Women's Studies Commons^™

Unconventional Avenues For Public Participation: A Case Study From Rural Egypt, Hassan Hussein

The Journal of Social Encounters

When traditional avenues for learning and participation become inaccessible for less-advantaged people to learn and participate, people tend to develop other unconventional avenues to learn and participate in decisions that affect their lives. There are two distinct research approaches in the study of political participation. One approach, which had been historically predominant, focuses on individual characteristics such as education level, income and class, and the other, social network approach focuses on the influence of context and social networks in the political socialization and mobilization of men and women in democracies and authoritarian polities. This paper fits into the second approach …

Nasty Woman: An Analysis Of Women's Rage In Popular Culture, Sarah Kee

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

The goal of this senior project was to analyze the underlying cause for why certain female characters in popular culture were villainized for their behavior and generally deemed to be “nasty woman.” After reading numerous books and viewing films that contained “nasty woman”, there was a common denominator that linked their behavior and influenced their decision to enact their often-bloody retribution: the patriarchy. These women were a victim of some aspect of the patriarchy, commonly sexual assault, and could not receive the support they needed, so they decided to take matters into their own hands. The “nasty women” analyzed in …

Visual Diaries: Towards Art History As Storytelling, Alpesh Kantilal Patel

Art History Pedagogy & Practice

This essay examines variants of what I refer to as “visual diaries” – or thinking through images and written or oral language – as important “worldmaking” exercises, essential for students of color, women, sexual minorities, or other marginalized subjects. I provide my reflections on assigning this dynamic and student-centered, practice-based assignment in my contemporary art courses at a Hispanic-serving institution (HSI) of higher education and a summer art residency program unaffiliated with a university. Besides my reflections on my pedagogy, I also share student feedback from unsolicited testimonials and answers to questionnaires. I argue that visual diaries transform students into …

A Daughter Of The Samurai, Etsu Inagaki Sugimoto

Zea E-Books Collection

Born in 1874 the youngest daughter of a samurai and former daimyo—a feudal prince under the Takugawa shogunate—Etsu Inagaki grew up surrounded by ghosts of an aristocratic military lineage. Having fought on the losing side in the wars that installed the Meiji emperor, the ­Inagaki family was reduced in power, status, and wealth but not in pride or ­devotion to its traditional roles and customs. Etsu’s upbringing and education were conservative and old-fashioned, guided by the Shinto and Buddhist beliefs her family held. The samurai virtues of honor, ­stoicism, and sacrifice applied to daughters and wives as well as sons …

Craftivism Between Nationalism And Activism In Ukraine And Belarus, Alla Myzelev

Art History

This article outlines the history and significance of Craftivism in Eastern Europe. Using two case studies of artists it investigates the use of the craft language in Eastern Europe and its usability for activism. Do-It-Yourself culture, of which Craftivism is part, rejects the commercialism, gender norms and the conventional lifestyle in the Global North. Use of crafts as a language of political and social struggle allows to convey the message in a less confrontational but nevertheless very pertinent way. The craftivism is a successful language for the feminist political struggle in the Eastern Europe.

The Partisan Gender Gap: Why Democratic Women Get Elected But Republican Women Don't (Book Review), Shannon Mcqueen

Political Science Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Clash And Cooperation Of Ecofeminism And Postmodern Feminism: The Intersection Of Two Theories In Dystopic Literature, Ashton Koch

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

Ecofeminism and postmodern feminism are regarded as opposite theories in their attempts to solve for ecological and patriarchal oppression. This thesis argues that these two theories are not mutually exclusive, and must work together to effectively combat oppression faced by the environment and by women. It uses two works of literature, Our Life in the Forest by Marie Darrieussecq and Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood to argue for the combination of ecofeminist and postmodern feminist strategies. Both works are dystopic in nature, portraying the destruction of the environment and patriarchal discourse against women. Ultimately, this thesis analyzes the strategies …

Gender: A Useful Category Of Analysis For Tanzanian Researchers, Florence Wenzek

Journal of International Women's Studies

This article enriches reflections on the circulation of the concept of gender in the Global South by looking at the transformations of Tanzanian research on gender in education between the 1970s and the early 1990s. A close reading of the texts shows how the concept of gender has been used in this field of study since 1990; it considers variations depending on authors and their positioning. Comparing this with the writings of the 1970s and 1980s, when no one used the concept, reveals how it contributed to epistemological change. The article also reflects on the respective role of local factors …

Toward A Feminism Without Scaffoldings: Mapping A Research Project, A Narrative From The Field, And A Draft Bill, Debarun Sarkar

Journal of International Women's Studies

The paper maps the site of a funded research project to understand how three knowledge articulations—harassment-knowledge, LGBTQ-knowledge, and intersectionality-knowledge—intersect in and around a research project and are produced, circulated, interrogated, and codified to note how intersectionality-knowledge effaces other possible articulations. The paper begins with an auto-ethnographic account of a Ford Foundation funded research project in India, led by key power-brokers of the LGBTQ+ movement, focusing on concerns of discrimination of non-normative genders and sexualities in India. The paper juxtaposes a Ford Foundation funded research project, a narrative from the fieldwork conducted for the project, and a draft of the Equality …

“It Is Not Breasts Or Vaginas That Women Use To Wash Dishes”: Gender, Class, And Neocolonialism Through The Women In Nigeria Movement (1982-1992), Sara Panata

Journal of International Women's Studies

The first self-declared Nigerian feminist organization was founded under the name of Women in Nigeria (WIN) at a meeting in Zaria in May 1982. WIN was a left-wing movement including women and men. This article seeks to shed light on knowledge production in the field of feminism and gender studies in Nigeria, focusing on WIN’s texts and discourses. Approaching knowledge production from the perspective of social history, my analysis examines the biographical trajectories of the association’s activists, the ways in which their journeys influenced the use of global knowledge and the production of “situated knowledges”, and how intellectual work operated …

Interrogating Intersectionality: Dalit Women, Western Classrooms, And The Politics Of Feminist Knowledge Production, Radhika Govinda

Journal of International Women's Studies

Intersectionality’s enormous success raises questions about its purchase as a critical methodology outside the context of its origin, as to how it has taken on meaning and use in Global South contexts. Its widespread espousal across disciplines within Western academia itself compels one to ask whether curricula – and how these are transacted in classrooms – are informed by its analytic insight, and if so, what are the challenges in enacting it as critical pedagogy. In this paper, I bring into conversation key Anglo-American and Indian feminist scholars writing about intersectionality and reflect on my own methodological and pedagogical engagements …

Theorizing Feminism From The South: Knowledge Production Through South Africa’S Feminist Journal Agenda, Amanda Gouws

Journal of International Women's Studies

One of the important ways that feminists in South Africa have generated knowledge and theory is through an independent feminist journal, AGENDA, that was founded in 1987. In this article, I discuss the history of AGENDA and analyze the type of feminist knowledge that AGENDA produces as a feminist journal of the Global South and specifically Africa. I also show how African feminism and intersectionality have always been the two core dimensions of knowledge production in AGENDA through the analysis of two trilogies: one on African feminism and one on African sexuality to show how knowledge is used to create …

Dissident Epistemologies: Dialogues Around An Affective Research Experience, Mar Fournier Pereira

Journal of International Women's Studies

This article presents a series of situated reflections on the production of knowledge in social research and the relationships that emerge with communities and participants in the field, in dialog with the contributions of Trans* Epistemologies, decolonial feminisms, and epistemologies of the South that urge to break with the coloniality of knowledge and epistemic violence. Grounded on the process of an affective research experience and developed with a community of transgender women in the city of San José, Costa Rica, I address questions on the role of affectivity in knowledge production and present our collective reflections on a possible alternative …

Women’S Studies, Gender Studies, And Lgbt/Queer Studies: Defining And Debating The Subject Of Academic Knowledge In India, Virginie Dutoya

Journal of International Women's Studies

Women’s Studies is first introduced in Indian academia in the 1970s. There are now more than 150 centres conducting research on women and gender as well as numerous teaching programmes on these topics in India. Research on sexualities and non-heterosexual identities and practices, while less developed, also emerged in the 1990s. As in any academic field, research on Women’s Studies, gender, and sexuality has been marked by epistemic debates, in particular “terminology debates” (i.e., debates about the proper concepts for discussing gender and sexuality in India). Using a corpus of academic texts, course syllabi, and other academic documents as well …

Gender Studies In Nigeria: Growth And Institutional Contexts Of Semi-Autonomous Centres, Adedeji Adebayo

Journal of International Women's Studies

The study discussed a micro-level dimension of the institutionalization of Gender Studies (GS) in Nigeria, emphasizing the growth of semi-autonomous centres over the last two decades. It focused on a case study of one particular centre; the Centre for Human Rights and Gender Education (CHURGE), based in Tai Solarin University of Education (TASUED) in the southwest of the country, offering an analysis of how funding, institutional politics, and a dearth of specialist researchers have shaped the evolution of GS in 21st century in Nigeria. The study employed a qualitative research approach with samples purposively selected among researchers at CHURGE. Although …

Introduction: Gender Knowledge: Epistemological And Empirical Contributions From The Global South, Emmanuelle Bouilly, Virginie Dutoya, Marie Saiget

Journal of International Women's Studies

Women’s and gender studies are now accepted academic subjects in many Global South countries, whether the field is well established—even institutionalized—or still emerging. However, this phenomenon is under-studied, even though the history, ideas, and key concepts of women’s, feminist, and gender studies are becoming well documented in Europe and America (Lagrave; Brown; Bard; Clair and Heinen). This special edition therefore aims to shed light on knowledge production about women and gender in and by Southern countries, and not about these countries, as is often the case. On the one hand, this edition brings out the local, regional and global dynamics …

Incorrect Athlete, Incorrect Woman: Ioc Gender Regulations And The Boundaries Of Womanhood In Professional Sports, Sabeehah Ravat

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Professional sports are a cornerstone of mainstream capitalist society, a site where issuesof race, class, gender, nation, and religion amongst others are produced, contested, and negotiated. In particular, gender regulation policies serve to delineate the acceptable boundaries of racialised gender and create sanctioned opportunities to surveil transgressive bodies. In this thesis, I posit that professional sports rely on and protect uniformity of gender experience to regulate and exclude trans* and intersex participation and, furthermore, that gender regulation policies delineate the boundaries of gender and particularly womanhood in a way that further marginalises nonbinary athletes. Using critical discourse analysis, a methodology …

2022 Iggad Conference Program, Charles Joyner Institute For Gullah And African Diaspora Studies

IGGAD Conference Programs

Program of the 2022 IGGAD Conference: Who Owns This? Communities, Heritage, and Preservation.

“Hush Ma Cailín”: Irish Women And Egalitarian Nationalism, Velma Tomasova Lockman

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

In October 1997, the members of the Army Executive of the Provisional Irish Republican Army who favored an end to the decades-long insurgency against British rule in the occupied six counties of Ireland outmaneuvered and forced the resignations of those who supported continuing the war. Among those forced to resign was the one woman on the Army Executive. She and her comrades would coalesce around Bernadette Sands McKevitt as the dissidents prepared to fight on under the banner of the Real Irish Republican Army while the majority of the insurgents laid down their arms. The Continuity Irish Republican Army simultaneously …

Interview With Jenny Cavenaugh, Jennifer Jones Cavenaugh, Wenxian Zhang

Oral Histories

Growing up in New York City, Jennifer Jones Cavenaugh earned her BA in Policy Studies from Dartmouth College in 1982, and her MFA in Dramaturgy from Brooklyn College in 1992. After receiving her PhD in Theater History and Dramatic Criticism from the University of Washington in 1995, she served as Assistant Professor of Theater at the University of Denver for three years before joining the faculty of the Louisiana State University, where she earned her tenure and was promoted to Associate Professor of Theater in 2003.

In 2005, Dr. Cavenaugh was named the Winifred Warden Endowed Chair of Theater at …