Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons^™

Overstimulated - An Immersive, Multimedia Art Installation, Quinn Devlin

Honors Theses

This thesis provides the explanation, inspiration, research and progression of an immersive, multimedia art installation that emulates the idea of a “sexual dystopia.” It explores how our dichotomy of inadequate sex education and hypersexual, gender-based media is resulting in a dystopian sexual reality for women in particular. The work portrays a future world in which sexual and fertility technology is so advanced and accessible that real men and women no longer interact. As a result, women and objects become one in the same.

Female literary icons are over-sexualized to suggest that porn-culture is a by-product of a historical framework that …

Le Féminisme Et La Femme Musulmane En France, Anna Elizabeth Gagion

Honors Theses

My French thesis investigates how some definitions of French feminism and particular French feminist movements find themselves oppressing Muslim women. France is a country that has vigorously regulated the separation of Church and State since 1902 legislation that declared “la laïcité” (secularism) obligatory for all public education. In my research I have found that the general belief in France that religion should never have any bearing on political decisions has been beneficial to most French citizens, but it also appears to oppress a number of Muslim women, as witnessed by the on-going debate surrounding the headscarf ban in French public …

What Do Women Want? The Feminist Pursuit Of Happiness, Hannah Ruth Ellen

Honors Theses

“What do Women Want?” My thesis asks whether women can genuinely seek freedom while also hoping for happiness. I look closely at how male theorists define happiness and liberty for themselves and for others, and in particular for feminized others. My two central chapters focus on theories of individual happiness, happiness sought through another or others, and the ways feminist thinkers reimagine happiness in relationship to women’s freedom. I apply feminist critiques to the concept of psychodynamic therapy as an anti-revolutionary tool designed to isolate and silence women into believing that coping with oppression is equivalent to genuine happiness. I …

Female Forest Rangers In New York State, Anna Gagion

Honors Theses

For my environmental policy thesis, I investigated female forest rangers in the New York state department of environmental conservation (DEC). I looked at how their introduction into the forest service has evolved since the first female forest ranger in New York state, Patti Rudge, who took the job in 1988. I looked at common trends between retired and current female forest rangers as well as comparing their experiences to studies done about park rangers in the national park service. I found many similarities between their experiences, however there are key differences between federal and state level agencies.

Through my research …

Acting Hysterical: Analyzing The Construction, Diagnosis And Portrayal Of Historical And Modern Hysterical Women, Gillian Singer

Honors Theses

Hysterical women’s stories from the 19th and 20th centuries have all too often been ignored and furthermore, invalidated through the capitalization and spectacularization of hysterical women’s experiences. “Acting Hysterical: Analyzing the Construction, Diagnosis and Portrayal of Historical and Modern ‘Hysterical’ Women” aims to acknowledge hysterical women’s narratives by studying the visual documentation of hysterical women. Visual documentation of hysteria began with the photographing of Dr. Jean-Martin Charcot’s “hysterical” female patients and extends to modern cinematic representations from the last two decades of historical and modern hysterical women.

Medical Muses, a book based in years of research by Asti Hustvedt served …

Les Réalisatrices Et Le « Regard Masculin » Dans Le Cinéma Francophone, Arianna Kosakowski

Honors Theses

This thesis focuses on how the male gaze is confronted in French and Francophone cinema, particularly in the films of the female directors Celine Sciamma, Euzhan Palcy and Claire Denis. The male gaze is a look in cinema in which women are regarded generally as sexual objects. The male gaze renders women mostly relevant only to fulfill male sexual desires, and thus as weak or background characters with little to contribute to moving the narrative action along. All six films by the female directors analyzed in this thesis, however--Bande de filles and Tomboy (Sciamma), Rue case-nègres and A Dry …