Women's Studies Commons^™

True Independence Or Fake Freedom: Deconstructing Media Representations Of Women In Chinese Otome Games, Xiaoyu Song

Journal of International Women's Studies

The rise of women gamers has driven demand for emotional virtual experiences, particularly in otome games with romantic narratives. Offering a hybrid methodology, this study analyzes character portrayals in three popular Chinese otome mobile games—Mr. Love: Queen’s Choice, Light and Night, and Tears of Themis—while also exploring the responses of women players through semi-structured interviews. The findings reveal that women protagonists in otome games are often young, dependent on men characters, and hold subordinate roles, thus underscoring the presence of traditional gender norms. This aligns with media studies scholarship that suggests media representations of women often …

From The Margins To The Center: A Discourse Analysis Of Vietnamese Feminism On Facebook Confession Pages, Phan Van Kien, Dao Quang Trung, Tran Bao Son, Nguyen Le Dinh Quy

Journal of International Women's Studies

This study investigates how feminist ideas are taking shape in contemporary Vietnam, focusing on how young women engage with social media—particularly university confession pages—as sites for emotional expression, identity negotiation, and resistance to traditional gender norms. In a society marked by rapid modernization, increased digital connectivity, and the enduring influence of Confucian values, online platforms have emerged as significant cultural spaces where new meanings of femininity, desire, and agency are constructed and contested. Using a qualitative approach, this study combines semi-structured interviews with discourse analysis to explore how university-aged women express themselves in digital spaces that are anonymous, performative, and …

A Queer Feminist Response To The Racist Reception Of Halle Bailey’S The Little Mermaid: Misogynoir And Anti-Fan Facebook Users In Vietnam, Trung M. Nguyen

Journal of International Women's Studies

This essay examines the ways anti-Blackness is manifested in Vietnam through Facebook anti-fans’ reactions to Disney’s The Little Mermaid (2023) starring Halle Bailey, a Black American actress, in the role of Ariel. Analyzing the racist and colorist remarks within Facebook users’ comments and posts about the movie and utilizing misogynoir as the main concept of critique, the author demonstrates the phenomenon of anti-Black misogyny in Vietnam and focuses on the “I’m not racist, but…” trope. Uncovering the queer history of Hans Christian Andersen’s work, this essay adopts a queer feminist lens to defend the filmmakers’ choice to depict Ariel as …

Humor Subversif Dalam Video Musik Balance Ton Quoi Oleh Angele, Nur Annisa Khalish Zarkasya, Airin Miranda

Multikultura

The phenomenon of the #MeToo and #BalanceTonPorc hashtags became the focus of attention in various parts of the world in 2017. It was first popularized by Alyssa Milano on her Twitter account using the #MeToo hashtag, and later followed by Sandra Muller with #BalanceTonPorc in France. The feminist movement on social media inspired many artists and musicians, including Angèle, a singer from Belgium. She released a song and music video titled "Balance Ton Quoi" (2019), in which she expressed that the activist spirit of feminism resides within her, turning her song into a feminist anthem. The messages conveyed in her …

Epistemologi Intelijen Dalam Narasi Negara Yang Bias Tentang Gerwani Dalam G30s 1965, Nadilya Adhwari Firyasa, Donny Gahral Adian, Meutia Irina Mukhlis

Multikultura

This study analyzed epistemic bias in the state’s narrative about Gerwani during the 1965 G30S event using the epistemology of intelligence approach. Through a qualitative philosophical method, this research evaluated the state’s processes of information acquisition, interpretation, and dissemination, focusing on the identification of political bias, gender bias, confirmation bias, framing effects, overconfidence bias, as well as the use of misinformation and disinformation. The findings revealed that the state’s narrative about Gerwani was systematically constructed to support the New Order regime’s political agenda through the manipulation of information. These biases led to dangerous epistemic failures and justified violence and the …

Life-Course And Biography Of Things: Minangkabau Women's Headgear, Attari Putri Denendra, Irmawati Marwoto

International Review of Humanities Studies

Like men, objects also have a biography or life-course. Both biographies are intertwined, so when someone experiences a new life phase transition in their life-course, it will cause changes in the objects attached to them. This is also supported by the statement that the identity is performative. The headgear as one of the elements used by Minangkabau women also represents the identity of the wearer. This research was conducted in three stages: (1) data collection in the form of old photos and literature of Minangkabau women with headgear in Batipuh, Fort de Kock, and Payakumbuh, (2) data processing by analysis …

Black Women And The Suffrage Movement: Margaret Walker And Her Impact On Black Women's Suffrage In Virginia, Emmalee J. Layton

Bound Away: The Liberty Journal of History

This paper examines the women’s suffrage movement, focusing on the battle for voting rights in the state of Virginia. Specifically, it will interrogate how the women’s suffrage movement related to Black women, and what it looked like for them to seek equal access to voting, highlighting the Equal Suffrage League of Virginia and its racist history. This paper also looks into Margaret Lena Walker, and the channels that she, as a Black woman, had to take in order to advocate for Black women’s voting rights prior to the passage of the 19^th Amendment of the Constitution, as well as …

Inappropriate Attire: Fashion, Nationality, And Shame In Quicksand And Pachinko, Minyoung Park

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article, Minyoung Park examines how fashion in Quicksand by Nella Larsen and Pachinko by Min Jin Lee functions not simply as a visual strategy for passing but as a site where the wearers’ conflicting feelings—shame, desire, and defiance—emerge and persist. Rather than evaluating the success or failure of passing, the article shifts focus to the process of dressing—selecting, maintaining, and reflecting on clothing—through which identity is negotiated and feelings are embodied. The protagonists, Helga and Sunja, often dismissed as failures, are reconsidered as figures whose attention to their inappropriate or excessive fashion reveals their emotional labor and strenuous …

The Blurry Line: Examining The Balance Between Feminism And Nationalism For Women In Early 20th Century Ireland, Seamus M. Clune

History Summer Fellows

The early 20th century in Ireland was a complex and confusing period. Between British Imperialism, The Gaelic Revival, World War I, the suffrage movement, and the Irish War of Independence, the period was fast and turbulent. Above the shifting ground, Irish women activists balanced two key political causes: feminism and Irish nationalism. Past scholarship has examined the coexistence of these two ideals. At times, one suppressed the other. At other times, they worked in tandem. This project offers a new interpretation of Irish women's political activity through a close reading of the letters and memoirs of three people: Constance Markievicz …

The Call Of Cucurrucucú, Rachel Olivia Blair

Dissertations and Theses

This is a site of geologic excavation; where charged voices like porous monoliths and forked-tongue shapeshifters call out in fragmented polyphony. What lies broken or misshapen, what can be pieced back together.

What is purity when the body that is being inherited is drowning in murky waters.

No One Listens To Melian: When Women Speak And Men Ignore Them In Middle-Earth, Sara Brown

Journal of Tolkien Research

Throughout J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth legendarium, opportunities exist for male characters to participate in and learn from the wisdom and experience offered by female characters: what is remarkable is how often they fail to do so. The consequences of this failure are often considerable, ranging from a failed marriage (Aldarion and Erendis) to the loss of an entire kingdom (Melian and Thingol). However, on one occasion where a female character, Aredhel, is listened to, she is then severely punished via the narrative. The question must therefore be asked – what is Tolkien telling us about this gendered space of learning?

On Bodies In The Middle: Black Women, Sexual Violence, And Complex Imaginings Of Justice By Maya Hislop, Domale Dube

Criticism

Review of Bodies in the Middle: Black Women, Sexual Violence, and Complex Imaginings of Justice by Maya Hislop. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2024. Pp. 184. $29.99 paperback.

The Detrimental Impact Of Benevolent Sexism On Women, Lucy Jessee

AWE (A Woman’s Experience)

Sexism is often defined as negative attitudes toward or discrimination against a person because of their sex or gender identity. This issue is well known and frequently discussed in schools, politics, social situations, and popular culture; however, not many people understand that sexism can come in many forms. Hostile sexism, the more commonly imagined type of sexism, consists of blatantly derogatory, exclusive, or antagonistic attitudes or actions toward women. This can take many forms, such as negative stereotypes regarding women’s competence, degradation of a woman’s worth or value, violence against women, or limitation on a woman’s opportunities because of her …

A Contentious Bond: The Mother-Daughter Relationship, Amelia Hapgood

AWE (A Woman’s Experience)

It is a tale as old as time: a mother and daughter, struggling to understand and outdo the other, not realizing the uniformity between them. They are duplicates, coded with the same DNA. The daughter strives to become more than her mother, and her mother watches and witnesses everything that she could have become. It is a battle for power, to be seen and verifiable. They bicker, yell, and cry, often unable to find common ground. Greta Gerwig coined this concept perfectly in her film Lady Bird, where the featured mother and daughter cannot do anything but scream at …

Shifting Mindsets: The Second Wave Of Feminism In Brian Friel’S The Freedom Of The City, Jennifer Tenner

AWE (A Woman’s Experience)

In Brian Friel’s The Freedom of the City, Elizabeth Doherty (Lily) is a mother of eleven children who stumbles into the Guildhall, along with two young men, after a peaceful civil rights protest turns sour. During the hours spent in the Guildhall, Lily is subject to demeaning and oppressive comments. From the reporter Liam O’Kelly to Michael and Skinner, each of them makes quick assumptions about Lily without letting her speak, leading her to believe that she never had “an experience, an event, even a small unimportant happening been isolated, and assessed, and articulated”. However, over the course of …

The Reinterpretation Of The Round Shaker Barn: How Patriarchal Values Changed The Doctrine, History, And Architecture Of A Religion, Caroline Johnson

AWE (A Woman’s Experience)

The Shaker Round Barn in Hancock Massachusetts has long been studied for its historical significance and insight into the life and beliefs of the nearly extinct religion. Within the discipline of art history, it is one of the only Shaker buildings discussed in entry-level architecture classes, portrayed to be the physical personification of the Shaker faith. The current narrative of the Shakers has simplified not only this particular structure but the entire religion, down to a few distinguishing characteristics: their name, which came from their exuberant worshiping practices; their founder, Mother Ann Lee, being the female reincarnate of Jesus Christ; …

Sui Sin Far Vs. Dehumanization, Hannah Swenson

AWE (A Woman’s Experience)

In 1882, Chinese immigrants were deemed by Congress to be a corrupting influence in America; thus the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed, barring Chinese laborer immigration and the naturalization of Chinese immigrants. Their foreign cultural customs made them “unassimilable,” and their strong work ethic and acceptance of extremely low wages “rendered them an economic threat and thus targets of racial violence”. In 1889, the United States Supreme Court upheld the act, stating that Chinese immigrants were “‘a different race . . . dangerous to [America’s] peace and security’”. Subsequent laws further marginalized Chinese residents, depriving them of legal rights and …

Contradictions, Emily Orton

AWE (A Woman’s Experience)

No abstract provided.

The Woman Song, Olivia Sorenson

AWE (A Woman’s Experience)

No abstract provided.

The People God Made, Starly Pratt

AWE (A Woman’s Experience)

No abstract provided.