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) …

Perreando To New Lyrics: Integrating Feminist Reggaeton In Expressive Art Therapy A Literature Review | Perreando A Nueva Lírica: Una Revisión Literaria Sobre Integrar El Reggaetón Feminista A Las Terapias Con Artes Expresivas, Marilina Arsuaga

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

This paper presents how feminist reggaeton can be used as a creative tool for women's empowerment. The literature review explores the work that has been done with feminism in expressive arts therapies, defines what feminist reggaeton is, and presents different considerations to incorporate the musical genre into a therapeutic intervention. Among these considerations, there is the social stigma that is held about the musical genre and female gender; the community-based work; the importance of cultural identity centered on the Latinx, more specifically Puerto Rican; and recognition of the LGBTQ+ community in the creative spaces. To navigate these issues, the author …

Victim Or Villain: Female Resilience And Agency In The Face Of Trauma In Chimamanda Adichie’S, Purple Hibiscus (2003) And Tsitsi Dangarembga’S, Nervous Conditions (1988), Adaobi Juliet Chukwuma

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

As long as disparities persist in the way women are treated as compared to their male counterparts, the issue of gender will continue to call forth literary productions. For this reason, female writers are on a mission to dismantle the stereotypes that keep women confined to societal roles. Grounded in a feminist framework, this study focuses on the gender disparity theme in Chimamanda Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus and Tsitsi Dangarembga’s Nervous Conditions. The aim is to examine how these writers represent the trauma of women living in an African patriarchal system. The traumatic experiences of the female characters in both texts …

You Are Cordially (Un)Invited: My Korean Femme Strategy And Aspiration For Survival And Queer Futures, Nahyun Kim

Masters Theses

You are cordially (un)invited: My Korean Femme Strategy and Aspiration for Survival and Queer Futures documents a series of ceremonies dedicated to the years I have survived. This book has branched from a project of the same name that consists of a durational installation, performance, and series of events. The project and book are an aspirational gesture to send off the part of myself–that had to compromise, comply, and negotiate with institutions–for a rebirth to live a life beyond survival.

As a book and project, You are cordially (un)invited is a culmination of my experiences as a Korean femme, using …

Woman Flytrap, Brianna Jo Hobson

Student Theses and Dissertations

Woman FlyTrap is a short story zine collection that explores the topic of sexual violence through the perpetrator and victim relationship with an explicit lens. Replete with cultural and entomological themes and motifs, Woman Flytrap seeks to remind survivors that we are not alone. In our bodies or in our lives. Neither in the world. There are over a million insects to every human, proving that there is strength in numbers. All five stories in the collection present different abstracts: revenge, transformation, justice, healing, body image, self-harm, mourning, etc. There is also a playlist and a section about the author. …

Other Oceans, Other Skies, Sharlene Lee

MFA in Visual Art

I create immersive installations, performances, and time-based media artworks that delve into stories of belonging, feminism, and language as power. These stories offer a potential for transformation from viewer to participant and a shift in how our world is seen and experienced. Through an exploration of perception and affect, I challenge dominant narratives, prompting a contemplation of contemporary power struggles for control.

In this text, I examine the impact of historical borders and migration on my life while also investigating questions of home, shared values, and rituals that contribute to one’s sense of belonging. I also highlight my commitment to …

This Woman's Work: A Comprehensive Analysis Of The Domestic Workers Who Swept The Shards Of A Shattered Glass Ceiling, Grier Mcclard

Political Science Undergraduate Honors Theses

In "This Woman's Work: A Comprehensive Analysis of the Domestic Workers who Swept the Shards of a Shattered Glass Ceiling" Grier McClard argues that the industry of Domestic Service experienced a massive shift in the second half of the 20th century, transforming from a sign of wealth and privilege, to a necessity for many. Despite the necessity of domestic workers for families, they are consistently one of the most unprotected and underpaid class of workers. McClard ties these changes in Domestic Work to Second Wave feminist ideology, and the influx of women working away from their houses.

Contextualizing Feminism Within Igbo History And An Analysis Of The Works Of Ngozi Anyanwu, Chisom Awachie

Theatre Thesis - Written Thesis

Throughout Nigeria’s history, Igbo women have contended with violence from colonial and imperialist forces and misogyny from the Igbo men in their communities. In solidarity with one another, Igbo women have continued to fight back to ensure their voices are heard in politics and access to professional careers. The Nigerian- and Igbo-American playwright Ngozi Anyanwu writes about Igbo women who assert themselves and maintain their agency throughout cultural and interpersonal conflicts, similar to these historical strategies. Anyanwu’s plays The Homecoming Queen, Good Grief, and My Name…is Beatrice feature women dealing with grief, sexual trauma, and access to reproductive healthcare between …

The Structures Of Intra-National Class Divisions In Neoliberalism: The Women Of “Light” And “Dark” In The White Tiger, Sneha Madimi

Theses and Dissertations

Aravind Adiga’s novel, The White Tiger, represents gender hierarchies and the class struggle of India’s neoliberal present. Adiga uses elements of satire and allegory to teach us something about how women are differently positioned in the neoliberal system. David Harvey in A Brief History of Neoliberalism defines neoliberalism as “a theory of political economic practices that proposes that human well-being can best be advanced by liberating individual entrepreneurial freedoms and skills within an institutional framework characterized by strong private property rights, free markets, and free trade” (2). I will consider the novel, alongside Chandra Mohanty’s “Under Western Eyes” …

Decolonizing Genderqueer: An Inquiry Into The Gender Binary, Resistance, And Imperialistic Social Categories, Lauren E. Abruzzo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines core metaphysical properties of nonbinary and genderqueer categories in dominant U.S. contexts. I address a prevailing argument that these categories, by definition, resist the gender binary and are therefore radical modes of existing. In response, I put forth a view of ‘nonbinary’ and ‘genderqueer’ that I call the Diachronic Approach, which describes these categories as yet another set of tools within an imperialistic gender system, much like ‘man’ or ‘woman.’ In other words, they are what I refer to as imperialistic social categories. While nonbinary and genderqueer people do not fall perfectly within the U.S. gender …

The Immigrant Nannies Of New York City: An Examination Of The Friendships Between Nannies And Mother-Employers, Esmeralda Paula

Senior Projects Spring 2022

This ethnography focuses on the emotions of the women of color who elaborated on their experiences working for wealthy, white families in ethnographic interviews. This project is interested in the connections formed between nannies and mother-employers with the goal of better understanding the positionalities of female domestic workers of color. Immigrant populations are frequently depicted by news outlets as overworked, underpaid, and poor. When interacting with nannies, I realized that these women did not consider themselves impoverished despite working in a role that is identifiable with servanthood. The labor that nannies perform calls back to a long tradition of women …

Space-Praxis: Towards A Feminist Politics Of Design, Mary C. Overholt

Masters of Environmental Design Theses

Outside of the academy and professionalized practice, design has long been central to the production of feminist, political projects. Taking what I have termed space-praxis as its central analytic, this project explores a suite of feminist interventions into the built environment—ranging from the late 1960s to present day.

Formulated in response to Michel de Certeau’s theory of spatial practices, space-praxis collapses formerly bifurcated definitions of ‘tactic’/‘strategy’ and ‘theory’/‘practice.’ It gestures towards those unruly, situated undertakings that are embedded in an ever-evolving, liberative politics. In turning outwards, away from the so-called masters of architecture, this thesis orients itself toward everyday practitioners …

A Devised Ethnodrama: Conscious Voices, Sonia Pasqual

Master of Liberal Studies Theses

Using techniques of storytelling, dance, poems, and monologues in the process of re-enacting life stories, the ensemble display issues that may be impeding society’s growth—discrimination against body image, blackness, females, and LGBTQ individuals. In addition, engagement in storytelling and performance can help the audience increase their cognitive skills, empathy, and ability to live a communal life. This evidence-based practice can transform lives and society. It has the potential of continuing to other faculties and with other departments, such as film, musical, and additional narratives. This specific work could be extended out beyond art and education into populations of any communities …

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Dramaturgical Concerns): Re-Centering Dramaturgy And Comedy As Feminist Tools For Social Change, Shaila Schmidt

Masters Theses

Titled as a play on Mindy Kaling’s 2011 book, Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns), this thesis highlights the obstacles women, the genre of comedy, and dramaturgs face in order to be taken seriously in the arts. Using the work of Mindy Kaling, I explore how she uses comedy as a means of defying the expectations put upon her as an Indian American woman in order to provide context for the ways in which the marginal statuses of women of color and comedy overlap.

In an effort to demonstrate the ways in which comedy can be …

Imperial Subjection And The Orientalist Gaze: Turning Asian Women’S Bodies Into Entertainment, Miriam Ahn

Master's Theses

This thesis analyzes the structural factors that provide meaning and space to performances where violence is served as entertainment. What are the structural conditions that turn gendered and racialized violent forms of display into enjoyment? By exploring the sex tourism in Thailand, particularly ping-pong shows, I will analyze aspects of international political economy and feminist studies to address forms of display based on the abjectness of the other. I argue that sex tourism in Thailand is not part of local culture but is upheld by imperial hegemonic perceptions of the colonized and gendered bodies. The perspectives of Orientalism, patriarchal systems, …

The South African Women's Movement: The Roles Of Feminism And Multiracial Cooperation In The Struggle For Women's Rights, Amber Michelle Lenser

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In the historiography of South Africa’s recent past, focus has been most heavily placed on apartheid and the anti-apartheid movement, with much emphasis placed on male involvement and men as the primary agents of change in the country. Women are largely viewed as playing a supportive role to male activists throughout the movement, and far less has been written on female involvement or women’s activism in its own right. Running parallel to the anti-apartheid movement, however, was a women’s movement characterized by women across the racial and socioeconomic spectrum struggling to secure their own rights in a very hostile and …

Does Money Indeed Buy Happiness? “The Forms Of Capital” In Fitzgerald’S Gatsby And Watts’ No One Is Coming To Save Us, Allie Harrison Vernon

English (MA) Theses

Looking primarily at two critically acclaimed texts that concern themselves with American citizenship—F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and Stephanie Powell Watts’ No One is Coming to Save Us—I analyze the claims made about citizenship identities, rights, and consequential access to said rights. I ask, how do these narratives about citizenship sustain, create, or re-envision American myth? Similarly, how do the narratives interact with the dominant culture at large? Do any of these texts achieve oppositional value, and/or modify the complex hegemonic structure? I use Pierre Bourdieu’s “The Forms of Capital” to investigate the ways in which economic, cultural, …

Panmela Castro: Feminism In Brazilian Graffiti Art, Giulia Chu Ferri

Student Theses and Dissertations

This paper is an analysis on the graffiti artist Panmela Castro and her murals in Brazil and around the world. My thesis emphasizes the importance of feminist subject matter for graffiti art in Brazil, as well as its impact on the public sphere. The paper is separated into four sections: “Formative Years,” describing her biography and the development of her works; “Interaction with the City,” analyzing the interaction between graffiti and the urban environment, and using that discussion as a frame to contextualize Castro’s work; “Feminist Imagery and Ideology,” examining some of her concurrent themes and imageries; and finally “Transnational …

The Woman We Don’T Want To Be: The Anti-Heroine In American Women’S Modernisms, Madison Priest

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Anita Loos’ Lorelei has a baby because “a kid that looks like any rich father is as good as money in the bank.” Edith Wharton’s Undine uses hers as a pawn in divorce negotiations with the child’s father. Jessie Redmon Fauset’s Angela abandons her sister so her boyfriend won’t guess she’s black, and Nella Larsen’s Helga frustrates and alienates everyone she loves. Yet these protagonists were subject not just to gleeful mockery and sanction, but to furtive pity, uncomfortable recognition, even envy. Each age calls for its own bogeys; and the anti-heroine was, I contend, the perfect instantiation of American …

The Tragic Mulatta Trope: Complexities Of Representation, Identity, And Existing In The Middle Of The Racial Binary, Madeline Stephens

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Cultivating Chingona Power: A Study On The Chingona Identity, Celia Orosco Haro

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Mujeres across the country are claiming the Chingona identity and using it to cultivate their Chingona strength, feel empowered, and live for their own approval. A Chingona in this newly reclaimed use means a woman who embodies confidence, acceptance of self, reclamation of sexuality, siguiendo le adelante por su propio camino sin importarle lo que digan los demás, rejects social and cultural norms/expectations of women, and uses her strengths to empower and uplift others. Through the reclamation of this identity, these mujeres are moving beyond being hijas de la chingada to being Chingonas. This research highlights the Chingona identity …

Responding To Change: Girl Scouts, Race, And The Feminist Movement, Phyllis E. Reske

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of the Girl Scouts of the United States of America (GSUSA) is to teach girls to be giving, self-sufficient, and independent in their homes and communities through volunteer work and earning merit badges. Open to all girls since its inception, the GSUSA offers Girl Scouts training in both gender-conforming and nontraditional vocations. However, during the first half of the twentieth century, segregation and domesticity was emphasized in American society. The organization began to focus less on careers, independence, and racial inclusion to preparing predominately white girls to be good wives and mothers. As Black Power and women’s liberation …

Un/Dead Animal Art: Ethical Encounters Through Rogue Taxidermy Sculpture, Miranda Niittynen

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Beginning in 2004, the Minnesota Association of Rogue Taxidermists began an art movement of taxidermied animal sculptures that challenged conventional forms of taxidermied objects massively produced and displayed on an international scale. In contrast to taxidermied ‘specimens’ found in museums, taxidermied ‘exotic’ wildlife decapitated and mounted on hunters' walls, or synthetic taxidermied heads bought in department stores, rogue taxidermy artists create unconventional sculptures that are arguably antithetical to the ideologies shaped by previous generations: realism, colonialism, masculinity. As a pop-surrealist art movement chiefly practiced among women artists, rogue taxidermy artists follow an ethical mandate to never kill animals for the …

Away From The End Of Motherhood: Sites Of Haunting In The Social Imaginary In Lemonade And The Handmaid's Tale, Julia Michele Fleming

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis analyzes the television series adaptation of The Handmaid's Tale, specifically the episode "A Woman's Place," and Beyoncé's Lemonade: A Visual Album. I argue that these cultural texts leverage representations of women's lived experiences to scrutinize contemporary American anxieties about motherhood and reproductive justice. Lemonade, a celebration of Black womanhood, presents a counterpoint to The Handmaid's Tale's preoccupation with white motherhood in way that speculates on the utopian potentials of a woman-centered society.

Using bell hooks' film analysis, Avery Gordon's "haunting," and Luce Irigaray's "mimicry," I examine two interconnected themes: feminist aesthetics and generational haunting. …

Bricolage Propriety: The Queer Practice Of Black Uplift, 1890–1905, Timothy M. Griffiths

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Bricolage Propriety: The Queer Practice of Black Uplift, 1890-1905 situates the queer-of-color cultural imaginary in a relatively small nodal point: the United States at the end of the nineteenth century. Through literary analysis and archival research on leading and marginal figures of Post-Reconstruction African American culture, this dissertation considers the progenitorial relationship of late-nineteenth century black uplift novels to modern-day queer theory. Bricolage Propriety builds on work about the sexual politics of early African American literature begun by women-of-color feminists of the late 1980s and early 1990s, including Hazel V. Carby, Ann duCille, and Claudia Tate. A new wave of …

Tipping Point, Pang Z. Vang

Theses and Dissertations

What happens to a woman at the tipping point under oppression in a patriarchal society? How does she behave? Pulling from the vagina dentata mythologies, and personal and collective experiences of rape culture, I formed a body of work which problematize the stereotypical narrative of victim/perpetrator. As a visual and conceptual exploration, my work explores the themes of desire, agency/non-agency, and violence [as it manifests within and outside of the body]. Utilizing visual and conceptual quotations from film, pornography and sex toys, these works subvert the exoticized stereotype of the Asian woman as sexual plaything.

The Parton Paradox: A History Of Race And Gender In The Career Of Dolly Parton, Lindsey L. Hammers

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

With a career that has spanned over five decades, country music artist Dolly Parton has continually redefined her image and her music to remain relevant. By incorporating the musical and lyrical stylings of disco and other popular music genres into her songs, Parton moved beyond music’s color line to increase her popularity as an artist. This thesis shows how Parton established a distinct career that catered to different audiences as she traversed the musical color line and repackaged what feminism looked like to country music fans during the Women’s Movement of the 1960s. Placing Parton’s actions in conversation with music’s …

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 …

I Preferred, Much Preferred, My Version: Exploring The Female Voice And Feminine Identity Within Memoirs Of The 20th And 21st Centuries, Alexandra Fradelizio

Senior Theses

Memoirs have long been a valuable way in which individuals share and reflect on their past experiences. The genre of memoir writing especially had a tremendous impact on a range of American female writers. This thesis explores memoirs written by women throughout the 20^th century. With the shift in women’s roles during the 1900s and early 2000s, the memoirs examined emphasize the importance of feminine identity. The analysis provided within this thesis centers on each memoirist’s unique path in determining her sense of self. Moreover, the memoirists each use the process of writing to relay the value of personal …

Hybrid, Subversive, And Skeptical Performances Of Gender, Power, And Space In The Postcolonial Avant-Garde, Alyson T. Inouye

Honors Projects

In her one-woman play, Iraqi-American playwright and actress Heather Raffo performs the testimonies of nine resilient Iraqi women, emphasizing their diverse experiences of the American occupation and life under the Baathist regime. Near the end of the play, one of the soliloquies breaks down into incoherence: an instance of poetic rupture. There is revolutionary potential latent in this avant-garde technique, and by applying it to her urgent and immediate postcolonial context Raffo simultaneously enacts and demands a response of justice to the injustices attested to throughout. Through the poetic rupture of Layal’s textual/psychological breakdown, Raffo undermines the system that, by …