Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons^™

Precarious Manhood: Adolescence And Group Rape In Late Medieval Europe, Michelle Armstrong-Partida

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

Sexual assault, through coercion or violence, was omnipresent at every level of medieval society and perpetrated by males from all socio-economic backgrounds. This article argues that a specific type of sexual violence—group rape—committed by two or more individuals, was a phase of men’s social development. It explores the connection between adolescence and sexual aggression to show that collective rape was a feature of male youth culture used a form of recreation to gain sexual experience, forge bonds with peers, and publicly prove masculinity as adolescents transitioned from childhood to adulthood. Many young males first learned to rape in groups before …

Consumerism And Pride: The Fate Of Paris’ Marais “Gayborhood”, Christina M. Csensich

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In the 1980s the Marais neighborhood in Paris, France, became a haven for queer people, specifically gay, white men, filled with queer-owned and queer-centric businesses. By the year 2020, however, these businesses had been priced out by name-brand international corporations. In the 1990s, French television commercials and programs would not speak the word ‘homosexual,’ even when a character was openly queer. By the 2010s, companies regularly featured queer people and gay pride imagery and slogans in their advertising. The queer community in Paris has a unique relationship with the consumer economy, one that ties aspects of queer identity directly to …

The Effects Of Victorian Circulating Libraries On The Conventions Of Society, Kaitlyn M. Clary

Steeplechase: An ORCA Student Journal

As an era that is oftentimes categorized as one of the most prudish in British history, it is commonplace to see the Victorian Period as a time that imposed strict moral codes onto people of all classes, genders, and ages. Although the 18th century proved to be quite lenient with the manner in which social behavior was controlled, the 19th century proved to be an era of tension between the social order and individual desire, particularly for the middle and upper classes. With the aid of the Industrial Revolution, many governments found it essential to utilize the newly innovated printing …

Misrepresentation Of Victimhood During The Victorian Period, Elizabeth Davidson

Graduate Student Research Symposium

The sensation novel in the Victorian period often portrayed female victims as “fallen women.” These women encompassed those who suffered from addiction, engaged in prostitution, changed their identities, or were otherwise homeless. However, “fallen women” were generally misrepresented in both novel and reality. Anne Catherick, the female victim in The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins, and the victims of Jack the Ripper are all represented as ending up in precarious situations resulting in their deaths by their own accord. However, these sets of victims traversed a multitude of missteps and unavoidable tragedy before their untimely deaths. The women who …

These Are My People: An Ethnography Of Quiltcon, Kristin Barrus

Department of Textiles, Merchandising and Fashion Design: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This thesis presents the first ethnography of QuiltCon, the annual fan and artist convention for quiltmakers who identify with and participate in a social phenomenon called the Modern Quilt Movement (MQM) within the 21st century quilt world. QuiltCon (QC) is one product of this movement. This study considers the following questions: What kinds of people attend QC, and what types of experiences and encounters do they expect at the convention? What needs are met at QC for this subset of quiltmakers who attend and for the greater community of Modern quiltmakers? What role does QC play in cementing the identity …

Hagar And Potiphar’S Wife: A Representation Of Egypt In Judaism And Islam, Nardine Attia

Capstone and Graduation Projects

As a nation and land, modern Egypt has gradually been depicted as a female. Considering Egypt’s prominence in Judaism and Islam, from a close reading of Jewish and Islamic texts pertaining to two Egyptian women—Hagar and Potiphar’s wife— various similarities could be noted between these female figures and Egypt as portrayed in the two Abrahamic religions. While Potiphar’s wife seems to be more representative of Egypt in Judaism and Islam, the different portrayal of both women across religious texts provides each with a space to reflect different aspects defining Egypt in each religion.

Alchemical Word-Magic In 'The Winter’S Tale', Rana Banna

Accessus

Within alchemical writing there is both a religious and scientific register in simultaneous coexistence. The linguistic symbols of alchemy are themselves to be understood as chemical matter embedded in the world by divine providence: a principle manifest in the doctrine of signatures. The natural world offers a complex but ultimately resolvable hermeneutic challenge to the natural scientist, whose job it becomes to be a reader of the book of nature wherein the Creator has inscribed a legible, if often allusive, meaning and purpose. This paper will proceed to explore how early modern alchemical-thinking impacted attitudes towards language and meaning …

Book Review: Lori D. Ginzberg. Women And The Work Of Benevolence: Morality, Politics, And Class In The Nineteenth-Century United States. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990., Merritt A. Morgan

Bound Away: The Liberty Journal of History

Lori D. Ginzberg's 1990 work, Women and the Work of Benevolence: Morality, Politics, and Class in the Nineteenth-Century United States, focuses on the ideas and socially benevolent practices of Protestant women of the prosperous middle and upper-middle-class during the 1820s to the 1880s in the northeast region of the United States. The author analyzes how contemporaries affirmed these values in women's benevolent work, which also promoted their status and brought about significant social changes in American culture.

The Challenges Of Lesbian Senior Leaders In The Army Branch Of The Department Of Defense, Ella Nunley-Spaights

Dissertations

Purpose: The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore the perceptions of lesbian senior leaders and the types of challenges they experience while serving in the Army Branch of the Department of Defense. A secondary purpose of this study was to identify strategies lesbian senior leaders employ to overcome perceived challenges while serving in the Army Branch of the Department of Defense.

Methodology: This phenomenological study described the lived experiences of seven lesbian senior leaders serving in the Army who were retired from service within the past five years. Convenience and snowball sampling were utilized to identify women who …

The Impact Of State Violence On Women During The 22 Years Of Dictatorship In The Gambia, Isatou Bittaye-Jobe

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis investigates the gendered dynamics of dictatorship in The Gambia by exploring the impact of state sanctioned violence on women during former President Yahya Jammeh’s twenty-two years of tyranny in the country. During the two-decade long brutal reign under Jammeh, Gambians from all walks of lives faced gross human rights violations and abuses that inflicted collective national trauma on the population. Therefore, this project examines how Jammeh’s tyrannical rule affected women’s rights, health, and wellbeing. Using a content analysis approach coupled with semi-structured interviews with victims and survivors, I argue that although the dictatorship affected all sectors of the …

The One-Armed Viewer: Voyeurism And Masturbation In Nudist Imagery And Film Spectatorship, Benjamin Eleanor Adam

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Nudist magazines and newsletters were among the first commercial, legal, and widely-available images of nudity which circulated in the late Comstock Era. To evade censorship, producers developed framing strategies that obscured the sexualized nature of these images, even as they also enabled the viewing practices their sales relied upon. This dissertation traces these framing strategies as they evolved through nudist still-imagery, camp films, and nudie cuties, and considers the evolution of spectatorial pleasures associated with Russ Meyer's early nudie cuties.

The Basha's Tools? Imagining Alternative Justice Futures In Egypt, Farah Ghazal

Theses and Dissertations

The dominant approach to addressing violence against women in Egypt today is carceral, or relying on the punitive instruments of the state to achieve justice (most visibly represented by the prison and police). While carceral responses are perhaps unsurprisingly advocated by state feminism, they are also promoted by what would typically be described as anti-state actors. This paradoxical entanglement takes place during what I identify as the 'carceral moment', a period marked by the intensification of political and social repression and during which incarceration appears more readily available as a solution to remedy perceived problems of governance. I argue that, …

Article 6.21, Tatiana Stolpovskaya

Theses and Dissertations

Article 6.21 is a short documentary film that aims to examine the state of censorship around queerness in Russia today and its effects on personal lives in the queer community.

Twenty years after Russia decriminalized homosexuality, on June 30th in 2013, President Vladimir Putin signed Article 6.21 "for the Purpose of Protecting Children from Information Advocating for a Denial of Traditional Family Values", also known as the "Gay Propaganda Law". Its broad and ambiguous wording allows the government significant leeway in deciding what kind of public queerness is punishable.

In 2020 Russia passed multiple constitutional amendments that affect many areas …

Oral Interview: Contextualizing The Women's Rights Movement In Tunisia Through Family History, Walid Zarrad

Papers, Posters, and Presentations

In their path towards emancipation and equal rights, Tunisian women have gone through a number of phases that seem to be directly linked to legal changes and cultural factors. In fact, the Code of Personal Status (CPS) of 1956 seems to be a milestone in the women’s movement, and its following amendments continued on this path. However, it is a lot more complex than that. A piece of legislation officially passing is not a simple determinant of the state of Women’s Rights in a country.

Through Dorra Mahfoudh Draoui’s “Report on Gender and Marriage in Tunisian Society” and my interview …

The Trajectory Of Male Homosexuality In Nazism, Goral Bhatt

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Nazism redefined gender and sexual politics for society during the twentieth century, which determined the trajectory of male homosexuality under the Third Reich. While the party did not actively promote homosexuality, early Nazism valued hypermasculinity and homosocial relationships. Right-wing veterans of the First World War were attracted to the Nazi paramilitary unit, Sturmabteilung (SA), led by Ernst Röhm, a well-known gay man. The SA leaders promoted close male bonds among the members, which led to homoerotic relationships. If homoerotism was permitted within the early Nazi Party, why was there a steady decline in the treatment of gay men under the …

Ua1c11/116 Shirley Risher Photo Collection, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Photographs donated by Shirley Risher.

Ua19/16/1/5 Lady Topper Golf 2020-21 Season Statistics, Wku Athletic Media Relations

WKU Administration Documents

Statistical analysis of the 2020-21 women's golf team season.

Ladylike: The Necessity And Neglect Of Camp Followers In The Continental Army, Emma Ward

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

The contributions of female camp followers to the Continental Army are often overlooked in the study of the American Revolution. The lower-class women who followed the army performed services absolutely necessary for its operation and created a vital support network for the fledgling army that could not care for its own needs. Camp followers were therefore integral to the success of the American Revolution, but they rarely receive due credit for their contributions because they acted outside the bounds of eighteenth-century feminine values.

The intent for this thesis is to pull camp followers out of the footnotes of history and …

Ua19/16/1 Lady Topper Basketball Media Guide, Wku Athletic Media Relations

WKU Administration Documents

2021-22 women's basketball media guide produced by WKU Athletic Media Relations, includes athletic records and statistics, photographs, schedule and information regarding opponents.

Ua19/16/2 Softball Press Releases, Wku Athletic Media Relations

WKU Administration Documents

Press releases, photos and game statistics for WKU softball team in 2021.

Ua19/16/2 Volleyball Press Releases, Wku Athletic Media Relations

WKU Administration Documents

Press releases, photos and game statistics for WKU volleyball team in 2021.

Protest Music In Response To The United States’ Oppressive Political Culture: An Analysis Of Beyoncé'S "Freedom" And Janelle Monáe's "Americans", Jessica Torrey

HMC Senior Theses

This paper aims to study a popular musical artist’s responsibility towards the empowerment of marginalized communities in the United States through an analysis of the songs “Freedom” by Beyoncé and “Americans” by Janelle Monáe. These songs will be analyzed in conjunction with the political climate during the time of their fabrication and release as well as the political climates discussed in the songs themselves. This paper presents a thorough analysis of the lyrical and musical components of both songs as well as an analysis of a specific performance of both songs. These analyses will be presented in conversation with many …

A Civil Society: The Public Space Of Freemason Women In France, 1744–1944, James Smith Allen

University of Nebraska Press: Sample Books and Chapters

A Civil Society explores the struggle to initiate women as full participants in the masonic brotherhood that shared in the rise of France’s civil society and its “civic morality” on behalf of women’s rights. As a vital component of the third sector during France’s modernization, freemasonry empowered women in complex social networks, contributing to a more liberal republic, a more open society, and a more engaged public culture.

James Smith Allen shows that although women initially met with stiff resistance, their induction into the brotherhood was a significant step in the development of French civil society, including the promotion of …

"Our Women Are Made Of The Right Stuff": Gender, Politics, And Conflict In Civil War West Virginia, Amanda Romain Shaver

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

“’Our Women Are Made of the Right Stuff:’ Gender, Politics, and Conflict in Civil War West Virginia” examines the lives and contributions of white West Virginia women and argues that they were not merely victims of the war, but dynamic participants whose opinions were influential and whose actions determined the ability of both the Union and Confederate armies to wage war in Appalachia. Striking a balance between the antebellum standards of “True Womanhood” and the emerging ideals of the women’s rights movement, West Virginia women became politically engaged in both the statehood movement and the Civil War. They transformed their …

A Devised Ethnodrama: Conscious Voices, Sonia Pasqual

Master of Liberal Studies Theses

Using techniques of storytelling, dance, poems, and monologues in the process of re-enacting life stories, the ensemble display issues that may be impeding society’s growth—discrimination against body image, blackness, females, and LGBTQ individuals. In addition, engagement in storytelling and performance can help the audience increase their cognitive skills, empathy, and ability to live a communal life. This evidence-based practice can transform lives and society. It has the potential of continuing to other faculties and with other departments, such as film, musical, and additional narratives. This specific work could be extended out beyond art and education into populations of any communities …

Making The Violin Fashionable: Gender And Virtuosity In The Life Of Camilla Urso, Maeve Nagel-Frazel, Petra Meyer Frazier, Antonia Banducci

DU Undergraduate Research Journal Archive

In the late nineteenth century, the violinist Camilla Urso (1840-1902) was widely recognized as the preeminent female violinist in the United States. As a nationally famous celebrity, Urso became a pedagogue and role model to subsequent generations of female violinists. Both the wide-ranging geographic spread of Urso’s career and her direct advocacy for women violinists played a pivotal role in changing cultural ideals of violin performance from a militant and masculine bravura tradition into a fashionable pursuit for young women. A classmate of HenrykWieniawski (1835-1880) and a concert rival of the Norwegian virtuoso Ole Bull (1810-1880), Urso’s career rested on …

A Tale Of Two Trans Men: Transmasculine Identity And Trauma In Two Fairy-Tale Retellings, Jeana Jorgensen

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

Transgender identities in fairy tale retellings are rare, but can reveal much about gender fluidity. Helen Oyeyemi’s novel Boy, Snow, Bird conflates transgender identities with mirrored falsehoods and fairytale spells, pathologizing a trauma victim who turns out to also become an abuser, while Gabriel Vidrine’s novella “A Pair of Raven Wings” depicts a queer transgender man with dignity, making it clear that the trauma he suffers is at the hands of bigots rather than being an invention of a sick mind or the cause of his transition. Pairing these fairy-tale retellings illuminates the topic of gender fluidity in fairy tales …

Andrea Revised: Andrea Dworkin: The Feminist As Revolutionary By Martin Duberman, Phyllis Chesler

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

No abstract provided.

The Lineage Of Abby Benson (1801/02 - 1866), Of Sharon, Litchfield County, Connecticut, Charles H. Smith

Faculty/Staff Personal Papers

Among the individuals I researched in compiling my “Charles H. Smith: A Direct- Line Ancestry, Since Colonial Times” (published online in 2020) was one Abby (aka Abi, Aby, Abbey, Abigail) Benson, of Sharon and Kent, Litchfield County, Connecticut. Abby, who married Chester Fowler (1800-1878) about 1823 (based on the date of birth of their first child William in 1824), is one of my third great-grandmothers. As of 2020 I was unable to identify Abby’s parents, though she has always been listed as a Benson. There were other Bensons in the immediate area, though historically the family had roots extending back …

“Which Of The People Here Would Suspect That So Much Is Going On In The Mind Of A Teenage Girl?”: Adolescent Resilience In The Holocaust Diaries Of Anne Frank And Renia Spiegel, Jenna Marie Walmer

West Chester University Master’s Theses

In this qualitative archival diary study, Holocaust-era diaries were explored for evidence of the resilience of adolescent girls. Adolescent-themed passages were selected from the posthumously published diaries of Anne Frank and Renia Speigel, who kept private diaries while under the constant threat of war and genocide. To explore how the everyday affairs of adolescent development may contribute to resilience in the face of trauma, I used thematic analysis to determine the prevalence and emotional valence of four themes of adolescence: evolving social-relationships, emotional fluctuation, cognitive-identity changes, and physical changes. The emotional valence of the adolescent-themed diary passages was more likely …