Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons^™

A Journey To A Black Woman’S (Read Black Girl’S) Joy And Her Story Of Coming Home, Brittany Lauren Brock

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This is an auto/ethnography about the self-actualizing journey of reclaiming storytelling as my native tongue and my journey to joy. Throughout, using my story and the stories of so many others, I not only lay out the wounds (the pain, the loss, then the hope that comes) within the academy and outside in the world but I also use storytelling as a tool of healing—my tool of healing—to show how I wrote myself free.

When Black women (read Black girls) go through The Reckoning (the moment we realize something isn’t right with how we are perceived by others) …

Can Marketing Transcend Entrenched Gender Biases?, Thinh Nguyen

Markets, Globalization & Development Review

Through a feminist lens, Maclaran and Chatzidakis (2022) challenge conventional assumptions about gender, emphasizing its performative nature shaped by social practices rather than inherent traits. This commentary extends analyses of key themes such as gender performativity, the male gaze, and subject-object binaries within marketing. It critiques how marketing strategies reinforce existing power imbalances and systemic biases rooted in historical narratives. The writing also reflects on media interpretations of gender issues through films like 'Turning Red' and 'Barbie'. By contextualizing gendered marketing within broader societal frameworks, this writing contributes to ongoing dialogues in media studies, sociology, and gender studies, highlighting the …

Introduction To Oxford Handbook Of Feminism And Law In The U.S., Deborah L. Brake, Martha Chamallas, Verna L. Williams

Book Chapters

Combining analyses of feminist legal theory, legal doctrine and feminist social movements, this Handbook offers a comprehensive overview of U.S. legal feminism. Contributions by leading feminist thinkers trace the impacts of legal feminism on legal claims and defenses and demonstrate how feminism has altered and transformed understandings of basic legal concepts, from sexual harassment and gender equity in sports to new conceptions of consent and motherhood. It connects legal feminism to adjacent intellectual discourses, such as masculinities theory and queer theory, and scrutinizes criticisms and backlash to feminism from all sides of the political spectrum. Its examination of the prominent …

Crazy Rich Asians: Exploring Discourses Of Orientalism, Neoliberal Feminism, Privilege And Inequality, Devi Vijay

Markets, Globalization & Development Review

In this review of Crazy Rich Asians (2018), I examine elements of orientalism, neoliberal feminism, privilege and inequality that layer the film. Specifically, I interrogate the film’s American inflection of orientalism, surfacing a constant duel between essentialized Asian and American values, where what is American eventually wins out. Independent, entrepreneurial women are integral to this narrative of global capitalist accumulation. Yet, as the East meets the West in the globalized consumptive spaces of the super-rich, inequalities in the United States and Singapore are either repackaged under the myth of meritocracy, or conveniently erased. While the film demarcates a new Hollywood …

Subjectivities Of Struggle: Charting Inscriptions Of Violence And Refusal On The “Cuerpo Territorio” Of Peru’S Defensoras, Natalia Guzmán Solano

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

“Subjectivities of Struggle: Inscriptions of Violence and Refusal on the ‘Cuerpo Territorio’ of Peru’s Defensoras” calls into question the colonial assumptions underpinning contemporary understandings of extractivism. The sixteen months of ethnographic research I conducted with the defensoras (women ecoterritorial defenders) of Cajamarca is situated at the fraught extractive frontier where social conflict paralyzed the expansion of a large-scale mining project and generated a coalitional struggle against extractive-led economic development. This dissertation conceptualizes extractivism as a modern/colonial product of power and knowledge that has feminized the land and inhabitants from the time of the European invasion of the Americas. While recent …

Licentious Legends: A Folklore Podcast, Alexandra L. Haynes

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

Licentious Legends was created out of a need to both understand and educate about sexual contemporary legends; not just what they are and what defines them, but the effect that they have on those who experience them. The purpose of this podcast is not to shame, but to take what has been found and educate about the joys and dangers of these legends. These legends range from the everyday (such as "The Hook"), to legends about a young man killing himself with a plunger. In an effort to gather as many examples as they could, Faye interviewed several of their …

"Buried...Like A Human Being" At The Milwaukee County Poor Farm Cemetery: A Bioarchaeological Approach To Defining Fetal And Infant Personhood Through Biological Development, Historical Discourse, And Diapering, Brianne Charles

Theses and Dissertations

The ambiguity of life is visible in the complex sets of beliefs that cultures develop around abortion, stillbirth, and neonatal death. This research grew out of ambiguities surrounding bioarchaeological methods of age estimation among fetal and infant remains and the need for additional lines of evidence to define what a prenatal or postnatal age contextually means, how these definitions were upheld or challenged, and what impact these definitions had on the mortuary treatment of these bodies.

Discernment between fetal and infant skeletal remains is important to forensic investigations and bioarchaeological questions of personhood, infant mortality, and maternal health. However, skeletal …

How To Be The Perfect Asian Wife!, Sophia Hill

Art and Art History Honors Projects

“How to be the Perfect Asian Wife” critiques exploitative power systems that assault female bodies of color in intersectional ways. This work explores strategies of healing and resistance through inserting one’s own narrative of flourishing rather than surviving, while reflecting violent realities. Three large drawings mimic pervasive advertisement language and presentation reflecting the oppressive strategies used to contain women of color. Created with charcoal, watercolor, and ink, these 'advertisements' contrast with an interactive rice bag filled with comics of my everyday experiences. These documentations compel viewers to reflect on their own participation in systems of power.

Active Resistors: The Women Of Post-Revolution Iran, Sofia E. Mouritsen

What All Americans Should Know About Women in the Muslim World

In this paper, I challenge the notion that Muslim or Middle Eastern women are passive acceptors of discrimination. After examining how Iranian women resisted governmental discrimination following the 1979 Iranian Revolution, I consider a number of factors that may have led to the reversal of some of these discriminatory policies in the 1990’s. How much of an effect did women’s demands for equality have on the government’s decisions? This question of effectiveness introduces a longtime debate between Islamic feminists, who advocate for working with the theocratic government and using Islam to frame their demands for equality, and secular feminists, who …

Individual Thought Patterns: Women In New York's Extreme Metal Music Scene, Joan M. Jocson-Singh

Theses and Dissertations

Extreme metal music (EMM) is both an umbrella term and a sub-category of heavy metal. Although women have a small but steady presence in heavy metal, this number shrinks when applied to the EMM scene. Using ethnographic research, participant-observation and interviews, this study surveys women in New York's EMM scene to address participation, gender performativity and feminist musicology.

Nasty People: An Illustrated Guide To Understanding Sex, Sophia Weaver

Senior Honors Projects

Sex made me and it probably made you too, but for many of us sex remains a mystery for our entire lives. I see sexual images every day, but I rarely hear it discussed openly or factually. This is problematic. If most people are having sex and most people have a lot of misinformation about it, STDs, unwanted pregnancies and even sexual assaults are much more likely. Research suggests that increased (and well developed) sex ed. can reduce all of the possible negative outcomes of sexual misinformation. My observations of everyday life and my research in academia have given me …

Positionality And Feminisms Of Women Within Sufi Brotherhoods Of Senegal, Georgia Collins

IdeaFest: Interdisciplinary Journal of Creative Works and Research from Cal Poly Humboldt

No abstract provided.

Lullaby For The Burning Ear: How Intersectional Feminism Can Help Decolonize The Latino Consciousness, Donovan E. Hernandez Garcia

Senior Theses

People exist with their own religions, cultures, and practices, which illustrate the ingenuity of humanity. Yet, because of major events that altered the fate of the Americas, a certain societal structure was created to maintain power. Due to colonization, the prolonged exposure to numerous cultures, and the continuation of oppressive systems, people have been forced to band together based on similar characteristics, be it race, gender, or sexual orientation, creating divisions within society. It is because of such colonial mentality, subliminal and apparent, political and cultural movements, such as Feminism and intersectionality, have been created to combat the harmful effects …

The Gender Problem Of Buddhist Nationalism In Myanmar: The 969 Movement And Theravada Nuns, Grisel D'Elena

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis uses transnational and Black feminist frameworks to analyze Buddhist nationalist discourses of gender and violence against religious and ethnic minorities in Myanmar. Burmese Buddhist nationalists’ marginalization of the Muslim Rohingya ethnic minority is inextricably linked to their attempts to control Buddhist women. Research includes interviews with U Ashin Wirathu, the leader of the monastic-led nationalist group, the 969 Movement, and with other monks of the organization, as well as with non-nationalist monks, nuns and laywomen. I also analyze Theravada textual discourse as read by my subjects in light of the history of Myanmar to understand the ways the …

The Unintended Consequences Of The International Women's Movement: Medicalizing Rape In The Democratic Republic Of Congo, Faye N. Forman

Senior Projects Spring 2016

The legal advancements made by western feminists from the 1960s continuing today mark a distinct shift for both the women's movement and mainstream radical feminist philosophy. This project examines the unintended consequences of the rise of the international women's movement as American feminists brought the law to bear as the primary instrument for reform to eradicate rape and violence against women. As contemporary political scholars demonstrate, legal remediation further codifies gender inequality and protective tropes that sexualize women's injury. Chapter 2 and 3 examines the intensified feminist efforts to criminalize domestic abuse at an international level, first at the United …

Strategic Silences: Voiceless Heroes In Fairy Tales, Jeana Jorgensen

Jeana Jorgensen

In a number of international fairy tale types, such as ATU 451 ("The Maiden Who Seeks Her Brothers"), the female protagonist voluntarily stops speaking in order to attain the object of her quest. In ATU 451, found in the collected tales of the Grimms and Hans Christian Andersen as well as in oral tradition, the protagonist remains silent while weaving the shirts needed to disenchant her brothers from their birdlike forms. While this silence is undoubtedly disempowering in some ways as she cannot defend herself from persecution and accusations of wickedness, here I argue that the choice to remain silent …

Online Feminisms: Feminist Community Building And Activism In A Digital Age, Taryn Riera

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis explores both what feminism looks like in a digital age, as well as how the Internet and technology inform the ways in which feminists interact, build communities, and form identities. I found that online feminist spaces are built as communities of validation and support, education and empowerment, as well as spaces of radicalization and contention. Ultimately my thesis leads toward a new understanding of feminist activism that incorporates the unique characteristics and abilities of online feminism.

Sowing Seeds Of Subversion: Nineteenth-Century British Women Writers' Subversive Use Of Fairy Tales And Folklore, Shandi Lynne Wagner

Wayne State University Dissertations

"Sowing Seeds of Subversion: Nineteenth-Century British Women Writers' Subversive Use of Fairy Tales and Folklore" focuses on the fictional works of nineteenth-century British women authors, analyzing their use of fairy-tale and folklore motifs to criticize social mores, in particular those surrounding domestic ideology and the institution of marriage. By situating texts within their sociocultural contexts, I explore how nineteenth-century women authors revised and adapted classic fairy tales to communicate subversive, proto-feminist social criticism to a variety of audiences. I examine fiction and poetry published in literary annuals, in fairy-tale collections, and in the more generally available collections of poetry and …

Strategic Silences: Voiceless Heroes In Fairy Tales, Jeana Jorgensen

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

In a number of international fairy tale types, such as ATU 451 ("The Maiden Who Seeks Her Brothers"), the female protagonist voluntarily stops speaking in order to attain the object of her quest. In ATU 451, found in the collected tales of the Grimms and Hans Christian Andersen as well as in oral tradition, the protagonist remains silent while weaving the shirts needed to disenchant her brothers from their birdlike forms. While this silence is undoubtedly disempowering in some ways as she cannot defend herself from persecution and accusations of wickedness, here I argue that the choice to remain silent …

Remapping Nature: Motherhood, Autonomy, And Anti-Mining Activism In Íntag, Ecuador, Ellicott K. Dandy

Honors Theses

This honors thesis explores the social changes that women engaged in anti-mining activism bring to a region in rural Ecuador. I discuss the ways in which they incorporate their activist techniques into everyday life, using their status as mothers to access public discourses of environmentalism, and ultimately rewrite gender roles locally. Framing the mining conflict as a catalyst for social change, I draw parallels between this movement and indigenous politics in Ecuador, propose new interpretations of the mestizo ethnic identity and assimilation in the Spanish Empire, and finally, make the case for a nature-centric cultural analysis in anthropology.

Can Developing Women Create Primitive Art? And Other Questions Of Value, Meaning And Identity In The Circulation Of Janakpur Art, Coralynn V. Davis

Faculty Journal Articles

In this article, I examine the values and meanings that adhere to objects made by Maithil women at a development project in Janakpur, Nepal – objects collectors have called ‘Janakpur Art’. I seek to explain how and why changes in pictorial content in Janakpur Art – shifts that took place over a period of five or six years in the 1990s – occurred, and what such a change might indicate about the link between Maithil women’s lives, development, and tourism. As I will demonstrate, part of the appeal for consumers of Janakpur Art has been that it is produced at …

Feminist Tigers And Patriarchal Lions: Rhetorical Strategies And Instrument Effects In The Struggle For Definition And Control Over Development In Nepal, Coralynn V. Davis

Faculty Journal Articles

This article offers an analysis of a struggle for control of a women’s development project in Nepal. The story of this struggle is worth telling, for it is rife with the gender politics and neo-colonial context that underscore much of what goes on in contemporary Nepal. In particular, my analysis helps to unravel some of the powerful discourses, threads of interest, and yet unintended effects inevitable under a regime of development aid. The analysis demonstrates that the employment of already available discursive figures of the imperialist feminist and the patriarchal third world man are central to the rhetorical strategies taken …