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AN INQUIRY INTO DISCOURSE CHOICES AS INDICATORS OF GENDER ATTITUDES IN A NON-PROFIT CONSERVATIVE CHRISTIAN BUSINESS
Title
AN INQUIRY INTO DISCOURSE CHOICES AS INDICATORS OF GENDER ATTITUDES IN A NON-PROFIT CONSERVATIVE CHRISTIAN BUSINESS.
Creator
Kruger, Dawn, Marinara, Martha, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description
This paper is an inquiry into the discourse styles of men and women who work together in a conservative Protestant Christian business. Many conservative Protestant Christian churches teach that the Bible forbids women from holding positions of authority over men. Yet in the communications department of this particular business, women fill the top three management positions, supervising a mixed-gender staff of 15. Research has shown that men and women subconsciously use language markers that...
Show moreThis paper is an inquiry into the discourse styles of men and women who work together in a conservative Protestant Christian business. Many conservative Protestant Christian churches teach that the Bible forbids women from holding positions of authority over men. Yet in the communications department of this particular business, women fill the top three management positions, supervising a mixed-gender staff of 15. Research has shown that men and women subconsciously use language markers that indicate personal attitudes toward the same and the opposite genders. This research project draws on that information while it analyzes the oral and electronic discourse of the communications staff. The purpose of this study is to observe whether or not the traditional teachings of conservative Protestant Christian churches has influenced the attitudes of these men and women with regard to women in positions of authority over men in a Christian business. Two staff meetings and a lunchroom conversation were audio taped and transcribed to note oral discourse patterns. One hundred and eleven emails were examined to mark patterns of written discourse. This data was then evaluated against published research in the area of gendered discourse markers. The results indicate that two of the three women in leadership positions over men were comfortable with their positions of authority, but the third woman's discourse patterns showed signs of insecurity. Furthermore, the men in the department did not indicate signs that they seek to exercise power over women, nor did they show signs of difficulty in submitting to the authority of the women. The women staff members, however, showed definite indications of being insecure in a mixed group, and of being meekly subordinate to anyone in authority over them. These results, while helpful, are not definitive in that they do not account for the possibility of other influencing factors, such as personality types, job roles and expectations, age differences, or church teachings on meekness and submission to authority. However, the results of this research indicate that some conservative Christian men are ready for and able to embrace the concept of having women in positions of authority over them, even in a Christian environment, and a few conservative, Christian women are ready to step into those positions. Also from this research it could be concluded that, on the average, conservative women struggle more with the shift of authority than men do. More research would need to be done to address that question fully.
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Date Issued
2005
Identifier
CFE0000631, ucf:52852
Format
Document (PDF)
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0000631
Rhetoric of Imagery: Gendering Identity and Consumption Throughout Interwar American Advertisment
Title
Rhetoric of Imagery: Gendering Identity and Consumption Throughout Interwar American Advertisment.
Creator
Delgado, Natalie, Dandrow, Edward, Crepeau, Richard, French, Scot, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description
Interwar American advertising rose alongside new levels of hygiene, personal appearance, and technology in order to sell their products to target audiences. Despite the abundance of scholarship on media and gender, few studies have examined the gendered techniques through which interwar advertisers communicated with consumers in response to changing social norms and economic stability. The question this thesis explores is how these changes and communication shifted in response to consumer...
Show moreInterwar American advertising rose alongside new levels of hygiene, personal appearance, and technology in order to sell their products to target audiences. Despite the abundance of scholarship on media and gender, few studies have examined the gendered techniques through which interwar advertisers communicated with consumers in response to changing social norms and economic stability. The question this thesis explores is how these changes and communication shifted in response to consumer culture and how advertisers utilized early market research and persuasion techniques to target their audiences. Building on the studies of gender, consumption, and identity, this thesis examines the relationship between American advertisers and their targeted male and female consumers between 1920 and 1940. By exploring how admen and women within Madison Avenue's top advertising agencies utilized psychology and consumer feedback to develop a two-way communication with middle-classed consumers, this thesis draws from social, cultural, and gendered studies to understand how advertisers communicated with and tried to appeal to their target audiences. Utilizing both copy and imagery as sources of communication, this study examines every issue of the top circulating American magazines between 1920 and 1940 to explain how advertisers rose with early consumer behavioral psychology and new standards of sanitation and hygiene, how a growing consumer culture and American notion of identity and gender affected the selling of selfhood and personal beauty products, and how gendered media representations and persuasion techniques helped advertisers sell modernity and individuality to readers. This analysis surveys specific advertising campaigns before, during, and after the Stock Market Crash to follow shifts in appeals to masculinity and femininity in response to changing social norms. By delving into this intersection of gender, media, and identity, this study finds various nuances through which advertisers and their audiences communicated in and alongside a growing consumer culture.
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Date Issued
2017
Identifier
CFE0006870, ucf:51740
Format
Document (PDF)
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0006870