Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons^™

Art Therapy With Native American Cancer Survivors: An Observation Of Nonverbal Communication Styles, Kathryn Dengler

EVMS School of Health Professions Theses & Dissertations

There is a high morbidity rate among Native American women with breast cancer. Research suggests that traditional beliefs in addition to miscommunication within the healthcare setting may affect the treatment Natives receive. This study observed the nonverbal communication patterns of ten Native American cancer survivors participating in an art psychoeducational workshop. Mapping techniques and situational analysis were used to observe nonverbal communication patterns during the workshop. It was hypothesized that Native Americans would use nonverbal cues more readily than verbal communication.

The results of the study supported the hypothesis. Nonverbal cues were the primary means of communication throughout the workshop. …

Female Sport Role Models: A Content Analysis Of Espn.Com, Michelle Lou Redmond

Human Movement Studies & Special Education Theses & Dissertations

Opportunities for girls to participate in sports are growing by the minute. However, adolescent girls are dropping out from participating in athletics with many possible explanations. One explanation is the limited and sometimes controversial media attention female athletes receive. How are girls to know there is a sporting world out there for them if they are unable to see positive female athletic role models to emulate?

This study investigated ESPN.com to discover the trends of college basketball reporting during the 2007 NCAA Men's and Women's basketball tournaments. A content analysis was performed on ESPN .com to see if the media …

"Everybody Else Ain't Your Father": Reproducing Masculinity In Cinematic Sports, 1975-2000, Marc A. Ouellette

English Faculty Publications

This essay stems from two cultural strands, which intersect in one cultural form, the sports film. The first of these is the figure of the "star," as opposed to hero, who is interested only in self promotion. The second strand, masculine nurturing, provides a direct counterpoint to the first. Sociologist Robert Connell explains that "In historically recent times, sport has come to be the leading definer of masculinity in mass culture" (54). In North America, sport plays an important and increasing role in our culture. Each of the four major sports leagues added teams in the last decade of the …

Eve's Side, Rebecca Lauren Gidjunis

English Theses & Dissertations

Imagine that Eve came to earth one day to tell her side of the creation story. Perhaps she'd say that she came first, not Adam, or tell us that God is actually a matronly woman, with round hips and sagging breasts. Maybe she'd sing of sensuality, body, and female wisdom.

Unfortunately, most of us in Judeo-Christian theology have been privy to only one side—Adam'. By allowing Eve and her daughters to speak, I claim women's stories as essential to our overall understanding of the divine. In Eve 's Side, I allow women to see themselves in God and God …

Peddling A Distinguishable Female Form: Late Nineteenth-Century Advertising Of Cosmetics Hair Products And Corsets In British Women's Magazines, Cathleen A. Rhodes

English Theses & Dissertations

This project examines advertisements for cosmetics, hair products, corsets, and various other mechanical and chemical body alteration devices to uncover an emphasis, manifested through the female body, on gendered differences. Beauty products accentuated feminine physical attributes in order to emphasize differences that were much subtler than the discourse on gender would suggest. In essence, to make the bodily difference closer to the differences the discourse on gender proclaimed.

Primary source material includes visual and textual advertisements from women's periodicals from 1870 — 1900. Periodicals have been chosen for popularity in their respective time periods as well as for their varied …

Women Of The New Walden: Gender In Sound Culture, Now And Then, Phylis Johnson

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

Sonic diversity in the midst of wilderness, as original and untamed, can confound and discomfort the novice listener who becomes overwhelmed by its plethora of mysterious languages. Transcendentalist Margaret Fuller, author of Summer on the Lakes (1844), expressed sensory overload when she was confronted with the sights and sounds of Niagara Falls. Sound permeates our life, from conception, birth, and varied sonic spheres of influence that penetrate our physical space. Sound acknowledges its relevance as a cultural influence within the socialization of the individual. For instance, high-powered car stereos and subwoofers swimming in bass overtones have become associated with masculinity. …

Gestures Toward Cross-Species Reciprocal Relations In Contemporary Poetics, Mary Newell

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

In this essay, I explore some embodied bases of ethical attitudes toward human/ animal exchanges in the texts of three contemporary authors: Mary Oliver, Heller Levinson, and Adrienne Rich. Since other species share with humans varieties of agency, sentience, and purposive activity, I suggest that reciprocity is a fundamental aim in cross-species relations. Phenomenological philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty depicts the correlation between embodied actions and attitudes, for example, between the hand movement of grasping and an appropriative attitude toward the natural world. His concept of reciprocity, grounded in the experience of one hand touching another, provides a reference for encounters that …

Lynching The White Imagination: Changing The Dynamics Of Lynching And Rewriting The Cult Of True Womanhood In Grimke, Johnson, And Terrell, Melissa L. Antonucci

English Theses & Dissertations

Despite critics'ack and forth argument over the merits, or lack thereof, of a uniquely black theatre experience, black women playwrights, much like their male counterparts, were once wholly invisible to the white community. But what makes their invisibility unique is their absence in the black world and in literary scholarship. Unfortunately, modern scholarship has oftentimes dismissed these exceptionally powerful plays, cataloging them as poorly written and lacking stylistic and formal elements. It was only recently that they were included in a highly male-dominated history of African American theatre and art. The question of their use of sentimentality, however, remains unanswered. …

Fin De Siecle 3.0: Cybernetic Anxieties In Posthuman Science Fiction, Jessica L. Dambruch

English Theses & Dissertations

The examination of technological metaphors as pervasive descriptive structures sustained in the genre of science fiction is most apparent in an analysis of the dialogue between posthuman discourse and science fiction. The literary posthuman, jointly derived from a rich history of socio-cultural anxieties of embodiment and identity dating back to Victorian Gothic literatures, is most recently manifest within the sphere of cyberpunk and post-cyberpunk fiction of the late 20th century. A third wave feminist analysis of posthuman technological metaphors is valuable for its potential to apprehend essentialist ideological constructions of gendered identity within science fiction which N. Katherine Hayles and …

Liberated Jokes: Sexual Humor In All-Female Groups, Janet Bing

English Faculty Publications

Females have formerly been under-represented in jokes. Many scholars have claimed that joke making is primarily a male activity, particularly in the domain of sexual jokes. In this paper, I discuss sexual jokes that women share with each other both in all-female groups and by e-mail. After reviewing some widely held assumptions about women and jokes, I explore liberated women's jokes, including their structure, use of stereotypes, and subversive ideas. Finally, I discuss why humor theory is incomplete without the inclusion of a female perspective and suggest that women should tell more jokes.

Theorizing Threat: An Investigation Of Contentious Embodiment, Jennifer Musial, Emily Van Der Meulen

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

In early summer 2006, we had a phone conversation that generated interest in this topic. Emily was reminiscing about her experiences at the Washington, D.C. March for Women's Lives in April of 2004. The March, a demonstration for reproductive justice, brought out feminists and anti-abortion protestors alike. Emily remembered seeing African-American men holding signs that equated abortion to the airplane attacks in New York City on September 11, 2001. This sparked curiosity: how does abortion become equated with "terrorism"? [1] One answer to this question is that a woman who has an abortion is said to commit "body-terrorism" …

Punking Yoga: Reconstructing Post/Neo/Colonial Fashion And Movement, Tara Brabazon

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

The branded clothes worn through sporting and fitness activities confirm that any movement, practice or behaviour that seems transgressive of heteronormative masculinity and femininity is also implicated in neo/colonial incorporations and the casualized workforce that is a characteristic of sports clothing manufacture. In an environment washed by the marketing of opposition, resistance is both difficult to define and apply in cultural studies. This paper invokes 'the problem' of resistance while denying the seamless and simple determinations of positive and negative representations. The focus of study is Yogurt Activewear, a company attacking corporatized yoga wear by creating an anti-brand brand. They …

Threatening Bodies Resisting Containment: Enemy Combatants, War Protestors And Same-Sex Couples, Mary K. Bloodsworth-Lugo, Carmen R. Lugo-Lugo

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

The U.S.-launched "War on Terror" has been a major driving force in political discourses during the last few years, including presidential discourse. Since September 11, 2001, presidential rhetoric has systematically entangled international efforts, such as "the War on Terror" and the War in Iraq, with domestic issues, such as same-sex marriages and civil unions. In so doing, international and domestic threats have been effectively merged into one, and in the process, specific bodies have been constructed as "terrorist" agents in need of strict containment (for example, enemy combatant bodies, war protestor bodies, and the bodies of same-sex couples). This paper …

Review Of Fresh Lipstick: Redressing Fashion And Feminism, By Linda M. Scott, Marc Ouellette

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

The critical perspective that has become known as the critique of the beauty myth - what Susan Brownmiller calls the "tyranny of Venus" - represents one of the critical cornerstones of Second Wave Feminism. However, in Fresh Lipstick, Linda Scott argues that the line of inquiry has become more than a commonplace and instead has itself become an industry. Moreover, she finds that several developments in feminist thought, and especially the rise of key personalities as intertexts, obscures the puritanical roots of North American feminism. Quite simply, Indeed, Scott suggests that while the findings of the "beauty …

The Question Is Not, 'Can The Subaltern Speak?' The Question Is, 'Can She Be Heard?': A Review Of Lata Mani's Contentious Traditions: Debate On Sati In Colonial India, Laxman D. Satya

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

In this powerful book Lata Mani argues that the sati debate in the early nineteenth century marginalized its very subject, i.e., the widow. The book systematically dissects the ideas of colonialists, nationalists, traditionalists and Christian missionaries and attempts to draw a simile between them. Taking a clearly subaltern feminist approach, it provides a post-colonial critique of all forms of knowledge to date. The most vehement critique is reserved for the very idea of modernity itself. "Nationalist ideology secularized and domesticates the rationality of colonial modernity" (p. 6) contends the author. Through the medium of post-nationalist, post-orientalist, and post-colonialist …

An Investigation Into The Coming-Out Experience For Families Of Homosexuals: Understanding Through Personal Artmaking And Dialogue, Micah Bennett

EVMS School of Health Professions Theses & Dissertations

A review of the literature indicated the lack of art therapy research with homosexuals and their families. The need for research into the implications for the use of art processes and materials to assist in the coming-out process of families of self-disclosed homosexuals was established. A qualitative hermeneutic method of research was initially proposed to study this need. Volunteer participants who were parents or adult relatives of self-disclosed homosexuals would participate in an audio-videotaped workshop to include three art-making exercises intended to evoke expressions of the participants’ experiences of the coming-out process. Data would have consisted of the researcher’s written …

Producing Norms: Same-Sex Marriage, Refiguring Kinship And The Cultural Groundswell Of Queer Coupledom, Rob Cover

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

Poststructuralist feminism, postmodern inquiry, queer theory and various radical and liberal-humanist forms of lesbian/gay rights have worked to undo the claim to the naturalness of masculine-feminine and male-female complementarity in sex and relationships. That is, the rhetorical grounding of the very notion of relationship ‘coupledom’ has been put in question over the past half-century and opened the possibility of a radical reorganisation of modern kinship. The destabilising impact on much contemporary western legislation concerning family, children, IVF access, adoption, immigration rights and social security centers on whether or not the subject of that legislation is ‘single’ or ‘coupled’. Such legislation …

More Than Girlfriends, Geekettes, And Gladiatixes: Women, Feminism, And Fantasy Role-Playing Games, Rebecca Borah, Inez Schaechterle

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

The only function women have in D&D is to serve cookies. Gary Gygax, the most well known of the creators of Dungeons & Dragons, claims he did not make this remark (Gel214th). That he did or not is perhaps, some thirty years after the introduction of the first fantasy role-playing game, of concern only to him. The problematic position of women players is a secure feature of the RPG zeitgeist. While few male gamers may openly challenge the assumption that women can or should play fantasy role games such as Dungeons & Dragons, the function of …

De La Mujer Invisible Al Feminismo Ineludible: Política Y Antropología En La Historiografía De La Mujer, Robert H. Holden

History Faculty Publications

La historiografía de la mujer, desde el comienzo de su etapa contemporánea en los años setenta del siglo pasado, es analizada en dos vertientes relacionadas: Una, su politización al servicio del movimiento social que aboga por la extensión de los derechos de la mujer y que dió luz a dicha historiografía; dos, el papel central que ha jugado la pregunta antropológica, ‘¿Qué es la mujer’?, y la variedad de respuestas que esta pregunta ha generado. El autor sostiene que tanto la intensa politización como el desarrollo de una antropología cada vez más materialista, como tendencias interdependientes, han llegado a caracterizar …

Alien(Ating) Naturecultures: Feminist Sf As Creative Science Studies, Helen Merrick

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

“Alien(ating) Naturecultures” examines the potential of feminist science fictions to act as “cross-cultural” narratives in encounters between the humanities and sciences. Merrick argues that the conjunction of disciplines figured by the term “science fiction” bears re-examination as a resource for science studies, and a potential mediator in science-humanities dialogues.

Specifically, Merrick asks, when we are concerned with critiquing and unpacking technoscientific practices, cultures and knowledges, what can more creative forms such as science fiction (sf) offer? Such questions about “naturecultures” are intimately connected to the ways we construct and understand “life,” the “human” and difference in the discourses of Science. …

Contact: Little Orphan Ellie, Andrew Gordon

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

By featuring a woman scientist as protagonist, Contact (1997) is a welcome change in the largely male-dominated territory of American science-fiction film. The astronomer Dr. Ellie Arroway is an exceptional woman for recent SF film: a brilliant, dedicated visionary who defies the male scientific establishment, goes it alone, risks her career and life for her beliefs, and succeeds in the end by taking a dangerous journey to the stars to contact intelligent extraterrestrial life. Although the movie is largely faithful to the novel by Carl Sagan, it deviates from the novel in certain critical respects which end up making Contact …

Pushing Containment: The Tale Of The 1950s Science Fiction Vamp, Susan A. George

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

Starting with the observations of Janet Staiger and others regarding the female vampire or Vamp character, who has sucked men dry physically, financially, and/or morally for centuries, this essay looks at the representation of the Vamp in three science fiction films of the 1950s and 1960s—Them! (1954), The Wasp Woman (1960), and The Leech Woman (1959). The essay focuses on what the science fiction Vamp adds to the representation of the cinematic Vamp, first seen in films such as The Mothering Heart (1913) and A Fool There Was (1915), and how they represent age-old male fears regarding the feminine …

Review Of Alien Woman: The Making Of Lt. Ellen Ripley, By Ximena Gallardo C. And C. Jason Smith, Luke Vassiliou

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

No abstract provided.

Oy Science Fiction: On Genre, Criticism, And Alien Love: An Interview With Marleen S. Barr, Marlene S. Barr, Ximena Gallardo C., C. Jason Smith

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph of Abstract]

Marleen S. Barr is a pioneer of feminist science fiction criticism and a leader in the fight against the ghettoizing influences of genre-labeling in literary criticism. While the noteworthy Feminist Fabulation: Space/Postmodern Fiction (University of Iowa Press, 1992) has been praised as Barr's seminal work in feminist science fiction criticism and theory, it is in Genre Fission: A New Discourse Practice for Cultural Studies (U of Iowa P, 2000) where she takes on literary critics' discriminatory practices against genre fiction in general and fantasy and science fiction in particular.

Beyond Cyborgs?, Ximena Gallardo C.

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

What should we expect from a special issue on women and science fiction at a time when people compare Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to the psychotic robot chick in Metropolis? We might want a forward-looking and hip post-post fem analysis of how the future is now, but one of the paradoxes of mainstream sf is that, when it comes to Woman, its future visions still mostly project the prejudices of the past.

To The Max: Embodying Intersections In Dark Angel, Lorna Jowett

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

Dark Angel is often classed with other television shows featuring female action heroes (such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Alias) but I argue that it exhibits a more than usual emphasis on the body of its female protagonist and that this is integral to its use of science fiction and other genres to mediate a politicised postfeminist representation of gender. The science fiction genre, it is often argued, arises directly out of Gothic fictions such as Frankenstein, and in Dark Angel the protagonist, Max, is a post-modern Frankenstein's monster, blurring boundaries between human and monster, subject and …

Review Of Mizora: A Prophecy, By Mary E. Bradley Lane, Melissa Purdue

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

No abstract provided.

It's Not Easy Being A Cast Iron Bitch: Sexual Difference And The Female Action Hero, Diana Dominguez

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

Lt. Ellen Ripley of the Alien series of films, Sarah Connor of the Terminator series, and Lindsey Brigman of The Abyss are examples of a special category of female role in Hollywood – the female action hero. To varying degrees of success, the three characters mentioned above defy the principal dilemma filmmakers seem to have in creating a character that can reconcile the presumably mutually exclusive aspects of cast iron bitch and traditional patriarchal societal views of femininity. Ripley, Connor, and Brigman infiltrate the male-dominated category of the action hero, but they are not a direct feminine challenge to the …

The Link Between Corporal Punishment And Teen Pregnancy, Jennifer M. Hagberg

Sociology & Criminal Justice Theses & Dissertations

This study explored the relationship between corporal punishment and teen pregnancy among women participating in the 2000 survey round of the NLSY Child and Young Adult Surveys. Zero order correlations were used to examine the bivariate relationship between the corporal punishment and teen pregnancy. OLS regression was used to determine if a direct relationship exists between corporal punishment and teen pregnancy after controlling for a host of variables. It was hypothesized that the more frequently a respondent received corporal punishment, the more likely she was to have reported a pregnancy during adolescence, and that this relationship would manifest itself primarily …

An Examination Into The Effects Of Social Positioning And Capitalist Immersion On Gendered Attitudes Towards Homosexuality In The United States, Fiona J. Blee

Sociology & Criminal Justice Theses & Dissertations

Previous research on attitudes towards homosexuality has concentrated on characteristics of individuals, and neglected the capitalist structure of society that provides the contextual setting for the creation and maintenance of cultural attitudes.

This thesis uses responses collected in the general social survey of the United States between 1993 and 1998, to provide a more comprehensive explanation of differences in attitudes towards homosexuality, through an analysis of social position and the capitalist agenda. The analysis revealed significant relationships between sex, age, race, income, beliefs regarding the domestication of women, and attitudes towards homosexuality.

The analysis showed that respondents categorized as black …