Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons^™

Review Of Early Women Filmmakers 1911–1940, Wheeler Winston Dixon

Department of English: Faculty Publications

After more than a half century of neglect, pioneering women filmmakers are finally getting some of the attention they deserve. Foremost among these women is the figure of Alice Guy Blaché—also known simply as Alice Guy, before she married Herbert Blaché in 1907—who was responsible for numerous “firsts” in cinema history: the first film with narrative La Fée aux Choux (The Cabbage Patch Fairy; 1896), as well as early experiments with color dye processes, synchronized sound recording, multi-reel films, and other cinematic advances. Gaumont put out a set of her French films for that company—she was the …

Free To Bleed Or Free To Buy? The Postfeminist Transformation Of Menstruation, Kenzie Helmick

Honors Program Theses

From innovative new products to cheeky advertisements to period politics, menstruation appears to be having its moment. This thesis serves to offer some skepticism towards the changing cultural attitudes towards periods, categorizing many of these recent developments as a consequence of a postfeminist cooptation. To support this process, this thesis first identifies menstruation as a political issue with implications for both gender politics and anti-capitalist efforts, identifying the stakes at play with this paradigm shift. Then, it deconstructs the consequences of the changing corporate narratives and advertisements and of the most recent mainstream political engagement with menstruation, the menstrual equity …

Algerian Women's Waistcoats - The Ghlila And Frimla: Readjusting The Lens On The Early French Colonial Era In Algeria (1830-1870), Morgan Snoap

Honors Program Theses

Contemporary understanding of Algeria during the early colonial period (1830-1970) is predominantly informed by French colonial written and visual documents, often viewing the colonies through a male and Orientalist gaze. This is especially apparent in the images created by the French of women in the Algerian capital of Algiers. Whether in lithograph, photograph, or painting, French Orientalist compositions featuring Algéroises (women of Algiers) relied on the construction of an increasingly submissive and sexually available subject, notably dressed in tailored waistcoats which, for the French, became synonymous with Algéroise sexuality. In this way, Algerian women’s veritable voices and perspectives during this …

Asylum As An Extension Of The Biopolitical State: An Analysis Of Us Sexual Orientation-Based Asylum Cases, Abigail Ferland

Gender, Sexuality, and Intersectionality Studies Honors Papers

Since 1990 when formal immigration exclusion based on sexual orientation ended in the United States, gay men have been seeking protection from persecution in the form of asylum. While it is a sign of progress that asylum protections have been broadened to include those facing persecution based on their sexual orientation, my research into gay men's asylum cases demonstrates that the asylum system persists in systematically discriminating against queer people by putting them in a double bind: if they are not considered to be "recognizably gay" by the courts, they are deemed not open to persecution and thus denied asylum; …

Conceptualizing The Unspeakable: A Conceptual Metaphor Theory Analysis Of Sexual Assault Trauma In Creative Nonfiction, Ariana Ciamaricone

West Chester University Master’s Theses

This paper explores the use of conceptual metaphors (CMs) in two works of creative nonfiction, namely Laurie Halse Anderson’s (2019) Shout and Elissa Washuta’s (2014) My Body is a Book of Rules. Anderson’s (2019) poetic memoir centers on her experiences with sexual assault throughout her childhood and the process of writing her young adult novel Speak (1999). Washuta (2014) writes on her experiences with rape and mental illness via prose. Both memoirs detail their authors’ reckoning with the experience of sexual assault, and this paper investigates how trauma narratives attempt to “resolve what cannot be resolved, to generate meaning, …

Elizabeth Bishop's Perspectives On Marriage, Jeffrey Westover

English Literature Faculty Publications and Presentations

Marriage can never be renewed except by that which is always the source of true marriage: that two human beings reveal the You to one another.
- Martin Buber

In a number of texts, both published and unpublished, Elizabeth Bishop addresses the themes of marriage, love, and courtship. Such issues were vexed ones for her. As a young woman, she rejected Robert Seaver’s marriage proposal (Millier, Elizabeth Bishop 112). Later, her friend Pauline Hemingway wondered in a letter whether she and Tom Wanning were engaged (Millier, Elizabeth Bishop 201), and Robert Lowell famously confessed to her that she was the …

Salary History And The Equal Pay Act: An Argument For The Adoption Of “Reckless Discrimination” As A Theory Of Liability, Kate Vandenberg

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

The Equal Pay Act (EPA) purports to prohibit employers from paying female employees less than male employees with similar qualifications; however, the affirmative defenses provided in the EPA are loopholes that perpetuate the gender pay gap. In particular, the fourth affirmative defense allows for wage differentials based on a “factor other than sex.” Many federal circuits have read this defense broadly to include wage differentials based on salary history. That is, an employer can pay a female employee less than her male counterparts because she was paid less by her previous employer. While salary history was once viewed as an …

Constructions Of Prostitution In Berlin, 1914-45: Lessons In Understanding Sex Work, Legalization, And Decriminalization, Falen Wilkes

Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Undergraduate Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

Tramitación Social Después Del Trauma Colectivo: Un Análisis De Las Respuestas Colectivas En Torno El Trabajo De Las Abuelas De Plaza De Mayo De Argentina Después De La Última Dictadura Cívico-Militar / Social Processing After Collective Trauma: An Analysis Of The Collective Responses Around The Work Of Argentina’S Abuelas De Plaza De Mayo After The Most Recent Civic-Military Dictatorship, Sarah Horwitz

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Este ensayo investiga las respuestas colectivas al trabajo de las Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo en la Argentina. Las Abuelas son un grupo de mujeres con hijos y nietos que fueron desaparecidos sistemáticamente junto con 30.000 personas durante la última dictadura cívicomilitar de 1976 a 1983. En 1977, las Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo se juntaron para encontrar a sus nietos y nietas, muchos de los cuales habían sido entregados a familias cercanas a la dictadura. Aunque al día de hoy han recuperado más de 100 nietos y nietas, todavía falta más de 300. Esta investigación utiliza entrevistas personales y …

Setting The Terms Of Our Own Visibility A Conversation Between Sam Feder And Alexandra Juhasz On Trans Activist Media In The United States, Alexandra Juhasz

Publications and Research

In the summer of 2016, I sat down at my computer and Skyped with my friend and fellow queer media activist Sam Feder about their film, Disclosure: Trans Lives on Screen. What follows is a highly edited transcript of our conversation, paying particular attention to Sam’s core research findings about trans representational history and how their findings might align with their processes and goals as a trans activist media maker committed to telling this complex story.

Terrible Beauty : The Many Faces Of Helen Of Troy In Painting From Antiquity To The Nineteenth Century, Lindsay M. Taylor

MA Theses

Helen of Troy is one of the most complex and enigmatic characters from Greek mythology. For nearly two thousand years, her story has consistently been retold, reshaped, and reinterpreted in a rich variety of narratives produced in different contexts for different audiences. In the absence of a canonical version Helen’s tale, philosophers, poets, playwrights, novelists, musicians, filmmakers, and artists in every period have interpreted, modified, and embellished her character in disparate and contradictory terms. Consequently, she has played a significant role in Western artistic canon in a way no other figure from Greek mythology has been able to accomplish; she …

Helen Frankenthaler : The Calculus For Gender Neutrality Within The Post Abstractionist Color Field Movement, Aelxandra H. Dodge

MA Theses

In a decade marked by the omnipresence of black-and-white television, McCarthyism, the end of the Korean War and the fledgling sounds of rock n’ roll, the 1950s invited American artists to utilize color in forms and abstractions to challenge the domesticated, safe boundaries established by European masters. The 1950s perpetuated dominate male, decision–making stereotyping while subordinating females as submissive, adorned homemakers. Sandwiched between the creative genius and evolution of the U.S abstract expressionist movement of the 1940s and the emerging pop artists of the 1960s, the 1950s signaled the development and the ascendency of Helen Frankenthaler. As a woman artist …

Radical Queer Gazes : How Lesbian And Nonbinary Contemporary Photographers Are Destabilizing The Male Gaze, Eliza Mcdonough

MA Theses

Laura Mulvey’s 1975 essay Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema laid the groundwork for feminist theory surrounding the objectification of women in media by introducing the concept of the male gaze. Since its publication, theorists and critics have responded by proposing the possibility of alternate gazes such as the female gaze, the black gaze, and the queer gaze. This thesis will analyze those responses along with the psychoanalytical backing of Mulvey’s original theory to determine how the heteropatriachal structure Mulvey presents can be dismantled through alternative identity gazes. Mulvey’s original proposition is limited by her focus on the relationship between white …

From Spectacle To Collectible : A Reappraisal Of Katherine Dreier And Juliana Force's Pioneering Impact To Bolster The Ascendancy Of Modern Art In America, Caroline Holt Yarbrough

MA Theses

My thesis analyzes the critical and pioneering role that Katherine Dreier, Juliana Force, and other New York-based female cultural promoters played in advancing the education, acceptance, and appreciation of modern art in America. By illuminating the strategies these women used to accomplish their objectives to support contemporary artists and demystify modern art to the public, as well as elucidating the barriers they overcame as women driving for change in a male-dominated society, I seek to answer the fundamental questions of how and why women were able to play such a central role in creating the canon of modern art in …

Phenomenological Twilight: Genders, Orientations, And Experiences, Angel Holmes

West Chester University Master’s Theses

This master’s thesis applies concepts in phenomenology and psychology to social justice, fictional works, and lived experiences. I argue that the marginalization of different gender identities is systemic, affecting people at both the individual level and society. I employ Shulamith Firestone’s contention that this oppression is rooted in the division of men and women into biological sex classes as a feature of Western society. For Firestone, the capacity of a person to give birth is tied to societal expectations ranging from but not limited to parenting, professional careers, and the culture of romance. To support the notion that these expectations …

Tracing Biometric Assemblages In India’S Surveillance State: Reproducing Colonial Logics, Reifying Caste Purity, And Quelling Dissent Through Aadhaar, Priya Prabhakar

Scripps Senior Theses

Tracing Biometric Assemblages in India’s Surveillance State seeks to understand the historical conditions that rendered the nation-state of India as having the world’s largest biometric surveillance system: Aadhaar. Surveillance practices used by the British Raj mirrors the current social order of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), as they use surveillance to similar ends in today’s political economy, through the intersecting forces of neoliberalism and ethnonationalism. This thesis is an exploration into how India’s current surveillance regimes cultivate biometric surveillant assemblages through Aadhaar. Contrary to claims that Aadhaar was created to empower the poor, I argue that these surveillance regimes …

Hear Me Roar, Abigail R. Seethoff

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Hear Me Roar, a compilation of personal essays interspersed with short forms, grapples with the nuances of compliance versus autonomy in the context of the male gaze, beauty standards, and pop culture. The collection also explores what it means to treasure something—another person, an object—and how to express and deepen that affection.

William W. French. Maryat Lee's Ecotheater: A Theater For The Twenty-First Century (Book Review), Carole K. Harris

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Women Living History: An Exploration Of Transformational Learning In A Living History Group, Amanda Silva, Joseph Polizzi

Education Faculty Publications

Although transformational learning has been studied in numerous contexts (English and Peters, 2012; Foote, 2015; Mezirow, 1990; Mezirow, 1997; Nohl, 2015), one area worth further exploration is the activity of living history. Living history, as defined by Anderson (1982), is essentially the simulation of life in another time. The present study focuses on a group of women in a small living history organization and how their participation in this group has changed them. Participant observation and interviews were used to determine what the women gain from their participation and to uncover some of the reasons they continue with the group. …

Acoso Visual: Staring Back At The State And Gender Conformity, Juan Luna

Honors Theses

A semi-autoethnographic piece that uses a radical transfeminist lens to interrogate hegemonic systems of gender and race in the Dominican Republic through the violence that Trans and Gender Nonconforming people face. While focusing on trans violence, this thesis explicitly turns its gaze away from Trans/Gender Nonconforming people and interrogates the state, cisnormativity, and gender conformity. This thesis explores how acoso visual (visual accosting) is a historically informed process that works to border trans/gender nonconformity out of the idea of Dominicanidad. Ultimately, this text reminds Trans/Gender Nonconforming individuals that they are not the reason for the transphobia that they experience, and …

Comunidad, Antigüedad Y Solidaridad Ser Gay En El Tardofranquismo 1969-1978, Andrew Healy

Honors Theses

En una época de represión e intolerancia en España, los homosexuales todavía existían, pero en una manera clandestina. Esta tesis explora cómo esta comunidad clandestina se expresaba durante el tardofranquismo en los años 1969-1978. Con discusiones de los valores del régimen, las representaciones del hombre en relaciones sexuales y sitios históricos que preservan el legado del franquismo, esta tesis ilumina la historia de un grupo oprimido en España.

A través del uso de diferentes fuentes académicas, incluso documentales, películas y artículos, esta tesis discute cómo los homosexuales se comportaban en el franquismo, y su tratamiento bajo un régimen opresivo. Unos …

The Cast Of A Giant's Shadow, Angela Kay Steineman

Masters Theses

Adapting fairy tales and folklore has been an ongoing endeavor by storytellers and artists since the very first story was repeated. The evidence can be seen in the many versions of fairy tales like those of the sleeping beauty, from Giambattista Basile’s “Sun, Moon, and Talia” to Walt Disney’s Maleficent. However, unlike their European counterparts, adaptations of American tales outside of children’s literature are not as ubiquitous. My writing rectifies this by adding to the resurging interest as seen in recent retellings like Matt Bell’s Appleseed: The Monstrous Birth (2019).

In an effort to reframe the American tall tale …

Paul By Paul By Paul, Paul Finch

Theses and Dissertations

In 2020 flamboyant fashion is associated with queer performativity. Psychologist Alan Downs and queer theorist madison moore understand this to be a response to a culture that is hostile to sexual behaviour and gender expression that falls outside a rigid binary. I study the history of flamboyant aesthetics and camp sensibilities from an intersectional perspective, and locate designers and artists who have produced clothes in ways that materialize the political implications of fashion. As a studio-based artist, I employ traditional sewing techniques, digital technologies, and performance to create clothes and new media works that demonstrate a circular understanding of time, …

A Black Feminist Quare Interrogation Of Stud Misogyny In Black Queer Web Series, Taisha Mcmickens

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this Black feminist-quare study is to analyze the relationship between misogyny and queer masculinity performed by “studs” in Black queer web series located on YouTube.com: Women of Atlanta TV, New York Girls TV, Choiices The Series, and The Best Friend. Studs are masculine-identified Black lesbians. Stud misogyny is tethered to histories of the patriarchal gaze on Black women’s bodies. This gaze exposes stud and femme queers to layers of violence challenging us to rethink masculinities outside of the colonial imagination. I employ a Black Feminist Quare theoretical framework to attend to stud’s embodied experiences, challenge …

“What Doesn’T Kill You Makes You Stronger:” The Fallacy Of Rape Narratives As Paths To Women’S Empowerment In Contemporary Television, Alessia S. Guise

Film Studies Honors Papers

No abstract provided.

Disrupting An(Other): Sexuality As Political Resistance, Emma C. Downey

Master’s Theses

If sexual knowledge can threaten social and political institutions and their control, how do the contents and subjects of literature and publications in the interwar period make that legible? Moreover, if female sexuality–represented or real–was seen as something disruptive to the normal functioning of society, did sexuality offer a useful entry point for social, political, or ideological critiques of the interwar period? My project responds to these questions by analyzing the lives and writings of two female authors of the interwar period: Djuna Barnes (1892-1982) and Katharine Burdekin (1896-1963). In my analysis, I focus on two major points of connection. …

Ua1c11/105 Phi Mu Photo Collection, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Photographs created by and about Phi Mu sorority.

The Effect Of Threatened Masculinity On Men's Perceptions Of Women's Refusals And Their Willingness To Continue An Unwanted Sexual Advance, Mollie Colleen Mcdaniel

Wayne State University Theses

Men’s sexual aggression against women is distressingly common. Some men use sexual aggression as a way to reassert their masculinity when they have been rejected by a woman (Malamuth, 1995). Some men who perpetrate aggression may not intentionally overlook women’s refusals to unwanted sexual advances, rather they might not perceive a refusal as resistance at all. Social perception research has shown that people’s perceptions are influenced by their motivations, allowing them to only perceive what they wish to see. Masculinity threat may be one such motivation. A sample of 106 men completed an experimental survey with a 2 (threatened masculinity …

Nineteenth-Century Female Protagonists Resisting Architectural Confinement, Taylor R. Alcorn

Honors Theses and Capstones

No abstract provided.

Gay Male Speech And Dialects In Motion: Constructing Linguistic Identity In Southern New Hampshire, Hayden P. Stinson

Honors Theses and Capstones

The study of gay male speech has largely focused on fundamental frequency and various quantifiable aspects of /s/ (Campbell-Kibler 2012, Mack and Munson 2012, Munson 2007, Zimman 2013). In a study of the speech of three gay men from California, however, Podesva (2011) concludes that gay men may utilize salient aspects of regional dialects to express their gayness. The stylistic correlation between gayness and certain regional dialects supports Eckert’s (2008) argument that linguistic styles are centered around ideologies, rather than rigid categorical identities and Podesva (2011) urges that this phenomenon be studied further. Southern New Hampshire provides an ideal landscape …