Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons^™

Family Affairs Newsletter 2013-12-15, 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.

Family Affairs Newsletter Business Directory 2013-12-15, Zack Paakkonen

Family Affairs newsletter (2004-2016)

Family Affairs Newsletter Directory of GLBTQIA Businesses.

The Plight Of Kenyan Domestic Workers In Gulf Countries, Caroline Muthoni Gikuru

Master's Theses

Kenya’s economy remains the regional leader within the East African Community (EAC) and among East African countries at large. However, political instability such as the 2007 post-election violence and the region’s social and political instability trickling into Kenya, have negatively affected the country’s economic growth. To bridge the economic gap, Kenyan women are seeking employment in the domestic service sector in the Gulf Countries, with Saudi Arabia being the most popular destination. At their destination countries, some domestic workers are subjected to various forms of abuse by their employers, leaving the worker without recourse due to the lack of legal …

Rethinking Representations Of Sexual And Gender-Based Violence: A Case Study Of The Liberian Truth And Reconciliation Commission, James West

Journal of International Women's Studies

Focusing on forced marriage or the ‘bush wife phenomenon’ as a category of abuse in the Liberian Civil War, this paper seeks to critically assess the Liberian Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s analysis of wartime abuses and its representation of sexual and gender-based violence.

Framing Wrongs And Performing Rights In Northern Ireland: Towards A Butlerian Approach To Life In Abortion Strategising, Kathryn Mcneilly

Journal of International Women's Studies

Feminist strategising on abortion has been dominated by a “pro-choice” frame. Increasingly, however, pro-choice discourse is being viewed as inadequate to meet contemporary and complex feminist aims and analyses, in particular due to the individualising ontological framework upon which it appears to be based. The work of Judith Butler is one location where such concerns have been explored and an alternative approach based upon a renewed analysis of the concept of “life” has been asserted. Foregrounding the fundamental precariousness of intersubjective life and opening the socio-political conditions sustaining precarious life to democratic public engagement carries significant implications for feminist strategising …

Doctors And Sheikhs: "Truths" In Virginity Discourse In Jordanian Media, Ebtihal Mahadeen

Journal of International Women's Studies

This article is concerned with the role Jordanian media play in circulating certain discourses on virginity, namely religious and medical discourses, which are presented as "truths" that ultimately maintain the conservative status quo with regards to Jordanian women's sexuality. It is argued that media discussions (on the textual, production, and consumption levels) largely perpetuate patriarchal control over women's sexuality and render invisible more progressive points of view. Simultaneously, critical opinions expressed at any of these levels, while vastly important, operate from within the same discursive fields and are thus rendered less radical.

The Legacy Of Simone De Beauvoir On Modern French Visual Art, Rebecca Trevalyan

Journal of International Women's Studies

Arguably the woman that first inspired and shaped the Women’s Liberation Movement in Western Europe, Simone de Beauvoir had an emboldening influence on women engaged in a variety of vocations. Visual art is an area of influence that has been less examined in academia. This project considers the heritage of Beauvoir’s Le Deuxième Sexe in the work of five French women artists; in particular the depiction of femininity as artifice, the tensions between painted appearance and corporeal reality, and the bravery required to take action, to persistently defy the gaze of a male-coded society.

Sensational Kin: Family, Normativity And Women's Weekly Magazines, Melanie Anne Stewart

Journal of International Women's Studies

This essay analyses a range of British women’s weekly magazines commonly referred to as ‘Women’s Weeklies’. Examples of these texts include Pick-Me-Up, Take-a-Break, Real People, and Closer. Unlike more widely researched magazines such as Cosmopolitan or Glamour, the women’s weeklies draw their readership based on the supposed autobiographical nature of the narratives, which in turn generates the ‘authenticity’ attributed to personal narratives. In this essay I analyse the personal narratives of the weeklies within the wider public sphere, arguing that such personal narratives render women’s weeklies relevant in political debate. The essay demonstrates how the individual …

Circular Consciousness In The Lived Experience Of Intersectionality: Queer/Lgbt Nigerian Diasporic Women In The Usa, Meremu Chikwendu

Journal of International Women's Studies

This essay will introduce and analyze the idea of circular consciousness as the product of the constant negotiations involved in the lived experience of intersectionality. Circular consciousness is the understanding that subject positionings are in constant motion, sliding over, under, and around each other, consequently informing and redefining identities. The essay pulls from intersectional theory and feminist postcolonial theory, speaks to queer theory, and calls for increased and continued elasticity in our understandings and theorizing around power, subjectivity, agency, and identity. Advocating for a renewed dedication to the political origins of intersectional theory, this article will focus on LGBQ Nigerian-born …

Living In The Garden Of Perhaps: Ordinary Life As An Obstacle To Political Change In Israel, Katherine Natanel

Journal of International Women's Studies

This article explores how gender in part shapes the contours of small worlds or ‘elsewheres’ (Haraway 1992), constructed by Jewish Israelis as they pursue ‘ordinary lives’ in a context of conflict and sustained political violence. Situating as central the experiences, perceptions and behaviours of the dominant sector in Jewish Israeli society—middle-class Ashkenazi Jews living in Israel’s urban centres—the article appraises the work done by the production and maintenance of dual worlds, what lies at stake in their loss and their implications for political change. By building upon the work of feminist and queer theorists who consider the centrality of intimacy …

No Place Like Home: Re-Writing "Home" And Re-Locating Lesbianism In Emma Donoghue's Stir-Fry And Hood, Emma Young

Journal of International Women's Studies

This article considers contemporary novelist Emma Donoghue’s early novels, Stir-Fry (1994) and Hood (1995), and argues that these works contribute to a re-defining of the home space in relation to lesbian sexuality. I draw on theoretical arguments from the social sciences, feminist, gender and sexuality studies, and literary criticism to reveal how an inter-disciplinary approach to Donoghue’s novels illuminates a more nuanced interpretation of their depiction of home space that ensures a ‘home’ for lesbianism is (re)located. At the same time, Donoghue’s novels are revealed to posit their own theorising on home and sexuality. By focusing on objects—including the infamous …

Introduction: New Writings In Feminist And Women's Studies, Katy Pilcher, Katya Salmi

Journal of International Women's Studies

No abstract provided.

Experiences And Outcomes Of Women Who Have Completed A Statewide Leadership Development Program, Dorinda Booker Rolle

Theses & Dissertations

This qualitative narrative study explored the experiences and outcomes of 12 women who completed a statewide leadership development program. The purpose of the study was to gather the stories and perceptions of the program’s outcomes of women who graduated from the Leadership Texas program between 1983 and 2008. Bandura’s (1977) social learning theory and the EvaluLEAD framework (Grove, Kibel, & Haas, 2005) were used to assist in the exploration and documentation of participants' perceived outcomes of the program within three domains, the individual, organizational, and community levels. Through one-on-one interviews, participants shared their experiences and perceived outcomes after graduating from …

Sustainable Development And The Issue Of Water In The Kagera Region Of Tanzania, Teresa M. Dresner

Theses & Dissertations

Over the last five decades, an abundance of research on sustainable development has emerged in multiple disciplinary areas, but few studies on the economic, social, and environmental dimensions of sustainability have examined water issues for rural communities. Consequently, the purpose of this case study was to understand how a group of rural women from the Kagera region in Tanzania perceived and experienced sustainable development as a result of their improved access to water. The following central questions of the study sought to explore the local meanings of sustainable development and improved water sources: (a) How was life of rural women …

Lg Ms 028 Robin Lambert Collection Finding Aid, Elizabeth Sistare

Search the Manuscript Collection (Finding Aids)

Description:

Robin Lambert was politically active in Maine for more than 40 years, was for many years the most prominent Republican to publicly support LGBT civil rights, and persuaded many in his party to join him in that struggle. He was one of the founders of the Maine Lesbian Gay Political Alliance (MLGPA)(now EqualityMaine) in 1984, and was twice recognized by MLGPA for his outstanding work for civil rights. As an early advocate of addressing the issues surrounding HIV and its impact on the state, Lambert was a founding member of both The Maine Health Foundation and The AIDS Project …

Professional Staff Competencies In Women's Centers, Amber L. Vlasnik, Melissa D. Debutz

Women's Center Staff Publications

No abstract provided.

Family Affairs Newsletter 2013-12-01, 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.

Performative Gender And Pop Fiction Females: "Emancipating" Byronic Heroines Through A Feminist Education, Joy Smith

Masters Theses

"I can be a regular bitch. Just try me." With this phrase emblazoned across her t-shirt, Lisbeth Salander, pierced, tattooed, and bedecked in leather, waltzes from the pages of Stieg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. This woman who subverts authority, maliciously tattoos and sodomizes a man, and intentionally distances herself from close relationships of any kind has somehow managed to capture both the attention and admiration of the American audience. This disheartening phenomenon stems from a renewed interest in the Byronic heroine, a female possessing those traits traditionally assigned to Byronic heroes and men, and the rise of …

Queen B: A Modern Feminist Critique Of Beyoncé, Catherine Demi Ray

Communication Studies

No abstract provided.

Factors Related To Women's Undergraduate Success, Tanya Michelle Baker

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Hearing The Cry In Black Diasporic And Latina/O Poetics, Rachel E. Ellis Neyra

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Hearing the Cry in Black Diasporic and Latina/o Poetics" Rachel Ellis Neyra expands upon Edouard Glissant's notion of "the cry of the Plantation" and shows how to listen for it in literary arrangement of Derek Walcott, Piri Thomas, Pedro Pietri, Ralph Ellison, Miguel Algarín, and James Baldwin. Ellis Neyra also reads musical lyrics by Oscar D'León and Billie Holiday and the melodic nuances of salsa, jazz, the blues, and bomba for how they sound out what she calls the New World Cry, a mnemonic figure of the Plantation of the Americas and a metaphor for how estrangement …

Reese Witherspoon: A True Role Model, Vanessa Hemmen

Faculty Curated Undergraduate Works

A profile of Reese Witherspoon.

Ordinary Families: Queer Sexuality And Adoptive Parenthood In Central New York, Sean H. Wang

Theses - ALL

This thesis argues that geographers must consider sexuality and family together as integral parts of social life. Although sexuality already entered the lexicon of geography in the 1980s, and a burgeoning field of the geography of sexuality exists today, too often it is still considered peripheral in geographic scholarship. Similarly, family either remains consigned either as merely a place for social reproduction by studies of political economy, or is relegated entirely as an object of inquiry for only feminist geographers. Drawing from sociology, feminist and queer studies, this thesis makes an important intervention by relating sexuality and family in the …

The Effect Of Lovestyle On Consumer Behavior: Attracting A Partner And Forming A Relationship, Fonda Yeh

HIM 1990-2015

Erotic stimuli in the consumer's environment can lead to affective responses, which produce traits such as erotophobia-erotophilia and lovestyle. Individuals can be classified as one of six main lovestyles, as well as erotophilic (having a positive view towards sexual behaviors) or erotophobic (having a negative view towards sexual behaviors). A person's style of loving may affect which products he or she perceives to be helpful in attracting potential sexual and relationship partners. I investigated this possible correlation by examining (1) whether each lovestyle is erotophilic or erotophobic and (2) which products erotophilic individuals are more likely to buy as opposed …

Centralizing Ambiguity: Simone De Beauvoir And A Twenty-First Century Ethics, Kristen Oganowski

Dissertations - ALL

In this dissertation, I examine the relevance of Simone de Beauvoir's Ethics of Ambiguity to contemporary feminist thought on the self, autonomy, and ethics. More specifically, I argue that this text has the potential to make unique contributions to these areas of contemporary feminist philosophy.

Franco-Maghrebi Rap And Benyoucef's Le Nom Du Père, Keith Moser

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Franco-Maghrebi Rap and Benyoucef's Le Nom du père" Keith Moser discusses Messaoud Benyoucef's controversial play Le Nom du père and rap as a hybrid art form that has been (re)-appropriated by disenfranchised minorities from all corners of the planet. Exploited and ignored by those at the top of the social ladder, rappers express their anxiety concerning the present situation of inequality in contemporary consumer society. The rending melodies or portraits of human anguish created by rappers give testament to the fact that the interconnected processes of urbanization and globalization have not benefited everyone. In Le Nom …

Writing The Wrongs: How Gay And Lesbian Playwrights Use The Paranormal In Autobiographical Writing, George William Zorn

Dissertations

Playwrights have been using ghost and spirit-characters in stage works since the classical era. From their beginnings as speechless, vengeful catalysts and informational narrators, the ghost-character has evolved to something that would not be recognizable to Greek playwrights. This is no more evident than in the works of contemporary gay and lesbian dramatists. Examining the selected works of playwrights Claudia Allen, Larry Kramer and Victor Bumbalo will illuminate the use of ghosts and the paranormal by these playwrights as a way to overcome personal trauma by either creating closure with autobiographical scenes or by using the absence of these characters …

Male Same-Sex Desire In The Romances Of De Troyes, Basil A. Clark

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Male Same-Sex Desire in the Romances of de Troyes" Basil A. Clark extends René Girard's theory of mimetic desire to explore a homocentric subtext in Chrétien de Troyes's Erec and Enide, Lancelot or The Knight of the Cart, The Knight with the Lion or Yvain, and The Story of the Grail or Perceval. While male same-sex desire in these narratives is consistently latent, an argument for its presence is made through Girard's hermeneutic, which postulates that someone (the subject) desires someone or something (the object) not only for its own sake but because …

Is First, They Killed My Father A Cambodian Testimonio?, John Maddox

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Is First, They Killed My Father a Cambodian testimonio" John T. Maddox discusses aspects of the testimonial. Dialoguing with leading Latin Americanists, Maddox argues that Cambodian writer Loung Ung's First, They Killed My Father (2000) challenges this uniqueness and opens studies on the testimonio to new possibilities for intellectual reflection and political activism. In Maddox's view, the continued use of the term testimonio would serve as a reference to this long-standing tradition of writing and thinking about political violence in Latin America. After a discussion of the debate of the definition and function of testimonio and …

Rewriting Canonical Love Stories From The Peripheries, Karen Ya-Chu Yang

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Rewriting Canonical Love Stories from the Peripheries" Karen Ya-Chu Yang compares postcolonial and postmodern intertextuality in Taiwanese and the Caribbean texts. Hsien-Yung Pai's "Wandering in the Garden, Waking from a Dream" (1966) and Tien-Hsin Chu's "Breakfast at Tiffany's" (1997) are two short stories which depict identity crises of first generation and second generation 外省人 (waishen gren, mainland immigrants). In these two texts disillusionment towards the center's romantic prospects is the lived reality for those compelled to accept their currently marginalized status and adopt hybrid flexibility as a practical survival strategy. In comparison, Jean Rhys in Wide Sargasso …