Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons^™

Breaking The Rule Of Silence: Childbirth And Gendered Power In Efuru And The Joys Of Motherhood, Sunday Elliott Uguru

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This study examines the thematic preoccupation of childbirth in the formative period of feminist discourse in African literature through a critical study of selected novels of Igbo women of southeastern Nigeria. The novels studied represent the earliest published African texts in English by women. The period under focus falls within the emerging stage of Nigerian literary tradition in its written form with a dominant presence of men. This study investigates the women novelists' perspective toward the failure of male authored works to represent women's childbirth experience. Through a critical reading of Flora Nwapa's Efuru and Buchi Emecheta's The Joys of …

Austen's Realist Feminine Icon, Sean Mcconnell

Student Works

No abstract provided.

An Internal And External Contextual Autoethnography Of A Single Mother's Experience As It Intersects With Misogyny, Patriarchy, And Hegemonic Masculinity, Heidi Sampson

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

This dissertation is a contextual autoethnography of my lived experience with stigmatization, stereotypes, and institutional obstructions as a divorced single mother who previously experienced intimate partner violence and was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. The purpose of the study is to shed light on the complexity of the single motherhood experience, both internally and externally. From 2009 to 2019, the institutions I accessed for assistance as a single mother and those I interacted with for my children, my job, my health, and even within the church were unnecessarily burdensome financially, physically, and emotionally. This dissertation takes a contextual look at …

Virginity: Not All Rose Petals And Candles, Katherine Hunter

WWU Honors College Senior Projects

This paper examines how the construct of virginity was developed from the ancient Greeks to Western Europe and modern times in the United States. Other cultures may have different opinions about the topic of virginity, but with people of European descent, the value placed on virginity was used as a way to suppress female sexuality and promote male control over female sexuality expression. Women’s usefulness to society was reduced to being the most desirable choice for marriage which meant being virginal or pure. The reasons for why purity was important for women varied such as being representative of their family’s …

The Current Status Of Women In Morocco And How It Can Be Improved, Amanda Maia

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

My paper will explore the conditions of gender minorities in Morocco through representation, NGOs, social structures, and resources therein to support the progress of acquiring more rights for these demographics. With an emphasis on the status of women in Morocco. My main questions as it stands are: What are the living conditions for women in Morocco and how can they be improved? What progress has been and still can be made to improve the quality of life and foster joy for these demographics in Morocco? Since the 1990s, there has been significant progress in Morocco to improve Family Law and …

Nasty Woman: An Analysis Of Women's Rage In Popular Culture, Sarah Kee

Honors Theses

The goal of this senior project was to analyze the underlying cause for why certain female characters in popular culture were villainized for their behavior and generally deemed to be “nasty woman.” After reading numerous books and viewing films that contained “nasty woman”, there was a common denominator that linked their behavior and influenced their decision to enact their often-bloody retribution: the patriarchy. These women were a victim of some aspect of the patriarchy, commonly sexual assault, and could not receive the support they needed, so they decided to take matters into their own hands. The “nasty women” analyzed in …

The Impact Of Patriarchy On Stud Lesbians, Meilin Miller

Undergraduate Research Awards

Intersectional feminism informed how literary scholar bell hooks understands and interacts with the world. As a result, feminism is deeply intertwined in all of her commentaries and sociocultural analyses. In her 2003 book We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity, hooks writes about how male masculinity and blackness interact with each other in this society. Her proclivity towards feminism isn’t restrained. A majority of the book is dedicated to understanding how toxic patriarchy has victimized and empowered black men, specifically seeking to examine their relationship with black women. However, black masculinity in women is an area that hooks does …

Negotiating With Patriarchy: Women, Sexuality, And Power In Yoruba Sacred Oral Genres., Ajoke Adebisi

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study argues that Yoruba oral genres offer women models “of “and “for” ways of enduring resistance from patriarchy. In the myths, proverbs and praise poems, women challenge marginalization in ways incomparable to what prevails in other world religions. By engaging Yoruba oral genres, this study offers insights into how the Yoruba reflect on sharing of power among the male and the female. The study also highlights how Yoruba oral genres speak to the power imbalance in male /female relationships and sheds light on the prescriptions oral genres offer women for negotiating these imbalances.

How To Be The Perfect Asian Wife!, Sophia Hill

Art and Art History Honors Projects

“How to be the Perfect Asian Wife” critiques exploitative power systems that assault female bodies of color in intersectional ways. This work explores strategies of healing and resistance through inserting one’s own narrative of flourishing rather than surviving, while reflecting violent realities. Three large drawings mimic pervasive advertisement language and presentation reflecting the oppressive strategies used to contain women of color. Created with charcoal, watercolor, and ink, these 'advertisements' contrast with an interactive rice bag filled with comics of my everyday experiences. These documentations compel viewers to reflect on their own participation in systems of power.

"Tell Nobody But God": Reading Mothers, Sisters, And "The Father" In Alice Walker's The Color Purple, Cheryl Hopson

Faculty/Staff Personal Papers

In my reading of The Color Purple, I make several interconnected arguments, the first being that “The Father,” that is any male, sanctioned by patriarchy, and in the context of a patriarchal, sexist male order, disrupts what would otherwise be a powerful and sustaining relationship, that of the mother-daughter relationship. I continue that sisterhood that is multifaceted and intergenerational serves as a corrective to the disrupted maternal and filial relationship. It is sisters in the novel and not mothers who step in to “mother,” that is nurture, protect, support, as well as challenge one another, even in the most harrowing …

MaríA De Zayas And The Art Of Breaking Free, Erin Cygan

Audre Lorde Writing Prize

This paper analyzes a short story by the 17^th-century Spanish author María de Zayas. In Her Lover’s Slave, Zayas’s protagonist Isabel Fajardo is raped and decides to transform into a Moorish slave woman in order to pursue her rapist throughout the Mediterranean and avenge her honor. I examine the effect of this transformation on Isabel, a Christian noblewoman who is subject to the restrictive honor code of early modern Spain, as well as the effect on her Spanish audience. I argue that Isabel’s tale sends didactic messages to early modern and contemporary readers, messages that promote solidarity among …

I Hope, Mai Trinh

SURGE

As I have gotten older, I have learned that no matter how hard I try, I am never going to be able to repay my mother for everything that she did for me. The blood, sweat, and tears she put into nurturing the sick and troublesome, five-year-old me, the rebellious and lazy fifteen-year-old me, and the clumsy, and sometimes lost me now, are insurmountable. I know she had more trouble raising me than she was supposed to. I know her first five years of being a mother did not include taking me to the park, sitting down on a park …

Mother Making: How First Time Mothers Develop A Parenting Practice In Contemporary America, Stephanie A. Wright

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

History has shown, time and again, that parenting practices in America change in the face of important social, political, cultural and ideological transitions. Such influences are often concealed, but nonetheless greatly impact not only the way mothers parent their children but also how they think of themselves in their mothering role. Historical and feminist scholars have helped to elucidate how broad historical legacies and current ideologies, such as patriarchy, capitalism, neoliberalism, and feminism itself, continue to shape dominant discursive understandings about motherhood. Using Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis, eight first time mothers from mostly white, middle class, educated and full time working …

Patriarchy Getting You Down?, Student Women's Association

Social Justice: Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion

Meme captured from the Student Women's Association promoting the first Feminist Discussion Day at UMaine.

Men's Matters, Office Of Multicultural Student Life

Social Justice: Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion

A flyer promoting a panel discussion about "masculinity as it changes across cultures and countries," hosted by the Office of Multicultural Student Life.

Visibility Feminism, Alyssa Froehling

Audre Lorde Writing Prize

An invented feminist theory based off of existing theories and personal experience.

The Vagina Monologues, Student Women's Association

Social Justice: Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion

A flyer promoting the annual performance of The Vagina Monologues at the University of Maine.

The Patriarchy’S Role In Gender Inequality In The Caribbean, Erin C. O'Connor

Student Publications

While gender equality in the Caribbean is improving, with women’s growing social, economic, and political participation, literacy rates comparable to those in Europe, and greater female participation in higher education, deeply rooted inequalities are still present and are demonstrated in the types of jobs women are in and the limited number of women in decision-making positions. Sexism, racism, and classism are systemic inequalities being perpetuated in schools, through the types of education offered for individuals and the content in textbooks. Ironically, the patriarchy is coexisting within a system of matrifocal and matrilocal families, with a long tradition of female economic …

The Cookie Jar Dilemma, Kelcy Dolan

Faculty Curated Undergraduate Works

This article explores the possibilities in both men and women’s refusal to take responsibility in the war against rape as well as rape culture. Beginning with Zerlina Maxwell’s viral criticized appearance on the Sean Hannity’s talk show, the article questions not only why responsibility is not taken for rape throughout society, but who is responsible and how. It then moves through this question citing several specific articles, an interview and media sources. The article contemplates whether, patriarchy, masculinity, or even instinctual and primitive thought processes dictate the assumptions and responses to the responsibility in the war against rape.

Women As Victims In Tennessee Williams' First Three Major Plays, Ruth Foley

Masters Theses

Although Tennessee Williams does not openly champion the rights of women in his plays, he presents strong cases against their social alienation in a harsh and brutal world governed by men. Williams' emotional leanings, sensitivity, and intuition enable him to see life through women's eyes. In The Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar Named Desire, and Summer and Smoke, Williams astutely sounds the battle cry for women to fight against male oppression. He shows how Amanda Wingfield, Laura Wingfield, Blanche Dubois, Stella Kowalski, and Alma Winemiller are held hostage to the rules governing patriarchal society and become unhappy marginalized victims. The self-contained …

Girl Empowerment And Unspoken Discourses On Girl Sexuality In Stephanie Meyer's Twilight Saga, Caitlin Gulliford

Honors College Theses

In this paper, I explore how Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight saga employs a form of girl sexual citizenship that recognizes girls as sexualized, but maintains unspoken structures of compulsory heterosexuality, regressive gender norms, and hyperconsumerism in order to police girls as a protection of patriarchy.

In Pursuit Of Feminist Postfeminism And The Blessings Of Buttercup, Teresa Hubel

Department of English Publications

Introduction:

I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in thinking that the term “postfeminism” is often and perhaps most frequently used—by the mainstream media generally and by actual people—as a kind of casual dismissal of feminism that comes implicitly coupled with the suggestion that the cutting-edge place to be these days, with regard to women, is the one where the old victim mentality has been sloughed off and a new flying-free-of-those-chains approach to gender in all its diversity and in all its equal opportunity has been boldly embraced. Given the terms of this unstated argument, any criticism of this postfeminism automatically …

'Listen, Rama’S Wife!’: Maithil Women’S Perspectives And Practices In The Festival Of Sāmā-Cakevā, Coralynn V. Davis

Faculty Journal Articles

As a female-only festival in a significantly gender-segregated society, sāmā cakevā provides a window into Maithil women’s understandings of their society and the sacred, cultural subjectivities, moral frameworks, and projects of self-construction. The festival reminds us that to read male-female relations under patriarchal social formations as a dichotomy between the empowered and the disempowered ignores the porous boundaries between the two in which negotiations and tradeoffs create a symbiotic reliance. Specifically, the festival names two oppositional camps—the male world of law and the female world of relationships—and then creates a male character, the brother, who moves between the two, loyal …

Feminist Tigers And Patriarchal Lions: Rhetorical Strategies And Instrument Effects In The Struggle For Definition And Control Over Development In Nepal, Coralynn V. Davis

Faculty Journal Articles

This article offers an analysis of a struggle for control of a women’s development project in Nepal. The story of this struggle is worth telling, for it is rife with the gender politics and neo-colonial context that underscore much of what goes on in contemporary Nepal. In particular, my analysis helps to unravel some of the powerful discourses, threads of interest, and yet unintended effects inevitable under a regime of development aid. The analysis demonstrates that the employment of already available discursive figures of the imperialist feminist and the patriarchal third world man are central to the rhetorical strategies taken …