Remedios Varo: Peregrinaciones,
2025
University of Central Florida
Remedios Varo: Peregrinaciones, Julia Condes
Honors Undergraduate Theses
At the time of her death, the artist Remedios Varo (1908–1963) left behind over 500 works of art, the majority of which were created in her adopted country of Mexico. Known for her meticulously crafted fantastical paintings, Varo underwent exile and displacement due to first the Spanish Civil War, and later World War II, which led her to relocate to Mexico, where she would create prolifically for the remainder of her life. This paper will examine the effect of those experiences on the artist and the work she produced, attesting to Varo’s ability to translate complex emotions regarding the human …
The Stigmatization Of Autism – Why It’S Still Present And How It Affects Women And Individuals Assigned Female At Birth (Afab),
2025
University of Central Florida
The Stigmatization Of Autism – Why It’S Still Present And How It Affects Women And Individuals Assigned Female At Birth (Afab), Emma Drauer
Honors Undergraduate Theses
The intent of this thesis is to explain some key factors (the theory of mind notion and the narrow perception of autism) that contribute to the stigmatization of autism and the impact this has on autistic women. Autistic women are heavily underrepresented, especially in the scholarly discourse, so this thesis collected first person accounts of autistic experiences through a survey and interviews. This data revealed important information such as the benefits of a diagnosis, how stigma can prevent this and have consequences, and the struggles autistic women face. Unmasking these struggles can help make the general public aware of their …
Editors’ Introduction: 25th Anniversary Issue Of The Jiws,
2025
Bridgewater State University, USA
Editors’ Introduction: 25th Anniversary Issue Of The Jiws, Diana J. Fox, Kimberly Chabot Davis, Priyanka Tripathi, Catherine Ndinda
Journal of International Women's Studies
No abstract provided.
Miss Usa Meets Feminism: A Qualitative Study Exploring Contestants’ Thoughts On Feminist Ideals,
2025
University of Maine, USA
Miss Usa Meets Feminism: A Qualitative Study Exploring Contestants’ Thoughts On Feminist Ideals, Julia Van Steenberghe, Sandra Caron
Journal of International Women's Studies
This qualitative study explores pageant contestants’ views on feminism. A total of twelve state titleholders, aged 22-29, from the 2020 Miss USA Competition were interviewed about their motivations for participating, their own views on feminism, and their opinions about whether beauty pageants align with feminist ideals. The initial analysis of the interview transcripts revealed sixteen coding categories. A secondary analysis of these coding categories identified three overarching themes: “Pageants are Empowering,” “Swimsuit is Complicated,” and “Pageantry Has Evolved.” This study revealed that participants had many reasons for entering pageants, the least common of which related to beauty. Most …
Modernity, Domesticity, And Women’S Subjectivity: A Comparative Study Of The Fiction Of Jane Austen And Ling Shuhua,
2025
University of Alberta, Canada
Modernity, Domesticity, And Women’S Subjectivity: A Comparative Study Of The Fiction Of Jane Austen And Ling Shuhua, Rou Li
Journal of International Women's Studies
This study examines how Jane Austen and Ling Shuhua represent women’s conceptions of selfhood through domestic narratives during periods of modernization in their respective societies. Drawing on Anthony Giddens’ theory of modern intimacy and Gary Kelly’s analysis of the bourgeois cultural revolution, this comparative analysis explores how their works reflect broader societal transformations through the depiction of intimate domestic spaces. Through detailed textual analysis of Austen’s novel Pride and Prejudice and several of Ling Shuhua’s short stories in Collected Essays of Ling Shuhua, this study demonstrates how both authors employ domestic settings not merely as backdrops but as dynamic …
Being An Inessential Woman: Sexual Fluidity And Migratory Identities In Mohsin Hamid’S Exit West,
2025
Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, India
Being An Inessential Woman: Sexual Fluidity And Migratory Identities In Mohsin Hamid’S Exit West, Dhanya V. Sankar, Sarbani Banerjee
Journal of International Women's Studies
This paper explores the experiences of principal characters in Mohsin Hamid’s novel Exit West, particularly the woman protagonist Nadia, as they battle with displacement and assimilation. The novel highlights the challenges faced by Nadia, a migrant woman, as she navigates through constant mobility and cultural adaptation. This continuous movement engenders a similar fluidity in her sexual orientation as she searches for a home. Nadia represents the “inessential woman” of Elizabeth Spelman’s book of the same name, a woman who is othered by White, middle-class feminists who may view Muslim women as shackled by heterosexuality and religious sanctions. Yet Nadia …
Unveiling The Vulnerability Of Return Migration: A Feminist Embeddedness Perspective On Bangladeshi Women Workers,
2025
University of Rajshahi, Bangladesh
Unveiling The Vulnerability Of Return Migration: A Feminist Embeddedness Perspective On Bangladeshi Women Workers, Faraha Nawaz, Tania Afrin Tonny
Journal of International Women's Studies
This study explores the vulnerability of migrant workers returning to Bangladesh through the lens of van Houte and Davids’ (2008) embeddedness framework. Centering women’s narratives offers a feminist method of embeddedness, focusing on the economic, social, and psychosocial dimensions of returning migrants’ experiences. This paper addresses the vulnerabilities experienced by women upon their return, particularly those returning from the Middle East. Drawing on qualitative data from in-depth interviews with 30 Bangladeshi women domestic workers, this study identifies two primary causes for their return from the Middle East to Bangladesh: coercion by family members and coercion by employers. The findings indicate …
Migration And Work: An Intersectional Perspective On Women Workers In Brick Kilns In The Sivasagar District Of Assam, India,
2025
Mahapurusha Srimanta Sankaradeva Viswavidyalaya, India
Migration And Work: An Intersectional Perspective On Women Workers In Brick Kilns In The Sivasagar District Of Assam, India, Kashmiri Saikia, Sikha Das
Journal of International Women's Studies
This paper is based on fieldwork regarding brick kiln workers in the Sivasagar district of Assam, located in Northeast India. Apart from family migration, women migrate alone to these brick kilns in search of work opportunities. Despite progress, evidence suggests that many women who work in brick kilns are not afforded workplace rights and are underrepresented, unregistered, and paid lesser wages compared to men workers. Many kilns are unregulated and remain outside the purview of workplace laws. Through interviews and conversations with women workers, this paper aims to understand and analyse the dynamics of gender, migration, and work in the …
Homophobic And Transphobic Bullying: Impacts On The Mental And Physical Health Of Queer Black Adolescents In Kacen Callender’S Young Adult Fiction,
2025
Kalasalingam Academy of Research of Education, India
Homophobic And Transphobic Bullying: Impacts On The Mental And Physical Health Of Queer Black Adolescents In Kacen Callender’S Young Adult Fiction, Uthra Devi R.K., C. Jothi, S. Rema Devi
Journal of International Women's Studies
This paper examines how homophobic bullying profoundly impacts the mental and physical health of Black queer children, with a particular focus on the rising suicide rate within this marginalized community. Analysing the representation of homophobic and transphobic bullying in Kacen Callender’s young adult fiction, this study explores the devastating impact of both verbal and nonverbal forms of abuse, including rejection, intimidation, and social isolation. These negative experiences contribute to long-term emotional distress, leading to an increased vulnerability to anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation. Meyer’s minority stress theory is used to examine how systematic ignorance and rejection of queerness render Black …
Subdued Voices And Marginalized Lives: Reading R. K. Narayan’S Waiting For The Mahatma Through Feminist Standpoint Theory,
2025
SRM Institute of Science and Technology, India
Subdued Voices And Marginalized Lives: Reading R. K. Narayan’S Waiting For The Mahatma Through Feminist Standpoint Theory, D. Sundar Singh, S. Pressila Daissy, Roland Rencewigg P.
Journal of International Women's Studies
Standpoint feminism, based in second-wave feminist theory, insists that knowledge is situated in the social world and contends that marginalized groups, through their experiences of oppression and struggle, hold experiential understandings of power relations. This paper examines R. K. Narayan’s complex depiction of a young woman actively involved in India’s freedom struggle in his novel, Waiting for the Mahatma (1955/2004), through the lens of Sandra Harding’s feminist standpoint theory. The novel’s central character, Bharati, through her varied trajectories of resistance and accommodation within patriarchal structures, illustrates marginalized women’s understandings and their mirroring of social inequalities and power relations that are …
A New Melian Dialogue: Feminist Thinkers On Security Problems Of The 21st Century,
2025
George Washington University, USA
A New Melian Dialogue: Feminist Thinkers On Security Problems Of The 21st Century, Heather Rellihan, Michael Coffey
Journal of International Women's Studies
This essay critically engages with two important works on feminist foreign policy— Kristina Lunz’s The Future of Foreign Policy is Feminist and Cynthia Enloe’s Twelve Feminist Lessons of War—both of which offer useful insights for the evolving field of critical security studies. The authors of this essay have divergent backgrounds—a professor of women’s, gender, and sexuality studies and a defense scholar—which reflect a central tension in feminist foreign policy between feminist principles and the paradigms and exigencies of defense policy makers. Through a constructed conversation between its authors, this essay engages the arguments of Lunz and Enloe to ask …
Recasting Gender Roles: The New Woman And The New Man In Women-Centred Contemporary Malayalam Films,
2025
National Institute of Technology Karnataka, India
Recasting Gender Roles: The New Woman And The New Man In Women-Centred Contemporary Malayalam Films, Roshan B. Karimpaniyil, Shashikantha Koudur
Journal of International Women's Studies
This article examines the representation of gender roles in select women-centred contemporary Malayalam films. It attempts to expand on the idea of the “new Indian woman” and develop a concept of the “new Indian man.” The new Indian woman is a byproduct of the cultural metamorphosis caused by liberalisation, while the new Indian man could be understood as the product of modern culture’s attempt to undermine traditional masculinity. By analysing the movies Biriyaani (2020), The Great Indian Kitchen (2021), Aanum Pennum (2021), and Sara’s (2021), as well as the short films Memories of a Machine (2016), Freedom @ Midnight (2021), …
Al-Rawabi School For Girls: The Arab Mean Girls?,
2025
Women’s Studies Unit of the Arab Renaissance Strategic Centre
Al-Rawabi School For Girls: The Arab Mean Girls?, Leen Masoud
Journal of International Women's Studies
Released in 2021 on Netflix and directed by Jordanian actress and director Tima Shomali, the television series Al-Rawabi School for Girls garnered international attention for its daring depiction of Jordanian girlhood and discussions of hard-hitting topics such as bullying, domestic abuse, sexual harassment, and honor killings. Despite its Jordanian context, the series engaged heavily with Hollywood tropes regarding girlhood, specifically the “mean girl” trope; the show referenced this trope so often that it began to be called “the Arab Mean Girls,” referring to the cult classic US film Mean Girls (2004). This essay critically examines the utilization of popular …
“Western Feminism” Is Not A Slur, But It Is A Monolith,
2025
Bridgewater State University, USA
“Western Feminism” Is Not A Slur, But It Is A Monolith, Diana Fox
Journal of International Women's Studies
No abstract provided.
Advancing Gender-Inclusive Financial Systems: A G20 Policy Agenda For South Africa,
2025
University of Johannesburg, South Africa
Advancing Gender-Inclusive Financial Systems: A G20 Policy Agenda For South Africa, Tinuade A. Ojo, M. E. Sotunsa, Diana J. Fox, Karen Carpenter, Leith L. Dunn
Journal of International Women's Studies
This policy brief calls for comprehensive reforms of South Africa’s financial systems to broaden women’s access to capital. Women’s economic empowerment is critical to inclusive and sustainable development in Africa. Despite ongoing global commitments to gender equality, systemic financial exclusion continues to marginalise women—particularly in South Africa—thereby impeding their full economic participation. Microfinance has emerged as a pivotal strategy for fostering financial inclusion among women, especially those in rural and economically disadvantaged urban areas. International models, such as the Grameen Bank, have illustrated that women from low-income backgrounds often exhibit higher loan repayment rates than their male counterparts. Institutions specifically …
Book Review: Janet Jagan: Freedom Fighter Of Guyana,
2025
American University, USA
Book Review: Janet Jagan: Freedom Fighter Of Guyana, Suzanne C. Persard
Journal of International Women's Studies
No abstract provided.
Book Review: To Advance The Race: Black Women’S Higher Education From The Antebellum Era To The 1960s,
2025
San José State University, USA
Book Review: To Advance The Race: Black Women’S Higher Education From The Antebellum Era To The 1960s, Jennifer Rycenga
Journal of International Women's Studies
No abstract provided.
Book Review: Ethical Encounters: Transnational Feminism, Human Rights, And War Cinema In Bangladesh,
2025
University of Texas at Dallas, USA
Book Review: Ethical Encounters: Transnational Feminism, Human Rights, And War Cinema In Bangladesh, Masrufa Nusrat
Journal of International Women's Studies
No abstract provided.
Book Review: Shattered Motherhood: Surviving The Guilt Of A Child’S Suicide,
2025
Nipissing University, Canada
Book Review: Shattered Motherhood: Surviving The Guilt Of A Child’S Suicide, Michelann Parr
Journal of International Women's Studies
No abstract provided.
Film Review: Breasts And Body Politics In B 32 Muthal 44 Vare,
2025
Vellore Institute of Technology, India
Film Review: Breasts And Body Politics In B 32 Muthal 44 Vare, Aswathy A., Meenu B.
Journal of International Women's Studies
No abstract provided.
