Women's Studies Commons^™

Comparing The Social Responses Of Aids And Covid-19 Through Oral History, Elise Lee

Women's and Gender Studies Theses

In the past 40 years, the United States has faced 2 major public health crises: the AIDS epidemic, and the global COVID-19 pandemic. In this project I consider the various aspects of these public health emergencies such as sharing the burden of survival, the role of fear, the bastardization of identity politics, and queerness as a political project. I do this by analyzing oral histories and I argue that we can look at the AIDS epidemic and the COVID-19 pandemic in parallel. During both AIDS and COVID, despite severely lackluster governmental responses, we saw overwhelming amounts of community organizing and …

Saint Brigit And Her Habits: Exploring Queerness In Early Medieval Ireland, Jacqueline K. Stephenson

Undergraduate Theses, Capstones, and Recitals

Saint Brigit's behavior and reception by society highlight an avenue by which women in the early medieval period could escape societal strictures, exercising agency over their bodies and their romantic choices, and carve out a distinct and unexpected place for themselves in a Christian patriarchal society. In Saint Brigit’s case, this is especially demonstrated by the breadth of her portrayed power as not just a nun but a saint, her extreme resistance to marriage, and her frequent comparisons to men. Indeed, her hagiography, written by Cogitosus in the seventh century, positioned her as one of the three principal and earliest …

Anxious Futures: Capital, Nation And Advertising In Beirut, Lebanon, Caitlin Alais Callahan

Theses and Dissertations

Contemporary billboard advertising in Beirut fuels anxiety in Beirut’s citizens. In a city suffering from daily uncertainties caused by a devastating financial collapse in 2019, and mourning victims of the worst non-nuclear explosion to ever occur in the Port of Beirut in 2020, Beirutis are also faced with advertising which constantly reinforces uneasiness. Visual advertisements market visas to leave the country, purchasing second passports and money counting machines, forming quotidian reminders of the current state of the country. Using interviews and visual ethnographic material collected during the summer of 2023, this thesis discusses how billboards help to foster dialogue around …

Crafting Lives: Experiences Of Ethiopian Refugees In Cairo, Nayrose S. Abd El-Megid

Theses and Dissertations

There has been an ongoing influx of refugees for years driven by political instability, famine, and prolonged conflicts in the region, leading many individuals to seek sanctuary in other countries. Egypt has become a host country for many years, whether for settlement or transit, for various populations from different nationalities hoping to find refuge. However, amidst this influx, Ethiopian refugees often find themselves overlooked or usually associated on the sidelines with other African nationalities; their stories and struggles are marginalized in broader narratives of displacement. The experience of Ethiopians is heterogeneous and multidimensional in terms of their intersectional identities of …

Looking For A Better Chair: The L Word And Learning How To Sit, Beans Fernandez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In the 20 years since the initial airing of Showtime’s The L Word, the series has garnered a massive following among the sapphic and queer community and has cemented itself as a staple of queer media canon. Beyond the basic queer plotlines, though, The L Word captures lesbian and queer identity, politics, and livelihoods while using a seemingly superficial medium to portray queer bodies in a way that brings it to mainstream and cisheteronormative culture. Further, queer media like The L Word is able to guide members of the LGBTQ community into a queer consciousness and existence.

Grieving: A Record Of My Becoming, Neyshka Diaz Maldonado

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This memoir travels into my experience growing up in Puerto Rico throughout moments of joy, sorrow, triumph, and growth. Through memorable recollections and introspective thoughts, the memoir navigates memory, offering insights into my relationships, aspirations, and struggles. Each chapter unfolds and captures the essence of my life up until this moment.

I explore my ability to overcome challenges with resilience and grace, discovering strength in vulnerability and wisdom in the face of adversity. Through moments of self-discovery and profound transformation, they unearth the threads of my resilience, embracing both the light and shadow that define my life experience.

This memoir …

Uses Of The Intuition: The Role Of Intuition In Birth Work (Towards An Intuitive Epistemology), Kayla R. Reece

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Intuitive knowledge ought to be esteemed, practiced, and integrated alongside traditional forms of knowledge. The coloniality of knowledge has structured our society’s ways of thinking to suppress knowledges which reside in non-hegemonic formations and sources, such as our bodies and intuitions. This paper assesses the uses of the intuition as potential sites of an intuitive epistemology through the author’s experience as an intuitive tarot card reader and through the experiences of six BIPOC birth workers living and working in the United States. I conceptualize the intuition as embodied, relational, and predictive, which offers a framework that privileges information one can …

A Journey To A Black Woman’S (Read Black Girl’S) Joy And Her Story Of Coming Home, Brittany Lauren Brock

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This is an auto/ethnography about the self-actualizing journey of reclaiming storytelling as my native tongue and my journey to joy. Throughout, using my story and the stories of so many others, I not only lay out the wounds (the pain, the loss, then the hope that comes) within the academy and outside in the world but I also use storytelling as a tool of healing—my tool of healing—to show how I wrote myself free.

When Black women (read Black girls) go through The Reckoning (the moment we realize something isn’t right with how we are perceived by others) …

Building The Body, Jasmine Flowers

Masters Theses

Bodies and space co-produce each other and the process of co-production originates racializing and gendering work.

The concept, thesis, and subsequent design are informed by the historical context around the House for Josephine Baker by Adolf Loos. Presented here is the culmination of research which grounds itself in the relationship between Primitivism and Modernism, theory on the body and flesh, architectural graphic standards, spectacle, gaze, surveillance, hypervisibility, invisibility, implications of privacy versus publicity, expressions of Blackness and its place in femmehood (a neologism that expands “womanhood” to be trans-inclusive), all of which directly engage in co-production.

This co-production changes how …

Threading With Hair // Intertwined Stories, Cloris Ding

Masters Theses

“Threading with Hair // Intertwined Stories” is a poignant exploration that navigates the nuanced landscape of women's growth and identity recognition amidst biased societal influences, tracing the trajectory from the artist’s mother's generation to her own. Through a deeply personal lens, the thesis transcends individual narratives to articulate some shared female experiences. Employing reflective works in the form of jewelry, objects and writings, the study delves into female-centric topics, including the fluidity of identity, the transformative journey through various life stages, and the profound impact of societal expectations and family heritage. At the heart of this exploration is the metaphorical …

Review: Why Do You Trouble This Woman? Women And The Spiritual Exercises Of St. Ignatius Of Loyola By Anne Arabome, Sss., Mary Kate Holman

Jesuit Higher Education: A Journal

No abstract provided.

The Little Black Book: When Recipes Tell Stories, Cordula C. Peters

Dublin Gastronomy Symposium

In post-war Germany in the 1950s my grandmother used to collect recipes from magazines, newspapers, and the backs of food packaging that she neatly cut out and saved. Other recipes were carefully copied with pen and ink. At some point, when my mother was still a child and my grandmother still alive, she and her sister compiled all these recipes and tidily pasted them into a black notebook for safekeeping. Growing up many of the recipes from this book became much-loved dishes prepared by my mother and expected by my siblings and I almost religiously for important holidays such as …

The Women Eat Last: Traditions, Table Manners, And Gender Narratives At The Romanian Dining Table, Alexandra Constantinescu

Dublin Gastronomy Symposium

Rooted in a rich history, with decades of oppressive politics and patriarchal displays of power, Romanian culture is shaped by complex narratives of resistance, endurance, adaptation, and transformation. Gender discourses in traditional Romanian culture portray women as the ideal frontline worker, heroic mother, outstanding housewife and an active member of the community. Expected to sacrifice personal aspirations and lifestyle for the well-being of others, they would almost exclusively be tasked with sourcing, preparing, and serving food for the family. They would be the last to sit at the family dining table - and the last to eat. In contrast, the …

Forbidden Fruit: Mary Cassatt’S Mural Of “Modern Woman” At The World’S Columbian Exposition, Chicago 1893, Tricia Cusack

Dublin Gastronomy Symposium

This paper considers a large mural of “The Modern Woman” painted in France by the American artist Mary Cassatt for the Woman’s Building at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. It focuses in particular on the large central panel of the mural titled Young Women Plucking the Fruits of Knowledge or Science that depicts women and girls apple-picking. Cassatt’s mural drew on various traditions and myths. Apple harvesting was a common sight in America. Cassatt’s title though points to the story of Eve and forbidden fruit, in which Eve seeks knowledge, but is severely punished for it. Cassatt …

Book Review: Organizing Women: Home, Work, And The Institutional Infrastructure Of Print In Twentieth-Century America, Christine Pawley, Madelaine Russell

School of Information Student Research Journal

In carefully selected case studies of white and Black middle-class American women, Pawley, a professor emerita at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Information School, provides a detailed exploration of the “largely untold history” of women who used their involvement in print-centered organizations to reshape their lives beyond the unpaid domestic sphere (1). The first three chapters of the book trace the histories of primarily domestic women who held active roles in institutions of print culture such as journalism and radio broadcasting while the last three focus on the lives of women whose full-time employment helped to shape the developing public library …

Feminism In Practice: Learning From The Barefoot “Solar Mamas”, Neda Parvin Shaikh

Journal of International Women's Studies

The Barefoot College (India) is an NGO working in the fields of education, skills development, health, drinking water, and solar power mainly to train older, rural women who are determined to challenge restrictive gender roles in their respective communities. Since its inception, the NGO has trained over 2,000 rural women as solar engineers across 93 countries worldwide and has brought electricity to over 18,000 homes. Barefoot trainers employ non- normative methods of sharing knowledge such as color coding, sign language, and practical experience. This paper conducts a critical assessment of the Barefoot College Solar Electrification Programme to explore how it …

Trends In Family Planning Methods: An Intergenerational Study Of The Lived Experiences Of Tribal Women In Attappady, India, Asha Sankar V., Moly Kuruvilla

Journal of International Women's Studies

Family planning methods have the potential to improve maternal and child health outcomes; thus, ensuring the right to family planning methods is critical in safeguarding the sexual and reproductive health rights of women. Despite the high standards of maternal and child healthcare in Kerala, a southern state in India, tribal pockets within the state such as Attappady have a high prevalence of maternal health issues and infant death rates. The present study conducted in Attappady, which focuses on an intergenerational comparison from an intersectional approach, is intended to explore the trends, practices, and experiences of tribal women regarding their awareness …

Rights Of Women Laborers In The Indian Legal System: A Critical Analysis, Kirandeep Kaur

Journal of International Women's Studies

Women laborers form an important part of the labor workforce in India; however, not all are recognized, not many are protected, and very few are treated equally to men. The Equal Remuneration Act of 1976 clearly states that persons doing “same work or work of a similar nature” are not to be discriminated against on the ground of gender. The Factories Act of 1948 has special provisions for women workers pertaining to washrooms, changing rooms, creches, and work hours. The Maternity Benefit Act of 1961 entitles a woman, inter alia, to twenty-six weeks of paid maternity relief. The protection given …

Professional Black South African Women Speak Out In Resistance To Patriarchy: Overcoming Barriers To Self Development, Padhma Moodley, Corné Meintjes

Journal of International Women's Studies

The professional and social spaces occupied by educated Black South African women are arenas marked by multifaceted challenges and struggles. This study looks into the resistance strategies employed by Professional Black Women (PBW) against patriarchal norms and the ways they navigate cultural, gender, and self-development barriers. Utilizing a qualitative research design grounded in the Interpretative Phenomenological Approach, the study aims to elucidate the lived experiences of PBW as they confront various barriers. The purposive sample comprises three professional Black women pursuing doctoral degrees and serving as lecturers within higher education institutions. This paper illuminates the familial and cultural patriarchal structures …

Assessment Of The Economic Empowerment Of Women Before And After Establishment Of The Economic Community Of West African States (Ecowas), Agatha Itohan Oseghale, Abigail John Jirgi, Faith Dabaniyu Ibrahim, Abu Ogaji, Alaba Olanike Ojo, Ramatu Usman Bako, Halima Sallawu

Journal of International Women's Studies

Gender forms an integral element of every aspect of the economic, social, and private lives of individuals and societies. Growth and development can only be achieved if all resources and talents are harnessed; however, all over the globe, there are laws and regulations which can restrict or encourage women’s economic opportunities. This study analyzed the before and after trends in women’s economic empowerment among the members of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) union. The study utilized the Women, Business, and the Law Index Score from 1970 to 2021 for the 15 member countries of ECOWAS which was …