Digital Commons Network^™

Performing Femininity: Rae Bourbon And Christine Jorgensen Onstage, Taylor Riccio

American Studies Senior Theses

Drag performers and transexuals exist on the margins of the two gender binary. By existing on these margins these performers use both their physical bodies and humor to lampoon and subvert the gender binary and broaden the understanding of how gender is performed. Two performers, Rae Bourbon, a female impersonator, and Christine Jorgensen, a transexual who became a performer, placed their marginalized bodies on the stage and by doing so they heighten the subversion and critique of gender inherent in their performances.Gender is a normalizing force that dominates human interactions. Kessler and McKenna open their work on gender with the …

A Functional Approach To Social Networking Sites, Erin M. Bryant, Jennifer Marmo, Artemio Ramirez Jr.

Human Communication and Theatre Faculty Research

The widespread use of social networking websites (SNSs) is one of the most groundbreaking communication trends to emerge in recent years. Since its creation in 2004, sites such as Facebook have become immensely popular among college students. Many SNSs continue to experience exponential growth. Facebook, for example, reached 100 million active users in August 2008 and proceeded to quadruple this membership base to surpass 400 million active users by July 2010 (Facebook.com). In addition to maintaining astronomically high membership rates, SNSs also appear to be part of user's daily schedules. In one study assessing Facebook use, Ellison, Heino, and Gibbs …

Diamonds In The Rubble: The Women Of Haiti—Institutions, Gender Equity, And Human Development In Haiti, Tonia Warnecke, Andrew Padgett

Student-Faculty Collaborative Research Publications

Although Haiti's 2010 earthquake brought to light the inconceivable poverty existing in the Western Hemisphere, Haiti's struggle for economic development long pre-dated that earthquake. One problem in Haiti is the high level of gender inequity, and we argue that human development theory is the best mode for change. We provide a brief background of Haiti's economic development over the last several decades, along with the status of women's rights and gender-differentiated socioeconomic outcomes. We analyze the ways that policy neglect of gender equity in Haiti has contributed to failed economic development in the past. Finally, we identify ways that other …

Women & Language: Essays On Gendered Communication Across Media, Melissa R. Ames

Faculty Research & Creative Activity

The present volume of essays examines women's communication as it has evolved historically across multiple mediums. Part I explores how women became "gossip girls" and the important role of gossip in the perception and practice of female communication. Essays in Part II cover the convergence of oral and written communication in women's literature. Gendered performance in such arenas as salsa dance, Dr. Phil and the Internet is examined in Part III, and essays in Part IV discuss women's communication in the technology-rich 21st century. This excerpt features the introduction and one essay from the co-editor.

Women & Language: Essays On Gendered Communication Across Media, Melissa R. Ames

Faculty Research & Creative Activity

The present volume of essays examines women's communication as it has evolved historically across multiple mediums. Part I explores how women became "gossip girls" and the important role of gossip in the perception and practice of female communication. Essays in Part II cover the convergence of oral and written communication in women's literature. Gendered performance in such arenas as salsa dance, Dr. Phil and the Internet is examined in Part III, and essays in Part IV discuss women's communication in the technology-rich 21st century. This excerpt features the introduction and one essay from the co-editor.

The Role Of Men In Gender Equality_Eire Report, Niall Hanlon

Reports

Eire Report for the study The Role of Men in Gender Equality European strategies & insights

Rage Against The Form Resisiting Oppressive Gender Identity In The Work Of Carson Mccullers, Toni Morrison And Jeffrey Eugenides, Chelsee Payne

Theses & ETDs

The thesis investigates specific ideas of gendered identity in three separate periods and three separate regions in the United States. It focuses on the way gendered identity is imagined and resisted in Carson McCullers�s The Ballad of Sad Caf�, Toni Morrison�s The Bluest Eye and Jeffrey Eugenides�s Middlesex. I analyze how these concepts are created and enforced in society and through literary forms. Chapter one examines Carson McCullers�s play with the Southern female ideal, circa mid-twentieth century and her rewriting of the �ballad� form. McCullers complicates the binary between �masculine� and �feminine� in the character of Miss Amelia. Chapter two …

"Smarten Up And Act Dumb, Sister!" Representations Of Sexuality And Gender In Children's Television Media, Zoe Nicole Kenney

Theses & ETDs

Media products created primarily for children must meet standards of acceptability that preclude sexual content. However, previous research indicates that representations of sexuality are present in children�s media. I examine this paradox through a content analysis of children's live-action television shows, with attention to the highly normative nature of the sexuality that is present. My sample includes 21 episodes from The Suite Life on Deck, the most popular show among 9-14 year olds on The Disney Channel as of Spring 2011. My data reflects the frequent heteronormativity and strictly delineated gender roles found in the content of such television programming. …

Beyond Trembling Manhood And Heaving Bosoms Gender And Sexuality In The Historical Romance Novel, Lucy Maddox

Theses & ETDs

This thesis examines and reevaluates the romance genre, specifically the presentation of gender and sexuality in historical romance novels published since 1995. The goal of this project was to defend the romance novel against outdated or inaccurate popular criticisms by closely examining masculinity, femininity, and sexuality within the romance novel. In chapter one, I discuss how the romance heroine and hero embody or subvert normative gender roles. Romance readers value heroes and heroines who possess both masculine and feminine attributes. Heroines have become more independent while heroes have become more sensitive. In chapter two, I analyze sex scenes between the …

Parents' Preference For Gender Stereotypes In Children's Books, Carla Abad

Theses & ETDs

Previous research has demonstrated that gender stereotypes are prevalent in preschool children and that books have the potential to challenge them. Recently, gender neutral and gender atypical books have increased in numbers; however, it is unknown whether parents would choose such books for their children. The current study explored parents� preference for children�s books in regards to gender stereotypes. Participants included 53 parents (47 women, 6 men) who were asked to complete a survey. The survey assessed how likely the parents would be to want each of their children to read stories that were either gender stereotypical, gender atypical, or …

"You Can Still Be A Feminist, Be Proud Of Being A Woman, And Deal With The Gender Binary" Issues Of Sex And Gender At Indian Brook Camp, Flavia Grattery-Musinsky

Theses & ETDs

Established in 1941 to provide girls the opportunity to engage in physical work and wilderness trips, Indian Brook is a single-sex summer camp in Southern Vermont. Though one must be female-bodied to attend or be employed at Indian Brook, one does not necessarily have to identify as a girl/woman; this relationship is emblematic of the unique, complex, and inevitably tenuous dynamic that is a product of the incorporation of queer pedagogy into a community organized upon seemingly conventional notions of sex and gender. Utilizing ethnographic methods over a two-month period in the summer of 2010, this study examines Indian Brook�s …

A "Queery" Of Sex And Gender, Elizabeth Lang Tracy

Theses & ETDs

This thesis explores gender identity, and, more specifically, queer gender identity. The sculptural works exhibit our ideas of sex and gender and how they have been socially and culturally constructed. The installation created seeks to find a new view of queerness and body identity through challenging the binary gender paradigm and present-day stigmas that repress queer identity and feminism; and explores this sense of coming into the self and questioning the ordinary and normal through the sexual, queer, and avoided. The work attempts to produce an aesthetic that playfully raises discomfort in the viewer by utilizing phallic and vulval forms. …

Bais In The Courtroom The Effects Of Attorney Attractiveness And Gender On Juror Decisions, Keytin Palmer

Theses & ETDs

An experiment was conducted to investigate how attorney physical attractiveness and gender can bias juror decisions in an automobile accident trial. Participants (15 male, 45 female) were presented with a picture of an unattractive or attractive male or female attorney before reading a trial summary and a transcript of the attorney�s closing statement. Participants then rated the attorney�s persuasiveness, credibility, likability, trustworthiness, and knowledgeability; reported how guilty they deemed the defendant; and suggested an amount of money to be awarded to the plaintiff for damages if a jury found in his favor. Results showed that female attorneys were rated as …

God's Liberated People? Men And Women In The Metropolitan Community Church, Kathleen O'Neal

Theses & ETDs

The Metropolitan Community Church, as a liberal mainline Christian denomination that caters to the LGBT community, provides an open and safe space for people with non-normative sexual and gender identities to practice religion. However, Christianity has a history of being a patriarchal and heteronormative institution. As a progressive denomination, the MCC strives for gender equality, but still works within a religion built on rigid hierarchies. Twenty qualitative interviews were conducted with attendants of a MCC church to determine how queer men and women understand gender in their gay-affirming church. The aim was to determine what role gender plays in the …

The Possibilities Of Asian American Citizenship: A Critical Race And Gender Analysis, Clare Ching Jen

Ethnic Studies Review

Conventionally, citizenship is understood as a legal category of membership in a national polity that ensures equal rights among its citizens. This conventional understanding, however, begs disruption when the histories and experiences of marginalized groups are brought to the fore. Equal citizenship in all its forms for marginalized populations has yet to be realized. For Asian Americans, rights presumably accorded to the legal status of citizenship have proven tenuous across different historical and political moments. Throughout U.S. history, "Asian American" or "Oriental" men and women have been designated aliens against whom white male and female citizenships have been legitimized. These …

Investigating Student Gender And Grade Level Differences In Digital Citizenship Behavior, Robert Lyons

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The rapid rise of technology, which has become embedded in all facets of 21st century society during the past decade, has fostered a corresponding rise in its misuse. Digital citizenship abuse, a relatively new phenomenon of this electronic age, is a rapidly growing global problem. Parents, schools, and society play roles in supporting appropriate online behavior. Schools must take the lead role to assess and address digital citizenship issues. This ex post facto study investigated the online actions of students in a medium-sized K-12 school district and explored possible causal relationships between online misbehavior and student grade and gender based …

Advice And Consent Vs. Silence And Dissent? The Contrasting Roles Of The Legislature In U.S. And U.K. Judicial Appointments, Mary Clark

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

The Senate‘s role in judicial appointments has come under increasingly withering criticism for its uninformative and spectacle-like nature. At the same time, Britain has established two new judicial appointment processes - to accompany its new Supreme Court and existing lower courts - in which Parliament plays no role. This Article seeks to understand the reasons for the inclusion and exclusion of the legislature in the U.S. and U.K. judicial appointment processes adopted at the creation of their respective Supreme Courts.

The Article proceeds by highlighting the ideas and concerns motivating inclusion of the legislature in judicial appointments in the early …

The Body Of The Goddess: Women’S Trans-National And Cross-Religion Eco-Spiritual Activism, Laura Corradi

Societies Without Borders

A counter-tendency to the virtualization of social relations and the deepening of the separation between body, mind and spirit may be represented by the re-birth of Goddesses’ worship, which calls for a re-embodiment of women’s spirituality and feminist politics. This work starts from representations of the body of the Goddess – in different ages and parts of the world – in their relation with the four elements. Through the iconological analysis of female divinities we realize that each of them also represents specific aspects of womanhood. An exploratory research on the contemporary religious experience of the Goddess indicates the existence …

Lies, Damned Lies, And Judicial Empathy, Mary Anne Franks

Articles

No abstract provided.

Homemaker To Seductress: A Content Analysis Of Gender Stereotypes In Online Embedded Advertisements, Danica L. Stith

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Countless studies have documented and analyzed the presence of gender stereotypes in print and television advertisements, but very few have been performed on online advertisements. While the World Wide Web is no longer an exciting new domain for us, researchers are only beginning to analyze the vast number of gender stereotypes that are presented to viewers on a daily basis. The proliferation of gender stereotypes (specifically female stereotypes) is obvious in print advertisements and television advertisements, but do they also abound in online advertisements? In my research, I performed a content analysis of online embedded advertisements, specifically in three types …

A Diva Defends Herself: Gender And Domestic Violence In An Early Twentieth–Century Headline Trial, Carolyn B. Ramsey

Saint Louis University Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Gender, Aesthetics, And Sexuality In Play: Uneasy Lessons From Girls’ Dolls, Action Figures, And Television Programs, Courtney Lee Weida

Journal of Social Theory in Art Education

How does children's play with dolls and action figures engender exploration of gendered identities: from aesthetics and appearances, to social standards, and various rituals and performances? This paper examines recent research in art education and gender studies concerning dolls and figural toys marketed to girls. As an artist and teacher educator, I will draw upon my teaching experiences and examine artifacts of pedagogy from popular material culture. I will address issues of consumption while taking into consideration taboos of gender and sexuality within public and private play. While children's toys as symbolic bodies may pose narrowly gendered and heteronormative models …

Emotion And Self-Control : Self-Control Limits Emotional Extremes, Rebekah L. Layton

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

One function of self-control is to inhibit inappropriate expressions of emotions to facilitate interpersonal interactions; however, self-control may predispose one to over generalize limitations of one's emotional response rather than solely in contexts in which emotional regulation is needed. The current study examined the effects of trait self-control on emotional fluctuations and emotional intensity to determine whether high self-control may be associated with diminished emotional experience. Undergraduate students (N = 298) participated in three experiments designed to evaluate the impact of self-control on emotional experience, as measured by self-report questionnaire and responses to emotionally evocative video clips using a continuous …

Women And Peace Talks In Africa, Akin Iwilade

Journal of International Women's Studies

This paper interrogates the role of women in peace talks in Africa. It addresses the exclusion of women and their peculiar interests from deliberations aimed at constructing a post conflict state framework that resolves the contradictions that incite violent conflict and provides safeguards against recurrence. The paper argues that the failure of peace talks to deliberately incorporate women interests detracts from their potential to effectively confront the questions of post conflict rebuilding. It notes the increasing inclusion of women but argues that this does not amount to gender representation. This is because at the heart of the inclusion is the …

Gender Differences In Prosocial Behavior: Organizational Citizenship Behavior, María Celeste Dávila De León, Marcie Finkelstein, Juan Ignacio Castien

Psychology Faculty Publications

El comportamiento de ciudadanía organizacional (CCO) alude a las actividades que hacen los empleados y que exceden de los requeri-mientos formales del puesto, contribuyendo al efectivo funcionamiento de la organización. Estas conductas pueden estar dirigidas hacia los compañe-ros o hacia la organización en sí. El objetivo de este trabajo es analizar las diferencias en función del género en el desarrollo de CCO siguiendo la teoría funcional de las motivaciones y el modelo de la identidad de rol. Un total de 974 trabajadores cumplimentaron un cuestionario que evaluaba la frecuencia de estos comportamientos, los motivos para ponerlos en prácti-ca y la …

Aryans, Gender, And American Politics, Robert Tsai

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

This short essay discusses some of the ways in which the Aryan movement in America activates gendered beliefs for the goal of legal, political, and cultural transformation. In recent years, the community has moved from common law theories of white sovereignty to more robust forms of racial constitutionalism. The piece is drawn from "America's Forgotten Constitutions: Defiant Visions of Power and Community"

The Rise And Fall Of Western Homohysteria, Eric Anderson

Journal of Feminist Scholarship

In this essay, I draw upon my pro-feminist background to describe the formulation of the concept of homohysteria and explain its heuristic utility in conceptualizing historical shifts in heterosexual men's gendered regimes. I suggest that in times of high homohysteria, heterosexual men are compelled to align their identities and behaviors with orthodox (hypermasculine) notions of men's masculinity. This is in order to avoid homosexualization. Conversely, heterosexual men retain considerably more gendered freedom in times of low or no homohysteria. I describe this as a cultural process related to homophobia and define the term homohysteria as men's fear of being homosexualized, …

Grappling With Gender: Exploring Masculinity And Gender In The Bodies, Performances, And Emotions Of Scholastic Wrestlers, Phyllis L. Baker, Douglas R. Hotek

Journal of Feminist Scholarship

We contribute to the sociology of sport and gender literature with an ethnographic analysis of scholastic wrestling by observing the current climate of masculinity and gender. Our results suggest that it is necessary to understand men and sporting behavior within a broader framework of gender, not just masculinity, because the behavior of high school wrestlers fell along a gender continuum between an orthodox masculinity and femininity. Our exploration of the body, performance, and emotion practices of scholastic wrestlers gives credence to the current critiques of a hegemonic masculinity in men's sports. We show that gender is not dichotomous and that …

Gender And Ethnicity As Moderator Of Young Adults' Perception With Their Mother And Grandparents, Erika Quezada

Honors Capstones

Limited research is available on adolescent-grandparent relationships, especially from the young adult perspective and across ethnicities. This study explores the perception of the child-mother and the grandchild-grandparent relationships across Caucasian, African American and Hispanic ethnicities as well as the role young adults' gender plays in predicting the quality of the grandchild-grandparent relationship. This study was based on answers to a structured questionnaire from a sample of274 undergraduate students aged 19-24 at a large Midwestern university. Mixed results suggest that perception of the relationship is moderated by ethnicity and gender. Findings suggest that young adults of Caucasian descent perceived a more …

First Generation Of Gender And Hiv Programs: Seeking Clarity And Synergy, Judith Bruce, Nicole Haberland, Amy Joyce, Eva Roca, Tobey Nelson Sapiano

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

In the past decade, there have been expanding resources to address the underlying gender dimensions of HIV. This has been particularly urgent in sub-Saharan Africa as the female-to-male infection ratios in young populations has reached 3 to 1 and sometimes above. The phrase “gender and HIV” has become commonplace yet does not provide any specific guidance as to target audiences, content, or measurable results. It can include everything from microcredit programs for HIV-positive women, to workplace programs seeking to change negative male norms, to efforts to increase respect for diverse sexual and gender identities. This review, conducted by the Population …