Women's Studies Commons^™

Madwoman Makings: The Modern Girl As An Object Of Fear And Fascination In Unno Jūza’S "Mrs. Hirumi's Refrigeration Bag", Eliza Joy Mortimer

University Honors Theses

This thesis argues that Unno Jūza's 1937 short story "Mrs. Hirumi's Refrigeration Bag" uses the sensational tropes of deviant detective fiction to both stage and interrogate interwar Japanese anxieties around gender, science, and modernity. Focusing on the figure of Mrs. Hirumi—a scientifically empowered and sexually assertive female plastic surgeon who dismembers and cryogenically preserves her husband—the author reads her as a radical iteration of the Japanese Modern Girl character. By drawing on scholarship on deviant detective fiction, imperial modernity, and Kazue Harada's concept of (re)productivity, this thesis demonstrates how the short story both reproduces misogynistic criminological discourse and unsettles heteronormative …

Gendered Harms In Armed Conflict: International Legal Responses To The Gendered Effects Of The War In Sudan, Naima Dams

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis interrogates how international law conceptualizes, prosecutes, and ultimately limits the understanding of sexual violence in contexts of war and displacement. Drawing on feminist legal theory, postcolonial critique, and ethnographic fieldwork with Sudanese women displaced in Egypt, it questions the dominant legal framing of conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) as episodic, exceptional, and individualized. Instead, it reveals sexual violence as structural, continuous, and embedded in the everyday realities of racialized, gendered, and colonial harm.

Through ethnographical narratives, the study exposes how survivors' experiences often exceed the legibility frameworks of humanitarian and legal institutions, which prioritize spectacular, forensic evidence over slow, …

Book Review: On Women By Susan Sontag, Vaishali Saxena, Sangeeta Sharma, Sushila Shekhawat

Journal of International Women's Studies

No abstract provided.

Book Review: The Tale Of Genji Through Contemporary Manga: Challenging Gender And Sexuality In Japan, Minae Savas

Journal of International Women's Studies

No abstract provided.

Book Review: Shadow Of My Shadow, L.M.S. Navodya

Journal of International Women's Studies

No abstract provided.

Book Review: Warrior Women And Trans Warriors: Performing Masculinities In Twentieth-Century Latin American Literature, Barirah Nazir

Journal of International Women's Studies

No abstract provided.

Book Review: Get It Out: On The Politics Of Hysterectomy, Amber B. Vayo

Journal of International Women's Studies

No abstract provided.

Book Review: Gone Feral: Unruly Women And The Undoing Of Normative Femininity, Ali Saha

Journal of International Women's Studies

No abstract provided.

Book Review: The Politics Of Care Work, Henni Julia Citra Sitorus

Journal of International Women's Studies

No abstract provided.

Film Review: The Soul Beneath Silence In The Skin I Live In, Nafisa Sanam

Journal of International Women's Studies

No abstract provided.

Hushed Voices, Ayushi Raghuwanshi

Journal of International Women's Studies

This poem is an attempt to reflect the distressing reality of Afghanistan under the current Taliban rule (2021-present) and in particular the condition of women who have been stripped of their rights and freedoms. Through the use of poignant metaphors and evocative imagery, the author seeks to explore the rising struggles of women under the Taliban, which has turned the clock back and reversed all of the progress Afghanistan made after the first Taliban reign (1996-2001). Afghan women struggle to breathe as their voices are silenced and dreams buried beneath an iron rule based on patriarchal notions. Painting the image …

(What) If I Were A Woman?, Errol D. Bean

Journal of International Women's Studies

This piece is not intended to be a poem (although I categorize it as my brand of prose poem); rather, it is a painful out-flow of reflective imaginings—questions and reasoning from a man’s poetic mindset that tries to imagine and empathetically enter the space of the multifaceted experience of those of the human species who are born female and embrace the femininity associated with it culturally—the indomitable, unfathomable, irrepressible, monumental equal half of the universe of all humanity we call WOMAN!

The questions below do not capture the full range of experiences of every WOMAN; the reasoning includes those whose …

Mass Rapes In War And Peace: Reflections On Sofi Oksanen’S Same River Twice: Putin’S War On Women, Olivera Simic

Journal of International Women's Studies

In this essay, I reflect on the book Same River Twice: Putin’s War on Women by Ukrainian writer Sofi Oksanen, using it as a backdrop to discuss mass rape. I use Oksanen’s discussion of the war on women in Ukraine to examine the prevalence of gender-based and especially sexual violence during both armed conflict and peacetime. As a scholar of transitional justice, I am concerned about the collective blaming of women for mass atrocities committed mainly by men, both soldiers and civilians. I write this essay as an anti-militarist feminist, taking neither a pro-Russian nor an anti-Ukrainian stance. I also …

Unmarried Women In Bugis Culture: A Phenomenological Study Of An Indonesian Ethnic Group, A. Octamaya Tenri Awaru, Syamsu A. Kamaruddin, Agustinus Ufie

Journal of International Women's Studies

The population of single women, though still a minority in Indonesian society, has seen a significant increase in the last decade. This demographic trend is often attributed to shifts in lifestyle and higher levels of women’s education. This study analyzes the perspectives of unmarried women, focusing on the factors contributing to singlehood within the Bugis culture in Indonesia. Utilizing a qualitative phenomenological approach, this research involved seventeen single women aged thirty-five to fifty, which is beyond the average marriage age in Bugis culture. Informants were selected through snowball sampling. Data were collected through in-depth interviews to explore the narratives and …

Patriarchal Constraints In Everyday Lives: Gender Roles, Matrilineality, And The Status Of Contemporary Khasi Women, Mebarisuk Langstieh, Sudhansubala Sahu

Journal of International Women's Studies

The Khasi tribe from Meghalaya in northeast India practices a matrilineal system, which is believed to be more egalitarian than patrilineal systems. The women of the Khasi tribe are often regarded as having a higher status than other women in India. However, despite belonging to a matrilineal society, Khasi women still face challenges in their social lives stemming from patriarchal constructs. This qualitative study examines the social status and subsequent challenges faced by Khasi women in contemporary India. Using in-depth interviews and observations of thirty urban and rural Khasi women in the East Khasi Hills District of Meghalaya, the study …

The Local Outsider: Sleeping Sickness Drug Trials, Social Exclusion, And Responses Of Women In The Uyui District Of Tanzania, 1964-2005, Hamisi M. Machangu

Journal of International Women's Studies

Unethical practices in sleeping sickness drug trials conducted in the Uyui District of Tanzania from 1964 to 2005 resulted in physical and psychological disabilities among participants and contributed to the social exclusion of its women participants. Although these practices are understood to have caused disabilities, existing studies have overlooked their contribution to the social exclusion of women. Drawing from both primary and secondary sources, this article treats the impact of such practices as a window to examine the nature and dimensions of social exclusion of women with disabilities and how these women responded to social exclusion at the grassroots level. …

Bodies And Beyond: Reading Liminal Corporealities In Ambai’S Short Stories, Keerthana S

Journal of International Women's Studies

This article demonstrates how the Indian writer Ambai’s short stories construct counter-narratives to phallogocentric structures, opening up fresh avenues of theoretical engagement in the cultural context of Tamil Nadu, India. Despite advancements towards gender equality, cultural symbols and metaphors such as tali (ornament worn by Tamil women denoting their marital status), karpu (chastity), and veera tai (valorous mother), often govern the lives of women to a great extent. I argue that Ambai’s stories both resist the hegemonic constraints of such cultural symbols and also endeavour to reconfigure them. Ambai’s renderings of cultural semiotics enable women to experience their bodies removed …

The Liminal Socioeconomic Status Of The “Fallen Woman” In Elizabeth Gaskell’S Mary Barton, Şebnem Düzgün

Journal of International Women's Studies

Elizabeth Gaskell’s Mary Barton (1848) is an English social-problem novel that addresses sociopolitical and economic issues, most notably prostitution. The protagonist Esther’s position as a low-income factory worker forced by circumstance to engage in sex work grants her an ambiguous position in Victorian England’s patriarchal, capitalist society. Since she appears as an active economic agent by exchanging her body for money in the sex industry, Esther seems to have more socioeconomic freedoms compared to married women. However, her freedom as a sex worker is limited by patriarchal capitalism. She becomes an outcast in the capitalist market, where capital is possessed …

Art And The Good Neighbor Policy: Grace Morley’S Role In The Office Of Inter-American Affairs Art Committee During World War Ii, Andrea Matallana

Journal of International Women's Studies

This article examines the pivotal role of Grace McCann Morley in promoting Latin American art in the United States during the era of the Good Neighbor Policy (1933). As director of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and a key figure in the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs (OCIAA), Morley challenged Eurocentric perspectives and advocated for Latin American art’s unique identity. The article focuses on her organization of itinerant exhibitions, highlighting the cultural diversity of Latin American art while navigating political and institutional obstacles. Using archives and correspondence, I reassess Morley’s contributions to the cultural diplomacy efforts …

Recasting The Sacred: Gendered Embodiments In The Shadow Puppet Theatre Of Kerala, V. K. Karthika

Journal of International Women's Studies

Tholppavakkoothu, traditional leather shadow puppetry from Kerala, a southern state within India, has long been performed in temples as a sacred ritual. This ritual art form was a male-dominated performance in which ideas regarding physical purity (in connection with menstruating female bodies) excluded women from participating. Such patriarchal codifications were challenged when Pentholppavakkoothu, an all-women leather puppetry troupe, emerged in 2021, as it not only took the art outside temple premises but enabled the participation of women in the making and performance of the art. This paper critiques the gender dynamics within Tholppavakkoothu, analysing how cultural rituals and body politics …