Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons^™

Let The Record Show: Mapping Queer Art And Activism In New York City, 1986-1995, Tara Jean-Kelly Burk

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Although scholars increasingly scrutinize late twentieth-century American art produced in relation to social movements organized around feminism, anti-racist politics, health activism, and LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer) identity, scholars usually fail to address the importance of printed ephemera as a medium of artistic expression. Ephemeral materials, such as posters, are cheap to make and print. They are typically distributed illicitly via un-commissioned wheat-paste campaigns in urban public space. Collectives tend to make their designs copyright-free to encourage wide distribution. Particularly in the era before digital social media, these materials were central to the ways in which communities coalesced in …

More Than Objects: Understanding Female Slaves In Barbados In The Early Modern Period, Phoebe Martine Downes

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis will focus on representations of African women in the British colony of Barbados in the early modern era, using travelers' accounts, planters' records and the writings of abolition-minded reformers. The topic is significant because most scholars have focused on British colonial life during the nineteenth century, examining the planter class or the region's colonial commodities.

The period from 1600 to 1700 was an era of beginnings in the British colonial world, with England establishing its first Caribbean colonies and experimenting with different economic strategies to gain wealth. This period was also significant due to the emergence of slavery …

"Beyond Chingones And Chingados: Performing Masculinities In Contemporary Mexican Theatre", Zaida Godoy Navarro

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The present investigation focuses on how masculinities are conformed and represented in the plays of two generations of Mexican playwrights, the New Dramatists of Mexico and the younger Sixth Generation in an attempt to reflect upon recent conceptualizations of gender as well as contemporary changes in society mainly due to globalization and the impact of feminism and gay movements. The limited literature focused on Mexican masculinities has overlooked the importance of theatre as a privileged and productive setting for the study of gender. Another common factor in studies dedicated to the representation of Mexican men in literature is the focus …

Dark Matter: Susan Howe, Muriel Rukeyser, And The Scholar's Art, Stefania Heim

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Instead of describing poetry as a set of constraints or history of practices, Muriel Rukeyser calls it "one kind of knowledge." Dark Matter heeds Rukeyser's call, theorizing a poetics of the "scholar's art," in which documentary investigation, autobiographical exploration, and formal innovation are mutual, interwoven concerns. The dissertation pairs American poets Susan Howe (b. 1937) and Muriel Rukeyser (1913-1980), reading their hybrid works not through the received categories of American poetry, or through common generic and disciplinary divisions, but using an inductive methodology that takes its lead from the poets. Understanding Howe and Rukeyser's literary experiments as serious interventions in …

The American Aspasia: The Woman Lecturer In American Women's Rights Fiction, 1839-1915, Angela Ridinger-Dotterman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation is the first comprehensive study of the figure of the woman lecturer/speaker that appeared in American women's rights fiction in the period between 1839 and 1915. I argue that examining the figure of the woman lecturer/ speaker in a wide variety of texts and over an extended period of history reveals that the figure served as a dynamic vehicle for women writers to advance a broad range of social and political interests; writing in a social and historical context that discouraged women's participation in public speech, women authors used fiction as a rhetorical space to articulate different visions …

Book Review: Water, Earth, Air, Fire, And Picket Fences, Eleanor Lerman

Journal of International Women's Studies

Review of Water, Earth, Air, Fire, and Picket Fences by Carol Smallwood. Lamar University Press. 2014.

Book Review: Governing The Female Body: Gender, Health, And Networks Of Power, Ina Christiane Seethaler

Journal of International Women's Studies

Review of Governing the Female Body: Gender, Health, and Networks of Power, edited by Lori Reed and Paula Saukko. SUNY Press, 2010.

Book Review: Mirror Of Dew: A Collection Of Poems By Alam-Taj Zhale Qa'em-Maquami (1883-1946), Ahmed Abdelal

Journal of International Women's Studies

Review of Mirror of Dew: A Collection of Poems by Alam-Taj Zhale Qa’em-Maquami (1883-1946), translated with an introduction by Asghar Sayed-Ghorab. Harvard University Press, 2014.

Book Review: Wombs In Labor: Transnational Commercial Surrogacy In India, Sarah Thomas

Journal of International Women's Studies

Review of Wombs in Labor: Transnational Commercial Surrogacy in India by Amrita Pande. Columbia University Press, 2014.

Book Review: Modest Fashion: Styling Bodies, Mediating Faith, Katherine Bullock

Journal of International Women's Studies

Review of Modest Fashion: Styling Bodies, Mediating Faith, edited by Reina Lewis. IB Tauris, 2013.

Book Review: The Heart And Stomach Of A King: Elizabeth I And The Politics Of Sex And Power, Michael Mcclintock

Journal of International Women's Studies

Review of The Heart and Stomach of a King: Elizabeth I and the Politics of Sex and Power by Carole Levin. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014.

'Sisters; Was This What We Struggled For?': The Gendered Rivalry In Power And Politics, Mohamed Haji Ingiriis

Journal of International Women's Studies

This article explores the role of Somali women in the twentieth-century history of modern Somalia. This includes exploring the role of women in the decolonisation and post-colonial movements and gender changes during the military dictatorship. The article examines women’s social movements that made some significant changes in Somalia over the past seventy years, even though these have not paved the way for fruitful results. In demonstrating that the current attempts to position themselves in political circles by Somali women has its roots during the decolonisation and post-colonial successive Somali governments, the article argues that women failed to benefit from their …

Facts Behind The Façade: Is There More To Dieting Than Meets The Eye?, Huda Iqbal Ahmed Qazi

Journal of International Women's Studies

This paper extends a previous qualitative research on female yo-yo dieters/weight cyclers in the UK. Out of nine participants in the previous study, this investigation has made use of feminist perspectives to further analyze the data of four participants that was previously derived via thematic analysis. Feminist analysis revealed that initiation of frequent dieting episodes is not merely to lose weight; rather complex control and identity issues as well as negative emotions play a role in triggering yo-yo dieting in some women. Furthermore, the similarity of these manifestations to eating disorders is discussed.

Defining Recent Femicide In Modern Turkey: Revolt Killing, Ihsan Cetin

Journal of International Women's Studies

This paper aims to question recent increasing femicides in Turkey through the examination of their reasons and dynamics. Therefore, it starts with analyzing current terms such as “honor killing”, “töre killing” and “crimes of passion”. The article claims that the recent description of the murder of women in Turkey as “honor killings” is misleading. Turkey must employ finer distinctions among types of femicide so as to prevent murderers and the larger society from justifying such actions through claims of honor. This paper thus asserts that the analysis of femicide in Turkey, as a Muslim country, should go far beyond …

You're Trans-Mexi-Fying Right Before Our Eyes: Westernized Bodily Features And Beauty Practices In Ugly Betty, Luz-Maria Tato-Pazo

Journal of International Women's Studies

Makeover narratives are a form of discourse which relies on some type of transformation as a path to success. These narratives mainly target the bodies of white middle-class and middle-aged heterosexual women with the aim of creating more conventionally beautiful feminine subjects. This article explores the beauty practices and rituals present in the US dramedy Ugly Betty. We look in detail at makeover narratives and their close association with contemporary idealized versions of female attractiveness. Closely tied up with the makeover canon, the beauty industry entails processes of disciplining women’s bodies to meet the requirements of an ideal feminine …

Attitudes And Perceptions Of Young Men Towards Gender Equality And Violence In Timor-Leste, Ann Wigglesworth, Sara Niner, Dharmalingam Arunachalam, Abel Boavida Dos Santos, Mateus Tilman

Journal of International Women's Studies

This article examines attitudes and perceptions of young men toward gender relations and gender-based violence in post-conflict Timor-Leste. A high level of domestic violence is reported and a law against domestic violence has been passed in recent years. In 2013, a research team surveyed almost 500 young men using the Gender-Equitable Men (GEM) Scale in both rural and urban contexts. It was found that young men become less gender equitable as they get older, and the environment they grow up in influences their gender attitudes. Existing contradictions and tensions between national government policy and local customary practices are well-known, and …

From Aporia To Identity Formation: The Perilous Passage Of African American Women's Dramatic Discourse, Thallam Sarada

Journal of International Women's Studies

This paper analyses the dramatic discourse of two African American women dramatists, Sonia Sanchez and Ntozake Shange. It uses as its critical framework Erik Erikson’s theory of identity formation to examine their discourse, which challenges patriarchy and contemporary Anglo American feminist writings. It analyses the multiple ways in which Sanchez and Shange invent standard American English to present a unique African American women’s perspective. Their discourse, this paper argues, thus challenges the prevailing notions of power, truth, knowledge and ideology to give voice to the previously silent black women.

Women And The Law In Nigeria: A Reappraisal, Eghosa Osa Ekhator

Journal of International Women's Studies

Women in Nigeria face many challenges and discrimination under some extant laws. This paper will focus on some of these laws and their impacts on women in Nigeria. The first section will focus on a brief history of Nigeria as a background to the paper. Nigeria’s unique legal system will be briefly highlighted. The second section of the paper will highlight aspects of Nigerian laws accentuating discrimination against women. Some of these laws will include the Labour Act, the Police Act, customary practices and sexual violence laws amongst others. The third part of the paper will focus on the reforms …

Vulnerability Of Elderly Women To Witchcraft Accusations Among The Fipa Of Sumbawanga, 1961-2010, Hamisi Mathias Machangu

Journal of International Women's Studies

Witchcraft accusations have led to the killings of elderly women in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa. For many years, the violence has had major effects on people’s health. Witchcraft accusations have been the source of people’s loss of limbs and deaths among elderly women in Africa. Although these problems have had effects on elderly women, there has been very little reconstruction of their history in Tanzania. Thus, the aim of this article is to rewrite the history of the vulnerability of the elderly women to witchcraft accusations among the Fipa of Sumbawanga district of Tanzania.

This article focuses on the …

Barriers To The Utilisation Of Provisions Of The Zimbabwean Domestic Violence Act Among Abused Christian Women In Zimbabwe, Excellent Chireshe

Journal of International Women's Studies

The Domestic Violence Act of Zimbabwe was enacted in response to an escalation in cases of domestic violence. In spite of the enactment of the Act, domestic violence continues and there is limited utilisation of the provisions of the law. This paper seeks to identify factors that militate against the utilisation of provisions of the Act by victims of domestic violence. Twenty-two Christian women who were abused by their male intimate partners participated in the study on which this paper is based. A qualitative design, influenced by the feminist perspective, was adopted for this study. Purposeful sampling was applied in …