Arts and Humanities Commons^™

The Social Contract And Feminism, Grace A. Albertson

Helm's School of Government Conference - American Revival: Citizenship & Virtue

This paper seeks to prove the value placed on women in society, and disprove the claim that the social contract is inherently patriarchal. Radical feminists claim that society as a whole is irreparably flawed and operates patriarchally. Therefore, they call for a systematic shift and condemn the current fabric of our society and nation. The social contract, an idea centered around the philosophical works of John Locke and Thomas Hobbes served as the primary way that the founders of the United States justified the formation of American democracy and had immense influence on American political thought. However, feminists seek to …

Mrs. Dalloway (1925) Vs. The Hours (2002): How Does The Patriarchy Infringe On The Autonomy Of Marginalized Characters?, Mary E. Belton

2023 Symposium

Fans of Virginia Woolf know that her literature, such as A Room of One’s Own and Mrs. Dalloway, cover feminist themes. In adaptations of Virginia Woolf’s work, the same feminist themes are present. For example, Michael Cunningham’s The Hours, based on three women whose lives are connected through Virginia Woolf’s novel Mrs. Dalloway, carries similar feminist themes. In the 2002 adaptation of The Hours, directed by Stephen Daldry, the relationships between men and women in the film illustrate how the patriarchy operates socially.

To those who don’t know Virginia Woolf’s work well or are unaware of how …

“An Impediment To Those Who Would Walk The Difficult Way”: How St. Francis Of Assisi’S Revolution In Catholic Thought Was Built On The Perceived Inferiority Of Femininity, Julian F. Balsley

Young Historians Conference

St. Francis of Assisi is undoubtedly one of the most famous saints in the Catholic Church. Known for his complete poverty and deep love for the poor and animals, the Little Poor Man of Assisi has become renowned for his way of life and the fraternity he started that has continued for over eight hundred years. In an organization rife with cardinal sin, Francis was in stark contrast with his asceticism and rankless order. However, St. Francis’ entire ideology is built on the Catholic belief that women are inherently inferior to men and dangerous to those following God. Francis used …

Beyond Progress: Exploring Alternative Trajectories For Design Museums, Anja Neidhardt, Heather Wiltse, Anna Croon

DRS Biennial Conference Series

How can design museums be disentangled from systems like patriarchy, so that they become able to support change towards more justice? To explore this question, we use our standpoint as design researchers in combination with a feminist perspective. Historically, most design museums supported a path of progress which supposedly leads straight from the past into the future. Even though today attempts to change design museums can be observed, criteria for good design and methods for collecting and exhibiting mainly stay unchanged. However, when questioning them, it becomes clear that they were shaped by a white, male, imperialist perspective. Through shifting …

Design As A Practice Of Care: Feminist Perspectives On Preventing Harm And Promoting Healing Through Design, Alison Place

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Design as a discipline has traditionally positioned itself as an enterprise in service to capitalism, perpetuating the domination of wealth and the exploitation of la-bor and resources, but recent discourse in the field has increasingly raised ques-tions around design's social and environmental impact. These discourses typically address themes of inclusion, sustainability and ethics, but some have gone fur-ther to explore the potential for care to play a role in the design process. More than ever, an interrogation of the connection between design and care is need-ed, as issues such as climate change, social inequality, global pandemics and ag-ing populations require …

Collective Dialogues On Motherhood For Feminist Futures, Bree Mcmahon, Dina Benbrahim, Ryan Gibboney, Ashley Hairston Doughty

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This conversation allowed mothers and non-mothers to connect with per- sonal stories and universal struggles during a supportive virtual moment. Some con- venors are design researchers, practitioners, students, and/or educators. This conver- sation also served as a space for designers to reflect on the role and responsibility of design in interrogating reproductive care systems in their current context. The goal of the convenors is to move toward and promote co-designing a preferable feminist fu- ture for mothers. There are few spaces like maternal health care and the experience of motherhood that would benefit simply through qualitative data collection, storytell- ing, …

Impacts Of The #Menaretrash Movement On Dlsu Grade 12 Students’ Perspective On Feminism, Alyssa Lorine P. David, Maureene Gem Q. Delos Reyes, Ken Rainier O. Kabashima, Caezer Kyle G. Pangilinan

DLSU Senior High School Research Congress

Protected attributes such as race, gender, and sexual orientation cause widespread controversy due to discrimination. As a result, people worldwide gather and form social movements to target inequalities that have caused the marginalized and vulnerable groups harm, as seen in the feminist movement. However, it has been observed that certain areas of the feminist movement are more radical than others, wherein their strategies mainly focus on more divisive feminist goals. This paper aims to tackle the radical movement of the #MenAreTrash, and whether Grade 12 students of De La Salle University from the Philippines are exposed to this phenomenon. Moreover, …

Leadership Through The Lens Of Young Female Professionals: A Hermeneutic Phenomenological Study, Alfonso R. Astudillo Iv, Zean M. Banez, Martin Gabriel A. Bastian, Carl Lemuel C. Caburian, Michael T. Cadorna, Aaron Michael J. Hoyland, Prince Dave M. Layugan

DLSU Senior High School Research Congress

This study aims to highlight the lived experiences of young female professionals who currently lead in their fields, as well as the essence of a woman leader in such instances. The researchers used a hermeneutic phenomenological approach to illuminate the key informants' lived experiences as leaders with the anticipation to arrive at a novel perspective of leadership. The research findings align with the concept of purpose-driven leadership. The links between themes like compassion, empowerment, and adaptability are, however, intriguing because these leadership attributes are strongly associated with feminist conceptions of relationality, flexibility, and intuition. The key informants' collective reverence may …

America's Next Top Model Magnified, Nina Violi

Capstone Showcase

America's Next Top Model was a reality television show that aired from 2003 to 2018 and the show gave women (and men in the later seasons) a chance to become models and be trained by the best in the business. While the show looked like a positive experience from the viewers' perspective, there were many situations when the models were put in uncomfortable situations. The show is related back to the feminism theory.

Towards A Political Design Through Feminist Waysof Movement-Making, Bibiana Oliveira Serpa

Pluriversal Design Conference Series

From the understanding that design is a complex force of political and cultural expression, I argue that in the design field we need to be with and learn from social movements, advancing collaboration between erudite and popular practices of creating and shaping worlds. In this freely reflection I present some thoughts from my experience as an educator-militant in a political organization of the Brazilian feminist movement. From this background, I seek to reimagine knowing-doings in design by means of principles systematized in feminist practices within social movements. Through these principles, I aim to reflect on possibilities for a design that …

Girls Can’T Like Star Wars: An Analysis Of Feminism Within Fandoms, Julia Neff

Capstone Showcase

Finding the intersection between feminist theory and fandom theory, this paper analysis how women are regarded within a fandom community by their peers and how they are dismissed in a societal context. This paper specifically compares what is "accepted" by society about young women being a fan of a boy band versus an adult man as a fan of a sports team.

The Grizzled Wolf And The Mauled Lamb: An Interpretation Of Animal Language In Melville’S Translation Of Ovid's "Tereus, Procne, And Philomela", Dylan Rossin

Capstone Showcase

An analysis of animal language in Ovids's "Tereus, Procne, and Philomela" shows that the women have power in this story despite what an initial reading might show.

Luce Irigaray, Radical Feminism, & The Me Too Movement, Allie Nye

Capstone Showcase

Luce Irigaray, a French feminist theorist, used her writing as a tool to further the postmodern feminist movement and her theory of sexual difference. Her work highlights the divergence from traditional, modernist thought and the dream of a well rounded western society that is grounded in the recognition of sexual difference. The #MeToo Movement, the defining feminist movement of present day, proves Irigaray’s point of a need for the recognition of sexual difference. The importance of women being able to speak their mind is one the foundations of Irigaray’s work and a pillar of the #MeToo Movement. Moving beyond the …

The Evolution Of Revenge: Genre, Feminist Theory And Jennifer’S Body, Sophia Birks

Capstone Showcase

The representation and proliferation of violence against women in media, when applying genre theory, reflects the social climate of rape culture and the social response to sexual violence. Looking at the Rape-Revenge genre through the scope of Feminist Theory, the only way to reintroduce female agency into a trauma led narrative is to reclaim the tropes used to perpetuation female exploitation and a popular culture ambivalent to male on female violence. Within this subversion and deconstruction, a genre benefiting from female trauma finally includes an honest artistic retelling of that female experience. With the intention of the creator in line …

Faking The News: Antiwar Activists, The Italo-Ethiopian War, And The Practice Of Human Rights, Caroline Waldron Merithew

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

In “Faking the News,” I bring past and present together to underscore lessons already learned by antifascist antiwar activists from the 1930s. These activists used, what they termed, "Authentic News," to combat the propaganda Benito Mussolini's regime was making up about the Italo-Ethiopian war. How might knowing about how people faked the news,and faked out fascism, in the past shape current and future human rights actions and help us go against the grain today for a better world tomorrow?

Feminism And Faith: How Women Find Empowerment In The Roman Catholic Church, Amanda Schar

Celebration of Learning

This project examines the relationship between feminism and Catholicism, focusing on whether or not women feel empowered by the Roman Catholic Church. Female members of the Augustana community were surveyed and asked to share their own experiences with their Catholic faith.

Themes discussed include the decision to stay in the Church versus the decision to leave, the importance of Catholicism as a cultural identity, and the multitude of ways women have found to empower themselves within the existing Church structure.

Female Empowerment In Classical Spanish Theatre, Sarah Gielink, Johanna Adrian Burr

Student Symposium

Last spring, after reading Golden Age plays in our Early Modern Spanish Literature and Culture course, Adrian Burr and I became interested in the role women played in these stories. Within the Spanish comedia, women are relegated to two stock roles, the “dama” (lady), or the “criada” (maid), while men are able to play a much wider variation of roles. Classical Spanish works by playwrights such as Lope de Vega, Miguel de Cervantes, and Pedro Calderón de la Barca are still produced today, just as English-speakers still revive Shakespearean works. We became curious about how modern directors and theatre practitioners …

Beauty As Art: Somaesthetic Consumption As Alternative To Docility, Talia Welsh

Atlantic Marketing Association Proceedings

No abstract provided.

Wonder Woman: Classical Hero, Modern Superheroine, And Feminist Figure, Victoria A. Karnes

Celebration of Learning

Wonder Woman, an Amazonian princess and superheroine who has been inspiring women since her comic debut in 1941. From her origins to the villains she faces, Wonder Woman’s stories and character are wrapped up in allusions to famous myths and figures of Greek and Roman literature. In my Senior Inquiry, I investigate Wonder Woman’s Classical connections and compare the ancient portrayal of Amazonian women to their portrayal in the comics and the recent films Wonder Woman (2017) and Justice League (2017). Also, in my Senior Inquiry, I analyze Dr. William Marston’s complicated and problematic feminist views which inspired his creation …

A Feminist Analysis Of Human And Animal Oppression: Intersectionality Among Species, Kelsey Brown

Scholars Week

In this paper I focus on animal exploitation as a feminist issue. I discuss reproductive exploitation in humans and domesticated animals, language as a tool of oppression, the power dynamics involved in hunting and consuming animals, and the barriers that are faced when people try to access health food such as environmental racism and food deserts. Using an anti-capitalist intersectional feminist framework, I expose how the current capitalist patriarchy aids in the oppression of all marginalized groups, including animals.

Masks And Performance As Representations Of Gender Oppression And Repression In Edith Wharton’S The House Of Mirth And Nella Larsen’S Passing, Carrie A. Wilson

SEWSA 2016 Intersectionality in the New Millennium: An Assessment of Culture, Power, and Society

Edith Wharton and Nella Larsen’s literature focus on metaphorically representing gender oppression and repression as masked social performances that result in death being the ultimate release from the drama. Edith Wharton’s The House of Mirth depicts the heroine Lily Bart who, in the public social realm, attempts to mask herself as a disturbingly superficial character. Wharton’s masquerade imagery demonstrates the extent to which Lily socially capitalizes her beauty. Lily fixates on "clearness" and "lucidity" in events leading up to her death, which shows how dying releases her from the dishonest social masquerade (260). Nella Larsen’s heroine Irene Redfield similarly uses …

From #Blacklivesmatter To #Sayhername, Aitza B. Burgess

SEWSA 2016 Intersectionality in the New Millennium: An Assessment of Culture, Power, and Society

Sanford, Ferguson, Long Island, and Baltimore are all cities that have become known nationally and internationally in households. This attention has not been about their nature of offering reasonably priced hotel lodging for tourists visiting the neighbouring major cities, but due to the killings of black men in America. Since the election of President Barack Obama in 2009, the notion of a post-racial America has circulated. With Congress members referring to the president as a tar baby to the numerous killings of black people by law enforcement and civilians these actions contradict this notion.

Between the years of 2012-2015, America …

Patriarchy And The Protestants: A New Historical And Feminist Reading Of Marilynne Robinson’S Gilead, Jesse D. Lawhead

The Research and Scholarship Symposium (2013-2019)

In her novel Gilead, Marilynne Robinson establishes a correlation between the presence of Protestantism and constricting gender roles women experience in the United States. Living in 1956 Gilead, Iowa, seventy-six-year-old Pastor John Ames begins writing to his seven-year-old son in a series of journal entries after he is diagnosed with a terminal case of angina pectoris. In these journal entries to his son, Ames records the histories of his reverend father, reverend grandfather, his own life, and present observations as the beauty of life continues to captivate him. Ultimately he hopes to “to tell [his son] things [he] might never …

Jane Austen's Heroines--And Some Others, Neda H. Jeny

South East Coastal Conference on Languages & Literatures (SECCLL)

Jane Austen’s Heroines--and Some Others

Jane Austen is the earliest English novelist whose novels are still widely read today; in fact, they are becoming more popular all the time.

Of course, there are good reasons for this popularity. Apart from Austen’s creation of unforgettable characters, and her exquisite irony and sense of humor, there is one other thing I’d like to discuss today: her heroines could be called, in a sense, brilliant (and often unorthodox) adaptations of universally recognized types. For example, Elizabeth Bennet is so remarkable a character because she is, at the same time, a sort of Cinderella …

Long May She Reign: A Rhetorical Analysis Of Gender Expectations In Disney’S Tangled And Disney/Pixar’S Brave, Caitlin J. Saladino

Graduate Research Symposium (GCUA) (2010 - 2017)

This project addresses messages about gender expectations in Disney princess narratives. The two films included in my project are Tangled (2010) and Brave (2012), which feature the most recently inducted princesses to the marketed Disney Princess line (Rapunzel and Merida, respectively). Using genre as an organizing principle, I argue that Rapunzel and Merida are different from the past Disney princesses (Snow White, Cinderella, Ariel, Jasmine, etc.) because their narratives reflect new ideas about gender expectations in modern society. The central tension appearing in both films is the opposition between the image of woman as traditional, domestic, and dependent and woman …

University Scholar Series: Danelle Moon, Danelle Moon

University Scholar Series

Daily Life of Women During the Civil Rights Era

On September 28, 2011, Danelle Moon spoke in the University Scholar Series hosted by Provost Gerry Selter at the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Library. Danelle Moon is the Director of Special Collections & Archives, a Full Librarian, and Adjunct Professor of History at SJSU. In this seminar, she talks about her book, Daily Life of Women During the Civil Rights Era, which looks at the variety of women's experiences in promoting social justice and human rights into the United States from 1920 to the 1980s. It gives the audience a …