Women’s Popular Cinema in Greece: the case of Olga Malea

This thesis examines the film comedies directed by Olga Malea and released between 1997 and 2007 in Greece, in order to make a claim for the study of women’s popular cinema in Greece and beyond. Women’s popular cinema refers to films which are thematically associated with women’s cinema while operating in popular forms, such as genre. Olga Malea and her work make for a useful case study, in that they encapsulate the relationship between these two broad categories of women’s cinema and popular cinema. In addition, this thesis claims that the two categories inflect one another in interesting ways, and their intersections act as a productive framework for the analysis of women’s cinema as popular cinema, effecting a popularisation of usually marginalised themes. The introduction to this work primarily outlines the theoretical frameworks for the argument that follows, namely: women’s cinema and feminist theory; discussions around popular cinema; and considerations about authorship. The concept of national film cultures and its possible meaning in relation to Greece is also alluded to as a contextual factor. Each subsequent chapter advances the argument for women’s popular cinema through close textual analysis of the films in chronological order of their release. In particular, the analysis identifies recurrent strands and motifs in the director’s oeuvre, such as tensions between tradition and modernity, and the pervasive nature of patriarchy in informing national gender discourses. Having established the argument that women’s popular cinema is productive in popularising women’s cinema itself, the thesis concludes that, in the work of Olga Malea, its themes are conceived of, represented and perceived as prominent in the country during the period examined – and one can finally address women’s cinema as popular.

Liushou women’s happiness and its influencing factors in rural China

The economic development of urban cities in China has attracted a large number of labour from the rural countryside. The married migrant workers will usually leave their wives’ homes to look after the other family members and the farmland. A special term liushou women, has been created for this group of women. Among the 87 million rural residents, 47 million of them are liushou women according to the recent survey conducted by China Agricultural University. They play a crucial role in the development of rural economy and an essential role to the social stability of rural China. In this research, the factors that influence the happiness of liushou women were investigated in the Western part of China. Based on the population investigated, it was found that the financial situation, personality, government efficiency, conjugal relationship and relationship with in-laws are the significant factors influencing the happiness of liushou women. This finding demonstrates that the Chinese women are willing to sacrifice their personal interest for the interests of their families.

Like mother, like daughter? Analyzing maternal influences upon women’s entrepreneurial propensity

Within the phenomenon of entrepreneurship, the extant literature suggests that the normative actor is embodied by and through stereotypical masculinized characteristics. In this paper,we contextualize entrepreneurship as self-employment in order to explore how such stereotypical characterizations might influence women’s attitudes toward this activity. However, rather than analyzing the confirmatory effects of stereotypes, we critically evaluate the effect of counterstereotypical characterizations upon women’s propensity for self-employment. Drawing upon life-span data, we explore whether self-employed mothers disconfirm masculinized stereotypes and so act as positive role models for their daughters.As hypothesized, we found that maternal self-employment has a counterstereotypical effect and so positively influences daughters to become self-employed. These data indicate, however, that this effect is tempered by personal stereotypes held by daughters; moreover, it is shaped by significant life events (marriage, parenthood, education, and prior managerial experience). By using a robust data set, this paper contributes to our understanding of how stereotypes and role expectations influence women’s propensity toward entrepreneurial activity.