Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons^™

The Rise Of Femicide & Digital Activism, Hannah Micciolo

Faculty Curated Undergraduate Works

Women’s voices are often silenced as compared to men, especially when it comes to speaking out against the injustice women have faced. In Mexico, women had been enduring femicide for decades, oftentimes being silenced and overshadowed by the government’s narrative. In this new wave of activism called digital activism, people are now using social media to inform their audience about specific issues. Florence Pugh is one of these people. Pugh uses digital activism to spread awareness for Femicide in Mexico and encourage her audience to also speak up on the issue in a time where women’s voices are silenced.

Black Feminism And Me/Maine Webinar, University Of Maine Alumni Association

Social Justice: Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion

Video of the University of Maine Alumni Association's Black Feminism and Me/Maine Webinar.

The conversation was facilitated by Laren Babb who pursued a graduate degree in chemistry from the University of Maine. Around the table will be: Dr. Samaa Abdurraqib, Associate Director, Maine Humanities Council; Dr. Lori Banks, Assistant Professor of Biology, Bates College; Dr. Leslie Hill, Professor Emerita of Politics, Bates College; Amara Ifeji, Director of Youth Engagement and Policy, Maine Environmental Association and National Geographic Young Explorer; and Kosi Ifeji, Bangor High School student and Youth Hub Coordinator, Maine Environmental Education Association.

The event was made possible with …

Ua19/16/2 Women's Basketball Press Releases, Wku Athletic Media Relations

WKU Archives Records

Press releases, photos and game statistics for WKU women's basketball team from August to December 2021.

Jewish Feminist Liberation And Right To Prayer Flyer, Office For Diversity And Inclusion, University Of Maine, Intersectional Feminist Resource Center, University Of Maine

Social Justice: Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion

Promotional flyer for an Intersectional Feminist Brunch featuring guest speaker Rachel Pellis speaking on "Jewish feminist liberation and right to prayer."

Harvesting The Truth About Salt Mining: An Assessment Of The Factors And Demographics That Influence Women To Become Salt Miners, Katwe Uganda, Amelia Simmonds

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Traditional and rudimentary methods of salt mining have been used to harvest salt from Lake Katwe in Uganda for over 400 years. Even though these methods are effective in extracting salt, they are proven to be hazardous to the miners. Though not often acknowledged, the role of women in salt mining operations is significant as they make up half of the workforce in East Africa. Regardless of the health risks associated with the mining sector, the number of women involved in small-scale salt mining increases by the year. The main objective of this study was to gain a better understanding …

Draagmoederschap: Surrogacy In The Netherlands, Olivia Murray

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

In this paper, I investigated surrogacy in the Netherlands by interviewing four surrogates and one intended parent about their experiences. I found that the participants shared several common experiences and opinions, especially related to why they chose to be surrogates, how surrogates and intended parents negotiate their relationship during and after pregnancy, the tensions of passing on parenthood and merging families, the (non-binding) contracts that surrogates and parents create, Dutch law, and commercial surrogacy. I argue that much of the discourse around surrogacy relitigates many of the arguments made in favor and against sex work, in that it sets surrogacy …

Burning In Purgatory: The Suffocation Of Bisexuality And How The Match Was Lit, Tricia Menzel

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The present study examines the way in which bisexuality is experienced and conceptualized in the city of Amsterdam, and how this influences bisexuality’s existence as a sexual identity. Data was collected through conducting one-on-one open-ended interviews with six queer women living in Amsterdam, five of whom are attracted to all genders. Interviews included themes of binegativity, conforming to lesbianism for safety in queer spaces, the additional mental load bisexual women carry, the perception that bisexual women are delusional to their real selves. These themes are then analyzed in order to give reason to the dissolving of the bisexual identity. This …

La Autenticidad Y El Yo: Un Análisis Sobre La Experiencia Urbana De Las Mujeres Indígenas En Ecuador, Madison L. Mcclellan

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

As research on the urban indigenous experience continues to expand, considerations of how indigenous populations understand, express and introspect upon their being indigenous in the city still proves an underexplored topic. The generalizing notion that indigenous persons are staticーin temporal, migratory and identity termsーcategorically conflicts with the growing trends of rural to urban migration patterns. Even more, deep-rooted indigenous-rural associations engender identity disorientations among indigenous women living in the city. The city becomes a space of self-confrontation and re-construction as indigenous women encounter questions of authenticity and shame.

Based in literature on identity, performance, authenticity and shame, this research considers …

Through The Eyes Of Lawyers And Advocates: Navigating The Court System For Women Impacted By Domestic Violence In Morocco, Emily Atieh

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

How do Moroccan women impacted by domestic violence navigate criminal legal systems in Morocco? Is the progressive family law present in Morocco due to recent reforms fully implemented in court systems? How can systems be improved to better support women impacted by violence? This study originally sought to answer these questions by surveying lawyers at NGOs in the Rabat area who act as advocates for women impacted by domestic violence. As a result of their expansive knowledge of criminal legal systems and experiences aiding hundreds of women, lawyers are in a unique position to critique the criminal legal system and …

Building A Feminist Commons In The Time Of Covid-19, Miriam Ticktin

Publications and Research

The global response to the COVID-19 pandemic has been structured around the idea that human connection and sociality are bad—they are dangerous. This essay suggests that, perhaps paradoxically, rather than isolating to stay healthy, people are forging new egalitarian forms of connection. I argue that COVID-19 has enhanced experiments in what I will call a “burgeoning feminist commons.” These foreground new, horizontal forms of sociality, and they build the grounds of resistance, refusing to separate the time of political organization from that of reproduction. I discuss three such experiments: masked mobs, friendly fridges, and pandemic pods. Each form of connection …

An Analysis Of The Role Of Gender In Political News Media Coverage, Clare Atkinson

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Although there has been a decrease in specific exclusionary rules in governments around the world, most nations are very far from a governing body which represents the diversity that exists within their borders. There are many issues which may dissuade previously marginalized populations from political participation. One of these problems when it comes to female participation, is differential political news coverage. This study looked at how media sources set the political agenda and frame news stories in terms of the gender of a politician, and how this can create an additional challenge for women in government. The investigation found that …

The Hands That Weave Stories, Elanna Hawkins

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

There is a narrative encoded in carpets of Morocco, and I set out with the initial intention to learn how to “read” them—thinking that a Western sense of language is present from the symbols and patterns in the rug. As I progressed in my research and met the skilled women artisans, I realized that I needed to rethink how a story that doesn’t necessarily require a written format can be told to relate to these cultural totems of Morocco. Through in-person experience and online research, I discovered many designs and backgrounds unique to specific regions and areas. Rugs can tell …

Los Efectos Psicosociales Que Produce El Embarazo En Las Vidas De Madres Adolescentes En Quito, Ecuador, Kaylee Howell

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Research Question: What are the psychological and social effects of teen pregnancy facing teen mothers in 2021 and how do they impact their lives? Objective: The general objective is to describe the psychosocial implications produced by teen pregnancy. Background: Teen pregnancy rates of Latin America and the Caribbean are second in the world, second only to the region of Subsaharan-Africa. Within Latin America, Ecuador has the highest rates of adolescent pregnancy, surpassed only by Venezuela. Recently, the taboo surrounding reproductive health has been challenged, with the matter of abortion being brought to the supreme court. In conjunction with the matter …

Diversity And Inclusion_Snack & Chat_What Does Equitable Reproduction Justice Look Like? Poster, University Of Maine Office For Diversity And Inclusion

Social Justice: Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion

Poster for the University of Maine Office for Diversity and Inclusion's Snack & Chat facilitated reflection and debrief on the restrictive reproductive health law in Texas.

Snack & Chat: What Does Equitable Reproductive Justice Look Like?, Office For Diversity And Inclusion, University Of Maine

Social Justice: Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion

Flyer promoting a September 16, 2021, Snack and Chat event discussing "What does equitable reproductive justice look like?"

First Things First: Black Women Situating Identity In The First-Year Faculty Experience, Nakia M. Gray-Nicolas, Angel Miles Nash

Education Faculty Articles and Research

The first year in the education professoriate is an ineluctably critical time to establish a pathway for long-term professional success mirroring a scholar’s commitment to positively influencing students, schools, and communities. For Black women, the distinguished dual marginalization that they endure based on race and gender creates challenges and opportunities during that important start to their career. Through Black feminist thought and portraiture’s intentional blurring of art, life, and scientific boundaries, two Black women tenure track faculty use their ‘pens as weapons’ to explicate the first-year professional experiences. They draw on their narratives and that of three other Black women …

Cover Guys: Masculinity, Sexuality, And Representations Of Men's Bodies In Popular Magazines For Men, Trenton M. Haltom

Department of Sociology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Scant research puts magazines into conversation with sociological theories of masculinity or sexuality. Yet, magazines have long projected idealized images of masculinities, the male body, and men’s sexuality. In this dissertation, I examine representations of men in popular magazines, highlighting the multifaceted ways magazines have marketed masculinity and the sexualization of men.

Using an explanatory sequential mixed method content analysis, I analyze 38 years (1980–2018; N=2,750) of magazine covers from GQ (n=516), Men’s Health (n=277), and Sports Illustrated (n=1,671). Each cover was coded using a standardized coding form developed for this dissertation. The coding …

Ua3/10/4 Naming & Symbols Task Force Report & Recommendations, Wku President's Office - Caboni

WKU Archives Records

Report of the Naming & Symbols Task Force concerning four major areas:

• Solicit input and perspectives from a broad range of constituencies and stakeholders that will guide us as we examine the origins of the names and symbols used on campus.
• Audit the names used on buildings and other campus symbols to determine which may be connected to exclusion, segregation, racism or slavery.
• Create a set of guiding principles and a range of options for how we should address any issues raised.
• Provide to University leadership a set of recommendations.

Ua19/16/1 2021 Wku Track & Field Cross Country Record Book, Wku Athletic Media Relations

WKU Archives Records

WKU track and field media guide for 2020-21 season.

Homo Psyche: On Queer Theory And Erotophobia [Chapter 6], Gila Ashtor

Literature

Can queer theory be erotophobic? This book proceeds from the perplexing observation that for all of its political agita, rhetorical virtuosity, and intellectual restlessness, queer theory conforms to a model of erotic life that is psychologically conservative and narrow. Even after several decades of combative, dazzling, irreverent queer critical thought, the field remains far from grasping that sexuality’s radical potential lies in its being understood as “exogenous, intersubjective and intrusive” (Laplanche). In particular, and despite the pervasiveness and popularity of recent calls to deconstruct the ideological foundations of contemporary queer thought, no study has as yet considered or in …

Feminist Geographies Of Online Gaming, Orlando Woods

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This paper identifies opportunities and pathways through which feminist digital geographies can expand into the realm of online gaming. Whilst research at the nexus of gender and online gaming has come a long way in the past two decades, geographical perspectives are noticeably lacking. They can contribute to the discourse by emphasising the contingent nature of online gamespaces, and how a gendered subject position might be redefined through, and help to redefine, the (in)distinctions between “online” and “offline”, “gaming” and “non-gaming” spaces. I identify four directions in which feminist geographies of online gaming can unfold: aesthetic-affective spaces of the “virtually …

Identifying The Advocate In Me: An Undergraduate Autoethnography Exploring The Personal Identity Of Activist Versus Advocate, Aiden Ciaffaglione

Honors College

“Identifying the Advocate in ME: An Undergraduate Autoethnography Exploring the Personal Identity of Activist Versus Advocate” explores and redefines the social definition of “activists” and “advocates” through an autoethnographic lens of personal growth and identity formation. Stemming from my previous research into the University of Maine 1974 Gay Symposium,I reflect on my undergraduate academic ecology composed of leadership roles, course work, and extracurricular involvement in order to understand my identity development as a queer advocate. I incorporate previous scholarship around social movements, emotion work, and the role of activists in social change to develop a “Social Movement Identification” typology that …

The Mcgillicuddy Fellowship Showcase: An Annual Opportunity For Enlightenment, Stella Tirone

Social Justice: Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion

Michael Socolow, director of the Clement and Linda McGillicuddy Humanities Center, and Karen Sieber, a humanities specialist at the center, were excited to introduce this year’s four McGillicuddy’s students. While their research differed in topics, students Hailey Cedor, Nola Prevost, Nolan Altvater and Katherine Reardon all had the same idea of sharing the truth in mind. The truths that these four students have spent the past year chasing range from the retelling of family history to reparations for the Holocaust from the influence of men in fairytales to the treatment of Wabanaki people — both in the past and present.

Sexuality And Borders In Right Wing Times: A Conversation, Alyosxa Tudor, Miriam Ticktin

Publications and Research

We respond to prompts about the relationships between race, migration, and sexuality, as these intersecting differences have been forced into the same frame by the violent practices of right-wing regimes, and brought into relief by Covid19. Even as we have long known that sexual politics are a way to govern bodies, and to distribute uneven states of vulnerability, we are seeing new incarnations of government. What we aim to point out is how people who are seen as “different” are being attacked, maimed, dispossessed and murdered. But perhaps more importantly, we insist on the specific nature of right-wing times because …

Diversity And Inclusion_Women's History Month 2021 Poster, University Of Maine Office For Diversity And Inclusion

Social Justice: Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion

Poster for the University of Maine Office for Diversity and Inclusion's Women's History Month 2021 events.

Ua19/16/2 Women's Basketball Press Releases, Wku Athletic Media Relations

WKU Archives Records

Press releases, photos and game statistics for WKU women's basketball team in 2021.

Women In Leadership And Social Justice' Talk Contextualizes Strides Toward Gender Equity At Umaine, Abigail Martin

Social Justice: Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion

University of Maine President Joan Ferrini-Mundy hosted "The Women in Leadership and Social Justice: The Importance of Diversity. Equity and Inclusion" talk on March 15 [2021], at 4 p.m. This talk was a part of Women's History Month and focused on discussing women's issues and the importance of diversity.

Attitudinal Change, Cohort Replacement, And The Liberalization Of Attitudes About Same-Sex Relationships, 1973–2018, Ashley Wendell Kranjac, Robert L. Wagmiller

Sociology Faculty Articles and Research

Americans’ attitudes toward same-sex relationships have liberalized considerably over the last 40 years. We examine how the demographic processes generating social change in attitudes toward same-sex relationships changed over time. Using data from the 1973 to 2018 General Social Survey and decomposition techniques, we estimate the relative contributions of intracohort change and cohort replacement to overall social change for three different periods. We examine (1) the period prior to the rapid increase in attitude liberalization toward same-sex marriage rights (1973–1991), (2) the period of contentious debate about same-sex marriage and lesbian and gay rights (1991–2002), and (3) the period of …

Ua12/2/67 Alpha Kappa Alpha, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Records created by and about Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority.

Ua19/16/2 Softball Press Releases, Wku Athletic Media Relations

WKU Archives Records

Press releases, photos and game statistics for WKU softball team in 2021.