Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons^™

Nigerian Women Entrepreneurs’ Strategies For Financial Inclusion: A Generic Qualitative Inquiry, Oluwatoyin Madein

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Women in Nigeria are approximately 50% of the population and operate significantly in the micro, small, and medium enterprises. Women entrepreneurs in Nigeria are experiencing business failure, early exit, stagnant growth, and low return on investment due to inadequate finance. This study’s specific management problem is that many women entrepreneurs in Nigeria lack strategies to develop financial literacy and access to external loans for business sustainability. Using the concepts of financial inclusion and financial exclusion, the purpose of this qualitative inquiry was to explore the strategies women entrepreneurs use and whether they have the required experience and knowledge of financial …

Gender And Millennial Support For Women Political Leaders, Delaina Lea Sawyers

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Despite comprising more than 50% of the population and voting in greater numbers than men, women are underrepresented in U.S. political leadership. Although research exists on the correlation between gender and politics, little literature addresses the influence of generation and gender on voting behavior. Using Jaggar's liberal feminist theory as a framework, the purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between female generational cohorts and their policy preferences and candidate support. Two research questions assessed the differences between female millennials and baby boomers regarding policy preferences in the areas of income equality, opportunity, representation, and candidate support. A …

Chicanas Completing The Doctorate In Education: Providing Consejos De La Mesa De Poder, Sandra J. Castañón-Ramirez

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative study described four testimonios from Chicanas who have successfully completed a doctorate in education degree, both Ph.D. and Ed.D. The literature reviewed three important areas of study. The first is a review of the systemic challenges that Chicanas must hurdle; cheap labor, segregation of schools and neighborhoods, being silenced through English-only education, and deficit thinking. The second area of review focused on ways that Chicanas create strategies for success to overcome these challenges. The third was a review of the theoretical literature through a distinctly and relevant Chicana feminist lens.

Chicanas’ strategies for success were collected as testimonios. …

First Year Female Assistant Principals At The Secondary School Level: Transitions, Perspectives, Aspirations, Jennifer Tilton

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

Women continue to be in the minority in school administration in public schools in the United States, although the majority of teachers are female. The role of assistant principal is the gateway to school administration. The purpose of this study was to describe the essence of the transition from teaching to school administration, the role of a female assistant principal, and the career aspirations of female assistant principals. This study used a phenomenological approach to understand the essence of the transition for the participants. Six women were interviewed using a semi-structured interview protocol to collect data on their experiences transitioning …

Female Transnational Entrepreneurs (Ftes): A Case Study Of Korean American Female Entrepreneurs In Silicon Valley, June Y. Lee, Jane Lee

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Increasingly, studies of entrepreneurship and migration have examined the role of immigrant entrepreneurs in revitalising and diversifying the economy of the host society. Further, recent transnational skilled entrepreneurs have been understood as being much more mobile in building international networks and collaborations between their home and host societies. These studies have tended to focus on the technically oriented entrepreneurs and to produce a single grand narrative about a particular migrant group that transfers knowledge and becomes a technical pioneer in their home society. This article scrutinises a group of first-generation Korean American female transnational entrepreneurs (FTEs) living in Silicon Valley …

Barrier-Breaking Women In Indian Cinema, Paulina Sobczak

Communication Student Works

During the last 100 years, Indian Cinema has played a major role in the influence of certain attitudes toward women in Indian society. Early on, women were portrayed as evil temptresses, sex symbols, and/or damsels in distress. These roles went against equality and were far more challenging for the women in Indian films. In 1954, a group of about 13,000 women petitioned the prime minister that these character types were unacceptable. They believed these films were having a negative effect on society, especially for the generations to come. This short documentary showcases the journey of the women who began this …

Identity Positivity In Decolonial Worlds: Making Room For Gender And Sexual Possibility, Erica Chu

Dissertations

Identity Positivity in Decolonial Worlds: Making Room for Gender and Sexual Possibility defines identity positivity as theory that makes room for a full range of gender and sexual diversity, including LGBTQIA+ identities that are already well understood (such as gay and transgender) as well as forms of gender and sexual variation that are less known (such as asexual or mati) and identities still forming. Identity Positivity emphasizes the role of European and US colonial violence in enforcing western forms of gender, homophobia, and transphobia over the last 400 years, but it also criticizes Eurocentric queer theory for decades of advocating …

Queer Monstrosity: Dis/Ability, Sexuality, And Gender, Savannah Olivia Aldridge

Master's Theses

The queer monster feeds, yet what does it feed on? What does it look like? Is it considered homosexual in Nature? Does one think of it as a source of camp or pure fear? It consumes us, literally. as a bioweapon that shoots and eats and destroys. It has and always will be the feared/ spectated/ and degraded€¦ the dis/abled queer. I investigate 'queer monstrosity' as a schizophrenic, trans feminine academic who lives multiple lives. There are three parts to my inquiry that is focused on this creation of lived experience: gender, sexuality, and dis/ability. How does including dis/ability in …

The Creation And Evolution Of Introductory Courses In Women's Studies Programs, Tori Kay Olson

Master's Theses

This study seeks to understand what affects knowledge production in introductory women's studies courses. Using critical discourse analysis, the study looks at the archives of two very different programs within the Chicago area. the two programs studied, Loyola University Chicago and University of Illinois€”Chicago, offer two different examples of how women's studies programs were created and evolved, and how this influenced the knowledge production in their introductory courses. in addition to the archival materials of these two universities, this study relies on various reports and accounts written by women's studies scholars during the same timeframe as the documented archival material …

The Continuation Of Violence: Analyzing The Retraumatization Of Incarcerated Survivors Of Domestic Violence And Evaluating The Potential Of A “Trauma-Informed” Prison Model, Eliana Kahn

Senior Independent Study Theses

The United States criminal justice system emphasizes punishment, in the form of incarceration, over the rehabilitation of individuals convicted of criminal activity. While confinement is harmful to many inmates, incarcerated women are even more vulnerable to the extent that they are disproportionately survivors of domestic violence and abuse. Given this vulnerability, the primary purpose of this study is to explore the impact of incarceration on survivors of domestic violence and abuse. I aim first to analyze the ways in which punitive institutions replicate dynamics of abuse, often retraumatizing female survivors of domestic violence. I then evaluate the policies and procedures …

Write It Slant: Queerness And Form In The Argonauts And Time Is The Thing A Body Moves Through, Eleanor Linafelt

Senior Independent Study Theses

This project analyzes two books of contemporary creative nonfiction: The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson (2015) and Time Is the Thing a Body Moves Through by T Fleischmann (2019). Both writers centrally deal with queerness in their texts as a concept that is ineffable, or unable to be fully explained in words. I explain how to think about queerness as ineffable through the work of queer theorists Judith Butler and José Esteban Muñoz. In their books, Nelson and Fleischmann recognize that language is insufficient or even harmful in maintaining the ineffability of queerness, which poses a significant paradox for their works …

“In The Beginning, It Was Little Whispers...Now, We’Re Almost A Roar”: Conceptualizing A Model For Community And Self In Lgbtq+ Health Information Practices, Vanessa Kitzie, Travis L. Wagner, Alexander N. Vera

Faculty Publications

Although LGBTQ+ populations experience significant health challenges, little research exists that investigates their health from an informational perspective. Our study addresses this gap by exploring the health information practices of LGBTQ+ communities in South Carolina, focusing on how sociocultural context shapes these practices. Thirty semi-structured interviews with South Carolina LGBTQ+ community leaders analyzed using open qualitative coding informed the development of a conceptual framework describing their information practices. Findings show that participants engaged in two broad types of practices – protective and defensive – as responses to risks and barriers experienced, which are in turn produced by social and structural …

Teacher Approaches To Women’S History, Gender, And Feminism In Secondary Social Studies, Kimberly R. Bowman

Theses and Dissertations

While several scholars have worked to reimagine social studies curriculum from a feminist perspective, there are few studies that look at how teachers understand and experience gender equity work (Bohan, 2017; Engebretson, 2018). This study seeks to bridge that gap between theory and practice in order to progress toward a more gender-equitable social studies education. Utilizing a hermeneutic circle design to facilitate dialogue across participants, I conducted one-on-one, semi-structured interviews with seven secondary social studies teacher participants and collected participant-provided curriculum materials. Using techniques from constructivist grounded theory, I analyzed how teachers made sense of their experiences trying to include …

Martian Mother, Elizabeth Mcgrady

Theses and Dissertations

This paper examines the relationship between humans and land, through the lens of the scientific and religious, bridging the physical realm with the spiritual. It acts as accompanying material to the project titled Martian Mother, supplementary information to the visual work, and an extension of the proposal, the center of the work. The proposal exists to send myself, or a like-minded individual, to Mars with artificial insemination equipment to give birth to the first Martian, becoming the first Martian Mother. This work is rooted firmly in speculative fiction, creating a nonlinear future framework for a new society and space exploration.

Prey Begins With Play, Seren C. Moran

Theses and Dissertations

My work examines the lasting psychological and emotional torment of trauma focusing on sexual violence against women. My thesis consists of five short animated films recounting non-fiction experiences of sexual assault. To contextualize my work within cultural and historical representations of sexual violence, this text reflects my research on the mishandling of rape in Western art history as well as contemporary politics and cinema. In both my work and research, I address the complicated, and often contradictory, internal reality of experiencing and remembering trauma and how this relates to artistic strategies such as collage and maximalism. My personal struggles recovering …

(Re)Forming And (Re)Fusing The Sub-Divided Self, Laura Boban

Theses and Dissertations

The split between the individual and being part of a social body is addressed in this paper. I begin with my suburban upbringing; applying notions of separate and sub-divided to the construction of one’s aspirations, gender expression(s), and one’s ideological alignment. I contemplate the forces directing individual and shared desires and the persistent messaging of individual pursuits over efforts that benefit many. What does it mean to participate in a collective dreaming of one’s own wealth, happiness, and power? Can one cultivate an integrated art practice and sense of self? In the studio, I layer and abstract figures, stack household …

A Story About A Girl With Snakes For Hair, Kate M. Turner

Theses and Dissertations

My work is autobiographical. I use various art making processes to create a visual archive of my life. By abstracting these memories and experiences, I can examine how culture works surrounding issues of identity. This is my story.

How Many Licks, Ashley Goodwin

Theses and Dissertations

Arts communities are currently reevaluating and restructuring power dynamics within their systems to accommodate a broader range of experience and subjectivity. However, the forces of control are still largely dictated by a broader patriarchal culture. This complicated, tangled dynamic is the focus of my research. Female artists who make work about men or about patriarchy more generally, are consistently subjected to its influence as the dominant cultural experience—the invisible “truth” that everything either is, or acts in reaction to its position. In reality, patriarchy is no longer gender specific. I will be addressing my relationship to it as well as …

(In)Equities In The Publishing Industry: The Politics Of Representation, Hallie R. Lepphaille

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

This project contains an overview and key introductory sections of an intersectional, equity-based literary publishing course textbook. The full-length edited collection, currently under external review for publication, seeks to rectify long-held disparities of the publishing industry in regard to hiring, acquisitions, developmental editing, and considerations in audience, readerships, and marketing. Each chapter examines the ways that racism, ableism, heterosexism, and cisnormativity, operate in the industry, limiting who is represented at an editor’s desk and in the pages of published books. The collection is intended to be utilized in upper-division and graduate-level literary publishing courses. This project is a response to …

Collective Healing Within Queer Paradoxes: Deconstructing Emotional Abuse In Lgbtq2sia* Communities To Cultivate More Accountable And Compassionate Worlds, Alexia Siebuhr

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Emotional abuses within LGBTQ2SIA* communities are rarely acknowledged as existing or often normalized. Through care and anti-oppression works, transformative justice models such as community and self-accountability have helped carve out ways of addressing harm directly and breaking cycles of violence. The research in this thesis has been through mixed qualitative methodologies including semi-structured interviews and surveys. The participants' along with other authors, artists, activists and scholars’ narratives draws upon the experiences of emotional abuse lived within structural and social surveillance. The settler colonial state sanctioned projects have responded to harm by perpetuating violence upon those most marginalized. Deconstructing emotional abuse …