Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons^™

The Impact Of Facial Feminization On Qol In Transgender Patients, Odette Rosales, Zane Sejdiu, Justin Michael Camacho, Ali Yasback, Caroline E. Quindlen, Sanjeev Herr, Amir Behnam Md

Tower Health Research Day

No abstract provided.

Beyond Outdated Magazines And Motivational Posters: How To Make Offices Safer And More Assessable, Danessa A. Carter, Kelsey Boll, Amina Feder

Together We RISE (Making Excellence Inclusive)

Office spaces are the first in-person introduction for individuals to access services. However, these spaces are frequently, even if unintentionally, biased against marginalized and underserved populations. Cuthbert and Taylor (2019) noted the importance of inclusive language and heightened awareness of physical requirements for spaces as ways to impact a sense of connectedness to an environment. Hartal (2018) encourages open communication among staff regarding issues related to diversity and celebrating individual differences. These discussions and trainings can help dismantle microaggressions and empower employees to address othering behavior in an assertive and meaningful way (Fox & Ore, 2010). This presentation will address …

“A Content And Thematic Analysis Of #Instagramvsreality Images And Captions On Instagram” (Powerpoint), Meaghan Furlano, Kaitlynn Mendes

Undergraduate Student Research Internships Conference

A couple of years ago, the “Instagram vs. reality” trend sprung from Instagram’s body positivity movement. The trend encourages Instagram users to post side-by-side images of themselves — one side being the highly curated “Instagram” depiction and the other being a more ‘real’ depiction. One study has explored the trend academically, and it found that engaging with “Instagram vs reality” and “reality” images decreased body dissatisfaction amongst its participants relative to viewing idealized “Instagram” images. In an effort to understand who is participating in the trend, what they are contributing to the trend, and why they are engaging with it, …

The Growing Discipline Of African Diasporic & Black Studies In Canadian Post-Secondary Institutions, Xie Xin Lin

Undergraduate Student Research Internships Conference

Broadly defined as the survey of African diasporas, Black studies aims to think critically about both the histories and contemporary social climates of Black cultures.
It is moreover a subject that recognizes, celebrates and most importantly learns from the diversity of Black worlds.

This project aims to highlight the prevalence of Black studies programs in Canadian post-secondary institutions. It also seeks to discuss and emphasize the importance of Black studies in pedagogy, especially in the traditional academia but also beyond classrooms.

Abakabadaf: Reclamation Of Queer Spaces And The Adoption Of Gayspeak By The Mainstream, Gel Ralfrey Louie O. Romero

DLSU Senior High School Research Congress

Gayspeak is a queer argot that was formed to shield the Filipino LGBT community back when discrimination was rampant in the Philippines. Today, gayspeak can be observed in the vocabulary of people that are not part of the LGBT community which shows progress in tolerance. Despite this, the fight for queer equality has still not been achieved. This paper explores the adaptation of gayspeak by the mainstream by interviewing non-LGBT users of gayspeak and gathering the perceptions of the LGBT community towards them. The research found that non-LGBT people use gayspeak because of its comedic nature, capacity for socialization, and …

Tuwid: A Photo Series Depicting The Experiences Of Closeted Filipino Lgbtqia+ Youth, Francesca Marie R. Caguiat

DLSU Senior High School Research Congress

The artist-researcher used pastiche and technology incorporated with photography to depict the household experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer+ youth in the Philippines. Six participants attended a focus group discussion which was used in art conceptualization. They shared common experiences of having internalized homophobia and fear of rejection because of their families’ religious beliefs. However, a few shared factors apart from religiosity such as the parents’ reaction in general and their personal view on the significance of coming out. The photo series applied references to famous religious paintings and the repetition of subjects. Elements of the photos were …

My Eyes Are Up Here!: Defining The Female Gaze Through A Comparative Analysis Of Films Throughout The Decades, Anka A. Delos Reyes

DLSU Senior High School Research Congress

The male gaze is a trend that has been observed in film for decades, and the oversaturation of inaccurate portrayals of women can be harmful as these portrayals affect women’s self-perception and regress the efforts of feminst movements. Given this, the study aims to define, characterize and illustrate an alternative to the male gaze through My Eyes are up Here! A digital zine that reimagines films adopting the female gaze, rather than its objectifying counterpart. To collect data for the study, visual content analysis of films from different genres and decades was conducted following a set of codes, and the …

Dual Colonization Of Okinawa: Gendered And Militarized Violence, Katie Y. Hashimoto

Student Research Symposium

Off the southern part of Japan is the small archipelago of Okinawa. Making up only 0.6% of Japan’s total land mass, Okinawa hosts 74% of the nation’s U.S. military bases. Since World War II, the U.S. military has grown a dominating presence on the islands, inevitably influencing the lives of the locals. A portion of Okinawans have since been protesting for the removal/reduction of these bases through what is known as the Anti-Base Movement but have been largely ignored by the governments of Japan and the U.S. At first glance, these protests seem to be centered around environmental issues, land …

Challenging White Fragility Through Black Feminish Political Poetry, Langley Leverett

Scholars Day Conference

Due to overwhelming patriarchal hegemonies that women – white women, rich women, young women, and cis women – continue to uphold, feminism struggles to serve all women justly. To combat this negligence in feminism’s fourth wave movement, I will use this thesis to highlight ways that Black feminist poets have not only shaped feminist theory through their own contributions, but also have prolonged and saved the livelihood of both gender and racial equality. With a strong emphasis on Intersectional Feminism, I will explore the ways in which women can be united against tokenistic power, beginning with the inspiration from three …

Women And Gender Studies And The Potentiality Of Feminist Leadership, Clara Perka

Thinking Matters Symposium

Graduates of Women and Gender Studies (WGS) programs gain skills that aid in the development of a feminist leadership, a leadership practice that is committed to challenging oppressive structures and institutions and empowering others to reach their full potential. Through semi-structured interviews, this qualitative study explored the experiences of five graduates of WGS undergraduate programs in the Northeast region of the United States whose post-graduation work across a variety of professional fields has offered them opportunities to practice feminist leadership. While research on both WGS and Leadership is abundant, this research addresses the gap in the literature on feminist leadership …

Reconstructing The Confederate Widow: An Analysis Of The Wives Of Fallen Confederate Soldiers And Their Response To Reconstruction And The Post War Era, Christian Beasley

Campus Research Day

This study provides an analysis of how the post-civil war era and Reconstruction affected the financial, social, and political lives of the wives of fallen Confederate soldiers. Because men were the head of families and traditional breadwinners in the South, the widows of the 258,000 fallen Confederate soldiers had to reintegrate themselves into society and support their families without the assistance and comfort of a husband. Although this integration may seem straightforward, these widows struggled to overcome the economic and social difficulties laid before them, including the patriarchal traditions, mourning expectations, severe droughts, and unemployment that plagued these women. This …

Invisible Yet Free: Sapphic Relationships In Late 19th Century Europe, Penelope Van Batavia

Student Academic Conference

Sapphic relationships, described as romantic relationships between two women, were able to proliferate without the watchful eye of society in late 19th-Century Europe due to many factors, including the lack of importance European society felt women had. While not entirely able to pronounce their relationships in public, these women were often able to operate somewhat publicly in three main types of common or “accepted” sapphic relationships. These include intimate friendships, “mother-daughter” models, and hetero-passing relationships. Since historical research on sapphic relationships before the 1970s was almost non-existent (beyond the chastising of such relationships) a number of women and queer academics …

“Madam” Elizabeth: Elizabeth Hobbs Keckley’S Sisyphean Attempt To Join The “Cult Of True Womanhood”, Bella Biancone

Undergraduate Research and Scholarship Symposium

Nineteenth century notions of femininity and etiquette were governed by strict societal standards. “True Womanhood” was defined by four fundamental virtues– piety, purity, submissiveness, and domesticity. However, there was another pre-requisite for joining this revered cult¬: whiteness. No matter how pious or domestic a woman of color was, she could never hope to be considered a proper lady by Victorian standards. In discerning what it meant to be a member of that “cult of True Womanhood,” Black women were used to determine the boundaries of white womanhood; a “True Woman” was to be the antithesis of the stereotypical sexual and …

Thematic Use Of Non-Conformity In "Changing My Major" (Ft. Gay Panic), Yazmeen Mayes

Symposium of Student Scholars

CW: Presentation includes references to sex and suicide.

This presentation is an in-depth score analysis of “Changing My Major” from the musical Fun Home by Lisa Kron and Jeanine Tesori, which is based on Alison Bechdel’s autobiographical memoir by the same name. The musical examines the similarities and differences between Alison and her father as she attempts to contruct a future without a queer elder to model it. This presentation demonstrates the collaborative, tight structure of thematic messaging in musical theatre. Overall, ““Changing My Major” personifies the show at large and celebrates the process of questioning as its own epic, …

Sample Holiday Cards: Examples To Help Visualize Your Families Holiday Card Or A Reinforcement Of Racism And Heteronormativity In America., Chasidy Harris

Symposium of Student Scholars

The United States is considered a "melting pot" with a diverse population of citizens. Each year, thousands of Americans send out holiday cards, and increasingly these cards are ordered online in bulk and are decorated with photos for family and friends. However, evidence shows that current advertising does not typically reflect the diversity present in the United States population. This research aims to show how the advertisement of photo holiday cards through sample cards posted on the retailer's website includes mostly white heterosexual couples and families and fewer same-sex couples (with and without children), racial-ethnically diverse families. This research will …

Rhetorical Resistance To Assimilation Among Cherokee Female Seminary Students, Kaelyn Ireland

Symposium of Student Scholars

Throughout the nineteenth century, Cherokees invited American missionaries into their territory to establish schools where children and youth could learn the ways of Euroamericans, particularly Christianity and spoken and written English. Although mission schools contributed to acculturation, they also provided means for Cherokees to resist assimilation. Cherokees cited school attendance as evidence they were becoming “civilized” in hopes they could demonstrate to Euroamericans that they were sufficiently like them, thus preventing Removal from their homelands, and students employed what they learned as leverage in dealing with the United States in political matters that affected their tribe. Only a small minority …

‘The Female Marine’ And ‘Clotel’: An Analysis Of Female Crossdressing To Escape Coercive Labor Situations In 19th Century American Literature, Kaelyn Ireland

Symposium of Student Scholars

Although illegal in many U.S. cities, crossdressing was a point of fascination for Americans of the nineteenth century. Stories of real women passing as men to serve in the military—for example, Revolutionary War veteran Deborah Sampson—enchanted readers and inspired writers, such as that of The Female Marine. Ostensibly written by its heroine, but most likely written by Nathaniel Hill Wright, The Female Marine was a popular story about a young woman who was forced to become a sex worker and cross-dressed to escape her situation, then enlisted in the Navy where she served abroad the U.S.S. Constitution. At …

Victim To Abuser, Elizabeth Wilson

Helm's School of Government Conference - American Revival: Citizenship & Virtue

This paper evaluates the ideology that children who are abused and molested may one day become the abuser.

1% Left Of 100: Taino History And Puerto Rican Identity, Alanis Gonzalez Torres

Undergraduate Research Symposium

1% left of 100 is a documentary poetics research project exploring the confluence of identity, family, and language. Crafted in a hybrid format that mixes Spanish and English according to my personal idiolect, which is itself a product of my heritage as a Puerto Rican, Africa, native Taino American, this poem engages with exciting new approaches to thinking about race which liberate us from talking about physical features and takes us instead toward race as a social fact, a product of culture, history, and family. I seek to intervene in a narrative of American history that, though it teaches about …

History Of The Wildcats Motorcycle Club, Rachel Mannetta-Torres

Undergraduate Research Symposium

History of The Wildcats Motorcycle Club will be presented by Old Dominion University student Rachel Mannetta-Torres.

Dignity Norfolk: How One Tidewater Group Enabled Gay And Lesbian Catholics To Form Long Lasting Friendships And Chosen Families, Chelsea Lembert

Undergraduate Research Symposium

In the past decade, research has been conducted to look into the history of the Queer Community of the Tidewater Region. Students and community volunteers have conducted interviews and gathered documents connected to the queer community to grow the study and breadth of available information for future researchers. However, more in-depth knowledge of community connections and familial ties within the queer community in the Tidewater Region was needed. Through research into Our Own Newspaper, local historical background information, and in-person interviews, I pieced together first-hand accounts of life through the eyes of a gay man or lesbian woman living in …

Wear & Tear, Wymberley Davis

Undergraduate Research Symposium

Wear & Tear is a documentary poetics project acknowledging and addressing the systematic policing, silencing, violence, and stripping of self-expression that women have suffered at the hands of cultural, societal, religious, and sexist norms. Wear & Tear is a hybrid research project which draws together mass culture archives and uses heterogenous sources like advertisements and juxtapose these with excerpts from sacred texts which seek to proscribe and circumscribe women’s clothing choices. It models itself on archival works such as Theresa Hak Kyung Cha’s Dictee which works with image, language, and voice. My project presents a distinctly material cultural history …

Gendered Norms In Community-Based Engagement: Oral Histories Of The Women In The Elsinore Bennu Think Tank For Restorative Justice, Kathleen Burch

Graduate Student Research Symposium

The state of the criminal justice system in the United States is one in need of repair. A local Pittsburgh group – the Elsinore Bennu Think Tank for Restorative Justice – challenges its members and the community to engage in restorative justice. The group comprises professors, returning citizens, police officers, and lawyers to initiate change through restorative justice in communities impacted by crime.

The Elsinore Bennu Think Tank for Restorative Justice (EBTT) Oral History Project at Duquesne University uses the methodology of oral history to gather stories of change, inspiration, and trauma from EBTT members. I will analyze the aural …

Symbolic Compliance Is Dangerous: Perceptions Of Sexual Assault And The Effectiveness Of Sexual Assault Prevention Programs, Anastasia Hicks-Hunter

Capstone Showcase

College campuses are considered safe havens for students, yet, sexual assault is a prevalent public safety issue for all students. Sexual assault is unwanted or non-consensual sexual activity that is inflicted upon the victim. Sexual assault survivors are put through a life-changing experience that causes negative holistic behaviors, which requires understanding, support, and legal action for them to achieve justice. In my research paper, I am exploring the perceptions of female college survivors of sexual assault and the effectiveness of sexual assault prevention programs.