Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons^™

Effective Use Of Media Awareness Campaigns For Breast Cancer Care Among Women: A Comparative Study, Okorie Nelson, Abiodun Salawu

Journal of International Women's Studies

This study investigated the influence of media awareness campaigns on breast cancer care among women in South-West Nigeria. This study employed a mixed research method, which made use of survey and focus group discussion to achieve the objectives of the study. For the sample size, a total of 632 persons participated in the study, which was made up of 600 questionnaire respondents and 32 discussants for the focus group discussion. The multi- stage sampling and simple random sampling techniques were used to select the questionnaire respondents in Lagos, Oyo and Ekiti States. Also, three hypotheses were tested using cross tabulation …

Women's Advocacy In Postwar Bosnia And Herzegovina. Implementation Of Unscr 1325 On Women, Peace And Security, Jagoda Rošul-Gajić

Journal of International Women's Studies

In this paper, I address the question of how Bosnian women's NGOs have contributed to the implementation of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (UNSCR 1325) on Women, Peace and Security in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). What instruments did they use to enforce gender, peace and security norms into state policy and the policy of international actors in the post-conflict internationalized society of BiH? Since national and international actors did not comply with international gender specific norms and standards, I argue that, as norm advocates, Bosnian women’s NGOs have been working with a double strategy to influence gender, peace …

Women's Access To Political Leadership In Madagascar: The Value Of History And Social Political Activism, Ave Altius, Joel Raveloharimisy

Journal of International Women's Studies

Globally, wide gaps exist between men’s and women’s participation in leadership roles. This paper explores women’s access to leadership in Madagascar through an examination of women’s participation in politics and government. Research across the literature found three major reasons for women’s political participation: gender quotas, kinship and societal upheaval. However, upon examining Madagascar, women’s participation in leadership involves factors, which were not fully explored in this literature. The historical legacy of Madagascar and women’s social and political activism were the principal factors in women’s participation in leadership. The findings might have implications in explaining women’s access to leadership roles.

Vulnerability Of Teenage Girls To Pregnancy In Ibarapa Central Local Government Area, Oyo State, Nigeria, Stella O. Odebode, Oluyinka A. Kolapo

Journal of International Women's Studies

The study examined the vulnerability of teenage girls to pregnancy in Ibarapa Central local government area of Oyo state, Nigeria. Simple random sampling was used to select 140 teenage girls for the study. Both qualitative and quantitative methods of data collection were used to elicit information from the respondents. While Interview Schedule was used to collect quantitative data, Focus Group Discussion Guide and In-depth Interview was used to gather qualitative data. Data were analysed using a descriptive method of analysis. Analysis of the data obtained showed that the average age of teenage girls in the study area was 15 years; …

In Their Husbands' Shoes: Feminism And Political Economy Of Women Breadwinners In Ile-Ife, Southwestern Nigeria, Friday Asiazobor Eboiyehi, Caroline Okumdi Muoghalu, Adeyinka Oladayo Bankole

Journal of International Women's Studies

In a significant number of societies worldwide, the primary role of men is to serve as breadwinners in their households. However, in Nigeria, since the mid-1980s there has been a steady rise in the number of women breadwinners in many households. In spite of this, not enough studies have been conducted on this emerging phenomenon. Using feminist and political economy theories as explanatory tools, the study examined women breadwinners in Nigeria using Ile-Ife of Southwestern Nigeria as a case study. Both quantitative and qualitative methods of data collection were utilized to explore the circumstances leading to the rise of women …

Separate Space: An Approach To Addressing Gender Inequality In The Workplace, Zuziwe Khuzwayo

Journal of International Women's Studies

Gender inequality in the workplace continues to be one of the most challenging issues to deal with in South African society where patriarchy still exists. This paper evaluates whether the South African Commercial Catering and Allied Workers Union’s (SACCAWU) separatist model for dealing with gender inequality have been successful. The union’s decision to create a ‘separate space’ for women within the union is analysed. Data collection comprised of an analysis of SACCAWU’s gender policy and material (including workshops, discussions and programmes run by the union). Participant observation and semi-structured interviews with 22 SACCAWU male and female members regarding gender policies, …

Natural Resources And Household Incomes Among Rural Women: Analysis Of Communities Domiciled Near National Parks In Rwanda, Edward Mutandwa, Seraphine Wibabara

Journal of International Women's Studies

Historically, national parks were developed along protectionist principles to stave off illegal extraction of plants and wildlife. However, there have been calls to involve local communities in sustainable management of natural resources in recent years. The main objective of this study was to examine the economic activities carried out by rural women located near the Virunga National Park (VNP) in Northern Rwanda. The research also determined the role of such activities in enhancing their financial condition. A total of 118 respondents were selected from Musanze District using a multi-stage sampling technique. Data was mainly collected through a structured questionnaire transcribed …

'Your Woman Is A Very Bad Woman': Revisiting Female Deviance In Colonial Fiji, Margaret Mishra

Journal of International Women's Studies

This article sets out to retrieve two accounts of female deviance in colonial Fiji. It will posit rule-breaking behavior as a reaction to colonial and patriarchal efforts to regulate female behavior and sexuality. The article simultaneously aims to undo rigid categorizations of female deviance by relating such acts to historical circumstance. Police records, court proceedings and news items from The National Archives of Fiji are cited to show how indigenous Fijian woman, Davilo, and indentured Indian woman, Sukhrania, transgressed socially constructed paradigms of morality by procuring abortions in 1884 and engaging in prostitution in 1909, respectively. By relabeling these alleged …

Southern American University Undergraduates' Attitudes Toward Intrauterine Insemination Undertaken By Women Of Differing Age, Marital Status And Sexual Orientation, Sara L. Sohr-Preston, Ashley K. Rohner, Bryce H. Lott

Journal of International Women's Studies

Undergraduate college students in the southern U.S. were presented with vignettes about a fictional woman seeking to become pregnant via intrauterine insemination (IUI). Participants were randomly assigned to conditions in which the woman described was 26 or 41 years old, and single, married to a man, or married to a woman. After reading the vignettes, participants rated their expectations of the prospective mother’s preparedness for parenting, ability to provide quality of life for a child, risk for pregnancy complications and achieving a healthy pregnancy. Results yielded marginally significantly (p = .05) lower expectations of achieving a healthy pregnancy when …

Taking Care In The Digital Realm: Hmong Story Cloths And The Poverty Of Interpretation On Hmongemboridery.Org, Corey Hickner-Johnson

Journal of International Women's Studies

This essay examines Hmong story cloths exhibited on the HmongEmbroidery.org virtual museum in order to consider 1.) transnational Hmong diasporic experience post-Vietnam, 2.) the problems with interpretation as a critical mode of scholarship seeking mastery, and 3.) the work of digital archives in accounting for displacement and loss. The Hmong, an indigenous group originally living in East Asia, created many of the story cloths exhibited on HmongEmbroidery.org in Thai refugee camps following the Vietnam War, during which they assisted the United States CIA against the Viet Cong and Pathet Lao. Displaced by enemy forces from their homes through violent means …

Domestic Violence And The Implementation Of The Hague Convention On The Civil Aspects Of International Child Abduction: Japan And U.S. Policy, Sawako Yamaguchi, Taryn Lindhorst

Journal of International Women's Studies

Around the world, an increasing number of married couples have at least one person who is not a citizen of their spouse’s country. The global growth in transnational families has necessitated the development of international legal agreements to address issues that have arisen upon the dissolution of these relationships. Of particular note to feminist scholars has been the issue of domestic violence in these relationships and how these circumstances are addressed under international agreements such as the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. In 2013, Japan became the last of the major industrialized countries to sign …

Domestic Violence In Chinese Families: Cold Violence By Men Towards Women, Helen Mclaren

Journal of International Women's Studies

China has experienced rapid social and economic transformation since the early 1990s. While state control has attempted to maintain a collectivist spirit that emphasizes communal goals and obligations over unrestricted capitalism, rapid economic growth has weakened socialist ideals and individualism has thrived. The present paper draws attention to potential associations between the rise of capitalism, individualism in mainland China, the one-child policy and changes in domestic violence laws with the increased perpetration of cold violence by some men towards their female partners. Cold violence refers to an emotional form of domestic violence characterized by a complete withdrawal of all verbal …

A Macro Economic Approach To Gender Disparities In Hiring At The Ceo Level, Abigail R. Wood

Business and Economics Summer Fellows

More men named John run S&P 1500 companies than all women combined, causing many to wonder what factors are limiting women’s career advancement. While many studies have been written about the topic of women’s success in the business world, most focus on individual firms or positions and therefore miss macroeconomic factors such as women’s completion of master’s degree programs and labor force participation rates. This research examines the disparity of gender in CEO positions through the examination of macroeconomic data which captures women’s career trajectory and qualifications. This research specifically examines trends in women’s obtainment of master’s degrees in business …

The Queer Omaha Archives, Amy Schindler

Criss Library Faculty Proceedings & Presentations

The Queer Omaha Archives, in Criss Library Archives & Special Collections at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, preserves and provides access to the history of LGBTQIA+ life in the region. The archives collects, preserves, and makes available to the public material documenting the diverse people and organizations of the greater Omaha region and their experiences and work. In this session, we’ll share how this new community collecting initiative was begun and how the library is extending existing and establishing new relationships with campus and community members to preserve the region’s LGBTQIA+ history and make it available for use.

My Body, Not My Say: Justice Blackmun's Influential Decision In Roe V. Wade, Kisha K. Patel

Gender, Women's, and Sexuality Studies Summer Fellows

Abortion laws have regulated women’s bodies since the beginning of the country. Many people associate regulation with the case of Roe V. Wade in 1973, in which the Supreme Court ruled that states could not outlaw abortion during the first trimester. Roe v. Wade remains controversial to this day as it failed to establish consensus that women’s decision whether or not to terminate a pregnancy falls within their constitutional right to privacy. Understanding the implications of this decision is fundamental to analyze the debate over the constitutionality of abortion today. This paper examines the opinion written by Justice Blackmun in …

Statistical Plight Of Black Women, Kimberly-Joy M. Walters

Sociology Summer Fellows

The purpose of this research is to examine how television shows and their portrayals of professional Black women impact the interpretation of marriage rates by race and perpetuate ideologies about the angry, unlovable Black woman. Using a content analysis of cable and network television shows with Black professional women as lead characters, this study connects an analysis of the characters’ lived experiences to normative expectations of Black women in relationships to call into question the prevailing narrative that Black women are in part personally responsible for their statistical plight. I will closely study how the two stereotypes, the Jezebel and …

Investigating Asylum And Assimilation Procedures In European Countries As It Relates To The Independence Of Women, Katherine R. Avetta

International Relations Summer Fellows

This project investigates and analyzes immigration policy, specifically focusing on asylum seeking women, in European countries including, but not limited to, Germany and Sweden. Many European nations have limited immigration policy that ultimately negatively affects immigrants from Middle Eastern and African nations, especially female migrants fleeing those nations in order to gain independence and freedom from torture and gender based persecutions. However, what little policy European countries do utilize inevitably hinders women from gaining independence and rather mirrors the male dominated socio-cultural societies from which these very women fled. Through the examination of articles and policy, this project will analyze …

Perceptions Surrounding Cyberbullying And Self-Disclosure Among The Lgbtq Community: A Qualitative Approach, Alec Martin

Media and Communication Studies Summer Fellows

LGBTQ adolescents, like all youth, face challenges: the push for high academic marks, the desire for positive relationships, and the right to be themselves in a safe environment. Unfortunately, LGBTQ youths are far more likely than their heterosexual peers to experience bullying and cyberbullying. According to a 2005 study by the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network, the second largest cause of bullying was actual or presumed sexual orientation or identity. Gay males were more than twice as likely to be bullied on school property than their heterosexual peers, 43.1% and 18.3%, respectively (Olsen et al, 2014). In addition, 23.1% …

Female Moments / Male Structures: The Representation Of Women In Romantic Comedies, Jordan A. Scharaga

Media and Communication Studies Summer Fellows

Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl again. With this formula it seems that romantic comedies are actually meant for men instead of women. If this is the case, then why do women watch these films? The repetition of female stars like Katharine Hepburn, Doris Day and Meg Ryan in romantic comedies allows audiences to find elements of truth in their characters as they grapple with the input of others in their life choices, combat the anxiety of being single, and prove they are less sexually naïve than society would like to admit. In 1999, a character struggles …

Queer History Of The United States: A Syllabus, Jordan Ostrum

History Summer Fellows

This project is a proposed syllabus of a college level history course dealing with queer and trans experiences in the 20^th century. The course utilizes the Ursinus inquiry based approach to learning, focusing on the core questions “How can we understand the world?” and “How should we live together?” Supplementary materials, such as the course proposal, are meant to encourage the Ursinus College History Department to offer the course in the future.

Text And Paratext: Analyzing Edith Wharton's Hudson River Bracketed In Its Periodical Context, Paige Szmodis

English and Creative Writing Summer Fellows

Studying a novel in the context of its paratexts — including the illustrations, advertisements, and captions surrounding the fiction — reveals how the publication context can shape a literary work. This project examines Edith Wharton’s Hudson River Bracketed (1929) and its paratexts by comparing the final version of the novel with textual changes made in its monthly periodical publication in the magazine The Delineator (1928-1930). As mass-consumerism and advertising increasingly targeted women during the 1920s, examining Wharton’s work in a popular middle-class women’s magazine like The Delineator illuminates how paratexts affect audience perceptions of the novel’s characters, conflicts, and themes. …

Family Affairs Newsletter 2016-07-15, Zack Paakkonen

Family Affairs newsletter (2004-2016)

FAMILY AFFAIRS was a free, twice-a-month, social activities newsletter for the GLBTQI (gay/lesbian/bisexual/trans/queer/intersex) community, sent out around the 1st and 15th of each month. It covered the State of Maine only. The list was begun and maintained for many years by Jean Vermette in Bangor, and later operated by Zack Paakkonen of Portland. Over the years it evolved from a social activities newsletter into a business directory, classified ad service, and community bulletin board.

(Re)Imagining Haiti Through The Eyes Of A Seven-Year-Old Girl, Iliana Rosales Figueroa

Journal of International Women's Studies

Haitian-American author Edwidge Danticat’s new novel Claire of the Sea Light (2013) explores themes of love, loss, and death. The first character that is presented to us is Claire of the Sea Light, a seven-year-old girl, whose mother died giving birth to her and who is missing. It is at the intersection of this little girl’s loss that all the other characters and topics unfold. Madame Gaëlle, an upper class woman who has a fabric shop in Ville Rose, decides to adopt Claire in order to give her a better life. In this essay I demonstrate that Edwidge Danticat articulates …

Reassessing Caribbean Migration: Love, Power And (Re) Building In The Diaspora, Andrea Natasha Baldwin, Natasha K. Mortley

Journal of International Women's Studies

Traditional research has framed Caribbean migration as a socio-economic issue including discourses on limited resources, brain drain, remittances, and diaspora/transnational connection to, or longing for home. This narrative usually presents migration as having a destabilizing effect on Caribbean families, households and communities, more specifically the impacts on the relationships of working class women who migrate leaving behind children, spouses and other dependents because of a lack of opportunities in Caribbean. This paper proposes an alternative view of migration as a source/manifestation of women’s power, where women, as active agents within the migration process, in fact contribute to re building relationships, …

Claiming The Politics Of Articulation Through Agency And Wholeness In Two Afro-Hispanic Postcolonial Narratives, Silvia Castro Borrego

Journal of International Women's Studies

Following a context-based approach and the tenets of post-positivist realist theory, this paper will analyze two post-colonial Afro-Hispanic novels immersed in their articulation of moving towards Caribbeanness within the phenomenon of Diaspora Literacy: María Nsue Angüe’s Ekomo (1983) and Michelline Dusseck’s Caribbean Echoes (1997). As part of the Diaspora Literacy, these texts will be read employing the search for wholeness as a theoretical tool, towards an epistemology of anti-colonial feminist struggle. These texts take active part in a decolonizing process that fosters a definition and vision of agency which makes wholeness possible, becoming an active expression of black women’s spirituality …

A Subtlety By Kara Walker: Teaching Vulnerable Art, Marika Preziuso

Journal of International Women's Studies

In late Spring 2014, the nonprofit organization Creative Time commissioned artist Kara Walker to create her first large-scale public installation. Hosted in the industrial relics of the legendary Domino Sugar Factory in Brooklyn, Walker’s A Subtlety, or the Marvelous Sugar Baby was as controversial as it was revered. The powerful presence of the installation, coupled with its immersion in historical consciousness, makes A Subtlety rich in educational value. This article engages in a comparative reading of A Subtlety in the light of female writers and thinkers from the Caribbean, but also incorporates some of the generative questions Walker’s installation has …

Finding Your Own Magic: How Obeah And Voodoo Provide Women Agency In Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea And Tiphanie Yanique's Land Of Love And Drowning, Matthew Cutter

Journal of International Women's Studies

One of the most important functions of Caribbean literature is to give voice to characters that would be otherwise voiceless. These characters are often slaves, women, racial minorities, and poor people; in other words, anybody who has been touched by the devastating oppression of a colonial society. The oppressed in the Caribbean have often turned to their belief in Obeah in order to assert themselves in the face of the colonizer. Obeah and magic are still ingrained in the culture of the Caribbean people because the culture of the European colonizer is still influencing society in the Caribbean.

Through this …

Carving Caribbean Spaces In Between: The Life Of Ruth Gourzong In 20th Century Puerto Limon, Costa Rica, Natasha Gordon-Chipembere

Journal of International Women's Studies

This paper attempts to make visible the community and their descendants of free Jamaican blacks who immigrated into the Atlantic Coast of Costa Rica (specifically Puerto Limon) at the turn of the twentieth century to help build the American owned Northern Railway and work on the banana plantations owned by the American owned United Fruit Company. I illustrate the life of my great grandmother, Ruth Gourzong as an example of a woman from this community who managed to thrive against the odds of racism and sexism during her life time in Costa Rica. In order to fully appreciate the context …

"Everything Remains The Same And Yet Nothing Is The Same": Neocolonialism In The Caribbean Diaspora Through The Language Of Family And Servitude, Laura Barrio-Vilar

Journal of International Women's Studies

This essay examines Jamaica Kincaid’s Lucy, a novel that tackles the process of decolonization from old and new forms of colonialism through the language of servitude and family (specifically, mother-daughter relationships). The novel’s protagonist is not only an example of the wave of West Indian migration and the feminization of labor, but her agency also provides Kincaid with the necessary platform to deploy her views on U.S. imperialism. I propose reading Lucy’s evolution toward self-determination as not only an individual but also a collective experience. I interpret the novel as an allegory that can help us better understand the …

Wifredo Lam, The Shango Priestess, And The Femme Cheval, Paula Sato

Journal of International Women's Studies

This article examines Afro-Cuban painter Wifredo Lam and his iconic construction of Afro-Cuban identity. From the vantage point of a literary scholar rather than art historian, and in keeping with Lam’s description of his paintings as “poetry,” I read his artwork as terse lines of verse, rich in metaphors. Although Lam is regarded as the painter of Negritude, commonly understood as a male-centered movement, he distinguishes himself from his contemporaries by incorporating in his brand of Negritude two female figures as metaphors of the power to decolonize the mind. One of those figures is his Afro-Cuban godmother, Mantonica Wilson. Healer, …