Browsing by Subject "women"

Female migration has been widely studied in Europe. Previous studies had found that migration is gendered, thus, the experience of migrants differs depending on issues such as gender, class and ethnicity along with career and familial relations. The position of the migrants in the post-migration time period is influenced by the recognition of their skills and the assessment of human capital they possess in the host society, which has a considerable effect on the position of immigrant women. Thus, I employ a feminist extension of Bourdieu’s forms of capital in migration studies as a theoretical framework to examine the position of immigrant women and to better understand their experience in a host society. In addition, I utilize the ideas of emotional capital to discuss the importance of studying caring practice, including everyday activities and the caring work done for other family members, and its interactions with the outside of the household, the local community and, possibly, with integration. My focus is on the position of immigrant woman in Finland, a country where the Nordic welfare regime, which is built on egalitarian practices, creates a paradox for immigrant integration, as national belonging is built on labour market participation and the idea of gender equality. I pay specific attention to the Cash for Care scheme in relation to high female labour participation and the choices of childcare provision. Thus, my intention is to explore immigrant women’s decision making on childcare, what kind of activities the women engage in while taking care of their child, and their progress in integration. My research questions are: 1) do immigrant women utilize caring practice in capital accumulation; and if so, how? and 2) how do they generate various forms of capital and transform them into other types of capital and, ultimately, into economic capital? The sub-questions include: how does the notion of national belonging related to labour market participation and gender equality in Finnish society intertwine with individuals’ decision making with regards to the process of capital accumulation and transformation? I employed a feminist standpoint to conduct 6 in-depth interviews using a narrative approach. The interviewees are all from outside of the European Union, are highly skilled, have at least one child whose age is under three years old, have experienced staying at home with a child and currently live in the Helsinki metropolitan area. I utilized thematic analysis to explore the experiences of the immigrant women. The results show the potential for immigrant women to be subjects of capital accumulation, as well as objects where their capital is utilized in supporting and enhancing the lives of other family members. First, the results establish the importance of a local and neighbouring context in capital accumulation in relation to how caring for a child goes beyond the household, and is linked to the generation of social and cultural capital. The choice on the length of stay with one’s child at home intertwines with the social and economic statuses of the interviewees, but remains primarily a matter of individual preference. Second, two of the cases demonstrate the transformation of accumulated capital into economic capital through caring for other members of the family, which works as a resource of emotional capital. At the same time, the position of these women is constrained by social and cultural barriers, as they lack appreciated capital, the most important of them being a sufficient knowledge of Finnish language and culture along with relevant social networks. The position of immigrant mothers can also be observed from an objective viewpoint: there are limitations on the women’s ability to accumulate capital for themselves due to them taking care of the child. However, at the same time, the women can engage in transmission of capital and enhancing their children’s capital development. This thesis shows that the caring work of mothers goes beyond the household, contributing to the generation of capital in their integration process as well as for their children. Caring practice in research demands further investigation to better understand the paths of immigrant women and, possibly, the involvement of their spouses in this practice, in order to improve the women’s social and economic positioning in Finnish society.

Fashion blogs are invention of the new millennia. Starting with something as simple as commenting on the outfit or a fashion event using this online medium, modern bloggers transformed it now into a successful business venture and a massive network for sharing ideas, tips and personal struggles with their followers. Thus, nowadays, a successful fashion blogger can be anything from a minor celebrity in the blogosphere, to a major international influencer in the fashion industry. Being personally fascinated by the way modern fashion bloggers run their blogs and manage to create a personal brand, I have decided to focus my research on creation of an online identity fashion bloggers go through whilst managing their personal blogs. Intentionally, or unintentionally personal fashion bloggers develop a certain type of writing and content creation that allows them to connect to many people. Fashion bloggers try to produce an idea that will guarantee them professional success. However, their personal background partially already set them up to be more connected to a certain group of people rather than the other. It is visible in their looks, ethnicity, lifestyle, personal interests and in opinions what type of people would be the majority of their followers. As a results, the network of followers that will be build by the blogger will determine what type of content she will be producing to attract even more readers. This is what will be discussed in this thesis: how fashion bloggers behave and what they primarily focus on in their blogs to keep up the online persona they are constructing.

The concern of healthiness reflects the Western idea of food and today's eating habits. Especially women have shown to be the pioneers of a healthy diet. The ideals of eating properly are also gendered. Women are assumed to eat less than men. In Finland, the nutritional recommendations for how to eat properly have excisted for many decades. However, recommendations for a healthy diet are not always followed. Food is not only a daily necessity but it is also a source of pleasure. People enjoy food and they want to bring joy to themselves and to their close ones with it. On weekends there is often more time to cook and enjoy food. The aim of this study is to find out which factors affect women's pleasure eating and how women take and describe this kind of eating. Furthermore, this study aims to find out what kinds of delicacies women enjoy during their Friday nights. The data for this study is from the Finnish Literature Society's Folklore archives Ruokapäiväkirjakeruu Mitä söin tänään? 12 April 2013. The method of this study is qualitative, and the method of analysis is data-driven content analysis. The basis for this study is oral history, and the texts written by women represent narrative style. 42 women from the data form the research group for this study. (n=42) The study showed that the women's perceptions of pleasure eating were contradictory. Pleasure eating was seen as the counterbalance of normal food and it was generally considered unhealthy. Pleasure eating was perceived more positively when the person's diet in general was healthy. On Fridays pleasure eating was more allowed than on other weekdays. Out of all the delicacies the women were eating, chocolate and cheeses were the most popular. Overall the women tried to follow a healthy diet despite the pleasure eating.

In my thesis, I study how two women’s deteriorating mental health is portrayed through an unreliable narrator and how these women’s mental stability is reflected in the degree of unreliability in their narration. The aim of this thesis is to study if a homodiegetic narrator’s unreliability can reflect their underlying issues with mental health, which may not always be noticed without a detailed character analysis. To study this topic, I have chosen two stories with unreliable female narrators who have occasionally been labelled as mad women due to their unreliability but are actually suffering mentally. These two stories are Henry James’s novella The Turn of the Screw (1898) and Shirley Jackson’s novel The Haunting of Hill House (1959). To study this topic, I use narrative theory to analyse the two unreliable narrators and to discover the reasons behind their unreliability. By using the narrative theory, I am able to define the type of unreliable narrators these two women are as well as to show how the unreliability of the narration is evident in the text. To support my argument that these women are unreliable, because of their mental instability, I will show that reasons why they have become mentally unstable can be found from the texts. The study was done by using the method of close reading. My study shows that the mental health of both women in these stories has started to deteriorate. The governess is stressed about her job as a governess, and because of her stress, she starts seeing ghosts who are after the children for whom she is responsible. Eleanor Vance, on the other hand, is mentally unstable because of her long-term trauma, which has affected her personality. My study shows how the narrators of The Turn of the Screw and The Haunting of Hill House are unreliable because their mental health is affected by something that makes them imagine hauntings that may not actually be occurring.

The thesis examines the implementation of the UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security in a conflict context in Ukraine. The theoretical standpoint is critical feminism. The aim has been to understand how the implementation of the resolution as part of international law works in the context of war, what kind of security needs have been voiced by Ukrainian women, and to what extend the national implementation of the 1325 agenda has been able to bring transformative, structural change to the lives of Ukrainian women in midst of war. The thesis finds that the two Ukrainian National Action Plans on Women, Peace and Security (for years 2016–2020 and 2020–2025) has focused heavily on military security, despite the plans themselves covering the agenda comprehensively. Women’s meaningful participation to peacebuilding has been side-lined, efforts to ensure protection and human rights have brought only limited results, and development has been negative in the area of economic security. Greatest progress has been seen in military security, which has led to the militarisation of the agenda. Thanks to international support, Ukraine’s action plans are technically high-level, but their implementation on national, regional, as well as local levels has suffered from the lack of coordination, resources, and technical capacities. Political will is heavily linked to Ukraine’s Western integration. Nevertheless, Ukrainian women have considered the National Action Plans as important tools for advocacy. The possibility for transformative change cannot be overlooked from the outside, yet lasting change requires continuous work. Finland can utilise lessons learned in Ukraine in its support for the agenda’s implementation internationally.