Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons^™

The Use Of Anti-Bullying Policies To Protect Lgbt Youth: Teacher And Administrator Perspectives On Policy Implementation, Michelle Lauren Holliday

Dissertations and Theses

Although in recent years there has been increased attention on bullying prevention and bullying legislation in the United States, there is limited research on the implementation of anti-bullying policies. Moreover, few studies have addressed the use of anti-bullying policies to protect LGBT youth from bullying. The present study seeks to examine the role of anti-bullying policies as a means to protect against bullying based on perceived sexual orientation and gender identity. Qualitative interviews with high school teachers, administrators, and staff members within an urban school district in the United States were conducted to gain insight into how those charged with …

Honor Killing Attitudes Among San Jose State University Students, Pedja Ilic

Themis: Research Journal of Justice Studies and Forensic Science

This study examines honor killing attitudes amongst a sample of sixty graduate and undergraduate students in the Department of Justice Studies at San Jose State University and offers a systematic review of published academic literature on honor killings. It hypothesizes that students who strongly adhere to patriarchal traditionalism are more likely to endorse legitimacy of honor killings, controlling for gender, education, family size, religion, religiosity/religious conviction, and female chastity expectations. Descriptive findings suggest that the majority of respondents disagree that honor murders are justified, regardless of circumstances, dependent variable honor killing attitudes. Respondents also report negative attitudes toward authority and …

The Turning Point Of Who Shall Be Master: Killer Of Sheep, Naming, Gender, And The Gaze Of African American Women, Sean Davis Watkins

Master of Arts in American Studies Capstones

Charles Burnett’s 1978 award-winning film Killer of Sheep directly responded to the then-popular Blaxploitation genre, holding a mirror up to post-Watts, 1970s America, while exposing and exploring gender and race issues. Moreover, intentionally or not, Burnett, with this film, effectively demonstrated the lack of recognition that Black women faced in domestic, activist, and employment spheres; simultaneously, Burnett conspicuously reified the relegation of women into that silent, domestic sphere while challenging stereotypes of Black men, elevating them and establishing them as humans, capable of hubris, humanity, and vulnerability. This neo-realistic film masterfully rebirthed the African American male identity; unfortunately, though, neglected …

Selling Queer Rights: The Commodification Of Queer Rights Activism, Laurence Pedroni

Themis: Research Journal of Justice Studies and Forensic Science

With the recent Supreme Court decision to legalize same-sex marriage throughout the country, many have spoken in support of the decision, calling it a massive expansion of civil rights. While affording marriage rights to same-sex couples, these rights and expansions should be understood in the greater context of historical queer rights struggle and the economic factors that have motivated these civil rights expansions. This article will examine how the expansion of gay marriage rights was motivated not by concerns with civil rights, but out of economic concerns. This process has, in effect, commodified queer rights, weakening queer rights politics to …

A Pilot Project Of Art And Eating Disorders: A Self-Advocacy Campaign Through Video Narratives, Sarah Pray

Art Therapy Counseling Final Research Projects

This pilot project of Art and Eating Disorders was approved by The Emily Program Foundation (TEPF) (Emily Program Foundation, n.d.), a 501(c) (3) nonprofit working to eliminate eating disorders through advocacy, social outreach, and collaboration with community partners. TEPF recruited five artists. Artists were interviewed by Sarah Pray and artwork digitally recorded at various locations, filmed and edited by videographer, Eve Daniels. Artists brought artwork and other creative work related to their recovery. The resulting videos were uploaded to the TEPF website (www.theemilyprogramfoundation.org) weekly. The goal of the pilot project was to measure the project's ability to document …

Black-\`Blak\, Venise Keys

Theses and Dissertations

My studio practice explores themes of identity derived from the basic question of Langston Hughes, What does it mean to be a Black artist? My artwork draws from memory, Black Feminist literature, along with the aesthetics of the African diaspora and the Black Arts Movement. In this essay, I reexamine childhood experiences in my mother's hair salon; beauty rituals of U.S. Black women; and the consuming male gaze in Western art to explain how these influences manifest in the artwork of Black-\`BLAK\.

After Houselessness: Queer Youth Of Color Severed From Cultural And Spiritual Community, Carrie Fuentes, Miriam Abelson

Student Research Symposium

Within the Portland Oregon Houseless Youth Continuum, to what extent are the particular needs of Queer Youth of Color being served by existing programs? There is a gap between the nature of houseless youth services and the need for Queer Youth of Color to rebuild the missing connections resulting from cultural or spiritual rupture that creates a disconnection from their ancestry and community estrangement. Programs exist that offer assistance to QYOC in crisis but these programs lack in a positive connection to spiritual and cultural legacy that will support long term self-efficacy.

The proposed research goal is to examine these …

Saudi Women Studying In The United States: Understanding Their Experiences, Trinidad Macias

Theses & Dissertations

The number of students from Saudi Arabia studying in the United States is increasing; this study focused on understanding Saudi women studying in the United States. A qualitative phenomenological approach was used to address the main research question: What are the perceptions of Saudi women on their experiences as international college students in the United States? In an attempt to understand their experiences, eleven Saudi Arabian women were interviewed. Data were collected using a semi-structured interview format. Analysis of the data was conducted via a four-step process that consisted of transcribing the interviews, reduction, horizontalization, and imaginative variation (Merriam, 2002). …

Family Affairs Newsletter 2016-05-01, 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.

Breaking The Legacy: Recognizing And Prosecuting Sexual Violence As A Violation Of Human Rights In The Democratic Republic Of The Congo, Miranda L. Weinstein

Sustainability and Social Justice

This paper aims to outline the existing policies aimed at providing protection for sexual abuse survivors in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In an attempt to provide justice for the survivors of sexual abuse, an analysis of the 1992-1995 Bosnia and Herzegovina post-conflict reconstruction is included. In particular, prosecution of sexual violence and rape as a weapon of war will be provided in order to weigh the benefits and weaknesses of international criminal law. The conflict in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo witnesses widespread and systematic sexual violence abuses. With over 60 armed groups at any given day, …

Diagnoses By Gender: The Consequences Of Treatment Of The Mentally Ill In Virginia Woolf's The Waves And Mrs. Dalloway 2016, Erika Nichole Jackson

Master's Theses

“Insanity is purely a disease of the brain…The physician is now the responsible guardian of the lunatic, and must ever remain so.” Sir John Charles Bucknill (1897)

Mental illness has consistently been and continues to be a subject that is viewed as taboo by society, especially when it comes to diagnosing a patient. Instead of acknowledging a person’s actions, thoughts, and words, society continually disregards mental illness as something that is negative and to be feared. The fact that this area of medicine can be difficult and distressing makes it all the more important to continue research. It is true …

Including Men And Boys In Programming Of Violence Against Women And Girls: A Case Study Of The Safe Schools Program In Ghana And Stepping Stones Program In Uganda, Nana A. Ampofo

Sustainability and Social Justice

Violence against women and girls and its potential solutions increasingly garner international attention in the media and find themselves at the center of development agency portfolios. Program interventions aimed at eradicating violence against women and girls must create solutions that examine the socio-cultural values and normative expectations that boys and girls, men, and women place on one another. Many scholars argue that changing social norms or beliefs is an inter-generational process, as they are entrenched in and reproduced through social institutions such as the family, schools and religion (Enloe, 2013). Over the past decade, scholars and practitioners have noted violence …

The Effect Of Descriptive Norms On Resistance Exercise Self-Efficacy In College-Aged Females 2016, Justin Kompf

Master's Theses

Resistance training is a form of physical activity that provides substantial health benefits. Despite these widespread benefits, participation in resistance training is considerably low, particularly among females. To engage in a skill-related activity such as resistance training, individuals need to have confidence in their abilities. Self-efficacy is a cognitive construct that is used to describe situation-specific self-confidence. Descriptive norms are a type of social norm that describes the behavior of others. Descriptive norms have been useful in positively changing health related behaviors. The exact mechanism of how descriptive norms alter behavior is unknown. However, it has been show in research …

Lullaby For The Burning Ear: How Intersectional Feminism Can Help Decolonize The Latino Consciousness, Donovan E. Hernandez Garcia

Senior Theses

People exist with their own religions, cultures, and practices, which illustrate the ingenuity of humanity. Yet, because of major events that altered the fate of the Americas, a certain societal structure was created to maintain power. Due to colonization, the prolonged exposure to numerous cultures, and the continuation of oppressive systems, people have been forced to band together based on similar characteristics, be it race, gender, or sexual orientation, creating divisions within society. It is because of such colonial mentality, subliminal and apparent, political and cultural movements, such as Feminism and intersectionality, have been created to combat the harmful effects …

Spaces Of Visibility And Identity, Shelby R. Purdy

Undergraduate Honors Theses

“Spaces of Visibility and Identity” is an exploration on how being immersed in constant visibility has an effect on an individual’s identity. Visibility is not a narrow term meant to signify solely observation; rather, visibility is the state of existing within a world that does not allow for total isolation. To exist within the world is to be visible to others, and this visibility is inescapable. Visibility can be seen as a presentation or a disclosure of oneself to other beings. Existing within the world inevitably implies that one is presenting oneself to others, whether or not the presentation is …

Society’S Influence On Gender Roles, Ana Perez-Senic

Nebraska College Preparatory Academy: Senior Capstone Projects

The Civil War was a time of hardship for everyone regardless of gender. Louisa May Alcott and Stephen Crane embody the spirit and mood of the Civil War through their novels and the use of the gender lens.Through the protagonist of the novels we see the influence war has on their state of mind and on their home and social life.

The novels Little Women and The Red Badge of Courage capture the essence of the Civil War era. Louisa Alcott and Stephen Crane reflect their own experiences and thoughts through their character's mindset, personality and hardships. Gender roles and …

Undergraduate Research Fellowships: A Strategic Investment To Reduce Women Underrepresentation In The Mathematical Sciences, Janie L. Knell, Wilson Gonzalez-Espada

Celebration of Student Scholarship Poster Sessions Archive

No abstract provided.

The Priorities And Accomplishments Of Kentucky Legislators : Is There A Gender Difference?, Amanda Allen

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Theses

This thesis uses Kentucky as a case study of gender differences in the policy priorities and perceptions of accomplishments of state legislators. The research question is, “are there gender differences in the legislative priorities and perceptions of accomplishments of Kentucky legislators?” The legislative priorities of the legislators seemed to be similar, along with their own classification of women’s issues. The perceptions of success demonstrated that male legislators were not necessarily more likely to attribute success to themselves, whereas women would attribute success to collaboration efforts. The research was completed through confidential interviews with Kentucky legislators and analysis of the 2015 …

The Glass Ceiling Is Not Broken: Gender Equity Issues Among Faculty In Higher Education, Jillian Wood

Educational Studies Dissertations

Gender discrimination is an ongoing topic, including discrimination that occurs in higher education. Previous studies have shown female faculty experience a variety of workplace discrimination including sexual harassment/bullying, salary disparities, and lack of worklife balance. This dissertation aimed to analyze equity issues for female faculty at a private university. The researcher utilized a narrative inquiry methodology, conducting interviews with five full-time female faculty. The purpose of this dissertation was to understand the participants’ everyday stories and lived experiences. The researcher utilized critical feminist theory and leadership theory to examine the notion of equity at this campus. The findings, shown through …

The Lgbtq-Friendly Physician Project, Andrew Dilernia

Honors Projects

No abstract provided.

Break The Internet: Gendered Image Manipulation And Political Subject Formation, Sarah Bolden

Honors College Theses

Image manipulation is ubiquitous: in the twenty-first century, it seems that “everyone knows” that the images presented in the media, from magazine covers to product advertisements, have been edited to seamlessly and effortlessly convey contemporary social norms. The recognition of this image manipulation is evident throughout popular culture: a Google search of “Photoshop fails” will return thousands of articles cataloging the most outrageous retouching disasters.

Whiteness In Contemporary Feminist Campaigns : Free The Nipple., Laura Patterson

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Theses

No abstract provided.

Obergefell V. Hodges And Support For Same-Sex Marriage : Changes In National And State Public Opinion., Adria Neal

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Theses

Many have argued that Supreme Court decisions on culture war issues, issues that cause conflict between conservative and liberal values, stifle public progression on the very problems they are meant to resolve. They often cite political and electoral backlash following a decision as evidence of this stagnation in opinion. However, this backlash may not be representative of widespread public opinion. In order to understand the relationship between Court decisions and public opinion, changes in opinion on culture war issues following a Supreme Court ruling must be measured. This study utilizes national and state survey data in order to examine this …

Prevalence Of Sexual Harassment And Assault In Uri Stem Graduate Students, Ivy Burns, Holly Dunsworth

Senior Honors Projects

There are many barriers for women in STEM careers (science, technology, engineering, and math); one, often untalked about, barrier is the prevalence of sexual harassment and assault. In the summer of 2014 the paper “Survey of Academic Field Experiences (SAFE): Trainees Report Harassment and Assault” by Clancy, et. al. was released and shed light on an issue facing many young women and men in science. According to the SAFE survey, a shocking amount of sexual harassment and assault was experienced by the, primarily female, researchers and very few knew how to report an incidence of assault. With this project I …

I Preferred, Much Preferred, My Version: Exploring The Female Voice And Feminine Identity Within Memoirs Of The 20th And 21st Centuries, Alexandra Fradelizio

Senior Theses

Memoirs have long been a valuable way in which individuals share and reflect on their past experiences. The genre of memoir writing especially had a tremendous impact on a range of American female writers. This thesis explores memoirs written by women throughout the 20^th century. With the shift in women’s roles during the 1900s and early 2000s, the memoirs examined emphasize the importance of feminine identity. The analysis provided within this thesis centers on each memoirist’s unique path in determining her sense of self. Moreover, the memoirists each use the process of writing to relay the value of personal …

Identities Without Origins : Fat/Trans Subjectivity And The Possibilities Of Plurality., Mc Lampe

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This project draws upon the work of Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, and Donna Haraway to critically analyze the political power and utility of origin stories as they are used within discourses of identity. I specifically examine the dominant cultural and counter-origin stories of transgender and fat bodies and argue that the counter origin stories constructed by both trans and fat studies/activism continue to engage with norms that regulate identity. These regulations create an impossible situation for individuals who are both trans and fat as they are not recognized as intelligible subjects within either category due to their lack of appropriate …

Jazz Epidemics And Deep Set Diseases: The De-Pathologization Of The Black Body In The Work Of Three Harlem Renaissance Writers, Shane C. Hunter

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This dissertation argues that the Harlem Renaissance was, in part, a response to Victorian-era medical and scientific racism, and that the three writers on which it centers, Langston Hughes (1902-1967), Wallace Thurman (1902-1934), and Richard Bruce Nugent (1906-1987), participated in subverting these racist discourses. I focus on elements of their creative work that de-pathologize the black body. Specifically, I consider how these writers undermine Victorian-era medical racism that had, by the 1920s, come to inform American racial politics. Hughes’s, Thurman’s, and Nugent’s work from the mid-1920s to the early 1930s is at least partly concerned with undermining medically racist ideology …

Check The Box Marked Other: Exploring Gender In Family Life, Serenity E. Dougherty

All NMU Master's Theses

The concept of a traditional family structure has been fading over the last 50 years and with this decline the notion of responsibilities being determined by gender is also losing ground, though it still has a long way to go. This short story collection works to continue to normalize the increasing variety of family structures, especially variety that has its roots in new notions of gender challenging old conventions. The stories are all set in Nebraska, an ideal landscape for exploring tradition versus modernity. Though there are major cities in NE, most of the state is composed of smaller rural …

Classical Masculinity In Shakespeare’S Antony And Cleopatra, Timothy N. Grams

All NMU Master's Theses

This thesis uses the formula of classical masculinity to examine Marc Antony’s value as a Roman man in Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra. Examining Antony’s history as a Roman hero, I distinguish how his reputation is destroyed through his romantic involvement with Cleopatra. Furthermore, I consider the divine representations of Cleopatra and Octavian Caesar as they oppose each other, and how Antony’s role within their conflict defines his value as a classical Roman man. I then deliberate his sexual fetishism for the matriarch pharaoh, and how their relationship functions as sadomasochistic, defining Antony as the masochist and Cleopatra as the …

New Appalachians Of The Twenty-First Century: Reinventing Metanarratives And Master-Images Of Southern Appalachian Literature, Kelsey Alannah Solomon

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Appalachian studies tradition ascertains that Appalachian people politically, socially, and academically represent a heterogeneous minority group of our own. In post-capitalistic America, however, the Appalachian region serves as a hotspot for media misrepresentation and tourism that perpetuate through works of fiction, nonfiction, and scholarship both negative and positive stereotypes in the overall American consciousness. Twenty-first-century Appalachian authors, I contend, are reinventing Appalachia from its postmodern rubble through fictionalized reconceptualizations of our region’s history, shifts in our collective consciousness from anthropocentric to ecocentric, and subversions of the heteronormative discourse of our internal colony through explorations of the psychosexual. The contemporary …