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Full-Text Articles in Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies

Decolonizing The Western Perception Of Afghan Women: A Feminist Critique, Parwana Azimi May 2024

Decolonizing The Western Perception Of Afghan Women: A Feminist Critique, Parwana Azimi

Honors Theses

Abstract: Feminist theory and activism have often been reduced to singular movements from Western literature and history. Thus, the exploration of Feminist theory is often limited to Western ideology and values. In doing so, Western Feminism has primarily promoted the rights of Women living in developed countries while leaving women in developing countries or otherwise out of the discussion of women’s rights and status. Most often, women's rights struggles outside of the West are seen as colonial projects which portray Muslim women as helpless and requiring liberation from their cultures. A prominent example of this is the case of Afghan …

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Breaking The Rule Of Silence: Childbirth And Gendered Power In Efuru And The Joys Of Motherhood, Sunday Elliott Uguru May 2024

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 …

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Zamrock: Negotiating Masculine Urban Identity In Zambia And Music Success In A Postcolonial World, Emeline Avignon Apr 2024

Zamrock: Negotiating Masculine Urban Identity In Zambia And Music Success In A Postcolonial World, Emeline Avignon

Senior Theses and Projects

This thesis analyzes, through predominately an ethnomusicologist approach and methodology, the lyricism, instrumentation, performance, and album art of the movement of Zamrock in Zambia from 1970 to the mid-1980s. I explore the agency and construction of urban youth masculinity by Zamrock artists in the context of Zambia’s colonial history of the Copperbelt, into its decades after independence. First, I look at the socio-political and economic context of colonized and independent Zambia, and how out of these conditions Zambian rock music was fused and forged. I break down the negotiations and desires of Zamrock artists in their identity construction via their …

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“Young In Deed”: Feminine Affect And Agency In Young Adult Shakespeare Adaptations, Juliana Hall Apr 2024

“Young In Deed”: Feminine Affect And Agency In Young Adult Shakespeare Adaptations, Juliana Hall

English

Approaching the cultural behemoth that is Shakespeare can be daunting, especially for young audiences; the language is antiquated and can be difficult to understand, and, due in part to the age of these works, the content is often rooted in bigoted ideologies. Young adult (YA) novel adaptations have begun reintroducing readers to Shakespeare, not only significantly enhancing the narratives, but encouraging readers to play with Shakespeare’s language in new, accessible, and exciting ways. By looking at two twenty-first century YA novel adaptations of Shakespeare’s original plays alongside the accompanying source material, I analyze how female protagonists engage with their emotions …

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Do Resources Create Empowerment?: A Study Of Tribal Women Farmers In Madhya Pradesh, India, Sudarshan Thakur, Simran Malkan Mar 2024

Do Resources Create Empowerment?: A Study Of Tribal Women Farmers In Madhya Pradesh, India, Sudarshan Thakur, Simran Malkan

Journal of International Women's Studies

As of late, there has been debate about the importance of recognizing women in agriculture as farmers. The demand to be recognized is backed by women’s significant contribution to the household economy. Scholars have attempted to establish a correlation between land ownership and women’s empowerment in agriculture. This is an oversimplification of the situation of women farmers and their empowerment, especially in the context of tribal society where women have better access to and control over community and forest resources. We undertook this study to examine if having land and other resources is a prerequisite for the empowerment of tribal …

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Educational Migration And Agency Among Tribal Young Women, Deepika Kumari Meena Mar 2024

Educational Migration And Agency Among Tribal Young Women, Deepika Kumari Meena

Journal of International Women's Studies

In this paper, I examine the understanding of agency among the tribal young women attending college in Pratapgarh (Rajasthan), India. Particularly in light of this shift in their living and academic spaces, I look at how they interpret and perform their agency when it comes to being in a romantic relationship and getting married. It is not uncommon for tribal members to engage in romantic relationships and to seek love marriages. The number of young women migrating for education is increasing. As a result of educational migration, the practice of live-in relationships, romantic relationships, and love marriages has also increased …

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Older Women As Active Online Agents: Diversifying Cultural Conceptions Of “Grannies” Through Social Media, Hanna Varjakoski Oct 2023

Older Women As Active Online Agents: Diversifying Cultural Conceptions Of “Grannies” Through Social Media, Hanna Varjakoski

Journal of International Women's Studies

With the advent of social media, the media environment has become more participatory for its users, making it possible for older adults to produce content for social media and be agential in online spaces. This article observes a group of older women known as Activist Grannies (Aktivistimummot in Finnish) and 60+ Finnish women bloggers who identify as “grannies” to discover what kind of agency social media potentially enables for older women. In addition, this article explores the cultural knowledge produced by older women’s self-representations as activist grannies and “granny bloggers.” I demonstrate that social media offers a space to …

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The Madness Of Women As An Illusional Power In Charlotte Brontë’S Jane Eyre And Fadia Faqir’S Pillars Of Salt, Luma Balaa Oct 2023

The Madness Of Women As An Illusional Power In Charlotte Brontë’S Jane Eyre And Fadia Faqir’S Pillars Of Salt, Luma Balaa

Journal of International Women's Studies

Historically speaking, women have been associated with madness, be it Medea from Ancient Greece, the medieval trials of the witches of Salem, or so called “hysterical” women in the Victorian era. Even in 21st-century literature, arts, and media, the madness of women is widely discussed and often romanticized. Some women authors employed the madwoman trope to show the effects of patriarchal oppression on women. Other studies have associated women’s madness in literature with subversion. This paper, however, claims that the portrayal of madness in both Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre (1847) and Fadia Faqir’s Pillars of Salt (1996) is not subversive, …

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Diasporic Women’S Mutability In South Asian Postcolonial Literature, Tasnim S. Halim May 2023

Diasporic Women’S Mutability In South Asian Postcolonial Literature, Tasnim S. Halim

Theses and Dissertations

Though Western scholarship tends to homogenize South Asian experiences, researchers and novelists shed light on different classes of South Asian postcolonial and migratory women who experience mutability, or the internal and external changes as a trauma response after British colonial rule ended and the 1947 Partition abruptly fractured national identity. Though this mutability has positive and negative transformative qualities, it also allows women characters the power to remove themselves from cycles of oppression, work towards healing, and transforming their physical bodies from sites of repressed trauma to sites of expression and agency. What binds them is not only their physical …

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Bollywood As A Site Of Resistance: Women And Agency In Indian Popular Culture, Sheetal Yadav, Smita Jha Apr 2023

Bollywood As A Site Of Resistance: Women And Agency In Indian Popular Culture, Sheetal Yadav, Smita Jha

Journal of International Women's Studies

This article evaluates the contemporary Indian redefinition of gender norms, subjectivity, and practices by analyzing Bollywood films as a major influence upon its global audiences. This study explores how Indian cinema redefines women’s status and promotes gender-neutral entertainment by harnessing the powerful energies of current movements such as #MeToo. The article closely examines the textual and conceptual features of current women-focused movies like Ek Ladki Ko Dekha To Aisa Laga (2019), Thappad (2020), and Paglait (2021). This examination focuses on key insights from popular Bollywood actresses’ critical feminist roles to understand their assertions of women’s power, agency, and equality. Additionally, …

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White Womanhood: Finding Oppositional Epistemologies And Community At The Intersection Of Whiteness And Womanhood, Hannah Joy Fischer Jan 2023

White Womanhood: Finding Oppositional Epistemologies And Community At The Intersection Of Whiteness And Womanhood, Hannah Joy Fischer

Doctoral Dissertations

White women continue to contribute to the reproduction and maintenance of White supremacy even when they attempt to pursue antiracism. To better understand their antiracist agency, this study analyzed White women’s experiences and comprehension of White womanhood. Using phenomenology and critical autoethnography, this qualitative study invited six self-proclaimed antiracist White women to participate in individual interviews, attend two focus groups, and reflect on five guided prompts on White womanhood and antiracist action. The study revealed antiracist White women’s feelings of responsibility and lack of perceived agency for antiracist action. Participants demonstrated attempts to disengage from whiteness while also expressing desires …

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Negotiating Empowerment: Pakistani Women Exercising Agency In Domestic And Public Spheres, Laraib Qureshi, Saadia Abid Aug 2022

Negotiating Empowerment: Pakistani Women Exercising Agency In Domestic And Public Spheres, Laraib Qureshi, Saadia Abid

Journal of International Women's Studies

This article explores women negotiating empowerment in domestic and public spheres as beneficiaries of a women’s empowerment project. While these empowerment interventions are noteworthy, they are also misleading because they ignore the local expressions of agency, where women at home also exercise power and conscious decision-making in their own contexts, just as much as any other working women--which is equally significant when talking about empowerment. We argue that there are other expressions of empowerment that are neglected, trivialized, or unacknowledged by the mainstream discourse. In a similar context, we argue that local women, while understanding the NGO’s definition of empowerment, …

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The Role Of Emirati Women During The Covid-19 Pandemic And The Challenges, Suaad Zayed Al-Oraimi Apr 2022

The Role Of Emirati Women During The Covid-19 Pandemic And The Challenges, Suaad Zayed Al-Oraimi

Journal of International Women's Studies

Using a qualitative methodology of personal interviews and participant observation, this research investigates the role of Emirati women in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic and the subsequent impact/challenges. Research participants included female Emirati health care workers and educationists. We observed Emirati families to help better understand the challenges women went through during the pandemic. Contrary to existing narratives about the invisibility, docility, marginalization, victimhood, and dependency of Arab women, this research reveals that Emirati women were able to exercise agency in the fight against the pandemic due to the following factors: longstanding government empowerment of women, a sense of …

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Beyond Victimhood: Female Agency In Nigerian Civil War Novels, Enajite E. Ojaruega Feb 2022

Beyond Victimhood: Female Agency In Nigerian Civil War Novels, Enajite E. Ojaruega

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Enajite E. Ojaruega discusses in her “Beyond Victimhood: Female Agency in Nigerian Civil War Novels” the agential roles women played during the Nigeria-Biafra war as reflected in selected fictional narratives. Female characters are generally impacted negatively by their individual and collective war-time experiences. However, there is another important aspect of women's war-time experiences that has largely been underplayed in most historical or literary accounts on war. Female agency recognizes this gender’s participatory roles during the conflict as they reconstruct their subjectivity in more beneficial ways in the unfolding circumstances of war. Women are depicted as being able to explore their …

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Crafted For The Male Gaze: Gender Discrimination In The K-Pop Industry, Liz Jonas Feb 2022

Crafted For The Male Gaze: Gender Discrimination In The K-Pop Industry, Liz Jonas

Journal of International Women's Studies

This paper explores the ways in which the Korean popular music industry has maintained and promoted pre-existing cultural patriarchy. The discussion highlights how seeming opportunity for women to enter the industry has resulted in increased objectification and legitimacy of the domination of the “male gaze.” The paper provides an evaluation of the career, marginalization, and precarity of female music artists (“idols”) both with respect to the issues they face and in comparison, with their male counterparts. The paper addresses how ageism and sexualization in the music industry has influenced and reinforced social norms. The discussion concludes by noting a cultural …

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“I Save Me”: Gender, Agency, And Power In Better Call Saul, Stephanie Kocer Jan 2022

“I Save Me”: Gender, Agency, And Power In Better Call Saul, Stephanie Kocer

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Historically, women on television have been portrayed in wife and mother roles, making them a foil to their husbands, but never the main focal point of the show. These characters stay on the sidelines, without being given truly original storylines where they are allowed to drive their own narratives. During the first season of Better Call Saul, Kim Wexler is a supporting character, without any storylines that aren’t linked to Jimmy McGill. Jimmy often treats Kim as a damsel in distress. He thinks it’s his job to save her, and usually from the chaos that he’s created. In this thesis …

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The Experience Of Self-Coherence: Self-Coherence As The Hub Of All Needs, April Ursula Fox Dec 2021

The Experience Of Self-Coherence: Self-Coherence As The Hub Of All Needs, April Ursula Fox

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Self-coherence as the hub of all needs is a novel proposition made by Carol Dweck (2017), and not yet further explored. While supporting self-coherence with a comprehensive review of its presence within behavioral sciences, Dweck does not dive deeper into it, and offers an invitation for further research of its workings. In this study I respond to that invitation. I design a continuation to her theory. I also expand her theory to include what I have found to be missing, but essential, additional components that cannot be ignored within the context of self-coherence as a master sensor of needs. Finally, …

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Review Of Women As War Criminals: Gender, Agency, And Justice, Christi Siver Aug 2021

Review Of Women As War Criminals: Gender, Agency, And Justice, Christi Siver

The Journal of Social Encounters

No abstract provided.

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Crafted For The Male Gaze: Gender Discrimination In The K-Pop Industry, Liz Jonas Jul 2021

Crafted For The Male Gaze: Gender Discrimination In The K-Pop Industry, Liz Jonas

Journal of International Women's Studies

This paper explores the ways in which the idol industry portrays male and female bodies through the comparison of idol groups and the dominant ways in which they are marketed to the public. A key difference is the absence or presence of agency. Whereas boy group content may market towards the female gaze, their content is crafted by a largely male creative staff or the idols themselves, affording the idols agency over their choices or placing them in power holding positions. Contrasted, girl groups are marketed towards the male gaze, by a largely male creative staff and with less idols …

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(In)Hospitable Modernity: Hospitality And Its Discontents (1920–1953), Daniel A. Hengel Jun 2021

(In)Hospitable Modernity: Hospitality And Its Discontents (1920–1953), Daniel A. Hengel

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation discusses the tacit forms of political activity operating through the performance and space of hospitality in modern fiction. I read the habitus, praxis, and dissemblages of hospitality in modern fiction as conduits that reveal dialectics of submission and resistance to Victorian and Edwardian markers of normativity. This is ultimately an infrapolitical work. I locate fulcrums of dissent, cloaked in a guise of hospitality, in the domestic sphere and the politicization of formerly private spaces into sites with the potential to reorder legitimated forms of agency. This project attempts to uncover veiled forms of sociopolitical resistance in and through …

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Teaching Eighteenth-Century English Coercion, Seduction, And Consent In Twenty-First Century India: Eliza Haywood’S Love In Excess, Sumi Bora May 2021

Teaching Eighteenth-Century English Coercion, Seduction, And Consent In Twenty-First Century India: Eliza Haywood’S Love In Excess, Sumi Bora

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830

Classroom teaching informed by the #MeToo movement is widespread and diverse. This paper evolves from classroom discussion with Third Semester English Major students at Lokanayak Omeo Kumar Das College, Dhekiajuli, Assam, India. The paper engages itself with #MeToo Movement and scrutinizes the depiction of seduction in Eliza Haywood’s novel Love in Excess. The paper records the students’ connections between Haywood and their own desire to build consciousness among the marginalized section of women so that they voice issues of harassment in any form.

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On Being Seen Or For Those Who Break Like Me, Shanisha K. Branch Apr 2021

On Being Seen Or For Those Who Break Like Me, Shanisha K. Branch

English Theses & Dissertations

The nature of truly seeing is something I’ve had a hard time grappling with. If you understand the difficultly of seeing and wanting others to see you that same, then these pages are for you.

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Empathy, Animals, And Deadly Vices, Kathie Jenni Jan 2021

Empathy, Animals, And Deadly Vices, Kathie Jenni

Animal Studies Journal

In Deadly Vices, Gabriele Taylor provides a secular analysis of vices which in Christian theology were thought to bring death to the soul: sloth, envy, avarice, pride, anger, lust, and gluttony. She argues that these vices are appropriately singled out and grouped together in that ‘they are destructive of the self and prevent its flourishing’. Using a related approach, I offer a secular analysis of gluttony and cowardice, examining their roles in common failures to empathise with animals. I argue that these vices constitute serious moral failings, for they enable continuing complicity in animal abuse and undermine integrity. While Taylor …

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The Resilience Of Female Survivors Of Intimate Partner Violence In Southwest Nigeria: An Interdisciplinary Analysis, Tobi F. Oloyede Dec 2020

The Resilience Of Female Survivors Of Intimate Partner Violence In Southwest Nigeria: An Interdisciplinary Analysis, Tobi F. Oloyede

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Female survivors of intimate partner violence (IPV) in Nigeria endure harsh and traumatic experiences that affect their rights as women and their well-being. As the phenomenon of IPV persists in Nigeria, it is not only a family problem but a critical social and psychological problem. This study examined Nigerian female survivors’ hidden strength, agency, and resilience, rather than their powerlessness and vulnerability. Analysis of survey questionnaires, interviews, and secondary scholarship reveals that some Nigerian female survivors of IPV are able to cope whilst navigating stressful and traumatic experiences. The results also show that survivors’ ability to thrive and cope under …

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Alternative Forms Of Resistance: Afghan Women Negotiating For Change, Sara N. Amin, Nazifa Alizada Aug 2020

Alternative Forms Of Resistance: Afghan Women Negotiating For Change, Sara N. Amin, Nazifa Alizada

Journal of International Women's Studies

In this paper we examine how Afghan women resist, strategize and negotiate family and societal constraints to take advantage of the expanding education and employment opportunities in the post-Taliban era. We focus on how these women exercise agency and what resources they mobilize to maximize their opportunities in the face of potential constraints. We argue that to understand women’s agency and changing gendered power relations in the family, it is crucial to examine every day individual behaviors that deviate from prescribed dominant gender behavior and infuse altered meanings to dominant gendering discourses. Our research highlights that gendered power is partial, …

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“They Do Us The Honour Of Treating Us Like Gods, And We Respond By Treating Them Like Things”: The Problem With Fathers In William Shakespeare’S Titus Andronicus And J.M. Coetzee’S Disgrace, Colleen Walsh Aug 2020

“They Do Us The Honour Of Treating Us Like Gods, And We Respond By Treating Them Like Things”: The Problem With Fathers In William Shakespeare’S Titus Andronicus And J.M. Coetzee’S Disgrace, Colleen Walsh

Theses and Dissertations

Titus Andronicus’s obsession with honor eclipses his daughter's agency whereas David Lurie’s acceptance of his daughter's choices ultimately creates conditions of possibility. Coetzee represents Lurie as ultimately shedding patriarchal preoccupation with “dignity” and “honor.”

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An Analysis Of Women And Terrorism: Perpetrators, Victims, Both?, Elizabeth Lauren Miller Jun 2020

An Analysis Of Women And Terrorism: Perpetrators, Victims, Both?, Elizabeth Lauren Miller

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This paper will analyze women’s participation in terrorism under groups like al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. It will research the use of violence within terrorist organizations, perpetrated by female participants. What leads women to join groups like the Islamic State? There will be an analysis of the factors that attract women to joining terrorist organizations, in addition to the practices of recruitment that aid in their radicalization. There is a misconception that women who join the Islamic State lack education, which is seen as the sole reasoning for their radicalization or involvement. In reality, several reasons exist leading to their …

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Pratiquer Ou Incarner La Vertu? L'Agentivité Des Femmes Chez Marie De France Et Christine De Pizan, Kathe Blydenburgh May 2020

Pratiquer Ou Incarner La Vertu? L'Agentivité Des Femmes Chez Marie De France Et Christine De Pizan, Kathe Blydenburgh

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis studies the treatment of women in Medieval literature as active agents in their roles of upholding the virtues of the societies in which they live. This study focuses on works written by the female authors Marie de France and Christine de Pizan.

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Unending And Uncertain: Thinking Through A Phenomenological Consideration Of Self-Harm Towards A Feminist Understanding Of Embodied Agency, Veronica Heney May 2020

Unending And Uncertain: Thinking Through A Phenomenological Consideration Of Self-Harm Towards A Feminist Understanding Of Embodied Agency, Veronica Heney

Journal of International Women's Studies

Agency has been much discussed in both popular and academic feminist discourse, particularly in the context of empowerment and sexual practices. Following a third-wave emphasis on women’s ability to respect women’s choices and ability to exercise agency free from domination, postmodern feminist scholars have critiqued such a view as thoroughly implicated in discourses of neoliberal individualism and compulsory self-discipline. However, these critiques have not entirely succeeded in providing convincing alternative approaches for incorporating concepts and experiences of change and intentionality within frameworks which emphasise the governmentality of discourses of empowerment. Thus, this essay explores the benefits of shifting the frame …

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Examining “Empowerment”: Insights Into The Murshidat Program In Morocco, Hannah Mckenzie Apr 2020

Examining “Empowerment”: Insights Into The Murshidat Program In Morocco, Hannah Mckenzie

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Following the 2003 terror attacks in Casablanca, the Moroccan government issued a series of reforms, including the introduction of the new program in Rabat that would train murshidat, women religious guides who would then go on to work in mosques and other public spaces all across the country. The intention of this program, the state claimed, was to 1) promote a moderate Islam and 2) empower women. In this research, I have consulted existing literature and conducted interviews with scholars and activists in the realm of women’s rights to explore various sides of this question: How does the work of …

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