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Ramseyer’S History Denialism And The Efforts To “Save Ramseyer”: Focusing On Critique Of “A Response To My Critics” (2022), Sung Hyun Kang Dec 2022

Ramseyer’S History Denialism And The Efforts To “Save Ramseyer”: Focusing On Critique Of “A Response To My Critics” (2022), Sung Hyun Kang

Journal of International Women's Studies

This article focuses on Ramseyer’s “Contracting for Sex in the Pacific War: A Response to My Critics.” Ramseyer did not accept critiques that evaluated his claims, logic, and empirical methods for denialism in document analysis as lacking academic integrity and research sincerity. His response is mostly limited to the issue of “contractual structure at the wartime ‘comfort stations,’” and addressing the idea that women were never “forcibly conscripted at gunpoint or hauled away against their will.” He continues to argue that women were not “forcibly conscripted” because they agreed on “indentured servitude” contracts based on “credible commitments,” which represent “choices” …


The Feminization Of Mexico City In The Late Twentieth Century: Polvo De Gallina Negra, Pola Weiss, And Lourdes Grobet, Alexis N. Corral Dec 2022

The Feminization Of Mexico City In The Late Twentieth Century: Polvo De Gallina Negra, Pola Weiss, And Lourdes Grobet, Alexis N. Corral

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis centers on select artworks in public intervention, photography and video as an exploration of female's relationship to Mexico City's social landscape and urban space during the late 1970s into the early 1990s. In three case studies, I explore historical urban planning, gender relations, and the effects of modernization.


Sacred Sex Or Purely Prostitution? Women’S Health During The Covid-19 Pandemic In Roro Kembang Sore Tomb, Tulungagung, East Java, Indonesia, Diah Ariani Arimbi, Gesang Manggala Nugraha Putra, Nurul Fitri Hapsari Dec 2022

Sacred Sex Or Purely Prostitution? Women’S Health During The Covid-19 Pandemic In Roro Kembang Sore Tomb, Tulungagung, East Java, Indonesia, Diah Ariani Arimbi, Gesang Manggala Nugraha Putra, Nurul Fitri Hapsari

Journal of International Women's Studies

The practice of seeking pesugihan (a Javanese term for fortune or wealth, usually achieved by visiting a sacred burial ground of a historic prominent figure or mythical beings) through free-sex rituals is one of the factors that has increased the prevalence of HIV and AIDS, especially in the Tulungagung region of East Java, Indonesia. Often under the guise of tradition, this practice is maintained without proper supervision from governing agencies. To assess this problem, this study focuses on mapping the origin and distribution of free-sex myths in the pesugihan ritual, especially at the burial site of Nyi Roro Kembang Sore, …


“I Live A Model Life, Now I’M Ready To Be A Top Wife”: Stereotypical Representations Of Black Women In Reality Television, Joy C. Enyinnaya Nov 2022

“I Live A Model Life, Now I’M Ready To Be A Top Wife”: Stereotypical Representations Of Black Women In Reality Television, Joy C. Enyinnaya

Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women's & Gender Studies

Stereotypical representations of Black women have endured throughout various forms of media for decades, with one of the most recent platforms being reality television programming. The theory of encoding and decoding posit dominant stereotypes are key in television encoding. Using critical discourse analysis, this paper demonstrates that the dominant ideologies in the eleventh season of The Real Housewives of Atlanta are social class norms and negative depictions of Black women. I present evidence that RHOA continues to reinforce upper-class ideologies while perpetuating the Jezebel, Sapphire and the Strong Black woman stereotypes. I also identify a correlation with the strong Black …


The Ripple Effect Of Terror: Escalating The Rules Of Patriarchal Conformity Upon The Psyche Of Women In The Oleander Girl, Chitra Susan Thampy, Pauline V N Nov 2022

The Ripple Effect Of Terror: Escalating The Rules Of Patriarchal Conformity Upon The Psyche Of Women In The Oleander Girl, Chitra Susan Thampy, Pauline V N

Journal of International Women's Studies

Women continue to be deprived of their right to live independently and within acceptable boundaries. Indian women frequently take up the responsibilities of preservers of culture and tradition. They are constrained by an excessive number of laws and regulations, most of which are justified in the name of customs and religion. The patriarchal power that is inherent in Indian society shapes how they experience the Indian value system. In the case of the lives of women in the diaspora, due to their struggles with the financial and psychological uncertainties of exile, the responsibilities of family and career, and the claims …


Productivity To Precarity On Instagram: Digital Feminism In India During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Anhiti Patnaik Nov 2022

Productivity To Precarity On Instagram: Digital Feminism In India During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Anhiti Patnaik

Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women's & Gender Studies

This paper examines how digital feminism deconstructed neoliberal ideals of technological productivity in India during the Covid-19 pandemic. By creating a productivity scale, I delineate new social disparities and risk factors brought on by the unprecedented shift to a work-from-home digital economy. Through theories of biopower, I argue that technology is not neutral, apolitical, or unequivocally in favour of equal access and human rights. The creation of a new social group termed the 'technoprecariat' during lockdown is discussed using a 'cripqueer' approach to digital feminism. I extend Judith Butler's early work on gender performativity to the neo-liberal ideal of gender …


Women's Agency And Pastoral Livelihoods In India: A Review, Aayushi Malhotra, Sailaja Nandigama, Kumar Sankar Bhattacharya Nov 2022

Women's Agency And Pastoral Livelihoods In India: A Review, Aayushi Malhotra, Sailaja Nandigama, Kumar Sankar Bhattacharya

Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women's & Gender Studies

The role of women in promoting and sustaining pastoral livelihoods remains an under-researched area across the world. Often, studies discuss pastoralism as a male-oriented enterprise, thus overshadowing or ignoring the part played by women in such livelihood practices. In India, where pastoralism itself is essentially a neglected area of research, such discussions remain even sparse. Pastoral communities depending on migratory livestock rearing practices for their livelihoods exhibit gender-based differences in their everyday life in terms of division of labour, mobility patterns, and rights over resources. Women play different roles and responsibilities at the household and community levels that remain intertwined …


Visiting The House Of Bad's Mother: Queering Saadat Hasan Manto's “Thanda Gosht”, Namita Goswami Nov 2022

Visiting The House Of Bad's Mother: Queering Saadat Hasan Manto's “Thanda Gosht”, Namita Goswami

Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women's & Gender Studies

This essay reads Saadat Hasan Manto's short story, “Thanda Gosht” (1950), depicting women's experience of sectarian brutality during the 1947 partition of India and Pakistan, to delineate the postcolonial significance Gayatri Spivak's concept of originary queerness. Manto's synecdoche (“cold meat”) for an unnamed and raped female corpse, her Sikh abductor and violator, as well as for the story's readers, (re)figures reproductive heteronormativity as a process of unknowing that emplaces a gendered taxonomy, even when its victims are silent. Rather than reinforce sexual difference as a finished itinerary, however, Kulwant Kaur's repeatedly piercing question—who she is—queers “Thanda Gosht” by …


Performing Dalit Feminist Youth Activism In South India: Rap, Gaana, And Street Theater, Pramila Venkateswaran Nov 2022

Performing Dalit Feminist Youth Activism In South India: Rap, Gaana, And Street Theater, Pramila Venkateswaran

Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women's & Gender Studies

Young Dalit men and women are changing the narrative of casteist oppression in India. Youth activists perform protest songs in the genre of rap and gaana, using elements of slam poetry and rap from African American artists and blending them with local musical innovations. The performances have deliberate messaging, signaling particular caste and gender injustices, both current and historical. This paper will analyze Dalit youth performances of rap, gaana, and street theater (koothu) in South India, particularly in Tamil Nadu, to understand the poetics of protest against caste and gender oppression. It will look at the notion of space in …


Full Issue, Winthrop Mcnair Research Bulletin Oct 2022

Full Issue, Winthrop Mcnair Research Bulletin

The Winthrop McNair Research Bulletin

Winthrop McNair Research Bulletin Volume 5, Full Issue


Unbearable Weight: Women And The Shaping Of Political Subjects Through The Politics Of Corporeality, Meenakshi Malhotra, Krishna Menon Oct 2022

Unbearable Weight: Women And The Shaping Of Political Subjects Through The Politics Of Corporeality, Meenakshi Malhotra, Krishna Menon

Journal of International Women's Studies

This article explores three moments in recent history where Indian women’s bodies—seen and unseen—highlight the centrality of the female body in the changing political discourse of India. The first moment, the Shaheen Bagh moment, is characterized by the body marked as “Muslim woman” and her occupation of public squares and streets (the protests in 2019-20 against the Citizenship Amendment Act). The second moment is the female body that engaged in unprecedented care work while being subjected to heightened levels of violence in the times of the pandemic, and the third moment is the resilient female body in struggle against neo-liberal …


Comprehending The Bleeding Body: Epistemological Violence And (Un)Tabooing Menstruation In Selective Media Texts In India, Argha Basu, Priyanka Tripathi Oct 2022

Comprehending The Bleeding Body: Epistemological Violence And (Un)Tabooing Menstruation In Selective Media Texts In India, Argha Basu, Priyanka Tripathi

Journal of International Women's Studies

The representation of menstruation in Indian media texts (films, short films, and advertisements) is limited. Besides the advertisement of industrially produced sanitary napkins, we hardly come across their mention. Even in cinematic spaces with female leads, the issue remains unuttered. Since the last half of the previous decade, there has been a conscious attempt to raise awareness around menstruation. Considering menstruation as a socially mediated biological process, in which bodies become sites where social constructions of differences are mapped onto human beings to inflict violence upon the subject, these works have resisted this systematic patriarchal oppression by asking an appropriate …


Women And War: (Dis)Illusionment And Disclosure In Niromi De Soyza’S Tamil Tigress, Goutam Karmakar Oct 2022

Women And War: (Dis)Illusionment And Disclosure In Niromi De Soyza’S Tamil Tigress, Goutam Karmakar

Journal of International Women's Studies

Niromi de Soyza’s Tamil Tigress: My Story as a Child Soldier in Sri Lanka’s Bloody Civil War (2011) is a memoir about a year in the author’s and her friend Ajanthi’s lives when they joined the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE) and fought as female militants in the second phase of the Sri Lankan civil war. Soyza’s autobiographical account depicts the 1980s when the Tamil Tigers were fighting the Sri Lankan government and the Indian Peace Keeping Forces (IPKF) in the northern and eastern parts of the country. As teenagers, Niromi and Ajanthi were highly inspired by the revolutionary …


Cultural Violence, Violent Gendering, And Abjection: Discourses On Sites Of Violence Through Trans Women’S Narratives From India, Tanupriya, Dhishna Pannikot Oct 2022

Cultural Violence, Violent Gendering, And Abjection: Discourses On Sites Of Violence Through Trans Women’S Narratives From India, Tanupriya, Dhishna Pannikot

Journal of International Women's Studies

The conventional cultural construct of gender and sexuality embedded in the dichotomous paradigm makes it challenging for people with queer and trans identities to fit into an assigned social role. Violent gendering takes place where women are seen as second-order beings, disciplined and controlled by men, the first-order beings. The process of feminization and femininity is linked to women, which fixates on the idea that “one is born a woman” rather than “one becomes a woman.” This violent process of acculturation to these set norms comes with a lot of vulnerability for trans people in the form of abiding by …


Recollecting The Body: Violence And Resistance In The Writings Of A Theatre Actress In Colonial Bengal, Anannya Mitra Oct 2022

Recollecting The Body: Violence And Resistance In The Writings Of A Theatre Actress In Colonial Bengal, Anannya Mitra

Journal of International Women's Studies

Critical interventions by black, third world, and/or postcolonial feminists against the homogenizing tendencies of majoritarian narratives of women have led to the emergence of intersectional feminist scholarship and its endeavour to postulate women’s stories along the interfaces of race, class, caste, and gender hierarchies. Historicizing social and material bodies has been a constant engagement here, resulting in the analysis of symbiotic processes of subject formation and otherization, thereby entailing a confrontation with the heterogeneous nature of violence and its functioning in such processes. Using such scholarship, this article seeks to comprehend the interplay of various forms of violence in the …


Of Contested Landscapes And Women’S Bodies: Rape As An Invasive Weapon In Malsawmi Jacob’S Zorami, Debajyoti Biswas, Zothanchhingi Khiangte Oct 2022

Of Contested Landscapes And Women’S Bodies: Rape As An Invasive Weapon In Malsawmi Jacob’S Zorami, Debajyoti Biswas, Zothanchhingi Khiangte

Journal of International Women's Studies

The geopolitical history of India’s Northeast replicates the history of the struggle of the ethnic communities living along what is often referred to as a “troubled periphery.” The fictionalised stories produced in this region, therefore, often betray the wounds inflicted on people living in this contested territory. As such, the history of this place and the story of its people lose their distinctions, allowing ethnographic study and the fluidity of personal narrative to converge and inform each other. Malsawmi Jacob’s Zorami (2018) encapsulates this history of strife and contestation through emphasizing a double significance in the eponymous character symbolising both …


On Violence And Resistance: Narratives Of Women In South Asia, Goutam Karmakar Oct 2022

On Violence And Resistance: Narratives Of Women In South Asia, Goutam Karmakar

Journal of International Women's Studies

No abstract provided.


Market Feminism In Morocco, Claire Madsen Oct 2022

Market Feminism In Morocco, Claire Madsen

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Despite widespread views of “Moroccan Exceptionalism,” Morocco continues to rank poorly on international evaluations of gender equality. This project seeks to understand the extent of the influence neoliberal economic forces in Morocco have had on the feminist landscape. Analysis of Moroccan political history, Foucauldian theories of power relations, and relevant literature on state feminism set the groundwork for the evaluation of the extent state feminism in Morocco can be understood as market-based, in accordance with the definition from From State Feminism to Market Feminsim (2012) by Kantola and Squires. Through interviews of three experts, three meetings with women’s empowerment NGOs, …


Socio-Cultural Determinants Of Women’S Homelessness: A Study Of Dar-Ul-Aman, Multan, Mahwish Rasheed, Tayyaba Batool Tahir, Zahid Zulfiqar Aug 2022

Socio-Cultural Determinants Of Women’S Homelessness: A Study Of Dar-Ul-Aman, Multan, Mahwish Rasheed, Tayyaba Batool Tahir, Zahid Zulfiqar

Journal of International Women's Studies

Home is an integral element of the Pakistani family system, and the idea of home is deeply embedded in Pakistani women’s consciousness. The prime objective of this study is to explore the socio-cultural factors responsible for women’s homelessness. This study highlights various determinants that lead women to leave their homes. The issue of women fleeing from their homes is a matter of disregard in Pakistan’s culture, such an action is considered as an issue of family’s self-image, respect, and honour. In the present study, Marxist and feminist lenses have been used to indicate women’s secondary status that is responsible for …


Revisiting Masculinity And Othering In Diasporic Fiction, Shilpi Saxena, Diksha Sharma Aug 2022

Revisiting Masculinity And Othering In Diasporic Fiction, Shilpi Saxena, Diksha Sharma

Journal of International Women's Studies

Contemporary literary discourse has extensively deliberated upon the construction of the ‘self’ and the ‘other’ that not only legitimizes the politics of othering but also gives rise to the crisis of masculinity in the context of diaspora. Against this background, this article aims to examine the aspects of masculinity in diasporic fiction with a special reference to Buchi Emecheta’s Second Class Citizen (1974), Joan Riley’s Waiting in the Twilight (1987), and Hanif Kureishi’s The Buddha of Suburbia (1990). Deliberating upon the intersection of othering and masculinities, the present article intends to examine the experience of ‘masculinity crisis’ among men of …


Naturalization And Romanticization Of Violence In Indonesian Teen Lit Jingga Series By Esti Kinasih, Aquarini Priyatna, Sri Rijati Wardiani Aug 2022

Naturalization And Romanticization Of Violence In Indonesian Teen Lit Jingga Series By Esti Kinasih, Aquarini Priyatna, Sri Rijati Wardiani

Journal of International Women's Studies

Esti Kinasih is an Indonesian woman writer who writes in the teen lit genre and has a wide readership. This study discusses and problematizes her novels named Jingga Series, a trilogy of novels comprising Jingga dan Senja, Jingga dalam Elegi, and Jingga untuk Matahari. With teenage romance as a backdrop, this series leaves an impression of intense violence towards the female protagonist perpetrated by her male partner, but also by other male and female characters. We find that the novels not only naturalize male aggressiveness, but also normalizes teenage girls as victims of violence. By applying the …


Snowflakebxtch: A Case Study Of Women’S Raptivism In Morocco: Rapping Against Social Injustice And Traditional Gender Roles, Maha Tazi Aug 2022

Snowflakebxtch: A Case Study Of Women’S Raptivism In Morocco: Rapping Against Social Injustice And Traditional Gender Roles, Maha Tazi

Journal of International Women's Studies

In this study, I am interested in investigating the concept of RAPtivism in Morocco from a feminist perspective by examining the potential of women’s rap in constituting a countercultural sphere that is capable of creating wider social and political awareness. To do so, I focus on the case study of Snowflakebxtch, a twenty-four years old Moroccan woman rapper who is known for her outspoken and transgressive freestyles. I draw on a mix research methodology where I combine a content analysis of two interviews conducted with Aisha Fukushima, the founder of RAPtivism, and the selected Moroccan rapper along with a textual …


No One Should Have To Give Birth Alone: An Analysis Of The Efficacy Of Community-Based Doula Programs Serving Ethnic Minorities In San Francisco, Maria Margaret Nelson Aug 2022

No One Should Have To Give Birth Alone: An Analysis Of The Efficacy Of Community-Based Doula Programs Serving Ethnic Minorities In San Francisco, Maria Margaret Nelson

Master's Projects and Capstones

Adverse birth outcomes for both the parent and the child disproportionately affect people of color. Evidence demonstrates that one of the ways to mitigate these negative consequences is through the utilization of a doula, a trained birth companion that is not a medical provider but whose role it is to physically and emotionally support the patient through pregnancy, birth, and postpartum. Community-based doula programs, where the doula is of the same cultural background as the client, are particularly effective in improving birth outcomes in communities of color by providing culturally competent care and helping to navigate a healthcare system that …


Harnessing Your Feminist Rage: A Multimedia Assignment For Upper-Level Courses, Caitlin E. Lawson Aug 2022

Harnessing Your Feminist Rage: A Multimedia Assignment For Upper-Level Courses, Caitlin E. Lawson

Feminist Pedagogy

"Harnessing Your Feminist Rage" introduces a three-part multimedia assignment that encourages students to think critically about feminist anger, particularly as refracted through social media. First, students introduce and analyze a media text or phenomenon that made them angry and reflect upon that anger. Then, using whichever online medium they choose, students call out the offender and express their anger to the audience of their choice in order to meet a specific goal. Finally, students reflect on their expression of anger and their experience creating their response. Overall, the goal is for students to combine their knowledge of feminist theories and …


Discourse(S) Of Identity: Precarity And (In)Visibility In Farida Karodia’S Daughters Of The Twilight, Goutam Karmakar, Rajendra Chetty Aug 2022

Discourse(S) Of Identity: Precarity And (In)Visibility In Farida Karodia’S Daughters Of The Twilight, Goutam Karmakar, Rajendra Chetty

Journal of International Women's Studies

Apartheid South Africa witnessed the forming of cultural and sexual identities within political strategies that were designed to categorize and regulate “non-white” individuals. By dealing with interactions between white men and black women, South African literary works in the penultimate years of apartheid demonstrate apartheid’s structural viciousness and gendered hierarchy through certain innovative deviations. Daughters of the Twilight (1986) by Farida Karodia is one such text that not only sheds light on the masculine, racialized, and patriarchal apartheid structure of the male gaze, but also inherently disallows the female characters of Karodia’s narrative to inhabit neither day nor night, as …


Ndwae Ngone Mwaitu: A Postmodern Cultural Phenomenon Of Dowry Among The Akamba And Its Influence On Spousal Violence, Telesia Kathini Musili Aug 2022

Ndwae Ngone Mwaitu: A Postmodern Cultural Phenomenon Of Dowry Among The Akamba And Its Influence On Spousal Violence, Telesia Kathini Musili

Journal of International Women's Studies

Dowry, also referred to as bride wealth or bride price, is a consultative, amicable, and quantifiable summation of goods exchanged between the groom’s and bride’s families. Traditionally, dowry (ngasya) payment among the Akamba was an obligation for the parents-in-law (husband’s parents), but that has in the recent past transitioned to the husband paying the dowry himself. An emerging trend is, however, catching up with married women budding together and opting to pay the dowry for themselves, which is not only a cultural shock and an empowering paradigm shift but also a ceremony that could be riddled and clouded …


The Angst Of The Dehumanized: Ubuntu For Solidarity, Lillykutty Abraham, Krishna V. P. Prabha Aug 2022

The Angst Of The Dehumanized: Ubuntu For Solidarity, Lillykutty Abraham, Krishna V. P. Prabha

Journal of International Women's Studies

This article attempts to delve into the multiple forms of violence experienced by South African women, within the theoretical framework of the ecological model of abuse proposed by Lori L. Heise (1998). The objective of the article is to explore how the communitarian dimension of ubuntu is absent when the womenfolk is in question. Their existence itself appears to be insignificant compared to their counterparts. Ubuntu cannot be lived or practiced while some are excluded from this concept. Gender inequality and inequitable status of existence cannot be part of ubuntu, as “I am, because you are” or the meaning …


Stitching Narratives Of Gender-Based Violence: Meaning-Making Through Embroidery, Puleng Segalo Aug 2022

Stitching Narratives Of Gender-Based Violence: Meaning-Making Through Embroidery, Puleng Segalo

Journal of International Women's Studies

COVID-19 has altered how we engage with one another. With social distancing as the new norm, and the prolonged lockdown having affected people at various levels of their lives, life has had to be reimagined and reconfigured. One of the things that has remained stable, if not worsened, is the challenge of gender-based violence. In South Africa and many other countries in the world, when strict lockdown rules were introduced, Gender-Based Violence (GBV) started making headlines on many media platforms, sparking protests, online dialogues, and online support networks for those affected. While people were worried about protecting themselves against COVID-19, …


Performing Dalit Feminist Youth Activism In South India: Rap, Gaana, And Street Theater, Pramila Venkateswaran Jul 2022

Performing Dalit Feminist Youth Activism In South India: Rap, Gaana, And Street Theater, Pramila Venkateswaran

Journal of International Women's Studies

Young Dalit men and women are changing the narrative of casteist oppression in India. Youth activists perform protest songs in the genre of rap and gaana, using elements of slam poetry and rap from African American artists and blending them with local musical innovations. The performances have deliberate messaging, signaling particular caste and gender injustices, both current and historical. This paper will analyze Dalit youth performances of rap, gaana, and street theater (koothu) in South India, particularly in Tamil Nadu, to understand the poetics of protest against caste and gender oppression. It will look at the notion of space in …


Women’S Agency And Pastoral Livelihoods In India: A Review, Aayushi Malhotra, Sailaja Nandigama, Kumar Sankar Bhattacharya Jul 2022

Women’S Agency And Pastoral Livelihoods In India: A Review, Aayushi Malhotra, Sailaja Nandigama, Kumar Sankar Bhattacharya

Journal of International Women's Studies

The role of women in promoting and sustaining pastoral livelihoods remains an under-researched area across the world. Often, studies discuss pastoralism as a male-oriented enterprise, thus overshadowing or ignoring the part played by women in such livelihood practices. In India, where pastoralism itself is essentially a neglected area of research, such discussions remain even sparse. Pastoral communities depending on migratory livestock rearing practices for their livelihoods exhibit gender-based differences in their everyday life in terms of division of labour, mobility patterns, and rights over resources. Women play different roles and responsibilities at the household and community levels that remain intertwined …