Digital Commons Network^™

To Kill A Mockingbird, The Help, And The Regendering Of The White Savior, Brett Seekford

James Madison Undergraduate Research Journal (JMURJ)

Filmmakers continue to use the “White Savior “ archetype to construct racialized messages in the post-Civil Rights era. These protagonists, who resolutely defend the rights of African Americans, ultimately focalize whiteness and marginalize black characters and voices. Though a white savior features prominently in both To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) and The Help (2011), The Help’s regendering of the archetype invites viewers to imagine a world in which a white savior is no longer necessary. The Help’s update on the white savior trope from Atticus Finch to Skeeter Phelan allows for deeper development of black characters and a …

Gender As A Variable In Natural-Language Processing: Ethical Considerations, Brian N. Larson

Faculty Scholarship

Researchers and practitioners in naturallanguage processing (NLP) and related fields should attend to ethical principles in study design, ascription of categories/variables to study participants, and reporting of findings or results. This paper discusses theoretical and ethical frameworks for using gender as a variable in NLP studies and proposes four guidelines for researchers and practitioners. The principles outlined here should guide practitioners, researchers, and peer reviewers, and they may be applicable to other social categories, such as race, applied to human beings connected to NLP research.

Is Addressing Climate Change Women's Work? Political Leadership And The Climate, Isabella Soparkar

Environmental Studies Honors Projects

In an era when climate science is politically controversial, recent polling data shows that American women are more concerned about climate change than their male counterparts. This research uses both voting record analysis and qualitative interviews with legislators to examine whether the observed gender gap on climate change persists among elected political leaders. Linear and logistic regression results show no statistically significant climate change gender gap within legislative voting behavior, and interviews suggest that though women may be more willing to collaborate on climate change policy than men, subtle gender differences are often overridden by partisanship. However, findings suggest that …

Discrimination Against Women In The Sport Industry, Kelsey Whalen

Honors Theses

Discrimination against women in the workplace has been a widespread topic throughout society for quite a few years. According to the National Partnership for Woman and Families (2017), women make 80 cents for every dollar paid to men. While this number statistically represents the wage discrimination women face throughout all industries, it is also important to look at other discriminatory factors women face as well. More specifically in the male-dominated sport industry, we see women represented in extremely low numbers. While women may lack the interest to occupy jobs in this profession, this does not entirely explain the underrepresentation. In …

How Can A Self-Esteem Curriculum In A Mathematics Classroom Increase The Confidence And Ability Of Female Students?, Shelly Jean Chermack

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Theses and Dissertations

The teacher in this research decided to look at both single-sex groups and self-esteem curriculum and how they can help female students’ confidence, self-esteem, self-concept, and math grades or ability. Over the course of a quarter, the teacher incorporated self-esteem and community building activities that are identified and the subjects (high school geometry students) were given pre- and post-assessments as well as surveys to assess their emotional states in terms of selfesteem and self-concept. The participants were given surveys at the beginning and the end of the research and comparisons were sought between the two surveys.

Heterosexual Allies' Confrontation Of Sexual Prejudice: The Effect Of Gender, Attitudes, And Past Allied Behavior, Kelly L. Lemaire

Dissertations (1934 -)

Confrontation of prejudice is one method that has been demonstrated to reduce future discrimination on behalf of perpetrators and non-target witnesses in the future. The current study sought to 1) determine whether the gender of the perpetrator, target, or witness of heterosexist prejudice affects witness’s reactions to prejudice, including confrontation, 2) understand if other factors including participants’ attitudes about society, gender roles, and gay men and lesbian women, as well as their general level of assertiveness and previous allied behaviors were predictive of confrontation behavior and 3) examine participant’s satisfaction with their responses and anticipated future responses in relation to …

I Use The Student Recreation Center, But I Would Use It More If…: Understanding Male And Female Constraints To Student Recreation Center Use, Christopher L. Stankowski, Nate E. Trauntvein, Stacey L. Hall

Kinesiology and Health Science Faculty Publications

Studies have found that there is a positive relationship between the number of student visits to campus recreation and academic outcomes such as rates of graduation and grade point average (Huesman, Brown, Lee, Kellogg, & Radcliffe, 2009). Despite the strong correlation between use of fitness facilities and academic performance some students choose not to visit, while some who use the facilities may not be maximizing such use due to constraints (barriers). The purpose of this study was to understand the constraints to using the campus recreation facility at a midsized New England university. Moreover, this study sought to understand the …

The Trash Talk Is No Fantasy: The League As A Representation Of Trash Talk In Fantasy Sports, Michael Davis, Alysia Davis, Chang Wan Woo

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

The popular FX show The League demonstrates the ubiquity of fantasy sports and, more importantly, fantasy sports trash talk. Through the use of exaggerated and extreme examples of trash talk The League seeks to create a representation of fantasy sports and the chatter associated with it as standardized depictions of the subset of American sports dialogue known as fantasy sports. This essay seeks to explore the ways that representations of fiction fantasy competition and trash talk create normalized expectations of what "competitive fandom" looks like in an era dominated by fantasy sports. We examine the implications that fictional exaggerations of …

The Negative Ramifications Of Hate Crime Legislation: It’S Time To Reevaluate Whether Hate Crime Laws Are Beneficial To Society, Briana Alongi

Pace Law Review

Supporters of hate crime legislation suggest that the primary reason for the codification of hate crime laws is “to send a strong message of tolerance and equality, signaling to all members of society that hatred and prejudice on the basis of identity will be punished with extra severity.” However, hate crime laws may actually be accomplishing the opposite effect of tolerance and equality because they encourage U.S. citizens to view themselves, not as members of our society, but as members of a protected group. The enactment of hate crime legislation at the federal and state levels has led to unintended …

"What Are We Doing Here? This Is Not Us": A Critical Discourse Analysis Of The Last Of Us Remastered, Toria Kwan

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Video games are often written off as juvenile or frivolous, but they are actually vehicles of socialization and hegemonic ideologies. Because of this, video games are deserving of research and critique. In video games, women are often underrepresented or hypersexualized, while men can be hypermasculinized. Many times, racial and ethnic portrayals in video games paint the person of color as victims of violence, villains, or sports athletes, while white characters take the role of hero or protagonist. Heterosexuality typically goes unmarked and is considered the default sexuality, and homophobic sentiments and slurs are prevalent in the gaming community. Because game …

Engendering Democracy After The Arab Spring, Valentine M. Moghadam

Journal of the Indiana Academy of the Social Sciences

A gender analysis is needed for a deeper understanding of democracy and democratic transitions. While many commentators of the Middle East have focused on the participation (and transformation) of Islamist parties as key to a democratic transition, they tend to overlook what are in fact key constituencies, natural allies, and social bases of democratic politics—women and their feminist organizations. Women may need democracy in order to flourish, but democracy needs women if it is to be inclusive, representative, and enduring. A comparative perspective as well as a focus on the Middle East/North Africa region illustrates the relationship between the advancement …

Renluka Maharaj Interview, Steven Zych

Asian American Art Oral History Project

Bio: Renluka Maharaj grew up in the country of Trinidad and Tobago and moved to New York as a child where spent most of her life. Her Eastern and Western background wrapped with modern sensibilities is evident in her bodies of work. Her interests are centered on gender roles, sexuality, colonialism, mythology, iconography and fetishism. Some of the artists that have influenced her work are Yinka Shonibare and Yasumasa Morimura.

Ms. Maharaj completed her BFA at the University of Colorado Boulder and is currently completing her MFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where she received the …

From The Panels To The Margins: Identity, Marginalization, And Subversion In Cosplay, Manuel Andres Ramirez

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In investigating the ways social actors experience and interact with mass media texts, I examine how cosplay, as a performative practice of identity in relation to popular culture, enables social actors to subvert and reproduce marginalization towards minority status groups. Theoretical arguments apply a constructionist framework in order to examine the participants’ meaning making processes. The study addresses the following research questions: (1) what social function does cosplay serve for participants; (2) how do cosplayers perform race and gender; (3) how do cosplayers resist, negotiate, or reinforce race and gender-based marginalization? Drawing upon qualitative data gathered from observing two large …

Sexy Robots: A Perpetuation Of Patriarchy, Ashlyn Des Roches

Communication Studies

This feminist critique looks into the way that gender, specifically females, are portrayed in some of Hollywood's top films involving Artificial Intelligence: Blade Runner, Her, and Ex Machina. These movies work as a perpetuation of patriarchal ideologies while maintaining the objectification and hypersexuality of women as normalized behaviors. Additionally, while some forms of empowerment are conveyed, the features illustrate women merely on a spectrum of extreme behavior; due to Heuristics and Cultivation Theory, these misrepresentations can be associated with women outside the surrealist realm of the depicted artificially intelligent worlds.

Introduction: Delicate Moments, Gail Boldt

Occasional Paper Series

No abstract provided.

Mothers, Morality And Abortion: The Politics Of Reproduction In The Formation Of The German Nation, Yvonne Frankfurth

Journal of International Women's Studies

A substantial amount of literature dealing with conceptualisations of the nation has neglected the importance that gender and the politics of reproduction play in the construction of national identities. Analysing images of political campaigns and activists as well as public discourses on motherhood, abortion and childcare, I will illustrate the importance that gender and sexuality assumed in German nation-building projects before and after its unification in 1990.

After 1949, East and West German ideas of nationhood were premised on opposing ideas of gender roles, in that politicians within these two German nations mobilised distinct gender identities to assert their respective …

Egg Freezing On Company Dollars: Making Biological Clock Irrelevant?, Madhumita Datta

DePaul Journal of Women, Gender and the Law

In an attempt to boost gender diversity, two of the technology giants of Silicon Valley, Apple and Facebook, announced in October 2014 that they would cover the costs of freezing eggs, so that women employees who want to pursue both motherhood and a serious career could conveniently ‘time’ their pregnancy. Intel followed suit in October 2015. Unlike other reproductive benefits aiming to cure a biological deficiency such as infertility, employers promote egg freezing as an investment towards women employees’ career success. Women employees may take advantage of this benefit for non-medical reasons to delay pregnancy and childbirth because of the …

Refugee Roulette: A Comparative Analysis Of Gender-Related Persecution In Asylum Law, Joanna J. Kallinosis

DePaul Journal of Women, Gender and the Law

From the moment Rodi Alvarado Pena married a Guatemalan army officer at the age of 16, she was subjected to intensive abuse, and all her efforts to get help where unsuccessful. Her husband raped and sodimized her repeatedly, attempted to abort their child by violently kicking her in the spine, dislocated her jaw, attempted to cut her hands off with a machete, kicked her in her genitals and used her head to break windows. He terrified her by bragging about his power to kill innocent civilians with impunity and all of Rodi’s pleas for help from the Guatemalan government were …

A Problem Of Competing Interests: A Detailed Look At Transgender Children In Schools, Corinne Cundiff

DePaul Journal of Women, Gender and the Law

Discrimination of transgender students is an area of the law that is rapidly developing. Unfortunately for schools trying to find guidance in the law, there are conflicts regarding how schools are to work with their transgender students when it comes to access to gender specific spaces, including bathrooms and locker rooms. There is currently a disagreement among federal agencies, the courts, and the legislature regarding the protection gender identity should receive in the law. The difference of opinion among the various branches of the government equates to problems for schools that are trying to navigate this area of the law. …

Retelling An Old Wife’S Tale: Postpartum Care Of Taiwanese And Chinese Immigrant Women, Kuan-Yi Chen

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The focus of this dissertation is the Chinese postpartum tradition zuoyuezi, often translated into English as doing-the-month. Having its roots in ancient China, this set of practices has maintained its salience today in Taiwan, China, and among first generation immigrant women in the U.S. Women not only continue to perform zuoyuezi at home, many also rely on emerging forms of commodified care. While immigrant women’s postpartum wellbeing and care has been the focus of scholarly research in health related fields, studies in the social sciences addressing immigrant women’s postpartum practices and the care relations engendered remain scant.

In this …

The Case For Trauma-Informed, Gender-Specific Prevention/Early Intervention Programming In Reducing Female Juvenile Delinquency In Florida, Joan Flocks, Emily Calvin, Simone Chriss, Marina Prado-Steiman

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

This article describes the statutory recognition of the need for prevention/early intervention juvenile services in Florida that are both trauma-informed and gender-specific. It examines how childhood trauma can impact at-risk children and the gendered aspects of such trauma. The article then describes the PACE Center for Girls, a Florida-based school, currently undergoing a comprehensive evaluation, which attempts to incorporate elements that fulfill statutory recommendations into its programming.

Boys And Girls Come Out To Play: Gender Differences In Children's Play Patterns, D O'Connor, M Mccormack, C Robinson, V O'Rourke

Education Conference Papers

This paper presents findings from The Irish Neighbourhood Play Study; a national, cross-border research project which recorded children’s play patterns in Ireland during 2012. The study incorporated 1688 families across 240 communities. This study recorded the play patterns of children in Ireland aged birth-14 years. The findings of the study are discussed here in the context of gendered patterns. Particular emphasis is placed on the skill differences developed through various play choices. These differences are explored within the context of established literature on the learning strengths of boys and girls. Established bodies of literature on children’s learning across gender lines …

Women Of Our Worlds: Women Raising Voices Against Violence, Patty Bode

High School Resources

In a high school painting and drawing course, students investigated what contemporary women artists were making, saying, protesting, and changing in multiple art worlds. Group dialogue centered on generative themes in which students chose interconnected topics of combating domestic violence, affirming diverse body expressions and family relationships to launch a painting on canvas project. Students took leadership in activism to invite community workers into the art room resulting and in-school interventions such as, installing art exhibit in the school office, and projecting text and imagery in school cafeteria walls. Expanding into the community, students produced and installed info-art-posters in sites …

Defining Moments: An Examination Of The Gender Divide In Women's Contribution To Outdoor Education, Tonia Gray, Denise Mitten, Ta Loeffler, Sandy Allen-Craig, Cathryn Carpenter

Research in Outdoor Education

Throughout our collective experiences in the outdoors, defining moments have helped ignite innovation and provided inspiration for women and men in the outdoor profession. Women's representation among the ranks of the senior leaders and researchers in the outdoor field is disproportionately low. As such, women in outdoor education today still face challenges being recognized and accessing the upper echelons of the profession and academy. An incident at the 6th International Outdoor Education Research Conference in 2013, where women donned an invisibility cloak provided the impetus for our paper. Significant progress has been made in the past three decades; however an …

Christians’ Cut: Popular Religion And The Global Health Campaign For Medical Male Circumcision In Swaziland, Casey Golomski, Sonene Nyawo

Anthropology

Swaziland faces one of the worst HIV epidemics in the world and is a site for the current global health campaign in sub-Saharan Africa to medically circumcise the majority of the male population. Given that Swaziland is also majority Christian, how does the most popular religion influence acceptance, rejection or understandings of medical male circumcision? This article considers interpretive differences by Christians across the Kingdom’s three ecumenical organisations, showing how a diverse group people singly glossed as ‘Christian’ in most public health acceptability studies critically rejected the procedure in unity, but not uniformly. Participants saw medical male circumcision’s promotion and …

Gendered Lived Experiences In Urban Cape Town: Urban Infrastructure As Equal Opportunity, Social Justice, And Crime Prevention, Becky Jacobs

College of Law Faculty Scholarship

The body of 19-year-old Sinoxolo Mafevuka was found in a communal toilet in the Cape Town, South African urban township of Khayelitsha. Sinoxolo had been viciously raped, strangled to death, and her body discarded, with her head under the toilet seat and her genitals displayed openly. Tragically, while Sinoxolo’s murder is a particularly brutal example, using a neighborhood toilet in many informal settlements is an incredibly dangerous activity, and there are estimates that 10.5 million South Africans do not have ready access to toilets. “Women, children and men of all ages are frequently robbed, raped, assaulted and murdered on the …

Women's Hit Cheating Songs: Country Music And Feminist Change In American Society, 1962-2015, Madeline Rachel Morrow

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines songs about cheating performed by women in country music that appeared on year-end country songs charts in Billboard magazine from 1962 through 2015. The study of a total of fifty qualifying songs included a focus on their lyrical and musical content, the performers' personae and careers, and the way the particular outside factors of feminism and changing gender relations in American society may have influenced them. These songs do not show a purely linear progression of or emphasis on social change, in spite of country music's pride in conveying the truth about the lives of its songwriters, …

The Gender Wage Gap And Work-Family Supports: Women’S Choices Or Policy Choices?, Ariane Hegewisch, Emma Williams-Baron

Saint Louis University Public Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Effect Of Contact Type On Perceptions Of Sex Offender Recidivism Risk, Donald Walker Jr.

ETD Archive

Prior research has found that the general public perceives sex offenders negatively as a whole (Edwards & Hensley, 2001). These perceptions have enabled sex offender management policies that create ironic conditions for sex offender rehabilitation and reintegration (Hanson, & Harris, 2000). More recent research has found that when sex offenders are presented as subcategories the public has more varied, though still negative attitudes toward sex offenders (King & Roberts, 2015). Furthermore, a burgeoning area of research has developed around the differentiation of child sex offenders based on the contact that they have had with their victims: non-contact, contact-only, and mixed-contact. …

I Hate It, But I Can't Stop: The Romanticization Of Intimate Partner Abuse In Young Adult Retellings Of Wuthering Heights, Brianna R. Zgodinski

ETD Archive

In recent years, there has been a trend in young adult adaptations of Wuthering Heights to amend the plot so that Catherine Earnshaw chooses to have a romantic relationship with Heathcliff, when in Bronte’s novel she decides against it. In the following study, I trace the factors that contribute to Catherine’s rejection of Heathcliff as a romantic partner in the original text. Many critics have argued that her motives are primarily Machiavellian since she chooses a suitor with more wealth and familial connections than Heathcliff. These are indeed factors; however, by engaging with contemporary research on adolescent development, I show …