Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons^™

Contemporary Vietnamese Fiction Written About The War From The Gender Perspective, Thai Phan Vang Anh

Bahasa dan Seni: Jurnal Bahasa, Sastra, Seni, dan Pengajarannya

The nature of every war is the same, whether in Asian countries, in Vietnam or anywhere else. However, in reality and literature, war always brings many faces, depending on which aspects and which perspectives it is seen and explained. From the gender perspective, we believe that under a certain aspect “a war has a female face”. Contemporary Vietnamese fiction describes war from the view of “feminine disposition”, realizes women’s beauty during and after war and condemns the brutal destruction of war from the fate of women. From the feminist perspective on war, contemporary Vietnamese fiction also mentions the instinctive desire, …

Feminine Film Style: Does It Really Exist? A Case Study Of Sofia Coppola’S Marie Antoinette And Zoe Cassavete’S Broken English, Alyson H. Stanley

Missouri S&T’s Peer to Peer

Masculinity and femininity in American cinema has always been a controversial topic. The two constructs have been changing with societal expectations and progression, but in the past, every time women and femininity have been granted a chance to develop in cinema, such as the introduction of the risqué flapper in the 1920s and the femme fatale of the 1950s, these developments were quelled by the inevitable return to traditional gender roles. But, after the feminist movement of the 1960s, there was no doubt about how extremely displeased women were with the current state of gender equality (Benshoff & Griffin, 2004). …

"Growing Scar Tissue Around The Memory Of That Day": Sites Of Gendered Violence And Suffering In Contemporary South African Literature, Kate Every

Journal of International Women's Studies

In the words of renowned criminologist Antony Altbeker, South Africa is suffering from a “crisis of crime.” The outworking of tensions from the perceived inadequacies of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission have seen an explosion of violent crime, which has little improved in the two decades since the end of the Apartheid-state. Contemporary South African literature has spoken to this violent reality in myriad ways, from the violence of South Africa’s most written about novel, J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace, to the more recent trends in crime fiction and true-crime genres. The novels considered here, Disgrace and Margie Orford’s Like …

'What On Earth Is She Drinking?' Doing Femininity Through Drink Choice On The Girls' Night Out, Emily Nicholls

Journal of International Women's Studies

In a supposed “post-feminist” society of gender equality, engagement with contemporary spaces such as the Night Time Economy (NTE) may offer young women positive opportunities to redefine femininities through leisure activities and alcohol consumption. Whilst the NTE is depicted as an increasingly “feminised” space where women’s drinking is normalised and expected, this essay will demonstrate some of the ways in which alcohol consumption remains highly gendered and women continue to be expected to buy into normative femininity through their beverage choice by looking at a specific mode of engagement with the NTE - the “girl’s night out”. Drawing on the …

Happy Days Sinking Into Immanence: Samuel Beckett And The Second Sex, Susan Hennessy

Journal of International Women's Studies

Dysfunctional, fragmented, and restricted bodies are a cornerstone of Samuel Beckett’s stage, a place where characters and actors alike find themselves forced to express the inexpressible, with notoriously diminished resources. Historically, existentialist readings of the Beckett canon have offered an insight into works which seem to raise essential questions regarding what it means to be when normative metanarratives have ceased to govern and “realist” escapism is denied. When it comes to discussions of phenomenological existentialism and its proponents, however, the works of Simone de Beauvoir often seem to be eschewed, or assimilated into those of the more famous Jean-Paul Sartre. …

"Seething Underneath": Objectification In Iris Murdoch's Early Fiction, Emily Tait

Journal of International Women's Studies

This essay is about the objectification of women in the early novels of Iris Murdoch, particularly A Severed Head (1961), Under the Net (1954) and The Italian Girl (1964), and how this is subverted by complex characterisation. In focusing on novels predominantly with male narrators and a first person male gaze, I will draw on Sartre’s analysis of “the look” in Being and Nothingness (1943) as well as feminist film theory to firstly consider evidence of immobilization and then re-examine criticism of Murdoch’s female characters as “puppets”. I will contend that Murdoch does not objectify her female characters but instead …

Exploring The Shifting Dynamics Of Female Victimhood And Vocality In Poe And Pirkis, Eva Burke

Journal of International Women's Studies

This essay will examine the detective fiction of Edgar Allan Poe (published between 1841 and 1844) in conjunction with Catherine Louisa Pirkis’ 1894 work The Experiences of Loveday Brooke, Lady Detective in terms of their diverging authorial approaches to narratives of detection. While Poe, writing in the years preceding the first significant mobilisation of American women towards the attainment of civil liberties, is credited with creating the figure of the male detective, Auguste Dupin, for whom the paradigms of detection rested on a gendered dichotomy between the actively logical masculine and the passive (and usually dead) feminine, Pirkis’ seminal collection …

Taking A Break From The State: Indian Feminists In The Legal Reform Process, Shruti Iyer

Journal of International Women's Studies

This paper examines the critique of what has been termed as “governance feminism” and analyses its conceptual utility with reference to the legal reform process undertaken in India in the aftermath of the Delhi anti-rape demonstrations of late 2012-early 2013. Governance feminism refers to the process by which feminists influence institutional decisions and policy, and critiques of governance feminism focus on its tendency to maintain an equivalence between womanhood and victimhood, and its blindness to unintended consequences of feminist legal reform. This paper will reflect on the critiques that have been made of governance feminist interaction with the state, and …

Reproducing The Homonormative Family: Neoliberalism, Queer Theory And Same-Sex Reproductive Law, Eliza Garwood

Journal of International Women's Studies

This paper seeks to highlight the often overlooked interconnectivity of the cultural sphere and the economic sphere, particularly focusing on same-sex reproductive law and neoliberalism. Using The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008, specifically highlighting its implications for same-sex couples, this examination demonstrates the way that policy and legislation frequently echo normative ways of being, encouraging the “good”, productive neoliberal citizen and/or family. This article is informed by Foucault’s notions of governmentality and biopower, problematising this limiting legislation, arguing that it is grounded on an internalised ideal of the traditional family, discouraging more transgressive or creative family formations. Specifically, I …

Introduction: New Writings In Feminist Studies, Charlotte Mathieson, Kehinde Olowookere

Journal of International Women's Studies

No abstract provided.

Music And The Migrant: A Transnational Account Of Cumbia, Irene L. Mekus

Audre Lorde Prize

This paper looks into the cultural synthesization and the transnational ties of cumbia between Latin America and the United States. Three case studies look at the story of migrants and their transnational ties through cumbia and are analyzed through an ethnomusicology framework.

Family Affairs Newsletter 2016-02-15, 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.

Dick Hanson And Bert Henningson: Rural Activists In The 1980s, Cory Schroeder

Scholarly Horizons: University of Minnesota, Morris Undergraduate Journal

Although the title of this presentation may seem relatively straightforward, I encourage you all to think a little deeper about two important words in the title of this presentation: rural and activists. Questions that come to mind include: what does it mean to be rural? What does a rural individual look like? What is activism? Who can be an activist? Can you be rural and an activist? Does rural activism look different than other forms of activism? Maybe most importantly, can someone be an activist for more than one cause? If you asked Dick Hanson or Bert Henningson that question, …

Fearless Friday: Erin Meachem, Erin M. Meachem

SURGE

In this round of Fearless Friday, SURGE is honoring the work of Erin Meachem ‘16!

Erin is originally from Queensbury, New York and is currently in her senior year at Gettysburg, majoring in English and Spanish. She has been heavily involved with student senate, serving as the senator for the Class of 2016 over the last three years. Erin currently works as the Student Liaison for the Career Development Center, advertising career development events to people who participate in student senate. In addition, she worked as the Peer Learning Assistant for a First-Year Seminar last semester and helped First Years …

Q&A: Privilege And Allyship, Anonymous

SURGE

Question: I’ve always wondered about this: as a white, heterosexual male person who cares about the way minorities and marginalized populations are treated, what gives me the right to feel offended or call someone out on something they say that’s a definite gray area when I don’t belong to that group? I believe that as a privileged individual it is my responsibility to advocate as an ally but it would conversely be an exercise of my privilege if I were to be the one to decide what is and isn’t offensive to a whole group of people I don’t belong …

Inspiration, Interpretation, And Authority: Laying Down The Law, Leah Jo M. Shelton

Religion: Student Scholarship & Creative Works

This paper examines the relationships between and the complexities within biblical inspiration, interpretation, and authority and how they might contribute to liberating and oppressive uses of the Bible. For an example of an oppressive interpretation, the introduction includes a brief case study concerning the interpretive history of 1 Corinthians 11:10 and 1 Timothy 2:12. Continuing, David Law’s book, Inspiration, serves as the main source for theories of inspiration. He discusses two categories of theories—word-centered and non-verbal—and provides his own theory which locates inspiration in relationship between the text and the reader. In response to Law, this paper centralizes around …

Family Affairs Newsletter 2016-02-01, 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.

Care, Connectedness, & Motivation: Keys To Supporting At-Risk Girls [Poster], University Of Northern Iowa. Women's And Gender Studies Program.

Women’s and Gender Studies Program Documents

No abstract provided.

Gendered Geographies In Puerto Rican Culture: Spaces, Sexualities, Solidarities, Radost A. Rangelova

Gettysburg College Faculty Books

This is a critical study of the construction of gendered spaces through feminine labor and capital in Puerto Rican literature and film (1950-2010). It analyzes gendered geographies and forms of emotional labor, and the possibility that they generate within the material and the symbolic spaces of the family house, the factory, the beauty salon and the brothel. It argues that by challenging traditional images of femininity texts by authors and film directors like Rosario Ferré, Carmen Lugo Filippi, Magali García Ramis, Mayra Santos-Febres, Sonia Fritz and Ana María García, among others, contest the official Puerto Rican cultural nationalist discourse on …

Desperate Choices: Why Black Women Join The U.S. Military At Higher Rates Than Men And All Other Racial And Ethnic Groups, Julia Melin

New England Journal of Public Policy

The enlistment of black women in the U.S. military has been a persistent and growing demographic trend over the past three decades. Black women now constitute nearly one-third of all women in the U.S. military. At around 30 percent, this number is twice their representation in the civilian population and higher than that of men or women of any other racial or ethnic group. This article analyzes the changing economic, social, and political landscape in the United States to identify what has motivated this cohort to enlist at such high rates. Based on this analysis, a case can be made …

Empowerment From Within: Supporting Palestinian Women’S Struggle Against Violence, Ortal Bensky

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Recent reports by the United Nations and local non-governmental organizations present a troubling increase in incidents of violence against Palestinian women in Palestine. These are cases of domestic violence, where the attackers are Palestinians, and political violence, where the attackers are Israeli settlers and soldiers. These violent incidents include attacks on body and property. Most incidents are neither dealt with by the Palestinian authorities nor by the Israeli government and judicial system. There is not sufficient international pressure to enforce justice. The purpose of this study is to offer alternative ways to prevent violent crimes, enforce relevant laws, and provide …

Transparent Interiors: Detective And Mystery Fiction In The Age Of Photography, Melissa D. Dunn

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation is a meditation on the mutable boundaries that define interior life in the age of photography. I probe these boundaries through selected readings in two literary genres that share conceptual links with photography—detective fiction and mystery fiction. Photography plays an important role in a radical reconsideration of the boundaries between public and private, engaging two dominant and often conflicting cultural values that shape American life at the turn of the twentieth century—the mandate to define and protect privacy and the simultaneous call for greater transparency in public and personal life. Photography, through its perceived transgressions against private life, …

The Fictions Of Whiteness: Transatlantic Race Science, Gender, Nationalism, And The Construction Of Race In Nineteenth-Century American Fiction (1823-1867), Philip E. Kadish

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Fictions of Whiteness argues that political beliefs preceded and determined the race science theories which nineteenth century American white novelists applied or invoked in their work, the inverse of the current critical consensus. For issues ranging from Indian removal to slavery and Reconstruction, and utilizing theories from of Condorcet, Buffon, Camper, Louis Agassiz, James Pritchard, Johannes Blumenbach, and George Borrow these authors shifted allegiances to divergent race theories between and within works, applied those theories selectively to white, black, and Indians characters, and applied the same scientific race theories to politically divergent rhetorical ends. By analyzing shifting application of different …

A Passage From Brooklyn To Ithaca: The Sea, The City And The Body In The Poetics Of Walt Whitman And C. P. Cavafy, Michael P. Skafidas

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This treatise is the first extensive comparative study of Walt Whitman and C. P. Cavafy. Despite the abundant scholarship dealing with the work and life of each, until now no critic has put the two poets together. Whitman’s poetry celebrates birth, youth, the self and the world as seen for the first time, while Cavafy’s diverts from the active present to resurrect a world whose key, in Eliot’s terms, is memory. Yet, I see the two poets conversing in the crossroads of the fin de siècle; the American Whitman and the Greek Cavafy embody the antithesis of hope and dislocation …

Ceasing To Run Underground: 20th-Century Women Writers And Hydro-Logical Thought, Annie M. Cranstoun

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Starting from two central ecopoetic convictions—the constitutive role of environment in human experience (and vice versa), and text’s ability to connect with the world—this dissertation then moves in a different direction from most ecocritical projects. Instead of looking at the ways literary representation flows back into nature in the forms of attitude, praxis, and policy, this study focuses on the earlier part of the loop: the emergence of text from environment, particularly its aquatic parts, via the faculty of the imagination. In its scrutiny of images that spring directly from matter and its faith in the concept of a personal …

Creating With Anger: Contemplating Vendetta. An Analysis Of Anger In Italian And Spanish Women Writers Of The Early Modern Era, Luisanna Sardu Castangia

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In the vast gamut of human emotions, anger is one of the most complex, provocative, and enduring. From Greek philosophers working in antiquity to today’s most recent theories on emotions, most scholars agree that anger has a multifaceted nature. This near universal agreement across the barriers of time and geography stems from the following facts: in order to exist, anger involves the participation of other emotions; anger does not have an opposite; anger leads an individual to engage in an act of self-analysis and in an evaluation of other individuals; and, finally, anger inspires action to right a wrong that …

The Virtue Mentality, Rachel Eckhardt

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In my study of early feminist fiction and contemporary queer intentional communities, highly ambitious and nearly impossible aspirations emerged as a singular uniting theme. From early feminist novelists to the intrepid founders of lesbian lands, utopian women share a passionate commitment to transform the world. This thesis engages with feminist concepts of virtue and how they influence utopian projects in both fiction and in life, whether the word “virtue” itself is used to describe the project or not. Virtue has made a lasting impact on contemporary feminist utopian projects that sometimes creates conflict and often undermines its liberatory aspirations. When …

Research In Brief - 'My Story Ain’T Got Nothin To Do With You' Or Does It?: Black Female Faculty’S Critical Considerations Of Mentoring White Female Students, Kathleen E. Gillon, Lissa D. Stapleton

Journal of Critical Scholarship on Higher Education and Student Affairs

Previous literature on mentoring, specifically that of cross-cultural mentoring, has provided some insight into the intricacy of race in mentoring. However, much of this literature has focused on the mentoring relationship of a White individual mentoring a person of color. This qualitative inquiry critically explores the experiences of six Black female faculty who have mentored White female students in higher education graduate programs, focusing specifically on how they enter into these cross-cultural mentoring relationships. Using Black feminist thought, our findings suggest that while individual Black faculty may have unique experiences entering into mentoring relationships with White female students, a Black …

Fearless Friday: Jasmine Matos, Jasmine S. Matos

SURGE

This week Surge is honored to highlight Jasmine Matos for Fearless Friday!

Originally from the Bronx in NYC, Jasmine is here at Gettysburg majoring in Health Sciences and minoring in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. She now finds herself in her last semester at Gettysburg College and is trying to make the most of it. She’s the Captain of B.O.M.B. Squad, a member of the Black Student Union (BSU), a member of the Latin American Student Association (LASA), and she works in the Admissions Office. [excerpt]

Research Brief: "Out From The Shadows: Female Student Veterans And Help-Seeking", Institute For Veterans And Military Families At Syracuse University

Institute for Veterans and Military Families

This study explored what happened when female veterans brought three military-cultural contexts (responsibility, worth, and pride) into their transition to civilian life and help-seeking attitudes in college. In practice, student veterans exhibiting components of military culture should use these military cultural components to their benefit, and student veterans struggling to adjust to the type of thinking often required of college students should feel comfortable seeking support at their university student veteran center. In policy, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) might continue offering their campus toolkit, which has been found to be a great resource for many IHEs, offering them …