Digital Commons Network^™

How Gender, Verbal Assertiveness, And Relationship Status Correlate To The Ascription Of Responsibility In Sexual, Catherine Carvalho

Honors Theses

Acquiesced sex is “consenting to and engaging in undesired sexual activity” (Benoit & Ronis, 2022, p. 577). Research has found that perceptions of acquiesced sex are related to demographic variables, such as gender, and conditions, such as the relationship status of actors in a vignette. The present study considers whether variables such as gender and verbal assertiveness of the research participant affects ascription of responsibility for acquiesced heterosexual sex across two conditions (stranger and dating couple). Data were collected through an online survey administered to undergraduate and graduate University of New Haven students. Results indicate that participants' gender, general assertiveness, …

An Intervention To Empower People To Confront Sexism, Rebecca Grace Drake

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

Even though sexist comments and behavior occur frequently in everyday life, people do not often confront the individuals who are responsible. However, interpersonal bias confrontations can be powerful tools for reducing expressions of bias and norm setting. The current studies tested an intervention designed to increase confrontations by harnessing theory and research on what holds people back from confronting. We designed a half-hour intervention consisting of engaging and evidence-based videos on confronting bias and self-reflection exercises to increase personal relevance. The module aimed to boost confronting by intervening at multiple points of the decision-making process by increasing recognition of sexism, …

Exposing Lived Experiences: Eudora Welty's Intersectional Approach To Writing And Photography, Caroline Mccutchen

Honors Theses

This thesis examines how Eudora Welty employs an intersectional approach in her writing and photography to represent the complex identities of elderly Black women in the American South during the Great Depression. Using intersectionality as a framework, this project analyzes how Welty’s work acknowledges the overlapping forces of race, gender, age, and class that shape her subjects’ lived experiences. While documenting adversity, Welty also highlights resilience, agency, and communal empowerment. The study focuses on Welty’s literary works “A Worn Path,” “Ida M’Toy,” “A Pageant of Birds,” and “Cindy and the Joyful Noise,” alongside her Depression-era photographs from One Time, One …

Female Embodiment And Corporeality In Sanskrit Prognostication: A Study Of The Bṛhatpārāśarahorā Śāstra, Tara Sheemar

Journal of International Women's Studies

The connection between traditional Indian knowledge systems of astrology, medicine, and drama has been noted by scholars. Of particular concern for gender analysis is the reading of lakṣaṇas (bodily marks) that developed in astrology. The coded knowledge of astrology—the sharing of fundamental meanings with other Sanskrit knowledge systems—became a significant tool for gendered prognostication, which buttressed normative gender roles for men and women. In this paper, I attempt to unravel the code of lakṣaṇas given in the Bṛhatpārāśarahorā Śāstra, a text composed between the 7th and 9th centuries CE. The focus will be on the sections of the text …

Can't Women Kill?: Women, Violence, And Power In Nazi Germany, Kelly Ornelas

History Theses

This thesis examines the role of women as perpetrators of violence within the Nazi apparatus, challenging traditional narratives that depict them as passive supporters or victims of their circumstances. Through a Foucauldian analysis, it explores how ordinary German women were conditioned by Nazi propaganda, manipulated discourses, and social expectations to engage in acts of brutality, often without direct orders. Case studies, including Erna Petri and Ilse Koch illustrate how women actively participated in the mechanisms of state violence without rank or official status, raising critical questions about complicity and moral responsibility. This study interrogates the bounds of guilt, arguing that …

Displaced Nostalgia, Nava Derakhshani

Theses and Dissertations

Exploring themes of identity, displacement, gender, and belonging, this paper examines the artist's work and her approach to her art. She covers the many influences that she has access to while unable to visit her ancestral homelands. Acknowledging the translation that comes from this removal, her art is in conversation with other diasporic, exiled, marginalised groups. She makes art with various materials such as clay, shadow, light, and paint, to work on the themes that she is pursuing.

The Function Of Art, Magdalen O. M. Pickering

Theses and Dissertations

With the help of machines and the powers of perception, Magdalen Pickering introduces logic to strange and fantastical subjects. The Function of Art explores a hybrid of techniques in painting, screenprinting, and computer generated imagery as Magdalen attempts to use generative printing to obscure art historical consciousness. The installation crosses into virtual reality; reframing textiles, landscapes, and the gallery space through a metaphysical lens.

Horse Boy, Madeline Dennis-Yates

Theses and Dissertations

Have you seen the new boy at the barn? Why does he get to ride Gemini? More importantly, why don’t Sarah and Ava get to? A bittersweet comedy about gender, class, and who’s jumping highest that asks: Who will love the horse girls if they lose each other?

Instrumental Teachers And Their Musical And Pedagogical Decisions Around Gender, Caroline Shadman

Honors Scholar Theses

This study investigated how secondary-level band teachers navigate musical and pedagogical decisions related to gender in ensemble classrooms. Prompted by the author’s personal experiences as a female trombonist and the observed underrepresentation of women in band settings, the research explores the ways gender influences repertoire selection and classroom practices. Drawing on semi-structured focus groups with practicing band teachers, findings reveal that while educators generally prioritize student needs in repertoire selection and classroom management, explicit consideration of gender is often limited. Teachers reported that music publisher offerings and district policies significantly influence repertoire choices, frequently resulting in a continued predominance of …

Cracking The Gender Code: Quantitative Insights Into Women's Code-Switching Strategies In K-12 Educational Leadership, Morgan Walker

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Women in K–12 education find themselves in the majority in the classroom but in the minority in administration positions. Social conditioning has led many to believe that men's characteristics more naturally align with strong leadership. Because of this discrepancy, women find the need to act in an inauthentic way to be perceived as more confident and capable leaders. Code-switching is defined as a transactional social tool utilized in instances of an imbalance of power and in the development of relations and practices that help members of a subordinate group cope with or resist the condition of subordination (Heller, 2020). This …

Position Utilization And Leadership Of Senior Woman Administrators In The Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference, Mattie J. Schimenz

Leadership Education Capstones

This study investigates the utilization and impact of the Senior Woman Administrator (SWA) position within the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference (NSIC), focusing on job satisfaction and career confidence. Historically, women led collegiate women’s sports, but with the consolidation of men’s and women’s athletics under a single governance structure, female representation in leadership declined. While women make up 44% of NCAA athletes, only 27.2% of athletic directors are women (Statista, n.d.). The SWA role was created to ensure women have a voice in athletic department decision-making. This mixed-methods study explores whether the SWA role is fulfilling its original purpose of promoting …

The Role Of Geographic Area On Juvenile Delinquency: Evidence From The 2023 National Survey On Drug Use And Health, Sara G. Remy

Sociology and Criminology Undergraduate Honors Theses

This study explores the relationship between geographic area and juvenile delinquency, with particular attention to how this relationship varies across the following settings: large metropolitan areas, small metropolitan areas, and rural areas. Using nationally representative data from the 2023 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), the analysis focuses on youth under the age of 18 and incorporates additional social factors such as parental involvement, gender, grade level, and race/ethnicity. Results from my negative binomial regression models demonstrate that geographic area did not play significant role in delinquency overall. Income showed notable variation by geographic setting: in rural areas, …

Moving The Goalposts: American Sports Coverage In Newspapers And The Construction Of Gender, Race And Sexuality In The Olympics In 1928, 1932, 1936., Jacob Havers

All Theses

This thesis takes an in-depth look at the media coverage of women in the Olympics in 1928, 1932 and 1936. Specifically following the track athletes Kinue Hitomi, Louise Stokes, Tidye Pickett and Mildred “Babe” Didrikson the thesis explores how by being athletic women they had their identities as feminine figures heavily questioned and scrutinized in newspapers at the global level. The harshest of these critics was often the American media, who held strict standards of race, gender and sexuality in the late 1920s-mid 1930s. They sought to uphold these standards at the global scale, and the American media’s interrogation of …

Gender, Politics, And Power: How Women Presidential Candidates Are Framed By News Narratives, Victoria Hernandez

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The aim of this study was to look at the coverage of the presidential campaigns of Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Kamala Harris in 2024 during the Democratic National Convention, and analyze the differences in regard to gender, race, and political bias. The examination of these news narratives helps explore a question of whether journalists report with bias when covering politics. The researcher analyzed 11 published pieces from five mainstream media outlets. Findings of the study show that bias is unavoidable even when a journalist strives for objectivity which does not exist in newsrooms across the political spectrum. The findings …

High School Students’ Sense Of Belonging In Math, Marie Louise Stevenson

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

A student’s sense of belonging in math describes the extent to which a student feels that they are a member of their math community. It is important to study math sense of belonging because it is believed that when a student feels that they are a valued and respected part of their math community, they are more likely to exhibit higher participation and performance in their math class and take more math courses in high school and college. They also have an increased chance of pursuing a STEM career. In this study, we investigated the math sense of belonging of …

Performative Masculinity In Ducal Literature In Florence (1520-1580), Matthew T. Perkins

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Ducal literature of sixteenth-century Florence illuminates the performative nature of gender and sexuality, especially in regard to masculinity. The impetus of this study is Benvenuto Cellini’s autobiography, My Life. While contemporary historiographical studies examine Cellini’s work for its overt misogyny and violence, this work argues that the performative nature of gender, through interdisciplinarity and contextual analysis, offers a highly complex view of masculinity. Cellini’s autobiography directly relates to Giorgio Vasari’s The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects. Vasari’s accounts of Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni and Giovanni Antonio Bazzi, called Il Sodoma, emphasize the importance of fashioned …

In Memoir And Memory: Us Servicewomen Narrating 21st Century Combat, Kelly A. Taylor

War, Diplomacy, and Society (MA) Theses

Over twenty years after the initial invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003, much work remains to uncover the stories of US servicewomen. As the collection of oral histories continues and in the absence of letters, postcards, and other mail for analysis, their memoirs provide some of the first glimpses of the ways 21^st century warfare impacted their experiences in the US military. With shifting “front lines,” the prevalence of improvised explosive devices, and the need for new search tactics, women participated in high rates of combat. Nevertheless, the combat exclusion policy remained in place until 2015. …

Faculty Perceptions Of Artificial Intelligence As A Teaching And Learning Tool In Higher Education: A Causal-Comparative Study, Elizabeth A. Fitch

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this quantitative causal-comparative study was to determine the differences in attitudes, benefits, and threats of using artificial intelligence tools in teaching and learning among community college faculty in Tennessee. The findings of this study are important because faculty acceptance or rejection of emerging technology determines educational innovation. The sample was composed of 211 full-time faculty employed at twelve community colleges in Tennessee. Data were collected using the Attitudes, Benefits, and Threats instrument which was administered by electronic survey. The results of the two-way MANOVA did not find a significant difference among attitudes, benefits, and threats associated with …

Women’S Participation In Homegrown And Domestic Terrorism Plots, Caroline Johnson

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The 21^st century ushered in major social, political, and cultural changes in the United States, including a new era of homeland security and new forms of domestic terrorism. Little is known about how such shifts may have impacted women’s participation in terrorism plots. In response, data from the American Terrorism Study (ATS) are used to comparatively examine the involvement of women in homegrown and domestic terrorism plots before and after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Findings of similarities and differences in women’s involvement in terrorism across time periods are presented and contextualized.

Menstrual Justice After Dobbs, Margaret E. Johnson

All Faculty Scholarship

This Article identifies and analyzes the category of state and private regulation that is invisible and subordinates women and other menstruators in ways that impact their privacy, liberty, and equality. Because this category of regulation is pervasive, bringing it to light is critical for considering how best to curb its harm. This Article considers potential legal strategies to counter such menstruation regulation and argues that Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization offers some promise—but more cause for pessimism—regarding the U.S. Constitution’s power to do so. This Article therefore explains how subconstitutional law offers greater potential, while cautioning that political science …

A Tale Of Two Women, Cassady Brown

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Understanding The Need For Gender Inclusiveness: A Case Study In Kolkata, India, Nilasree Dutta

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The research focuses on examining the status of women in the selected Wards of Kolkata, India: Ward 59, 64, 65, 66, and 69. Three indicators are used to evaluate the status of women: education, nutrition, and religion. Data for this study was collected with the help of a Kolkata-based Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) named Ek Tara. A complete questionnaire with open-ended and closed-ended questions was followed to conduct the survey. 353 households were interviewed to obtain the data. Several statistical analyses have been conducted using STATA software to address research hypotheses. To assess the nutritional status of women, hand grip strength …

Beauty And The Beast (1991) And La Belle Et La Bête (1946): Contrasting Views Of Womanhood Across Varying Cultural Climates, Maddie R. Dietrichs

Line by Line: A Journal of Beginning Student Writing

In my english honors course, we are placed into different fairy tale "groups. My group was assigned Beauty and the Beast as the fairy tale we would be offering social commentary on for this essay assignment. I knew I wanted to primarily discuss gender and women's roles in my essay since Beauty and the Beast offers a lot of interesting avenues on what a woman's role is, particularly in the romantic and familial spheres. I chose two different film retellings of Beauty and the Beast for this paper. The first being La Belle et La Bete, a 1946 black and …

'No Nose Club': The Quackish Consumption Of Pox Care In Long Eighteenth-Century England., Sasha Jones

Madison Historical Review

(World History) This article explores the rise of non-institutional syphilis care in eighteenth-century England and the growing popularity of the barbershop as a centre of pox care among middle-class men. It argues that middle-class pox sufferers sought out the barbershop as a primary location of health care because of the invasive treatments offered by physicians at institutional centers of pox care – including those offered in private offices. The social stigma that was associated with syphilis also encouraged middle-class men to seek pox treatment at the barbershop, since its location in bustling downtown entertainment districts and its reputation as a …

Gender Myths & Colonial Lies, Sophie Camilleri

Honors Papers and Posters

The gender binary is deeply ingrained in today's society, despite a general lack of knowledge on where this system originates from. It is crucial to counter misinformation stemming from propaganda and fear campaigns surrounding the gender binary. This research sheds light on the oppressive roots of gender, as well as its role in the colonization of marginalized individuals around the globe. This paper will make connections to present day systems of oppression and the long-term effects of colonization on Black and Hispanic women.

You Tube Et Les Représentations De La Femme Dans Le Contexte Multilingue Marocain, Naima Wahbi

Dirassat

New forms of communication and expression have emerged through the participatory web and its numerous Digital Social Networks. This infutation is in a constant global progression. Our country has a total of 31.59 million Internet users, 63.4% of which are on social media.

This new digital discursivity has allowed them to express themselves anonymously on all types of subjects and also to openly broadcast their personal representations.

This article will examine how YouTube contributes to the broadcasting of women's representations. We also intend to highlight the correlation between the choice of language, the speaker's gender and the position expressed.

In …

Gendering The New International Convention On Cybercrimes And New Norms On Artificial Intelligence And Emerging Technologies, Rangita De Silva De Alwis

Washington Journal of Law, Technology & Arts

The trifecta of the Digital Global Compact (2024), the UN General Assembly Resolution on AI for Sustainable Development (2024) and the new Cyber Crime Convention (2025) come at a time of what seems to be an inexorable march of new technology. It is also at a time of transborder disruption caused by data breaches and cyber threats, that binding international norms can respond to global challenge. However, it must be emphasized that digital violence, developer bias, and data bias are not new phenomena, they have existed since the origins of the internet. Data that is used to train machine-learning algorithms …

From Story Time To Small Talk: Do Parents Use Descriptive Language Based On Gender?, Alyssa C. Connelly

FHSS Mentored Research Conference

This study examines whether parents use descriptive language differently based on gender using a wordless story book between the parent and child. Findings indicate that parents use more emotion-based language when describing female picture gender and more verb-based language for boy children. These results show ways in which gendered language may shape early self-perception and interests.

Revolting Drag: Filth, Horror, And The Queer Art Of Monstrosity, Claire-Scott A. Lynch

LSU Master's Theses

This thesis examines how The Boulet Brothers’ Dragula, a horror-themed reality drag competition series, uses monstrosity as a tool of queer resistance. In contrast to mainstream drag representations, which often promote assimilationist ideals, Dragula embraces filth, grotesqueries, and failure as strategies of disrupting normative structures. Grounded in queer theory and queer of color critique, this thesis uses thematic analysis to explore how Dragula mobilizes monstrosity to resist normative portrayals of queerness. Through close analysis of the show’s season finales, the study identifies three major themes: grotesque aesthetics, beyond the binary, and identity as resistance. These findings reveal how Dragula positions …

Cyber Offending Among Adolescents: The Role Of Thoughtfully Reflective Decision-Making And Victimization, Revital Sela-Shayovitz, Tamar Berenblum, Sharon Toys

International Journal of Cybersecurity Intelligence & Cybercrime

There has been growing attention to the role of the decision-making process in crime involvement in recent years. However, less is known about the association between the decision-making process and adolescents’ online offending. The present study examined whether thoughtfully reflective decision-making (TRDM) and cyber victimization are related to adolescents’ cybercrime. Data were obtained from self-report questionnaires administered to 510 Israeli adolescents aged 13-20. The results indicate that TRDM is negatively associated with engagement in online offending. Furthermore, cyber victimization is significantly associated with online offending. In addition, a significant predictor of online offending is intense activity on social media. We …