Family, Life Course, and Society Commons^™

Gender Neutral Parenting: Raising A Generation Outside The Gender Binary, Toni Noelle Martinez

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In the United States, the social and cultural reality remains organized around the gender binary. The binary legitimizes itself on the widely held belief that gender is determined by biology and, therefore, is “natural.” By exploring and firmly placing gender as a cultural construct, this thesis looks at the possibilities of fracturing the binary. Borrowing from Stephan Hirschauer (1994) and Judith Butler’s (2004), this thesis theorizes what a gender neutral world could look like and examines how Gender Neutral Parents contribute toward a gender revolution. Gender Neutral Parents, a community that is mostly found online, represent a small group that …

An Exploratory Study Of Spending Patterns, Obstacles And Traditions Among Same-Sex Marriage Vs Heterosexual Marriage: Who's The Bigger Spender?, Lydia Perritt

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study investigated if there was a significant difference in the amount of money spent on same-sex weddings versus heterosexual weddings. The results of this study would assist both the wedding and hospitality industry by providing much needed financial and planning information.

A descriptive, four-section survey was distributed online via Qualtrics utilizing snowball sampling. A total of 152 respondents participated in the study; 84 heterosexual and 68 LGBTQ. The respondents completed the questionnaire that measured wedding traditions, wedding spending, obstacles and challenges faced during their wedding and wedding planning, and demographic information.

The results of this study indicated that same-sex …

The Contradictory Nature Of Natural Mothering: A Discursive Analysis, Britni Lee Ayers

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In our contemporary sociopolitical rhetoric breastfeeding is something that is natural and something women ought to do because breast is best. The problem with this contemporary discourse of breastfeeding and motherhood is that the dominant medical, political, technological, and patriarchal discourses surrounding breastfeeding have merged to create an highly unattainable definition of what it means to be a "good mother" (Blum 1993). Moreover, upon a close examination, the most pressing political and Social debates of today surrounding the welfare reform, women's employment, reproductive technologies, and abortion, among many others, construct distinctions between "good mothers" and "bad mothers." However, there has …