Women's Studies Commons^™

There Are No Fat People In The Netherlands: Embodied Identities, Hypervisibility, And The Contextual Relevancy Of Fatness, Jean Ochterski

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This research is the product of a month long exploratory study on fatness in the Netherlands and how it intersects with other marginalized identities, including race, class, and queerness. The primary question it answers is the ways in which hypervisibility of fat bodies interplays with the silences surrounding size as an axis of identity. The research removes fatness from solely conversations in the public health field and re-situates it in a feminist, academic framework. Data was obtained through oral history interviews with seven self identified fat people currently living the Netherlands. The results show that childhood, dieting practices, standards of …

Women's Studies Newsletter Fall 2013, Women's Studies Program, Wright State University

Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Newsletter

This is a sixteen page newsletter created by the Wright State University Women's Studies Program documenting current affairs, events, as well as other happenings on campus.

This issue features interviews with current students, a notice for a lecture by Dr. Jacobi Williams, a bio of scholar-in-residence Geraldine Moriba, approved Women's Studies courses for Spring 2014, and more.

“A Southern Expendable”: Cultural Patriarchy, Maternal Abandonment, And Narrativization In Dorothy Allison's Bastard Out Of Carolina, Natalie Carter

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

Bastard Out of Carolina is a remarkable text for many reasons: Allison’s unsentimental portrayal of profound poverty in the Old South; her unflinching depiction of incest; and the conclusion—devastating for character and reader alike—all contribute to the “flawless” nature of this novel. Perhaps most remarkable, though, is Allison’s ability to seamlessly weave a particularly Southern tradition of masculinity and violence into this heartbreaking tale of a daughter’s trauma and a mother’s abandonment. In this article, I will investigate Allison’s multifaceted portrayals of trauma in Bastard Out of Carolina, which—when combined with an analysis of social and economic traditions in …

"I Have Thought Proper To Inform The World": Reading Unconventional Testaments Of 18th-Century New England Women, Elyssa Tardif

Open Access Dissertations

Early New England women chose to pass down what they owned and valued: clothing, cupboards, pewter dishes, commonplace books, etc. But some women passed down something more: a written testament, which sought to shape public opinion in colonial New England. A "testament" usefully suggests a text that both serves as a witness to lived experience as well as the means by which the individual herself can frame the narrative for those who come after. This project aims to examine not only written records but also their audience: who were the heirs to these testaments and how were the records preserved …

Women In The Workforce: An In-Depth Analysis Of Gender Roles And Compensation Inequity In The Modern Workplace, Rebecca L. Ziman

Honors Theses and Capstones

This paper explores the increase in participation and education of American women in the workforce with a special focus on women in business and accounting roles. The paper then goes on to discuss the wage gap between genders, how to remedy inequality in the workplace, and highlights several reasons why pursing a solution to gender inequality is beneficial for both the employee and the company.

Queer Pedagogical Desire: A Study Guide, Matt Brim

Publications and Research

This essay explores the queer pedagogical desires that attended my writing of the Study Guide for the documentary film United in Anger: A History of ACT UP (Jim Hubbard, 2012). The analysis takes up Robyn Wiegman’s central question in Object Lessons, “What is it we expect our relationship to our objects of study to do?”, which is of particular importance to the discipline of queer studies insofar as the field is oriented around the desire to meld social justice with critical pedagogy. The queer professor’s desire in the case of the Study Guide-as-object was to create a text that …

Fros, Weaves, And Kinks: The Social And Political Significance Of Hair For Black And Coloured Women In Cape Town, Carol Antunez

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This project seeks to explore and understand hair performance by black and coloured females in Cape Town and understand 1) its possible political significance and 2) its social role. This ISP will attempt to explore the construction of hair as a symbol of class and beauty by looking at its historical significance. In this paper, I will investigate how young women in Cape Town, specifically black and coloured women, choose to represent themselves through hair and explore the connotations attached to their particular hairstyle choice. Furthermore, in this paper I will try to answer the following questions 1) Do black …

Living Openly: 2 Narratives Of Black And White Lesbians Living In Cape Town, Rebecca Gant

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

After apartheid, South Africa created an amazingly progressive Constitution that was one of the first in the world to include gay rights. The passing of a law legalizing same-sex marriage, as well as the Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act work to create a world of equality and acceptance of homosexuality, at least on paper. Unfortunately, a far different reality exists, as the failed implementation of these provisions has created a large dichotomy between Constitution and public opinion, with many individuals remaining unsupportive of gay rights. My project originally sought to explore the effects of this discrepancy …

I Don't Want To Save Second Base, Chelsea E. Broe

SURGE

Tomorrow kicks off Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and I have one request: This October, let’s not save second base.

I know, I know, you probably think this month is a good thing. If not for all of those T-shirts demanding every female-bodied person to feel their boobies, or the bracelets simply proclaiming “I love boobies,” people with breasts might forget that they even have them, or at the very least might start to think that their breasts are their own business. But the female body seems to be an object owned by the public, so we must always be reminded …

High School Textbooks And The Changing Narratives Of Woman Suffrage, Kellian Clink

Library Services Publications

History textbooks are criticized for their dry prose, lack of description of causation, and ability to turn students away from the discipline of history. The authors surveyed 16 textbooks from 1933 through 2005 studying their coverage of woman suffrage. The textbooks treat the issue summarily and miss a great opportunity to describe the injustices perpetuated against women, the valor and courage of the activists who persisted and won during a sustained battle by hundreds of thousands of determined women. Furthermore, the textbooks surveyed end with the amendment and do not immediately put it into historical context, with the right to …

New Matriarchs: Louisville, Kentucky (Fa 768), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid and representative photographs for Folklife Archives Project 768. The collection details the lives of seven women from around the globe (India, Syria, Mexico, Uganda, Russia, Argentina, and Somalia),all recent immigrants to Louisville, Kentucky.

The Irony Of Choice, Cam T. Nguyen

SURGE

We are having the inevitable late night conversation. You talk about your eventual wedding, your marriage to the person you love, the timeline you’ve created for yourself, and your plans for what our future children will do together. I clarify that I don’t want to have children, but you can’t seem to understand that decision. You question how happy, satisfied, or fulfilled my life will be without children, the maternal instincts I’m supposed to be feeling, and my desire to have something to care for and love. You’re convinced that I will recognize how empty my life will be sans …

How Richard And Wanda Help Me Teach A Gl-D-Flagged First Year Seminar, Priscilla D. Atkins

Faculty Presentations

My goal was to design an FYS that challenges students to ponder deeply about issues of race, ethnicity, gender and other diversities via a means infused with a léger de main. "Comedy Cubed" (which this year morphs to "Of Humanity and Humor"), most of the time, succeeded in doing this. I will be sharing assignments, including stand-up video clips, student comments, and, hopefully, Hope College junior Brother Chris Jones, who served as a TA.

Book Review: Appropriately Indian: Gender And Culture In A New Transnational Class, Harasankar Adhikari

Journal of International Women's Studies

Review of Appropriately Indian: Gender and Culture in a New Transnational Class by Smitha Radhakrishnan (New Delhi: Orient Blackswan, 2012)

Book Review: Ecofeminism And Rhetoric: Critical Perspectives On Sex, Technology, And Discourse, R. K. Shalyefu

Journal of International Women's Studies

Review of Ecofeminism and Rhetoric: Critical Perspectives on Sex, Technology, and Discourse by Douglas A. Vakoch (New York: Berghahn Books, 2011)

Book Review: Women And Subsidised Housing In Kwazulu-Natal: The Extent Of Empowerment, Mvuseleo T. M. Mgeyane

Journal of International Women's Studies

Review of Women and Subsidised Housing in KwaZulu-Natal: The Extent of Empowerment by Catherine Ndinda (Saarbrücken: Lambert Publishing, 2011)

Book Review: Why Have Kids? A New Mom Explores The Truth About Parenting And Happiness, Rebecca Stevens

Journal of International Women's Studies

Review of Why Have Kids? A New Mom Explores the Truth About Parenting and Happiness by Jessica Valenti (Boston: New Harvest, 2012)

Book Review: Muslim Women In Britain: De-Mystifying The Muslimah, Katherine Bullock

Journal of International Women's Studies

Review of Muslim Women in Britain: De-Mystifying the Muslimah by Sariya Contractor (London: Routledge, 2012)

Book Review: Understanding And Applying Research Design, Mercy Nduku Ngungu

Journal of International Women's Studies

Review of Understanding and Applying Research Design by Martin Lee Abbott and Jennifer McKinney (New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, 2013)

Book Review: Researching Society And Culture, Maureen Nduku

Journal of International Women's Studies

Review of Researching Society and Culture, edited by Clive Seale (London: Sage Publications, 2011)