Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons^™

The Surrogacy Regulation (2019) Bill Of India: A Critique, Astha Srivastava

Journal of International Women's Studies

Assisted Reproductive technologies (ARTs) like In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) and surrogacy have made aspirations of parenthood come true for many. With quality medical services, low costs and an indifferent regulatory regime, the surrogacy industry, particularly of the commercial and trans-border variety, has boomed in India so much so that India had once been termed as the ‘baby factory’ of the world. Through successive administrative measures the government of India has tried to regulate surrogacy with a view to prevent exploitation of women. At least two comprehensive bills to regulate various aspects of surrogacy arrangements have been tabled in the Parliament, …

Exposure To Pornography Among Young Eritreans: An Exploratory Study, Fikresus Amahazion

Journal of International Women's Studies

The pornography industry is a multibillion-dollar global industry, and it has been normalized in many aspects of popular culture. Pornography use and exposure are increasingly becoming common and widespread, particularly with the rapid growth and spread of the Internet, smartphones, and social media. In many countries around the world, pornography is widely available, easily accessible, and consumed by large segments of the general population. While many studies have been conducted on the use and impacts of pornography, exploring the topic within various contexts around the world, empirical studies from developing countries, particularly in Africa, are sparse. The present study is …

Explaining The Lack Of Progress In Yemeni Women’S Empowerment: Are Women Leaders The Problem?, Nadia Al-Sakkaf

Journal of International Women's Studies

Despite the existence of women’s empowerment policies and the appointments of women leaders to oversee the implementation and sometimes design of those policies, the Republic of Yemen has repeatedly ranked last in the WEF Gender Gap Index since 2006. Is this a problem of capacity? Are the women leaders, who are driving the national women’s development agenda forward, lacking in this field? This article investigates this question through a mixed-method research by surveying and interviewing Yemeni women leaders who were involved in empowerment policies in health, education, economic participation and political empowerment between 2006 and 2014. Findings from this research …

Catalysts Of Women’S Success In Academic Stem: A Feminist Poststructural Discourse Analysis, Dianna R. Dekelaita-Mullet, Anne N. Rinn, Todd Kettler

Journal of International Women's Studies

This qualitative study seeks understand the phenomena that activate women’s success in STEM disciplines where women’s representation has not yet attained critical mass. A poststructuralist emphasis on complexity and changing nature of power relations offers a framework that illuminates the ways in which elite academic women navigate social inequalities, hierarchies of power, and non-democratic practices. Feminist poststructural discourse analysis (FPDA) draws from the women’s experiences to better understand their complex, shifting positions. Eight female tenured full professors of STEM at research-focused universities in the United States participated in the study. Data sources were in-depth semi-structured interviews, a demographic survey, and …

The Chronotope Of The House And Feminist Matrilinealism In Nada Awar Jarrar’S Somewhere, Home, Luma Balaa

Journal of International Women's Studies

This paper studies feminist matrilinealism in Nada Awar Jarrar’s novel Somewhere Home. In this novel the author builds her stories around a house which was inhabited by several generations of female ancestors. Tess Cosslett claims that the Bakhtinian concept of the chronotope in matrilineal narratives influences the space and time structures of women’s writing whereby women communicate along two time frames simultaneously: a synchronic, horizontal plane and a diachronic, vertical axis. The synchronic plane refers to the way in which women from different generations unite and bond whereas the diachronic plane goes backward and forward in time. Employing Bakhtinian notion …

Pandemic, Lockdown And Modern Slavery Among Sri Lanka’S Global Assembly Line Workers, Sandya Hewamanne

Journal of International Women's Studies

This article explores how the COVID-19 pandemic and the lock down had increased global assembly line workers’ vulnerability to several forms of modern slavery. It focuses on two groups of women workers associated with global production in Sri Lanka. First, the daily-hired workers in the Katunayake and Biyagama Free Trade Zones (FTZ) and second the former global factory workers now settled in villages and operating as home subcontractors.

The COVID-19 forced lockdown caused factory shutdowns and curtailed production, leaving FTZ workers with no work and income. The global lockdown has clearly affected both groups, despite their differing work and life …

Emergency Contraceptives Are Our Saviors: Sri Lanka’S Global Factory Workers Negotiating Reproductive Health, Sandya Hewamanne

Journal of International Women's Studies

Government agencies, NGOs and medical personnel profess competing perceptions on Sri Lanka’s female Free trade Zone (FTZ) workers’ reproductive health needs. Varied statistical sources also present and interpret the overall reproductive health outcomes for FTZ workers in differing ways. In this extraordinarily saturated field of power, where different agents and agencies jostle for legitimacy to speak for female global factory workers, the overarching question is where the women workers themselves stand? How do they perceive and respond to discourses and practices within this field? What are their experiences of reproductive health and knowledge and how have their attitudes changed over …

A Bibliometric Analysis Of Journal Of International Women’S Studies For Period Of 2002-2019: Current Status, Development, And Future Research Directions, Rohail Hassan, Meghna Chhabra, Arfan Shahzad, Diana Fox, Sohail Hasan

Journal of International Women's Studies

This research paper aims to present a thorough overview of the Journal of International Women’s Studies (JIWS). The Scopus database has been used to study the most prolific writers and frequently cited papers of the JIWS. This article considered 907 papers, which offers a map of the knowledge produced and circulated by the JIWS. It offers insights into publication activities, prominent themes, citation trends, and the state of collaborations among the contributors to the JIWS and the journal’s aggregate contributions to the area of Women’s Studies. Moreover, by analyzing the correlation of keywords and how they are clustered together, the …

Flee, John C. Lyden

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of Flee (2021), directed by Jonas Poher Rasmussen.

Rebel Hearts, John C. Lyden

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of Rebel Hearts (2021), directed by Pedro Kos.

Women, Peace And Security In Zimbabwe - The Case Of Conflict In Non War Zones, Rutendo Chabikwa

Journal of African Conflicts and Peace Studies

The Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda is the United Nation’s (UN) key policy instrument for addressing gender violence in conflict zones. However, the agenda has been preoccupied with “hot” conflicts, and its application and relevance to sustained, but “low level” conflict situations is poorly conceptualized. This research considers this issue through a case study of Zimbabwe since 2000. I make the case for broadening the understanding of conflict as found in the WPS agenda.

This paper addresses the question: ‘How does the case of Zimbabwe exemplify the need for a broader understanding of conflict within the WPS agenda as …

Challenging Faith And Gaining Power: Women In Film Who Reject And Subvert Religion, Annika Murrah

Religion and Film

This paper examines the ways that women seize power through rejection and subversion of religion by relating women in film to the real world. Rejection of faith is exemplified by characters in the films The Little Hours (2017) and The Miseducation of Cameron Post (2018). Subversion of faith is understood through the films Whale Rider (2003), Jennifer’s Body (2009), and Transparent (2014). Narrative analysis of these films is contrasted with studies of orthodox religion as examined by Dr. Brenda E. Brasher and Dr. Mary Gerhart. The importance and effect of women’s newly-gained power is applied to social change as recorded …

The Life Of A Lesbian Feminist Activist And Professor. Trigger Warning: My Lesbian Feminist Life By Sheila Jeffreys, R. Amy Elman

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

No abstract provided.

What Do You Think She’S Gonna Do With A Set Of Real Claws?: Gender, Race, And Sexuality In Onscreen Portrayals Of Women Werewolves, Ashleigh K. Williams

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis analyzes 13 disparate portrayals of werewolfism in film and television as they relate to uncontrolled and uncontrollable femininity. A necessary component of this project is the visual assemblage: my findings are displayed in the format of a zine, in an attempt to capture the bright, furious, aggressive sensory experience of witnessing women becoming werewolves onscreen. Research questions include: How are conventionally masculine werewolf markers feminized in werewolf narratives? How are the women in these pieces of media ultimately punished for embodying creatures that aren’t feminine enough, or are too feminine in exactly the wrong ways? Many she-wolf centered …

The Impact Of State Violence On Women During The 22 Years Of Dictatorship In The Gambia, Isatou Bittaye-Jobe

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis investigates the gendered dynamics of dictatorship in The Gambia by exploring the impact of state sanctioned violence on women during former President Yahya Jammeh’s twenty-two years of tyranny in the country. During the two-decade long brutal reign under Jammeh, Gambians from all walks of lives faced gross human rights violations and abuses that inflicted collective national trauma on the population. Therefore, this project examines how Jammeh’s tyrannical rule affected women’s rights, health, and wellbeing. Using a content analysis approach coupled with semi-structured interviews with victims and survivors, I argue that although the dictatorship affected all sectors of the …

The One-Armed Viewer: Voyeurism And Masturbation In Nudist Imagery And Film Spectatorship, Benjamin Eleanor Adam

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Nudist magazines and newsletters were among the first commercial, legal, and widely-available images of nudity which circulated in the late Comstock Era. To evade censorship, producers developed framing strategies that obscured the sexualized nature of these images, even as they also enabled the viewing practices their sales relied upon. This dissertation traces these framing strategies as they evolved through nudist still-imagery, camp films, and nudie cuties, and considers the evolution of spectatorial pleasures associated with Russ Meyer's early nudie cuties.

Serial Killer: Gustave Flaubert's Pro-Woman, Woman-Killing Madame Bovary, Francesca Montalti

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis will argue that Gustave Flaubert kills the women in Madame Bovary, all of whom are married and/ or mothers in the novel, in order to overtly represent the impossible conditions of womanhood and domestic life in nineteenth century France. Further, I will expose the ways in which Flaubert, through these killings, aims to release his woman characters from their lives of oppression and imprisonment, detailing their increasingly limited options in life and their lack of agency. Although Flaubert does attempt to give his women, in particular Emma Bovary, limited agency in the work, this agency is always …

“A Space Where You Can Imagine In”: Queer World Building With Wynne Greenwood’S Tracy + The Plastics, Colleen M. O'Shea

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Tracy and the Plastics was a video and music project conceived and performed by artist Wynne Greenwood from 1999 - 2006. In it, Greenwood played lead singer Tracy alongside keyboard player, Nikki and drummer, Cola (both also played by Greenwood) where Tracy performed live alongside prerecorded images of Nikki and Cola. For Greenwood, the interaction between Tracy, the Plastics, and the audience provided an opportunity to create new, intentional worlds together. In this paper, I will demonstrate that Greenwood relies on collisions and alternative temporalities to instigate the creation of these worlds with her audience. I will incorporate the principles …

When Misclassification Is Misgendering: Gender Prediction In The Context Of Trans Identities, Sean Miller

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

As a subdomain of author profiling, gender prediction (sometimes called gender inference) has received a substantial amount of attention—both as a task in itself, and for other downstream analyses. Throughout the existing literature various statistical and machine learning methods have been applied to extract features in order to either characterize and differentiate female and male writing styles, or simply to achieve maximum accuracy on gender prediction as a binary classification task. However, researchers often do not disclose how they conceptualize gender nor do they consider the implications that gender prediction has for non-binary and trans individuals. Along with an overview …

Women's Research Institute Of Nevada Newsletter, Women's Research Institute Of Nevada

Newsletters

Director's Message: 2021 has FINALLY arrived! Most applauded closing the door on 2020, yet in hindsight, 2020 proved what resilience we have when put to the test. We became creative and learned new platforms. We found ways to engage and create while working remotely. We are still using our virtual platforms, but they no longer seem so onerous and cumbersome - we've acclimated!