Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons^™

Addams’S Methodologies Of Writing, Thinking, And Activism, Marilyn Fischer

Books and Book Chapters by University of Dayton Faculty

To understand Addams’s texts, readers need to attend both to her evolutionary methodologies and to her interpretive strategies. Addams was an evolutionary scientist and sociologist in the days before natural selection became merged with genetics and before sociology adopted a stance of positivistic objectivity. Like other intellectuals at the nineteenth century’s turn, Addams addressed contemporary social problems by locating them within their evolutionary histories and proposing ways of moving society toward healthy equilibrium. She used specific social theories as tools, selecting the ones best suited for each given social problem. Evolutionary theorizing served as foundation and framing for her writings. …

Reflections On Charlene's Influence, Marilyn Fischer

Books and Book Chapters by University of Dayton Faculty

A contemporary appraisal of the breadth, significance, and legacy of the work of Charlene Haddock Seigfried, this book brings together writings focused on pragmatist feminism/feminist pragmatism, contemporary pragmatism, William James and the reconstruction of philosophy, education and American philosophy in the 21st century.

Charlene Haddock Seigfried is a looming figure in American thought and feminist theory who coined the phrase 'pragmatist feminist' which has become an increasingly important concept in contemporary philosophy. Seigfried argues that pragmatism and its rich history is a natural ally for feminism and that the creative combination of these two traditions can pave the way for …

At The Same Time African Women And Mothers Resisted: Dialectical Constructions Of Race And Gender In The Black Atlantic And Early Colonies Of The New World, Anna L. Biesecker-Mast

Joyce Durham Essay Contest in Women's and Gender Studies

We find the rough beginning of this story in the dynamic and contingent scene of the early Atlantic. I say contingent because it is these early complex transatlantic (political and cultural) encounters that fundamentally shaped and shape the trajectory of modernity. At the heart of this development of modernity are constructions of race and gender. And given the contingency of history, it must be noted that, if responses to these encounters had been different, perhaps we would be living with a different modernity—maybe one with different or less harmful notions of race and gender difference.

Understanding how these conceptualizations came …

Protofeminist Freedom To Choose Colonialism, Josie Forsthoff

Joyce Durham Essay Contest in Women's and Gender Studies

Intersectionality has been a legal and socio-cultural term since 1998 thanks to Kimberlé Crenshaw who put a name to the particular phenomenon of oppression. Her naming of culminating and connected marginalizations also provides an approach to address them. Nevertheless, feminisms that neglect intersectionality persist. The individualist feminist who prioritizes personal choice as the ultimate act of autonomy rarely evaluates the intersections of identity, even their own. Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre presents a protofeminist protagonist whose choices to advance her own freedom often contradict the freedom of those who live and labor outside of white and Western society. She is free …

Theories In The Flesh: Latina Feminist Philosophy Approaches To Identity, Sofia Garcia

Joyce Durham Essay Contest in Women's and Gender Studies

The idea of identity is thoroughly debated by a plethora of philosophers, and it is also a subject that non-scholars question and battle within themselves as well. For those in marginalized communities, whether they are Hispanic, African American, LGBTQ, identity is extremely complex and comes with extreme political, socio-economic, and physiological implications as well. In our current climate these identity questions play out in discussions over critical race theory, immigration policies like DACA, and so many other grave issues. Latinx philosophers take conversations about identity seriously and ask questions such as what is Latina identity really? Is Latina mestiza identity …

We Just Need To Pee: Bathroom Bills And The Intersection Of Human Rights, Gender, And Race, Lena Tenney

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Although rarely publicly discussed, bathrooms are a fundamental element of everyday life. In fact, the majority of the population does not question their right or ability to access public restroom facilities because they are a mundane aspect of daily routine. However, the recent rise of “bathroom bills” in state legislatures has sparked significant media coverage and highlighted activist movements seeking to guarantee safe, affirming, and legally protected access to bathrooms for people of all gender identities and expressions.

This paper will illustrate that bathroom access is not only a matter of public policy, but also a question of human rights. …

Stealing Freedom: Auto Theft And Autonomous Individualism In American Film, James Todd Uhlman, John Alfred Heitmann

History Faculty Publications

In the real world today auto theft is usually about gangs, drugs, and money (Heitmann and Morales 5). However, since 1945, the cinematic representation of auto theft has had more to do with the symbolic meaning cars and driving hold in American culture. In the early twentieth century, the automobile and driving became associated with many of the classic qualities of American identity (March and Collette 107). The roots of that expectation stretch back even further to the role that movement played in the colonization of the continent. The unrestrained capacity to move became equated early in the American cultural …

Navigating Body, Class, And Disability In The Life Of Agnes Burns Wieck, Caroline Waldron Merithew

History Faculty Publications

The concerns expressed in Burns Wieck’s letter to Hapgood typify many of the issues that occupied her during the course of her life. She, like many Americans in the early twentieth century, thought that there were economic disparities as well as great cultural divisions between the working and middle classes in a capitalist system. Burns Wieck worried about how nature and environment shaped physical and emotional existence for her as a woman and as a worker.4 A question she asked about childbirth in her letter—“Why, oh why, can’t they find some way to humanize that experience?”—is one that she might …

'We Were Not Ladies': Gender, Class, And A Women’S Auxiliary’S Battle For Mining Unionism, Caroline Waldron Merithew

History Faculty Publications

“We Were Not Ladies” uses the 1930s dual union fight between the United Mine Workers of America and the Progressive Miners to challenge the historiography on women’s auxiliaries in the United States. While most labor and women’s historians have focused on the traditional and supporting roles that non-wage-earning women played in male unions, I show a more radical side to working-class housewives’ activism. Through the Women’s Auxiliary of the Progressive Miners, coal miners’ daughters and wives recognized that conventional gender roles could neither gain them political and economic power in their communities, nor could these roles encompass their evolving political …