Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons^™

Transforming Atypical Challenges Into Innovative Solutions: A Gendered Analysis Of The Un Interagency Rehabilitation Program In Nepal, Sarabeth Harrelson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Nearly five years after signing the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that ended ten years of civil war in Nepal, key issues are still unresolved and political progress on implementation has been slow at its best. While every disarmament demobilization and reintegration (DDR) operation is unique, Nepal's DDR process has included atypical conditions such as no government support, continued military command over program participants, an unusually long time spent in cantonments prior to discharge, and the absence of an adequate pre-planning phase. This analysis is presented in the form of a case study and examines the United Nations Interagency Rehabilitation Program …

Feminism And Democracy, Louis Edgar Esparza

Human Rights & Human Welfare

After work on December 1, 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks walked onto a bus that was to take her home that night. She ended up on a trip to jail instead, for refusing to give her seat to a white passenger. The event triggered resistance to bus segregation, the founding of the Montgomery Improvement Association, and the election of the then-unknown Dr. Martin Luther King as its leader. The success of the campaign is an integral battle in our historical retellings of the US African American Civil Rights Movement. Fewer recount the sexual harassment against black women by white …

The Irony Of Refuge: Gender-Based Violence Against Female Refugees In Africa, Liz Miller

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The Sudanese soldiers and the Janjawid invaded her village. When she tried to escape, they gang-raped her. At that time, she was eight months pregnant and described giving birth to a dead baby afterward and being very sick. She could not make it with her group to the border to flee to Chad so she had to walk alone. Once she got to Chad, she was raped by a Chadian soldier outside of the camp and became pregnant. Afterwards, her husband divorced her, and she now lives with the stigma of being a rape victim. She has been expelled from …

Performing An Embodied Feminist Aesthetics: A Critical Performance Ethnography Of The Equestrian Sport Culture, Dawn Marie D. Mcintosh

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

While this research appears to be about horses and riding, it is really a project about the conditions of White women, White femininity, and feminist futurities. Driven by my investment in imagining possibilities of dismantling Whiteness and heteropatriarchy, this research begins to mark the dominant performances of White femininity and those fleeting moments of disruption by White women. My intentions for this project were to stage performances of feminist futurities that imagine feminist aesthetics as relational probabilities towards feminist alliances.

The research was drawn from a six month critical performance ethnography of a local Hunter/Jumper barn. This critical performance ethnography …

Love Through A Wide-Angle Lens: A Mythic Narrative And Feminist Critique Of The Reality Competition Dating Show More To Love, Amy Leann Zsohar

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Obesity is on the rise in the United States and reality television has also risen to the charge of representing fatness. More to Love was the first reality competition dating show to afford fat women a chance at reality show love. The purpose of the study was to look at how fat women are portrayed on reality competition dating shows. The purpose of this study is to understand how the mythic narrative of love through a feminist lens informed by LeBesco, Bordo, Hill Collins, and hooks are in conversation with each other in More to Love. This study found that …

Caring Work: Opening A Space Of Possibility For Exploring Transnational Feminist Solidarity Between Privileged And Marginalized Women, Beverly Romero Natividad

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Neoliberalism, through its emphasis on personal responsibility and individual freedom in accelerating economic development globally, has only pushed women further into the margin of society. Structural adjustment programs (SAPs), which impose state budget cuts on healthcare and welfare programs, particularly have kept poor women and women of color in poverty and generally, have exploited women's labor. However, in this age of neoliberalism, women's solidarity becomes more significant. Because neoliberalism is founded on individualism, its downfall rests on alliance-building. Against this backdrop, I explore the possibility of fostering transnational feminist solidarity between privileged and marginalized women engaged in formal caring work. …

The Intricacies Of M.F.K. Fisher: Discovering A Kaleidoscopic Hybridity, Elizabeth Lee Sleeper

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis seeks to analyze M.F.K. Fisher's socio-historic role and the components of her texts as a means to interrogate the categorization of her writing, to identify her authorial voice, and to see how it all contributes to and proves that Fisher is a `kaleidoscopic' hybrid writer. I utilize theoretical positions such as New Historicism, Feminism, Genre Theory, and Everyday Theory to help me identify and explain the hybrid tendencies of Fisher's writing. It is not a comprehensive study of her texts in light of these theories, but rather, it is a broad overview in order to demonstrate alternative readings …

Latin America’S Indigenous Women, Courtney Hall

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Latin America’s indigenous women are as diverse as the land they inhabit. Their uniqueness is shaped by belonging to groups that have their own distinct history, traditions, and identity. Yet despite this diversity, indigenous women confront the same human rights challenges: racial, gender, and socio-economic discrimination. Without ignoring the diversity of indigenous women, a better understanding of their fundamental struggles can be gained by weaving these issues together in a comprehensive narrative.

Peeking Out From Behind The Curtain, Ian Reese

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Absconded by airport security to middle-of-nowhere Russia, Nikolai Alexeyev sat for several days in early September 2010 unaware of his infractions or of his fate. Like a page from a Cold-War spy novel, the point of his abduction was to terrorize; Alexeyev’s abductors psychologically tortured and berated him with homophobic remarks. Nikolai Alexeyev is the leading gay rights activist in Russia and has been a twisting thorn in the side of local and national government for several years. Upon his release, he resolved to agitate further by leading a public demonstration to boycott the Swiss International Air Lines for its …

Women In Afghanistan: A Human Rights Tragedy Ten Years After 9/11, Hayat Alvi

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Ten years after the September 11th attacks in the United States and the military campaign in Afghanistan, there is some good news, but unfortunately still much bad news pertaining to women in Afghanistan. The patterns of politics, security/military operations, religious fanaticism, heavily patriarchal structures and practices, and ongoing insurgent violence continue to threaten girls and women in the most insidious ways. Although women’s rights and freedoms in Afghanistan have finally entered the radar screen of the international community’s consciousness, they still linger in the margins in many respects.

Socio-cultural and extremist religious elements continue to pose serious obstacles to reconstruction …