio station staff and women leader’s networks.

Main findings included the role of WWW to transmit information for preparedness for Tropical Cyclone Winston, and indigenous food practices shared through the various platforms, as well as the role of MSR, when used in conjunction with the issues shared at the monthly consultations, to bring greater awareness to the women’s “voice.” This study extends to understanding the role of mutually supportive, systematic processes to enhance women's participation in governance structures, including the role and effectiveness of inter-ethnic groups in addressing community issues, and capacity building through incremental acclimatizing activities.

Sweden is often described as one of the best countries in the world for women to live in. Despite this and despite a number of equal opportunity interventions within the area of higher education from the mid 1990s and on, Sweden follows the international pattern of the "leaking pipeline" when it comes to gender distribution in academia. The higher up in the academic hierarchy the more men and the fewer women. The topic of this thesis is mapping gender in academic workplaces. The aim is to explore ways in which the social relations of researchers everyday working lives are gendered. This involves studing ways in which gender inequality is produced, maintained or ignored within the discource of gender equality in Swedish academic workplaces and in Swedish society at large.

Business life is historically a male activity. Consequently, expectations of organizations toward their employees in terms of assertiveness, availabilities and submission to the hierarchy have always reflected male standards of living. Thus, the appearance of the leadership concept has naturally been shaped by masculine values. The progressive implication of women in the business life appeared in the 70’s. Consequently, this small universe tailor made for men involved the emergence of gender issues.

The role of the leader is to implement the right leadership style to the right situation. A popular vision promotes two traditional leadership styles: a masculine one opposed to a new feminine one. The concept is based on long-established stereotypes regarding genders. Researches tried to prove the natural tendency of men and women to apply a certain leadership style according to their gender. However, results only show very little influence of the gender on the leadership style applied, which allowed us to put gender leadership styles into perspective.

Firstly, we collected scientific data from articles and books in order to have a fair vision of concepts on this subject. Then, we envisioned the useful theories to backup concepts we used to analyze. Our analysis is also based on concrete experiences of leaders who face gender issues in the everyday life. We collected their opinions by the mean of semi conducted interviews. We concentrated on theoretical, conceptual and empirical data to explain and analyze gender impacts on leadership and organizations.

Concerning our conceptual framework, our empirical findings admit that controversies led to our contemporary understanding of gender leadership. Regarding leadership styles, the current gender stereotypic categorizations do not seem to be relevant anymore. The sexualoriented education and the gender social roles shape followers and leaders perceptions which involve the current male organizational model and a glass ceiling. In other words, women encounter difficulties to access to leading positions. Because of tacit stereotypic perceptions, the business life is a men’s world referring to masculine values and standard ways of living.

Aspects of modernity in Western culture that act to limit conceptions of diversity, such as binary, hierarchical oppositions and the privileging of discursive, analytic knowledge over intuitive and receptive ways of knowing, have played a significant role in both the denigration and erasure of people who have transgender and gender nonconforming identities and experiences. As these elements of modernity are subjected to scrutiny by transgender and cisgender peoples, new knowledge is produced that allows for an increase in transgender visibility. This visibility then works back upon culture to further erode the constraining effects of modernity in the culture at large. Four myths from Ovid's Metamorphoses are discussed to illustrate gender diversity and this spiraling process.

Ovid's powerful and timely myths help to capture the present moment when the lives and voices of transgender and gender nonconforming peoples are destabilizing old stories and creating new gender myths, new lenses through which to view and understand gender. "Salmacis and Hermaphroditus" is a vehicle for reflecting on modernity, its limitations, and the gender transformation currently taking place in culture. "Iphis and Ianthe" offers an opportunity to consider issues of embodiment and the importance of family and community support for people who are gender diverse. "Caenis/Caenus" is the brave warrior without and within. He faces the challenging confrontations with the cultural status quo and the deep intrapsychic movement that gender diversity can initiate. Finally, "Tiresias" ushers in a meditation on ways of knowing, healing, and the privileged positions gender diverse peoples have held in cultures with more inclusive gender systems.

The production portion of this dissertation was a public dialogue event for transgender and gender diverse community members and allies in Los Angeles entitled TranSolidarity World Café. Through an organic process of emergence and with the help of public dialogue experts and many volunteers, a gathering for 160 people was hosted. A record of the event was captured in the drawings and graphic recordings of those who participated.

Biomedical and behavioral interventions can virtually eliminate the risk of vertical (i.e., mother-to-child) HIV transmission. Pregnant and breastfeeding women’s adherence to prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) interventions, however, remains a challenge across sub-Saharan Africa. Using a concurrent mixed methods approach, including a survey and semi-structured interviews, I test whether a relationship exists between women’s low power within married couples (based on domains from the Theory of Gender and Power) and adherence across the PMTCT cascade of care, including drug adherence during and after pregnancy, safe infant feeding practices, and pediatric HIV testing. The results of this study indicate that intimate partner violence is particularly detrimental to PMTCT adherence. Certain PMTCT protocols are also affected by partner controlling behaviors, participation in household decisions, and economic dependence, but not to the same extent as violence. Women with low power cite a lack of partner support and an unwillingness to disclose their HIV status to the husband due to fear of violence or abandonment as reasons for low PMTCT adherence. Conversely, women with high power cite partner support and the ability to prioritize PMTCT, sometimes even over the marriage, as enabling adherence. Based on these results, augmented efforts to address gender power dynamics both in society and within the home are recommended to promote the health of HIV-positive women and their families.