Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons^™

Mind To Mirror To Life: Sexual Health From A Body Positive Lens, Kacey Richardson

Honors Theses

Body image and sexual health are inextricably linked. It is crucial for college students to understand the importance of body image within sexual health in order to capture the full scope of sexual well-being, although most existing sexuality education resources for college students fail to make this connection. This thesis demonstrates the necessity for comprehensive sexual health education that incorporates a focus on body image to promote the health and wellness of college students. Using an intersectional outlook, the thesis evaluates existing resources and presents the contents of an original workshop titled “Mind to Mirror to Life: Sexual Health from …

La Llorona In Nuevomexicana Poetic Narratives: Reflections On Writing And Memory, Sutherland Jaramillo

Spanish and Portuguese ETDs

This paper focuses on poetic narratives that consider the folklore figure of La Llorona. I argue that contemporary nuevomexicana poets are responding to regional narratives as a way of challenging traditional structures of the lore and female archetypes to reclaim the identity and voice of the figure of La Llorona. Through literature that considers structure and archetype of the lore, Chicana feminist theory, and spectral theory, this essay surveys a selection of poems: “La Llorona Speaks” (2018) by Mercedez Holtry, “Una Carta de Amor de la Llorona” (2011) by Jessica Helen Lopez and “La Llorona” (2018) by Joanna Vidaurre-Trujillo. Through …

Metaphysics Of Gender, Natalie Chan

Global Tides

In this paper, I respond to Judith Butler's objections to the gender matrix and present issues with her theory of gender: the gender performativity theory.

Ua94/6/1 My Story: Wku Softball's Morgan Mcelroy, Morgan Mcelroy

Student/Alumni Personal Papers

My Story is a series of first-person feature articles written by WKU student-athletes. The student-athletes will be telling their own stories in their own words. This article written by softball senior Morgan McElroy, whose career came to a sudden end last month between the team’s midweek game and weekend series in Texas.

Scrivere Di Islam. Raccontare La Diaspora, Simone Brioni Dr., Shirin Ramzanali Fazel

Department of English Faculty Publications

Scrivere di Islam. Raccontare la diaspora (Writing About Islam. Narrating a Diaspora) is a meditation on our multireligious, multicultural, and multilingual reality. It is the result of a personal and collaborative exploration of the necessity to rethink national culture and identity in a more diverse, inclusive, and anti-racist way. The central part of this volume – both symbolically and physically – includes Shirin Ramzanali Fazel’s reflections on the discrimination of Muslims, and especially Muslim women, in Italy and the UK. Looking at school textbooks, newspapers, TV programs, and sharing her own personal experience, this section invites us to change the …

Hawthorne’S Faith, Cecelia Little

English Student Scholarship

Major: English and Philosophy

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Margaret Reid, English

This project is an examination of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s writings, particularly focused on Hawthorne’s identity, philosophy, and spirituality. Placing these ideas in the context of early American history as well as in the context of Hawthorne’s biography, Cecelia Little focuses on how Hawthorne offers pieces of a new and complex philosophy of the individual human soul within the human community. This powerpoint includes a structured compilation of many, but by no means all, of her findings, and she plans to delve much further into Hawthorne’s life and works. The primary focus …

Blake’S Method: Blake Imagining Milton In The Marriage Of Heaven And Hell, Micaela Freeman

English Student Scholarship

Major: English

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Bruce Graver, English

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell is William Blake’s articulation of his reaction to John Milton’s Paradise Lost. After analyzing Blake’s reaction to Paradise Lost, I will suggest how Blake’s reading of Milton helped shape 20th-century criticism, specifically post-war Miltonic criticism. My paper will begin by considering Blake’s rewriting of Milton in the ‘Argument’ of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, starting at the Adamic myth. I will continue my analysis with looking at the famous passage on Plate 6 when Blake writes, “The reason Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote …

Othello As A Domestic Tragedy: Marriage And Moral Extremism, Sophie A. Miller

Global Tides

The dehumanization of female characters in Othello by viewing them through antiquated and dichotomous views of women and female morality is a major factor in the play's tragic ending. These women exist in the context of changing marriage customs that came along with changes in government and religious structures of authority. Through Iago's influence, Othello comes to shift from the more modern companionate view of marriage into an outdated patriarchal model. The play is one of many Early Modern Dramas examining marriage but does not fit in with Patient Griselda plays or with domestic tragedies in which unfaithful wives are …

190— Punk Prayer: The History Of The Riot Grrrl Movement, Soleil Rivera, Hailey Martin, Quentin Wall

GREAT Day Posters

The “riot grrrl” movement was an underground subculture of music that began in Washington State (Particularly in Olympia) in the early 1990s. It consisted of all female bands that combined feminist values and politics in the form of punk music. It spread quickly across the nation, and the US, where it went on to influence the globe, and their society and politics, becoming a much more international movement. Here, we will be covering the foundations of the “riot grrrl” movement, list a few bands and their impacts on the nation, and the significance of the movement on aspects of society, …

098— The Misrepresentation Of Native American Women In The Media And Their Social Activism Against Violence And Mistreatment, Emma Meeks, Allison Pajda, Bridget Marshall

GREAT Day Posters

This poster takes a look at the myths and stereotypes surrounding Native American women in media and throughout history. In this poster, we examine the work that Native American women have done in social movements such as #TakingBackTigerLilly and #NotYourMascot, that are working towards dispelling the stereotypes and false impressions surrounding them. This poster also examines the violence that native women are exposed to and their social activism through movements. These movements are meant to show people the truth about the violent acts that affect native women and their communities.

201— American Influence On Japanese Birth Control, Rachel Brooks, Kassidy Schad, Katherine Collins, Katie De Onis

GREAT Day Posters

The birth control pill was legalized in the United States in 1965, and 34 years later, in 1999, the birth control pill was legalized in Japan. For decades, Japan clung to pronatalist ideas for moral and economic reasons; preventing births and abortions were not socially acceptable actions. Furthermore, a decreased birth rate was considered an economic threat, as a smaller workforce would seemingly result in decreased productivity. Despite the negative preconceptions about the effects of birth control being long-held in Japanese society, activists, such as Margaret Sanger and Shidzue Ishimoto, disputed them by opposing the government's censorship policies. Activists sought …

Hons 495 How Sex Education Contributes To Reproductive Injustice In Franklin County, Va, Elizabeth Garri

Virtual 2020 Spring Student Showcase for Research and Creative Inquiry

No abstract provided.

Span 352 La Violencia Obstétrica En Argentina Por Madison Koontz, Madison Koontz

Virtual 2020 Spring Student Showcase for Research and Creative Inquiry

This presentation considers the cultural phenomena of obstetric violence, and women's rights issue in Argentina for decades.

Unnatural Disasters: Environmental Trauma And Ecofeminist/Ecowomanist Resistance In Zora Neale Hurston’S Their Eyes Were Watching God And Jesmyn Ward’S Salvage The Bones, Sarah Anne Pfitzer

Honors Scholars Collaborative Projects

No abstract provided.

Women Of Nashville: A Magazine, Bronte Lebo

Honors Scholars Collaborative Projects

Short essay about the origin of Women Of Nashville: A Magazine

Serving With Pride: Military Experience And The Formation Of The Queer Female Identity In Mid-Century America, Kathlene Ward, Elizabeth Escobedo, Susan Schulten

DU Undergraduate Research Journal Archive

At the inception of World War II, the United States military adapted to include women within its ranks with the creation of the Women’s Army Corps. Likewise, psychology’s implementation into military procedures legitimized systematic exclusion and removal of queer persons seeking military involvement. Such factors resulted in a particularly unique environment for queer servicewomen. The birth of the Cold War brought about a new wave of heterosexual expectations that forced queer individuals in the U.S. military even further into the closet. This project seeks to uncover how gender and sexuality expectations placed upon queer women serving in the World War …

The Sun Cuts In, Madison Manns

Honors Scholars Collaborative Projects

My work seeks to tear down the privileging of the objective at the expense of the subjective—the universal truth at the expense of the knowledge in the body, in the being—in order to restore the fruitful dialogue between the subjective observer as the object of perceived stimuli that become the mover. As a high-achieving individual encouraged in academic endeavors—one intimately acquainted with the language of prestige and intellect—I am seeking a new way to address theory through a return to material language; language connected to, informed by, and describing the world in the way that we know, rather than what …

Writing A Global And Southern Sisterhood Between Indonesia And Australia: The Possibilities Of “Difference” And Collaborative Autoethnography, Siti Muflichah, Elizabeth Mackinlay

Journal of International Women's Studies

The concept of feminist “sisterhood” holds an uneasy historical and contemporary relationship with difference; indeed, new ways of knowing and doing research across, within, through and between the boundaries of race, class and religion are needed disrupt the sedentary monologism of “white-supremacist-capitalist-imperialist-patriarchy” (after hooks, 1994). Collaborative autoethnography presents itself as one such possibility for doing the work of difference “differently”, and in this paper, we share the sameness and differences of our “southern-ness” as feminist academics to explore this potential. As two female academics from Indonesia and Australia, we draw upon the postcolonial feminist work of Mohanty and the poststructural, …

Waking Up The Dissident: Transforming Lives (And Society) With Feminist Counseling, Donna F. Johnson

Journal of International Women's Studies

When I was a student in the 70’s I took a year off to travel the world with a friend. Despite taking every precaution, I was sexually assaulted twice. The incidents changed the course of my life. I completed my studies and began working in a refuge for battered women. There I bore witness, not only to unimaginable cruelty, but to widespread institutional indifference to women’s suffering. Decades later, police, judicial and child welfare responses remain inadequate in Canada (as everywhere), and mental health practitioners continue to routinely blame and pathologize women. As a counselor, first at the shelter, later …

Borderless A Study Of Violence Against Women In Universities: Brazil, Portugal, And The U.K., Fafate Costa

Journal of International Women's Studies

Brazilian university students report cases of rape on campus. In Portugal, young women experience humiliation and sexism when they enter university. In the UK, protests in an academic context put to the test policies for women. These narratives are present in a postdoctoral research project that will discuss violence against women in universities. One of the products resulting from this work will be a documentary that attempts to deal with the subjective perceptions of teachers, technicians, and students about gender violence in the Academy. Focusing on feminist epistemology that values experience as a way of knowing, this research has women …

Voicing Their Stories: A Discourse On The Relationship Between Education And The Social Position Of Indian Women In The Mid-Twentieth Century, Shivani Singh

Journal of International Women's Studies

Indian women in the early twentieth century stood at the threshold of changing times. A social reform movement for women’s education came into focus at this time. However, despite efforts to promote higher education by Christian missionaries, the Indian intelligentsia, social reformers, and the British colonial government, there were disparities in its spread. It was still beyond the reach of women in general. Women’s education was not pervasive but reserved mainly for those coming from educationally enlightened families, where their parents and other relatives supported the reforms, offering them access to higher education. Feminist researchers, writing about this period, hold …

Making Organisations Gender Equal—A Long Journey: Experience From A Non-Profit In India, Dibyendu Chaudhuri, Parijat Ghosh

Journal of International Women's Studies

Organisational leadership plays a key role in shaping the workspace. The collectively held beliefs, assumptions, and values which constitute the culture of an organisation are mostly influenced by its leadership. Monogamous patriarchal family structures—evolved based on male ownership and women’s subjugation—have led to the deep-seated idea of male supremacy. Organisations, including value-based non-profits, show the same pattern. Within organisations, patriarchal leadership exhibits sexism in order to maintain the status quo. The deep culture of gender inequality in organisations is apparently maintained as a means of maintaining male supremacy. This article demonstrates how, in two consecutive gender audits, Professional Assistance for …

#Me Too In Bangladesh: Can You Change?, Shampa Iftakhar

Journal of International Women's Studies

With the global rise of the #Me Too movement and hashtag, sexual harassment has become a buzzword. The term “sexual harassment” was initially used to refer to a workplace phenomenon (Farley 1978, Mackinnon 1989). However, since the pioneering work on the issue, it has become clear that sexual harassment is inclusive of public space, educational institutions, and the home. It has been defined as “unwanted sexual advances, request for sexual favors and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature” by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (1980). Two types of harassment are identified: the first is a “quid …

Female Combatants And The Post-Conflict Process In Sierra Leone, Laura C. Cullen

Journal of International Women's Studies

Women and girls had a specific and gendered experience of the civil war in Sierra Leone. They filled the role of combatants, ‘bush wives’, child soldiers, and sexual slaves. As a result of these roles, women are often described as having dual identities of both perpetrators and victims of violence. This duality resulted in the complex question of how to help these women both reintegrate into society and also address the crimes which they are alleged to have committed during the war. In this paper, I argue that these women and girls should be treated as victims due to the …

The Impact Of Non-Government Organizations On Women’S Mobility In Public Life: An Empirical Study In Rural Bangladesh, Faraha Nawaz

Journal of International Women's Studies

The article aims to analyse the impact of Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) on Bangladeshi rural women’s mobility in the public domain, since this is an area that is generally only frequented by men whilst women are confined to their own home and neighbourhood. In other words, the author explored how and to what extent, NGOs have brought changes to women’s freedom of movement in the public sphere. The author was influenced by the existing literature that portrays Bangladesh as a country that is characterized by poverty, patriarchy and inequality, where there is no tradition of rural women participating in the labour …

Nepali Women In Politics: Success And Challenges, Bishnu R. Upreti, Drishti Upreti, Yamuna Ghale

Journal of International Women's Studies

This paper is based on an extensive three-year research project employing qualitative methods. In this paper we will discuss women's struggle for equality in Nepal, their current successes in the political process, and remaining underlying challenges. The aim of this paper is to share with a wider audience that establishing equality and equity is hard but not impossible if and when constant efforts are made in a concerted way by bringing all likeminded people (men and women, politicians and parliamentarians), together. Nepal has been undergoing tremendous socio-political transformations over the past two decades, from civil war to negotiated peace, unitary …

In Perennial Oppression: Internalized Ideologies Of The Devadasis, K A. Geetha

Journal of International Women's Studies

The Madras Anti-Devadasi Act was passed in 1947 with the primary objective of liberating women from the oppressive norms of the Devadasi system. Sanctioned by religion, the institutionalization of the Devadasi system within the Hindu community legitimated women from certain caste groups to become ‘servants of god’. Through ritualistic norms, the Devadasis were wedded to God and the caste Hindu patriarchs were authorized to control the sexuality of the Devadasis. Given their vulnerable status in terms of caste, class, and gender, women from the castes lower in hierarchy were forced into the system. Despite the legislative intervention of the Anti-Devdasi …

Moroccan Women’S Writings: Rethinking Their Female Body And Sexuality, Hanane El Aissi

Journal of International Women's Studies

The nineteen eighties and nineties marked a turning point in Moroccan women’s campaign against gender discrimination and patriarchal hegemony. During this period, Moroccan women’s writings moved beyond the archaic subjects that had been dominating the literary scene during the sixties, such as the call for women’s education, women’s work in the public sphere and women’s domesticity issues, having as a goal to start addressing some of what was considered taboo issues such as the question of the female body, sexuality, and teenage pregnancy. The emergence of such writings heralded an awakening of a feminist consciousness that reflected new and revolutionary …

Beyond A Black Sea Of Sheilas And Abayas: Do Emirati Women Students Have A Space Of Their Own?, Gergana Alzeer, Omnia Amin

Journal of International Women's Studies

This paper is concerned with Emirati women students’ spaces of inclusion and exclusion with specific focus on both their physical bodies and the places they occupy, and the mental space of their creative work where they forge a space for themselves. The paper employs ethnographic research at a women’s federal university campus in the UAE using several levels of data gathering and interviews while utilizing thematic and contextual analysis of the data sets. The work is backed up by the theoretical framework of feminist theory and Lefebvre’s perceived and conceived space. Lefebvre’s perceived space is represented through the physical presence …

Making Women’S Unpaid Care Work Visible In India: Importance And Challenges, Gulfam Tasnim

Journal of International Women's Studies

From the 1970s onward, the work performed by women within the household was critically examined, and a feminist critique of Marx emerged. The critique was first developed in the Campaign for Wages for Housework, founded in 1972, by Mariarosa Dalla Costa, Selma James and other renowned feminists. A major contribution of this critique was to highlight women’s domestic labor in the process of capital accumulation, an issue which Marx did not address. This movement therefore sought to make visible women’s work which was naturalized into nonexistence by capitalism. This problem of visibility exists all over the world, and women continue …