Women's Studies Commons^™

Growth Of Women-Owned Businesses: The Effects Of Intangible Resources And Social Competence, Crystal X. Jiang, Monica A. Zimmerman, Chun (Grace) Guo

WCBT Faculty Publications

Previous research suggests that women entrepreneurs face many challenges in starting and growing a business. In this study, we examine the relationship of intangible resources and the growth of women-owned businesses. We focus on four intangible resources: social-, human-, and reputational capital, as well as social competence. Using case studies of women entrepreneurs, we found that a woman entrepreneur’s social-, human-, and reputational capital are related to the growth of her business. We alsofound that social competence moderates the social-, human-, and reputational capital – growth relationship in women entrepreneurs.

Theatre Of The Oppressed: Transitioning Feminist Pedagogy From Theory To Praxis, Megan Mary Rae

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Bell Hooks states in her text Feminist Theory: From Margins to Center that there is a "missing link" between feminist theory and praxis (113). This creates a "tug-of-war" mentality in higher education between practitioners and academics (hooks 113). Paulo Freire also challenges education structures with his critique of "the banking system" in his text Pedagogy of the Oppressed (72). In 1971, Augusto Boal created a venue of theatre founded on these educational challenges called Theatre of the Oppressed that allows for discussion, participation, and a shared experience between actors and audience members. In this research, I demonstrate the use of …

I Had An Abortion: Midwest Women, Stigma And Disclosure, Katie Stack

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Since the legalization of abortion is 1973, both pro-choice and pro-life sides of the debate have struggled for political and cultural influence. Meanwhile, the voices of women who have utilized abortion serves remain unheard, their stories invisible. Largely, this silence surrounding women's abortion experiences has been attributed to the stigma that is associated with the abortion procedure. Other have argued that women are not silent about their abortion experiences, but that they navigate the complex political and social contexts of their lives by managing the stigmatized identity of having had an abortion. By utilizing in-depth, semi-structured interviews, and encouraging a …

A Feminist Content Analysis Of Seventeen Magazine, Brittany Marie Trimble

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Over the past two decades, there has been growing concern among researchers, clinicians, and policy makers regarding the sexualization of female adolescents in the media. Developmental psychologists and researchers argue that adolescents are particularly vulnerable to messages presented in the media, as these messages are internalized as real. These messages afflict long-term emotional and physical effects on adolescent girls. Through content analysis and extensive research, The American Psychological Association (APA) Task Force (2010) argued that the sexualization of adolescent girls and women directly effects the psychosocial development of young women, creating self-objectification, negative self-images, anxiety, shame, depression, eating disorders, and …

Mother Of Three Drowns Children And Other Stories, Laura L. Stubbins

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

A collection of short stories depicting fictional characters facing what is absent from their lives.

(Women's) Archival Spaces And Trans Voices? A (Re)Search And Proposal, Jeremy Curtis Main

Master's Theses

Transgender has been silenced, exiled, forgotten, erased, ignored, maltreated, killed, and ultimately, in a major theme of this research project, excluded from histories. Yet, like women, African-Americans, and gay men and lesbians before them, transgender and their allies are working toward inclusion and independence. History, it seems, can no longer ignore them. One of the surest ways to "prove" a history is to have the original items of that history in an archives. So, what representation do we find among various United States' archives concerning transgender people? Unfortunately, like with many other marginalized groups, much work has to be investigated …

Invisible Margin: Marginalization And Activism Of Adivasi Women In Researches In Bangladesh, Aanmona Priyadarshini

Master's Theses

In the context of historical marginalization of indigenous people from diverse ethnic communities in Bangladesh, this study will investigate how mainstream researches and writings, in books, research reports, newspapers, and blogs on indigenous issues have ignored women's relegation by homogenizing women's distinctive problems with communities' marginalization. The research will explore indigenous women's subordinations in diverse sphere of lives and activism against the power structure that mainstream researches have overlooked. The study will also investigate the possible pathways of solidarity to challenge the systems of power that create control over indigenous people's lives. Thus this research will explore following research questions: …

Ritual As Clinical Intervention In Groupwork With African American Women, Kathryn Kristin Berg

Master's Theses

This paper is an exploratory study on the subject of ritual as clinical intervention in groupwork with African American women. It is predicated on the idea that ritual has the potential to foster emotional growth in clients by creating structure and facilitating processes of transition. Ritual has largely been underexplored in the literature as a clinical intervention. However, there is a particular gap in research on ritual in groupwork with African American women. The first half of this paper provides an overview of social work scholarship covering individual branches of the subject, including spirituality in social work, spirituality in the …

Homeless Mothers As Parent Leaders, Dorothy Ann Milligan

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

Presents a qualitative study examining the general conditions that lead to single mother homelessness and the impact of being homeless on their ability to parent effectively, based on interviews with mothers who are clients of First Place, a Seattle, Washington, social service agency. The purpose of the study is to identify different paths of life stabilizing strategies and parenting of women who have been in touch with the same agency. The research attempts to determine how the mothers achieved stability amid daily stress through examination of how the stories reflect decisions, initiatives, and commitments that helped them reach a level …

Masculinity, Sexuality, And Soccer: An Exploration Of Three Grassroots Sport-For-Social-Change Organizations In South Africa, Sarah Theresa Mcghee

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Programs that utilize soccer as a tool for social change are steadily emerging throughout townships and rural areas in South Africa, the most economically disadvantaged areas of the country. In South Africa, grassroots sport-for-social-change organizations are compensating for failed government policies and programs that seek to help at-risk youth. As a result, program staff are often members of the community who are not versed in academic critiques of the use of sport in development initiatives. Additionally, much of the existing literature on sport-for-social-change champions the advancement of specific projects without asking critical research questions, which should include the appropriateness of …

Women's Leadership In Philanthropy: An Analysis Of Six Giving Circles, Deborah A. Witte

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

Women have played an essential role in the development of philanthropy in the United States. While their giving behavior and financial contributions have been studied extensively, other aspects of their philanthropy-namely leadership-have not been documented as completely. The giving circle-a new trend within philanthropy where groups of individuals pool their money, and through educating themselves about issues in their community, decide together where to award their funds-provides an ideal case for this study, as the majority of giving circle members are women. In order to gain a better understanding of women's leadership, focus groups were conducted with more than 35 …

Problematizing "Autonomy" And "Tradition" With Regard To Veiling: A Response To Seval Yildirim, Anissa Helie

Publications and Research

Debates related to Muslim women’s dress, specifically, often pit religious freedom, individual liberty, and cultural rights against women’s rights and gender equality. Hélie's response to Yildirim (specifically her discussion of national and international legal responses to “headcoverings”) does not focus on legal aspects, but rather on gendered practices and their ideological roots.

Hélie adopts a global lens, recognizing that whilst historical and socio-political specificities are crucial to grasp the nuances of each context, questions related to dress codes in Muslim contexts nevertheless relate to issues affecting our world at large. Hélie discusses two main aspects of Yildirim's argument - namely: …

Understanding Social Integration And Student Involvement As Factors Of Self-Reported Gains For African American Undergraduate Women, Edna Jones Miller

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Diversity of student populations within higher education has considerably increased, particularly for women and minority populations, which is indicative of greater access to education toward a college degree. However, increased diversity of student populations has introduced a new set of challenges for higher education administrators in that it is becoming increasingly difficult for administrators to maintain current educational methods when considering the changing needs of matriculating students. As a result, higher education institutions are compelled to strategize beyond the "one-size-fits all" approach in the way teaching and support services are delivered in order to provide a more holistic approach to …

An Interactive Guide To Self-Discovery For Women, Elaine J. Taylor

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This project is a translation of ideas I have encountered in my journey through Women's Studies. With this interactive book, I offer a concise, understandable, and empowering method for self-discovery from one feminist's perspective. Traditional self-help materials often set the reader up as the one with the issue or problem and they rarely call out the functioning systems of oppression as a stumbling block or offer ways to circumvent them. With this project, I hope to shine light on the functioning systems of gender discrimination, racism, classism, and heterosexism, and to provide a framework for understanding. There are three main …

Selling The Third Wave: The Commodification And Consumption Of The Flat Track Roller Girl, Mary Catherine Whitlock

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In an ethnographic examination of the "modern" roller derby movement that began in the early 2000s, I explore Women's Flat Track Derby in Florida. What does it mean to be a roller derby player? How is she conceptualized and commodified? Or more centrally, how is third wave feminism used as a catalyst of this commodification? In order to fully appreciate, understand, and even embrace roller derby, I look at roller derby leagues as social movement organizations (SMOs) in order to note how they frame themselves and maintain collective identity the commodification of third wave feminism. First, I will explore various …

Can You Believe She Did That?!:Breaking The Codes Of "Good" Mothering In 1970s Horror Films, Jessica Michelle Collard

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The threats found in horror films change with time, each decade consisting of threats that were most frightening for the time period. Horror film scholars, such as Andrew Tudor, determined that in 1970s horror films the threat has migrated from external forces into the home and the family. Invading aliens and monsters were thrown replaced by psychosis and evil children. This notion of making the familiar unfamiliar and threatening is paralleled in concerns addressed during the second-wave of feminism; women were making the normative and familiar idea of mother unfamiliar as they migrated from the private and into the public …

A Phenomenological Study Of The Experiences Of Women In Leadership And Community At Old Dominion University From 1970 To 1990, Ann E. Wendle Barnes

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Theses & Dissertations

During the 1970s college campuses in the United States were often the venue through which change occurred. Female faculty and students were assertive in their efforts to influence equality between men and women across the country (Morris, 1984). This historical phenomenological study examined the oral history of several women who advocated for women's rights at Old Dominion University (ODU) by establishing the Women's Caucus, Women's Studies Program, and Women's Center during the late 1970s through the 1990s.

Participants selected for this study took part in semi-structured interviews, and the results of the interviews were triangulated with archived documents available at …

The Influence Of International Human Trafficking On United States Prostitution Laws: The Case Of Expungement Laws, Carrie N. Baker

Study of Women, Gender, & Sexuality: Faculty Publications

When the issue of human trafficking first gained widespread public attention in the United States in the 1990s, the discussion centered on international human trafficking. In 2000, the United States passed an anti-trafficking law, popularly called the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA), and the United Nations adopted an anti-trafficking treaty called the Palermo Protocol. Both the TVPA and the Palermo Protocol focused on combating international human trafficking by encouraging countries around the world to pass laws against trafficking and prosecute traffickers. Meanwhile, in the United States, state-level criminal justice systems treated United States citizens qualifying under the federal definition of …

Intuition And Feminist Constitutionalism, Suzanne B. Goldberg

Faculty Scholarship

In any constitutional system, we must ask, as a foundational inquiry, when and why a government may distinguish between groups of constituents for purposes of allocating benefits or imposing penalties. For feminists and others with a stake in challenging inequalities, the rationales that a society deems acceptable for justifying these classifications are centrally important. Heightened scrutiny jurisprudence for sex-based and other distinctions may help capture some of the rationales that rest on stereotypes and outmoded biases. However, at the end of the day, whatever level of scrutiny is applied, the critical question at any level of review is whether, according …

The Impact Of Cross-Cultural Transition On Intercultural Relationships Using A Strengths-Based Approach, Kristen Naylor Calderon

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

This study explored the ways in which intercultural relationships are affected by cross-cultural transition through the lens of the female experience. Specifically, this research examined (1) in what ways women felt that cross-cultural transition impacted their relationship, especially with regards to cultural values and male-female role taking; and (2) what kinds of benefits women experienced in their relationships as a result of moving across cultures with their partner. A total of 15 non-Chilean women in intercultural relationships with Chilean men were interviewed; all women had lived with their partners in her home country and then moved together to Chile.

Results …