Digital Commons Network^™

The Queer And The Bodily: Explorations Of Power In Women's Visionary Writing In The Book Of Margery Kempe 2014, Jayne Emerson Stacconi

Master's Theses

The provocative Book of Margery Kempe is a seminal text in the history of female authorship. Claiming to be the first written autobiography, The Book serves as a literary representation of womanhood during the late fourteenth to the fifteenth centuries when Margery was writing, and also speaks to circulating medieval discourses of religion, pilgrimage, and sexuality. Participating in medieval women’s visionary writing as a genre, Margery’s visionary power is a tool by which she is able to emancipate herself from the limiting roles of wife and mother. Additionally, by working within the conventions of visionary writing, Margery is able to …

Gender And Self-Representation In Maya Angelou's Autobiography I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings 2014, Jay-Nel Steitz

Master's Theses

A voice that has been silenced for so long has much to say. Whether still confined or set free, the statement applies equally to both. The silenced voice wants not only to tell his or her story, but to share the life experiences which in turn reveal the identities of these individuals. These silenced voices then are not those of the oppressors, but the oppressed; and when an oppressor wants to share his or her story, the oppressed wants to tell their side of it as well. How can those labeled the marginalized outcasts of society express their feelings and …

Chivalric Schism : The Man Who Occupies The Masculine And The Feminine 2014, Timothy C. Morris

Master's Theses

Designated male and female gender roles have created a certain set of expectations that shape the lives of men and women. Although there are benefits and drawbacks for each of the sexes as a result of these sets of rules, males have unquestionably seen themselves the beneficiaries throughout the course of history far more often than their female counterparts. I would argue, however, that chivalric codes, behaviors ascribed to men of the knightly class in the Middle Ages, are confusing and even contradictory for their subjects, thus negating some of the advantage typically granted by virtue of being a male. …

Minor Characters With Major Impacts : Examining Giovanelli’S Role In Henry James’ Daisy Miller 2014, Zachary Lang

Master's Theses

Henry James’s first journey into the world of the American girl came in the form of one of his most read novellas, Daisy Miller. Through the eyes of Frederick Winterbourne, the reader begins a study of Daisy Miller, a character whom James uses to showcase many of the issues that were prevalent at the time including the role of women, societal standards, and class mobility. Winterbourne and Daisy are the principal characters, and as such they are given the most attention from readers and critics alike. The minor character Giovanelli, however, has received little critical attention. Despite being a minor …

Afghan University Women Graduates Are Not Well-Represented In The Job Market In Afghanistan, Mohammad Kazem Shakib

Master's Theses

Higher education has been one of the prominent sectors in Afghanistan for the past decade. There has been a steady increase in the representation of women within the higher education system in the country. However, the growth of an educated workforce within the job market and the growth of the national economy have not been equal. A high number of university women graduates are jobless, employed in non-relevant professions, or working in part-time jobs like teaching in primary and secondary school.

This paper explores the contribution and representation of university women graduates in the economy of Afghanistan. Through a liberal …

The Plight Of Kenyan Domestic Workers In Gulf Countries, Caroline Muthoni Gikuru

Master's Theses

Kenya’s economy remains the regional leader within the East African Community (EAC) and among East African countries at large. However, political instability such as the 2007 post-election violence and the region’s social and political instability trickling into Kenya, have negatively affected the country’s economic growth. To bridge the economic gap, Kenyan women are seeking employment in the domestic service sector in the Gulf Countries, with Saudi Arabia being the most popular destination. At their destination countries, some domestic workers are subjected to various forms of abuse by their employers, leaving the worker without recourse due to the lack of legal …

Building Women’S Solidarity To Advance Women’S Rights In Bolivia, Luzdary Hammad

Master's Theses

This paper takes a historical look at the deep-seated ethnic and class divisions between women in Bolivia. It also examines the cultural challenges that help explain the status of women in Bolivia and the obstacles women face to become politically active. It provides the theories of decolonization and depatriachalization as practical ways Bolivia can move past their colonial and patriarchal history. It also looks into what feminism means overall in Latin America and what strategies Latin American women have used to make change for women. It then provides a political history of Bolivia from 1994 to the present giving the …

I Am Relieved To Discover My Symptoms Are Normal For My Condition: An Analysis Of Two Irritable Bowel Syndrome Support Communities, Erin Hvizdak

Master's Theses

Symptoms of Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), a "medically unexplained illness," are present in up to 20% of the United States population. Individuals experiencing symptoms of IBS often report that physicians dismiss their experiential and embodied knowledge, leading to a sense of isolation and frustration. Many of these individuals attempt to diminish isolation and also exchange their knowledge in a community setting. In order to enable a more complete understanding of IBS, a survey about community participation was sent to members of a large online support group for IBS located on Facebook, with 81 completed surveys received. Further, an open-ended questionnaire …

Women's Mobilization In Latin America: A Case Study Of Venezuela, Brianna Russell

Master's Theses

Abstract

I examine the following elements in regards to women’s mobilization in Latin America and Venezuela from the late 1950s to the present: (a) the influence of the state and economy on times when women mobilized (b) class division within the movement (c) women’s demands during different time periods (d) the ways in which women were successful in working towards gender equality. This thesis reviews the literature on women’s mobilization in Latin America during the second half of the twentieth century. I find that women mobilized across class lines with the masses to end dictatorships. Women demobilized during transitions to …

Why Eu Work-Family Reconciliation Policies Fail In Italy: A Feminist Legal Analysis, Chrystal Orozco

Master's Theses

Following the establishment of the European Parental Leave Directive (96/34/EC), the female employment rate in Italy is still ranked the third lowest in the European Union (EU) and Italian women continue to do twice as much household work as Italian men. Parents, especially women, struggle to find a balance between professional work and their family lives in a society that encourages the traditional gendered roles of the housewife and the breadwinner. The following study is a theoretical analysis of the Parental Leave Directive and the potential domestic influences that may prevent Italy from progressing socially towards gender equality. This study …

The Lavender Tide: Lgbtq Activism In Neoliberal Argentina, Andrew Shaffer

Master's Theses

Beginning with the legalization of same-sex marriage in 2010 and following up with the passage of the gender identity law of 2012, Argentina has quickly catapulted itself to the forefront of LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans*, queer) rights in the world. This study sets out to answer a simple question: how did these vast legal changes come about in a country whose LGBTQ citizens are still met with hostility and discrimination? In order to answer this question I look at the ways LGBTQ activists have argued for the civil rights that they have achieved, and measure their success by analyzing …

Injury Risk At Work, Safety Motivation, And The Role Of Masculinity: A Moderated Mediation, Timothy J. Bauerle

Master's Theses

No abstract provided.

(Women's) Archival Spaces And Trans Voices? A (Re)Search And Proposal, Jeremy Curtis Main

Master's Theses

Transgender has been silenced, exiled, forgotten, erased, ignored, maltreated, killed, and ultimately, in a major theme of this research project, excluded from histories. Yet, like women, African-Americans, and gay men and lesbians before them, transgender and their allies are working toward inclusion and independence. History, it seems, can no longer ignore them. One of the surest ways to "prove" a history is to have the original items of that history in an archives. So, what representation do we find among various United States' archives concerning transgender people? Unfortunately, like with many other marginalized groups, much work has to be investigated …

Invisible Margin: Marginalization And Activism Of Adivasi Women In Researches In Bangladesh, Aanmona Priyadarshini

Master's Theses

In the context of historical marginalization of indigenous people from diverse ethnic communities in Bangladesh, this study will investigate how mainstream researches and writings, in books, research reports, newspapers, and blogs on indigenous issues have ignored women's relegation by homogenizing women's distinctive problems with communities' marginalization. The research will explore indigenous women's subordinations in diverse sphere of lives and activism against the power structure that mainstream researches have overlooked. The study will also investigate the possible pathways of solidarity to challenge the systems of power that create control over indigenous people's lives. Thus this research will explore following research questions: …

Ritual As Clinical Intervention In Groupwork With African American Women, Kathryn Kristin Berg

Master's Theses

This paper is an exploratory study on the subject of ritual as clinical intervention in groupwork with African American women. It is predicated on the idea that ritual has the potential to foster emotional growth in clients by creating structure and facilitating processes of transition. Ritual has largely been underexplored in the literature as a clinical intervention. However, there is a particular gap in research on ritual in groupwork with African American women. The first half of this paper provides an overview of social work scholarship covering individual branches of the subject, including spirituality in social work, spirituality in the …

Violence Against Women In Pakistan, Amina Bath

Master's Theses

No abstract provided.

A Study Of The Early American Author Judith Sargent Murray, Her Role In Early American Print Culture And Her Misappropriation By Twentieth-Century Feminism, Robert Allen Fowler

Master's Theses

In 1798, Judith Sargent Murray published a three-volume collection of one hundred miscellaneous essays on topics ranging from social politesse to women’s education to international politics. Her diligence, forethought and manipulation of pseudonyms in the print-hungry post-Revolutionary America create a unique place for her in the history of American letters. However, in the twentieth century, modern feminism has attempted to claim Murray as one of their own, choosing between one and four examples of her work as proof of her forward-looking philosophy, while ignoring significant pieces of those same works as well as much of her oeuvre as a whole …

Women Disunited : Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale As A Critique Of Feminism, Alanna A. Callaway

Master's Theses

While there is plenty of traditional feminist critique of male power structures in Atwood's works, and particularly in The Handmaid's Tale, this thesis argues that the power structure of Gilead (the biblically-inflected nation Atwood imagines) also critiques the feminine roles that support and enable the repression of other women. Placing the novel in the contexts of Atwood's career, feminism, and dystopian literature, provides a fuller understanding of how the novel functions as an expression of the disunity of women.

Thus, this thesis turns the focus of The Handmaid's Tale from the consequences of patriarchal control and "traditional" misogyny, to the …