Careerism and capitalism as women’s emancipation: a critical analysis of Rand Merchant Bank’s ‘Athena Programme', South Africa

Against the backdrop of debates on feminism and neo– liberalism, this thesis presents a critical analysis of Rand Merchant Bank’s (RMB) Athena programme in South Africa – an award– winning programme run by women, which aims to develop women as senior managers – and of the type of feminism it represents, using a Marxist feminist theoretical framework. Rand Merchant Bank’s is one of the largest investment banks in Africa, part of the giant First Rand Group (FRG) alongside First National Bank (FNB) group. The thesis, based on a detailed case study using qualitative methods, argues that Athena is a very much product of its time: it advances the argument that if more women were in position of power, women in general would be free, and it views the problem of women’s oppression with an individualist lens, which focuses on attitudes and confidence. Athena, like many initiatives of the neo– liberal era, such as Sandberg’s Lean– In philosophy and the Nike Foundation’s ‘Girl Effect’ promote individual understanding and emancipation of women, which sees emancipation in terms of creating a neo– liberal subject that operates more effectively within a capitalist framework, sees capitalism as the solution – rather than the cause – of women’s unequal circumstance and ignores structural issues like class. In effect, Athena argues that the free market and big corporations are neutral tools that can answer the question of women equality, if only women had the correct attitudes, and so long as corporate hierarchies and profits are accepted as fair, and women are seen as an untapped resource that can be used in a ‘smart economics.’ What all these initiatives have in common is shifting the burden and responsibility to women without proper interrogation of the systems that perpetuate inequalities, and a trickle– down theory, according to which more women capitalists and more women in the ruling class will empower the women in the working class

California\u27s Database Breach Notification Security Act: The First State Breah Notification Law Is Is Not Yet A Suitable Template For National Identity Theft Legislation

Attacks on poorly-secured information systems containing personal information are nearing epidemic proportion. Hardly a month passes without a news story regarding a security breach that exposed hundreds or thousands of data subjects’ personal information. As dependence on e-Commerce continues to expand, personal information stolen from poorly secured systems is becoming a multi-billion-dollar industry

Country and city: a study of autobiographical tropes in Ncumisa Vapi's novel Litshona limpume

Includes bibliographical references.The title of this thesis, Country and City - Autobiographical tropes in Ncumisa Vapi's Litshona Liphume arises out of a complex understanding of the author's narrative and literary intentions. Country refers to the fact that the story is set in a specifically named rural area in the Eastern Cape in the late 1960s and early 1970s. City on the other hand does not refer to any particular city, but is rather a symbol of changed and challenge, of opportunity and wealth but also of a world view deficient in tradition and spiritual connection with the land and the ancestors

Mercury of the Waves: Modern Cryptology and U.S. Literature

Mercury of the Waves: Modern Cryptology and U.S. LiteratureHenry VeggianUniversity of Pittsburgh, 2005The doctoral dissertation examines United States literary and institutional history during the period 1900-1973. The study demonstrates how cryptology was detached from its philological residence over three phases (the amateur, institutional, and professional). In the amateur phase, which was regionally specific to the Midwest, the science was characterized by social reformist debate. In the second, institutional phase, the amateur version of cryptology was institutionalized by the United States federal government following WWI to imitate a specific institutional model (that of the French Bureau du Chiffre). During the third, professional phase, the prior two were enhanced during the interwar period by linguists, mechanical engineers, literary modernists, and cryptologists. Running parallel to this narrative is a modern American literary genealogy that, beginning with Henry Adams and extending through Thomas Pynchon, engaged cryptology during that same era. The dissertation locates their discourse within Vichian humanism, and in doing so it first explains how modern literature (and the American novel in particular), its practices, and institutions contributed discursive rhetoric, hermeneutical methods, and institutional models to the emergent 20th century U.S. security state; secondly, it argues that a particular genealogical style that spans the writings of Henry Adams, T.S. Eliot, William Faulkner, Raymond Chandler, and Thomas Pynchon elaborated an diverse rhetorical discourse by which to respond to that assemblage of new institutional entities, and without which that assemblage would be incoherent