Sociology Commons^™

The Never-Ending Lap, Ennica D. Jacob, Alexis Reese

Capstones

This personal film documents the journey of a Haitian-American woman dealing with sexual trauma in a culture that doesn’t speak candidly on the topic. How can women of the African- American diaspora break the cycle of sexual trauma and what are coping mechanisms to navigate their life choices with awareness?

The Never-Ending Lap will follow Ennica’s own healing process, delving delve into the cycles of sexual trauma. The film will explore past experiences through journal entries, therapy sessions and her love for track and field as she is on the road to search for coping mechanisms and healing.

Link: https://ennicajacob.myportfolio.com/videos

Changing Gender Representation In Television, Alexandria N. Palmer

Sociology Student Work Collection

Representations on television have lasting effects on those who watch it, especially children. Unfortunately, in such a male-dominated industry, the lack of women creating television content mean men are predominately telling women's stories.

In Search Of Work-Life Balance: Organizational And Economic Challenges Confronting Women In Banking And Management Consulting Firms In Southwest Nigeria, Oluwafisayo Ogundoro

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Married women in the banking and management consulting firms in Nigeria encounter challenges that affect their commitment to their families while working long hours in demanding jobs. This study explores the challenges married women encounter and the impacts they have on women’s family lives, social lives, and health. I analyze primary and secondary sources to understand how organizational work culture such as long working hours, work competitiveness, and Nigeria’s unstable economy negatively affect the work-life balance of married women in banking and management consulting firms. Although participants shared the belief that their workplaces practiced “equality,” their descriptions of daily life …

Picturing Health; Picturing Life: Visual Illness Narratives Of Women With Type 2 Diabetes, Sarah Gurley-Green

Educational Studies Dissertations

The prevalence of diabetes in the U.S. reached 23 million people between 2012 and 2017 and consumed one-quarter of the overall healthcare dollars. Remembering the suffering and pain of individuals behind these numbers becomes difficult and incalculable. Black American women are the most affected by type 2 diabetes (T2D), compared to their white counterparts, as well as twice as likely to be diagnosed with T2D and 2.5 times more likely to die from T2D. Therefore, understanding the problem requires the fundamental consideration of how these women cope daily with this complex illness while often struggling with complex lives. This narrative …

Womxn At Work: Exploring The Intersections Of Sex, Gender, Work, & Law, Becki Waskey

Sociology Student Work Collection

This informational pamphlet explores the experiences of womxn in the workplace, the relationship between normative gender standards and social movements, and a brief history of hard won legal protections. It also explores the formal legal protections that have yet to be solidified in the court of law.

Lessons & Landscapes: Lived Experience In The Outdoors, Rachael Grasso

Summit to Salish Sea: Inquiries and Essays

This personal narrative documents Rachael Grasso’s lived experience in the outdoors, focusing on mental health and female leadership. Originally written for a graduate capstone presentation, the narrative visits landscapes that Rachael associates with life lessons and pivotal moments in her career and personal life. She hopes to incorporate these experiences into her future work as an educator and outdoor instructor.

Using Interviewing In Public Health Research: Experiences Of Novice Researchers, Caroline I. Wood, Nancy Daley-Moore, Rachel Powell

The Qualitative Report

In this article, we provide the experiences of three novice public health researchers conducting studies with several vulnerable populations: women, people with disabilities, and children. We describe all phases of our interview studies including developing data collection guides, planning the interview in an appropriate setting, conducting the interviews, and bringing the interview to a close. Specific components of the interviews that are discussed include establishing rapport and minimizing the power imbalance inherent between interviewer and interviewee, including the added power imbalance that vulnerable populations experience. Issues of maintaining quality and rigor, as well as ethical considerations for working with our …

The Segregation Of Religion: How Othering Influences Society’S Narrative Understanding About The Symbiotic Relationship Among Racism, Sexism, And The Church, Ajanet Rountree

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

The social dependence on the sociology of male spiritual leadership is substantial. This dependence accomplishes two ideas: neutralizes the feminine experience and obviates the anthropological implications of religion in the perpetuation of oppression and subjugation. When considering racism and sexism in religion, specifically as they relate to the Black Christian church, a dismissal of accusations and assertions occurs by yielding to the context of the social era. This paper seeks to further clarify the position of women, who pushed against the grain of the gendered and racialized spaces of their churches and communities, as they sought to establish human rights …

Women And Crime, Samantha M. Caimi

Undergraduate Research

This paper examines the role of gender in three high profile criminal cases involving women. Each case highlights different circumstances of women involved in crime and the consequences of a justice system that does not acknowledge and address the role of gender in women’s criminal involvement. First, Cyntoia Brown’s case demonstrates the challenges specific to poor girls of color. Second, the case of Yeardley Love delineates the danger women face in their relationships with male intimate partners. Finally, the highly controversial case of Casey Anthony illustrates the societal pressure on women as mothers and the need to address potential biases …

Leymah Gbowee And The Army Of Women In White, Alexis Steele Hackenberg

Faculty Curated Undergraduate Works

This paper describes the founding of peace activist Leymah Gbowee’s Liberia Mass Action for Peace (LMAP) movement that helped to end the Second Liberian Civil War. It provides a biographical account of the life experiences that were crucial for Gbowee to advocate for peace and found the movement. The paper also compares the LMAP movement with the more recent #MeToo movement and analyzes Gbowee’s personal critiques of #MeToo.

Climate-Smart Agriculture: Building Resilience For Women Farmers In Kalchebeshi, Nepal, Annika Ruben

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This case study outlines women’s involvement in climate-smart agriculture and key climate adaptation strategies which are being implemented in the town of Kalchebeshi, Nepal. Kalchebeshi is considered a Resilient Mountain Village because of the town’s integrated approach to addressing climate change and building resilience for farmers. Key findings examined gender differences in farming responsibilities and the significance of farmers’ groups in women’s overall decision making and community involvement. Additionally, changes in water management and pesticide use have been shown to have a positive impact on the lives of women farmers in Kalchebeshi. This paper reinforces the importance of involving vulnerable …

Change In Motherhood Status And Fertility Problem Identification: Implications For Changes In Life Satisfaction, Arthur L. Greil, Julia Mcquillan, Andrea R. Burch, Michele H. Lowry, Stacy Tiemeyer, Kathleen S. Slauson-Blevins

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Objective: To determine whether the association between changes in life satisfaction and becoming a mother (or not) depends on fertility problem identification status.

Background: Evidence and symbolic interactionist theory suggest that, for women who initially perceive a fertility barrier, gaining the valued identity “mother” should be associated with increases and continuing to face a blocked goal (i.e., not becoming a mother) should be associated with decreases in life satisfaction.

Method: This study used the nationally representative two-wave National Survey of Fertility Barriers to conduct a change-score analysis with chained multiple imputation. The focal dependent variable was change in life satisfaction. …

Frenemies In The Academy: Relational Aggression Among African American Women Academicians, Wendi S. Williams, Catherine Lynne Packer-Williams

The Qualitative Report

Black women academicians represent a highly educated group that at times hold positional power within institutions of higher education. In this paper, the authors utilize a critical race feminist frame to explore their experiences with relational aggressive dynamics within higher education work settings. Using auto-narrative qualitative methodology, they collected data through scholarly personal narratives in the form of journals. The entries were analyzed by utilizing an intersectional lens with a focus on coping. Data analysis yielded four themes framed as coping with frenemy dynamics between individuals and contexts. The authors consider the contribution of individual, institutional and structural elements.

"Camouflaging" In Women With Autistic Traits: Measures, Mechanisms, And Mental Health Implications, Jonathan S. Beck

Theses and Dissertations

Autistic traits are associated with frequent psychological distress and everyday functional challenges. Some individuals with autistic traits “camouflage” these traits during social interactions by effortfully engaging in “typical” social behaviors. Camouflaging seems to be especially common in autistic girls and women. Emerging evidence proposes a role for camouflaging behaviors in poorer mental health and daily functioning. Furthermore, camouflaging efforts may delay receipt of a proper diagnosis and access to appropriate mental health care. Despite their clinical significance, camouflaging efforts remain difficult to quantify, and the mechanisms and impacts of camouflaging are poorly understood. This study aimed to compare multiple methods …

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 …

Creating New Metaphors For Women Engineering Students Through Qualitative Methods, Cliff Haynes

The Qualitative Report

The purpose of this study is to describe female students’ experiences in an engineering living-learning program using metaphorical analysis through a constructivist theoretical perspective. Extant literature uses metaphors from a negative viewpoint or a deficit model to describe the experiences of female undergraduates in engineering; however, new metaphors have not been used to describe the experience. This study aims to fill existing gaps in LLP literature using qualitative methods. Data from 13 semi-structured individual interviews (7 initial interviews and 6 follow-up interviews) serve as the primary data source. After conducting metaphorical analysis, I found five interpretive metaphors emerging: LLP as …

Smallholder Farmers Spend Credit Primarily On Food: Gender Differences And Food Security Implications In A Changing Climate, Marissa Carranza, Meredith T. Niles

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

In many low-income nations agriculture is used as the primary source of income, which in the face of a changing climate, is known to be at considerable risk for the smallholder farmers that rely on it. Financial resources may enable smallholder farmers to implement adaptation practices and diversify income and investments, which has the potential to affect household income and food security. Here we explore relationships between access to different types of financial resources among male and female-headed households and women vs. men, use of financial resources, and its relationship to food security. We use data from the CGIAR Climate …

Same-Sex Sexual Coercion Among Women: The Impact Of Minority Stress On Perpetration And Victimization Experiences Of Women Of Diverse Sexual Identities, Allison Kirschbaum

Dissertations

The purpose of the current study was to investigate women’s experiences with same-sex sexual coercion perpetration and victimization. Specifically, I sought to explore the role that the stress of living as a sexual minority plays in these experiences as well as to determine whether the psychological variables of perceived powerlessness, psychological distress, social support, and alcohol use mediate the relationship between minority stress and perpetration and victimization experiences. Data were collected online from self-identified women and individuals assigned female at birth who reported experiencing genital sexual contact with another woman (N=339). Of the cisgender women in the sample, 31.6% reported …

Testing The Tripartite Influence Model Among Heterosexual, Bisexual, And Lesbian Women, Vivienne M. Hazzard, Lauren M. Schaefer, Katherine Schaumberg, Anna M. Bardone-Cone, David A. Frederick, Kelly L. Klump, Drew A. Anderson, J. Kevin Thompson

Psychology Faculty Articles and Research

This cross-sectional study explored similarities and differences between heterosexual, bisexual, and lesbian women in levels of, and relationships between, the following constructs using a Tripartite Influence Model framework: family, peer, and media appearance pressures, thin- and muscular-ideal internalization, and eating disorder (ED) pathology. Self-identified heterosexual (n = 1,528), bisexual (n = 89), and lesbian (n = 278) undergraduate women completed the Sociocultural Attitudes Towards Appearance Questionnaire-4 and the Eating Disorder Examination-Questionnaire. Sexual orientation differences in appearance pressures, appearance-ideal internalization, and ED pathology were examined via analysis of variance tests. Relationships between these variables were examined with multi-group …

Bound By Silence: Psychological Effects Of The Traditional Oath Ceremony Used In The Sex Trafficking Of Nigerian Women And Girls, Jennifer Millett-Barrett

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

Nigerian women and children have been trafficked to Italy over the last 30 years for commercial sexual exploitation with an alarming increase in the past three years. The Central Mediterranean Route that runs from West African countries to Italy is rife with organized crime gangs that have created a highly successful trafficking operation. As part of the recruitment process, the Nigerian mafia and its operatives exploit victims by subjecting them to a traditional religious juju oath ceremony, which is an extremely effective control mechanism to silence victims and trap them in debt bondage. This study explores the psychological effects of …

The Regime Of Sex Trafficking Of Women In The United States, Julia Wilson

Honors Theses

Sex trafficking is a vicious crime and has been denoted as a form of modern-day slavery, accumulating nearly 21 million victims worldwide. Women and girls make up 95% of victims of trafficking for sexual exploitation, which reflects the dominance of patriarchy operating in the U.S. and across the globe. When it comes to the sex trafficking of women, it is often seen as a problem that happens elsewhere, never close to us. This hegemonic narrative that exoticizes sex trafficking contributes to keeping the problem in the dark. Yet an estimated 200,000 people are forced into the sex trade in the …

Early Birds, Short Tenures, And The Double Squeeze: How Gender And Age Intersect With Parliamentary Representation, Devin K. Joshi, Malliga Och

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The gender and age composition of a parliament impacts who is descriptively represented and marginalized and what types of policy ideas and solutions are brought forward or excluded. While important for both descriptive and substantive representation, scholarship on the intersection of gender and age in parliaments has thus far been limited. To broaden our understanding, we conducted a large-scale cross-sectional analysis of the gender and ages of over 20,000 representatives from 78 national assemblies. We identified four types of gender-age patterns depending on whether women enter legislatures younger than men (“early birds”) or have served in parliament for a shorter …

Women Faculty's Perceptions Of Departmental Belonging Across Academic Disciplines, Samantha Olarsch

Sociology Senior Seminar Papers

Women’s growing numerical representation in gender atypical careers, including the professoriate, has not necessarily meant that they are being accepted, included and integrated in these traditionally male-dominated spaces. This study explores female faculty members’ feelings of isolation within their department across academic disciplines. Drawing on the theory of tokenism, I hypothesize that women faculty members in STEM disciplines, which have been historically male-dominated, are more likely to express a lesser sense of belonging in their department, than women faculty members in the Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities. I analyzed data from a 2009 online survey administered to tenure-track and tenured …

Unwanted Sexual Behavior And Women's Sexual Agency: Gendered Experiences Of Pleasure In Casual Sex, Sofia Mirtz

Sociology Senior Seminar Papers

Description: Dichotomous discourse surrounding sexual behavior frames sexual experiences as either consensual or non-consensual. This rhetoric suggests that all consensual sexual activity is desired sexual activity, and does not account for the effect of heteronormative sexual scripts and gendered power dynamics. What are the consequences of engaging in unwanted, yet consensual, sexual activity for heterosexual cis-women? In casual hookups, motivations to engage in sexual activities such as emotional commitment and reproduction are removed from the sexual equation, leaving sexual pleasure as the primary goal. However, in heterosexual sexual activity, women’s pleasure is often not prioritized. This reality creates a grey …

A Study On The Reflections Of Women And Men On A Women’S Empowerment Project: A Case Study Of Sindhuli, Nepal, Shreyasha Khadka

International Development, Community and Environment (IDCE)

Women empowerment and gender equality are considered key aspects of achieving sustainable development goals. At the same time, the empowerment of women is also a process of change that enables women to build capacity in order to make life choices and act on them. Central to women empowerment is incorporating men into the process. Men should be included to deliver effective empowerment through collaboration and interdependence and to understand how women empowerment works in a patriarchal setting. Women’s economic empowerment such as Rural Economic Empowerment Project (RWEE) strives to empower and improve the status of rural women in Nepal. This …

Film Review: The Impure: An Abolitionist Documentary Film Of The 19th Century Traffic In Jewish Women, Caroline Norma

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

No abstract provided.

Beyond Suffrage: Intermarriage, Land, And Meanings Of Citizenship And Marital Naturalization/Expatriation In The United States, Shiori Yamamoto

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This dissertation investigates how the laws of marital naturalization/expatriation, namely the Citizenship Act of 1855, the Expatriation Act of 1907, and the Cable Act of 1922 and its amendments throughout the 1930s, impacted the lives of women who married foreigners, especially in the American West, and demonstrates how women directly and indirectly challenged the practice of marital naturalization/expatriation. Those laws demanded women who married foreigners take the nationality of their husbands depending on the race of women and their husbands, making married women’s citizenship dependent on that of their husbands. Particularly under the Expatriation Act of 1907, all American women …

Health And Social Disparities Influence Opioid Misuse Among Adult Females Living In Rural Areas, Tequila Porter

Master of Science in Integrative Biology Theses

Since the early 1800s scientists have been working to create the best non-addictive pain medication derived from opium. In the early 1800s morphine was distilled from opium extracted from opium poppy plants (Quinones, 2015). Soon after a chemist invents a synthetic derivative of opium and names it diacetylmorphine (heroin) (Quinones, 2015, (Drugs and Morphine Text, 2018). Heroin originally was a safe cure for morphine addiction. Once this was proven to be false, and as having addictive properties, the government intervened and began initiatives to address the issue. This public crisis quickly grew to what modern scientists and healthcare professionals know …

Multiple And Intersecting Experiences Of Women In Prostitution: Improving Access To Helping Services, Kathryn Hodges, Sarah Burch

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

When women involved in prostitution experience multiple and intersecting needs, they may face barriers in accessing help and support. These barriers can include geographical location and opening hours of agencies, limited childcare support, and a lack of female-only provision. As a result, women are frequently disadvantaged, and their personal safety put at risk, as they become increasingly vulnerable to exploitation, particularly if they do not have access to secure accommodation. This research project seeks to understand the choices and decisions women make when they engage with helping services. The findings report on an in-depth qualitative study with 11 women involved …

Mind Over (What Doesn’T) Matter: De-Stigmatizing Mental Health From Senegalese Women’S Perspectives, Jenna Marks

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

As a matrilocal and collectivist society, Dakar is an urban space where the woman is at the center. With this in mind, it is possible to understand all the pressures women in urban Senegalese society face. Women are the center of the household, thus being responsible for the family, finances, and the social aspect of welcoming visitors. In addition to these factors, women in Senegal also deal with community expectations and responsibilities since there is larger emphasis on the community, rather than the nuclear family in Senegalese society. This paper examines how these two aspects of Senegalese society (matrilocality and …