Browsing by Subject "women"

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A delightful inheritance: female agency and the Disputatio tradition in the Hortus deliciarum
(2009-08) Parker, Sarah C.; Holladay, Joan A.; Newman, Martha G., 1958-
The Hortus deliciarum (ca. 1170-ca. 1194, destroyed 1870) was an encyclopedic salvation history created for the canonesses at the Augustinian convent of Hohenburg by their abbess Herrad. Despite the strong role of images in the canonesses’ reception of the manuscript, the Hortus illuminations have thus far not merited a critical consideration. In this thesis, I analyze major individual illuminations in the Hortus as well as the manuscript’s entire structure, and I suggest that Herrad designed the Hortus around contemporary apocalyptic ideas, such as those of Joachim of Fiore, while also illustrating the importance of debate and discussion to the body Christian. The overall composition of the Hortus showed the canonesses that God has chosen to share his knowledge with them. In significant individual images, Herrad expressed that they were to exercise this divine knowledge through debate of theological principles. In the Hortus, debate was shown as originating with Christianity’s Jewish desert predecessors, and the canonesses were encouraged to consider themselves as heirs of this intellectual tradition. Debate appeared as endemic to Christianity and essential to the continued life and prosperity of the Church. In stressing the importance of intellectual activity, while also implying that the canonesses were part of the intellectual elect, the Hortus exerted power that transgressed the library walls and affected the ways the Hohenbourg canonesses performed their faith and understood their responsibility as Christians.
Effects of Higher Carbohydrate or Higher Protein Diets with Exercise on Individual Risk Factors of Metabolic Syndrome in Women
(2014-03-18) Lockard, Brittanie
The purpose of this analysis was to determine whether following a higher protein (HP) diet for 10-weeks promotes a reduction of MetS and the individual NCEP ATP III MetS risk factors better than a higher carbohydrate (HC) diet, when combined with an exercise program. 633 women (age 46.2?11.4 yrs, height 163?7 cm, weight 92.7?18 kg, BMI 34.8?6 kg/m^(2)) were assigned either a HP or HC diet in conjunction with 30 minutes of circuit-style exercise 3x/wk for 10-weeks. Participants consumed 1,425?355 kcal/day while the HP group (N=371) consumed 1.14?0.5, 1.41?0.7, and 0.63?0.3 g/kg/d CHO, PRO, fat and the HC group (N=292) consumed 0.78?0.3, 2.20?0.7, and 0.60?0.2 g/kg/d. Participants were retrospectively categorized as apparently healthy (N=377) or metabolic syndrome (?3 MetS risk factors, N=286). Body composition, anthropometrics, resting energy expenditure, lipid profiles, markers of glucose homeostasis, and fitness parameters were assessed at 0 and 10 weeks. Data were analyzed using ANOVA or MANOVA for repeated measures. The HP group experienced a greater decrease in scanned mass (HP -3.9?3.5, HC -3.0?3.5 kg, p=0.002), fat mass (HP-3.1?2.7, HC -2.4?2.8 kg, p=0.003), weight (HP -4.3?3.6, HC -3.2?3.4 kg, p<0.001), and body mass index (HP -1.6?1.3, HC -1.2?1.3 kg/m^(2), p<0.001), and tended to experience a greater decrease in waist circumference (HP -4.0?5.7, HC -3.2?5.7 cm, p=0.07). Individuals with MetS experienced greater decreases in weight (AH -3.6?3.4, MS -4.2?3.6 kg, p=0.054), body mass index (AH -1.3?1.3, MS -1.6?1.3 kg/m2, p=0.046), systolic blood pressure (AH -0.5?13.3, MS -5.9?16.0 mmHg, p<0.001), diastolic blood pressure (AH -0.4?8.9, MS -4.1?10.5 mmHg, p<0.001), triglycerides (AH -0.00?0.47, -0.23?0.73 mmol/L, p<0.001), and glucose (AH +0.01?0.73, MS -0.24?1.19 mmol/L, p=0.001) and a trend towards a greater decrease in scanned mass (AH -3.3?3.5, MS -3.8?3.5 kg, p=0.07) and lean mass (AH -0.56?2.0, MS -0.89?2.0 kg, p=0.07). Results indicate that participants following the HP diet experienced more favorable changes in body composition and triglyceride levels, and that participants with MetS have greater room for improving markers of health on a diet and exercise protocol.
From woman to chick: the rhetorical evolution of women in american film
(2009-05-15) Day, Danya Rhae
Throughout its history, the American film industry has produced films about women and for women, and three distinct phases may be identified within it: the ?woman?s film,? the ?new? woman?s film, and the ?chick flick.? I assert that the recurring themes and images within the films operate as a mythic framework that intuitively resonates with audiences. In this thesis, I argue that despite seeming progress, women in film remain constrained by traditional mythic archetypes. As mediated images influence the culture, archetypal images of women in film potentially further constrain women?s social progress. This study explores feminine mythic archetypes in films from each phase and demonstrates that first, the era of the woman?s film presents traditional archetypes such as the Mother and the Wife; second, representation becomes more progressive in the new woman?s film of the 1970s through the influence of the women?s movement; third, representations regressed in the chick flick with the onset of postfeminism in the late 1980s; and finally, through the rhetorical function of myth, the films serve a persuasive and explanatory function for audiences.
Gender differences in psychopathology examined under an expanded transactional theory of stress framework
(2009-05-15) Lee, Jillian April
Prevalence rates of many types of psychopathology are lower for men than they are for women, but the causes of these discrepancies are not known. This paper focuses on two such psychopathology groups ? eating disorders and depressive disorders ? and examines gender differences within a transactional theory of stress that takes into account levels of cognitive processing (an expanded transactional theory of stress). Both studies found that men are more physiologically reactive to disorder-relevant, stressful stimuli and stressful events. The study on depression also found that different cognitive processes may be depressogenic for men and women: deployment of attentional resources toward negative stimuli was associated with depression in men, while deployment of attentional resources away from positive stimuli was associated with depression in women. These findings have significant implications for choosing appropriate treatment options for men and women.
Looking for comfort: heroines, readers, and Jane Austen's novels
(Texas A&M University, 2007-04-25) Himes, Amanda E.
Comfort??????with its various connotations of physical ease, wealth, independence, and service??????is an important concept to Jane Austen, who uses comfort in her novels to both affirm and challenge accepted women??????s roles and status in her culture. In the late eighteenth century, new ideas of physical comfort emerged out of luxury along with a growing middle class, to become something both English people and foreigners identified with English culture. The perceived ability of the English to comfort well gave them a reason for national pride during a time of great anxieties about France??????s cultural and military might, and Austen participates in her culture??????s struggle to define itself against France. Austen??????s ??????comfort?????? is the term she frequently associates with women, home, and Englishness in her works. Austen??????s depiction of female protagonists engaged in the work of comforting solaces modern readers, who often long for the comfort, good manners, and leisure presented in the novels. Surveys of two sample groups, 139 members of the Jane Austen Society of North America and 40 members of the online Republic of Pemberley, elicit data confirming how current readers of Austen turn to her works for comfort during times of stress or depression. Although some readers describe using Austen??????s novels as a form of escapism, others view their reading as instructive for dealing with human failings, for gaining perspective on personal difficulties, and for stimulating their intellects. Austen??????s fiction grapples with disturbing possibilities, such as the liminal position of powerless single women at the mercy of the marriage market and fickle family wishes, as much as it provides comforting answers. Comforts (decent housing, love in marriage, social interaction) are such a powerful draw in Austen??????s works because women??????s discomfort is so visible, and for many, so likely. Thus, Austen??????s comfort challenges as much as it reassures her audience.
More than a pretty girl: resistance, community and group identity among female triathletes
(Texas A&M University, 2007-04-25) Cronan, Megan Kelly
This study examines women's use of leisure as politics, especially as related to leisure as resistance, leisure and social worlds, and women's body image. Interviews were conducted with fifteen participants and coaches in two all-women's triathlon training groups in Austin, Texas. Both training groups prepared women for participation in the Austin Danskin Triathlon. Qualitative methods, grounded theory and constant comparison guided the interviewing and data analysis process. It was determined that Danskin trainees formed a social world which allowed them to redefine their bodies and redefine the tenets of organized sport. This finding centered around three major areas: initial involvement, community building and resistance. Most participants became involved initially for social reasons even though they often were out of shape or had not previously participated in athletics. Several participants experienced barriers to involvement commonly discussed in gender leisure studies including weight issues, "ethic of care" concerns and fear of not deserving leisure time. During participation in their training programs, the majority of trainees formed a community with their fellow participants which provided them with a safe place and a support structure. As a result, many Austin Danskin triathlon trainees were able to communally resist cultural and societal norms surrounding women's bodies and competitive athletics. As a group, trainees redefined the way women should look and placed function above form. Furthermore, they reclaimed sport from the male norm and instead demanded that it go beyond bigger, better, faster or stronger and instead focus on community, support and teamwork. The results of this study urge leisure providers to create programs that appeal to the whole person - not just the physical. As a result of the data, several hypotheses may be suggested for future study: Do women's only recreation programs provide a crucial link between social world formation and leisure as resistance? What other programs may produce similar results and why?
Performing Women?s Speech in Early Modern Drama: Troubling Silence, Complicating Voice
(2012-10-19) Van Note, Beverly Marshall
This dissertation attempts to fill a void in early modern English drama studies by offering an in-depth, cross-gendered comparative study emphasizing representations of women?s discursive agency. Such an examination contributes to the continuing critical discussion regarding the nature and extent of women?s potential agency as speakers and writers in the period and also to recent attempts to integrate the few surviving dramas by women into the larger, male-dominated dramatic tradition. Because statements about the nature of women?s speech in the period were overwhelmingly male, I begin by establishing the richness and variety of women?s attitudes toward marriage and toward their speech relative to marriage through an examination of their first-person writings. A reassessment of the dominant paradigms of the shrew and the silent woman as presented in male-authored popular drama?including The Taming of the Shrew and Epicene?follows. Although these stereotypes are not without ambiguity, they nevertheless considerably flatten the contours of the historical patterns discernable in women?s lifewriting. As a result, female spectators may have experienced greater cognitive dissonance in reaction to the portrayals of women by boy actors. In spite of this, however, they may have borrowed freely from the occasional glimpses of newly emergent views of women readily available in the theater for their own everyday performances, as I argue in a discussion of The Shoemaker?s Holiday and The Roaring Girl. Close, cross-gendered comparison of two sets of similarly-themed plays follows: The Duchess of Malfi and The Tragedy of Mariam, and A Midsummer Night?s Dream and Love?s Victory. Here my examination reveals that the female writers? critique of prevailing gender norms is more thorough than the male writers? and that the emphasis on female characters? material bodies, particularly their voices, registers the female dramatists? dissatisfaction with the disfiguring representations of women on the maledominated professional stage. I end with a discussion of several plays by women?The Concealed Fancies, The Convent of Pleasure, and Bell in Campo?to illustrate the various revisions of marriage offered by each through their emphasis on gendered performance and, further, to suggest the importance of the woman writer?s contribution to the continuing dialectic about the nature of women and their speech.
Personal develoment and transformational outcomes for women earning an online degree
(2009-05-15) Weatherly, Martha Gail
This qualitative study was designed to investigate the changes that occurred in the lives of women as a result of earning a fully online master?s degree. Eighteen women were asked to describe why they chose to earn an online degree, what barriers they faced in trying to gain an education and advance professionally, how their lives changed as a result of earning the degree, and whether the outcomes met or surpassed their expectations. Constant comparative and narrative analysis of interview data revealed that women who overcame barriers and resistance to their pursuit of education experienced a range of benefits from earning the online degree. Benefits encompassed personal gains in self-confidence, respect, the strength to be a role model, and professional gains such as new career opportunities, connectedness in a professional community, and credibility among peers. Participants reported the online environment uniquely connected them to a more diverse group of peers, provided greater access to instructors and peers, offered highly valued anonymity, introduced them to a more engaged form of learning, and created a safe learning environment. Online learning emphasized students? writing, reflection, articulation, timely feedback from the facilitator, caring and respect for students, and effective communication. Participants shared that earning the degree had a ?domino effect? that led others to emulate their behavior, and some experienced relationship changes. Significantly, several of the women had a transformational learning experience that included: (1) an unexpected discovery leading to heightened personal awareness that resulted from the learning experience; (2) an openness to change and the process of becoming; (3) a willingness to overcome internal or external resistance in order to redefine self; and (4) a retrospective affirmation of altered personality and identity. Participants suggested women still face discrimination in their professional lives, making advanced degrees more critical for women. They recommended that institutions of higher education provide more advanced online degree programs for the benefit of women who have a variety of other demands placed on their lives as they strive to attain their personal and professional goals. Implications and recommendations for future research and policy changes are provided.
Public women: the representation of prostitutes in German Weimar films (1919-1933)
(2009-05-15) Hoban, Melissa Lee
This thesis explores the representation of prostitution in German Weimar films between 1919 and 1933. It theorizes that prostitutes are illustrated through characters who are public women. The women who step out of their homes to enter public, or who are somehow introduced to strangers without leaving their homes are public women. The public women in these films, as public women living in Germany, were in danger of being identified as prostitutes and becoming prostitutes. A woman?s public position made her vulnerable to the male sexualized gaze. The male sexualized gaze ultimately led to a woman?s prostitution. The thesis analyzes 4 films to demonstrate woman?s depiction as a prostitute. The first film, Nosferatu, depicts a seemingly virtuous woman whose husband begins to prostitute her, but ultimately she prostitutes herself in exchange for the service of a supernatural law. The film symbolically discusses social issues regarding prostitution, family life, and venereal disease. The second film, Metropolis, protects its public female character from the sexualized gaze with religion and motherhood at the beginning of the film. However, as the film progresses the main character, Maria, is unwillingly prostituted by the head of the society in exchange for a robot that looks like her. The robot employs the male sexualized gaze and her position as a prostitute to overturn society as a vagina dentata. The third and fourth films are The Blue Angel and Variety respectively. Both of these films depict women in public positions who use their sexuality for gain. These women prostitute themselves. They are not victims as Maria and Ellen are in the two previous films. The women in this chapter use their sexuality and prostitution as a way to attain agency. The women in these films I label as vagina dentata because they purposefully destroy men for their own gain. These women use public sexuality to find and engage their male prey as patrons before they emasculate them. The thesis views the women of Weimar films differently than other scholars have by making her the focus of the film and interpreting her public exposure as her gateway to prostitution.
Visibly Invisible: Uncovering Identity for African American Women at an Academically Selective University
(2013-07-31) Crear, Shelah Flowers
Using intersectionality as the theoretical framework, this study examined the identity development of African American women attending an academically selective university. Much of the extant literature on African American college women was either not identity focused or did not speak to the experiences of those students situated in these highly competitive academic environments. A qualitative research approach and case study analysis was utilized for this study. This included the use of photographs and photo-elicitation interviewing to actively engage the study?s participants in the process of sharing their identity development and to place their voice and how they make meaning of their complex identities as primary. Examining both their pre-college and in-college experiences, this study looked closely at the impact of family, peer groups, society, internal messages, and the academically selective university setting on the participants? identity development. While the women in the study enter college viewing identity as largely fixed, the collegiate context played an important role in facilitating their identity evolution. This study outlined the growth process as these participants shifted their understanding of identity from fixed to fluid or from invisible to visible. Implications for this research include the need for colleges and universities to better address the holistic needs of African American female students, especially at their identity intersections. Additional areas for research include reconceptualizing college student identity development to incorporate more holistic, intersectional elements as a means to supporting a student?s development more comprehensively.
?When You Want Something So Bad, You Can Always Do It:? Mexican Women Journeying from the GED to Community College Graduate in a Southwestern State
(2014-07-09) Russo, Renata Ferreira
The Hispanic population is the fastest growing population in the United States. Mexicans, who represent the largest Hispanic ethnicity, are also the most undereducated. Mexican women struggle between their roles as housewives and their desire to complete a higher education degree in order to improve their lives. The purpose of this study was to examine the internal (personal) and external (institutional) factors that influence female Mexican GED graduates? persistence in completing associate?s degrees at a community college in southeast Texas. A basic interpretive approach was employed to frame this study and to collect and analyze data. The sample consisted of twelve female Mexican GED graduates in their second year of postsecondary education. Additionally, two secondary sources were used to collect data for the study: interviews with two academic counselors from the institution, and institutional data showing student demographics. A thematic approach was utilized to analyze data from the audio-recorded and transcribed interviews. The findings revealed that the institution played a significant role in facilitating the female Mexican GED graduates? completion of their degrees. Supportive teachers, services such as counseling, and financial aid all had a strong impact on the participants? persistence. The findings also showed that pregnancies at an early age caused major setbacks in connection with their educational pursuits. Yet the participants also pointed out the support they received from parents and other family members. While many of the participants? parents did not themselves have high school diplomas, they had made education a priority for their daughters. A fourth finding suggests that the individual resilience of the participants played a significant role in their educational perseverance. The women in this study showed remarkable resilience in response to the many barriers they faced, overcoming these in order to remain in school through degree completion. The overall findings show that Mexican women who immigrate to the United States face significant obstacles with respect to earning their two-year college degrees. However, some of these women managed to complete their education by relying on supportive teachers, services, and family members. Most importantly, those who reached their educational goals showed great personal resilience and motivation to persist in order to provide a better life for themselves and their children.
Who are the bhadramahilā?
(2009-08) Pallardy, Jacqueline Lee; Minault, Gail, 1939-; Selby, Martha Ann
This thesis focuses on the identity of middle class Bengali Muslim women of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Historians identify bhadramahilā as members of the social class bhadralok and also use bhadramahilā as an analytic category. I use several authors’ work in order to show that there are two important but differing ideas about who the bhadramahilā were. The most common view is that bhadramahilā were upper caste Hindus who became the new class of English educated Bengalis via the introduction of the British education system. Others suggest that Muslims are also members of this class group, but either 1) do not include them in their studies on bhadralok or 2) have not proven that Muslims were in fact bhadramahilā. The question is, Should we consider middle class Muslim women to be bhadramahilā? Or, does the category bhadramahilā apply to Muslims? After examining women’s writings and the historical, economic, and socio-cultural conditions of the period, I suggest that Muslim women were indeed among the bhadramahilā, and that the category is a useful analytic tool for the study of educated middle class Bengali women, both Hindu and Muslim.
Writing Their Way In: The Dedicatory Epistles of Early Modern English Women Authors
(2013-04-30) Parker, Meghan Lee
This project explores how 17th-century English women writers used dedicatory epistles. The three case studies here represent different modes in which women writers interacted with readers: manuscript, print, and commercial print. By looking at their paratexts, we can see how, by employing common conventions of transmittal like gift exchanges, parental legacies to children, and patronage these women created spaces for themselves from which to speak as authors. Lucy Hutchinson?s two manuscript dedicatory epistles offer unique insight into the techniques one early modern English women writer utilized to contextualize, to justify, and ultimately to promote her texts to her readers. Hutchinson rewrote the Puritan cause collectively as a failed English utopia, ultimately cast down by the English rabble more concerned with material prosperity than with their souls? condition. Margaret Cavendish published in print under her own name from 1653 to 1671 when such an activity was contrary to female conduct norms. Cavendish frequently included several dedicatory epistles within a single book, each one using conventional language in an unconventional manner. She used many common social and literary conventions, such as the format of the letter and the language of patronage, in flamboyant ways to highlight her unique status and thus her right to participate in ?properly masculine? fields such as scientific commentary. Her epistles explored the limits of the ?work? introductory paratexts could accomplish. Because Aphra Behn?s livelihood depended upon her ability to appeal to the literate public generally and the upper classes in particular, her dedications are universally political. Situating her printed dedicatory epistles published between 1673 and 1689 within their original sociopolitical and historical milieu allows us to examine how Behn adapted her rhetoric, use of humor, political commentary, and patron choices throughout this period. Putting these three women?s works and their writing processes into conversation, I argue, provides an overview of the process early modern English women writers utilized to create and to secure a place for women in the literary marketplace as producers of viable commercial products. More broadly, this project explores of the tactics of early women writers as they began creating for women the possibility of possessing a national literary voice, rather than focusing solely each woman?s individual sociopolitical and literary negotiations.