Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Rape, Consent, And The U.S. Military, Siris Fernandez

Institute for the Humanities Theses

The military’s sexual assault prevention and response program is unable to effectively eliminate or even minimize occurrences of sexual assault in the service. This program focuses primarily on the elimination of sexual assault through yearly mandatory education on the current policies and procedures that occur when a victim comes forward. The Sexual Assault Prevention and Response (SAPR) program is reactionary and unequipped to tackle a culture that continues to promote a climate in which sexual assault and harassment exist without fear of retaliation. This thesis explores these issues and provides suggestions for changes in future revisions of the SAPR program. …

Integrating Empathy Pedagogy With Feminist Thought And Social Justice Praxis, Ashlyn Elizabeth Brown

Institute for the Humanities Theses

This thesis outlines the need for empathy pedagogy in higher education. It will examine how empathy pedagogy can be integrated with feminist thought and social justice praxis. I argue that when we integrate empathy pedagogy with feminist thought and social justice, we are building the capacity for students to understand others’ lives in oppression. Furthermore, an integrated modality of teaching empathy will allow students to foster the traits of empathy within themselves; students are then better able to act as agents of social change by utilizing the traits of empathy to actively listen, self-reflect, and mindfully engage with other lived …

Drag Incorporated: The Homonormative Brand Culture Of Rupaul's Drag Race, Nathan T. Workman

Institute for the Humanities Theses

This thesis argues RuPaul’s Drag Race (RPDR, 2009–) positions itself as a homonormative pathway to LGBTQ+ social inclusion through privileging neoliberal selfbranding and commodity activist practices that reify privileged raced, classed, and sexuality identity markers. Utilizing interdisciplinary and intersectional cultural studies methods to conduct a textual analysis, I examine how RPDR produces homonormative LGBTQ+ identities through the commodification and standardization of drag cultures. In conversation with existing RPDR scholars, I critically survey RPDR’s gender biases and prosocial messaging as an example of brand culture’s reification of hegemony and homonormativity within LGBTQ+ communities. This research considers the …

Collisions Of Local And Global: Transnationalizing A South African Domestic Workers' Union, Moriah Elise Shumpert

Institute for the Humanities Theses

This thesis explores how domestic worker trade unions’ functions have experienced a shift in their priorities as a result of the International Labor Organization’s (ILO) Convention 189, which standardizes rights for domestic workers worldwide. The adoption of this policy has diverted local unions’ efforts away from their original goals of mobilizing workers in this marginalized sector to focus instead on implementing this international policy. I argue that this shift reflects a larger tension where goals defined by international governance institutions and the dynamics of a larger transnational movement collide with the objectives and aspirations of a once autonomous grassroots trade …

"We Are Still In Apartheid:" Girls' Perspectives On Education Inequality In Democratic South Africa And Models For Social Change, Rebekah Lindsey Joyce

Institute for the Humanities Theses

Centering on the perceptions of black South African girl learners from impoverished township communities provides a new informed lived knowledge regarding social and educational inequality in the nation’s post-apartheid era. Perspectives from intersectional feminist theory and Black Feminist Thought offer an appropriate and unique approach to analyze the multiple socio-economic inequalities these girl learners face every day. By gathering original narrative data from a group of girls, their teachers, and the principal of Fezeka Secondary School in Gugulethu, South Africa, the intersections of inequality these girls face will be illuminated as critical factors to consider for policy and program aid …

The Red Hawk's Cry, Malaika Anne King

Institute for the Humanities Theses

The Red Hawk's Cry, a collection of twenty-eight poems, is arranged in three sections. "Calling It Back," the first section, consists of eight poems. The title and the poem rely on the concept of resurrecting people, the past, and pieces of the self in order to release them. Several of the poems' subjects are childhood and the personal mythology one weaves growing up. "Dialogue" has nine poems which revolve around relationships with lovers and friends. Though there appears to be a chronological order, the poems are placed more for interplay than for a constructed time line. The final section, "The …

Beyond Sugar And Spice: Labeling Female Genitalia, Ethel E. Hellman

Institute for the Humanities Theses

Previous studies have indicated that, in our culture, female genitalia are unlabeled, mis-labeled, and/or negatively labeled, while male genitalia are not.

Twenty-five mothers of young children were interviewed to determine what labels they were teaching their children for sexual body parts. The women later met in small groups to discuss the i r reactions to a soft-sculpture of female genitalia.

The study found that twice as many male children were taught common designations for their own genitalia than were female children. In addition, a greater proportion of female children were given a label for male genitalia, than male children were …

Women's Profiles, Robyn Lynn Cochran

Institute for the Humanities Theses

This creative project chronicles the development of an innovative short-format public radio series called Women's Profiles. I include a range of pertinent materials, including a record of my public radio internship, a grant proposal, and a public radio script. Using a feminist approach, I create a prototype for a radio show in which women subjects/narrators, in a non-hierarchical interview process, share their life experiences in conversation with one ( or more) women interviewers. By incorporating myself as a subject in this document, with work journals and narrative, I give readers an opportunity to appreciate the effort and process involved in …