Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons^™

Below The Neck, Above The Knees, Desiree Dawn Kapler

Theses and Dissertations

My thesis explores the act of violation in the context of trauma and healing through the use of personal narratives and experimental film. My research allows personal storytelling to transform into a larger and more universal theme of generational trauma and dysfunction. Through a feminist lens, I challenge social norms of body autonomy for the sick and abused, capitalism’s social effects on the poor, and passed down maternal lessons from the women who are doing the best that they can with the lives and opportunities that they have been given.

This work is created in spite of the labels my …