Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons^™

A Fat Imposter: The Embodied Intersection Between Race, Body Type And Fatness In Margaret Cho’S Comedy, Julia Cox

Theses and Dissertations--Linguistics

Margaret Cho is a comedic goddess who, in her mockery, serves flaming hot social commentary about race, body image, and fatness. Within this thesis, I used critical discourse analysis to understand how Margaret Cho embodies Asianness, whiteness, and the body types and images prescribed respectively. While working on data analysis, I came across a common media trope of fat women: the use of indexically Southern (United States), Appalachian, and Working class indexicals in speech and lexical items. I connected the ideologies surrounding Southern and Appalachian language to the inequalities that fat women face. This voicing had not previously been written …

Beyond "Viuda De": Practical Approaches To Promoting Mexican Books Printed At Women-Owned Businesses, Taylor Leigh, Colleen Barrett

Library Presentations

Women print shop owners have existed for much longer than most people realize; the first examples in Mexico date to the seventeenth century. Unfortunately, these texts are not always clearly described in a way that is findable beyond searching “viuda de.” Though many title-pages describe their businesses in terms of being a widow of their husband, these business owners deserve credit for their entrepreneurial efforts and should be findable in their own right. This poster would highlight the strategies and steps taken by a Hispanic Studies Librarian and a Rare Books Librarian to better promote these types of works held …

Reality And Ideology: The Use Of Gender Indexing Features In Reality Tv, Steven J. Gerencser

Theses and Dissertations--Linguistics

This article analyzes 4 episodes of the Japanese reality television program Terrace house: Aloha State for instances of gender indexing language to investigate the gap between actual speaker usage of these features and the linguistic ideology surrounding their usage as is perpetrated and perpetuated by media. Specifically, the gender indexing features which will be investigated to accomplish this are sentence final particles and first-person pronouns. Instances of these linguistic features are typically presented as features of gendered language, but as will be demonstrated, this does match their actual usage by speakers. I set out to answer three research questions, (1) …

Híbridos, Monstruos, Cíborgs Y Posthumanos: La Hibridez Como Herramienta Ciberpunk Para Retomar El Control De Los Cuerpos, Naiara Porras Rentero

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

Rosi Braidotti warns us in her book Lo posthumano (2013) that “when the word difference implies inferiority, the connotation can be both dangerous and harmful for those marked as the other” (12). Since Michel Foucault first began his analysis of biopolitics, there have been many thinkers who have theorized how heteropatriarchal roles demand conformity at the risk of self-alienation and loss of identity. The theatrics demanded by an externally imposed social order can tax personal autonomy and diminish the resources required for individual growth and development. Judith Butler’s performance theory uses biopolitics to underscore how gender identity and sexual orientation …

Psychological Distress And Relationship Satisfaction Among Survivors Of Sexual Violence, Alyssa Campbell

Theses and Dissertations--Family Sciences

The World Health Organization (WHO; 2002) has indicated that sexual violence is a serious public health concern, and both the WHO and the United Nations (UN) have declared that violence against women, in particular, is a profound violation of human rights (UN General Assembly, 1993; WHO, 2017). Although the systemic and negative impact of trauma on family and intimate relationships have been well documented, the empirical literature regarding the effects of adult sexual trauma on relationship satisfaction is less robust. These studies are designed to address this gap and will do so with analyses centered on an understudied population: the …

"Now Thinking About It, It's Freedom": Conceptualizing Sexual Pleasure For Fat, Queer Women, Carolyn Elizabeth Meiller

Theses and Dissertations--Educational, School, and Counseling Psychology

Research considering the positive aspects of sexuality, such as pleasure, within a cultural context is especially important for groups of people that are often seen as separate from the experience of sexuality, such as fat, queer women. Due to perceptions of their bodies and how their sexuality goes against traditional heteronormativity, fat, queer women's experiences with sex and pleasure are under represented. Using a critical sexuality framework, the present study sought to explore the definitions and experiences of sexual pleasure for fat, queer women.

In the present study, constructivist grounded theory methods (Charmaz, 2014) were used to analyze the definitions …

Woman To Woman: Community And Belonging Among Lesbian And Queer Feminist Activists In Haifa, Israel, Lauren Copeland

Theses and Dissertations--Gender and Women's Studies

This dissertation focuses on experiences of belonging among lesbian and queer feminist activist women in the women-only organization Isha L’Isha. As the oldest feminist organization in Israel, Isha L’Isha was established in 1983 and has roots dating back to the 1970s. I spent one year (2017-2018) engaging in participant observation and conducting 40 interviews with current and former members of the group. Using Isha L’Isha as a lens through which to examine the multilayered ways in which gendered activism shapes experiences of belonging, this project centers the experiences and narratives of four women: Talma, Sophie, Amira, and Maya.

This work …

"My Gender Is Lesbian": Community Building And The Endurance Of The Lesbian In Queer Times, Adriana Sisko

Theses and Dissertations--Gender and Women's Studies

During 2016, the same year news of lesbian bar closures hit mainstream media, a small cluster of Tumblr users began to discuss a new gender and sexual identity, nonbinary lesbian, to describe those who identify both as nonbinary and as lesbian. Nonbinary lesbians stand at the crossroads of modern and postmodern identity constructs, engaging in contradictions and ambiguities for the sake of authentic self-expression. What does this demonstrate about the evolution of lesbian identity, particularly as lesbian bars continue to close around the United States? This dissertation explores this question by comparing and contrasting the discursive practices and strategies of …

Social Determinants Of Discrimination And Access To Health Care Among Transgender Women In Oregon, Jonathan Garcia, Richard A. Crosby

Health, Behavior & Society Faculty Publications

Purpose: Transgender women in the United States experience health disparities and limited access to gender-affirming health services. This study describes the social determinants of health that shape access to health services for transgender women in Oregon, a state with a high tally of gender-affirming policies.

Methods: We conducted qualitative interviews with 25 transgender women between 18 and 39 years of age. Interviews explored the social, economic, cultural, and legal factors that shape access to health. A Qualtrics survey captured sociodemographic characteristics. We identified facilitators and barriers to accessing gender-affirming services using thematic analysis of qualitative data.

Results: Our participants perceived …

[Review Of] Fake Geek Girls: Fandom, Gender, And The Convergence Culture Industry, By Suzanne Scott, Kyra Hunting

Journalism and Media Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Psychosocial Mediators Of Perceived Stigma And Suicidal Ideation Among Transgender Women, Krishna Kiran Kota, Laura F. Salazar, Rachel E. Culbreth, Richard A. Crosby, Jamal Jones

Health, Behavior & Society Faculty Publications

BACKGROUND: Transgender women (TGW) in the U.S. experience high rates of stigma, depression, and elevated rates of suicide. This study examined correlates of suicidal ideation and estimated the conditional indirect effects of perceived stigma and psychosocial mediators on suicidal ideation.

METHODS: Using a cross-sectional study design, TGW (N = 92) were recruited through snowball sampling in Atlanta, Georgia. Structured interviews were conducted. Suicidal ideation was assessed by combining two variables that measured suicidal thoughts. Logistic regression models were performed to identify the potential risk and protective factors for suicidal ideation. We examined hypothesized psychosocial factors, including anxiety, depression, psychosocial impact …

[Review Of] Beneath The Surface: A Transnational History Of Skin Lighteners, Elizabeth W. Williams

Gender and Women's Studies Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Studying The Longest ‘Legal’ U.S. Same-Sex Couples: A Case Of Lessons Learned, Esther D. Rothblum, Kimberly F. Basalm, Ellen D. B. Riggle, Sharon S. Rostosky, Robert E. Wickham

Political Science Faculty Publications

We review methodological opportunities and lessons learned in conducting a longitudinal, prospective study of same-sex couples with civil unions, recruited from a population-based sample, who were compared with same-sex couples in their friendship circle who did not have civil unions, and heterosexual married siblings and their spouse. At Time 1 (2002), Vermont was the only US state to provide legal recognition similar to marriage to same-sex couples; couples came from other US states and other countries to obtain a civil union. At Time 2 (2005), only one US state had legalized same-sex marriage, and at Time 3 (2013) about half …

A Content Analysis Of Representations Of Women's Bisexuality In American Popular Music, 2008-2018, Haley D. Hintz

Oswald Research and Creativity Competition

This paper closes the gap in research which has long neglected the study of representations of women's bisexuality in American popular music. Previous research has concluded that in all forms of media including magazines, television, music and films, references of bisexuality or bisexual people make up less than 1% of instances (Bond 111). This paper studies how bisexual women are erased and depicted in popular music by coding released singles (n=184) categorized using Billboard’s “Top 40 Year-End Artists,” charts from 2008-2018. This research found these singles to portray women/women narratives into the following three categories: 1) portraying behavioral bisexuality, 2) …

The Mothman And Other Strange Tales: Shaping Queer Appalachia Through Folkloric Discourse In Online Social Media Communities, Brenton Watts

Theses and Dissertations--Linguistics

Little work has been conducted on the intersections of queer and Appalachian identities, in part because these two identities are viewed as incompatible (Mann 2016). This study uses a multimodal critical discourse analytic approach to examine the Instagram posts of the Queer Appalachia Project, which represent a substantial body of discourse created by and for queer Appalachians. Of specific interest to this analysis are those posts which employ folkloric figures, such as West Virginia’s Mothman, to do identity work that is queer, Appalachian, and queer-Appalachian. Often, this act is accomplished through juxtaposition with Appalachian imagery and the reclamation of homophobic …

El Bildungsroman Femenino Mexicano: Nuevas Perspectivas De La Novela De Formación Femenina Fronteriza, Yorki Junior Encalada Egúsquiza

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

The late 20^th and early 21^st centuries have not only favored a steady growth in Chicana literary production but have also revealed an alternative identity of the Mexican American border woman, the meXicana. Rosa Linda Fregoso, in MeXicana Encounters (2003), coins and defines this term as “the interface between Mexicana and Chicana,” and employs it to examine the experiences and representations of Mexicanas and Chicanas without eliminating the differences between them. This study borrows this term but uses it specifically to describe North American women of Mexican origin whose identities and border-crossing experiences make it difficult to solely …

Curious Natures: Constructing Queer Ecologies In Early America, Richard Lee Parmer Jr.

Theses and Dissertations--English

This dissertation argues that early American writers often constructed queer ecologies in order to naturalize Anglo-American civilization and justify its expansion into Native American territories. Since there is so little textual evidence on the subject, the major challenge to studying sexuality in early America is approaching sexuality studies creatively—to broaden both our understanding of what counts as sexual discourse and our frameworks for analyzing it. My dissertation addresses this challenge through what many ecocritical scholars of sexuality call queer ecology. In their groundbreaking anthology on the topic, Catriona Mortimer-Sandilands and Bruce Erikson remind us that, historically and in the present, …

Simultaneous Intersectionality In The Comics Of Catel And Sabrina Jones: Understanding Women’S Life Stories, Jeorg Ellen Hornsby

Theses and Dissertations--Gender and Women's Studies

The project examines how the theories of simultaneity and intersectionality are useful in analyzing the lived experiences of the authors and their subjects. Specifically, this dissertation analyzes how French comic artist Catel and American comics artist Sabrina Jones use the medium of comics to recount their autobiographical stories within and alongside their biographical stories of Benoîte Groult and Margaret Sanger, respectively.

Queering The Carceral Cycle: Women's Resistance To The Carceral State, Ashley Ruderman-Looff

Theses and Dissertations--Gender and Women's Studies

Building upon feminist and queer scholarship that recognizes mass incarceration and the prison-industrial complex as elements of an inherently violent carceral state, Queering the Carceral Cycle excavates and analyzes twentieth-century incidents in which women resisted the state’s criminalization and/or punishment of multiply marginalized women. I argue that the state’s response to women’s acts of resistance prompted the development of new carceral strategies and technologies that expanded the carceral state’s investment in control and punishment. Moreover, by critically embracing a Foucauldian scheme known as the “carceral cycle,” I demonstrate how the state traps multiply marginalized women in a seemingly endless recurrence …

Feminist Friendship As An Affective Engagement Through The Arts: A Decolonial And Posthuman Becoming-With Rebeca Lane's Alma Mestiza, Miguel Ángel Blanco Martínez, Paola Mendoza Téllez-Girón

disClosure: A Journal of Social Theory

This paper considers friendship as an affective terrain of feminist alliance among subjects that belong to territories with a colonial record responding to the colonial/modern gender system (Lugones 2007) through the arts. Friendship is here conceptualized as an engagement of feminist solidarity unfolding within theoretical and practical models of change and resistance against the logics of cultural imperialism (Lugones and Spelman 1983). Turning friendship into a polyphonic feminist reaction, this work is conducted by acknowledging the need to foster dialogues where different authorial voices and feminist positionalities meet, reflect, and speak. The paper settles the encounter between its authors in …

Recovery After The Rupture: Linking Colonial Histories Of Displacement With Affective Objects And Memories, Aarzoo Singh

disClosure: A Journal of Social Theory

The notion of home and belonging, specifically in the context of South Asian postcolonial diasporas, is connected to past traumas of colonization and displacement. This paper addresses how trauma, displacement, and colonialism can be understood through and with material culture, and how familial objects and items emit and/ or carry within them, emotional narratives. I turn to the affective currency that emit and are transferred on and down from objects, by diasporic subjects, to access the possible reclamation of otherwise silenced narratives within colonial and postcolonial histories. By following the events of the Partition of India in 1947 as a …

Dispatches From Queer Potluck: [Extra]Ordinary Affects As A Project Of Belonging, Greg Niedt

disClosure: A Journal of Social Theory

This essay takes an approach that is part autobiography, part meditation on theory, in order to engage with the tension between "ordinary affects" (Stewart 2007) and the queer extraordinary. Drawing on my own experiences as part of an intentional community in Philadelphia, I consider what it means for me to experience affect in queer space. How does that manifest in the body, and the world in turn? How do these experiences fit into a larger desire for kinship and belonging? My purpose here is not to make broad claims about what affect is (or is not), but to provide a …

Affect And Activism: An Interview With Deborah Gould, Deborah Gould, Rory Barron, Brittany Frodge, Robby Hardesty

disClosure: A Journal of Social Theory

Deborah Gould is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Santa Cruz (and Affiliated Faculty in Feminist Studies, History of Consciousness, and Politics). Her book Moving Politics: Emotion and ACT UP's Fight Against AIDS (University of Chicago Press, 2009) won the Distinguished Contribution to Scholarship Best Book Award from the American Sociological Association's Political Sociology Section (2010) and the Ruth Benedict Book Prize from the American Anthropological Association (2010). She is currently working on another book about political emotion, Composing Collectivities: Appetite, Encounters, and the Not-Yet of Politics. She was involved in ACT UP /Chicago for …

Family Conflict Observations And Outcomes Among Adopted School-Age Children With Lesbian, Gay, And Heterosexual Parents, Rachel H. Farr, Samuel T. Bruun, Kyle A. Simon

Psychology Faculty Publications

Children’s externalizing problems are associated with family conflict among children and their biological parents, yet these linkages have remained unexamined among adoptive or lesbian and gay parent families. Investigating family processes facilitative of adjustment among adoptees, who face unique developmental challenges, is warranted. This multimethod study of 96 (26 lesbian, 29 gay, 41 heterosexual parent) adoptive families examined observations of adoptive family conflict and associations with child adjustment and feelings about adoption (children’s M_age = 8 years). The sample was recruited from 5 private, domestic infant adoption agencies across the United States. Parents and children reported about children’s externalizing …

Ethnic And Gender Disparities In The Uptake Of Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement In The United States, Ayman Elbadawi, Syed Yaseen Naqvi, Islam Y. Elgendy, Mohamed F. Almahmoud, Mohamed Hamed, Hesham Abowali, Gbolahan O. Ogunbayo, Hani Jneid, Khaled M. Ziada

Internal Medicine Faculty Publications

Introduction: Little is known about ethnic and gender disparities for transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) procedures in the United States.

Methods: We queried the Nationwide Inpatient Sample (NIS) database (2011–2014) to identify patients who underwent TAVR. We described the temporal trends in the uptake of TAVR procedures among various ethnicities and genders.

Results: Our analysis identified 39,253 records; 20,497 (52.2%) were men and 18,756 (47.8%) were women. Among all TAVRs, 87.2% were Caucasians, 3.9% were African Americans (AA), 3.7% were Hispanics, and 5.2% were of other ethnicities. We found a significant rise in the trend of TAVRs in all groups: …

Opposing Abortion To Protect Women: Transnational Strategy Since The 1990s, Carol Mason

Gender and Women's Studies Faculty Publications

This article examines the transnational work that since the 1990s has increasingly opposed abortion in terms of protecting women. It therefore explores how pro-woman rhetoric is used to foster right-wing politics by way of, and beyond, the fight over abortion. Narratives depicting white women as dupes of a sordid, satanic system of abortion provision ignore the fact that most women report feeling relief—not grief, regret, or trauma—after terminating an unwanted pregnancy. To get a sense of the political and cultural influence that right-wing movements gain when they play the woman card, we must trace antiabortion collaborations transnationally. Reading representations of …

Gender Differences In Peer Review Outcomes And Manuscript Impact At Six Journals Of Ecology And Evolution, Charles W. Fox, C. E. Timothy Paine

Entomology Faculty Publications

The productivity and performance of men is generally rated more highly than that of women in controlled experiments, suggesting conscious or unconscious gender biases in assessment. The degree to which editors and reviewers of scholarly journals exhibit gender biases that influence outcomes of the peer‐review process remains uncertain due to substantial variation among studies. We test whether gender predicts the outcomes of editorial and peer review for >23,000 research manuscripts submitted to six journals in ecology and evolution from 2010 to 2015. Papers with female and male first authors were equally likely to be sent for peer review. However, papers …

Fraud Detection Protocol For Web-Based Research Among Men Who Have Sex With Men: Development And Descriptive Evaluation, April M. Ballard, Trey Cardwell, April M. Young

Epidemiology and Environmental Health Faculty Publications

Background: Internet is becoming an increasingly common tool for survey research, particularly among “hidden” or vulnerable populations, such as men who have sex with men (MSM). Web-based research has many advantages for participants and researchers, but fraud can present a significant threat to data integrity.

Objective: The purpose of this analysis was to evaluate fraud detection strategies in a Web-based survey of young MSM and describe new protocols to improve fraud detection in Web-based survey research.

Methods: This study involved a cross-sectional Web-based survey that examined individual- and network-level risk factors for HIV transmission and substance use among young MSM …

Photography, Visual Culture, And The (Re)Definition/Queering Of The Male Gaze, David Nicholas Martin

Theses and Dissertations--Art and Visual Studies

The traditional notion of the Male Gaze, first conceptualized by feminist film critic Laura Mulvey in 1975, focused on the objectification of women through depictions structured to gratify a male heterosexual perspective. In this chapter we will revisit this concept and investigate how that gaze may have shifted away from a primarily heterosexual perspective to a socially dominant male perspective (maleness here referring to dominance rather than specific gender, just as “whiteness” might refer to privilege rather than race). With gender roles in an increasingly global and mobile society becoming more fluid and complex, opening up visibility to LGBTQ communities, …

Female Disparity And Political Participation In The Kentucky State Legislature; The Presence Of Female Legislative Candidates And Their Effect On Voter Turnout In The Kentucky Electorate, Trenton K. Patrick

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

Female disparity in the political process in the state of Kentucky follows the same distinct pattern of female disparity all across state legislatures in the United States, and in the federal legislative branch. Female representation and parity in the political process is vital to the success of governmental bodies due to the benefits that the female perspective offers to governmental processes. After extensive review of the existing literature, it is clear that there is a gap in the literature when it comes to understanding how the presence of a female candidate effects the total turnout rate, female turnout rate, and …