Abstract
This paper closely examines former First Ladies Eleanor Roosevelt and Barbara Bush. The similar backgrounds and passions of these two women are revealed through this in-depth comparison.

From the Paper
"Eleanor Roosevelt and Barbara Bush were two extraordinary former first ladies who helped to shape today's American society. Both of these women played active roles while they were First Ladies of the United States. Although these two women lived in different time periods and concentrated their abilities in different areas, both were influential in their own unique ways. A liberal Democrat, Eleanor Roosevelt was very active during her years in the political spotlight. While in the White House, Eleanor Roosevelt had many issues that were important to her, including concern for young people, the poor, the unemployed, and racial equality. She was also involved in the women's movement. After her years in the White House, Eleanor Roosevelt dedicated her time to humanitarian causes. A Republican, Barbara Bush was also active during her years in the political spotlight. Barbara Bush devoted her time to issues such as literacy and volunteerism. Before and during their times in the White House, these two women had many similarities as well as many differences, both lifestyle-wise and political-wise. Both were profoundly unique women who used their talents to take them far."

Tags:barbara, bush, eleanor, first, former, ladies, lady, president, roosevelt, volunteer, wives

Abstract
This paper examines the existential trends in the New York literally scene of the late seventies as exemplified in Richard Price's, "The Ladies Man". It also describes the character of Patrice Mersault in the "Stranger" by Albert Camus as an existentialist character.

From the Paper
"Richard Price emerged into the literary scene with his first novel in 1947, which was known as The Wanderers, an episodic account of the world of a teenage gang and social club during the early sixties. One of his many novels is the famous one "The Ladies Man", which appeared in the year 1978. The Ladies Man is a tale of sexual loneliness and anxiety with the main character being essentially an existentialist living in the city of New York. "

Tags:new, york, literature, richard, price, the, lady's, man, existentialist, character, albert, camus, stranger

Abstract
In Nan Enstad's "Ladies of Labor, Girls of Adventure", through their use of clothing, dime novels and movies, striking women workers in 1909 were developed and displayed their identities as workers, ladies, and Americans, areas, from which their cultural background, gender and economic status often barred them. The author points out that their identity, or what Enstad calls "working ladyhood", expressed a special form of radicalism and showed how consumer consumption can be a political statement. The paper reveals that the dime novels were not used as escapism, but instead as a means of bettering oneself, offering the readers narrative fantasies of social recognition, which allowed them to briefly bridge painful cultural contradictions.

From the Paper
"The women workers read books that offered them the ammunition needed to make their way in an upper class male environment. The role models in the novels were independent strong women whose resolve and self-sufficiency made them worthy of secret inheritances and allowed them to escape from dangerous situations on their own. The heroine in the book, normally an orphaned worker, learns that she is actually an heiress and marries a wealthy man. She is liberated from her father's control and can now battle personal challenges with male-like bravery and intelligence."

Tags:clothing, books, movies, identiy, radicalism

Abstract
This paper discusses how "The Ladies' Paradise" is a classic novel about the third industrial revolution involving retail. It looks at how in this French novel, Emile Zola redefines many things about shopping and retail for the reader. The writer contends that Zola scrutinizes three crucial forces in seduction, religion, and social mobility and that they are the central forces that shaped modern Western urban life and art at the time that Zola wrote the novel. The paper further looks at how Zola examines each one of these forces, putting them in close relation to the idea of retail and shopping.

From the Paper
"Religion is yet another critical force in The Ladies' Paradise. Zola transforms shopping into the newest religious conviction. In his highly striking metaphors, Zola uses language to compare shopping, or more directly the store, to a temple or a steeple. "Whilst the carpets and embroidered silks which decked the balustrades hung at her feet like processional banners attached to the rood-screen of a church. In the distance she could pick out the corners of the side-galleries, just as, from the eaves of a steeple, one can pick out the corners of neighboring streets from the black spots of passers-by as they move about" (Zola, The Ladies' Paradise, p. 253-254). In this quote, Zola is making a comparison between the aesthetics and decoration of the department store to that of a sanctuary in a church. He is also comparing what Madame Desforges is able to see in the store to what someone could see if standing atop the steeple of a church. "

Tags:retail, shopping

Abstract
This paper examines how Yoko Ogasawara's text "Office Ladies and Salaried Men: Power, Gender and Work in Japanese Companies" illustrates the profound gender division of labor in the Japanese workplace. It looks at how Yuko Ogasawara mourns that Japan remains one of the few nations where increases in female education do not translate into increased female levels of financial independence or power.

From the Paper
"By using such informal social power, the author suggests, the office ladies can have a tremendous influence upon the personal fortunes of particular men in the company. Also, the office ladies can affect the efficent functioning of the the company as a whole, as the sections of the company that women give priority to will usually become the most efficent sections of the company. The women also add an important perspective of the need for human relationships in what can be an inhuman corporate structure. The men cannot shun good manners, for if they do not keep the salary women, often known as "the girls," happy, their own fortunes and efficency within the company will likely suffer."

Tags:secretarial, corporation, law, discrimination, pink-ghetto

Abstract
The paper examines Elaine Abelson's "When Ladies Go a-Thieving" that addresses the phenomenon of middle class Victorian women who shoplifted in the late 1800s. The paper looks at Abelson's discussion on what caused this phenomenon and how society reacted. The paper includes a personal reflection on the book.

From the Paper
"Interestingly, most of the women caught shoplifting were middle-class women who could afford at least some of the items they stole. The author writes, "In a period of expanding possibilities for educated women, almost all the women in this sample were traditional housewives: home and family were their occupation" (Abelson 1992, 9). These were women who led busy and active lives, and enjoyed shopping, as well. Because these middle-class women were "respectable" in the eyes of society, when they were caught shoplifting, society had to find an acceptable reason for their behavior, and the idea of mental instability seemed to fit that bill. "

Tags:shoplifting, mental, instability, kleptomania

Abstract
This paper looks at the rise of the modern department store as depicted in Emile Zola's novel, "The Ladies Paradise." Zola uses the story to comment on the stereotyping of women. He demonstrates that stereotyping just leads to more of the same. The author comments on women's position in society in 19th century France, in order to illustrate how money cannot buy love and to show how shopping was one of the few ways that women could express their own individuality.

From the Paper
"We should remember that this book with its concluding message that while money can't buy love true love itself does remain a possibility. Zola's analysis of how women (and we must assume to some extent men) are drawn into a consumer culture that will in many ways steal their souls) by the very same marketing and merchandizing techniques that remain popular today, including product placement, loss leaders, incentives for impulse buying. Zola also demonstrates to us how these selling techniques are more and more tightly bound to stereotypical definitions of femininity that the store owner has collected in the previous volume of the series stereotypes that produce stereotypical behavior that produce stronger stereotypes that produce more stereotypical behavior, etc."

Tags:store, women, stereotype, gender, paris, nineteenth, century, europe, culture, femininity, society, individuality

Abstract
This paper explains that, with the character of Denise Baudau, a lowly worker, Emile Zola presents in "Ladies Paradise" a somewhat skewed vision of the struggle between the sexes with this protagonist ultimately obtaining her goal to marry the less than admirable but higher ranked Monsieur Mouret. The author points out that advertising in the days of this novel worked the same way as today: To create a need by implying that women have some defective quality and promising that their product will make them more beautiful. The paper relates that Zola observes that women come to equate the products with their sexuality with its sensual allure festering and growing until they become an addiction for the women that they must have the products at all costs.

From the Paper
"Consequently, a raging competition ensues and the ladies compete with each other for customers and the attention of Mouret. The shop girls are forced to dress in a certain way in order to be successful, which is by pleasing Mouret and garnering his attentions. If they can garner Mouret's attentions, a shop girl will have the great honor of exchanging sexual favors for the right to do as she pleases at the department store, as Clara Prunaire does. As long as the shop girl can keep Mouret pleased, she is protected from being sacked."

Tags:consumerism, addiction, shop-girl, sexual-favors, flattery

Abstract
The paper provides a critical analysis of Christine De Pisan?s medieval book, "Treasure of the City of Ladies". Originally composed in 1406. The author describes the emphasis of the book on the treatment, roles and lives of women throughout all classes in medieval society.

From the Paper
"By addressing all classes of females in society the text expresses that exploitation and oppression were not just conditions suffered by the peasant class. The author espouses consistent, redundant expressions of women's roles throughout all classes, demonstrating that feminine life was in constant comparison with the image of feminine perfection in medieval society, one of religious virtue and piety. "

Tags:etiquette, medieval, nobility, piety, virtue

Abstract
This paper reviews an excerpt from the book written by Christine D.E. Pisan called "The City of Ladies". The book tells us about the status of women back in the fourteenth century.