Dissertation Ideas - Politics and Gender

[argumentativefeminist]

Hoping some of you lovely people can give me some ideas/starting points for my upcoming dissertation. Throw anything you've got at me, it's all useful!

My degree is combined gender studies, media and politics - but the dissertation needs to be mostly politics based rather than media. Anything about feminism or women and politics will be great, just struggling to think about what could be good but also interesting and exciting.

Gender discrimination in online "pay-per task" work - Amazon Mechanical Turk etc? I don't know much about it TBH, and you may struggle to collect evidence - but I understand that the gender pay gap is showing up in new "online" work, just as it always has been in the "real world", which is fascinating, especially as it is not regulated (and probably not susceptible to regulation). There is a good book - "Humans as a service" by Jeremias Prassi you could look at - about this work in general, not necessarily just gender. Maybe you could find some task workers to interview and find out how they organise their day, bid for work etc etc, whether the platform knows their gender etc

&language used in media (including ahem Trump!) in twitter & elsewhere in election (dare I say Guardian as a source!) the issue in Australia recently - hmm- current language pc not acceptable becoming acceptable again?) think about chapter plan ie what you going to discuss in each chapter, you will find dissertation starts to shape itself. Don't worry your supervisor will advise you how to do this :)

did you know the house of lords (!) website has an information office with phone number! They are very helpful!

mums Excited to hear about the HoL information office! I was happy to hear today that all of Hansard from the 1800s to today will finally be in one searchable place! I love Hansard 😍

That's so interesting Figment - definitely would never have known that otherwise, so thank you.

House of Commons Library has loads of publicly available synopses of stuff too.

Pity you've not bothered to engage with the feminist boards though...

Thank you Titchy, I'll definitely check those out. I agree it's a pity, but for now I just dont feel capable.

www.parliament.uk/business/lords/ have a wander round the site!

re fatherbuzz about picking time frame you can always add current situations as an addenda in your conclusion regarding further investigations

OP, my advice would be to wait until you start the course before picking a topic. You'll find ideas from the reading you are given. Masters dissertations require you to react to, and critique, literature in the field to show your own analysis. It can often be easier to do this if you find a topic where there are competing ideas in the scholarship. Also, pick a topic that matches the expertise of a (available and supportive) member of staff so you have a viable supervisor.

Good advice up thread about having a focused topic. Students almost always try to do too much. So eg the representation of female politicians is too broad; that of the 1997 'Blair's Babes' (ugh) more manageable.

If you are doing gender and politics, there's some really interesting work at present on masculinity and public life. Eg how politicians perform masculine roles in speeches.