Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons^™

Exploring Dimensions Of Crystallized Identities, Candice L. Ruh

Feminist Pedagogy

For college students, learning about the components of identity can generate deeper knowledge about how personal and social identities differ, and how identities influence the way individuals experience socio-cultural systems and structures. The Exploring Dimensions of Crystallized Identities activity uses principles of self-reflexivity and dialogue to explore theoretical frameworks for practical application. This experiential activity is a facilitated dialogue driven by student involvement and is best suited for students in mid- to upper-level undergraduate courses. It encourages students to reflect on their and others’ identities, and to consider the social impacts of diversity in their lives.

Creating And Re-Energizing Communities Of Meaning Throughout A Course, Nancy A. Heise, Anum Ahmed

Feminist Pedagogy

We propose a feminist course approach wherein instructors build what Amie Macdonald (2002) called "communities of meaning" in their classrooms (p.120). Through an intentional focus on supporting students' 1) individual identities, 2) holistic well-being, and 3) epistemic "buy-in" to classroom content, students will connect more deeply not only to themselves and their classmates, but also to the course material. We suggest four community-building touchpoints as a starting point for instructors looking to integrate this course approach. We start with an activity to lessen awkwardness around first-day name pronunciation. We emphasize the importance of creating collaborative classroom expectations with students, and …

At Home In Horror: Women And Body Horror, Brooklynn Kreps

University Honors Theses

While most discussion around the subgenre of body horror focuses on its birthplace of film, the richest iterations come from women writing body horror fiction to explain the experience of womanhood. As body horror focuses on fear of painful or absurd mishap with the body. Women experience pain or absurdity in their own bodies every day with processes like menstruation, pregnancy, puberty, and heightened chances of becoming a victim of sexual assault. Furthermore, women experience society's forceful shaming and fear about natural processes of the body and experiences such as anger and sexual desire. Using this idea as a framework, …

Negotiating The Canon: Arab Women Romantic Poets Jamila Al-ʿAlayli And Zahra Al-Hurr, Osama Amer

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the engagement of two Arab romantic women poets, Jamila al-ʿAlayli and Zahra al-Hurr, with the Arabic literary canon, focusing on how they negotiated their positions within the canon. Despite being active contributors to the Arabic romantic movement, their works remain overlooked in literary histories and anthologies. The study explores the modes of canonization, such as gender essentialism, exceptionalism, and socio-political engagement, by which the canon operates. Through a feminist lens, this research analyzes selected poems, autobiographical texts, articles, interviews, and critical writings by both poets, highlighting their distinct strategies for challenging and reshaping their literary status. Al-ʿAlayli …

The Current 'Ban-Demic': School Book Bans In The U.S., Barbara Perez, Jane Caputi

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

This essay examines the alarming rise of U.S book. Our stance is grounded in our experiences as educators and academics in Florida, the state with the highest number of book bans and legislation that has significantly impacted education. Book bans infringe on freedom of expression, right to access information, = students’ right to education, and real harm to targeted communities (i.e., LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC communities), as the bans contribute to the ongoing marginalization and stigmatization of these communities. Diverse representation is key in literature and education. Banning popular culture texts from the classroom stifles critical thinking, social dialogue, and, ultimately, …

Harlem’S Avenues For Agency: An Exploration Of Black Female Agency In Angelina Weld Grimké And Zora Neale Hurston’S Short Stories, Jessica Ellen Hartenbower

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores themes of Black female agency in selected short stories by Angelina Weld Grimké and Zora Neale Hurston. Pushing back against the belief that the Harlem Renaissaince was a movement solely for male artists, Grimké and Hurston write short stories that center Black women and their experiences. Through the avenues of bodily autonomy, the using or silencing of voice, the opportunity and ability to make choices, issues of justice, retribution, and vengeance, the holding of authority, and being empowered or disempowered, I examine the female characters’ exercising of their agency to varying degrees. I also discuss how religious …

Representation Of Diseases And Health Care In Selected African Gyno-Texts, Rachael K. Aderoju

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study explores the interdisciplinary field of literature and medicine through a feminist psychoanalytic lens, focusing on how Nigerian female writers represent illness, healthcare, and medical ethics in post-independence gyno-texts. Traditionally, scholarship in this field has centered on andro-texts (literary works authored by men), leaving a critical gap in the exploration of women’s perspectives. This research addresses that gap by analyzing nine prose works authored by Nigerian women, including texts by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Ayobami Adebayo, Lola Shoneyin, and Samira Haruna Sanusi. These texts are examined for their portrayal of diseases such as infertility, cancer, bipolar disorder, and renal failure, …

Intersectional Realities, Multi-Dimensional Films: Reading Julie Dash's Illusions As An Activist Text, Amelia Morrison

University Honors Theses

This paper reads Julie Dash's 1982 film Illusions as an activist text, which challenges dominant cinematic and historical narratives through its Black feminist perspective. It explores the cinematic and narrative devices that Dash uses--including the weaving of fantasy and history, the strategic use of period aesthetics, and masking--to expose and subvert the mechanisms of white supremacist and patriarchal hegemony within Hollywood. Drawing on intersectional feminist theory from scholars like Kimberlé Crenshaw, Patricia Hill Collins, and bell hooks, alongside cinematic theory, this analysis demonstrates how Illusions critiques the historical erasure of people of color from United States cinema and history. By …

Margaret Cavendish And Radical Self-Love, Marina Burandt

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Margaret Cavendish was an early modern Englishwoman writer who lived from 1623 to 1673. She wrote under her own name at a time when it was more common for women to write under a pen name, and published almost everything she wrote. Her writings include a multiplicity of genres, from science fiction, poetry, drama, and philosophy, to letters, biography, and autobiography. Cavendish’s style often blends multiple genres and forms, showcasing a modality that is driven by complexity and hybridity. Cavendish was a surprisingly modern figure in many ways, as her writings show. The Description of a New World, Called the …

The Embodiment And Experiences Of Gender Euphoria Among Transgender And Nonbinary Communities: A Mixed Methods Inquiry, Brendon T. Holloway

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Gender euphoria is a critical aspect of embodiment for transgender and nonbinary (TNB) people that has long been overshadowed in academic research by deficit narratives and gender dysphoria. While gender dysphoria is the distress an individual may experience related to their gender, gender euphoria encapsulates the positive emotions a TNB person may experience because of positive gendered experiences. Despite community documentations of gender euphoria since the 1970s, academic research on gender euphoria has only recently begun to emerge. This three-paper dissertation advances this body of scholarship by exploring how gender euphoria is conceptualized, experienced, and embodied in TNB communities. Utilizing …

Sustaining Queerness: A Phenomenological Study Of Colorado Educators, Devani Lemmon

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to engage queer Colorado educators to explore how to sustain their identities as queer educators in a politically fractured state. By focusing on Colorado, I could assess the extent to which the legal protections afforded there adequately support educators in sustaining themselves. Additionally, the findings from Colorado had the potential to further illuminate factors influencing teacher sustainability and retention on a much larger scale. The questions for this research project were: 1) How are queer educators sustaining themselves and each other in an increasingly volatile political climate? 2) What, if any, factors impact queer …

E Ho’Omau Mākau, We Will Continue: The Living Sovereign Entities Of Contemporary Hawaiian Songs, Kēhaulani Lagunero

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the relationship between contemporary Hawaiian mele (songs) and Hawaiian ea (sovereignty), focusing on how mele acts as sovereign living entities representing cultural resilience, identity, and resistance to settler-colonial influences. Through semi-structured interviews with Kānaka Maoli, participant observation at cultural events, and close analysis of mele, I identify that these songs are not only expressions of cultural memory, but also living embodiments of ea—sovereignty because they are alive, and they are alive because they are ea. Drawing from the frameworks of cultural survival, survivance, symbolic power, and defiant indigeneity, I explore how mele actively engage …

Is She Being “Fast?”: Exploration Of African American Women’S Experience With Sexual Objectification, Alaigra V.R. Usher

Graduate School of Professional Psychology: Doctoral Papers and Masters Projects

Issues of sexual objectification have been intertwined in America’s history since enslavement. This phenomenology study aimed to explore African American women’s lived experiences with sexual objectification and to understand the essential themes and conceptualizations that African American women attribute to sexual objectification. Through semi-structured interviews with a criterion sampling of African American women, the research sought to identify core themes surrounding sexual objectification experiences. In the results of this study, it was found that this population conceptualizes their sexual objectification experiences through seven themes: Earliest Sexual Objectification Experiences (SOE), SOE, Responses to SOE, Parental Protection, Reasons for SOE, SOE places, …

Survival Guide For Queer Families In Heteronormative Healthcare: Liberatory Consciousness And The Paradox Of Dependent Healthcare, A Critical Policy Discourse Analysis, Dwenna A. Holden

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this study I explored and analyzed how the queer experiences of an anonymous higher education institution in the western United States’ self-identified queer faculty and staff intersected with the discursive framing of the college’s dependent healthcare structure and documents. Within a critical paradigm I designed research around a high-density theoretical approach to weaving various branches of queer theory together with critical theory around policy and law in relation to queer bodies and hostile heteronormative policy environments. I arrived at solutions based in complaint, survival, and transformation. I used critical policy discourse analyses to interrogate the college’s dependent healthcare documents …

Two Leading Female Figures Of The Anti-Colonial Struggle In Africa, Marie-Ange Anezi Djie

Master's Theses

The Eurocentric and male narrative of the anti-colonial struggle in Africa during the twentieth century marginalized women’s contributions and presented them as passive victims of colonialism. Therefore, this study offers a more comprehensive historical account of women's leadership in Africa and a more inclusive and liberated narrative of the anti-colonial movement. Achieving this goal involves delving into the roles and contributions of two prominent female figures in the anti-colonial resistance in Northern and Sub-Saharan Africa during the twentieth century: Huda Shaarawi from Egypt and Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti from Nigeria. Furthermore, this study aims to demonstrate that the actions and strategies of …

Pluriversal Energy Justice Through An Intersectional Feminist Lens: Analyzing Rural Electrification Injustices And Policy Pathways At Kenya's Garissa Solar Park, Carolyne M. Musyoka

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

Located approximately 4 km from Raya village in Garissa County, the Garissa Solar Park spans

85 hectares and was envisioned as a flagship renewable energy project. Yet, despite its scale and proximity, the marginalized pastoralist community of Raya continues to face acute energy poverty, limited irrigation capacity, and exclusion from the material and socio-ecological benefits of the green energy project. This study critically examines the systemic energy injustices embedded within the Garissa Solar Park—specifically procedural, distributive, and recognition-based inequalities—and critiques the project’s failure to deliver on principles of equity, local meaningful and democratic participation, and gender inclusion.

The research assesses …

Death To Comphet: A Chapina Southern Lesbian Story, Doraly Oneida Perez-Valdez

University Honors Theses

This paper is a counterstory that fights narratives that have been placed upon Latina Lesbians by everyone but us. The main topic is compulsory heteronormativity also known as "comphet". This autoethnography explains how "comphet" may affect different identities but specifically a Latina Lesbian from the South. There are nine chapters that explain how each topic affects a different aspect of identity but centers lesbianism. Societal reasons, cultural reasons, "date to marry" culture, Southern upbringing, sex education received, racial and gender stereotypes, and capitalism are all of the topics being explored through the lens of a Southern Latina Lesbian. These topics …

Women's Learning For Community Peacebuilding, Robin Neustater

Peace and Conflict Studies

Around the world, every day, women work on building peace in their communities. Through various roles, paid and unpaid, women’s community care work is significant to the lives of individuals, families, communities, and the women themselves. Understandings of peace are varied, and often nuanced to the context and experience of who is defining peace. How women define peace will inform how they think about peacebuilding. Women engage in learning about peace and for their peacebuilding work, through nonformal and formal programs, and through experience and role models. Their learning to do peace is vital to getting things done. This article …

Don’T Take St. Anselm For A Marriage Therapist: The Utility Of Substitutionary Atonement Theology In Light Of Feminist Critiques, Abigail Elizabeth Livengood

Honors Projects

In light of feminist critiques from the twentieth and twenty-first century, this paper returns to Anselm’s Cur Deus Homo to examine the earliest expression of the Substitutionary Atonement Model. While acknowledging the harmful rhetoric attached to the model which has been brought to light by feminist theologians, this work examines Anselm's characterization of God, Jesus, and suffering from within his medieval worldview. In addition, this paper utilizes understandings of Christ held by historical women and survivors themselves to provide further context for Anselm’s understanding. Ultimately, this paper asserts that while feminist theologians raise important concerns about the dangers of Substitutionary …

Marketing De Moda Predictivo E Inclusivo: Estrategias De Segmentación Avanzada Para Audiencias Diversas Con Inteligencia Artificial, Oscar Barroso Huertas

GDI. Revista de investigación de Género, Diseño e Innovación

Introducción: El marketing predictivo, impulsado por la inteligencia artificial (IA), está transformando cómo las marcas anticipan las necesidades de sus audiencias. En Moda, la personalización es clave para conectar emocionalmente con los consumidores, pero también es esencial que las marcas sean inclusivas, respetando la diversidad y la privacidad. Este artículo explora cómo las marcas de moda usan el marketing predictivo para segmentar audiencias diversas, garantizando campañas personalizadas e inclusivas. Metodología: Este estudio adopta un enfoque mixto, combinando revisión documental y análisis cualitativo. Se revisan fuentes académicas y casos de marcas que aplican marketing predictivo inclusivo, utilizando tecnologías como machine learning …