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Sex In Japan: It’S A Straight Man’S World, Kaileigh Nicklas College of Saint Benedict/Saint John's University

Sex In Japan: It’S A Straight Man’S World, Kaileigh Nicklas

Honors Theses, 1963-2015

Japanese feminism directly impacts the social image of non-male sexuality in Japanese literature and pop-culture through highlighting gender roles, ingrained misogyny, and violence toward non-male oriented sex. This project will specifically focus on the power dynamics of sex in Japanese society through gender roles, female sexuality, and the rise of Japanese feminist movement. An observation of sexuality in Japan from such female works as The Apprenticeship of the Big Toe P and Snakes and Earrings in contrast to male works such as Norwegian Wood and Memoirs of a Geisha provide further insights to the role that sex plays in the …

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Scripting Resistance: Rape And The Avenging Woman In Hindi Cinema, Isha Karki Bridgewater State University

Scripting Resistance: Rape And The Avenging Woman In Hindi Cinema, Isha Karki

Journal of International Women's Studies

This article considers how contemporary Hindi cinema engages with traditional cinematic representations of rape and the extent to which it inscribes resistance by rewriting dominant cultural scripts. It analyses Pan Nalin’s Angry Indian Goddesses (2015) and Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury’s Pink (2016) by locating them within the tradition of the avenging woman genre in 1980s Hindi popular cinema. It argues that the historical avenging woman genre was unable to successfully dismantle dominant rape scripts, and that these contemporary films, by subverting the genre, offer alternatives to the problems inherent in the visualisation of rape. It explores issues of eroticisation and spectacle …

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Fuitina: Love, Sex, And Rape In Modern Italy, 1945–Present, Antonella Vitale CUNY Graduate Center

Fuitina: Love, Sex, And Rape In Modern Italy, 1945–Present, Antonella Vitale

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The term fuitina in Sicilian dialect is a word used to describe a form of abduction, and is a variation of the more formal Italian term fuga, meaning a flight or escape. Fuitina, was essentially a sanctioned bride theft. Often, after the abduction of a woman, the abductor would seek a reparatory or rehabilitating marriage that would restore the woman’s “honor” and absolve the man of bride theft. Until 1981, the Italian legal system supported the practice of fuitina and rarely prosecuted men who kidnapped and raped women under the guise of this tradition. The practice of fuitina and …

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An Exploratory Analysis Of How Maya Angelou, Audre Lorde, And Patrisse Cullors Radicalized The Meaning And Practice Of Self-Care, Melanie Marie Lindsay Claremont Graduate University

An Exploratory Analysis Of How Maya Angelou, Audre Lorde, And Patrisse Cullors Radicalized The Meaning And Practice Of Self-Care, Melanie Marie Lindsay

CGU Theses & Dissertations

My dissertation, “An Exploratory Analysis of How Maya Angelou, Audre Lorde, and Patrisse Cullors Radicalized the Meaning and Practice of Self-Care”, hypothesizes that we can conceive a practice of self-care using an abolitionist lens to examine the writings and performances of three Black feminists Maya Angelou, Audre Lorde, and Patrisse Cullors. Abolitionist self-care is a response to the political structures that directly affect marginalized communities, and it evaluates the numerous ways that Black women have used their voice to challenge systems of oppression. If we examine their thinking as expressed through their poetry, their performances (including activism), and their self-life-writing, …

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Changing The Canon: Chinua Achebe’S Women, The Public Sphere And The Politics Of Inclusion In, Uzoechi Nwagbara Bridgewater State University

Changing The Canon: Chinua Achebe’S Women, The Public Sphere And The Politics Of Inclusion, Uzoechi Nwagbara

Journal of International Women's Studies

This paper examines the subjugation of Nigerian women with regard to how their political marginalisation constricts the public sphere, the resource centre of public opinion, which strengthens the ideals of democracy and good governance. The political marginalisation of women in Nigeria is a rectilinear upshot of their low participation in government and politics necessitated by patriarchy. This patriarchal practice has animated the urgency of expanded public sphere as well as feminism, an ideological, aesthetic and cultural movement, steeped in agitating for the rights of women and expanding the frontiers of their participation in the political process. In the political novel …

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Women, Teaching, Authority, Silence: 1 Timothy 2:8-15 Explained By 1 Peter 3:1-6, Ed Christian Kutztown University of Pennsylvania

Women, Teaching, Authority, Silence: 1 Timothy 2:8-15 Explained By 1 Peter 3:1-6, Ed Christian

Journal of the Adventist Theological Society

No abstract provided.

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A History Of Women In Afghanistan: Lessons Learnt For The Future Or Yesterdays And Tomorrow: Women In Afghanistan, Huma Ahmed-Ghosh Bridgewater State University

A History Of Women In Afghanistan: Lessons Learnt For The Future Or Yesterdays And Tomorrow: Women In Afghanistan, Huma Ahmed-Ghosh

Journal of International Women's Studies

In this paper, through the history of women in Afghanistan, I want to locate the position of women in the future by lessons learnt from the past. Given Afghanistan’s current situation of poverty, political disenfranchisement and social disarray, I argue that these very deficiencies could be maneuvered to favor the empowerment of women by redefining her role in the family and the community. Afghanistan’s social development can only be ensured through democracy and the reduction of poverty, the success of both being assured through full participation of women, especially in rural Afghanistan. In this paper I would like to trace …

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Changing Ideals Of Womanhood During The Nineteenth-Century Woman Movement, Susan M. Cruea Bowling Green State University

Changing Ideals Of Womanhood During The Nineteenth-Century Woman Movement, Susan M. Cruea

University Writing Program Faculty Publications

This article focuses on the Woman Movement, an organization which was developed as a result of the effort of women to improve their status in and usefulness to society. The objectives of the movement were to initiate measures of charitable benevolence, temperance and social welfare and to initiate struggles for civic rights, social freedoms, higher education, remunerative occupations, and the right to vote. The setting of these goals resulted from women's rising awareness of the precariousness of their situation in the patriarchal society of the 1800s.

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Why Don't I Look Like Her? The Impact Of Social Media On Female Body Image, Kendyl M. Klein Claremont McKenna College

Why Don't I Look Like Her? The Impact Of Social Media On Female Body Image, Kendyl M. Klein

CMC Senior Theses

The purpose of this paper is to understand and criticize the role of social media in the development and/or encouragement of eating disorders, disordered eating, and body dissatisfaction in college-aged women. College women are exceptionally vulnerable to the impact that social media can have on their body image as they develop an outlook on their bodies and accept the developmental changes that occurred during puberty. This paper provides evidence that there is a relationship between the recent surge in disordered eating and high consumption of social media. I examine the ways in which traditional advertising has portrayed women throughout history, …

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The Prisoner Of Gender: Foucault And The Disciplining Of The Female Body, Angela King Bridgewater State University

The Prisoner Of Gender: Foucault And The Disciplining Of The Female Body, Angela King

Journal of International Women's Studies

The work of Michel Foucault has been extremely influential amongst feminist scholars and for good reason; his meditations on discipline, power, sexuality and subjectivity are particularly pertinent to feminist analysis. Yet despite his preoccupation with power and its effects on the body, Foucault’s own analysis was curiously gender-neutral. Remarkably, there is no exploration or even acknowledgement of the extent to which gender determines the techniques and degrees of discipline exerted on the body. Although this exposes serious flaws in Foucault’s work, I don’t believe it negates his entire theoretical framework. Rather it can be adopted and adapted; his glaring omissions …

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Between The Lens And The Gaze: Reflections Of Femininity In Film, Noureen Sakr 2027 American University in Cairo

Between The Lens And The Gaze: Reflections Of Femininity In Film, Noureen Sakr

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the male gaze’s construction of femininity through the use of glass and reflective surfaces, particularly mirrors, windows, glasses, and cameras in film. Reflections and depictions of women are recurring motifs in cinema, often symbolizing dynamics of perception and power. This thesis mobilizes related psychoanalytic and feminist conceptions to examine and compare the recurring visual motifs in the following films: Alfred Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train (1951) and Rear Window (1954), Paul Verhoeven’s Basic Instinct (1992), & Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan (2010). This thesis employs a qualitative, interdisciplinary methodology that integrates psychoanalytic theory, feminist film theory, literary criticism …

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A Journey To The Midwest For Migrant Farmwork: Women's Testimonies Examining Their Lived Experiences Using Autoethnography And Plática Research Methodologies, Yesenia G. Alcalá 2026 University of the Incarnate Word

A Journey To The Midwest For Migrant Farmwork: Women's Testimonies Examining Their Lived Experiences Using Autoethnography And Plática Research Methodologies, Yesenia G. Alcalá

Theses & Dissertations

A JOURNEY TO THE MIDWEST FOR MIGRANT FARMWORK: WOMEN’S TESTIMONIES EXAMINING THEIR LIVED EXPERIENCES USING AUTOETHNOGRAPHY AND PLÁTICA

RESEARCH METHODOLOGIES

Yesenia Garza Alcalá, Master of Business Administration

University of the Incarnate Word 2026

The purpose of my research was to share the stories of five women who experienced a yearly migratory routine from Del Rio, Texas, to work in farms and factories in the Midwest, and how that annual journey shaped and educated us. The women are four of my older sisters and me, all of whom traveled and worked in the Princeville, Illinois, migrant camp, where we experienced the …

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Intersectional Realities And Adaptive Leadership: A Phenomenological Study Of Black Women Administrators In Higher Education, Jocelyn Vernet 2026 East Tennessee State University

Intersectional Realities And Adaptive Leadership: A Phenomenological Study Of Black Women Administrators In Higher Education, Jocelyn Vernet

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Existing literature consistently documents the acute underrepresentation of Black women in administrative leadership. Furthermore, Black women administrators that are represented and visible in higher education often oversee programs and task forces that heighten their experiences to high-risk situations. Emerging narratives suggest Black women employ effective coping strategies and embrace opportunities to strengthen and cultivate support networks while in their leadership roles. However, there is a significant lack in understanding how these strategies are structured and sustained to overcome the underrepresentation of Black women administrators in higher education. Additionally, basing their experiences solely through a survival lens limits a deeper understanding …

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Lost In Chaos: The Battle Between Selfcare And Motherhood, Sarah Shahzad 2026 Institute of Business Administration (IBA)

Lost In Chaos: The Battle Between Selfcare And Motherhood, Sarah Shahzad

MS Marketing Research Projects/Theses

Motherhood in collectivist societies such as Pakistan is deeply intertwined with caregiving, leaving limited space for women’s self-care or personal well-being. This study explores how young Pakistani mothers negotiate self-care within competing expectations of maternal sacrifice, cultural morality, and structural constraints. Guided by the Institutional Logics Perspective (ILP), it examines how familial norms, religious values, and market forces collectively shape women’s self-care practices, framing self-care not as an autonomous act but as a negotiated process embedded within social and institutional boundaries. This study adopts an interpretive phenomenological approach to explore how Pakistani mothers experience and negotiate self-care within cultural and …

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Inequities In Agency And Post-Surrogacy Impact On Surrogate Mothers In India, Sheela Suryanarayanan Dr., Sudarshan Saravanan Mr. 2026 Associate Professor, University of Hyderabad, India

Inequities In Agency And Post-Surrogacy Impact On Surrogate Mothers In India, Sheela Suryanarayanan Dr., Sudarshan Saravanan Mr.

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

India became a global hub for commercial surrogacy because surrogate mothers had fewer rights over their own bodies and the child born, and had no agency in medical interventions during surrogacy, until the Surrogacy (Regulation) Act, 2021 prohibited transnational and commercial surrogacy in India. Studies have found detrimental physical and emotional health impacts of surrogacy on surrogate mothers in several developing countries. Economic coercion limits the agency and bargaining capacity of surrogate mothers, leading to unjust surrogacy contracts. Mandatory retention at surrogate homes, separation from family, surveillance, social stigma, secrecy, and a disconnect from the intended parents and surrogacy children …

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Birthing In A Foreign Land, Sadhiya Saleem 2026 Fujairah University, U.A.E

Birthing In A Foreign Land, Sadhiya Saleem

Journal of International Women's Studies

This narrative poem explores the embodied experience of childbirth in a foreign land. Set within the unfamiliar environment of a hospital far from the speaker’s linguistic roots, the poem traces the physical and emotional landscape of labor as one profoundly shaped by displacement and disconnection. Through sensory imagery and fragmented memory, it portrays how giving birth in an unfamiliar context amid the absence of familiar support systems and linguistic comfort creates a profound sense of bodily estrangement. The poem enters broader feminist conversations to reclaim the maternal body, marked by migration and displacement, as a definitive site of memory and …

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Film Review: Ajmer 92, Investigative Journalism, And Justice For Rape Survivors, Amit Sharma, Amitabh Srivastava 2026 University of Allahabad, India

Film Review: Ajmer 92, Investigative Journalism, And Justice For Rape Survivors, Amit Sharma, Amitabh Srivastava

Journal of International Women's Studies

No abstract provided.

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Film Review: Education As A Legal Right, Yet A Socially Negotiated Privilege: A Feminist Review Of Sthal (A Match), Ankit Anand, Rajneesh Kumar 2026 Vellore Institute of Technology, India

Film Review: Education As A Legal Right, Yet A Socially Negotiated Privilege: A Feminist Review Of Sthal (A Match), Ankit Anand, Rajneesh Kumar

Journal of International Women's Studies

No abstract provided.

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Film Review: Queer Happiness And Family Myth In My Therapist Said, I Am Full Of Sadness, Ni Luh Ayu Sukmawati 2026 University of Jember, Indonesia

Film Review: Queer Happiness And Family Myth In My Therapist Said, I Am Full Of Sadness, Ni Luh Ayu Sukmawati

Journal of International Women's Studies

No abstract provided.

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Gender-Based Violence, Legal Protection, And Intersecting Narratives: A Conversation With Flavia Agnes, Barnana Baidya, Partha Bhattacharjee 2026 SRM University AP, India

Gender-Based Violence, Legal Protection, And Intersecting Narratives: A Conversation With Flavia Agnes, Barnana Baidya, Partha Bhattacharjee

Journal of International Women's Studies

Flavia Agnes is a leading advocate for gender justice because of her legal expertise in marital law, divorce, and property law and her activism as an Indian women’s rights lawyer. Her scholarly work on systemic and legal gender-based oppression has appeared in the journals Subaltern Studies, Economic and Political Weekly, and Manushi. Her book, My Story...Our Story of Rebuilding Broken Lives, released by her non-profit organization named Majlis, depicts how Agnes battled domestic violence while addressing the law’s restrictive abilities to offer protection. We conducted an interview through Google Meet with Agnes to discuss her work as a legal activist …

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Book Review Essay: The Keloid As Episteme—Corporeal Healing And Colonial Afterlives In Sarah Soanirina Ohmer’S The Keloids We Heal, Md Samiul Azim, Farida Parvin 2026 Gazole Mahavidyalaya, India

Book Review Essay: The Keloid As Episteme—Corporeal Healing And Colonial Afterlives In Sarah Soanirina Ohmer’S The Keloids We Heal, Md Samiul Azim, Farida Parvin

Journal of International Women's Studies

No abstract provided.

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Book Review: Reproductive Labor And Innovation: Against The Tech Fix In An Era Of Hype, Lipika Kankaria 2026 Bridgewater State University

Book Review: Reproductive Labor And Innovation: Against The Tech Fix In An Era Of Hype, Lipika Kankaria

Journal of International Women's Studies

No abstract provided.

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Book Review: All She Lost: The Explosion In Lebanon, The Collapse Of A Nation, And The Women Who Survive, Noor Obeid 2026 Ohio State University, USA

Book Review: All She Lost: The Explosion In Lebanon, The Collapse Of A Nation, And The Women Who Survive, Noor Obeid

Journal of International Women's Studies

No abstract provided.

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Book Review: Letters From The Edge: Outrider Conversations, Raeesabegam Usmani 2026 NMIMS University, Hyderabad, India

Book Review: Letters From The Edge: Outrider Conversations, Raeesabegam Usmani

Journal of International Women's Studies

No abstract provided.

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Book Review: Artificial Women: Sex Dolls, Robot Caregivers, And More Facsimile Females, Evie Kendal 2026 Swinburne University of Technology, Australia

Book Review: Artificial Women: Sex Dolls, Robot Caregivers, And More Facsimile Females, Evie Kendal

Journal of International Women's Studies

No abstract provided.

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Book Review: I Criticize, Therefore I Am A Woman Poet—Sex And Style: Literary Criticism And Gender In Early Modern England, Rizwan Akhtar 2026 University of the Punjab, Pakistan

Book Review: I Criticize, Therefore I Am A Woman Poet—Sex And Style: Literary Criticism And Gender In Early Modern England, Rizwan Akhtar

Journal of International Women's Studies

No abstract provided.

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Book Review: Challenges For Chinese Women In The Early Twenty-First Century, Zakiyah Zakiyah 2026 National Research and Innovation Agency, Indonesia

Book Review: Challenges For Chinese Women In The Early Twenty-First Century, Zakiyah Zakiyah

Journal of International Women's Studies

No abstract provided.

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Book Review: Body Politics In Contemporary Irish Women’S Writing: The Literary Legacy Of Mother Ireland, Taylor Follett 2026 University College Dublin, Ireland

Book Review: Body Politics In Contemporary Irish Women’S Writing: The Literary Legacy Of Mother Ireland, Taylor Follett

Journal of International Women's Studies

No abstract provided.

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A Feminist Analysis Of Post-Independence Administrative Reforms In Bihar, Shrey Sharma, Rajeev Kumar Jain, Ashutosh K. Pandey, Shashikant Nishant Sharma 2026 Sunrise University, India

A Feminist Analysis Of Post-Independence Administrative Reforms In Bihar, Shrey Sharma, Rajeev Kumar Jain, Ashutosh K. Pandey, Shashikant Nishant Sharma

Journal of International Women's Studies

This paper critically examines the administrative reforms in Bihar since India’s independence, focusing on the evolution of women’s roles and representation in state governance. Drawing on historiographic and textual analyses of academic scholarship, government reports, reform commission findings, and policy documents, the study uses the case of the Indian state of Bihar to explore how political leadership, bureaucratic structures, and gendered hierarchies intersect in shaping postcolonial governance. Bihar, historically marked by institutional fragility and social inequality, provides an illustrative context for assessing how national-level reforms— such as the 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendments, civil service modernization, and e governance—have attempted …

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The Role Of Tribal And Dalit Women In Water Conservation: A Case Study Of The Western Indian Trans-Himalayan Region, Vivek Kumar, Anuradha Choudhary 2026 Central University of Jammu, India

The Role Of Tribal And Dalit Women In Water Conservation: A Case Study Of The Western Indian Trans-Himalayan Region, Vivek Kumar, Anuradha Choudhary

Journal of International Women's Studies

Water scarcity and environmental degradation are pressing contemporary issues, and the Himalayan regions are especially at risk. The Trans-Himalayas in particular face severe resource scarcity as water availability is totally dependent on the now dwindling supply of glacial meltwater. Women in the Spiti Valley in the Trans-Himalayan region are particularly exposed to these issues because they spend significant time collecting water and fodder for domestic animals and managing agricultural irrigation. As the primary caregivers and managers of households, women in this region face greater challenges in adapting to and mitigating resource scarcity. This study focuses on the role of Dalit …

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Popular Institutions

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Featured Publications

Popular Authors

Based on downloads in October 2026

Marie Lee University of the Pacific

Antonella Vitale CUNY Graduate Center

Melanie Lindsay Claremont Graduate University

Ed Christian Kutztown University of Pennsylvania

Ed Christian Kutztown University of Pennsylvania

Susan Cruea Bowling Green State University

Kendyl Klein Claremont McKenna College

Kalari Flotree University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Luisanna Sardu Castangia CUNY Graduate Center

Sarah Hunt Southern Adventist University

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