Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Meaning Making And Athletic Gender Discrimination: Associations Between Sports Participation And Gender Discrimination Among Adolescent Females, Chenae Christensen Duerden

Theses and Dissertations

Research suggests that participation in athletics provides adolescent females with a variety of positive mental and physical benefits. While Title IX paved the way for increased female participation in organized sports, female athletes, including adolescents, continue to face various forms of gender discrimination. Research also suggests that females with a strong feminist identity are more likely to identify and speak out against gender discrimination. Accordingly, this study seeks to examine the association between gender discrimination and sports participation and the potential moderating role of feminist identity and cognitive appraisals of discrimination on this relationship. Participants were 580 adolescent females (age …

Mothering As Feminism, Meera Patel

MFA in Illustration & Visual Culture

This critical essay proposes the concept of mothering-as-feminism, with the intention of interrogating American ideals of mothering and caregiving. Reforming the way we view mothering, as it relates to feminism, requires a re-evaluation of the American role of women and mothers—and how they are portrayed (and therefore seen and understood), valued, and supported. Focusing on the evolution of feminist theory throughout the past 70 years, as well as personal and secondary experiences, I demonstrate how political and social change occurs generationally and is dependent on the education of our children. Ultimately, I show the important role children’s literature plays …

“Nails Done, Hair Done, Everything Did!”: Consumption And The Creation Of Black Feminine Selves, Simone Reid

Honors Theses

This thesis examines how race and gender shape the meaning that Black women associate with their beauty consumption practices and spending. Much of the existing feminist scholarship on beauty has been postfeminist, privileging the concept of agency and empowerment over structural realities. However, the materialist feminist frame has more utility to address how beauty operates within the lives of Black women as a form of distinct gendered racial oppression. The concept of aesthetic capital emerges from the materialist feminist perspective and suggests that beauty demands the investment of considerable economic resources and can deliver economic returns. Despite this, aesthetic capital …

Gender Stereotypes And Representation Of Women In Roald Dahl's Books, Sarah Hunt

Senior Theses and Projects

The purpose of this qualitative study is to examine the role and representation of women in Roald Dahl’s children’s novels. To do this, I conducted a document analysis of five of Dahl’s books - “James and the Giant Peach” (1961), “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” (1964), “Danny, The Champion of the World” (1975), “The Witches” (1983), and “Matilda” (1988) - in order to answer the following questions: How does Roald Dahl portray women and girls in his novels? What gendered stereotypes are present, and how does this portrayal change over time? I was able to answer this question through utilizing …

Unscr 1325 Did Not Help Women, Peace, Or Security In Afghanistan: The Role Of Militarism And Hegemonic Masculinity In International Security, Sawyer Bannister

CMC Senior Theses

This paper argues that UNSCR 1325 on Women, Peace, and Security exemplifies how the international security system is constructed in a way that not only preserves militarism and hegemonic masculinity, but further perpetuates gendered power disparities and exacerbates human insecurity. In this pursuit, this paper develops a theoretical framework of radical feminism to illustrate how the international arena embodies militarized hegemonic masculinity and how this power paradigm fundamentally inhibits international security organizations from successfully addressing gender issues. Additionally, this paper utilizes a case study of UNSCR 1325 and WPS implementation in Afghanistan to reveal how when international security organizations attempt …

Identifying Intersectional Complex Practice Behaviours In Ipv Services For Marginalized Women, Amrit Kaur Gill

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This study aims to identify the level of alignment between competent GBV work as identified in literature and by current service providers. Identifying areas of alignment and difference allows for developing theory-based practice informed by literature and highlights potentially unexplored areas of research. The study does this through thematic coding of interviews with GBV service providers across Canada, and coding of practice-based behaviour items constructed from current literature. Interview analysis revealed eleven themes of behaviour which were compared with ten themes developed from the coding of 140 literature documents. Triangulation from interviews and literature found that, of the eleven themes …

Bees And Feminism, Bruno Barbuto

Community Engagement Student Work

The topics of bees and feminism engage community members in thinking of how and what ecology and community look like. The project workshop will cater to the ways in which people think and speak about their very own thoughts. As well, this workshop seeks to focus on bees and feminism as a means to engage the community in cogenerated dialogue about bee- preservation and women’s issues. The desired outcomes produced from this topic delivers insight about community, sustainability, and the terms of participation for engagement purposes. This workshop is the reason bees and feminism are being talked about as a …

Fragments Of An Anarcha-Transfeminist Sociology Of Sex Work, Veronica Andrek

Senior Projects Spring 2022

The purpose of this study is to explore ways in which feminist and sociological theory can be expanded by looking at the experiences of transgender women who are engaged in sex work specifically with an eye for transfeminist and anarchist political theory. Based on qualitative interviews with five transfeminine sex workers, I found that transfeminine sex workers, while facing substantial obstacles such as criminalization, transmisogyny, and poverty, are capable of building communities and forging new meanings in their lives. Within sex work are opportunities by which to reimagine labor and its role in our lives, with the possibility of abolishing …

Inequalities In Heterosexual Sex And How We Can Become Equals, Sophie Bierly

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Sexual inequality is well researched in the academic sphere but is absent from the political realm. Previous research has identified that sex is defined for men’s pleasure, that women suffer from an orgasm gap, and that male domination is standard in heterosexual sex. Due to the private nature of sex, sexual inequality is untouched as a personal problem rather than deconstructed as a political injustice. However, the universality of sexual inequality in heterosexual relationships demonstrates that these overlooked personal problems are rooted in widespread cultural misogyny. Sex is one of the primary ways in which we perform gendered socialization, due …

The Role Of Sex: An Analysis Of U.S. Attitudes Toward Climate Change, Chloe Riggs

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study analyzes the intersection of sex, environmental risk perception of climate change, and feminism. More specifically, with a sample size of 8,280 respondents from the American National Election Studies (ANES) 2020 Times Series Study, this research examines the relationship between pro-environmental attitudes and sympathy for feminism, controlling for sex, as well as if a measure of sympathy for feminism influences pro-environmental attitudes, controlling for demographic (age, education, race, sex, and income) and political preference (political ideology and party affiliation) variables. Previous literature strongly supports a sex gap in risk perception, a pattern known as the White Male Effect (WME) …

The Voice Of The Other: The Influence Of Capitalism On The Representation Of Gender And Race In Western Classical Music, Marie Comuzzo

Masters Theses

This thesis argues that in order to understand the non-representation of women and BIPOC in the Western musical canon, the analysis of their cultural musical production and reception must start in early modern period, a time heavily influenced by the establishment of capitalism. Intertwining political feminist studies, critical race theory and musicology critique, I argue that the witch hunts and the inhumane colonial practices in Africa and the America (fundamental to establish capitalism as a global system), had an important role in shaping Western musical culture as homogeneous and monolithic. Thus, I first trace the change in female customs in …

Theorizing #Girlboss Culture: Mediated Neoliberal Feminisms From Influencers To Multi-Level Marketing Schemes, Frankie Mastrangelo

Theses and Dissertations

I define girlboss feminism as emergent, mediated formations of neoliberal feminism that equate feminist empowerment with financial success, market competition, individualized work-life balance, and curated digital and physical presences driven by self-monetization. I look toward how the mediation of girlboss feminism utilizes branded and affective engagements with representational politics, discourses of authenticity and rebellion, as well as meritocratic aspiration to promote cultural interest in conceptualizing feminism in ways that are divorced from collective, intersectional struggle. I question the stakes involved in reducing feminist interrogations and commitments to discourses of representation, visibility, and meritocracy. I argue that while girlboss feminism may …

A Qualitative Examination Of The Agency Of Women In Their 30s And 40s Who Use Dating Applications, Tera Buerkle

Theses and Dissertations--Family Sciences

The use of dating applications (apps) to find romantic and sexual partners is widespread across age groups, however, there is a paucity of research on dating apps with those in middle adulthood. Sexual script theory suggests that women’s agency (i.e. the ability to act in one’s own best interest) may be impacted by expectations from an inherently sexualized context, such as dating apps. Feminist theory contends that women’s agency is complicated by gender socialization due to the imbalance of power in society that greatly favors men. In this study seventeen women aged 30 to 49 completed in-depth semi-structured interviews, and …

A Screenplay For Bystander Intervention For Sexual Harassment Scenarios For College Students, Shanti Herzog

Journalism

This project was developed to describe the drafting of a screenplay for an interactive, virtual reality sexual harassment training module for students of the California Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo. The research began with the examination of the prevalent and persisting issue of sexual harassment within college campus communities, and how to present college students with the tools to intervene as bystanders, thus encouraging them to intervene when encountering sexual harassment scenarios. The resulting screenplay was written to provide college students at Cal Poly with strategies to identify and take action when encountering sexual harassment, especially in small group gatherings …

Politically And Historically Bound: Examining Whiteness And Intersectionality Among Self-Identified Feminists, Olivia M. Mclaughlin

Dissertations

This dissertation examined the perspectives and beliefs of 23 self-identified feminists who are White. Specifically, it explored whether—and if so, to what extent—Whites have adopted intersectionality. Intersectional feminism refers to the activism and scholarship that recognizes the multi-dimensional nature of power and privilege and stands in contrast to the white-centered feminism that has dominated most feminist spaces since the suffrage movement. Since Kimberlé Crenshaw’s seminal article where the concept of intersectionality was formally introduced to the academy, feminist scholars have characterized the most recent wave of feminism as the intersectional wave. This third, intersectional wave of feminist movement is believed …

If It Wasn’T For The Women: An Exploration Of Works By Renita Weems, Wil Gafney, & Kelly Brown Douglas, Charlene Adams

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Womanist Bible scholars Renita Weems, Kelly Brown Douglas, and Wil Gafney’s offerings to the world of biblical scholarship have had a profound impact on Christian faith in the United States. Womanist biblical scholarship is the hermeneutics, ethics, critique, theology, and more, done with a specific lens on Black women and how we are understood within and as a result of biblical texts. Weems, Douglas, and Gafney’s work has asked the tough questions of Christianity, and bravely tackled taboo topics like sexuality, abuse, and racism. Their aim has been to interrogate whose voices have not been present in popular Christian discourse, …

Subjectivities Of Struggle: Charting Inscriptions Of Violence And Refusal On The “Cuerpo Territorio” Of Peru’S Defensoras, Natalia Guzmán Solano

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

“Subjectivities of Struggle: Inscriptions of Violence and Refusal on the ‘Cuerpo Territorio’ of Peru’s Defensoras” calls into question the colonial assumptions underpinning contemporary understandings of extractivism. The sixteen months of ethnographic research I conducted with the defensoras (women ecoterritorial defenders) of Cajamarca is situated at the fraught extractive frontier where social conflict paralyzed the expansion of a large-scale mining project and generated a coalitional struggle against extractive-led economic development. This dissertation conceptualizes extractivism as a modern/colonial product of power and knowledge that has feminized the land and inhabitants from the time of the European invasion of the Americas. While recent …

Playing God: Legacies Of Narrative Control In Danticat And Walker, Sarah Becker

Honors Projects and Presentations: Undergraduate

In The Dew Breaker by Edwidge Danticat and The Color Purple by Alice Walker characters experience and manifest power through the production of narrative, naming and labeling, and bodily interactions. Abusers such as the Dew Breaker, Duvalier, and Alphonso understand power as hierarchical, gained at the expense of others. These men commit acts of physical violence, spin scapegoat narratives which justify torture and rape, and attempt to name reality and define morality for their victims; in short, they pursue the power of a god to assert hegemony and control others. Scholars such as Bellamy suggest that the Dew Breaker is …

Rich In Needs: The Forgotten Radical Politics Of The Welfare Rights Movement, Wilson Sherwin

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Situated temporally between the Civil Rights Movement and the Women’s Movement, the Welfare Rights Movement of the 1960s and 70s distinguished itself by its militant critique of waged labor. Returning to the movement’s archives I examine how the mostly poor, Black, female participants developed their “antiwork politics”, how they asserted their right to live not only meager but occasionally luxurious lives—demanding not only bread but also roses. In the courts, streets, welfare offices, department stores, policy proposals, and numerous internal debates, these women waged national battles to assert full autonomy over their families, consumption, sexuality, and their own time.

As …

Out Of The Closet And Into Sport: An Analysis Of Openly Lesbian Athletes, Rachel Fazzari

MA Research Paper

ABSTRACT. Coming out refers to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) individuals disclosure of their sexual orientation. Coming out literature has often focused on the implications of coming out to family. Although there has been some research conducted on being out in sport, much of the research conducted on LGBT athletes has either been conducted before the twenty-first century or has been conducted solely on gay men. As a result, very little is known about the coming out experiences of lesbian athletes today. Since sport is rooted in masculine ideals and heterosexuality, it would be likely that lesbian athletes …

Interrogating The Construction And Representations Of Criminalized Women In The Academic Social Work Literature: A Critical Discourse Analysis, Sandra Marie Leotti

Dissertations and Theses

In the United States today, there are 2.3 million people behind bars in jails and prisons. Mass incarceration has swept up the United States to such a degree that we are known globally for holding more people in correctional facilities than any other country in the world. Although women have always, and still do, reflect a smaller proportion of the correctional population, over the last 40 years, their rates of criminalization and imprisonment have far outpaced that of men's. Drastic increases in the criminalization of women are intimately connected to the entrenchment of social disadvantage enabled under neoliberal globalization. Neoliberal …

Overstimulated - An Immersive, Multimedia Art Installation, Quinn Devlin

Honors Theses

This thesis provides the explanation, inspiration, research and progression of an immersive, multimedia art installation that emulates the idea of a “sexual dystopia.” It explores how our dichotomy of inadequate sex education and hypersexual, gender-based media is resulting in a dystopian sexual reality for women in particular. The work portrays a future world in which sexual and fertility technology is so advanced and accessible that real men and women no longer interact. As a result, women and objects become one in the same.

Female literary icons are over-sexualized to suggest that porn-culture is a by-product of a historical framework that …

Does Money Indeed Buy Happiness? “The Forms Of Capital” In Fitzgerald’S Gatsby And Watts’ No One Is Coming To Save Us, Allie Harrison Vernon

English (MA) Theses

Looking primarily at two critically acclaimed texts that concern themselves with American citizenship—F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and Stephanie Powell Watts’ No One is Coming to Save Us—I analyze the claims made about citizenship identities, rights, and consequential access to said rights. I ask, how do these narratives about citizenship sustain, create, or re-envision American myth? Similarly, how do the narratives interact with the dominant culture at large? Do any of these texts achieve oppositional value, and/or modify the complex hegemonic structure? I use Pierre Bourdieu’s “The Forms of Capital” to investigate the ways in which economic, cultural, …

Migrant Domestic Labor In The Global South: The Plight Of Filipina Domestic Workers In Morocco, Sara Asselman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In studying feminist theory, I discovered that domestic and care labor are often gendered and racialized. They are gendered because they are performed almost exclusively by women, and racialized because in western societies they are often relegated to women of color or migrant women. Feminist literature provides that migrant domestic labor often entails a migration flow between countries of the global north and countries of the global south and between countries that are economically disparate. Feminist theorists often criticize political economic and social structures reproduced by neoliberalism, globalization and neocolonialism for creating a global market for migrant domestic and care …

Violence In The Hands Of Women: An Analysis Of Gendered Violence In Life Is Strange And Before The Storm, Mitchi Anne Maja

Senior Theses

This thesis is an analysis of the video games Life is Strange and Before the Storm and how they serve to reflect social expectations and norms placed upon both women and men even today. Cultural studies recently accepted video games as a form of media to study, especially with the prevalence and accessibility of video games in various platforms. Violence in video games is culturally associated with men and the male audience; my analysis focuses on violence in the hands of women. By analyzing the choices I made as a player and how these games present their narratives and characters, …

Cultivating Chingona Power: A Study On The Chingona Identity, Celia Orosco Haro

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Mujeres across the country are claiming the Chingona identity and using it to cultivate their Chingona strength, feel empowered, and live for their own approval. A Chingona in this newly reclaimed use means a woman who embodies confidence, acceptance of self, reclamation of sexuality, siguiendo le adelante por su propio camino sin importarle lo que digan los demás, rejects social and cultural norms/expectations of women, and uses her strengths to empower and uplift others. Through the reclamation of this identity, these mujeres are moving beyond being hijas de la chingada to being Chingonas. This research highlights the Chingona identity …

Re-Composing Feminism: Australian Women Composers In The New Millennium, Talisha Goh

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

In the age of postfeminism and fourth-wave feminism online, Australian women composers are theoretically able to “have it all,” however, the proportion of women in the occupation appears to have plateaued in recent years. In this thesis, I explore the multiple ways in which gender and feminism interact with practising Australian women composers. Feminist musicology has had a large impact on the Australian musicological scene, with theorists such as McClary and Macarthur bringing the subject of women in music to the fore in the 1990s, aiding efforts to advocate for reform on behalf of women composers. Additionally, third-wave feminist scholars …

What's New Pussyhat? Men, Feminism, And Social Identity, Rachel Lee Crist

Dissertations and Theses

Current understandings of feminism do not seek to dissuade men from feminism as a movement; moreover, men's inclusion in the feminist movement is seen as paramount to achieving equality and dismantling all forms of hegemonic power. Past research has shown that identification with a social movement is a strong predictor for participation in social change, more so than belonging to a disadvantaged social category. Despite this, there is nascent literature on how men define, identify as, and practice feminism. This study draws from a thematic analysis of three focus groups of self-identified males to investigate their self-identification as feminist. Using …

I'M Sorry For Everything, Hille Sennott

Bachelor of Fine Arts Senior Papers

My work is rooted in the fact that women are practically conditioned to apologize for everything, and tells the intimate story of my life. By recording my apologies for several months and deeply examining my behavior, I noticed themes and made work based on these — work that exposed my private moments. I noticed a disconnect between times I needed to apologize, and this compulsive need to take on the blame for every little thing. I examine the feminine battle of soft and strong, eventually coming to the conclusion that there are occasions calling for both. Women are taught to …

Feminism And The Black Church: A Qualitative Analysis Of Feminism Among Black Women In A Southern Baptist Church, Brianne Alexandra Painia

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Black women’s religious faith has been found to be integral to their survival (Harris-Perry 2011) in a world that many times chooses to marginalize them due to a host of factors, including their race, gender, and expressions of sexuality (Collins 1996; Morgan 2000) meaning that for black women religion is more than a simple denominational label (such as Lutheran, Catholic, or Baptist). Black women’s involvement in the Black Church has been covered from a variety of angles with researchers noting the importance of African American women to the success of many black churches (Evans 2001), the benefits such faith practice …