Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies | Open Access Articles

Making Women’s Histories affirms the political nature of writing women’s histories. The development of women’s history and its historiographies—the books and articles historians, whether scholars or amateurs, have produced—has long contributed to the work of advancing the status of women in society.

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"We Know How To Keep House And We Know How To Keep A City": Contextualizing Dr. Martha Hughes Cannon's Feminism, Jennifer L. Duqué Jan 2015

"We Know How To Keep House And We Know How To Keep A City": Contextualizing Dr. Martha Hughes Cannon's Feminism, Jennifer L. Duqué

AWE (A Woman’s Experience)

“I can’t bear a mannish woman or a mannish man either,” Martha Hughes Cannon declared a few days after she was elected the first female state senator in the United States. “All the best men I know are ladylike and all the best women I know are gentlemanly.” Throughout her life, Cannon pulled seemingly subversive stunts framed within a milieu of social support that demystifies, or at least partially elucidates, her frequent departure from normative female behavior. However, the purpose of this paper is not to join the voices of scholars arguing that nineteenth-century Mormon culture was one of radical …

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Inefficiency Of United States Maternity Leave Policies, Kimberly Merkley Jan 2015

Inefficiency Of United States Maternity Leave Policies, Kimberly Merkley

AWE (A Woman’s Experience)

In the United States, many aspects of the workplace are incompatible with motherhood. These include lack of childcare facilities, inflexibility of workplace hours, and the large amounts of time required to attain top positions. One of the most widespread deficiencies in all industries and workplaces is maternity leave, which is neglected at both the state and federal level. Consequently, a woman is often given little or no job protection, let alone compensation or benefits, while focused on the birth and early nurturing of her child. The United States falls well behind other developed and developing countries in this area.

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Dispossessing Femininity In Byatt's Possession, Jenna Miller Jan 2015

Dispossessing Femininity In Byatt's Possession, Jenna Miller

AWE (A Woman’s Experience)

A.S. Byatt’s best-selling 1990 novel Possession follows the character of Roland Michell, an intelligent but struggling academic who has devoted his life and studies to the brilliant Victorian author, Randolph Ash. Roland joins forces with Maud bailey, an expert on a similarly talented but under-recognized Victorian author Christabel LaMotte, in order to better study the relationships between LaMotte, Ash, and Ash’s wife, Ellen. Roland’s and Maud’s literary studies develop along with their relationship, but the more the two of them learn about the relationship between Ash and Christabel, the more they discover that the truth about their Victorian counterparts is …

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Women's Values Speaking Between Their Words: Women's Correspondence In Early Nineteenth Century America, Rachel Mahrt Degn Jan 2015

Women's Values Speaking Between Their Words: Women's Correspondence In Early Nineteenth Century America, Rachel Mahrt Degn

AWE (A Woman’s Experience)

In this paper I examine folklore gathered from women’s letters circa 1830 to see what they reveal about how women used correspondence to reinforce and express their values. Through some traditional expressions of folklore (categorized as customary, oral, material, and belief) women demonstrate their values: interpersonal connection and duty.

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Women In Refrigerators: The Objectification Of Women In Comics, Kyra Nelson Jan 2015

Women In Refrigerators: The Objectification Of Women In Comics, Kyra Nelson

AWE (A Woman’s Experience)

In Green Lantern issue 54, Kyle Rayner, a new addition to the Green Lantern corps, walks into his apartment. On the table he finds a note saying a surprise awaits him in the refrigerator. Kyle makes his way into the kitchen and to his horror discovers the body of his strangled girlfriend, Alex, stuffed into the refrigerator. Alex, who only made it through five issues of the series, suffers a fate similar to those of many other women in comics. Frequently, comic book writers employ female characters as little more than plot devices designed to provide emotional drama and backstory …

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Grace, Danielle Chelom Leavitt Jan 2015

Grace, Danielle Chelom Leavitt

AWE (A Woman’s Experience)

I was two years old when Rwanda’s genocide commenced. The assassination of Rwanda’s president, Juvenal Habyarimana, kicked off the 100-day killing spree that led to nearly one million Rwandan deaths. It was a hot topic then, nearly twenty years ago, when the horror of a modern-day holocaust and outrage of international indifference were fresh. The genocide tore through Rwanda a world and lifetime away from me. What is left now is the aftermath of the genocide and all its living witnesses. I stepped into Rwanda the summer after my freshman year of college. I would write about Rwanda’s post-genocide women.

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Hands And Feet, Jessie Hawkes Wilkey Jan 2015

Hands And Feet, Jessie Hawkes Wilkey

AWE (A Woman’s Experience)

I have come to understand what my gawky twelve-year-old self missed and what my skinny dipping self was only beginning to understand: A body is more than structure to tent our spirits. The body and spirit compose the soul, an entity that has its origin with God. The way I treat my body, then, is an indication of my respect for God and for myself. Understanding this, changes my concept of my modesty: it is not for other people, but revolves around a personal understanding between the Lord and ourselves. It has everything to do with who I am, understand …

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Infertile, Katie Wade-Neser Jan 2015