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Sex At Any Cost: How Gender Inequality, Capitalism, And Pornography Are Driving A $99 Billion Industry, Gina Vucci

Senior Theses

There are more slaves today than at any other time in human history. The International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates that there are more than 40 million slaves worldwide. This paper accompanies a 6-part webinar series of the same title that explores how gender inequality, capitalism, and pornography are driving a $99 billion illegal industry. The paper begins by defining what human trafficking is and includes both forced labor and commercial sexual exploitation. Six primary forms of human trafficking are explored, including domestic servitude, bonded labor, child slavery, sex trafficking, and forced marriage. Next, the paper explores who the victims of …

Feminist Friendship As An Affective Engagement Through The Arts: A Decolonial And Posthuman Becoming-With Rebeca Lane's Alma Mestiza, Miguel Ángel Blanco Martínez, Paola Mendoza Téllez-Girón

disClosure: A Journal of Social Theory

This paper considers friendship as an affective terrain of feminist alliance among subjects that belong to territories with a colonial record responding to the colonial/modern gender system (Lugones 2007) through the arts. Friendship is here conceptualized as an engagement of feminist solidarity unfolding within theoretical and practical models of change and resistance against the logics of cultural imperialism (Lugones and Spelman 1983). Turning friendship into a polyphonic feminist reaction, this work is conducted by acknowledging the need to foster dialogues where different authorial voices and feminist positionalities meet, reflect, and speak. The paper settles the encounter between its authors in …

Homosocial Desire In Tsitsi Dangarembga’S Everyone’S Child, P. Jane Splawn

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

This paper explores the subtle explorations of homosocial desire in Tsitsi Dangarembga’s 1996 film Everyone’s Child. In her deft, though subtle, treatment of the social bonds among young males in the film, the filmmaker opens a space for queer readings. Societal inscriptions of gender and sexuality are also queried, as a teen engages in sex work to provide for herself and her orphaned siblings. While the film has been described as a film “about AIDS and orphans” (Lee, 2006, p.135), the paper proposes that Everyone’s Child is so much more than this. The paper considers the work of Sommerville (2000) …

“Blessed Within My Selves”: The Prophetic Visions Of Our Lorde, Flávia Santos De Araújo

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

This essay discusses the intellectual and poetic work of Audre Lorde and its significance for contemporary global movements for liberation. My discussion considers Lorde’s theorizing of difference and power, as well as her poetic work, as prophetic interventions within the context of the 1960s to the early 1990s. I argue that Lorde’s intellectual and literary work is the result of a black woman’s embodied experiences within the intersections of many struggles—notably, the ones against racism, sexism, and homophobia. This strategic positionality becomes, as I discuss, the centrality of Lorde’s prophetic vision of collective and inclusive liberation: one that permeates past …

Sexual Real Estate: Repatriation, Reterritorialization, And The Digital Activism Of Nicole Amarteifio’S Web Series An African City, Tori Arthur

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

When Nicole Amarteifio, a Ghanaian born-United States raised repatriate to Ghana, uploaded the first episode of An African City to YouTube on March 2, 2014, she began a transnational televisual movement. The series, with two seasons completed and aired and a third season in the works, is a global powerhouse that not only shifts narratives about African mass media production and consumption, but also challenges limited notions of African life, especially for a new generation of the continent’s women. As the first of its kind on the African continent, the web series not only reconfigured the West African media landscape …

Imperatrix, Domina, Rex: Conceptualizing The Female King In Twelfth-Century England, Coral Lumbley

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

This article draws on methods from transgender theory, historicist literary studies, and visual analysis of medieval sealing practices to show that Empress Matilda of England was controversially styled as a female king during her career in the early to mid twelfth century. While the chronicle Gesta Stephani castigates Matilda’s failure to engage in sanctioned gendered behaviors as she waged civil war to claim her inherited throne, Matilda’s seal harnesses both masculine and feminine signifiers in order to proclaim herself both king and queen. While Matilda’s transgressive gender position was targeted by her detractors during her lifetime, the obstinately transgender object …

The Making And Silencing Of “Axé-Ocracy” In Brazil: Black Women Writers’ Spiritual, Political And Literary Movement In São Paulo, Sarah S. Ohmer

Publications and Research

In this article, I will focus on two influential writers from the south of Brazil, Cristiane Sobral who currently lives in Brasília, from Rio de Janeiro, and Conceição Evaristo who currently lives in Rio de Janeiro state, from Minas Gerais. I got to know them in São Paulo in 2015 at a public event: the “Afroétnica Flink! Sampa Festival of Black Thought, Literature and Culture.” I will include references to some of their younger contemporaries such as Raquel Almeida, Jenyffer Nascimento, and Elizandra Souza, all of whom reside in São Paulo, in order to illustrate the Black Brazilian women writers’ …

Around Her Table: A Digital Community Archive Featuring Azorean-American Women In New England, Suzanne Lyn Parenti Sink

English Theses & Dissertations

Around Her Table is a born-digital dissertation dedicated to collecting, preserving, and validating the Azorean-American woman’s immigrant experience and cultural identity through the transformative power of participatory archives. The site address is www.aroundhertable.org. The digital exhibit features the oral histories and artifacts related to the domestic sphere of six Azorean-American families, with particular emphasis on artifacts related to the kitchen, hand-worked textiles, and religious practices. Driving the urgency for the creation of new archival records for this community is that fact that despite the nearly one million North Americans who trace their ancestry to the Azores, traditional institutional and civic …

From “Hot Mommies” To Differently Abled Mothers: Diverse Portrayals Of Mothering In An Indonesian Women’S Magazine, A. Priyatna, L.M. Rahayu, M. Subekti

Journal of International Women's Studies

Mothering and motherhood are among two key components of the construction of femininity. This study examined how mothering is embodied and performed by various women in Femina, Indonesia’s most popular women’s magazine, which targets primarily middle- or upper-middle-class women in their twenties and thirties. The sample set consisted of 17 portrayals of women as mothers in Femina during the years 2015 and 2016. We found that Femina depicts various ways in which women can function as mothers while remaining contented and balancing their different roles; in doing so, the magazine encourages a feminine and feminist celebration of mothering. Femina’s representations …

Japanese Gender Role Expectations And Attitudes: A Qualitative Analysis Of Gender Inequality, Melanie Belarmino, Melinda R. Roberts

Journal of International Women's Studies

Due to current technology and the third wave feminist movement, gender inequality in other countries now has a global, socially aware platform. However, due to non-reporting, the voices of women experiencing violence and inequality in Japan are largely unheard. The purpose of this qualitative study is to investigate the gender role expectations in Japan that lead to inequality and victimization inflicted on Japanese women. Data was obtained through interviews with all available and consenting bilingual speakers at a Japanese University, and findings reveal that there are very specific expectations for Japanese women in the home, at work, and in society. …

Conceptualisation Of Honour Codes Amongst Turkish-Kurdish Mothers And Daughters Living In London, Ferya Tas-Cifci

Journal of International Women's Studies

The present study analyses how immigrant women transfer and preserve their traditional honour codes, and whether women from different generations (mothers and their daughters) adhere to the same codes. Focusing particularly on the Turkish-Kurdish community living in London , the study asks, ‘How traditional honour codes are conceptualised and transferred by the women of the Turkish-Kurdish community and whether mothers and daughters share the same opinion about them.’ In a traditional society it is considered to be mothers’ duty to ensure that their culture and traditions, and particularly honour codes, are transferred and taught to their children, especially to their …

Media Empowers Brave Girls To Be Global Activists, Gayle Kimball

Journal of International Women's Studies

A surprising way to silence young women globally, in addition to overly protective families, is by scholars of youth studies and development professionals. Ageism against youth is rarely discussed, so this article reveals this academic bias that ignores or discounts youth voices—especially young women. However, in the safe space of their bedrooms, the Internet and the cell phone enable young women to express their voices, even to organize uprisings. They can get around family restrictions and desires to protect them by speaking publicly from a private space. Some media provide empowering images for young women activists and informative networks of …

Representations Of Domestic Workers In Modern Arabic Fiction, Samaher Aldhamen

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this study, I have examined the representations of domestic workers in a number of Arabic mid-century and contemporary novels, using feminism and intersectionality as my overarching framework. I employed several scholarships of feminism such as Marxist and postcolonial feminism to examine the discourse on working-class women. The initial assumption of this study is that there is a noticeable invisibility of domestic workers in Arabic novels. If these characters manage to find their way into a text, they are typically ahistorical figures whose subjectivity is not centered.

Among the Arabic novels I have examined, I found that the tradition of …

Political Object Or Individual Subject?: Dominant Dutch Narratives Vs. Migrant Identities, Ashley Little

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This research study analyzes the impact of public narratives in The Netherlands upon the individual narratives of second-generation migrant women in the labor force. Viewing narratives as on one hand, symbolic and rhetorical, and on the other hand, as pragmatic and structural, I attempt to draw a correlation between public narratives and individual narrative production, arguing that discourses and practices of discrimination originate—and often intensify—through the relationship between these two narrative modes. I hypothesize the ways in which both migrant and native Dutch narratives currently challenge, but also have the potential to challenge, this dually-produced and dually-reinforced discrimination narrative. Correspondingly, …

Introduction: Women’S Movements And The Shape Of Feminist Theory And Praxis In Latin America, Erin E. O'Connor, M. Gabriela Torres

Journal of International Women's Studies

No abstract provided.

Imaging Exploitation, Complexity, And Paradox In Subaltern Labor Photography, Mahnure Janis

Theses and Dissertations

Imaging Exploitation, Complexity, and Paradox in Subaltern Labor Photography is an expanded cinema performance examining 'cheap' labor in the fast fashion industry through a self-reflexive diasporic lens. The images and narration explores the garment factories in Bangladesh and contains ‘a photographer’s cognitive meta-data’, including ethical dilemmas while taking the images.

Say Luv: Reimagining The Black Female Body, Jer'lisa Devezin

Art Theses and Dissertations

From hottentot venus to Cardi B, the influence of the white representation and the treatment of the black female body has shaped a culture of oppression amongst Black women, having surpassed the white community and trickled into the black community. In hip hop culture, reality television, and social media, black women are portrayed as angry and are stereotyped as ghetto and ignorant. On the music scene woman are always sexualized under the male gaze, however now that we are in the twerk era Cardi B is giving a new perspective to the representation of women in hip hop. By using …

Maternal Criticism: Reading Two Middle Eastern Women Writers As Nonviolent Peace Activism, Charlyn Marie Ingwerson

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation advocates for reading the literatures of two Middle Eastern women writers through a Maternal Critical lens that recognizes the demands of universal vulnerability in characters who resist violence, and responds in Maternal communities of Readers that connect readers to characters, readers to writers, and readers to other readers, carrying the struggle for equity forward. My unfolding argument, centered on Maternal Critical activity in the novels of Palestinian writer Sahar Khalifeh and Israeli writer Ronit Matalon, demonstrates how literature by these Middle Eastern women is part of a narrative context of women’s peacemaking and resistance to violence, a part …

Demonic Pedagogy And The Teaching Saint: Voice, Body, And Place In Cynewulf's Juliana, Christina M. Heckman

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

In Cynewulf’s Old English poem Juliana, the saint frames her encounters with her adversaries as pedagogical confrontations, refusing the lessons they attempt to “teach” her and ultimately adopting the identity of a teacher herself. These confrontations depend on three key tropes in the poem: Juliana’s voice, as a material manifestation of language deployed by the saint; her body, both as living body and as relic; and place, especially the place of the saint’s martyrdom and/or burial. Viewed through theories of material feminism, these tropes reveal diverse forms of agency in the poem, as both human and non-human agents make …

Unraveling Ethos: The Commodification Of Ethical Clothing, Oliva Hanson

Cultural Studies Capstone Papers

In the last decade there has been a noticeable attempt to subvert traditional modes of clothing production. The recent emergence of “ethical consumption” in the fashion industry is a case in point. This project argues that these new formations and practices around ethical consumption are mere appropriations of anti-corporate politics and sentiments for consumers in the West. Signification of ethical consumption through language and cultural capital give more value to individual articles of clothing and branded entities. This reformation of the clothing industry towards an ethical attitude is a rebranding tactic that avoids the source-issue altogether. Through advertising and normalization …

The "Fat Acceptance And Fat Pride Movements" And Consumer Culture: A Critical Intervention On Popular Obesity Discourses, Gabriella Josephine Papas

Cultural Studies Capstone Papers

This project is presented as a critical intervention into the larger debates surrounding the U.S. fat acceptance and fat pride political ‘movements,’ at a historical moment when the country is suffering from a deep obesity epidemic and crisis. At a time of deep concern about increasing healthcare costs and overall societal health, the fact that the dominant discourse among fat activists tends to contradict prevalent positions and findings of contemporary medical research calls for a critical ideological critique of the movements and an interrogation of their rhetoric. In this project Gabriella Papas’ critique combines concepts from both cultural studies and …

Queering Dominant Modes Of Writing And Identity Formation In Audre Lorde’S Zami: A New Spelling Of My Name, Charlie Martin

Cultural Studies Capstone Papers

As part of a historical formation of marginalized authors who interrogate dominant modes of writing and identity formation in their work, self-described “Black lesbian mother warrior poet” Audre Lorde remakes and reimagines dominant conventions of identity and literary genres in her novel Zami: A New Spelling of My Name to articulate her unique subjectivity as a Black American lesbian writer. Drawing on the work of scholars and activists in the fields of queer theory and feminism, including Cheryl Wall, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, and Audre Lorde herself, Charlie Martin uses textual and contextual analysis to examine the indelible link between Lorde’s …

Rewriting Women: A Feminist Examination Of Lolita's And Pride And Prejudice's Costume And Revisionist Adaptations, Courtney A. Duchene Ms.

English and Creative Writing Honors Papers

This project examines costume and revisionist media adaptations of Lolita and Pride and Prejudice to see how adapters have altered the texts in order to increase the agency of the female characters. It consists of four chapters: one on the 1962 and 1997 cinematic costume adaptations of Lolita; one on the 1995 BBC mini series and the 2005 film costume adaptations of Pride and Prejudice; one on the Pride and Prejudice revisionist adaptations, Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001) and the 2012-2013 Youtube series The Lizzie Bennet Diaries; and one on the revisionist film adaptations of Lolita, The Diary …

Why Study Language? Discussing Language And Its Influence On Gender Discrimination, Katelyn Eisenmann

Honors Projects

An applied research project, with the culminating piece being a panel discussion that focused on the ways in which language use and structure contribute to attitudes and perceptions of gender within our society, and the politics that surround concepts of gender.

Bat Meets Girl: Adapting The Dark Knight’S Love Life To The Big Screen, Brandon Bosch

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

It is no secret that Hollywood loves a good romance. What is perhaps sometimes overlooked however is how important romance and female characters are to male-dominated action films. Esma Kartal argues women and romance are deliberately placed into action films to create “romantic relief” and attract female viewers for greater crossover appeal.¹ In addition to romance, Yvonne Tasker observes how women in action films serve as a witness for “the hero’s suffering” and humanity in action films.² Finally, a classic use of women and romance in action films is that of the damsel-indistress, which continues to this day …

Women's, Gender, And Sexuality Studies Newsletter Spring 2019, Sandra L. Faulkner

Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies Newsletters

No abstract provided.

Sexual Assault On College Campuses: The Links Between Hegemonic Masculinity, College Sports, And Sexual Violence, Vanessa Iroegbulem

Sexual Ethics

This paper seeks to explore the social and neurobiological factors that shape men into sexual aggressors by rewarding violent behaviors. It will critique the exploitation and the commodification of male bodies through sports, namely football.

Exploring Pronatalism And Assisted Reproduction In Uk Medicine, Alexa Warnes

Journal of International Women's Studies

Globally, procreation is highly valued, and motherhood has long been seen as the normative role for women. Production of a biologically-related family in keeping with social norms is a key driver of the growing demand for assisted reproductive technologies as a ‘cure’ for infertility, which includes the provision of in vitro fertilisation (IVF) within the UK’s National Health Service (NHS).

In this paper I argue that pronatalism – a social bias in favour of biological motherhood – entrenches harmful social norms for women as a group. I will question whether assisted reproductive technologies in the form of IVF bring radical …

"New Writings In Feminist And Women’S Studies Winning And Short-Listed Entries From The 2018 Feminist And Women’S Studies Association’S (Fwsa) Annual Student Essay Competition", Laura Clancy, Irralie Doel

Journal of International Women's Studies

No abstract provided.

Violence As A Site Of Women’S Agency In War: The Representation Of Female Militants In Sri Lanka’S Post-War Literature, T. N. K. Meegaswatta

Journal of International Women's Studies

The increasing visibility of armed women in violent conflicts in the modern world has unsettled conventional beliefs of inferiority, weakness, innocence, and the resultant fragility and victimhood of women. Although in theory it is possible to conceptualize armed woman and violence as empowerment, in practice, the temporal realities that inevitably haunt any discussion of ‘terrorism’ and ‘terrorists’ in conflict ridden polarized societies severely curtail the terminology available to frame militancy in general and the ‘terror’ it generates as ‘liberatory’. However, fictional and non-fictional literary work that were published in the aftermath of Sri Lanka’s war (1983-2009) between the state forces …