Digital Commons Network^™

Representations Of Military Women In Contemporary War Stories, Deborah Daley

Theses and Dissertations--English

Representations of Military Women in Contemporary War Stories seeks to understand how war stories influence our perception of who belongs in military service. With the canon of western war writing dominated by the memoirs and stories of white men, what happens when service women enter into and author war stories, and how does their appearance destabilize questions of who is fit for military service? War literature provides an important lens through which to observe how military service is scripted by culturally and socially constructed expectations of one’s gender, race, and occupation. In male-dominated workplaces, women must not only perform in …

An Examination Of Three Transitional Events In The Substance Misuse Trajectories Of Women With Criminal Legal System Involvement, Martha Tillson

Theses and Dissertations--Sociology

Research has consistently demonstrated that criminal legal system (CLS)-involved women are distinct from men in initiation and course of drug use, with important differences on biological, environmental, and sociocultural levels. Thus, the unique pathways and transitions into and out of drug use for women with CLS involvement are critical to consider from a research perspective, but also from a need to develop and support evidence-based, women-centered services in correctional contexts. This dissertation project uses a three-paper format to investigate three aims: (1) to understand CLS-involved women’s initiations to injection drug use and their experiences providing injection initiation assistance (IIA) to …

Tangled Roots: Exploring Appalachian Feminisms, Magenta Palo

Graduate Thesis Exhibition Catalogue Gallery, 2022

Women have long been overlooked as key figures in the cultural history of Appalachia. The exhibition Tangled Roots: Exploring Appalachian Feminisms seeks to examine the ways in which women artists across the region have kept traditions alive while redefining creative practices that were once seen strictly as “women’s work.” In particular, the exhibition aims to explore how women have reimagined “craft” through skillful attention to materials, manual dexterity, and application of critical and conceptual rigor. The concept of craft is defined in this context to include all hand-made work that requires developed skills, whether they belong to traditional craft-based practices …

Housewives To Heroines: Continuing Education For Women At The University Of Kentucky, 1964-1988, Allison L. Elliott

Theses and Dissertations--Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation

Beginning in the early 1960s, the movement for the continuing education for women (CEW) brought together a seemingly unlikely alliance of American activists, educators, philanthropists, and government agencies. Fueled by philanthropic funds, accelerated by the quest for “womanpower” to bolster national defense, and aligned with regional workforce needs as well as the personal goals of individual women, CEW programs pioneered new models of academic advising and student support that continue to influence higher education practitioners today. By studying the experiences of both administrators and students involved with CEW at the University of Kentucky, this study sheds light on how one …

Potential Impact Of Socioeconomic Status On Complications Associated With Obesity In Adult Women In The United States., Cassidy Taylor

Theses and Dissertations--Public Health (M.P.H. & Dr.P.H.)

Abstract

The purpose of this project is to determine whether there is an association between socioeconomic factors and complications of obesity in adult women in the United States based on the national 2020 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) data.

Dependent variables were categorized as complications associated with obesity in adult, obese women. BRFSS items that referenced objective measures regarding chronic obesity-related complications included items such as diabetes, heart disease, arthritis, and breast cancer diagnosis. Two measures relating to participants’ socioeconomic status were also used as independent variables. BRFSS items that referenced objective measures regarding socioeconomic status are educational attainment, …

The Role Of Women In Rural Livestock: Which Women? Which Livestock?, Gabriela Litre, Daniela Nogueira, Alessandra Matte, Virginia Courdin

IGC Proceedings (1997-2023)

We explore the conceptual and empirical limitations of the question about “the role of women in rural livestock production” as well as the widespread assumption that women in livestock are subsistence or smallholder farmers. While this is correct in many situations, “essentialist” development discourses often disregard new demographic trends and the heterogeneity of live-stock production systems. Our research, which focuses on the livelihoods of women involved with livestock production in the Pampas’ grasslands of Brazil, proposes: 1) to critically analyse some of the most widely spread assumptions about women involved in beef livestock production, including the belief that women are …

Women’S Empowerment For Demographic Issues And Conflicts In African Pastoralist Societies, M. R. Cevallos, P. Manzano

IGC Proceedings (1997-2023)

Widespread conflict is a recurring issue in African pastoralist societies. While its roots are debated, there is a missing link with prevailing poverty among communities and particularly among women. We here apply a gender perspective to establish a hypothesis on the role of women in pastoralist conflicts.

The existing polygynic system establishes a violent frame for pastoralist women, who would be sold at increasingly early ages to provide in turn enough resources for furnishing the dowry needed by their brothers. The control on them would thereby be transferred from their own families to their husband and his family, where they …

Sex Differences In Trends And In-Hospital Outcomes Among Patients With Critical Limb Ischemia: A Nationwide Analysis, Ayman Elbadawi, Kirolos Barssoum, Michael Megaly, Devesh Rai, Ahmed Elsherbeeny, Hend Mansoor, Mehdi H. Shishehbor, Ahmed K. Abdel-Latif, Martha Gulati, Islam Y. Elgendy

Gill Heart & Vascular Institute Faculty Publications

Background

Critical limb ischemia (CLI) represents the most severe form of peripheral artery disease and is associated with significant mortality and morbidity. Contemporary data comparing the sex differences in trends, revascularization strategies, and in-hospital outcomes among patients with CLI are scarce.

Methods and Results

Using the National Inpatient Sample database years 2002 to 2015, we identified hospitalizations for CLI. Temporal trends for hospitalizations for CLI were evaluated. The differences in demographics, revascularization, and in‐hospital outcomes between both sexes were compared. Among 2 400 778 CLI hospitalizations, 43.6% were women. Women were older and had a higher prevalence of obesity, hypertension, …

Do Americans Perceive Diverse Judges As Inherently Biased, Yoshikuni Ono, Michael A. Zilis

Political Science Faculty Publications

Although women and minorities hold an increasing share of judgships in the United States, they remain underrepresented. We explore Americans’ perceptions of the bias of women and minority judges – one of the possible challenges to creating a diverse bench. We argue that prejudice against these groups manifests in a subtle way, in the belief that diverse judges cannot fairly adjudicate controversies that involve their ingroup. To test our theory, we use a list experiment specifically developed to minimize social desirability effects. We find that many respondents rate female and Hispanic judges to be biased decision makers. Our results highlight …

Sex, Diabetes Status And Cognition: Findings From The Study Of Longevity In Diabetes, Chris Moran, Paola Gilsanz, Michal S. Beeri, Rachel A. Whitmer, Mary E. Lacy

Epidemiology and Environmental Health Faculty Publications

INTRODUCTION: Women comprise two-thirds of people with dementia, making female sex a significant dementia risk factor. Both type 1 diabetes (T1D) and type 2 diabetes (T2D) are known dementia risk factors with an increasing global incidence. Understanding whether subtle sex differences persist in cognitive function prior to dementia in the context of diabetes may help elucidate the magnitude of sex effects on dementia risk.

RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: We examined cross-sectional data from the Study of Longevity in Diabetes (SOLID), a prospective cohort study of members of Kaiser Permanente Northern California aged 60 years and older with T1D (n=758), T2D …

A Description Of Covid-19 Lifestyle Restrictions Among A Sample Of Rural Appalachian Women, Michele Staton, Martha Tillson, J. Matthew Webster

Journal of Appalachian Health

Background: COVID-19 has led to swift federal and state response to control virus transmission, which has resulted in unprecedented lifestyle changes for U.S. citizens including social distancing and isolation. Understanding the impact of COVID-19 lifestyle restrictions and related behavioral risks is important, particularly among individuals who may be more vulnerable (such as rural women with a history of substance use living in Appalachia).

Purpose: The overall purpose of this study was to better understand the perceptions of lifestyle changes due to COVID-19 restrictions among this vulnerable group.

Methods: The study included a mixed methods survey with a convenience sample of …

A Qualitative Examination Of The Agency Of Women In Their 30s And 40s Who Use Dating Applications, Tera Buerkle

Theses and Dissertations--Family Sciences

The use of dating applications (apps) to find romantic and sexual partners is widespread across age groups, however, there is a paucity of research on dating apps with those in middle adulthood. Sexual script theory suggests that women’s agency (i.e. the ability to act in one’s own best interest) may be impacted by expectations from an inherently sexualized context, such as dating apps. Feminist theory contends that women’s agency is complicated by gender socialization due to the imbalance of power in society that greatly favors men. In this study seventeen women aged 30 to 49 completed in-depth semi-structured interviews, and …

A Case Study To Explore The Perception Of A Woman Participant In Drug Court Of A Community-Based Arts Program On Substance Use Recovery Outcomes, Catherine L. Troop

Theses and Dissertations--Early Childhood, Special Education, and Counselor Education

Addiction to drugs is a complex, chronic, and multi-faceted disease that often involves cycles of relapse and remission. The lifetime prevalence of alcohol and drug use disorders in women in the United States is 19.5 percent and 7.1 percent, respectively (McHugh, Wigderson, & Greenfield, 2014) yet there is a significant dearth of efficacious substance abuse treatment services tailored specifically to women. In addition, literature suggests that the third aspect of Bandura’s Social Cognitive theory (self-efficacy) potentially plays a significant role in abstinence of drug use. The role of art interventions on recovery outcomes for a woman enrolled in the Franklin …

Evaluating The Feasibility And Acceptability Of Internet-Based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy For Insomnia In Rural Women, Mairead Eastin Moloney, Madeline Dunfee, Matthew Rutledge, Nancy Schoenberg

Sociology Faculty Publications

Background: Insomnia, one of the most common sleep disorders among women in midlife, is associated with multiple negative health outcomes. Rural Appalachian women are disproportionately affected by insufficient sleep, but their barriers to care (e.g., health care shortages, cultural norms) may prevent intervention. This study assessed the feasibility and acceptability of Sleep Healthy Using the Internet (SHUTi) an Internet-based version of cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia in Appalachian women ages 45+ years.

Materials and Methods: We used mixed methods to assess feasibility (through summaries of recruitment and retention data) and acceptability (quantitatively through online survey scales and qualitatively …

A Content Analysis Of Representations Of Women's Bisexuality In American Popular Music, 2008-2018, Haley D. Hintz

Oswald Research and Creativity Competition

This paper closes the gap in research which has long neglected the study of representations of women's bisexuality in American popular music. Previous research has concluded that in all forms of media including magazines, television, music and films, references of bisexuality or bisexual people make up less than 1% of instances (Bond 111). This paper studies how bisexual women are erased and depicted in popular music by coding released singles (n=184) categorized using Billboard’s “Top 40 Year-End Artists,” charts from 2008-2018. This research found these singles to portray women/women narratives into the following three categories: 1) portraying behavioral bisexuality, 2) …

The Importance Of Shared Language In Rural Behavioral Health Interventions: An Exploratory Linguistic Analysis, Michele Staton, Jennifer Cramer, Robert Walker, Claire Snell-Rood, Athena Kheibari

Behavioral Science Faculty Publications

A focus on the use of shared language to enhance congruence in interventionist-client dialogue is missing from traditional research on evidence-based practices and rural behavioral health. This study incorporates qualitative interactional sociolinguistics, which includes discourse analysis (typically written or audio recordings of face-to-face encounters with 11 clients and a study interventionist), to describe those speech patterns in a broad sense (dialect), as well as more specific use of communicative strategies to increase parity in the interaction between a rural interventionist delivering an evidence-based practice in the context of a research study with rural women opioid users in a non-therapeutic context. …

Staying Out: Reentry Protective Factors Among Rural Women Offenders, Michele Staton, Megan F. Dickson, Martha Tillson, J. Matthew Webster, Carl G. Leukefeld

Behavioral Science Faculty Publications

The current study examines protective factors for women who transition from county jails to rural Appalachian communities, areas with limited health and behavioral health services. The study included drug-using women recruited from three jails in rural Appalachia and followed-up at 12-months post-release. Analyses focused on differences between women who remained in the community and those who returned to custody, as well as a multivariate model to determine protective factors for reentry success. At the bivariate level, staying out of jail was associated with being older, having a job, not using drugs, stable housing, receiving health treatment, and having prosocial peers. …

Opposing Abortion To Protect Women: Transnational Strategy Since The 1990s, Carol Mason

Gender and Women's Studies Faculty Publications

This article examines the transnational work that since the 1990s has increasingly opposed abortion in terms of protecting women. It therefore explores how pro-woman rhetoric is used to foster right-wing politics by way of, and beyond, the fight over abortion. Narratives depicting white women as dupes of a sordid, satanic system of abortion provision ignore the fact that most women report feeling relief—not grief, regret, or trauma—after terminating an unwanted pregnancy. To get a sense of the political and cultural influence that right-wing movements gain when they play the woman card, we must trace antiabortion collaborations transnationally. Reading representations of …

Believing In Achieving: Examining African American Women’S Doctoral Attainment, Reshanta Camea Hazelbaker

Theses and Dissertations--Educational, School, and Counseling Psychology

This research explored the intersectionality of race, class, and gender within the sources of self-efficacy (Bandura, 1997) underlying the socialization messages influencing African American women’s doctoral attainment beliefs. Twenty African American female/woman doctoral achievers completed an online survey, consisting of open-ended and multiple-choice response items, designed to identify and explore the sources of self-efficacy influencing African American women’s doctoral attainment beliefs. Eleven participants participated in focus interviews to expand upon and clarify initial survey responses.

Thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006) and tenets of critical race theory (Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995; McCoy & Rodricks, 2015) were used to analyze the …

Fat Girls: Sexuality, Transgression, And Fatness In Popular Culture, Maryann Kozlowski

Theses and Dissertations--Gender and Women's Studies

This dissertation focuses on representations, histories, and personal accounts of fat women’s bodies and sexualities. I address stereotypes and representations of fat women's sexuality in popular culture, including film, advertising, television, and literature. Through this examination, I move beyond one-dimensional representations of fat women's sexualities to a more complex, nuanced understanding of the realities of being fat, sexual, and a woman today. Fat women are often represented as either sexless, miserable, and lonely, or alternately, hypersexual and sexually deviant, with the inability to control their appetites for both food and sex. (see Bordo, Gilman, Farrell, Shaw, Wolf) By parsing through …

Understanding Haitian Women’S Health Care In Immokalee, Florida, Usa, Michele Leigh Flippo Bolduc

Theses and Dissertations--Geography

This social science research project takes a critical approach to understanding the health of a population by using the health care system as an entry point through which we can see how large-scale social processes produce a particular health care landscape in the rural, im/migrant farmworker community of Immokalee, Florida, USA. Using a multi-scalar analysis of health care, I investigate how anti-immigrant legislation and neoliberal economics influence the experience of health care for health care providers and Haitian im/migrant women navigating these processes. First, I argue that anti-immigrant and pro-market discourses have been successful in limiting the accessibility to health …

Exploring Factors Facilitating Sexual Self-Disclosure For Women, Caitlin Marie Grasson

Theses and Dissertations--Family Sciences

Sexual Self-Disclosure is an important part of a relationship, however, often times, women do not feel it is appropriate to engage in. Specifically, many women do not disclose their sexual preferences, or what acts they do or do not find satisfying, with their partner. This lack of sexual self-disclosure keeps women from being able to have their own sexual needs met. This phenomenological study aimed to understand the factors that facilitate sexual self-disclosure for women in relationships. The participants (n=8) were women between the age of 24-30 who were in a committed sexual relationship for more than three months, but …

Partner Relationships And Injection Sharing Practices Among Rural Appalachian Women, Michele Staton, Justin C. Strickland, Martha Tillson, Carl Leukefeld, J. Matthew Webster, Carrie B. Oser

Behavioral Science Faculty Publications

Background—The role of relationships in initiating and maintaining women’s risk behaviors has been established. However, understanding factors that may underlie partner relationships and women’s risky drug use, particularly in rural contexts, is limited. This study is the first to examine the association between injecting partners and women’s risky injection practices as a function of relationship power perception.

Methods—Female participants were recruited from three rural jails in the Appalachian region. Women were randomly selected, provided informed consent, and screened for study eligibility criteria. This cross-sectional analysis focuses on women who inject drugs (WWID) during the year before entering jail …

Advertising Exposure And Use Of E-Cigarettes Among Female Current And Former Tobacco Users Of Childbearing Age, Kristin Ashford, Emily Rayens, Amanda T. Wiggins, Mary Kay Rayens, Amanda Fallin-Bennett, Molly Malany Sayre

Nursing Faculty Publications

Objective: The study examined the relationship between exposure to e‐cigarette advertising and e‐cigarette use by pregnancy status, including use of flavored e‐cigarette products, among women of childbearing age.

Design: A cross‐sectional, correlational design was used.

Subjects: Female current or former tobacco users in Central and Eastern Kentucky, 18–45 years old (N = 194, 52% pregnant).

Measures: Demographics, pregnancy status, cigarette and e‐cigarette use, and exposure to e‐cigarette advertising.

Results: Younger age, white non‐Hispanic race, and greater exposure to e‐cigarette advertising were associated with a higher likelihood of ever using e‐cigarettes (p < .05 for each variable). Pregnancy was not associated with ever use (p = .11). Younger age was associated …

Serious Mental Illness Among Young Adult Women Who Use Drugs In The Club Scene: Co-Occurring Biopsychosocial Factors, Maayan Lawental, Hilary L. Surratt, Mance E. Buttram, Steven P. Kurtz

Center for Health Services Research Faculty Publications

Young women who regularly attend nightclubs are at risk for numerous health and social consequences, including mental distress, sexual and physical victimization and substance dependence. This paper uses a biopsychosocial framework to examine co-occurring mental health problems, victimization, substance dependence, sexual risk and physical pain among a sample of young women who use drugs (N = 222) in Miami’s club scene. The majority of women were under 24 years old, Hispanic, and identified as heterosexual. Almost all the women reported past 90-day use of alcohol, ecstasy/MDMA, marijuana, cocaine and prescription opioids and benzodiazepines; 32% of women reported being in a …

Age Of First Arrest, Sex, And Drug Use As Correlates Of Adult Risk Behaviors Among Rural Women In Jails, Martha Tillson, Justin C. Strickland, Michele Staton

Center on Drug and Alcohol Research Faculty Publications

Incarcerated women frequently report initiation of substance use and sexual encounters at an early age, and often engage in high-risk drug use and sexual behaviors as adults. This study examined the timing of first sex, drug use, and arrest, as well as their unique influences on specific risky behaviors in adulthood, among a high-risk population of rural women recruited from jails. Ages of initiation were all positively and significantly correlated, and each independently increased the likelihood of several risky behaviors in adulthood. Implications are discussed for screening, intervention, and treatment targeting high-risk women and girls in rural areas, particularly within …

The Feminine Characters In Soledad Acosta’S Una Holandesa En América And The Construction Of A New National Model, Laura Lopez

Nomenclatura: aproximaciones a los estudios hispánicos

In the novel Una holandesa en América (A Dutchwoman in America), Soledad Acosta (1833-1913, Bogota, Colombia) traces the journey of a young woman, Lucía, to America. Acosta uses literary models such as the Bildungsroman and the chronicles of European travelers to explore women’s place in society of her time and the question of European modernity against American “barbarism” in the context of national construction. As most of the speeches around this topic are from men, Acosta offers a different point of view in the debate and puts into question-established ideas.

Mental Health Treatment Seeking Patterns And Preferences Of Appalachian Women With Depression, Claire Snell-Rood, Emily Hauenstein, Carl G. Leukefeld, Frances Feltner, Amber Marcum, Nancy E. Schoenberg

Behavioral Science Faculty Publications

This qualitative study explored social-cultural factors that shape treatment seeking behaviors among depressed rural, low-income women in Appalachia—a region with high rates of depression and a shortage of mental health services. Recent research shows that increasingly rural women are receiving some form of treatment and identifying their symptoms as depression. Using purposive sampling, investigators recruited 28 depressed low-income women living in Appalachian Kentucky and conducted semistructured interviews on participants’ perceptions of depression and treatment seeking. Even in this sample of women with diverse treatment behaviors (half reported current treatment), participants expressed ambivalence about treatment and its potential to promote recovery. …

女诫 Lessons For Women, Bridget E. Nicholas

Oswald Research and Creativity Competition

This work plays with cultural and conceptual juxtaposition through examining personal experiences in China and Taiwan as they relate to gender and sexuality. The poems are arranged to correspond to the sections of Ban Zhao’s Lessons for Women, a Han dynasty Chinese work that articulated conduct for women in relation to their husbands, with the addition of a new “lesson” of my own creation. This structure aims to enhance the tension between the feminine virtues expressed in the headings—values deemed important to women within a Confucian society by an ancient Chinese female thinker—and the values reflected in the experiences …

Leaving "The Life:" Exploring Services For Women Exiting Prostitution, Katherine A. Cascio

Theses and Dissertations--Educational, School, and Counseling Psychology

Women in prostitution (WIP) are significantly more likely to experience mental health issues and trauma than the general population (Farley, 2003; Ling, Wong, Holroyd, & Gray, 2007; Rössler et al. 2010; Roxburgh, Degenhardt, & Copeland, 2008). Previous research addressing the mental health of WIP emphasizes treating trauma to help women exit, both trauma that predated entry into prostitution and trauma experienced during prostitution (Carter & Dalla, 2006; Farley, 2003). Very little research is available on services for WIP, leaving psychotherapists with limited guidance on providing effective mental health treatment. Although programs exist exclusively to assist women leaving prostitution, little is …