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Articles 1 - 11 of 11
Full-Text Articles in Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Mothering As Feminism, Meera Patel
Mothering As Feminism, Meera Patel
MFA in Illustration & Visual Culture
This critical essay proposes the concept of mothering-as-feminism, with the intention of interrogating American ideals of mothering and caregiving. Reforming the way we view mothering, as it relates to feminism, requires a re-evaluation of the American role of women and mothers—and how they are portrayed (and therefore seen and understood), valued, and supported. Focusing on the evolution of feminist theory throughout the past 70 years, as well as personal and secondary experiences, I demonstrate how political and social change occurs generationally and is dependent on the education of our children. Ultimately, I show the important role children’s literature plays …
A Cultural History Of Anti-Feminism In Marvel's Scarlet Witch, Madison M. Kooba
A Cultural History Of Anti-Feminism In Marvel's Scarlet Witch, Madison M. Kooba
UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones
Marvel Comics character Wanda Maximoff, otherwise known as the Scarlet Witch, has received significant attention in popular culture due to her recent appearances as the primary protagonist and antagonist in television show WandaVision (2021) and film Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022). These depictions foregrounding Wanda’s struggles with mental health have made her an admirable character to many who see her drawing power from her emotions as a celebration of aspects of womanhood that have long been shamed by society. Sourcing these contemporary adaptations, however, lies decades of blatantly anti-feminist and sexist comics that villainize and ridicule Wanda’s …
Bodies Of Silence And Space: Victimhood, Complicity, And Resistance In Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, Sana H. Mufti
Bodies Of Silence And Space: Victimhood, Complicity, And Resistance In Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, Sana H. Mufti
Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository
This thesis examines the complexity of resistance and the conditions of power for women in The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood. Using feminist theory, theories of neoliberalism, and Dominionism, this thesis works to understand the ways in which victimhood and complicity influence resistance in totalitarian regimes. I argue that neoliberal ideologies skew understandings of freedom, agency, and power in a way that ensures individuals, specifically women, remain trapped in the system. Focusing on reproduction, I examine how Gilead controls women’s bodies and reproductive abilities to ensure a future for itself. The Eve-Complex is one way that the state integrates itself …
Look At Her: The Subversive Spectacle Of Grande Dame Guignol Cinema, Michelle Smith
Look At Her: The Subversive Spectacle Of Grande Dame Guignol Cinema, Michelle Smith
English Theses
While the Grande Dame Guignol films of the early 1960s served in their time to capitalize on the reputations of aging female stars and the growing popularity of the horror genre, an updated reading of this subgenre proves that it is rich with social critique regarding the feminine experience, social performance, and the tendencies of classical Hollywood cinema that promote a dominant, patriarchal social narrative. While many popular and critical responses diminish them as “psycho-biddy” or “hagsploitation” films, the Grande Dame Guignol tradition’s transformation of its actresses from glamorous icons to unrecognizable villains rejects such limiting appraisals by focusing on …
Maternal Criticism: Reading Two Middle Eastern Women Writers As Nonviolent Peace Activism, Charlyn Marie Ingwerson
Maternal Criticism: Reading Two Middle Eastern Women Writers As Nonviolent Peace Activism, Charlyn Marie Ingwerson
Graduate Theses and Dissertations
This dissertation advocates for reading the literatures of two Middle Eastern women writers through a Maternal Critical lens that recognizes the demands of universal vulnerability in characters who resist violence, and responds in Maternal communities of Readers that connect readers to characters, readers to writers, and readers to other readers, carrying the struggle for equity forward. My unfolding argument, centered on Maternal Critical activity in the novels of Palestinian writer Sahar Khalifeh and Israeli writer Ronit Matalon, demonstrates how literature by these Middle Eastern women is part of a narrative context of women’s peacemaking and resistance to violence, a part …
Waging War On The Womb: Women’S Bodies As Nationalist Symbols And Strategic Victims Of Violence In Susan Abulhawa’S Mornings In Jenin, Noora Badwan
Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)
Nationalism is a patriarchal construct that clearly delineates women’s roles in the social structure, and assigns female bodies specific roles in the nationalist, social, and political narratives, albeit passive ones; ironically, as integral to nationalism as women are, they are only ever pawns used by the state, never equal participants. They are often assigned the role of the mother figure who produces new citizens to populate the nation and who are expected to raise them to be “good citizens” and offer them up to the state as potential tools. The mother figure is a nationalist icon who is also often …
Becoming Pamela: The Fight For Maternal Authority In Pamela Ii, Danielle Pollaro
Becoming Pamela: The Fight For Maternal Authority In Pamela Ii, Danielle Pollaro
Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)
In Pamela, Volume II, Pamela and her husband, Mr. B, clash over breastfeeding their child. The conflict over breastfeeding represents a contest for control over the maternal body and with it control over woman’s authority. The eighteenth-century created the concept of motherhood in order to maintain and perpetuate the patriarchy’s social, economic and sexual hierarchies. Pamela, Volume II propagates eighteenth-century domestic discourse by instructing and constructing the idea of the good wife and mother. Pamela’s failure to resist domesticity reveals patriarchy’s role in establishing gender identity. The novel functions to reinforce, strengthen and sustain eighteenth-century domestic discourse to stabilize …
Protecting Systems Of Nature And Gender: Ecofeminism In Barbara Kingsolver's Prodigal Summer And Ruth Ozeki's All Over Creation, Sarah J. Hirsch
Protecting Systems Of Nature And Gender: Ecofeminism In Barbara Kingsolver's Prodigal Summer And Ruth Ozeki's All Over Creation, Sarah J. Hirsch
All Student Theses
Ecofeminism has permeated the disciplines of politics, philosophy, science, and literature – all of which are embedded in the fiction of Barbara Kingsolver’s Prodigal Summer and Ruth Ozeki’s All Over Creation. In this thesis, I consider the authors’ use of scientific evidence to engage readers with their rhetorical goals of protecting the systems of nature and gender. In the first chapter, I define the history of ecofeminist activism and how Kingsolver and Ozeki continue its tradition. The second chapter considers the parallels between biodiversity and cultural diversity within both Prodigal Summer and All Over Creation. In the final chapter, I …
“Of The Woman First Of All”: Walt Whitman And Women's Literary History, Vivian Delchamps
“Of The Woman First Of All”: Walt Whitman And Women's Literary History, Vivian Delchamps
Scripps Senior Theses
This thesis contemplates Walt Whitman's role in the lives of 19th and 20th century women writers and his significance to early American feminism. I consider the ways women inspired him to develop pro-feminist ideas about maternity, womanhood, and female liberation.
Reconceiving Self-Abnegation: Female Vulnerability As Embodied (Un)Sovereignty, Renee Lee Gardner
Reconceiving Self-Abnegation: Female Vulnerability As Embodied (Un)Sovereignty, Renee Lee Gardner
Dissertations
Liberal feminism views vulnerability as weakness and dominance as strength. This binary parallels nationalistic assertions of sovereignty. Within militaristic responses such as the U.S. retaliation to 9/11, however, we see the cost of refusing to acknowledge our vulnerability. In my analysis of eleven novels arising from eight distinct nation-states and representing historical moments from the final decades of slavery through the early post- 9/11 years, I use alternative (queer, postcolonial, Islamic) feminisms to read power in vulnerability. I explore female characters who deliberately self-abnegate – sacrificing their lives, bodies, voices, and children – but whose actions can be read as …
Fire On The Mountain, Clear Light Of Day And Fasting, Feasting: An Exploration Of Indian Motherhood In The Fiction Of Anita Desai, Ashley N. Batts
Fire On The Mountain, Clear Light Of Day And Fasting, Feasting: An Exploration Of Indian Motherhood In The Fiction Of Anita Desai, Ashley N. Batts
Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects
No abstract provided.