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Reconceptualizing Women's Stem Experiences: Building A Theory Of Positive Marginality, Valerie N. Streets

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Since the 1980s, disciplines such as psychology and sociology have discussed the construct of positive marginality. Positive marginality describes the perception that belonging to a non-dominant cultural or demographic group can be advantageous rather than oppressing. To date, research on positive marginality has explored the construct in a qualitative manner across a number of demographic groups (e.g., Jewish women in social sciences, African American women in predominantly Caucasian workplaces). Because women are largely underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, the current research examined positive marginality in a STEM context. This research advances the existing understanding of positive …

Understanding The Glass Cliff Effect: Why Are Female Leaders Being Pushed Toward The Edge?, Yael S. Oelbaum

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The glass cliff effect describes a real-world phenomenon in which women are more likely to be appointed to precarious leadership positions in poorly performing organizations, while men are more likely to be appointed to stable leadership positions in successful organizations (Ryan & Haslam, 2005). This effect represents a subtle, yet dangerous, form of gender discrimination that may limit workplace diversity as well as women’s ability to become successful leaders. Importantly, research exploring why women are preferred for more perilous leadership positions is lacking. The main focus of this dissertation is to systematically organize previous theory and empirically examine processes underlying …

Three Essays On The Effects Of Childbearing On Economic Well-Being And Health, Ramazan Onur Altindag

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Chapter 1: Couples in Turkey exhibit son preference through son-biased differential stopping behavior that does not cause a sex ratio imbalance in the population. Demand for sons leads to lower ratios of boys to girls in larger families but higher ratios in smaller families. Girls are born earlier than their male siblings, and son-biased fertility behavior is persistent in response to decline in fertility over time and across households with parents from different backgrounds. Parents use contraceptive methods to halt fertility following a male birth. The sibling sex composition is associated with gender disparities in health. Among third- or later-born …

In Search Of Argentinidad: Identity Affirming Bodies In Movement In Latino-America, Melissa Maldonado-Salcedo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This project is a multi-sited investigation into the production of Argentinidad (the embodied feeling of Argentine national identity) post the economic crisis of 2001 known as el Argentinazo. A special attention is paid to the role of the body as a culturally and socially mediated site of identity formation. Additionally, this project engages with the intersections of cultural and psychoanalytic theories that have influenced Argentinean self-identity in addition to social identities that are negotiated in moments of personal and national crisis. This project examines the roles and relationships of family and migration within Argentinean diasporic communities originating from the Provinces …

Gender Roles, Social Control And Digital Piracy: A Longitudinal Analysis Of Gender Differences In Software Piracy Among Korean Adolescents, Riccardo Ferraresso

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In order to improve our understanding of juvenile delinquency and of the factors that can affect it, researchers may need to examine the new forms of crimes emerging in the cyber world. There is still a large knowledge gap regarding the etiology of cybercrime. In particular, very little research on gender differences in cybercrime and the explanatory power of gender based theories and Hirschi’s social bond theory in cybercrime has been undertaken. The current study attempts to fill some of the gaps in the criminological literature on this modern form of crime by examining the explanatory power of traditional theories …

The Antipolitics Of Food In Middle-Class America, Neri De Kramer

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation provides an ethnographic account of the food and parenting practices of a diverse group of middle-class families in the Mount Airy neighborhood of Philadelphia. It starts from the basic premise that the economic pressures on the American middle classes find expression in family life around the socially reproductive work of choosing food and parenting.

The current economic climate marked with extreme and rising income inequality, low growth, high unemployment and stagnating wages has complicated the reproduction process for all parents in this study, regardless of income. Scholars have described how this concern for the future of the next …

Real Gender: Identity, Loss, And The Capacity To Feel Real, Hannah Wallerstein

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This project concerns gender and feeling real. It begins with a seeming paradox: on the one hand, since Judith Butler (1999; 2011) we can no longer think gender as ontological in any simple sense; on the other, clinical experience and the voices of transgender and gender-queer individuals shows gender to function on the order of reality, and one exceeding the social. In other words, if feeling real depended entirely on being read as such, how would we account for the many who pass easily as “real” men or women and yet feel unreal, or come to feel more real by …

Boundaries Of Home And Work: Social Reproduction And Home-Based Workers In Ahmedabad, India, Natascia Boeri

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation critically questions the use of women’s labor in international development and global capitalism by examining women’s participation in the informal economy, a significant source of work for women in the Global South. Based on ten months of fieldwork in Ahmedabad, India, this study considers women’s experiences with informality when they participate in home-based work, the production of goods for the market in one’s own home. I ask how women’s place-based activities redefine their roles and positions across three spheres of social life: the family, the economy, and civil society (through their participation in a non-governmental organization, or NGO). …

Improving The Education Of Leaders: An Exploratory Case Study In An Undergraduate Business Leadership Course Focused On Gender, Kanina Blanchard

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This exploratory case study is conducted in an undergraduate leadership course at a business school in Ontario. The research develops an understanding of how former students value and are influenced by leadership education that teaches a breadth of knowledges (instrumental, hermeneutic and emancipatory) and focuses on participants’ perspectives of how gender and inequality continue to impact the practice of leadership in Canada. By using document analysis and semi-structured interviews, findings emerge which provide insights into how changes in curricula and pedagogy may better prepare students of leadership to navigate the ethical and social complexities in today’s workplace.

Feminine Ideology, Relational Self-Concept, And Internalizing Symptoms In Women, Anjali George

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Background: Investigators have theorized that women may experience internalizing disorders such as depression and anxiety more frequently than men in part because of unique socialization processes that women undergo. One aspect of early socialization thought to contribute to women’s propensity for depression and anxiety is the way women are brought up to relate to themselves in relation to others, often placing greater importance on the needs, desires, and value of others, at times at a psychological cost to themselves. This study attempts to elucidate the relationship between gender socialization, relational self-concept, and internalizing symptoms in women.

Methods: Two hundred and …

Gender In 17th Century Southern New England, Megan K. Willison

Master's Theses

This thesis, written in the form of two broadly related articles, aims to address questions related to topics of gender, identity, cultural change and continuity, and the materiality of social institutions. Each article investigates how artifacts, as physical objects unintentionally or purposefully discarded, represent and reflect human behavior, societal ideologies, and cultural infrastructures. Using primary sources, archaeological evidence, and linguistic data, each article proposes that certain artifact classes are representative of larger societal ideals and cultural mores, such as gender systems and ways of defining one's gender identity. The first article studies these topics through the analysis of funerary remains …

Individual Differences In Evaluating The Credibility Of Online Information In Science: Contributions Of Prior Knowledge, Gender, Socioeconomic Status, And Offline Reading Ability, Elena Forzani

Doctoral Dissertations

This study investigated how seventh grade students performed on a measure of online critical evaluation in science (the ORCA). The analysis included evaluating the extent to which critical evaluation also appeared to be an aspect of other elements of online research and comprehension, including reading to locate information, reading to synthesize information, and reading and writing to communicate information. Additionally, this study examined the extent to which several important individual difference variables affected students’ ability to critically evaluate information during online reading in science. The individual difference variables evaluated in this study included prior knowledge, gender, socioeconomic status, and offline …

Girls, Rock Your Boys: Female Tribute Acts And The Reclamation Of Rock, Sandra J. Canosa

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Female musicians who perform in tribute acts to male rock artists are an increasingly popular form of live musical entertainment, from Lez Zeppelin (Led Zeppelin) to Hervana (Nirvana). The purpose of this thesis is to explore the motivations for or rewards derived through tributing for women. Original interviews with artists and participant observation at performances are used for analysis alongside published interviews, videos, and website information. Discussions reveal how female tribute acts subvert the patriarchal dominance of rock music’s history by re-imagining canonical figures as women, as well as how archetypal signifiers of masculinity can be separated from male bodies …

Establishing Female Resistance As Tradition In Country Music: Towards A More Refined Discourse, Catherine Keron

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis analyzes facets of resistance in the lyrics of female country music performers and explores how their articulations of female resistance draw on and rework Appalachian folk traditions within country music. Beginning with the musical practices of Appalachian women, who used music to lament their lives restricted by domestic responsibilities, this thesis examines expressions of female resistance through lyrical analysis, with a concentration on female country performers from 1995 to the present. Despite evolving into a performance tradition, female resistance in country music continues to address the lived experiences of its female audience. As such, the female resistance tradition …

Should Good Girls Like Bad Sex: Depictions Of Kink In Cosmo, Kiersten Kummerow Brown

Sociology Theses

Kink has become a more widely discussed sexual practice over time. Recent pop culture releases like the publication of Fifty Shades of Grey have increased this discussion. Cosmopolitan magazine (Cosmo) is one of the most well-known women’s magazines in the world and its sexual advice is one of its defining characteristics. Using both quantitative and qualitative approaches, I examine Cosmo’s depictions of kink from 1996 to 2014. Cosmo was more likely to mention kink in later years than in earlier ones, and its mentions of kink in later years were more likely to be positive. These mentions …

"Support For Sisters Please": Comparing The Online Roles Of Al-Qaeda Women And Their Islamic State Counterparts, Hillary Peladeau

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This study evaluates female roles in pro-jihadist terrorism by examining online content. Data was collected from 36 Twitter accounts of women associated with al-Qaeda (AQ) affiliated groups for a period of six months. The purpose for collecting this data was to: 1) compare how traditional female roles, as constructed within a jihadi-Salafist ideology, are reproduced and challenged on social media; 2) and determine the extent that AQ-affiliated women conform to roles outlined in Huey’s classification of females in pro-Islamic State (IS) Twitter networks. The results of this study reveal that women’s traditional roles in pro-jihadist activities are reproduced on Twitter. …

Three Essays On Social Issues In Experimental Economics, Daniel Lee

Economics Dissertations

This dissertation consists of three essays, all of which use the toolbox of experimental methods to explore behavioral issues that fall out of the concepts of human capital and public economics. The essays examine how an individual alters her behaviors in response to changes in price, information, and social pressures. Understanding these behavioral changes can help us to better explore the pathways that can then inform optimal policy design.

The first essay, Racial Bias and the Validity of the Implicit Association Test, examines Implicit Bias from an economic standpoint. Implicit associations and biases are carried without awareness of conscious direction. …

Terror On Twitter: A Comparative Analysis Of Gender And The Involvement In Pro-Jihadist Communities On Twitter, Eric W. Witmer

MA Research Paper

Social media has become the milieu of choice to radicalize young impressionable minds by terrorist organizations such as al Qaeda and the Islamic State. While a plethora of research exists on the recruitment and propaganda efforts by terrorist organizations there is limited number of quantitative studies that observe the relationship of gender and the involvement in online radical milieus. This current research will build upon prior studies through the comparative analysis of 750 unique Twitter accounts supporting the IS and the affiliates of al-Qaeda that were non-randomly sampled between January and September of 2015. The research aimed to address the …

Gender Differences In Attributions Of Shame, Guilt, Pride, And Being Unafraid Of Criticism Among Chinese Children, Charles Matthew Stapleton

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Children not only experience shame, guilt, pride, and a sense of being unafraid of criticism themselves, but they also make attributions concerning other children’s experiences of these emotions. This dissertation tested the hypothesis that children’s attributions of shame, guilt, pride, and being unafraid of criticism would be influenced by the gender of the perceiver and the gender of the target of the attributions. Three hundred and twenty-four children living in rural and urban China nominated classroom peers to whom they attributed normatively appropriate shame, guilt, and pride. They also nominated children who they thought were unafraid of criticism. Generalized mixed …

Examining Consensual Non-Monogamy Among Emerging Adult Samples: A Collection Of Studies, Kayla Marie Sizemore

Doctoral Dissertations

Using multiple methodologies, this collection of manuscripts examined various components of CNM during the period of emerging adulthood. Manuscript one presents a systematic review and critique of the methodology used in research on CNM attitudes and desire among emerging adults between 1974 and 2016. Several methodological characteristics were reviewed across 18 empirical articles, including sample characteristics, recruitment and sampling strategy, measurement, and overall methodology and focus. Despite general commentary among researchers in this field, this review concludes that CNM research has shown little improvement with regard to its methodological limitations since the 1970’s.

The second manuscript contributes to the extant …

“If You’Re Not That As An Asian Woman, You’Re Not Shit As An Asian Woman.”: (Re)Negotiating Racial And Gender Identities, Andi T. Remoquillo

College of Liberal Arts & Social Sciences Theses and Dissertations

This studies utilizes a critical, postcolonial feminist lens when analyzing the ways in which Asian-American women are (re)negotiating their gender and sexual identities within the contemporary United States. Through the use of empirical research, as well historical content and discourse analyses, this M.A. thesis deconstructs the ways in which Western society has constructed Asian/Asian-American women as the hypersexual Other, and revisits the ways in which empowerment, agency, and autonomy are reconfigured by Asian-American women themselves.

Perceived Emotional Invalidation In A Developmental Context: Does Gender Matter?, Brian B. Johnson

USC Aiken Psychology Theses

Emotional invalidation is the dismissal, minimization, or punishment of an individual’s emotional experience (Linehan, 1993). Although it has been sparsely studied, the research that has been conducted indicates that it is likely implicated in a multitude of psychopathology and adjustment issues. The current study had three main objectives. The first of these was to investigate the current perceptions of emotional invalidation in a peer interaction for emerging adults and how that is predicted by gender, perceptions of childhood emotional invalidation via caregivers, and gender of the caregivers. The second objective of this study was to investigate the propagation of emotionally …

Beyond The Gender Gap: Understanding Women's Participation In Wikipedia, Danielle J. Corple

Open Access Theses

In 2010, UNU-MERIT researchers surveyed editors of Wikipedia, “the online encyclopedia that anyone can edit” (Glott, Ghosh, & Schmidt, 2010). When the report revealed that almost 90% of the editors were male, however, it suggested that perhaps not everyone “can edit” Wikipedia—especially women. As the resulting media and academic explanations of the Wikipedia “gender gap” have largely attributed the gap to ‘female lack’—lack of initiative, confidence, or technical skills—very little research has explored the treatment of women within Wikipedia culture. Thus, this paper first draws upon feminist technology scholars to problematize current explanations of the gender gap that frame …

Nietzsche's Signpost For Feminism, Sara N. Pope

Theses and Dissertations

This paper focuses on the apparent misogyny and anti-feminism found in Part VII of Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil (BGE). Following an interpretation put forward by Maudemarie Clark, I argue that Nietzsche’s claims and observations about women are purposely reflective of the dubious metaphysical assumptions of dualism and essentialism maintained with respect to biological sex. Given this, we can see Nietzsche’s text as highlighting the effects of “cultural breeding” in the form of gender. Thus, this paper aims to rehabilitate Nietzsche’s characterizations of women and “woman’s emancipation” as an important signification of the culturally bred, latent discrimination of the sexes, …

Women In Gaming: A Study Of Female Players’ Experiences In Online Fps Games, M Allison Mcdaniel

Honors Theses

Existing literature has long been divided over whether the gaming world fosters violence and misogyny or provides a space for people to explore diverse identities. Not enough is known about how women experience videogames, especially the hypermasculine environment of first-person shooter (FPS) games. Competition, violence, and war, are dominant features of these games. The following thesis explores what harassment and discrimination women playing FPS games face, how they respond, and in what ways they find games to be empowering. A survey was distributed online to an international sample of 141 female FPS gamers. This research finds that women who play …

Verbing History: A Textualist Approach To Gendered Politics In U.S. History Curriculum, Ginney Patricia Norton

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Using three curricular interventions from World War II, I employ an alternative rhetorical history to understand how Social studies curriculum has become a space for the simultaneous deliberation of both national identity and gender politics. In working through the propaganda of Rosie the Riveter, the stories of the women of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and the experiences of gay men and women in the military during the war, I suggest that Social studies curriculum normalizes and reifies gendered, racial, and queer citizenship in relationship to white, masculine, and heteronormative citizenship. It also utilizes epideictic rhetoric to rhetorically and historically construct problematic …

Japanese Shôjo: Emergence And Developments Of Shôjo In 1910s Through 1930s Japan, Mayuko Itoh

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

From the 1910s through the 1930s, education for girls in Japan changed rapidly. The education for girls centered on practical matters such as houskeeping, but girls made communities in the magazines for girls where they can develop modern self identity. Through their communication, the image of shôjo, or girls was created. In this thesis, I will analyze the magazine community from 1910s through 1930s where shôjo culture developed. By presenting the significant characteristics of the community and its teachings, I will explain how the shôjo community connotes notions of both past and future. Then, I will compare the shôjo …

Gender Representation And Occupational Portrayals In Primetime Television, Brittany Smith

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study examined gender representation and occupational portrayals on primetime television, in order to determine if gender-role stereotypes are still present throughout programming, and what progress, if any, has been made in comparison to previous studies. A content analysis was done on primetime programming airing during the fall of 2013 on ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, and the CW, and analyzed gender, major and minor character, genre, occupation, and marital status. The findings of this study reveal that women are still underrepresented on-screen, as well as in prestigious occupations, especially when compared to their real world representation. This study also examined …

Care, Constraint, And Collaboration : Situating Gender And Power Among Multidisciplinary Human Service Organizations., Christa Jane Moore

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study incorporated a feminist approach to the use of multiple qualitative methods by conducting participant observation, focus group interviewing, and in-depth interviewing of women and men affiliated with a diverse representation of human service organizations. An applied research partnership with a multi-county human service organization provided entrée to the study population. Through analytic induction using a grounded theoretical approach the study explored perceptions of power, authority, gender, inequality, and bureaucratic constraints that emerged during organizational processes of interagency collaboration among multidisciplinary human service organizations (Charmaz 2014; Corbin and Strauss 2014). Findings indicate that establishing relationships is critical for interagency …

Ditka Wears Prada: Inclusion, Competition And Resistance Through Fantasy Football, Caroline Sawyer

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Sports & sports fandom, especially football, is a "historically male cutural practice" and has recently experiences an increase in women's participation (Gosling, 2007, p. 250), with 45% of NFL fans identified as women (Jessop, 2012). However, even with the recent increase in participation, women remain marginalized. Further, women are traditionally restricted to their roles as mothers and wives due to the hegemonic masculinity ideologies of sport. In addition, this marginalization causes women's sport fandon to be called into question based on the simple fact that they are women.Although women are denied membership in the group of "sports fans" (Markovits & …