Women's Studies Commons^™

Women Dancers Of Color Decolonizing Knowledge Production Through Performance, Mio Yoshizaki

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

This thesis focuses on how women dancers of color (WDoC) decolonize the process of knowledge production through performance. Through a feminist perspective, this research analyzes the ways WDoC use dance and movement to share their voices as women of color. The American concert dance industry was established based on Western perspectives. When WDoC create performances about their own lived experiences, dance plays a role in decolonizing the process of knowledge production by portraying their unique perspectives and culture through movement. Focus group discussions with women of color who perform in a midwestern metro area were selected as a method for …

Institutionalized Normative Heterosexuality : The Case Of Sexual Fluidity, Nicole Lamarre

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Since Alfred Kinsey’s early exploration of sexual behaviors, identities, and desires, there has been a proliferation of studies on what is generally regarded today as sexual fluidity. Inquiry into sexual histories that are neither wholly heterosexual nor homosexual (or even bisexual) has been incredibly well documented by this time. Generally, theories about sexual fluidity have taken one of two positions. The first camp interprets sexual variance as a sign of changing times and crumbling sexual and gender binaries. The second group of theorists postulate that sexual fluidity is neither new nor a particularly positive or liberating social trend. Instead of …

Healing Through Mother Earth, Taylor A. Russell

Dance (MFA) Theses

This thesis deals with mental health, with a focus on Black women. Historically, Black women are often so compromised, being constant caregivers and helping everyone else, that they forget to help themselves, not having the time and financial means to do so. If we go back in the time of slavery, many Black women were taking care of slave owners' children and suckling the white women’s babies instead of their own. By the time they got home and after diligently caring for other people’s children they were focused on their own children, who they had been away from for hours …

Positioning Women's Inclusion In Peace Negotiations: The Landmark Case Of The Philippines, Josephine Perez, Mira Alexis P. Ofreneo

Psychology Department Faculty Publications

Women have historically been excluded in formal peace processes. While structural changes have pushed for women’s participation in peace negotiations, we locate the shift from women’s exclusion to women’s inclusion as enacted in the discursive patterns of talk. Using positioning theory as a discursive lens, we looked at how women’s inclusion was facilitated in the peace negotiations between the Government of the Philippines (GPH) and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) that reached the landmark Philippine peace accord of 2014. Positioning theory argues that every utterance is a speech act that ascribes rights and duties, in this case, the right …

Black Mothering In The Bay Area While Unseen And Unheard: Navigating Black Mothering In The Midst Of A Pandemic & Social Unrest, Kassie Michelle Phillips

Doctoral Dissertations

Black Mothering In The Bay Area While Unseen And Unheard: Navigating Black Mothering In The Midst Of A Pandemic & Social Unrest This narrative research study was conducted in Northern California while attending the School of Education at the University of San Francisco. Introducing a new theoretical framework called Black-Crit Mothering, this study examined the relationships of single and married Black Mothers living in the Bay Area and how Black Mothering has been directly impacted by the various pandemics that continue to take over the Black communities. These stories provided counter-narratives to the traditional views of our women in history …

Pink Bamboo Ceiling: Barriers And Breakthroughs For Asian American Women Leaders, Mele W. Kramer

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

AbstractAsian Americans are the most diverse and fastest-growing minority group in the U.S. and have the highest average level of education of all minority and dominant groups in America making up 6.2 % of the labor market. However, Asian Americans overall hold one percent of the executive leadership roles in Fortune 500 organizations. Low leadership representation leaves this demographic without a decision-making voice and without power in society. The purpose of this qualitative study was to learn about the lived experiences of Asian American women (AAW) leaders and potential leaders as it pertains to race, gender, and stereotypes in the …

Creating A Reverberating Beat: Digital Curation Of The Women Writers Of The Beat Generation, Elena Maria Rogalle

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

The focus of my study is the creation of a special topics American literature or Women's Studies course about the women writers of the Beat Generation; this course provides students with a variety of explorations of women's writing during and after Post World War II America. This period saw many changes in terms of women's roles as they challenged the mid-20th century societal constructs. My research examines the women Beat writers by centering on their distinct women's discourse and how their voices challenged the patriarchally-driven canon of Beat Generation writers. To accomplish this task, my research focuses on expanding the …

Rice, Reciprocity, And Generosity: Embedded Ecologies In Hindu Women’S Rituals, Zoe Carlson

CMC Senior Theses

Hindu women’s perspectives of the more-than-human world are illuminated through ritual. Researching ecological actions millions of people of different faiths across the world partake in every day, in the context of the climate crisis of our present time, is a vital project I undertake in this thesis. I look to Hinduism, which has traditionally been called an “ecological” religion, but without a clear definition of what “ecological” means. I use Vijaya Nagarajan’s theories about Hinduism, women, and ecology as a theoretical guide. I apply her theory of “embedded ecologies” to analyze how knowledge about the environment is layered in cultural, …

Biyyaa Baanus Biyyi Nu Keessaa Hinbaatu: Changing Gender Norms And Traditional Mediation Impacts On Marriage Among Ethiopian Immigrants In Three Southwestern Ontario Cities, Dinku Korsa

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Abstract Immigrant spouses face culture shock in the host countries because they are disconnected from their social fabric and, at the same time, must adhere to the host countries' lifestyles. One of the immigrants' spouses' challenges is the marital conflicts that arise because of changing gender norms in the host countries and the absence of family support to solve their conflicts. The purpose of this study is to examine changing gender norms and traditional meditation's impact on marriage among Ethiopian immigrants living in Kitchener, Waterloo and Guelph. The study asks overarching research question: what is the impact of changing gender …

Cien Botellas En Una Pared And Blanco Nocturno: The Feminization And Queering Of Representations Of Violence In Latin American Novels Of The 21st Century, Mariana Romo-Carmona

Publications and Research

A look at two novels at the turn of the 21st Century that emerge in clear counterpoint to the Boom, recognizing the violence inherent in national historical realities, and shattering the marginalization of writers subordinated by gender, class, or race. Portela and Piglia portray the heritage of violence in their characters, and the tension of their subjectivities in dialog with a historical understanding of the nation, both in their inimitable, unique, and ebullient narrative style.

Carving Out Space: Black Feminist Theory, Morgan Barnes-Whitehead

History - Master of Arts in Teaching

I. Synthesis Essay………………………………..3

II. Primary Documents and Headnotes………..18

III. Textbook Critique……………………………..29

IV. New Textbook Entry…………………………..34

V. Bibliography………………………………….....35

Indigenous Climatic Perspectives: A Multidisciplinary Approach To Environmental Discourse Analysis, Linda G. Claros

CGU Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation presents a multidisciplinary analysis of climate discourse from Indigenous Climatic Perspectives (ICP). This research highlights how the manner in which we relate intellectually, culturally and spiritually to the environment has been dictated by economic ideology developed within Euro-American capitalistic paradigms. Hence, the origin of our climate disaster is traced to religious and philosophical assumptions about Nature and the environment, that operate unchallenged within spheres of discourse- scientific, religious and cultural. This dissertation presents an alternative means of analysis, Indigenous Climatic Perspectives, by which we can come to understand our place in the biosphere by embedding new theoretical and …

Disabling Citizenship: Rhetorical Practices Of Disabled World-Making At The 1977 504 Sit-In, Ruth Osario

Women's & Gender Studies Faculty Publications

The article analyzes the importance of a citizenship approach to disability rights. Integrating disabled world-making in the writing classroom can transform thinking of people about the teaching of public writing. It is noted that disabled world-making can help English studies ensure professional organizations go beyond the legal requirements and ensure the full participation of disabled scholar-teachers.

Femininity As Disability In Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar., Shae Kirkus, Monika Shehi Herr

University of South Carolina Upstate Student Research Journal

Disability studies is often associated with the treatment of people with physical disabilities, which are defined as features of non-normative human bodies. However, analyzed through the lens of the classical idea of the ideal body, which was first and foremost male, femininity itself is also atypical and therefore confines women to the realm of being disabled.

Sylvia Plath’s autobiographical novel The Bell Jar shows how the feminine is a disability in and of itself. As Plath’s main character and narrator, Esther Greenwood, spirals into her own madness, her condition is only worsened by societal reactions to her declining mental health. …

Wound-Dwelling: Empowerment Through Masochistic Experiences, Nizlyn

MFA in Visual Arts Theses

The psychoanalytic concept of the Skin Ego Theory describes the skin as a passage for pain and pleasure to travel through. Remnants of external experiences as well as internal struggles affect the penetrable barrier of the somatic wrapping and leave inscriptions on the flesh. Through my work, I have been exploring the skin’s ability to protect, envelope, and inscribe meaning through my papercuts, oil paintings, and clay sculptures. I procure the marks on my body through kink and BDSM, which then influence the work. Though my bruises may fade with time, my skin becomes tougher. By recontextualizing Skin Ego Theory …

The Isolated As The Revolutionary: How “Leftover” Men In China Challenge Heteronormativity, Ruwen Chang

Theses and Dissertations--Gender and Women's Studies

In contemporary China, demographers estimate that 30 million men are single because there are simply not enough women in the Chinese population, and the 2020 Chinese census shows that there are 34.9 million more men than women. These men are called guanggun, which can be directly translated to “bare sticks/branches,” a slur that indicates a lack of marriage and sex. In this project, I demonstrate that guanggun’s singlehood marks them as the marginalized at the intersection of heteronormativity, patriarchy, globalizing capitalism, and pronatalist governmentality. In a highly heteronormative and patrilineal culture, guanggun are branded as abnormal/incomplete. However, because …

(Dis)Possessed Black Youth: How America's Architecture Challenges Coming Of Age In Twentieth And Twenty-First Century African American Women's Literature, Margaret Frymire Kelly

Theses and Dissertations--English

This dissertation advances studies of Black childhood, particularly Black girlhood, by examining how African American women writers depict the troubled journey to adulthood in stories of segregation, immigration, and incarceration. I argue that authors of four representative literary works emphasize architectural structures as well as ancestral hauntings among which Black children grow up. Without examining the material structures, we cannot understand the strategies these haunted Black youth deploy to reach adulthood. Examining the architectural structures that the protagonists of Maud Martha (1953), Brown Girl, Brownstones (1959), Zami (1982), and Sing, Unburied, Sing (2017) grow up in and around, I demonstrate …

Les Représentations Féminins Dans Le Cinéma Maghrébin: L'Expérience Des Femmes Et Le Rêve Féministe Dans Les Silences Du Palais Et Viva Laldjérie, Danielle Mills

Theses and Dissertations--Modern and Classical Languages, Literature and Cultures

It is evident that in the realm of gender studies concerning the Maghreb, many scholars have studied literary texts from prominent female Maghrebi writers such as Assia Djebar and Fatima Mernissi. However, certain forms of expression have been neglected, such as film. The purpose of this work is to analyze and evaluate how cinema has portrayed the situation of women in the postcolonial Maghreb. I will be examining two examples of Maghrebi cinema which include the Tunisian film Les silences du palais by Moufida Tlatli and the Algerian film Viva Laldjérie by Nadir Moknèche. Through the examination of these two …

Gender And Remittances: Lived Experiences Of Women In Oaxaca, Mexico, Araby Smyth

Theses and Dissertations--Geography

This dissertation project analyzes the ways that migration and remittances, the money that migrants send to people in their place of origin, intersect with the political and social dynamics in an Indigenous community in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec region of Oaxaca, Mexico. Drawing on 16 months of ethnographic fieldwork, which included semi-structured interviews and participant observation alongside historical archival investigation, this dissertation examines the following questions: What international organizations, national government, and private sector policies govern remittances? How does Indigenous collective work and communal governance shape remittance management? How do the responsibilities of family members shift with migration and how …

First-Person Politics: Strategies Of Latin/X American Women To Change The Neoliberal Requirements For Empowerment And Inclusion One Share, Like, Subscribe At A Time, Marlee Northcutt

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

This project investigates the strategies of Latin/x American women who have used their voices and influence in the media to break barriers, enter spaces that have excluded them, and advocate for changes so that young girls like them do not have to face these same limitations. Chapter One investigates politicians who, from their political power positions, interweave personal stories with their accomplishments to provide role models for these careers. Chapter Two identifies actors who combine their personal stories with activist causes to alter representation in TV and film. The YouTubers in Chapter Three bolster a rhetoric of empowerment to encourage …