Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons^™

The Compressed Modernity Of Legalizing Same-Sex Marriage In Taiwan: Digital Activism, Human Rights Discourse, And Intertwined Sexual, Political And National Identities, Jyun-Jie Yang

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In 2019, Taiwan became the first Asian country to officially legalize same-sex marriage. Remarkably, the Taiwanese queer movement achieved the goal of marriage equality in only 30 years, with the first tongzhi (同志) activist group organized in 1990. Compared to Euro-American social movements, Taiwanese tongzhi activism has experienced a “compressed modernity” (Chang, 1999, 2010a, 2010b), which accelerates cultural and social transformations. Although Taiwanese academia has been significantly influenced by queer studies as a form of western knowledge production, local scholars and activists created a new interpretation from “queer” to “tongzhi.” Entangled with complex political identifications in post-martial-law Taiwan, …

Whose Right Is It Anyway? A Study Of Human Rights Language On Both Sides Of The Abortion Debate In Post-Dictatorial Argentina, Ysabella Carmen St. Amant

Honors Theses

In August of 2018, thousands of protestors waited to hear results of the vote on the Voluntary Termination of the Pregnancy bill in the Argentinian Senate. Though the bill failed by seven votes, the near passage of the bill and the outpouring of protestors indicated that the issue of abortion had gained an increasing foothold in the legislature and in public discourse. This project seeks to explore in greater detail the emergence of activism on abortion legislation in the decades following the re-democratization of Argentina in 1983. Particularly throughout the 2000s and 2010s, advocates for both the expansion and repression …

The Segregation Of Religion: How Othering Influences Society’S Narrative Understanding About The Symbiotic Relationship Among Racism, Sexism, And The Church, Ajanet Rountree

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

The social dependence on the sociology of male spiritual leadership is substantial. This dependence accomplishes two ideas: neutralizes the feminine experience and obviates the anthropological implications of religion in the perpetuation of oppression and subjugation. When considering racism and sexism in religion, specifically as they relate to the Black Christian church, a dismissal of accusations and assertions occurs by yielding to the context of the social era. This paper seeks to further clarify the position of women, who pushed against the grain of the gendered and racialized spaces of their churches and communities, as they sought to establish human rights …

When Law Is Complicit In Gender Bias: Ending De Jure Discrimination Against Women As An Important Target Of Sustainable Development Goal 5, Rangita De Silva De Alwis

All Faculty Scholarship

Ending all forms of discrimination against women and girls is not only a basic human right, but also crucial to accelerating sustainable development. The very first target of Goal 5. 1.1 calls to end all forms of discrimination against all women and girls everywhere and the indicator for the goal is: “Whether or not legal frameworks are in place to promote, enforce and monitor equality and non-discrimination on the basis of sex”. In many countries around the world the legal frameworks themselves allow for both direct (de jure) and indirect (de facto) discrimination against women. This essay identifies some areas …

Resist School Pushout With And For Black Girls, Joanne Smith

Occasional Paper Series

Girls for Gender Equity (GGE) is a Brooklyn based, intergenerational organization committed to the optimal development of girls of color. GGE centers the experiences of young women of color, in particular, Black cis and trans young women, LGBTQ and gender nonconforming youth within advocacy campaigns, participatory action research and programming.

Young women of color disproportionately experience a continuum of violence ranging from verbal, physical and psychological abuse, to sexual assault and rape, homophobia, transphobia, racism, classism, poverty, state sanctioned and institutional violence. Forty percent Black and 37% Latina female students don’t graduate from high school, compared to 22% of white …

No Human Right To Sodomy: Christian Conservative Opposition To Sogi Human Rights, Cynthia Burack

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

The American Christian conservative movement is the most consistent and persistent adversary of sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) civil rights in the US. In recent years, the Christian right has responded to changes in attitudes to same-sex sexuality in the US by relocating some of their attention and operations to issues and arenas of contest outside the US that hold more promise for implacable antagonism to rights and recognition for LGBTQ people. In some parts of the world, these US-based anti-LGBTQ actors have become recognized as “experts” on gender and sexual minorities and the dire consequences the existence of …

“Realists Of A Larger Reality” Conceptualizing Creative Possibilities That Couldwork In Expanding Contemporary Human Rights, Amanda J. Beckley

Senior Projects Fall 2016

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

Economic Empowerment: An Avenue To Gender Equality In Afghanistan, Heather C. Odell

Global Tides

This paper examines the state of women’s rights in Afghanistan, recommending economic empowerment as the most effective and culturally sensitive tool in achieving gender equality. Women’s rights in Afghanistan came to the forefront of the international community’s attention following the entry of the United States armed forces in 2001. Media outlets highlighted the Taliban’s egregious treatment of women and government agencies and international NGOs poured into the country with aims of liberating women from oppressive circumstances. While significant strides have been made since the Taliban's fall from power, in many ways, women today remain subordinate. Over a decade later, women …

Reproductive Rights In Latin America: A Case Study Of Guatemala And Nicaragua, Katherine W. Bogen

Scholarly Undergraduate Research Journal at Clark (SURJ)

A lack of access to contraceptives and legal abortion for women throughout the nations of Nicaragua and Guatemala creates critical health care problems. Moreover, rural and underprivileged women in Guatemala and Nicaragua are facing greater limitations to birth control access, demonstrating a classist aspect in the global struggle for female reproductive rights. Although some efforts have been made over the past half-century to initiate a dialogue on the failure of medical care in these nations to adequately address issues of maternal mortality and reproductive rights, the women's reproductive health movements of Nicaragua and Guatemala have struggled to reach an effective …

La Búsqueda De Una Agenda En Común: Una Mirada Feminista A Las Organizaciones Lgbti En Nicaragua, Rachel Crane

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

In the global context, we are amidst a rapidly changing rights landscape for people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) as more and more governments begin to recognize same-gender partnerships. This gain in LGBT rights worldwide is in no small part to the political organizing and lobbying done by LGBT-rights organizations. Nicaragua’s history with gaining LGBT rights is relatively new, as the government did not repeal the anti-sodomy law here until 2008, thus stagnating the fight for acceptance in the country. As it stands, Nicaragua has a few legal protections for LGBT people, but they continue to …

Impact Of The “Nirbhaya” Rape Case: Isolated Phenomenon Or Social Change?, Tina P. Lapsia

Honors Scholar Theses

In December 2012, a twenty-three year old college student, who was given the pseudonym “Nirbhaya” (“fearless”), was fatally gang-raped on a private bus in Delhi, India, galvanizing the country to swiftly adopt new legislative measures and catapulting the issue of violence against women in India into the international spotlight. Although assault and rape cases have made India infamous for its high volume of crimes against women, the reaction to this particular incident was much different from before. This paper investigates whether the governmental and societal responses represent social change, as indicated by changing attitudes towards violence against women in India. …

Economic Empowerment Through Income Generating Activities And Social Mobilization: The Case Of Married Amhara Women Of Wadla Woreda, North Wollo Zone, Ethiopia, Belete Deribie Woldegies

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

Wadla Woreda is located in North Wollo Zone, Amhara Regional State, Ethiopia. The woreda is predominantly agrarian and the population produces mainly subsistence food crops with small amounts of cash crops. Access to basic social and economic services such as health, education, and employment for rural communities is limited due to poor development of rural infrastructure. Wadla is one of the food insecure woredas in the region. As a result some of the people are internally displaced and a portion of the population is included in safety-net programs. The Wadla Woreda is prone to famine due to severe droughts, soil …

International Resource Network (Irn) Presents Seminars In The City, Naveed Alam

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

One of the major achievements of the IRN this year was our collaboration with CLAGS's ongoing Seminars in the City series. The Seminars in the City series is part of CLAGS's mission to make scholarly research in Queer Studies accessible to the general public.

Violence In The House, Katherine Hite

Human Rights & Human Welfare

There was something particularly haunting in reading this Kristof and WuDunn piece during the week’s major US headlines: a girl in California had been imprisoned for eighteen years in the home of a man who kidnapped and raped her, fathered her children, and employed her in his small enterprise—a business card design and printing agency. Business clients interviewed for the story appeared completely taken aback. Clients had always found the now twenty-nine-year-old Jaycee Dugard “professional, polite, and responsive” as well as “creative and talented in her work.” Others expressed similar shock, recounting that Ms. Dugard “was always smiling.” Ms. Dugard’s …

Sexual Violence As The Language Of Border Control: Where French Feminist And Anti‐Immigrant Rhetoric Meet, Miriam Ticktin

Publications and Research

When I first arrived in the Paris region in 1999 to do research on the struggle by undocumented immigrants (les sans papiers) for basic human rights, discussions of violence against women were remarkably absent from the public arena. Nongovernmental organizations and researchers had begun to broach the topic, but with little public visibility. However, this changed in late 2000, with a media explosion on the issue of les tournantes, or the gang rapes committed in the banlieues of Paris. Such tournantes involve boys “taking turns” with their friends’ girlfriends, both parties usually being of Maghrebian or North …

Cultural Rage: A Severe Threat To Gay Men, Rhoda Howard-Hassmann

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Men who have sex with men have become a world cultural flashpoint. Fomenting and exploiting cultural rage at the West is a useful way for Islamists to gain electoral and other types of support, even though the motives of the Islamists may have more to do with the drive for power, regional influence, or economic benefit.

Exporting And Negotiating Human Rights, Randall Kuhn

Human Rights & Human Welfare

In 2000, renowned Egyptian activist-sociologist Saad Eddin Ibrahim and 27 colleagues were tried, convicted and imprisoned by the Egyptian government on a range of politically-motivated charges. In 2003, Ibrahim was released after three years of imprisonment and torture and a concerted campaign to secure his release by concerned academics, activists, and political leaders. Two years later, physically weakened but morally indefagitable, he visited colleagues at the University of Colorado and talked about his experiences as an academic and activist.

Some Thoughts On China's Sexual Revolution: Sexuality And Social Change In Contemporary China, Sun Zhongxin

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

The last two years saw several changes in the public discourse around sex and sexuality in China. So what are some of the most controversial sex-related topics to be raised in China recently?

How Does Change Happen? Women's Rights And Development Conference, Kaushalya Perera

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

This was the question that was the central focus of the 10th International Forum of the Association for Women's Rights in Development (AWID). The Forum was held in Bangkok, Thailand from October 27th-30th, 2005. The AWID is an international organization, founded in 1982, and hosts an international forum every three years.