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“Girl Power, Selfies, And Sexiness”: An Investigation Into The Neoliberal And Postfeminist Era Of Influencer Marketing, Amalie A. Werenskiold 2023 CUNY Graduate Center

“Girl Power, Selfies, And Sexiness”: An Investigation Into The Neoliberal And Postfeminist Era Of Influencer Marketing, Amalie A. Werenskiold

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In today’s social media-centered popular culture, fashion, and lifestyle influencers maintain rigid and sexist forms of femininity which are spread to a large consumer base through influencer marketing. Research on postmodern feminism has revealed that the standardized modern woman is supplied with freedom, fun, and sexiness, allowing women to live their lives as they best see fit. Yet not all women are able to experience similar feelings of liberation and gender inequality is still a regular feature of society. This study observes Instagram images, captions, and comment sections of 61 distinct female influencers from the Instagram explore page. The evidence …


Writing As Liberation: Challenging Yemeni Patriarchal Practices, Sheema Alamari 2023 CUNY Graduate Center

Writing As Liberation: Challenging Yemeni Patriarchal Practices, Sheema Alamari

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Patriarchal societies create an environment where men hold power and women are often treated as second-class citizens or are often held as having an inferior status. Throughout history and across cultures, literature has provided a platform for writers to share their stories and express themselves. However, Yemeni women have often been silenced and marginalized due to limited education and censorship. In recent times, Yemeni and Yemeni-American women have turned to storytelling as a means of creative expression and emotional release. This thesis analyzes Zubaida “Jasmine” Sharif’s memoir, Caged in America: One Woman’s Journey Through the Veil, and Nadia Al-Kowkabani's …


Selecting Authority: The Compiler And Female Mystical Sources In Speculum Devotorum, Caitlin J. BranumThrash 2023 University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Selecting Authority: The Compiler And Female Mystical Sources In Speculum Devotorum, Caitlin J. Branumthrash

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

The fifteenth-century Speculum devotorum, or Mirror to Devout People, is best known for incorporating the texts of mystical women into its narrative of the life of Christ, likely because it has an explicitly stated female audience—a nun of Syon. Rather than considering how the female audience may have perceived the female sources in Speculum devotorum, this article investigates the compiler’s views of his female sources based on how he incorporates them into his work. I argue that the compiler treats his female sources as full auctores, but he only includes their works when he addresses what he considers female …


The Queer Life Of Lorena Hickok, Samantha D. Leyerle 2023 CUNY Graduate Center

The Queer Life Of Lorena Hickok, Samantha D. Leyerle

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis explores the life of Lorena Hickok, a remarkable woman whose story has been glossed over throughout history. Hickok was an accomplished journalist and writer, and her life offers a fascinating glimpse into being queer in the early twentieth century. While much has been written about Hickok’s relationship with Eleanor Roosevelt, this thesis aims to go beyond their connection to examine Hickok’s entire life and experiences in greater detail. Through analyzing her work as a writer, as well as her personal correspondence and unpublished autobiography, this thesis illuminates the quiet details of defining moments in history, including the Great …


Muscling Through: Athletic Women In Victorian Popular Representation, 1864–1915, Julia G. Fuller 2023 CUNY Graduate Center

Muscling Through: Athletic Women In Victorian Popular Representation, 1864–1915, Julia G. Fuller

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

“Muscling Through” reconstructs an overlooked history of strong female bodies in the nineteenth century. It argues that popular representations of athletic women introduced a new category of identity that was distinct from women’s traditional relational and social roles. The project’s central figure is the hyper-able “Sportswoman,” who bridges the gap between two familiar versions of the Victorian woman’s body: the mid-century ideal of docile, domesticated femininity and the sturdy, capable women who enter universities, professions, and public spaces en masse just before the turn of the century. Representationally, the Sportswoman figures a range of attitudes, from anxious to aspirational, toward …


Angels Of Many Houses: Reconciling Domesticity In 19th-Century Victorian Literature, Amanda Vierra 2023 College of the Holy Cross

Angels Of Many Houses: Reconciling Domesticity In 19th-Century Victorian Literature, Amanda Vierra

College Honors Program

The rise of the Victorian middle class is known for solidifying a separation of gender roles, with women operating in the private, domestic sphere and men in the public sphere. This historical value placed on domesticity is reflected in the rise of domestic fiction, the dominant genre of Victorian literature, which commonly depicts young, middle-class women making their way in the world. The plot of these narratives revolves around women perfecting or contending with their place in the domestic sphere through courtship, marriage, and family. Scholars on domestic fiction have continued to argue over whether domestic fiction reflected the oppressive …


Women Parliamentarians In India Since 1991: Challenges And Opportunities, Vatsala Bhusry 2023 Columbia University in the city of New York

Women Parliamentarians In India Since 1991: Challenges And Opportunities, Vatsala Bhusry

Hatfield Graduate Journal of Public Affairs

India gained a new economic orientation in 1991 following the policy of economic liberalization. It offered the opportunities to close the gender gap in various fields including the political field as visualized in the original goal of the Indian constitution. However, there is an acute underrepresentation of women at the national political level and there is a lack of evidence-based research studies to analyze this gap. This study maps the political trajectories of 13 elected women leaders holding offices at the national level since 2019. To better understand the challenges and opportunities at both macro and micro levels they came …


The Honor Framework: Empowering Adolescent Girls To Address Violence, Naelijwa Manongi, Joel Raveloharimisy 2023 Andrews University

The Honor Framework: Empowering Adolescent Girls To Address Violence, Naelijwa Manongi, Joel Raveloharimisy

Adventist Human-Subject Researchers Association

Adolescent girls worldwide are subject to various forms of violence, such as corporal punishment and sexual abuse inflicted by family members, caregivers, and school violence. Girls are particularly vulnerable to gender-based violence, including sexual violence, exploitation, abuse, forced marriage, and human trafficking. While there is evidence that violence can be prevented, high rates of violence persist, and girls require empowerment and honor-based strategies to reclaim their power. Violence can have severe physical, psychological, and social consequences, making it crucial to address the issue. In this paper, we propose the HONOR framework. This approach combines Social Emotional Learning (SEL) and Development …


Recipes For Building Relationships, Adriana Lintz 2023 Rhode Island School of Design

Recipes For Building Relationships, Adriana Lintz

Masters Theses

This thesis explores the history of women's access to education and the issues of gender disparity in education. I focus on single-gendered schools as I write from personal experience to describe the benefits for individuals in single-gender educational systems. I cite conflicting research on how men and women learn regarding biological, cognitive, and developmental differences. I illuminate some of the benefits of single-gendered education through research, experience, and personal communications. I write about the controversies and disparities regarding education and single-gender schools. I document research on the issues women face in education and the politics of women’s bodies and minds …


Reclaiming Narratives Of Sexual Assault: An Examination Of The #Metoo Movement And Social Media, Katherine V. Marano 2023 City University of New York (CUNY)

Reclaiming Narratives Of Sexual Assault: An Examination Of The #Metoo Movement And Social Media, Katherine V. Marano

Student Theses and Dissertations

Untruths depicted by American media has shaped narratives about sexual assault and negatively affected the credibility of female sexual assault victims. Since women began the viral #MeToo movement in 2017, there is a need for research about the shifting sexual assault narratives in the United States. My project examines how this movement and use of social media has allowed women to reclaim narratives about sexual assault, spanning from October 2017 to April 2023. Specifically, my project analyzes ways in which the media responded to the #MeToo movement and how female created social media videos amplify sexual assault stories. I argue …


Woman Flytrap, Brianna Jo Hobson 2023 CUNY Bernard M Baruch College

Woman Flytrap, Brianna Jo Hobson

Student Theses and Dissertations

Woman FlyTrap is a short story zine collection that explores the topic of sexual violence through the perpetrator and victim relationship with an explicit lens. Replete with cultural and entomological themes and motifs, Woman Flytrap seeks to remind survivors that we are not alone. In our bodies or in our lives. Neither in the world. There are over a million insects to every human, proving that there is strength in numbers. All five stories in the collection present different abstracts: revenge, transformation, justice, healing, body image, self-harm, mourning, etc. There is also a playlist and a section about the author. …


Queer Not: Medieval Romance's Toll On Queerness, Kyle Gaydo 2023 Seton Hall University

Queer Not: Medieval Romance's Toll On Queerness, Kyle Gaydo

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

How does a contemporary audience handle medieval queerness? What, exactly, constitutes medieval queerness, and how does the medieval literary genre of romance impact it? This thesis attempts to grapple with these questions, and many more, utilizing the 13th-century Old French romance Le Roman de Silence by Heldris de Cornuälle. Medieval romances are particularly fruitful for this analysis because, on one hand, the genre consistently re/turns to cisheteronormativity, and, on the other, because scholarship generally has not applied queer theory to the study of romance. Silence follows Silence, a young Englishwoman who is raised as a boy to protect her family’s …


Androgynous Figures On Etruscan Cista Handles From Praeneste, Melanie Naples 2023 Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College

Androgynous Figures On Etruscan Cista Handles From Praeneste, Melanie Naples

LSU Master's Theses

Muscular women and effeminate men adorn the lids of Etruscan Cistae found in Praeneste (modern Palestrina, 23 miles southeast of Rome, Italy). Cistae (Latin plural of cista) are storage containers used by the Etruscans for women’s beauty items. This thesis focuses on the androgynous, mostly nude, figures that serve as handles and are often displayed in pairs. These pairs frequently depict a man and a woman together and androgynous qualities are usually emphasized on the female figures. Discussions of the androgynous body in the ancient world have centered around Greece and Rome. Only recently (Sandhoff 2007, 2009, 2011), scholarship has …


Calladitas No Nos Vemos Más Bonitas: Testimonios Of Mexican Migrant Catholic Mothers’ Resistance To Marianismo, Jessica Guadalupe Ornelas 2023 University of San Francisco

Calladitas No Nos Vemos Más Bonitas: Testimonios Of Mexican Migrant Catholic Mothers’ Resistance To Marianismo, Jessica Guadalupe Ornelas

Master's Theses

The purposeful killing of women due to their gender (feminicide) is an atrocious global act that has been ascending at an alarming rate, over the past couple of years. Specifically, last year in México and in the duration of six months, there were close to 3,000 victims of gender based killings in México, which is about 10 casualties daily (ONU Mujeres, 2022). While most studies have centered their attention on systemic causes that lead to gender based violence, the amount of research that closely analyzes the ways these causes are interwoven with womens’ everyday lived experiences of social and personal …


Food & Cultural Entrepreneurship: Recipes For Upward Social Mobility Among Emprendedoras Inmigrantes In The Bay Area, Mariel Hernandez 2023 University of San Francisco

Food & Cultural Entrepreneurship: Recipes For Upward Social Mobility Among Emprendedoras Inmigrantes In The Bay Area, Mariel Hernandez

Master's Theses

A qualitative research study explores the experiences of female immigrant entrepreneurs in the San Francisco Bay Area including their journey of self-employment and the challenges they have faced based on their sex, migration status and access to social capital and resources. Understanding existing knowledge on migration theory and labor economics, sustainable labor integration, as well as the gendered nature of labor migration, it is determined that female migrants can access upward social mobility through labor markets and entrepreneurship. The study identifies various commonalities between the participants including and their opportunities for social mobility. Based on five interviews with immigrant women, …


“There’S A Double Meaning In That”: Heroism And Blessedness In Much Ado About Nothing, Laura Elizabeth Gregory 2023 University of Nebraska at Kearney

“There’S A Double Meaning In That”: Heroism And Blessedness In Much Ado About Nothing, Laura Elizabeth Gregory

Great Plains Graduate Review

I have chosen to include this line “There’s a double meaning in that” (spoken by Benedick in Act 2 scene 3) in the title of this analysis as a way of introducing the play’s two heroines: Hero and Beatrice, and my argument that these women’s names at once symbolically exemplify and ironically contrast with their characters’ natures. While referring to scholarship on Shakesperean names, allegory, and societal and gender roles, I will consider the meaning of these names—Hero meaning “hero” and Beatrice meaning “blessed” or “blessing”—and examine the ways that these characters define and are defined by heroism, blessing, and …


Kathleen Hanna: An Investigation Into Riot Grrrl, Elena Haffner 2023 Augustana College

Kathleen Hanna: An Investigation Into Riot Grrrl, Elena Haffner

Audre Lorde Prize

A zine on the third-wave feminist movement riot grrrl and one of its most prominent members, Kathleen Hanna.


Women In Dentistry At The University Of Mississippi: Increasing The Confidence And Skills Of Future Women Dentists, Lakin Cramer 2023 University of Mississippi

Women In Dentistry At The University Of Mississippi: Increasing The Confidence And Skills Of Future Women Dentists, Lakin Cramer

Honors Theses

Women in Dentistry became a registered student organization in February 2022. The purpose of the organization is to encourage and promote the professional and personal success of women in dentistry on the University of Mississippi Oxford campus. The historical and current literature of Women in Dentistry serve to provide a framework for the importance of uplifting women as they prepare for a career in dentistry. During my time as Founder and President of Women in Dentistry, my goal was to establish the organization, provide mentorship to prospective female dental school applicants, and increase the confidence and skills of future women …


« Iel Dit Quoi ? » : A Study Of The Origins And Evolution Of Francophone Gender-Neutral Pronouns And Inclusive Language And A Discussion Of French Versus Canadian Acceptance, Alyssa Claire Langlois 2023 University of Mississippi

« Iel Dit Quoi ? » : A Study Of The Origins And Evolution Of Francophone Gender-Neutral Pronouns And Inclusive Language And A Discussion Of French Versus Canadian Acceptance, Alyssa Claire Langlois

Honors Theses

Our interpretation of human gender identity has never been constant. And with it, language has always shifted in order to best represent the many different gender identities and expressions that people associate with themselves. This research examines the current gender-inclusive and gender-neutral French language that exists in both France and Canada. I use three factors: occupational nouns, l’écriture inclusive, and neopronouns, especially iel, the most common. In this thesis, I evaluate what exists, what has yet to be accepted, and the many different public reactions. I analyzed statements from official language offices, current event articles, and opinions pieces, as well …


Haramed And Dangerous: A Thematic Examination Of Muslim Women’S Representation In We Are Lady Parts, Reham Bohamad 2023 The University of Southern Mississippi

Haramed And Dangerous: A Thematic Examination Of Muslim Women’S Representation In We Are Lady Parts, Reham Bohamad

Dissertations

Since the early days of Western media, Muslim women have been portrayed in a negative way. From belly dancers to oil-rich horny sheikhs to voiceless passive wives of terrorists. This image has led the Western spectator to associate Islam and the Muslim women’s headscarf (Hijab) with backwardness, extremism, and oppression. In recent years, there has been a positive shift towards a more inclusive and authentic representation of Muslim women. This shift is the result of the post-network era which provides on-demand media outlets that challenge the dominant hegemonic production system and provide diverse and inclusive images that cater to niche …


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