Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Having A Known, Trusted Support Person During Labour And Birth: Perceptions Of Indonesian (Javanese) Women, Their Support Persons And Midwives, Natalia

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Childbirth is a life changing experience for women, yet most women feel anxious with regard to this event. Research has shown that support from family or friends can help to reduce anxiety intrapartum, however, the standard procedure at most maternity centres in Indonesia is to not allow any person in the birthing room except midwives.

This study investigated the impact of the presence of a support person on the anxiety of women giving birth in Surabaya, Indonesia. The originality of this study is in trying to understand the whole picture about support during labour and childbirth by listening to women, …

Young Heterosexual Women's Negotiations Of Sexual Consent Within Casual Encounters And Intimate Relationships, Melissa Burkett

Theses : Honours

This thesis examines young heterosexual women's negotiations of sexual consent in their casual sexual encounters and intimate sexual relationships with men, and their perceptions and understandings of consent and sexual violence with regard to these different sexual contexts. It explores the nature of young women's negotiations of sexual consent with the intention of facilitating a deeper understanding of the issue of women's consensual engagement in unwanted, pressured and coerced sexual activity. This thesis fills a void in the qualitative research literature on how consent is actually negotiated in everyday (hetero) sexual encounters through analysing the interviews of eight young women …

Loss, Gain, Survival: Women In Bangladesh, Caitlin Harrison

Theses : Honours

This dissertation explores the changing public and private paradigms of Bangladeshi women in a modernising society, and investigates the aspects of modernisation that are driving such change. It argues that there is a rising level of violence against women, as traditional patriarchal paradigms meet modernisation and the Western hegemony. While modernisation has been instrumental in encouraging the integration of women into the public sphere, the Western assumption that modernisation will increase women's empowerment in an incremental manner ignores the new issues and tensions that modernisation creates. ·In both the public and private spheres, women's empowerment in Bangladesh is a constant …

A New Age Of Goddess Worship In New Wave Feminism : Witch Way Forward? : A Qualitative Study, Joanne Kostopoulos-Riganello

Theses : Honours

This research investigates the question: Are women who are currently engaged in a Goddess religion, such as Wicca, practising a new wave of feminism, one that has its roots in a uniquely female order? This is grounded in a qualitative interpretive paradigm, using a feminist poststructuralist methodology. A comprehensive literature review was undertaken, drawing on relevant material from the areas related to the topics of the Goddess, feminism, thealogy, witches and Wicca. Five High Priestesses of Wicca were interviewed using one-on-one unstructured interview techniques. All five interviews were guided by open-ended questions focussed on participants' experiences and perceptions of Goddess …

Women's Magazine Editors: Story Tellers And Their Cultural Role, Kathryn Davies

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This is an ethnographic study of contemporary Australian women's magazine editors and their perceptions about their role and function within their workplaces, and, as creators of media products, within culture itself.

Lost Wisdom: An Exploration Of The Experiences Of Women Who Chose To Birth At Home, Lee-Anne Raeside

Theses : Honours

Childbirth literature was explored firstly to gain a historical understanding of childbirth practices over the last century and secondly to explore the influences that determine a woman's birth choice. A shift from midwife-based care to medical-based care has resulted in the majority of births occurring in hospital. This shift has promoted the perspective that childbirth is a risky pathological event to be feared. However, professional perspectives of childbirth vary from birth being seen as a natural and challenging process to birth as a risky event that requires medical intervention. Women's perspectives are shaped by both professional perspectives and a natural …

Between The Red Tent And The Red Haze : Representations Of Perimenopause, Sheena Maureen Mcchlery

Theses : Honours

Perimenopause is a relatively new word in our language. It is found in a variety of texts, from medical literature to popular literature and the Internet. In this thesis, I explore some current representations of perimenopause. To do so, I utilise feminist analyses of representations of premenstrual syndrome and menopause. A feminist theoretical framework guides my methodology and organisation and interpretation of data. My methodology includes an extensive literature review of feminist theorising around premenstrual syndrome and menopause, as well as discourse analysis of textual representations of perimenopause and the use of a reflexive journal as a 'perimenopausal' woman. My …

The Unpopular Practice: Being Feminist In An Anti-Feminist Age, Brooke Zeligman

Theses : Honours

The position being explored within this dissertation is that feminism has been deemed 'passe' within contemporary western popular culture. The research wishes to counteract this overriding negative impression of feminism, which extends through from popular culture, into the institutions of academia, and beyond, into the gallery context. Female artists are often subjected to gender based readings of their artwork such as 'feminine' or 'feminist', which serve as a way of dismissing the importance of their work. Labelling work feminine involves similar implications as work labelled feminist - both can be seen as negative, which in turn can render the work …

Uncovering The Connections Between The Concepts Of Language, Sexual Difference And The Divine In The Work Of Luce Irigaray, Ajasta Vargas

Theses : Honours

No abstract provided.

Claremont Cameos, Bruce Haynes

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

Hunt, L. and Trotman, J. (2002) Claremont cameos : women teachers and the building of social capital in Australia. Churchlands, Edith Cowan University.

Un Voyage Vers Une Photographie Feminine: The Gender Politics Of Body And Space, Panizza Ruth Allmark

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

In 1999 I embarked on a photographic journey to various cities around the world. The photographs produced are the results of my critical attention as a woman and a feminist to the issues concerning gender, travel and landscape aesthetics. This dissertation is an analysis of my documentary photographs. I am interested in ways in which my photographs correspond with the French feminist theories of Helene Cixous and Lucy Irigaray on ecriture feminine. Their work on the politics of the body has been influential in my journey towards a photographie feminine. 'Moreover, I also incorporate the feminist work of …

Women In Leadership Commemorative Issue: Selected Conference Papers 1998-2000, Adrianne Kinnear, Lelia Green

Research outputs pre 2011

Includes:

1998 Women as Leaders: A Global Challenge

1999 Looking at our Future: Listening to the Past

2000 Keeping Gender on the Agenda

How Do You Do Your Rage? : A Qualitative Investigation Into Contemporary Women's Experience Of Their Rage, Verena Homberger

Theses : Honours

Feminist researchers investigate women’s lives. This project is looking at a tiny thread embedded in a small section in the huge fabric of women's lives. The section is women’s capacity for violence, and the thread within it is women’s rage. This is a qualitative study of contemporary women experiencing and expressing their anger and rage. Discussions of violence within feminist literature have been largely restricted to accounts of male violence against women and children, and may have inadvertently endorsed the mainstream construction of femininity, which perceives rage in women to be an inappropriate emotion. In this project, I argue that …

Women On The Move: A Qualitative Study Of Relocation To A Remote Area, Ann Jones

Theses : Honours

This study uses a feminist framework to explore women's experiences of relocating from a city or large regional centre to a small and isolated town. It comes in response to my personal and professional experience of remote relocation and to the dearth of feminist discussion in this area. The site of the study is a town of 2,500 people, situated in Northern Australia over 1200 kilometres from the nearest capital city and 800 kilometres from the nearest regional centre. Six women who relocated within the previous 18 months participated in the study. Two of the women were single and four …

Fostering Flowers: Women, Landscape And The Psychodynamics Of Gender In 19th Century Australia, Pamela Hodge

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

It is said that when the Sphinx was carved into the bedrock of Egypt it had the head as well as the body of Sekhmet lioness Goddess who presided over the rise and fall of the Nile, and that only much later was the head recarved to resemble a male pharaoh. Simon Schama considered the 'making over' of Mount Rushmore to resemble America's Founding Fathers constituted 'the ultimate colonisation of nature by culture … a distinctly masculine obsession (expressing) physicality, materiality and empirical externality,… a rhetoric of humanity's uncontested possession of nature. It would be comforting to think that, although …

Women And Leadership Working Paper Series: Paper No. 12: Career Barriers And The Older Woman Manager, Leonie V. Still, Wendy Timms

Research outputs pre 2011

The removal of the age retirement barrier has led to expectations that more and more older workers will remain in the workforce past the usual retirement age of 65. Women make up an increasing proportion of older workers, and Patrickson and Hartmann ( 1996) have shown that Australian women are planning not to retire in order to improve their retirement income.

An important section of the older workers group are the managerial and professional women, aged in their 50s, who are part of the first generation of women to have long-term careers like men i.e. full-time careers extending over 25 …

Women And Leadership Working Paper Series: Paper No. 11: The Employment Status Of Women In The Australian Finance Industry, Leonie V. Still

Research outputs pre 2011

The finance industry is the seventh largest employer of women in Australia !Australian Bureau of Statistics, Labour Force Australia, 1996, p46). Yet despite its importance to women as a source of employment, no major review of the general overall employment status of women in the industry has occurred. Instead, research has concentrated on particular aspects of the sector - for example, part-time employment in banking !Alexander & Frank, 1990; Manning, 1990; Britt, 1995; Junor, Barlow & Patterson, 1993, 1994)...

Empowered Narratives : Drama Praxis And The Archetype As A Means To Authentic Voice For Women, Beryl Chalk

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This thesis contests the status of gender as a social construct by considering how women develop a personal ethnography when engaging in drama and expressive arts practices. There is no known research on drama praxis as a signifier to Australian women's identity, a major focus of this work will be, 'Who has the authority over women's expression and means of expression? Who has the authority to interpret the experience? Who has authority over other people's experience?' This thesis addresses the internalised- oppression which refers to the process by which women internalise the 'fictionalised' reality prescribed to them as women marked …

Women And Leadership Working Paper Series: Paper No. 4: Women As Leaders, Leonie V. Still

Research outputs pre 2011

Leadership is a term that is not normally associated with women. This is despite the fact that throughout history women have often played a prominent role. Those that have gained prominence have done so in four main ways (Apfelbaum and Hadley, 1986):

• through charismatic leadership: the unique example being Joan of Arc.

• through inherited leadership positions: examples include the women who become heads of family businesses or queens by succeeding to monarchs.

• through the achievement of professional eminence: women who become leading figures in their disciplines because of their professional and / or scientific achievements - examples …

Women And Leadership Working Paper Series: Paper No. 7: Gender Issues In Management Education: Redressing The Imbalance, Catherine R. Smith, Barbara Vitoria

Research outputs pre 2011

In 1992 the Federal government appointed an Industry Task Force on Leadership and Management Skills !hereinafter referred to as the Task Force) to review Australia's management and leadership capabilities, and advise on measures to strengthen management practices, in an effort to improve economic performance. An international leadership expert advising the Task Force alleged that 'corporate Australia's Achilles' heel' is its all-male monoculture, whose 'rugby-serum mentality' makes boardroom entry difficult for women, and non-traditional men who do not fit the stereotypically masculine image IMant, 1994:3). Mant emphasised that, because new ideas result from diversity, Australian management culture needs to embrace a …

Women And Leadership Working Paper Series: Paper No. 8: Career Transitions Of Dual-Career Couples: An Empirical Study, Catherine R. Smith

Research outputs pre 2011

No abstract provided.

Women And Leadership Working Paper Series: Paper No. 6: Women In International Assignments: The Australian Experience, Catherine R. Smith, Leonie V. Still

Research outputs pre 2011

Businesses are increasingly operating within an international environment, where the human and financial costs of failure are more serious than the domestic arena, and expatriate failure is reported to be a persistent and recurring problem for multinational corporations (Scullion, 1994). The successful implementation of global strategies depends heavily upon the existence of an adequate pool of nationally and internationally experienced managers with a diversity of talent. Adler ( 1993a, p55) has argued that "the option of limiting international management to one gender is an arm-chair 'luxury' that no company can afford". Given the need to develop global teams with a …

Women And Leadership Working Paper Series: Paper No. 9: The Dual-Career Phenomenon: Employer Awareness And Responses, Catherine R. Smith

Research outputs pre 2011

Over the past thirty years, Western industrialised nations have witnessed major changes in their labour force characteristics. Of particular significance has been the steady increase of women in the paid workforce. Equal employment opportunity legislation, higher educational achievements and increasing numbers of female role models have fuelled women's career possibilities and aspirations. Consequently, growing numbers of women are pursuing longer-term careers, often through the ranks of management. A career implies a longer term developmental occupation or profession, with a sequence of connections and networks over time, although this does not preclude lateral or downward moves or temporary withdrawals, in response …

Women In Leadership Project: Research Register, Linley Lord, Leanne Burton

Research outputs pre 2011

No abstract provided.

Samurai Of Gentle Power : An Exploration Of Aikido In The Lives Of Women Aikidoka, Katie Noad

Theses : Honours

This exploratory study of women's experience of the martial art of aikido comes as a response to the paucity of texts on women in the martial arts. My 16-year involvement with aikido and my studies in the field of Leisure Science have led me to explore the apparent contradiction between the traditionally masculine domain of martial arts and prescribed female/feminine behaviour. As a feminist researcher and as an aikido participant I acknowledge a close connection with my topic and hence the subjective nature of this study. I am not trying to produce an absolute truth, but present some of the …

Women And Leadership Working Paper Series: Paper No. 2: Managerial Women And Enterprise Bargaining, Leonie V. Still, Denis Mortimer

Research outputs pre 2011

No abstract provided.

Women And Leadership Working Paper Series: Paper No. 1: Self-Employed Women: Four Years On, Leonie V. Still, Bill Chia

Research outputs pre 2011

Entrepreneurial or self-employed women are a growing component of the workforce worldwide. Australian statistics reveal that women are establishing their own businesses (in particular in self-employment) at a approximately twice the rate of men. In 1991-92 more than one million (41 per cent) of the 2.6 million people working in small business were women. Less than one third of these were self-employed or employers, while women accounted for 46 per cent of small business employees (Employment and Skills Formation Council, 1994)...

Women In Leadership Project 1994: Public Lecture Series, Pauline Carroll (Ed.)

Research outputs pre 2011

No abstract provided.

Women In Leadership National Conference 1992: Women, Communication And Power, Margaret Butterworth (Ed.)

Research outputs pre 2011

Victorian feminist lawyer and social activist, Dr. Jocelynne Scutt, confronted the issue of women and power by drawing upon a powerful reading of stories from women. These stories, drawn from ordinary and not so ordinary women, showed the barriers that face women as they attempt to deal with a daily reality infused with masculine power, violence, fright, shame, and self-realization. She spoke poignantly of a world that is all to familiar to women; women whose capacities have been curbed sharply by a common theme in their lives: domination and coercion...