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1
Heinemann, Chloe Janelle. "Women's Agency in Gothic Literature." Thesis, The University of Arizona, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/595049.
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The objective of this thesis is to argue for and analyze the progression of women's agency in the first century of Gothic literature. Starting with Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto (1764), there are stirrings of women's agency as female protagonists begin to challenge male authority and attempt to escape the entrapment of the patriarchal hierarchy. As we move from Otranto to Ann Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794), we can see the progression of women's agency as the heroine acquires social, financial, and romantic control through her strong moral disposition. Finally, a new level of agency appears in Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre (1847), as the protagonist stands up to male authority and openly declares the idea that women should be treated equally with men. Women's agency continues to evolve in Gothic works of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, as in Daphne Du Maurier's Rebecca (1938) and the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997-2003), even if some limitations are still present. These works grant women more independent agency than ever before, but they also suggest that there are still constraints, even in the twenty-first century.
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De, Angelis Maria Ivanna. "Human trafficking : women's stories of agency." Thesis, University of Hull, 2012. http://hydra.hull.ac.uk/resources/hull:5823.
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This thesis is about women’s stories of agency in a trafficking experience. The idea of agency is a difficult concept to fathom, given the unscrupulous acts and exploitative practices which demarcate and define trafficking. In response to the three Ps of trafficking policy (prevention and protection of victims and the simultaneous prosecution of traffickers) official discourse constructs trafficking agency in singular opposition to trafficking victimhood. The ‘true’ victim of trafficking is reified in attributes of passivity and worthiness, whereas signs of women’s agency are read as consent in their own predicament or as culpability in criminal justice and immigration rule breaking. Moving beyond the official lack or criminal fact of agency, this research adds knowledge on agency constructed with, on, and by women possessing a trafficking experience. This fills an internationally recognised gap in the trafficking discourse. Within the thesis, female agency is explored in feminist terms of women’s immediate well-being agency (their physical safety and economic needs) and their longer term requirements for agency freedom (their capacity to construct choices and the conditions affecting choice). This feminist exploration of the terrain on trafficking found ways in which female agency takes shape in relationship and in degrees to women’s subjective and structural victimisation. Based upon the stories of twenty six women gathered through an in-depth qualitative study, agency is visible in identity, decision making and actions. Women fashioned individual trafficking identities from their subjective engagement with the official trafficking descriptors. Additionally, their identification with ties to home (expressed via family relationships, occupational roles, national dress and ethnic food) helped to sustain their pre-trafficking personas. Women exhibited agency in risk taking and choices (initial, shared, constrained and precarious), which characterised their journeys and explained their grading of trafficking ‘pains’. Significantly, the fieldwork raised women’s engagement with ‘the rules’ and practices of the host society, as a way of realising new social, recreational, educational, employment, sexual and consumer related freedoms. Acknowledging the international and UK serious organised crime frame on trafficking, the fieldwork also included fifteen interviews with anti-trafficking professionals involved in delivering the three Ps of trafficking policy. This complementary standpoint to women’s stories presents ways in which official actors helped and hindered women’s achievement of well-being and agency freedoms. Crucially, in addressing trafficking as an evolving and integral aspect in contemporary global movement - displaying similarity and cross over with migration, smuggling, asylum and refugee accounts - this research unearthed trafficking exploitations and experiences around transnational marriage, which have been traditionally isolated and overlooked by UK trafficking discourse and policy platforms.
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Nomdo, Christina. "Who helps women cope? : women's agency in households, families and communities." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 2005. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/12782.
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Includes bibliographical references.Women’s experiences of poverty in post-apartheid South Africa are made real in their struggles to access resources and assets to survive. They survive sudden shocks and entrenched poverty by constructing and drawing on social support networks that provide access to adequate housing, secure tenure and sufficient income to sustain households. The social support networks of households, families and communities are investigated in the adjacent but diverse townships of Manenberg and Guguletu - resettlement areas for those who were forcibly removed from the city centre of Cape Town. Theoretical perspectives on: the South African context of support; reciprocity; social networks; and the morality inherent in networks, fail to provide information of the complexities and nuances in the lives of the women. Women are required to negotiate gender roles and position in every relationship in order to be eligible for support. Discourses on how the South African city shaped reciprocity and gender identity within households and families provide insight into the context in which support is negotiated. Drawing on these sets of literature an analysis of life histories (constructed from a semi-structured, open ended questionnaire) is conducted of fifteen women from each township that document their struggles, frustrations, joys and aspirations. The evidence from the case studies suggests that women's experiences of poverty are actualised in their marginalisation from adequate housing, secure tenure and sustainable livelihoods. Moreover, the mechanisms they employ to bridge these challenges, their support networks, further entrenches gender inequalities and the inferior position of women in society. A detailed analysis of their relationships reveals that in order to access support women sublimate their challenges of traditional gender identities in order conform to normative behaviour and access resources and assets required for survival. A comparison of the configuration, utilisation and value of strategic relationships within women's households, families and communities demonstrates their agency. The women interact with their context, making strategic decisions and choices that influence not only the social fabric of their communities but also their own identity.
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Deeks, Emma. "The agency of anonymity : reading women's autobiographical blogs." Thesis, Edge Hill University, 2016. http://repository.edgehill.ac.uk/8942/.
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This thesis uses previously unstudied female authored blog narratives to explore the role the author’s anonymity plays in the way they textually construct themselves and their offline experiences. It thereby reconceptualises not only what it means to be anonymous online, but also how anonymity is utilised by users regardless of their perceived level of hiddenness. Unlike previous research into the genre, it considers blogs as part of the trajectory of life-writing, which includes autobiography and diaries, and therefore examines the narratives using close textual literary analysis. The thesis also acknowledges the fact that the content of blogs is inherently influenced by the form itself, and therefore looks at the texts in the context of their online platform and its technological features. It subsequently shows blogs to be a constantly updated example of contemporary culture, which represent not just an individual voice, but new ways of examining broader social realities. The analysis examines how the blogosphere could specifically offer a platform for women, who are often discouraged from speaking up in the offline public sphere, to share their stories and have a ‘public’ voice online. It therefore provides a detailed insight into a selection of female authors who have chosen this medium, interrogates the ways in which they utilise the potential anonymity that the online world offers them, and demonstrates to what extent the blogosphere could therefore be regarded as a space where women can represent alternative, and potentially transgressive, performances of self. Its methodology and theoretical framework mean that the analysis provides a more detailed insight into how and why women are seen to dominate this platform than existing research has thus far been able to. The findings therefore go beyond previous conceptualisations of female blog users, and of the blogosphere more broadly; highlighting the extent to which the medium of blogging represents a powerful place for women to write themselves.
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Bosworth, Mary. "Resisting identities : agency and power in women's prisons." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 1997. https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/273057.
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Rein, Sandra. "Women's revolutionary agency, re-igniting the Marxist/Feminist debate." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1998. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/tape15/PQDD_0007/MQ28906.pdf.
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Garcia, Mariechristine. "Explorations of Women's Narrative Agency in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales." Scholarship @ Claremont, 2019. https://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/2155.
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This paper explores the extent to which the female characters in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales exercise any degree of narrative agency. Using both literary and historical approaches, this paper specifically discusses the cases of three of Chaucer’s women: Virginia, Griselda, and the Wife of Bath.
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Averett, Paige. "Parental Communications and Young Women's Struggle for Sexual Agency." Diss., Virginia Tech, 2004. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/30091.
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This qualitative study examined how 14 young women's sexual desire and agency was influenced by the messages communicated from their parents and the quality of the parent-child relationship. Previous research results were supported, such as: parents do not communicate about sex frequently, or only about limited topics; mothers communicate more frequently than fathers, and peers communicate more sexual information. Utilizing a postmodern, feminist position, themes of parental transmission of patriarchal social controls were found, such as: fear of being viewed as a slut, gender roles that demand female passivity, sex is scary, and young women are not to have sex, or only in the context of committed relationships. Implications for parenting practices and the importance of developing sexual agency are discussed.Ph. D.
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Langsdale, Samantha. "Damaged bodies : women's agency in trecento Florentine soteriological discourses." Thesis, SOAS, University of London, 2014. http://eprints.soas.ac.uk/18251/.
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This thesis examines the formation of identity in religious discourse as necessarily gendered and embodied. I will establish that while theories of corporeality, bodies and embodiment have explored diverse processes of bodily identity formation, the production of bodies within religious discourses has not been adequately addressed. I develop a critical feminist analysis that demonstrates how and why religious discourses are formative of embodied, gendered identities. Specifically, I argue that historically Christian soteriology has been productive of embodied, gendered identities in multiple ways: (1) soteriological discourses produce normative ideals of embodiment; (2) these normative ideals result in the materialisation of human desires for their own bodies to approximate those ideals; (3) the disparity between normative ideals of religious embodiment and actual bodies produces material effects that are damaging for those bodies which are farthest from the religious, and thus normative ideal. I assert that this final layer of production becomes apparent through reading religious discourses as performative; that is, bodily identities do not materialise in a 'singular or deliberate "act", but, rather, as the reiterative and citational practice by which discourse produces the effects that it names' (J. Butler 1993: 2). I test my hypothesis via a historical case study of those fourteenth-century Florentine soteriological discourses and doctrines which necessitated the materialisation of female bodies as 'damaged' alongside the articulation of women's desires for their bodies to approximate the normative ideal (specifically the resurrected male body of Christ). My reading of these discourses indicates how the normative ideal, because of its necessary iteration, was elastic, enabling gendered, embodied subjects to negotiate their discursive positions and I argue that this negotiation enables identification of female agency in the historical record. However, I depart from some feminist scholarship by disputing that this agency must necessarily be read in terms either of collusion or subversion. Instead, I argue that in contexts where Christian soteriological discourses produce not only normative ideals, but also desires within embodied subjects to approximate those normative ideals, it is contradictory to suggest that agential action must be only either subversive of or collusive with discourse. Female agency in trecento Florence was far more complex.
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Petersen, Emily J. ""Reasonably Bright Girls": Theorizing Women's Agency in Technological Systems of Power." DigitalCommons@USU, 2016. https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/etd/4924.
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A woman’s experience in the workplace is an inductive process into a technological, hierarchical, and often male-dominated system. This study examines how female practitioners in technical and professional communication confront the technological system of the workplace. I trace the forces that contribute to the hierarchy and power struggles women face, I present how they claim authority and agency within such hierarchical and technological systems, and I show how these experiences can lead to activism and advocacy.In addition, my findings suggest that some women leave the workplace altogether in favor of less structured and more innovative ways of communicating about technologies, particularly technologies and processes they find more applicable to their lives as women. The data from 39 interviews with female practitioners reveals that the traditional notion of the workplace is in crisis, and that women are asserting agency in order to disrupt the system and ensure a place for themselves within it.
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Robertson, Christie Social Science & Policy UNSW. "Social capital, women's agency and the VIEW clubs of Australia." Awarded by:University of New South Wales. Social Science and Policy, 2007. http://handle.unsw.edu.au/1959.4/31919.
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Contemporary debates about collective action in civil society have given prominent place to the connections between voluntary associations and social capital. Social capital research, however, commonly over-emphasises the role of associations in generating societal-level outcomes, to the neglect of the specific contexts in which associations reside and the different opportunities individuals and groups have to access resources for and through collective action. Also largely ignored are considerations of gender. This thesis addresses these issues, presenting evidence from a case study of a large women???s service organisation ??? the VIEW Clubs of Australia ??? to examine how social capital and women???s agency intersect. The thesis adopts a social-structural approach to social capital, highlighting its role as a resource brokered through networks that both enable and constrain action. This approach attends to the inter-relations of particular types of social capital, such as bonding and bridging; specific elements of social capital, such as reciprocity, trust, and shared values, identities and purposes; and addresses the broader socio-historical context in which social capital networks are located. The thesis employs a model of agency that encompasses three core fields of agency ??? individual, social and political. These fields of agency encapsulate the capacity for women to ???act??? and exercise choice and change in their own lives, in the community, and in the polity, and to do this through collective action. The thesis applies these ideas using an embedded case study model combining documentary analysis, participant observation and in-depth interviews. The findings reveal agency and social capital to be in tension. Activities that feed the agential capacity of the organisation and its members are more successfully realised in areas closest to women???s past experiences than in those addressing the public sphere. The research nevertheless shows that a voluntary association such as VIEW can foster women???s agency. Indeed, building women???s capacities in society as a whole may well rely on organisational contexts where women are empowered to self-develop and connect their activities to broader society. This is impacted by the nature, purpose, and social location of the social capital networks of women and others, and has implications for how we understand the ongoing role of voluntary associations in civil society. By revealing how different dimensions of social capital operate and intersect with women???s agency, the thesis shows the dynamic role of voluntary associations in civil society.
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Andrews, Margaret. "Contemporary Spanish women's agency in the real and virtual city." Thesis, Nottingham Trent University, 2002. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.271793.
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This thesis explores ways in which women's agency has been theorised and developed within the Spanish city in general and Barcelona in particular between the Transition and the early twenty-first century. It argues that women and feminists in particular have worked to change city cultures for the benefit of their gender, despite the tendency to conceal such agency in both feminist urbanism and dominant accounts of the regeneration of Barcelona. It maintains that women's positive experiences and the effects of their agency on the city, as well as the disadvantages they encounter, should be the focus of analysis of city cultures. Chapter One explores the ways in which some contemporary feminism have come to focus on the city as a site of female agency. Chapters Two and Three explore ways in which women have used and resignified urban resources to press for greater autononomy and for their contributions to city life to be valued more highly. These chapters also acknowledge the ways in which women have asserted their agency by both contesting unitary narratives of city life, and by challenging inequitable forms of urban organization that do not take account of their needs and aspirations. The focus on revealing women's agency where it has been concealed or misrecognized in dominant accounts of city cultures continues in Chapter Four with an exploration of what some leading Spanish feminist webmistresses have contributed to the development of the virtual city. Virtual cities are conceived of as web sites that mediate information relating to pre-existing Spanish cities and as those that use the city as a metaphor to organize the site's construction. It is argued that, dystopic readings of the nature of virtual cities notwithstanding, several Spanish feminists use such spaces ethically, with the express purpose of supporting other women.
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Holyoak, Rose Erin. "Young women's gendered subjectivity and agency in social movement activism." Thesis, University of Leicester, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/2381/36127.
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This thesis examines the experiences of young women participating in anarchist and environmental activism within the UK as a means of exploring the relationship between youth, gender, and political participation in a postfeminist, neoliberal context. Recent scholarship has identified young women as the ideal subjects of neoliberalism, where flexibility and reflexivity are prized and rewarded. Young women have been presented with new subject positions and forms of citizenship engagement but these are, for the most part, individualised and depoliticised. Concurrently theorists have warned of an impending crisis of democracy precipitated by youth political disengagement, while governments have condemned ‘incorrect’ or ‘disruptive’ forms of youth civic engagement. This thesis intervenes in these debates by exploring the significance of social movement participation for young women in contributing to their political agency and gendered subjectivity. The research utilised a qualitative feminist methodology, analysing data from 20 semi-structured interviews, three diaries completed by interview participants, and 200 hours of participant observation. The thesis finds little evidence that young activist women are individualised or disengaged. Instead, their participation in collective action and their identification as feminists contribute to my theorisation of them as ‘wilful women’, whose conscious, reflexive political engagement marks them apart from individualised neoliberal subjects. Through a relational, feminist political agency they are able to reframe femininity as active and compassionate rather than passive and compliant, and engage politically on this basis. The study also finds that the non-hierarchical organisational structures of activist organisations effectively contribute to the creation of anti-oppressive pedagogic strategies for confronting inequality within activist cultures. This thesis makes an original contribution by developing a set of theoretical concepts that enable an understanding of the means by which young activist women construct dissident, wilful gendered subjectivities that confront sexism and inequality both within their own activist communities and within society at large.
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Maswikwa, Belinda. "Limits of citizenship : a comparative analysis of Zimbabwean and South African women's citizenship agency." Thesis, Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/97111.
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Thesis (PhD)--Stellenbosch University, 2015.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Developmental initiatives in Sub-Saharan Africa emphasise participatory citizenship as the means through which poor women can assert and claim their citizenship rights. Although citizenship and agency are crucial elements in this narrative, little is known about the citizenship process for African women. Furthermore, there is no analytic framework to guide an empirical analysis of agency. This dissertation aims to address these gaps by examining how marginalised Black African women understand themselves as citizens, navigate their structural barriers and develop strategies to negotiate their membership in and relationship with their states. This dissertation uses a deviant case analysis of women living in Zimbabwean and South African townships, who identify as members of the isiNdebele and isiZulu ethnic groups respectively, to Western theories of agency. Data was collected through the use of in-depth interviews and analysed using content and relational analysis. Results indicate that the women use a range of everyday resistance strategies to negotiate their relationship with their states. These strategies are mapped onto an innovative analytic framework that synthesizes feminist, androcentric and subaltern theories of citizenship agency, in order to highlight the non-conventional ways that marginalised African women exercise their agency as citizens. Interestingly, both sets of women emphasise the obligation to vote, work and support oneself without recourse to the state, rather than a reciprocal and participatory relationship. The internalisation of citizenship as an obligation without a corollary emphasis on rights and participation is problematic given that both governments suffer from legitimacy, corruption and governance issues. The main policy implication arising from the study is that there is a need for civic education in schools as well as a feature of women‟s empowerment and community development programs so that marginalised African women are encouraged to expand their participatory skills to collectively challenge, contest and improve the substance of existing citizenship rights.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Ontwikkelinginisiatiewe in Afrika beklemtoon deelnemende burgerskap as ʼn manier hoe arm vroue hul regte kan eis. Hoewel burgerskap en die agentskap (agency) belangrik in hierdie verhaal is, weet ons baie min oor hoe swart vroue burgerskap ervaar. Verder is daar geen analitiese raamwerk om 'n empiriese ontleding van hul agentskap te lei nie. Die proefskrif spreek hierdie gapings aan deur ʼn ondersoek oor hoe arm swart vroue in Afrika hulself as burgers verstaan, hoe hul strukturele hindernisse navigeer en strategieë ontwikkel om hul lidmaatskap van en verhouding tot die staat te onderhandel. Hierdie proefskrif gebruik ʼn vergelykende gevallestudie benadering wat vroue wat in Zimbabwe en Suid-Afrika in “townships” woon en wat hulself as isiNdebele en isiZulu identifiseer na te vors. Data is verkry deur die gebruik van in-diepte onderhoude, inhouds- en verwantskapsanalise. Die resultate dui aan dat vroue ʼn reeks strategieë gebruik vir “daaglikse weerstand” om hul verhouding met die staat te onderhandel. Hierdie strategieë word gekarteer op die innoverende analitiese raamwerk, wat ʼn sintese is van feministiese, androsentriese en subalterne teorieë van burgerskap, om sodoende die nie-konvensionele maniere waarop swart vroue hul agentskap uitoefen te beklemtoon. Beide groepe vroue beklemtoon die verpligting om te stem, werk en om jouself te onderhou sonder hulp van die staat, eerder as om ʼn wederkerige en deelnemende verhouding met die staat te beoefen. Die internalisering van burgerskap as ʼn verpligting sonder die wederkerige nadruk op regte en deelname is problematies. Dit kan gekoppel word aan die feit dat albei regerings gebuk gaan onder legitimiteitsprobleme, korrupsie en probleme rondom regeerkunde, wat vrae genereer oor hoe om hierdie regerings verantwoordbaar te hou. Die hoof beleidsimplikasie van hierdie studie is die daarstelling van burgerlike onderwys in skole, sowel as vroue se bemagtiging in ontwikkelingsprogramme. Dit sal bydra daartoe dat gemarginaliseerde swart vroue aangemoedig word om hul vaardighede rondom deelname te ontwikkel en die substansie van hul bestaande burgerskap kollektief uit te daag en te verbeter.
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Enck-Wanzer, Suzanne Marie. "Site unseen women's agency in contemporary American constructions of domestic violence /." [Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2005. http://wwwlib.umi.com/dissertations/fullcit/3195578.
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Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Communication and Culture of, 2005.Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 66-11, Section: A, page: 4009. Adviser: Robert L. Ivie. Title from dissertation home page (viewed 10/10/2006).
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Fraiberg, Allison M. "Beyond indiscretion : agency, comedy, and contemporary American women's writing and performance /." Thesis, Connect to this title online; UW restricted, 1993. http://hdl.handle.net/1773/9476.
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Muhanna, Aitemad. "Gender relations and women's agency during the second intifada in Gaza." Thesis, Swansea University, 2010. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.678677.
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Kimura, Maki. "Modernity, testimonies and women's agency : the issue of 'comfort women' of the Second World War." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 2003. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.408539.
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Acquah, Augusta. "Agents of Change: An Analysis of Gender Planning for Development in Africa at the Canadian International Development Agency." Thèse, Université d'Ottawa / University of Ottawa, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/10393/23389.
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The thesis examines how the social construction of African women in development discourse transformed from the 1970s to the 2000s, focusing in particular on the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). From the 1970s to the 1990s representations of African women were based on women’s economic potential. The mainstreaming of gender in the 1990s resulted in women being represented as agents of change. This approach gave women an opportunity to play roles in decision-making but led to policies that failed to challenge the established institutions. The emphasis on women as agents of change opened doors to some African women but with implications for the women’s movement. Only some middle-class women appear to benefit but their gains have been marginal in comparison to the gender inequalities that persist. The thesis uses secondary sources and interviews with development practitioners in Ottawa to understand the representation of African women as agents of change.
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Raisborough, Jayne. "Included exclusions : an investigation of women's agency in the Sea Cadet Corps." Thesis, Lancaster University, 2000. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.274214.
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Francis, Jan. "From dreams to reality : a case study of a women's enterprise agency." Thesis, University of Canterbury. Department of Political Science, 1996. http://hdl.handle.net/10092/3226.
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This study documents the strategies of a feminist organisation directed at enhancing women's
access to flexible well paid work in occupations in which women have been under- represented.
Founded on the initiative of women working in government departments and local bodies,
'Femco' utilised a variety of state initiatives which provided resources to organisations running
training courses, generating employment for 'disadvantaged' groups and enhancing individuals'
access to self-employment.
While it strategically responded to successive employment schemes developed by both Labour
and National governments, Femco sought to operate in the private sector through setting up a
women's labour pool which competed with other businesses for contracts. Femco provided work
opportunities in the areas of painting, gardening and lawn mowing for women who were
unemployed and or beneficiaries, interested in part-time and casual work.
The study documents the interaction between 'Femco' as a women's community business
initiative and state policy with respect to the economy and employment generation. It explores
contradictions in state policy and tensions in the operation of this feminist organisation which set
out to provide women with work in male dominated trades, but found itself operating a team of
women cleaners and business advisory service. The difficulties of sustaining commitment to flat
rates of pay, non hierarchical organisation and support for women seeking flexible employment
while competing for contracts with other businesses are analysed. Through this case study of a
single organisation the relationships between national policy initiatives and local community
strategies are explored. This study also provides an opportunity to analyse the complexities of
practical politics and the interaction between political vision and the active strategising of a
group of feminists interested in changing women's position in employment.
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Mortensen, Camilla Henriette. "Healing the handless maiden : women's (counter) narrative and the recuperation of agency /." view abstract or download file of text, 2002. http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/uoregon/fullcit?p3061959.
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Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2002.Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 227-239). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.
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Staniland, Emma. "Towards agency : dialectic Bildung in late twentieth century Spanish American women's writing." Thesis, University of Leicester, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/2381/35088.
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This thesis is an interdisciplinary project formulated within a number of interrelated fields of study. At its broadest it represents a contribution to Latin American studies, but, within that, it has three main concerns: Spanish American women's writing, gender studies, and the intellectual debate on the relationship between gender and genre. Most specifically, it engages with the Bildungsroman, or development novel, whose widely recognised gender bias has generated scholarly interest in the theorisation of its 'female' version. My study of six contemporary Spanish American novels illuminates the presence of this contested genre in women's writing from across the region, thus contributing to its critical evaluation as a narrative mode both possible in a 'female' form, and highly pertinent to the feminist aims of the authors. In Chapter One, I extract from the Bildungsroman's original narrative trajectory a dialectic framework cons isting of the phases of 'thesis', 'antithesis' and 'synthesis'. This framework is then rearticulated in terms germane to my fields of study, in order to elucidate the texts' portrayals of the 'construction', 'deconstruction' and 'reconstruction' of gendered identities. The depiction of each of these developmental phases is investigated in the subsequent chapters by pairing novels and focusing on a different literary topos: in Chapter Two, 'myth', in Eva Luna (Isabel Allende, 1985) and Como agua para chocolate (Laura Esquivel, 1989); in Chapter Three, 'exile', in En breve carcel (Sylvia Molloy, 1981) and La nave de los locos (Cristina Peri Rossi, 1984); and, in Chapter Four, 'the female body', in Arrancame la vida (Angeles Mastretta, 1985) and La nada cotidiana (Zoe Valdes, 1995). Overall, this analytical framework allows me to argue that, read as a cross-corpus portrayal of gendered Bildung, these novels project a transition from passivity to social agency. As a consequence, this thesis serves to highlight the contribution made by these women writers to the understanding of gendered identity as a social construction that remains open ended.
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Billot, Jennie Margaret. "Women's agency in the North Shore and Waitakere cities of Auckland (New Zealand)." Thesis, University of Auckland, 1998. http://wwwlib.umi.com/dissertations/fullcit/9908064.
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This thesis examines the ways in which women assess and seek resources in their urban contexts. I argue that the struggles of daily life in local communities and institutional groups can produce ideological spaces into which new practices, arising from increased consciousness of issues, can be developed. My aim has been to uncover women's experiences in a way that not only interprets meanings from their practices, but also encourages such practices to be seen as valid renderings of women's understandings. I examine women's initiatives through the analysis of varying contexts. While I acknowledge the historical importance of the domestic situation as a threshold for much historic activism, women's proactivity requires a broader situational analysis. I therefore present cases of proactivity within the domestic, public and business spheres, within the two cities of Waitakere and North Shore of Auckland, New Zealand. Through the search for new progressive social identities, women's activities at the inter-personal level are a prime source of social change. It is through the recursive relationship between women as agents and the social structure, that changing interpretations of social expectations are produced, allowing for creative activism. While women's initiatives may aim to transform particular social environments, they become part of the incremental process of change that alters the experience and structure of women's lives. The thesis has four parts. The first outlines the scope, objectives and theoretical framework, while the second conceptualises women's agency and its positioning within social gendered structures. Part Three presents the investigative processes linking the theoretical framework and the empirical analysis. Part Four submits the thematic interpretations of the thesis, concluding that women can be agents of social change in a diversity of ways. I acknowledge my feminist stance, one with layerings of objectives and motivations. I view women's circumstances as resulting from the interweaving of structural forces and personal capacities. The resulting awareness of women's experiences can challenge the values and concepts of masculine discourses. This is viewed through the concept of multiplicity. On a political level this means creating a resistance to hierarchies and a commitment to a plurality of voice, style and structure.Subscription resource available via Digital Dissertations only.
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Mayes-Elma, Ruthann. "A Feminist literary criticism approach to representations of women's agency in Harry Potter." Oxford, Ohio : Miami University, 2003. http://www.ohiolink.edu/etd/view.cgi?miami1060025232.
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Thesis (Ph. D.)--Miami University, Dept. of Educational Leadership, 2003.Title from first page of PDF document. Document formatted into pages; contains vii, 147 p. Includes bibliographical references (p. 125-141).
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Mayes-Elma, Ruthann Elizabeth. "A Feminist Literary Criticism Approach to Representations of Women's Agency in Harry Potter." Oxford, Ohio : Miami University, 2003. http://www.ohiolink.edu/etd/view.cgi?miami1060025232.
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Purcell, Emma Frances. "Managing aristocratic households : women's agency within the Montagu property network, c.1709-1827." Thesis, University of Leicester, 2018. http://hdl.handle.net/2381/42491.
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The English country house has captured people’s interest and imagination for centuries, and has been the subject of many popular and academic studies. However, due to a tendency to focus upon the art and architecture of such properties, how families actually lived in and used these great houses has often been obscured and underexplored. The eighteenth-century Montagu family will be used as a case study through which to explore a number of key themes associated with the social, rather than architectural side of the country house. Their country seat of Boughton House, Northamptonshire will be considered as part of their wider network of urban, suburban and country estates, which increased throughout the century through marriages and inheritance patterns, in order to explore the position of the country house in connection to other aristocratic properties. This thesis will use the Montagu family to examine how aristocratic families used, managed and moved between a large network of estates. It will highlight the importance of inheritance and legal terminology in giving elite women agency, power and influence within households, within their marriages and over their own finances. It will explore the position that Boughton occupied within their network in relation to other properties, looking at what criteria three generations of the family prioritised when moving between houses. In particular, it will show that not all country properties were at the height of their popularity in the eighteenth century, with some, like Boughton, being neglected by owners and left to fall into decline.
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Pollen, Claudia Mvula. "An analysis of women's agency in the Zambian floriculture industry using a global production network approach : mechanisms and pathways for agency." Thesis, University of Leeds, 2017. http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/18867/.
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The study of women integrated in export markets in developing countries since the rise and spread of neo-liberalism over the past two and half decades attracted wide-ranging interest and scholarship, with findings identifying both the positive and negative effects of such integration for women. On the one hand, the gender literature identifies women as agents operating under complex traditional and institutional constraints, while on the other hand, development economists aiming at improving the wage gap have called for resources to be deployed to improve women’s lives. Examining the ways and circumstances of women’s working life in the Zambian floricultural industry has transformed into an inquiry into women’s agency. While substantial scholarship has uncovered the strategies (e.g. bargaining) that women use to attain certain outcomes (voice in the home or organising at work), the literature on GPNs and on gender in particular has remained largely silent on the processes underlying, and leading to, the outcomes sought. Therefore, the premise underlying this thesis was to establish that regardless of what women did, they did not operate in a vacuum, rather, their workplaces were part of a wider international community of global production processes integrated vertically and horizontally. Thus, uncovering the processes and strategies women used required framing the question within this broader framework. This thesis places the understanding of women’s agency within the broader context of Global Production Networks (GPNs). I argue that women rationalise their actions and decisions to work by deploying a range of strategies such as negotiations and bargaining, while drawing upon an array of resources through networks in the community and the workplace in the course of their work cycle. This suggests women do not simply do, rather they assess, strategize and then proceed with a course of action to reposition themselves so that what is observed as women’s actions is a product of the culmination of different processes i.e. Conception, gestation and delivery.
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Carter, Frances Hannah. "Magic toyshops : narrative and meaning in the women's sex shop." Thesis, Kingston University, 2014. http://eprints.kingston.ac.uk/28758/.
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The sex shop aimed primarily at the female consumer is a phenomenon which forms part of our everyday understanding of the sexualisatian of culture or the mainstreaming of sexual representation and consumption. The women's sex shop privileges notions of female empowerment achieved through the consumption of goods and spaces dedicated to the pursuit of female erotic pleasure. Prioritising women's interpretations of the visual presence of the women's sex shop, this project establishes how the sex shop is re-made for its female consumers, making it both acceptable and desirable to a new audience. Primarily its aim is to interrogate the ways in which design is put to use to reflect, materialise and contribute to discourse around feminine sexuality and sexual pleasure. Utilising a feminist research methodology this thesis takes as a starting point the voices of women consumers and retailers, facilitating a new reading of the ways in which women negotiate the meanings invested in the spaces of gendered sexual consumption. In line with the testimony of participants, investigation begins by positioning the women's sex shop in relation to its progenitor, the traditional male sex shop, the model without which the women's shop could not be envisaged or designed. Secondly it investigates the ways in which the design of the women's sex shop and its goods, appropriate or resist established , normative and classed representations of female sexuality expressed in the geographical position of the shops, the interior layout, the external façade and the use of visual references. In conclusion, drawing on consumer narratives, research exposes a visual and spatial symbiosis between the 'seedy' masculine and the stylish women's sex shop. Key tensions and contradictions are unearthed in the things and spaces of the women's shop, calling into question the notions of female sexual agency and empowerment it proposes.
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Jerome, Alexandra Me'av Anne Ellinwood. "Shahrazad in the White City: Muslim Women's Agency through Performance at the Columbian Exposition." W&M ScholarWorks, 2011. https://scholarworks.wm.edu/etd/1539626645.
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Alvarado, Beatriz Rosa. "Issues of voice and agency in Andean rural young women's education an ethnographic study /." Columbus, Ohio : Ohio State University, 2006. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc%5Fnum=osu1155670273.
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Haley, Jennifer M. "Encomium, agency, and subversion : the feminist recovery of baby books as women's domestic rhetoric." Virtual Press, 2007. http://liblink.bsu.edu/uhtbin/catkey/1370879.
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In this dissertation I conduct a feminist recovery of the baby book as one kind of ordinary women's domestic rhetoric. I analyze the ways in which the baby book's evolution reflects changes in cultural practices over time and the means by which the baby book constitutes acts of potentially subversive agency in its power to resist patriarchal structuring. I classify the baby book within the ancient rhetorical genre of encomium, allowing us to perceive how a culture, situated in time and place, values the perception and presentation of an infant and the culturally-assigned role of the mother in the formation of that presentation. The genre of encomium must be redefined as an ongoing, dynamic, adaptive genre.I conduct an interpretation of more than the mere artifact, but of the production and experience of that artifact as well. Thus, this study establishes a unique and significant role for a de-reading methodology as a viable introduction and theoretical foundation to approaching domestic texts, involving self figuration on the part of the researcher and an empathic approach to reading that privileges a loving, appreciative standpoint.My analysis of over fifty baby books from 1885 through 2007 reveals that the role of the baby books and the role of the mother are assigned, to a great extent, by the definition of "family" and shaped by socioeconomic forces. Mothers subvert or comply with the directives from the publishers, thereby implying rejection of or compliance with the maternal script through such strategies as appropriation of space, inclusion of artifacts, and omission. This discovery expands our notion of agency in terms of the power of form, the role of the audience, and the connections to material and symbolic cultural context.My research establishes a line of inquiry into the material practices of production and simultaneously brings into view an array of texts that have been outside the conventional purview of rhetorical scholarship. For those who want to recover women's rhetoric and to extend an understanding of rhetorical praxis, baby books are a valuable primary and, until now, untapped source, as well as a "new" type of rhetorical evidence.Department of English
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Ellis, Lucy. ""Her panting heart beat measures of consent": Women's Sexual Agency in Eliza Haywood's Fiction." Thesis, Université d'Ottawa / University of Ottawa, 2019. http://hdl.handle.net/10393/39135.
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Through her texts depicting amorous adventures, Eliza Haywood engages with critical,
contemporary discussions about power relations and consent in both social and legal constructs. Her texts resist the boundary between the private domain of interpersonal relationships and the public domain of political relations. Rather, her fiction engages in a wide-reaching discourse that explores the interrelations between power, agency, consent, and education, and lays bare the ways in which societal roles and expectations are reinforced in damaging ways. This thesis aims to prove that Haywood’s repetition of central motifs—including the continued tension between resisting and yielding to sexual pressure or temptation, and the line between seduction and rape—serves to question how these behaviours become normalized and naturalized. Through analyzing three categories of relationships—women and their fathers or guardians, women and their lovers, and women with other women—this thesis unpacks how women’s agency is stifled by parental relationships, transferred to male lovers, and finally empowered by female intimacy.
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DiClemente, Kristi. "Agency And Expectations: Women’s Experiences In Marriage Disputes In Fourteenth-Century Paris." Diss., University of Iowa, 2015. https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/5746.
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This study examines the ways Parisians viewed marriage contracts and marital relationships in the late fourteenth century. It focuses on the Archidiaconal court of Paris and the ways men and women used the court to modify their marriages. My argument in this project is two-fold: First, I argue that the Parisian laity had at least a basic understanding of marriage law, especially the importance of consent for the creation of marriages, and that women, in particular, used that knowledge to control their choice of marriage partner. Second, I argue that after the formation of the marriage, society had certain expectations for both husbands and wives. The evidence from narrative sources—such as conduct manuals and saints lives—presents a picture of obedient wives loving their husbands, who not only financially supported the household, but also loved their wives in return. Similarly, within Parisian separation cases, these same expectations allowed the majority of plaintiffs—usually female—to legally separate from their husband who did not live up to this ideal.
The majority of this study uses documents from the Archidiaconal court of Paris from 1384-1387, but my arguments speak to a wider view of medieval marriage and the ways society viewed marriage more generally. Overall, these court cases indicate a wider cultural acceptance of affective marriages in the Middle Ages, and fit into the larger argument of female agency within the medieval legal system. Despite women’s marginalized legal status—in many cases not being allowed even to testify in court—women in the late fourteenth-century Archidiaconal court of Paris were regularly plaintiffs, defendants, and witnesses before the officials. Women pled their cases sometimes with the support of legal counsel or their parents, but often alone, and they successfully negotiated the legal system to achieve their preferred outcome.
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Conrath, Julia Annika. "COMPROMISING EFFECTS OF INTIMATE PARTNER VIOLENCE ON COLLEGE WOMEN'S HEALTH PROMOTING BEHAVIORS." OpenSIUC, 2011. https://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/dissertations/372.
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The purpose of this study was to examine the negative effects of intimate partner violence on college women's health promoting behaviors such as physical exercise. Data were collected from 375 college women and 122 male students at a large Midwestern university. Examination of demographic variables and other background factors in both the female and male sample suggested that instances of intimate partner violence frequently occurred in this college student population. Tests of structural equation models with data from the female sample revealed that women's sense of agency and perceived levels of stress fully mediated the relationship between intimate partner violence and women's engagement in physical exercise. Women's gender role attitudes further predicted participation in physical exercise; however, gender role attitudes were not significantly related to other variables in the model. Findings are indicative of the widespread effects of intimate partner violence on positive behaviors as well as negative health behaviors that have been the focus of previous research. The conceptual, empirical, and clinical needs to address and facilitate women's engagement in health promoting behaviors are discussed. High rates of intimate partner violence among college students call for outreach and preventive measures on college campuses. Systemic issues of male to female intimate partner violence are addressed as well as the necessity of culturally sensitive research in this area of investigation.
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Bloom, Carl Nicholas. "EVIDENCE OF ANXIETY: WOMEN'S AGENCY AND ENGAGEMENT LAW IN AMERICAN LITERATURE AND FILM, 1880-1935." OpenSIUC, 2012. https://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/dissertations/453.
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During the end of the nineteenth century, breach of promise laws, which had protected unmarried but engaged women for centuries during their vulnerable engagement period, began to come under public scrutiny. The demonization of this legal protection coincided with increased legal agency in other areas of married life for women, but in most historical and critical discussions of this era, breach of promise, also nicknamed Heartbalm, has been overlooked, and the purpose of this dissertation is to examine canonical and non-canonical literature from this period and recontextualize these works in light of breach of promise's historical impact on courting and unmarried couples. Both men and women writers from the late nineteenth and early twentieth century picked up on the dramatic potential of these lawsuits at a time when the definition of marriage was transitioning from a relationship based on fixed economic gender roles established in the nineteenth century to a relationship of companionship and emotional connection. For many young people, the breach of promise suit insinuated that women sought marriage purely out of financial gain and stability, and as such, women were often branded gold diggers, or worse, for their emotional disconnect with their lovers. By bringing together American literature, cultural and legal histories and headlines from The New York Times, this dissertation also informs readers about the serious social activism at work in what might otherwise appear to be insignificant stories about family conflicts over marriage and family finances. The works of William Dean Howells, Edith Wharton, Anita Loos, Margaret Deland and others benefit from putting their texts alongside newspaper headlines and case studies from their era because breach of promise was often a covert force in those stories and only careful reading of the texts brings out the complexity of the characters' pre-marriage anxieties. In the films of the 1930s, however, heartbalm was demonized to the point where it now appeared ridiculous, and in 1935, the law was rescinded in a number of states across the country, and effectively dead. As a protection available for young women, however, its absence led to an increase in unmarried women without any legal tool available to hold an absconding lover responsible for his unfulfilled commitments. Though the study ends with this observation, the 1935 arguments mark a complete reversal from the ideology expressed by nineteenth century lawmakers who enforced heartbalm and defended its existence, and as such, this study traces that reversal, and the accompanying changes in social expectations for courting couples as enacted on the pages of American literature and in early American films.
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Donawa, Margaret Wendy. "A rebel band of friends, understanding through women's narratives of friendship, identity, and moral agency." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 2000. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/ftp03/NQ45348.pdf.
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Kennedy, Catherine Ann. "The implementation of the Glasgow Women's Health Policy : a case-study of multi-agency working." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 1999. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/6162/.
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Multi-agency working as an approach to tackling complex and inter-related problems has increasingly been advocated in recent years in a variety of policy contexts. The research in this thesis concerns the development and implementation process of one such policy, the Glasgow Women's Health Policy. This Policy was developed by the Glasgow Healthy City Project Women's Health Working Group and is based on a social/holistic model of health. The research analyses, as a case study of multi-agency working, the process through which the Women's Health Policy was implemented, and identifies the enablers and barriers to that process. The research consists of a retrospective analysis of the implementation of the Women's Health Policy within the statutory partner organisation of the Glasgow Healthy City Project. Using a qualitative approach, the research involved three primary methods of data collection: semi-structured interviews, documentary analysis and observation. Fifty-seven interviews were conducted with a range of key informants from the statutory sector organisations, which provided the main source of data. The analysis identifies a range of action associated with the development and implementation of the Women's Health Policy by the Women's Health Working Group and statutory sector organisations. The implementation process of the Women's Health Policy was enabled by: the collaborative development of the Policy; the agency of key individuals with access to power; and the establishment of women's fora within the organisations. Barriers to the process included the marginalisation of both 'women's issues' within gendered organisations, and the social/holistic model of health in relation to the dominant biomedical paradigm prevailing within organisations. In addition a range of other impediments relating to organisational structures and cultures were identified as being common to all policy implementation.
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Mosedale, Sarah Louise. "Women's Empowerment in Development Theory and Practice : A Case Study of an International Development Agency." Thesis, University of Manchester, 2008. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.508506.
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Fernandez, Antonia. "The impact of women's agency on subjective wellbeing and household welfare : the case of Indonesia." Thesis, University of Reading, 2013. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.627940.
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The overall aim of my research is to understand the impact of women's agency on their own subjective wellbeing and the welfare of their households. To do this, I analyse secondary data in the form of the Indonesia Family Life Surveys. The questions I ask are: How does women's agency affect their subjective wellbeing? How does women's agency affect their household and their family? This research posits that agency, which enables a person to make choices and to pursue goals that he or she views as important, has both intrinsic and instrumental value. Agency in my research is measured through household decision-making, focusing on a range of household decisions and the extent to which women participate in type of decision. Social and gender norms can act as constraints on the extent to which women can exercise their agency so agency should not be assumed to have the same meaning for men and women. But why does empowering women and increasing women's agency matter? Agency is argued to have a direct, intrinsic value because having agency gives a person the freedom to self-determine. While this does increase subjective wellbeing, my results show that this is not a simple relationship as there is also a 'burden of responsibility' effect. This can offset the benefits to subjective wellbeing from agency under certain circumstances as not all decisions in a household carry the same weight. My results indicate that for decisions seen as more important (such savings), cooperation and shared responsibility is better for men's and women's subjective wellbeing. Women's agency is also hypothesised to have an impact on the welfare of their families. In this thesis, household welfare is captured using the proxy of household expenditure on education. My results show that women's agency can have a positive impact on education expenditure but also that cooperation between spouses is very important. When ethnicity is disaggregated I find that women's sole control over particular decisions can reduce household education expenditure. This emphasizes the importance of considering the intersection of gender and ethnicity. The on-going debate on women's empowerment and economic development has so far been focused on the instrumental value of women's agency but this can be a tenuous link. My research moves this debate forward by showing that agency has intrinsic value and a direct impact on women's wellbeing thereby providing an alternative justification for policy actions aimed at empowering women.
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Avery, Cathrine. "Talking back to Chandler and Spillane : gender and agency in women's hard-boiled detective fiction." Thesis, Birkbeck (University of London), 2017. http://bbktheses.da.ulcc.ac.uk/242/.
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This thesis examines the perceived incompatibility of incorporating feminist values into the hard-boiled detective novel. Critical responses to this crime form have argued that it endorses a formulaic, misogynistic violence. My argument is that this is a literature that offers women writers the means to express female agency and empowerment, through a genre that changes to fulfil current social needs. Through the work of Raymond Chandler and Micky Spillane I establish the model of the ‘tough guy’ detective as a product of the moment of writing, reflecting contemporaneous gender anxieties. Fundamental to this analysis is the concept of a ‘surrogate public history’, through which society promulgates mythological constructs to salve or remedy social unease. My proposition is that early hard-boiled texts contributed to a surrogate public history in which the mythology of the male detective was embraced as both desirable and necessary. Subsequently women crime writers of the 1980s and 1990s have adopted this gendered space, offering a powerful commentary on the condition of women through a surrogate public history that allows us to see how women are bound by a social contract that divides public and private spheres in gendered terms. Through a careful deployment of the detective’s voice, authors such as Linda Barnes, Sue Grafton and Sarah Dunant, examine social inequalities and question how femininity is defined. These authors are defined as ‘gestic’ writers, who by giving precedence to the minutiae of the everyday open up to inquiry the practices by which women’s lives are regulated. Additionally I examine the work of Val McDermid and Jenny Siler to consider what this extraordinarily mobile form can stretch to incorporate. Siler in particular reveals the capacity of the hard-boiled form to reject normative gender assumptions through a central investigative figure whose outlaw status challenges social expectations of femininity.
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Kauffman, Alicia Jane. "Agency and Empowerment in the Childbirth Process: The Effect of Medicalization on Women's Decision Making." Thesis, North Dakota State University, 2015. https://hdl.handle.net/10365/27873.
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Over the past decade, rates of caesarean section births and other interventions in
childbirth have increased substantially. With increased medicalization of childbirth, it is often
viewed as an illness requiring treatment rather than a natural process that women are equipped to
handle with little intervention in most cases. A qualitative study was completed that included
interviews with nine women participants who had previously given birth to at least one child.
The findings elaborate on how women navigated the medical structures of childbirth in order to
assert themselves as decision makers in the process, how they related to their bodies during
childbirth, and how they educated themselves about childbirth. Seven categories emerged, of
which two dominant areas, power of words and provider and nurse/doula relationships, affected
women?s empowerment in childbirth. A key finding is the way prenatal appointments were
structured and how they began the process of constraint experienced by women.
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Taylor, Reed W. "A Postcolonial Inquiry of Women's Political Agency in Aceh, Indonesia: Towards a Muslim Feminist Approach?" Diss., Virginia Tech, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/39190.
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In this dissertation, I develop a postcolonial theoretical approach to localized Muslim feminism(s) in Aceh, Indonesia, based on interviews with women in Aceh in 2009 and 2010. One of the central aims of this study is to challenge the dominant exclusivist discourse of â Islamicâ feminism by providing a viable alternative for â Muslimâ feminism(s), derived from collaborative, indigenous, and post-secular politics. I address the need for a religious feminist model of subjectivity that incorporates both the political and ethical dimensions of agency in potentially non-patriarchal and non-state-centric formations. I suggest a communal understanding of religious law as an alternative to conceptualizing religious law (syariah) in terms of a personal ethical code or a system of laws emanating from a state. I propose an alternative discourse of feminist agency and religious identity, one that reaches beyond a secular-liberal epistemology and challenges the hegemonic discourse of state-centrism within a privatized religious identity.Ph. D.
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Barthus, Tatum Terri. "Telling tales of identity: an interpretation of women's narratives." Thesis, University of the Western Cape, 2011. http://etd.uwc.ac.za/index.php?module=etd&action=viewtitle&id=gen8Srv25Nme4_1331_1365584189.
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This paper examines selected discourses found in the journals kept by 21 working-class women during a training course for domestic workers in South Africa. The principal aim of the paper is to examine how emotion, voice and agency are expressed through literacy practices such as writing. With critical discourse analysis, the existing literacy levels of these women are revealed as well as the way in which women express identity, agency and emotion through the act of writing and reflecting on their experiences. A secondary aim is to uncover those recurrent discourses and attitudes that either empower or disempower these women. This is done to showcase how women&rsquo
s perception of themselves and their opportunities help them become active or inactive agents in their communities and families. Contributions are made to the study of women&rsquo
s language and literacy practices, with particular investigation of how their identities are shaped and moulded by language use. Critical discourse analysis and narrative analysis are the main analytical tools used in the study, highlighting aspects like agency, voice and ideology. These aspects are examined through the lens of women&rsquo
s experiences.
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Bryant, Joanne. "Sex, subjectivity and agency a life history study of women's sexual relations and practices with men /." University of Sydney. Behavioural and Community Health Sciences, 2004. http://hdl.handle.net/2123/575.
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This study explores women’s experiences of sex with men. It is based on qualitative data collected from eighteen life history interviews. Such an approach provides means for examining women’s sexual experiences over time. The study finds that women give meaning to their sexual experiences through two main discursive representations: the passive, “proper” and sexually obliging girlfriend or wife, and the active and “sexually equal” woman. However, these representations do not capture the entirety of women’s sexual experiences. The life history analysis demonstrates that women are not simply inscribed by discourse. Rather, they are embodied beings actively engaged in pursuing sexual identities. Central to the process is a relationship between the practice of sex and self-reflexivity over time. Finally, the study demonstrates how the process of gaining sexual subjectivity is shaped by the material conditions of women’s lives. For instance, the praxeological circumstances of women’s class or race are powerful in recasting discourses of feminine sexuality, the meanings women ascribe to them, their access to broader sexual experiences, and the kinds of relationships they have with their male partners.
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Jeremiah, E. R. "Troubling maternity : mothering, agency and ethics in women's writing in German of the 1970s and 1980s." Thesis, Swansea University, 2001. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.637425.
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My thesis develops the idea of a 'maternal performativity', harnessing the work of Judith Butler and numerous other feminist theorists, to offer new ways of looking at 1970s and 1980s literary texts by ten German-speaking women writers. In my introduction, I outline previous feminist approaches to mothering, and argue that as yet, maternal agency has not been adequately theorized. The project of theorizing maternal agency is, I contend, vitally important, given the traditional view in Western culture of the mother as passive. Butler's notion of performativity can assist in his project, I suggest. I argue for the performative conception of both mothering and of literature, and link both of these to the issue of ethics, here understood as involving embodiment, relationality and discursive challenge. To different extents, all of the texts examined here depict mother as marginal, abject or insane, thus performatively demonstrating the cultural operations of exclusion, and the need for a maternal agency to be developed and enacted. I am, then, performatively reading these texts as performatively highlighting the need for a maternal performativity, as it is implicated and manifested the issues of, respectively, community, corporeality, the mother-child relationship, the family, and discursive production. In my conclusion, I look further at the question of a maternal writing and explore the ethics of literary reading and knowledge production. I suggest that in the light of the developing fields of new reproductive technologies and genetics, it is imperative that we develop new understanding of corporeality, community and care, a task to which my thesis aspires to contribute.
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Thompson, Elisabeth Morgan. "Young women's same-sex experiences under the "male gaze" : Listening for both objectification and sexual agency /." Diss., Digital Dissertations Database. Restricted to UC campuses, 2009. http://uclibs.org/PID/11984.
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Thomas, Christopher Scott. "Engendering environmental justice: women's rhetorical collaboration for a more just and sustainable world." Diss., University of Iowa, 2018. https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/6308.
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This dissertation examines how gender operates as agencies for women’s environmental justice activism. I contend that women’s activism, often taking place through collaborative and collective means, presents new opportunities to theorize rhetorical agency that include women-centric and leaderless forms of grassroots organizing. To this end, I explore various agencies for women’s collaborative environmental communication—motherhood, eco-spirituality, and political calls for recognition—that work to test the boundary conditions of rhetorical studies in ways that find empowerment and resistance in a collective rather than in any one particular person. In developing these accounts, I construct a framework that emphasizes the agentic capabilities possible through collaborative rhetorics of resistance—the communicative performances of defiance and empowerment put forth by groups of people that often result in the articulation of collective identities, the challenging of dominant structures and institutions of power, and work to inspire mutual critique and reflection in others. Theories of rhetorical agency assist in documenting and illuminating the ways speakers navigate discursive and material constraints as they bring their audience to action, but often do so by privileging the rhetoric of individual (male) speakers. By exploring collaborative rhetorics of resistance, this dissertation project tests the boundary conditions of rhetorical agency and generates a more comprehensive understanding of how loose networks of people enter into, take part in, and possibly redirect the course of environmental deliberations. This dissertation project is focused on the ways in which women rhetorically collaborate to craft collective subjectivities, protest environmental threats to their families and communities, and inspire mutual critique and reflection in others.
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Phillimore, Jennifer Ann. "Heterogeneity, choice and social agency : an ethnographic study of women working in Herefordshire's tourist attraction industry." Thesis, University of Birmingham, 1999. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.369154.
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Le, B. Khanh. "Capabilities, labor participation, and women's freedom a discourse on the relation between paid employment and female agency /." Diss., Connect to the thesis, 2005. http://hdl.handle.net/10066/718.
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