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Recognition And Domination: A Hegelian Approach To Evolving Gender And Technology Paradigms, Zachary Davis

CMC Senior Theses

This paper aims to develop a strong account of recognition. It begins with a Hegel-inspired account of recognition as a fundamental desire that drives humanity. This account establishes recognition as fundamental to the initial subject formation of independent self-consciousnesses as agents. I offer the lord-bondsman dualism to provide a critique of domination as oppositional to securing the means for recognition. This entails that, as history progresses the world ought to move towards universally adopting mutual recognition relationships without domination. I adopt this goal as an ideal form of recognition. In Chapter 2, I apply this recognitional framework to gender. Through …

Serving With Pride: Analyzing Lgbtq+ Personnel Policy In The U.S. Military, Sonja Woolley

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis examines the evolution of LGBTQ+ personnel policies in the U.S. military, analyzing how these changes reflect broader social transformations and the military’s role as both a mirror and catalyst in societal shifts. It traces the historical roots of discriminatory practices against queer and transgender servicemembers, identifying key periods of reform and resistance. Using institutional theory to dissect the mechanisms of policy adaptation, this paper focuses on coercive, mimetic, and normative isomorphism, which illustrate the complex interplay between external societal pressures, internal demands for legitimacy, and the professionalization of the military. Through detailed case studies, the thesis highlights how …

‘Poetry Is Not A Luxury’, Rage Should Not Be A Privilege: The Potential Power Of The ‘Racial Imaginary’, Georgia Mcgovern

CMC Senior Theses

Female rage exists outside of the constructed masculine ideal of anger. To examine female rage, one must analyze the intersections between gender and race. I examine white women's privilege and access to female rage in reality and the fictional world. I explore Black Feminist poetry as a form of storage for rage at gender-based prejudice, racial injustice, and their intersection. Using Myisha Cherry’s term “Lordean Rage”, I recognize this specialized manifestation of female rage as an artistic, intergenerational source of energy for change.

I examine Claudia Rankine’s term “racial imaginary” as an imaginative space in which white people draw lines …

Certain That I Belong In Science, Technology, Engineering, And Math (Stem): Women's Authentic Belonging And Men's Inclusion Actions Through Job Crafting, Cecelia Lee (Dotzler) Corson

CGU Theses & Dissertations

As of 2022, the total number of Nobel Prizes granted in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) fields was roughly 614 and of those, only 24 have been awarded to women. STEM fields have historically excluded women at all levels with increasing impact at the higher levels of the career ladder (NSF, 2010). To address the stark gender gap in many organizational spaces including STEM, organizations have turned to diversity training with undetermined effectiveness (Devine & Ash, 2022). This dissertation research seeks to understand women’s authentic belonging in STEM fields and to develop an intervention to aid men in including …

Interfaith Communities: Relationships In Thirdspace, Jessica Spence Moss

CGU Theses & Dissertations

Contending with, and expanding the understanding of, diverse interfaith relationships, this project presents a nuanced awareness of interfaith action and the dialectic of lived religion with interfaith engagement. Arguing that interfaith is a type of thirdspace in which engagements have affective impacts on individuals within interfaith communities, as well as orientation towards religious communities. While there are common struggles, interpretations, and socializations that hinder the participation of women and non-binary individuals in institutional interfaith spaces, observing organic interfaith relationships as occurring in thirdspace allows for the recognition of radical inclusion and dedication to diversity.

What Is A “Helpmate”? Using Comparative Semitic Linguistics To Propose New Translations For Ezer Kenegdo, Rebekah Call

CGU Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation argues that a comparative Semitic analysis of ezer kenegdo (KJV: “help meet”) in Genesis 2:18, 20 can provide new semantic ranges that enrich the reading of gender roles in Genesis 1-3. The usage of ezer kenegdo in Genesis 2:18, 20 has defied satisfactory interpretation, even though this passage has played an important role in the conversation surrounding gender roles in the Bible, in other religious discourse, and even aspects of culture influenced by elements of Jewish and Christian worldviews. The struggle with this phrase is twofold: the first difficulty lies in the association of ezer “help” with subordinate …

Essays In Behavioral Economics: Lying And Deception, Shanshan Zhang

CGU Theses & Dissertations

The U.S. economy loses hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenues, wages, and investment dollars, as well as hundreds of thousands of jobs each year due to dishonest behavior (Mazar and Ariely, 2006; Griffin et al., 2022). Thus, understanding dishonest behavior and finding mechanism to effectively reduce dishonest behavior are of great relevance to policy makers and the economy in general. This dissertation studies deceptive behavior and the relevant factors using online experiment, observational data, and field experiment in three chapters, respectively. Chapter 1 studies the effect of interaction with a machine (voicebot) on dishonest reporting. We conducted an …

Raising The Bar: The Impact Of Gender Quotas On Legislator Quality, Viola Hernandez-Derbez

CMC Senior Theses

We analyze the effect of a legislative candidate quota on the quality of congresspeople elected. We study a landmark legislation passed in 2014 in Mexico that required all parties to have an equal number of male and female congressional candidates. We observe a 31% increase in number of bills proposed in legislative sessions after the quota and a significantly higher likelihood for greater educational attainment among male and female deputies alike, controlling for an array of factors that could influence our quality measures. Since not all states had the same level of female representation when the quota was introduced, we …

“All Men Are Created Equal?”: Insights And Implications Of Intersectional Precarious Manhood, Cleopatre M. Thelus

CGU Theses & Dissertations

Manhood that is characterized in terms of dominant culture in the United States includes strength, power, status, affluence, and occupational success (Vandello et al., 2008). However, men who are not members of dominant culture, such as Black men in the United States, often are excluded from access to characteristics of masculinity framed by dominant culture due to potential negative consequences that can result when they perform behaviors that symbolize strength and power (Bush & Bush, 2018; Katz, 1995; Staples, 1982). Precarious Manhood Theory (PMT) is a social psychological theory that explores the social category of gender (men/manhood/masculinity) as relates to …

Cosponsorship Networks In The U.S. Congress: Measuring The Success Of Female Legislators, Brian Jewett

CGU Theses & Dissertations

Previous scholarship has demonstrated that minority group members in the United States Congress generally are more supportive and collaborative within and beyond their respective groups compared to their majority group counterparts (Craig et al., 2015; Rouse, Swers and Parrott, 2013). In some cases, increased levels of collaboration positively influence legislative success and in others they do not, the results often depending on the characteristic of the group itself and the institutional setting within which the group operates. Additionally, prior studies within the domains of social network analysis and legislative behavior have shown that certain social network measures within a legislative …

Carnivalizing The Nation: Reassessing The Trinidad And Tobago Carnival As An Inclusive Platform For Local And Diaspora Cultural Identity, Shari Bissoondatt

CGU Theses & Dissertations

Trinidad and Tobago's 2020 National Cultural policy ostensibly seeks to build the twin islands’ cultural confidence through the development of a unifying and empowering national cultural identity. However, this research asserts that the current policy undermines these national goals by approaching its community through problematic colonial, nationalist frameworks and through centralizing the annual carnival festival. This positioning poses several key problems. First, it reinscribes the colonial cultural identity of the island. Second, this nationalist, Christian colonial approach reinforces a binary of belonging and non-belonging that excludes minoritized, diasporic, and non-conforming gender communities. Third, by centralizing carnival in cultural policy, the …

The Cost-Effectiveness And Feminization Of The Human Papillomavirus Vaccine, Audrey Jammes

Scripps Senior Theses

Approved in 2006, the Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine provided a medical breakthrough in combating cancer by inoculating first female and then male adolescents in 2010. In 2016, a new HPV vaccine was approved for all adolescents. However, it is the most expensive vaccine created in the United States and its female centered prescription led to debates regarding the vaccine’s necessity and risks. For the STS portion of this paper, analysis of the language in the vaccine’s prescriptions from 2006, 2010, and 2016 demonstrates two implicit assumptions regarding female health built into the vaccine’s rollout. Comparison of the two assumptions to …

A Crisis Of Care: Effects Of Covid-19 On The Household Division Of Labor, Caroline Elliot Albro

Scripps Senior Theses

The COVID-19 pandemic brought monumental challenges to the lives of parents around the world. As schools shut down, children stayed at home, and employees worked from their living room couches or dining room tables, working parents struggled to balance paid labor, household labor, and childcare during this time. Working mothers faced particular challenges in reconciling household labor and employment due to the pressures of gender norms and the expectation for women to “do it all.” This paper explores the strategies that families utilized to deal with the household division of labor during the pandemic. Families employed a variety of strategies …

Examining Bias Against Women In Professional Settings Through Bifurcation Theory, Lauren Cashdan

CMC Senior Theses

When it comes to women in professional hierarchies, it is important to recognize the lack of representation at the higher levels. By modeling these situations we hope to draw attention to the issues currently plaguing professional atmospheres. In a paper by Clifton et. al. (2019), they model the fraction of women at any level in a professional hierarchy using the parameters of hiring gender bias and internal homophily on behalf of the applicant. This thesis will focus on a key theory in Clifton et. al.’s analysis and explain its role in the model, specifically bifrucation analysis. In order to analyze …

Domestic Arts, Dates, Drugs, And Dress Codes: Scripps College's Early Attitudes Towards Gender, Sexuality, And Women's Education, Kathleen Mchale

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis explores how Scripps College's administration, faculty, and students dealt with expectations of gender roles and sexuality during the first two decades of the college's existence. It looks at the historical development of women's colleges, Scripps' curriculum and aims, architecture, residence life, rules and regulations, and applied these areas to discuss how students and other Scripps community members responded to norms about gender and sexuality.

Shriveling Bodies And A Shrinking World: A Journey From Woolf’S Feminism To Contemporary Notions Of Aging, Beauty And Visibility, Esme Fairbairn

Pitzer Senior Theses

This paper seeks to understand the experiences and representation of older women, both in fiction and real life as well as in the early 20th century and today. Firstly, I examine the female protagonists in three of Virginia Woolf’s novels before turning to a linguistic analysis that explores how older women perceive themselves today and how they think other groups – such as the media, the younger generation and men and women in their age group – perceive them. Woolf’s feminist style uncovers the existence of invisibility and embodied aging experienced by the so-called Angel in the House. This Woolfian …

Analyzing Marriage Statistics As Recorded In The Journal Of The American Statistical Association From 1889 To 2012, Annalee Soohoo

CMC Senior Theses

The United States has been tracking American marriage statistics since its founding. According to the United States Census Bureau, “marital status and marital history data help federal agencies understand marriage trends, forecast future needs of programs that have spousal benefits, and measure the effects of policies and programs that focus on the well-being of families, including tax policies and financial assistance programs.”[1] With such a wide scope of applications, it is understandable why marriage statistics are so highly studied and well-documented.

This thesis will analyze American marriage patterns over the past 100 years as documented in the Journal of …

Arguments For The Abolition Of Gender, Antonio Pineda

CMC Senior Theses

Throughout the process of writing this thesis, I have struggled with whether or not to use the term “gender abolition.” In one sense, the term itself initially piqued my interest in the topic. I remember the first time I heard of gender abolition, I had an immediate intuitive resistance. I thought it was another manifestation of the disconnect that exists between academia and society at large. However, my feelings quickly changed when the concept was explained to me in my sophomore year philosophy seminar. My incredulousness transformed to excitement when I realized gender abolition was actually simply the full realization …

"And All Were Welcome": An Analysis Of The Transgender Child In Contemporary Picture Books, Isaac Prestwich

Pomona Senior Theses

This paper constitutes an interrogation of children’s picture books that feature trans and gender non-conforming child protagonists. In these books, the audience, presumed to be a child, whose experience of the narrative is mediated through the adult or older figure reading the picture book, is brought to empathize and identify with the book’s characters, whether they be the protagonist themselves, or those auxiliary figures who surround the main character. My goal is to identify consistent themes across the genre, as well as within the field of critical childhood studies, particularly as they pertain to the rhetorical value of the Child, …

Are Female Executives Receiving Adequate Capital Financing? An Analysis Of Gender Disparity On Venture Capital Funding, Lina Aluzri

CMC Senior Theses

This paper examines the inequalities that exist between male and female CEO’s and other top executives by analyzing the effect of gender diversity when it comes to venture capital funding and firm performance. Building off of previous research, I focus on three major areas. First, I utilize data from 2016 to 2018 found in PitchBook and Wharton Research Data Services (WRDS). Second, I explore the effect of firm performance prior to funding on the amount of capital received. Third, I narrow down the analysis of firms to 364 companies that were once venture capital backed and have successfully exited with …

Surfacing Contexts Of Violence In Novel Forms Of The Reproductive Justice Framework Through Lessons From Latin America: A Study Of Brutality, Migration And Bodily Autonomy And Progressive Solutions For Use In Public Health, Angelica M. Campos

CMC Senior Theses

In the last 5 years, Latin America has witnessed a tenacious wave of pañuelo verde and #NiUnaMenos activism. Sparked by increasing mortality rates associated with unsafe, clandestine abortions and femicide, the praxes and fundamental elements of these social movements have proven themselves useful not only in garnering international attention on issues relating to bodily autonomy, but in the synthesis of their respective sociopolitical solutions as well. In the United States, similar efforts have been spearheaded by the lauded reproductive justice framework, which has often been credited for centering the plight of women of color in both reproduction and social justice. …

Women With High Functioning Asd: Relationships And Sexual Health, Isabelle Taylor

CMC Senior Theses

Women with high functioning Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) are disproportionately less represented in research in comparison to their male counterparts. Some propose that this is as a result of more men having ASD and therefore the diagnostic criteria being further indicative of their gender, but regardless, it remains apparent that the need for supporting women with Autism Spectrum Disorder is just as crucial (Kreiser & White, 2014). For both genders, though, deficits in social skills and the presence of repetitive and restrictive behaviors often lend themselves to conduct seen as inappropriate or awkward within the neurotypical dating world (Hodges et …

“Margaret The First”: Rebelling Against Gendered Modes Of Utopian Writing, Emma Cornwell

Scripps Senior Theses

Margaret Cavendish, a female author of two utopian texts: “The Convent of Pleasure” and The Blazing World, seems to subvert the gendered binary of utopian writing and even of utopian characters. Although she is a female author herself and her works are, in one manner, continuous with the feminine mode of utopian writing because they suggest that her utopias are better than the world in which we live and that we ought to emulate them, Cavendish is not completely in line with this mode. Indeed, she also utilizes components of the masculine mode of utopian writing. The main character of …

Sentencing Length Disparities: Assessing Why Race And Gender Influence Judges’ Decisions, Janna Akers

Scripps Senior Theses

The purpose of this study is to assess why the race and gender of defendants influence judges’ decisions using the focal concern theory. This study will require around 84 participants. Participants will be federal judges who will be recruited via email. In an online survey, participants will be randomly assigned to one of four conditions . Participants will all read a vignette which an individual was convicted for in trafficking of Xanax. The vignette will be manipulated by the name and accompanying a mugshot based on the race (Black/White) and gender (male/female) of the defendant. The expected result is that …

Gender Inequality In Hollywood: The Magnitude, Determinants, And Influence Of The Gender Wage Gap In The Film Industry, Taylor Milana

Scripps Senior Theses

In the field of labor economics, abundant research has been conducted on the cause and magnitude of the gender wage gap in various industries in the United States. While the national gender wage gap has decreased over the last few decades, this trend has not been observed in every industry. The film industry, in particular, has experienced a notable lack of progress in both its social and economic treatment of women. Because Hollywood has significant influence in the United States, its misguided portrayal of women and failure to ensure equal pay for male and female actors sets a harmful standard …

Human Monsters: Examining The Relationship Between The Posthuman Gothic And Gender In American Gothic Fiction, Alexandra Rivera

Scripps Senior Theses

According to Michael Sean Bolton, the posthuman Gothic involves a fear of internal monsters that won't destroy humanity apocalyptically, but will instead redefine what it means to be human overall. These internal monsters reflect societal anxieties about the "other" gaining power and overtaking the current groups in power. The posthuman Gothic shows psychological horrors and transformations. Traditionally this genre has been used to theorize postmodern media and literary work by focusing on cyborgs and transhumanist medical advancements. However, the internal and psychological nature of posthumanism is fascinating and can more clearly manifest in a different Gothic setting, 1800s American Gothic …

Sleight Of Hand: Gender, Performance, And (In)Sincerity In E. D. E. N. Southworth’S The Hidden Hand, Samantha Martin

Scripps Senior Theses

One of the many cultural anxieties that existed during the nineteenth century in antebellum America centered on the dubious status of authenticity of one’s emotions, gender expression, or socioeconomic class. The fluctuating socioeconomic landscape of antebellum America destabilized the logic of categorization, rendering it an ineffectual means by which to evaluate others’ identities. In her novel The Hidden Hand, or, Capitola the Madcap, E. D. E. N. Southworth explores instead of censures the transformative properties of the self, specifically in terms of gender and class. Her interest in this lack of authenticity, or transparency regarding one’s self and intentions, …

Women In The Wage Economy: A New Gendered Division Of Labor Amongst The Inuit, Hannah Buehler

Pitzer Senior Theses

Inuit constructions of gender in the pre-colonial period were centered around a gendered division of subsistence tasks. It is through this division of labor which gender roles, gendered socialization and spousal roles were formed. However, during the colonial period Inuit subsistence and the role it plays in Inuit society was rapidly and drastically changed. By analyzing the work of three different Arctic ethnographers documenting Inuit subsistence in different time periods and national contexts, this thesis will analyze how political, economic and environmental change in the Arctic has altered Inuit subsistence practices from European contact through the contemporary era. By analyzing …

"The More They’Re Beaten The Better They Be": Gendered Violence And Abuse In Victorian Laws And Literature, Danielle T. Dominguez

CMC Senior Theses

During the Victorian age, the law and society were in conversation with each other, and the law reflected Victorian gender norms. Nineteenth-century gender attitudes intersected with the law, medical discourse, and social customs in a multitude of ways. Abuse and gender violence occurred beneath the veneer of Victorian respectability. The models of nineteenth-century social conduct were highly gendered and placed men and women in separate social spheres. As this research indicates, the lived practices of Victorians, across social and economic strata, deviated from these accepted models of behavior. This thesis explores the ways that accepted and unaccepted standards of female …

“Insignificant Exceptions”: Confronting Sexism In Armed Conflict Through Gender-Aware Disarmament, Demobilization, And Reintegration, Payson A. Ruhl

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis examines the intersection between sex, gender, and armed conflict through an analysis of the female combatant experience. It combines anecdotal evidence and quantitative data from various armed conflicts within the past 50 years to reveal how sexism and gendered conceptions of war influence virtually all aspects of the experience of women and girl combatants. Recognizing sexism as a major player in the recruitment, wartime treatment, demobilization, and reintegration of women and girl combatants, it identifies disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration programs as intervention points where gender-aware planning and implementation can improve outcomes for female combatants in the transition to …