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Moving Beyond The Gender Binary: A Critical Analysis And Review Of Contemporary Scholarship On Nonbinary Gender Identities, Rie Harding
Masters Theses
For decades gender scholars have recognized the importance of gender to subjectivity, lived experiences, and life chances. Nonbinary gender identities are becoming more recognized by social, legal, and government institutions. However, currently there is a lack of research and scholarship that focuses on nonbinary gender identities. I demonstrate that the sociology of gender must move beyond the constraints of the hegemonic gender binary system in order to have a full and holistic conceptualization of gender. This paper reviews and critically analyzes contemporary interdisciplinary scholarship on nonbinary gender identities, then sets out a research agenda for moving forward. Within this scholarship …
Productive Women: Gender, Sex, And Labor In The Digital Cultural Economy, Kavita Nayar-Jablonka
Productive Women: Gender, Sex, And Labor In The Digital Cultural Economy, Kavita Nayar-Jablonka
Doctoral Dissertations
Explicit sex and sexuality have come to figure more prominently in mainstream media and popular culture in recent years, sparking public concern and scholarly debate on how the “sexualization” of culture particularly affects women. Against this backdrop and amidst digitally reconfigured circuits of media production and consumption, ordinary women participate in, and potentially profit from, the commodification of sexual interactions and relationships. This study compares women’s practices in cultures of cam modeling and sugar dating in order to better understand their meanings and contexts. Whether performed in tandem with romantic dating scripts and roles, as is common in sugar dating, …
Essays On Anti-Discrimination Legislation Enforcement And Sex-Based Discrimination In U.S. Labor Markets, Carly Mccann
Essays On Anti-Discrimination Legislation Enforcement And Sex-Based Discrimination In U.S. Labor Markets, Carly Mccann
Doctoral Dissertations
This project focuses on gender and anti-discrimination legislation enforcement in U.S. labor markets. In this dissertation, I examine the efficacy of existing legal and political institutions in place to redress employer sex discrimination. This work provides new understandings of sex discrimination by focusing on the experiences of pregnant workers, an understudied population that continues to lack adequate workplace protections. My research utilizes new administrative data containing formal charges of discrimination filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to provide new insights into the workplace experiences of pregnant workers as well as employer responses to anti-discrimination enforcement. Chapter 1 analyzes …
Alt-Education: Gender, Language, And Education Across The Right, Catherine Tebaldi
Alt-Education: Gender, Language, And Education Across The Right, Catherine Tebaldi
Doctoral Dissertations
I explore the ideologies of gender, language and education in conservative, Christian Nationalist, and White nationalist mothers groups. I draw on my own family history, as well as on two years of blended ethnographic research in online right wing communities and one year of fieldwork in New Orleans, Louisiana, to look at homeschooling, online schools, and public teachers’ social, linguistic, and educational practices -- what I call Alt-Education. Alt-education is of course a play on alt-right, and refers to the far-right ideology; but it also refers to an alternative to mainstream education, and to education through a broader range of …
By The Numbers: How Academic Capitalism Shapes Graduate Student Experiences Of Work And Training In Material Sciences, Timothy Sacco
By The Numbers: How Academic Capitalism Shapes Graduate Student Experiences Of Work And Training In Material Sciences, Timothy Sacco
Doctoral Dissertations
The neoliberal reorganization of higher education has reshaped the research and education missions of university science. Much of the scholarship examining this shift focuses on faculty experiences. This dissertation centers the experiences of student scientists to explore: (1) how entrepreneurial universities manage marginal academic knowledge workers, including students, through processes that shift responsibility onto individual workers; (2) how universities use mechanisms like internships and Individual Development Plans to shift educational responsibilities onto students; and (3) how performances of masculinity in commercial spaces of university science contribute to durable gender inequalities among students under academic capitalism. Longitudinal qualitative methods were employed …
Three Essays On Labor And Marriage Markets: Farm Crisis And Rural-To-Urban Migration In The United States, 1920-1940, Jennifer Withrow
Three Essays On Labor And Marriage Markets: Farm Crisis And Rural-To-Urban Migration In The United States, 1920-1940, Jennifer Withrow
Doctoral Dissertations
Race and gender create differential responses to, and outcomes of, economic crisis. In this dissertation, I study the intersection of race and gender in the context of steep declines in farm commodity prices during the U.S. farm crisis of the 1920s and 1930s. Against this backdrop, women altered their marriage timing, increased their labor force participation, and migrated off-farm. Previous quantitative studies of this period typically omitted women due to challenges linking women from one historical census to the next after marriage. I create new datasets following women over both decades and draw on archival sources to explore the impact …
Care Work In Chile’S Segregated Cities, Manuel Garcia
Care Work In Chile’S Segregated Cities, Manuel Garcia
Doctoral Dissertations
This project combines diverse theoretical and methodological tools to examine the relationship between space and care work in Chile. The chapters are stand-alone articles that come together to tell a single story. The social production of urban space has marginalized thousands of female caregivers from the labor market as Chile’s care system unravels. I argue that community caregiving could simultaneously improve the conditions of caregivers and dependents. Chapter 1 examines the role of residential segregation in reproducing Chile’s meager female labor market participation rates. I use spatial and econometric analysis to show that the social forces that segregate Santiago create …
Homophily, Gender-Typed Behavior, And Cultural Contexts In Adolescent Friendship Segregation, Chen-Shuo Hong
Homophily, Gender-Typed Behavior, And Cultural Contexts In Adolescent Friendship Segregation, Chen-Shuo Hong
Masters Theses
It is well-documented that adolescents tend to befriend those who share demographic characteristics like gender. Less clear is how culture connects to these homogeneous relationships. This study examines the effects of gender-typed behavior on adolescent friendships at dyadic and school levels. The friendship network data are drawn from the well-known wave 1 ‘saturation school’ component of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health. I show that adolescents tend to befriend those who share similar gender-typed behavior, above and beyond simple demographic affiliation. Also, when students in particular schools exhibit more heterogeneous gender-typed behavior, the expression of gender-typed behavior …
The Influence Of Victim Gender And Emotional Expression In Victim Impact Statements On Legal Judgments And Punishment Decisions, Hannah Chimowitz
The Influence Of Victim Gender And Emotional Expression In Victim Impact Statements On Legal Judgments And Punishment Decisions, Hannah Chimowitz
Masters Theses
Victim impact statements (VISs) are written or oral statements detailing the effects a crime has had on a victim. While the practice of having victims present VISs at sentencing hearings has generated much debate for over 25 years, the effects of this practice on victims, defendants, and legal decision-makers remain poorly understood. Prior research suggests that a victim’s emotional expression can affect how victims are perceived, and the legal judgments made in response to their statements. The current research considers how the effects of victims’ emotional displays on sentencing decisions might be conditioned by victim gender. Using audio-recorded VIS stimuli, …
The Voice Of The Other: The Influence Of Capitalism On The Representation Of Gender And Race In Western Classical Music, Marie Comuzzo
The Voice Of The Other: The Influence Of Capitalism On The Representation Of Gender And Race In Western Classical Music, Marie Comuzzo
Masters Theses
This thesis argues that in order to understand the non-representation of women and BIPOC in the Western musical canon, the analysis of their cultural musical production and reception must start in early modern period, a time heavily influenced by the establishment of capitalism. Intertwining political feminist studies, critical race theory and musicology critique, I argue that the witch hunts and the inhumane colonial practices in Africa and the America (fundamental to establish capitalism as a global system), had an important role in shaping Western musical culture as homogeneous and monolithic. Thus, I first trace the change in female customs in …
Family Dimensions Of Unequal College Experiences: Students’ Talk Of Self And College In Relation To Family Resources And Relationships, Michael Carl Ide
Family Dimensions Of Unequal College Experiences: Students’ Talk Of Self And College In Relation To Family Resources And Relationships, Michael Carl Ide
Doctoral Dissertations
The “college experience” is normatively presented as enacting independence, often while financially relying on parents. This view normalizes white, middle-class models of college and family. The three interrelated papers comprising this dissertation investigate race, class, and gender differences and inequalities at college through the lens of students’ talk of family. These inductive, qualitative studies draw on semi-structured intensive interviews with undergraduates to explore divergent ways they make sense of college, family, and their self-development. Analyses highlight the multifaceted, and sometimes contradictory meanings participants attach to themes commonly presented as simple and objective (i.e. “paying for college,” “independence,” and “adulthood”). Findings …
Criminalizing Childhood: The Politics Of Violence At Delhi's Urban Margins, Ragini Saira Malhotra
Criminalizing Childhood: The Politics Of Violence At Delhi's Urban Margins, Ragini Saira Malhotra
Doctoral Dissertations
The intensification of neoliberal economic reforms and new patterns of middle-class consumption in India have coincided with rising levels of urban inequality and poverty. Yet India’s capital, Delhi, positions itself as a “world-class city,” invoking neoliberal state aspirations to justify widespread violence against communities living and working in state-contested spaces. While much has been written about the reproduction of urban inequality and poverty in India, this body of scholarship under-emphasizes mechanisms of social control and violence, specifically, criminalization by the state.
To understand these dynamics, children’s experiences are particularly important given their age-based potential and vulnerabilities. To give visibility to …
Reproductive Journeys: Indo-Caribbean Women Challenging Gendered Norms, Tannuja Rozario
Reproductive Journeys: Indo-Caribbean Women Challenging Gendered Norms, Tannuja Rozario
Masters Theses
Little is known about the factors that influence people from the Caribbean to seek reproductive health services in the United States. In this paper, I focus on Indo-Caribbean women from Guyana and Trinidad who undertake reproductive journeys to New York. I ask: (1) What influences Indo-Caribbean women to begin their reproductive journeys to Richmond Hill, New York? (2) How do Indo-Caribbean women challenge gender norms during their reproductive journeys? (3) How does women’s class inform their decision making in challenging gendered norms? After conducting 30 in-depth interviews with Indo-Caribbean women from Guyana and Trinidad who seek reproductive health services in …
Queering Kinship: Lgbtq Parents And The Creation Of Real Utopias, Laura V. Heston
Queering Kinship: Lgbtq Parents And The Creation Of Real Utopias, Laura V. Heston
Doctoral Dissertations
Parenting in queer families calls into question some of our most fundamental assumptions: that parents are biologically related to their children, that only women give birth, that all fathers are men, that families push away friendships and communities based in anything other than “blood” ties, and that parenting is life-long. In this dissertation, presented through five in-depth family case studies and a series of analytic chapters based on fifty semi-structured interviews with LGBTQ adults in families with children I discuss gay sperm donors, gestational fathers, non-binary foster parents, transwomen dads, queer adopters of kids from queer birth parents, trans step-dads, …
Motherhood Wage Penalty Across Life Course And Cohorts, Misun Lim
Motherhood Wage Penalty Across Life Course And Cohorts, Misun Lim
Doctoral Dissertations
This dissertation explores the connections between changing family structures and economic inequalities in the United States. While previous research shows that motherhood lowers women’s earnings, few studies explore how wage penalties for motherhood change over women’s lives. Moreover, most research examines only the baby boomer cohort; consequentially, little is known about how millennials experience this wage penalty and how such burdens of motherhood have changed across cohorts. This study investigates whether and how the motherhood wage penalty changes both across women’s life course and cohorts with these questions: (1) Does the motherhood penalty change over women’s lives? (2) What are …
Complicating Gender: Gender Inequality In Education And Employment, Skylar Davidson
Complicating Gender: Gender Inequality In Education And Employment, Skylar Davidson
Doctoral Dissertations
Sociologists have always acknowledged the complexity of gender, but despite acknowledging this complexity, much sociological research does not put this knowledge into practice; indeed, a great deal of research focuses on distinctions between men and women with regard to some other variable, reinforcing a narrow and binary understanding of gender. This tendency has two limitations: (1) it does not recognize the variability in men's and women's expression of masculinity and femininity; and (2) it does not recognize gender identities other than those of cisgender man and cisgender woman (i.e., transgender people). This study mitigates this limitation through telling a story …
Communication Is A Two Way Street: Race, Gender, And Elite Responsiveness In U.S. Politics, Mia Costa
Communication Is A Two Way Street: Race, Gender, And Elite Responsiveness In U.S. Politics, Mia Costa
Doctoral Dissertations
At the heart of a representative democracy is the need for open lines of communication between citizens and their representatives. This dissertation is comprised of three stand-alone chapters which examine how responsive American public officials are to constituent communications, Americans' attitudes about elite responsiveness, and how race and gender condition this relationship. In the first chapter, I conduct the first meta-analysis of all experiments that examine how responsive public officials are to constituent communication. I demonstrate at a higher level of precision than any single study the degree to which legislators are biased against racial and ethnic minorities, and find …
Mothering In A Era Of Choice: Race And Gender In Schooling Decisions Of Homeschool And Public School Families, Mahala Stewart
Mothering In A Era Of Choice: Race And Gender In Schooling Decisions Of Homeschool And Public School Families, Mahala Stewart
Doctoral Dissertations
My dissertation draws from in-depth interview data to compare the schooling choices of 95 mothers living in United States. The sample is split between white and black mothers. Within each racial group, one set teaches their children at home and a second set sends them to public schools. School choice, which places the responsibility of selection on individual families, is central to current U.S. education debates. Yet homeschooling, an option that transfers labor from schools to home, is often overlooked in these debates. To date no research has compared homeschoolers to other schooling families in the same region, or examined …
Apostles Of Abstinence, Katherine Castiello Jones
Apostles Of Abstinence, Katherine Castiello Jones
Doctoral Dissertations
My dissertation examines three organizations that promote premarital sexual abstinence. These three organizations broadly mirror different strands within the New Right: an evangelical Christian abstinence ministry called Purity Ring Posse, Revolutionary Romance, an elite group of conservatives on an Ivy-League campus, and Stand Up! a group at a Mormon university that seeks to “burst the bubble” and facilitate outreach between pro-family organizations and students. Drawing on participant observation, interviews, and content analysis, my dissertation demonstrates how each group attempts to promote a unique version of abstinence that can be successfully mobilized in the public square. Purity Ring Posse articulates “ …
Two Of The Same? Infants' Conceptual Representation Of Faces Based Upon Gender, Race, And Kind Information, Charisse Pickron
Two Of The Same? Infants' Conceptual Representation Of Faces Based Upon Gender, Race, And Kind Information, Charisse Pickron
Doctoral Dissertations
Infants’ perceptual abilities allow them to distinguish faces of different races and genders from an early age (for a review, see Pascalis et al., 2011). However, it is still unknown when infants begin using these perceptual differences to represent faces in a conceptual, kind-based manner. The current dissertation examined this issue by testing whether 12- and 24-month-old infants represent faces of different races and genders as distinct ‘kinds’ or instead as variations of a single broader category (e.g., ‘human face’). The current dissertation included two experiments each with a different type of violation-of-expectation individuation paradigm. Experiment 1 used a passive …
Immigration And Within-Group Wage Inequality: How Queuing, Competition, And Care Outsourcing Exacerbate And Erode Earnings Inequalities, Eiko H. Strader
Immigration And Within-Group Wage Inequality: How Queuing, Competition, And Care Outsourcing Exacerbate And Erode Earnings Inequalities, Eiko H. Strader
Doctoral Dissertations
The rhetoric against immigration in the United States mostly focuses on the economic threat to low-educated native-born men using a singular labor market competition lens. In contrast to this trend, this dissertation builds on a large body of previous work on job queuing and ethnic competition, as well as insights gained from the studies on female labor force participation and the outsourcing of care work. By exploring regional differences in the wage effects of immigration across 100 metropolitan areas between 1980 and 2007, I argue that immigration is an intersectionally dynamic localized source of wage inequality and equality. The first …
Distributing Condoms And "Hope": Race, Sex, And Science In Youth Sexual Health Promotion, Chris A. Barcelos
Distributing Condoms And "Hope": Race, Sex, And Science In Youth Sexual Health Promotion, Chris A. Barcelos
Doctoral Dissertations
This project uses discursive, visual, and ethnographic approaches situated in a critical feminist methodology to understand how ways of knowing about youth sexuality and reproduction influence community health work. I understand the “problem” in this inquiry as the discursive contexts that limit critical ways of knowing about young people’s sexual subjectivities and practices and about the design of policies and programs. Although race, class, gender, and sexuality are understood in the public health literature as important social determinants of health, there is a lack of research that applies a critical, feminist lens to these constructs. I draw on three years …
Women, Convergent Film Criticism, And The Cinephilia Of Feminist Interruptions, Rachel L. Thibault
Women, Convergent Film Criticism, And The Cinephilia Of Feminist Interruptions, Rachel L. Thibault
Doctoral Dissertations
This dissertation examines the ways in which female film critics practice film criticism in the convergent age. In original research drawn from ethnographic interviews with eight female film critics and bloggers as well as textual, historical, and reception analyses of criticism, this dissertation argues that women who write film criticism in the convergent era are not only writing from a space of marginalization based on the patriarchal dominance of the film industry, but also face a series of obstacles through gendered and discursive conflicts that are unique to writing online and which do not exert the same impact on male …
A Mixed Methods Analysis Of The Intersections Of Gender, Race, And Migration In The High-Tech Workforce, Sharla N. Alegria
A Mixed Methods Analysis Of The Intersections Of Gender, Race, And Migration In The High-Tech Workforce, Sharla N. Alegria
Doctoral Dissertations
Despite public policy initiatives and private sector investment to recruit more women, women’s participation in high-tech work has decreased since 1990. I use interviews with tech workers and nationally representative quantitative workforce data from the American Community Survey to examine the consequences of race, gender, and immigration for tech workers’ experiences and wages. While previous research shows a decrease in the proportion of women in tech work, these conclusions are somewhat misleading as they do not consider the intersections of race and migration with gender. I find only modest change in the absolute numbers of women. Rather, as the field …
Structural Transformation, Culture, And Women’S Labor Force Participation In Turkey, Yasemin Dildar
Structural Transformation, Culture, And Women’S Labor Force Participation In Turkey, Yasemin Dildar
Doctoral Dissertations
Turkey has experienced important structural and social changes that would be expected to facilitate women’s participation in market work. Social attitudes toward working women have changed in recent years; women are becoming more educated; they are getting married at a later age; and fertility rates are declining. Despite these factors, women’s labor force participation rates are very low in comparison to the countries at a similar development stage. This dissertation analyzes the underlying causes of low female labor force participation in Turkey. In addition to a background chapter (Chapter 2) analyzing structural transformation and employment generation patterns, the dissertation has …
The Shifting Structure Of Chicago's Organized Crime Network And The Women It Left Behind, Christina Smith
The Shifting Structure Of Chicago's Organized Crime Network And The Women It Left Behind, Christina Smith
Doctoral Dissertations
Women are underrepresented in crime and criminal economies compared to men. However, research on the gender gap in crime tends to not employ relational methods and theories, even though crime is often relational. In the predominantly male world of Chicago organized crime at the turn of the twentieth century existed a dynamic gender gap. Combining social network analysis and historical research methods to examine the case of organized crime in Chicago, I uncover a group of women who made up a substantial portion of the Chicago organized crime network from 1900 to 1919. Before Prohibition, women of organized crime operated …
Bringing The Household Back In: Family Wage Gaps And The Intersection Of Gender, Race, And Class In The Household Context., Melissa J. Hodges
Bringing The Household Back In: Family Wage Gaps And The Intersection Of Gender, Race, And Class In The Household Context., Melissa J. Hodges
Doctoral Dissertations
Using the 1980- 2008 waves of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY), this dissertation examines how parenthood exacerbates gender wage inequality within married, heterosexual households and across families stratified by race and social class. The majority of research on motherhood penalties and fatherhood premiums investigates how individual men and women’s earnings change after the arrival of children, yet it is unclear how parental bonuses and penalties accrue within coupled households. Although studies investigating child effects on individuals’ wages draw on theoretical explanations that rely on the joint decision-making of couples, empirical analysis rarely situates the effects of children on …
A "Greedy" Institution With Great Job Benefits: Family Structure And Gender Variation In Commitment To Military Employment, Karen M. Brummond
A "Greedy" Institution With Great Job Benefits: Family Structure And Gender Variation In Commitment To Military Employment, Karen M. Brummond
Masters Theses
Scholars describe both the military and the family as “greedy institutions,” or institutions that require expansive time and energy commitments, and alter participants’ master status (Segal 1986; Coser 1974). However, the military’s employment benefits may counteract its greedy elements. I use data from the 2008 Survey of Active Duty Members to examine commitment to military employment in wartime, accounting for greedy elements of military service (such as geographic mobility, risk of bodily harm, and separations), job benefits, family structure, and gender. The results show that women in dual-service marriages, unmarried men, and those who experienced separations reported lower career commitment …
Project Space(S) In The Design Professions: An Intersectional Feminist Study Of The Women's School Of Planning And Architecture (1974-1981), Elizabeth Cahn
Project Space(S) In The Design Professions: An Intersectional Feminist Study Of The Women's School Of Planning And Architecture (1974-1981), Elizabeth Cahn
Doctoral Dissertations
The Women’s School of Planning and Architecture (WSPA) was an ambitious, explicitly feminist educational program created by seven women planners and architects who used the school to introduce ideas and practices of the 1970s women’s movement into design and planning education in the United States. Between 1974 and 1981, WSPA organized five intensive, short-term residential educational sessions and a conference, each in a different geographical location in the United States, after which the organization ceased formal programming and the organizers moved on to other activities. The founders and participants involved in WSPA collectively imagined and created a feminist space for …
Navigating Paid Work And Parenthood: New Parents’ Long-Term Employment Pathways In The United States, Irene Boeckmann
Navigating Paid Work And Parenthood: New Parents’ Long-Term Employment Pathways In The United States, Irene Boeckmann
Doctoral Dissertations
Mothers have contributed disproportionately to women’s rising employment rates in the United States, and contemporary fathers spend more time caring for children compared to previous generations of men. Still, parenthood continues to shape women’s and men’s employment participation patterns in profoundly gendered ways. Changes and continuities in aggregate labor market participation patterns raise questions with regard to the variation in mothers’ and fathers’ employment participation, and in the ways in which different-sex couples organize engagement in paid work after they become parents. Using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, this dissertation examine the variation in new parents’ long-term …