Arts and Humanities Commons^™

The Trajectory Of Male Homosexuality In Nazism, Goral Bhatt

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Nazism redefined gender and sexual politics for society during the twentieth century, which determined the trajectory of male homosexuality under the Third Reich. While the party did not actively promote homosexuality, early Nazism valued hypermasculinity and homosocial relationships. Right-wing veterans of the First World War were attracted to the Nazi paramilitary unit, Sturmabteilung (SA), led by Ernst Röhm, a well-known gay man. The SA leaders promoted close male bonds among the members, which led to homoerotic relationships. If homoerotism was permitted within the early Nazi Party, why was there a steady decline in the treatment of gay men under the …

Arab American Women In Engineering: How Did Their Culture Influence Their Achievement?, Iktimal Bia Hamed

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

This body of research examined the Arab American culture and its impact on women who studied the male-dominated major of engineering. Through a qualitative approach, women born and raised in an Arab American home unpacked their experiences since childhood that made them who they are today. The 10 female Arab American participants shared how they made it through and successfully completed their major in engineering. This study focused on engineering, since there has been little to no growth in women who major in this male-dominated subject. This research examined how the participants’ parents, extended family, friends, community, and both K-12 …

Feminism By Proxy: Jane Austen’S Critique Of Patriarchal Society In Pride And Prejudice And Emma, Alexis Miller

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Reading Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and Emma from a feminist perspective reveals Austen’s desire for progressive marriages built on equality and love. Comparing the characteristics and eventual marriages of Austen’s heroines, Elizabeth Bennet and Emma Woodhouse, to other women and relationships in her novels highlights their uniqueness as women of agency who desire more than the society of Regency England offered women. Through such comparisons, Austen brilliantly displays her critique of the patriarchal society and the limitations that it set on women. Her critique is further established in the two novels through her emphasis on breaking down the false patriarchal …

Critical Black Feminist Mentorship: A Review Of A Middle School And University-Sponsored Program For Adolescent Black Girls, Dyann C. Logwood

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation study aims to illuminate the creation of safe spaces for marginalized youth through mentorship initiatives. Likewise, the study examines the roles of mentorship programs in transforming the lives of Black adolescent girls by providing them with tools to change the narratives depicted by society. A qualitative design was employed that used phenomenological interviewing techniques and ethnographic observations to explore the experiences of the Black adolescent girls in one university-sponsored mentorship program. The findings illustrate what is coined through this research—a critical Black feminist mentorship model that emphasizes an intersectional identity development, the actualization of voice, the creation and …

Trajectory Of Trauma: The Experiences Of Black Girls In The School-To-Prison Pipeline, Heather Nicholson-Bester

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

This critical ethnographic research utilizes participatory action research (PAR) and case studies to explore the impacts that zero-tolerance policies have had on the lives of Black girls and women. This work contributes to a small but growing body of work on the intersectional struggles faced by Black girls within the School-to-Prison Pipeline. An aim of this research was to work with the participants to amplify their voices and center them as experts on their own lives. Working with a small sample of three girls and women enabled the creation of detailed narratives of their experiences. These narratives point to the …

Imagining Queer Futures To Ensure Queer Survival, Leah A. Minadeo

Senior Honors Theses and Projects

For Lee Edelman. queen' lack of future is a, extension or the dominant social narrative that, thanks to reproductive futurism, reduces queerness to same-sex object-choice. That narrative renders queers strictly non-reproductive and children only accomplishable through the consummation of heterosexual pairings. Since queers cannot contribute life to the future in the form of children, queerness and queer life become aligned instead with death. This is a complex narrative that figures children as the stuff the future is made of and queer as a threat to both children and the symbolic Child. The stakes of this language is high because such …

“It’S Like A Big Freaking Fake Circus”: An Exploration Of Intersectionality And Women’S Experiences In Higher Education Fundraising, Daniel Mathis Spadafore

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Women in higher education fundraising navigate the broad forces of sexism and racism in society and their profession, a profession in which they are being paid less than their male counterparts and are under-represented in leadership roles, despite being the majority of fundraising professionals. This study provided a platform for women in higher education fundraising to tell their stories and to explain, in their own words, how they navigated a traditionally White patriarchal system of philanthropy, interacted with fundraising prospects and donors, and experienced the fundraising profession. The research questions included:

• What do women say are their lived experiences …

Debunking The False Dichotomy: Developing And Applying Trans Quantcrit At The Intersection Of Trans/Non-Binary Identities And Religious, Secular, And Spiritual Engagement In College, Kate Curley

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Discrimination towards people who identify as trans/non-binary (NB) is still extremely well documented and pervasive across many different demographics. Discussions on religious, secular, or spiritual (RSS) identities and trans/NB identities are often fraught with difficult conflicts between the two. In student affairs published standards, practitioners are expected to serve “regardless” of gender in RSS programs and “regardless” of religion in LGBTQ+ programming. This study sought to explore how RSS campus climate influences students’ attitudes towards trans/NB people and how trans/NB experience their RSS campus climate. Informed by critical theory and using critical consciousness and ally identity development conceptual frameworks, I …

When Life Gives You Lemons, "Get In Formation:" A Black Feminist Analysis Of Beyonce's Visual Album, Lemonade, Sina H. Webster

Senior Honors Theses and Projects

Beyonce's visual album, Lemonade, has been considered a Black feminist piece of work because of the ways in which it centralizes the experiences of Black women, including their love relationships with Black men, their relationships with their mothers and daughters, and their relationships with other Black women. The album shows consistent themes of motherhood, the "love and trouble tradition," and Afrocentrism. Because of its hint of Afrocentrism, however, Lemonade can be argued as an anti Black feminist work because Afrocentrism holds many sexist beliefs of Black women. This essay will discuss the ways in which Lemonade's inextricable influences of Black …

Sculpted From Clay, Shaped By Power: Feminine Narrative And Agency In Wonder Woman, Mikala Carpenter

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

By applying deconstructive and feminist theories to the Wonder Woman saga, this thesis develops a potential definition of feminine narrative in contrast to the normative and exclusionary patriarchal narrative that reigns supreme in popular culture and Western ideology. Though much of comics discourse functions on the assumption that superhero narratives are homogenous reflections of this ideological hero narrative, I posit that the Amazonian princess's resilience and iconicity stem from her own narrative's uniquely deconstructive nature: Where the patriarchal story would demand dominance, destruction, and violence, the feminine narrative that Diana models advocates for equality, nurturance, and emotional and rational communication. …

Rape, Revenge, Reclamation: An Analysis Of Female Agency In American Rape-Revenge Films, Marissa Connell

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

In this thesis, I will analyze five films that have a rape-revenge narrative: Ms. 45 (1981), M.F.A. (2017), I Spit on Your Grave (1978), I Spit on Your Grave (2010), and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011). I will argue that the violent actions taken by the female protagonist during her revenge against her rapist(s) serve to allow her to reclaim her agency that was stolen from her during the rape(s). I will show that the rape-revenge narrative is more diverse than it might seem, as the five films I analyze deal with rape, and responses to rape, in …

Peace Corps Culture And The Language Of Violence: A Feminist Discursive Analysis, Elizabeth Z. Johnk

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Peace Corps is an international volunteer service organization and an agency of the United States Federal Government. Like all American governmental institutions, Peace Corps has an institutional culture with a heteropatriarchal, settler colonial legacy. In recent years, this has manifested in Peace Corps’ mishandling of cases of sexual violence against Peace Corps Volunteers. The agency has undertaken many reforms in response to public pressure, including changes at the level of language in policy and protocol. This project has two objectives, the first of which is an analysis of Peace Corps discourse on violence, victimhood, and responsibility. This discursive analysis is …

Parody And The Pen: Pippi Longstocking, Harriet M. Welsch, And Flavia De Luce As Disrupters Of Space, Language, And The Male Gaze, Kelsey Mclendon

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

In opposition to a literary tradition of damsel-in-distress female characters, Astrid Lindgren’s Pippi Longstocking, Louise Fitzhugh’s Harriet the Spy, and Alan Bradley’s The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie provide examples of empowered, intelligent, and capable young girls living in a mid-20th century environment and successfully subverting patriarchal norms. Drawing on Laura Mulvey’s theory on women as spectacle, Hélène Cixous’s concept of l’ecriture feminine, and New Historicist influences, I explore the common threads within these post-World War II era texts. Pippi’s strength and humor, Harriet’s spying and writing, and Flavia’s scientific expertise and detectival work illustrate their …

Gender Roles, Homophobia, And The Closet: Experiences Of Queer Women, Nicole M. Richards

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

The culture in which a woman is a part of sets expectations based on their gender. This paper explores how the relationship between prescribed gender roles, internalized homophobia, and coming out of the closet are related. A focus group of seven women who identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual, pansexual, and queer was conducted. The findings suggest that gender roles do limit the way women view themselves, that religion is the largest contributor to internalized homophobia, and that gender expression changes throughout the coming out process as these queer women developed a stronger sense of their identity. Future research should include …

Case Study: Breastfeeding Facilitation And Initiation Within One Prison Nursery Program, Jessica Wallace

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Breastfeeding rates of incarcerated women in the U.S. are unknown. As the female prison population rises, little to no data exists on breastfeeding initiation within prison nursery programs. The purpose of this case study was to assess breastfeeding facilitation and initiation within one prison nursery program. An interview was conducted with a nursery program administrator from one of nine active prison nurseries here in the U.S. Constructs from the Social Cognitive Theory including reciprocal determination, facilitation, observational learning, and incentive motivation were assessed. Through an administrative perspective, the results provided a better understanding of prison nursery programs and shed light …

Locating Linguistic Power Relationships: A Glimpse Into Transnational Feminist Dialogue Through Comparison Of Major Feminist Publications In The Us And China (2000-2012), Shuli Han

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Does the use of English as a universal language in the transnational feminist dialogue empower women globally? In what way does English shape the flow of conversation by circulating some feminist knowledge while neglecting others? Through conducting content analysis research on major feminist publications in both China and the US, this thesis probes the limitations of English as “Lingua Franca” through comparing authors, topics, and the use of references in the Collections of Women’s Studies (CWS), the most prestigious feminist journal in China, with Signs, one of the core feminist journals in the US. Through the comparison …

Investigating Trait Attribution Through Gendered Avatar Play: An Analysis Of The Sims 3, Erika M. Behrmann

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

This study investigates whether the life-simulation videogame, The Sims 3, enables the deconstruction of the gender binary. The Sims 3 permits its players the capability to attribute similar traits to male or female avatars. In doing so, players can experiment with taboo trait attributions and potentially defy a male-female binary. A group of 82 The Sims 3 players was surveyed to determine their overall male and female Sims trait selections during gameplay. Participants were questioned on how their trait selection related to their personal identities. Results indicated that players tend to select traits that maintain a gender binary. This …

African American Women And Hiv, Michell D. Reynolds

Graduate Capstone Projects

Over 33 million people around the world are infected with Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome or AIDS. Of that number, over a million people are infected with AIDS in the United States. At first, AIDS in the United States was considered a white gay man’s disease. In fact, AIDS was once referred to as “The Gay Plague” (Shilts, 1987, p. 352). However, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported in 2005 that women now make up 26 percent of all new HIV/AIDS diagnoses. African American women are infected at even higher rates than women of other racial and ethnic groups. …