Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons^™

Legal Rights Of Transgender Students In Education, Almond A. Seals, Melissa C. Gonzales

Diversity, Social Justice, and the Educational Leader

Nearly 150,000 school-aged teenagers in the United States identify as transgender, but the population continues to face harassment, bullying, and discrimination from their peers and educators. The most recent battles for bathroom access based on gender identity has led to significant policy debates nationally and statewide. It is critical for school leaders to promote an all-inclusive and safe school environment to help improve the academic experience for transgender students. The purpose of this paper is to outline the current anti-discrimination federal and state laws that protect against sex and gender identity harassment in school, including Title IX, Equal Access Act, …

The Fine Line Of Determination: Supporting The Agency Of Filipina Sex Trafficking Survivors, Jessica Taylor

Master's Projects and Capstones

This paper examines the economic, geographic and cultural factors that perpetuate sex trafficking in the Philippines along with the impact of the dominant victim narrative on affected Philippine women. Along with analyzing this complex problem, the research evaluates and critiques current trends of policy support and law in the Philippines, and their level of efficacy in resolving the issue of sex trafficking and promoting agency and survivorship for the women involved. Current solutions and support from both legal and non-governmental organizations’ (NGO)are, to a large extent, rendered ineffective due to a simplified narrative of loss and victimization that is perpetuated …

The Name Is Miss Representation: Female Invisibility And Its Roots In Poland And South Korea, Magdalena Luszcz

Master's Projects and Capstones

This paper presents a cross-cultural examination of gender inequality in Poland and South Korea. Gender inequality has been part of the academic discourse for a long time; previous research, however, tends to focus either on specific countries or regions with shared connections. Drawing from an array of sources, including credible studies, news and journal articles, this research offers a broader, holistic approach, examining the roots of gender inequality and limitations to the emergence of equality by examining two seemingly different cases. This research proposes that gender inequality in these two countries, which on the surface may seem to share few …

Music Therapy Assisted Childbirth In The United States: A Critical Literature Review, Sydney Mohr

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

Music therapy assisted childbirth is an approach of music therapy in which a licensed and credentialed professional utilizes music therapy interventions to address a variety of goals during childbirth. There is a lack of literature and missing knowledge on the topic, associated with an increased rate in traumatic birth cases, mothers with post-traumatic stress disorder, and postpartum anxiety and depression. The literature review provides a summary of the historical context of feminist theory and feminism, as well as brief descriptions of music therapy, guided imagery and music, and familiar music interventions. One of the primary goals of this type of …

Dmt And “The Man Box:” Provoking Change And Encouraging Authentic Living, An Arts-Based Project, Steven Reynolds

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

This thesis explores the mind-body experience through an arts-based research approach to examine, and redefine the emotional capacity and usefulness of males through societal determinants that limits and hinders men from living their authentic selves. Through the lens of a metaphoric “Man Box” 112 men participated in a workshop recreating their personal narratives of socialization through, style of dress, coping mechanisms, belief systems and who they should be as men through society's standards. In the “Man Box,” male bonding, and emotional feelings are discouraged, while the objectification of women, material property and physical/emotional strength are encouraged. This research investigates the …

Queering Music Therapy: Literature Review Of Queer Music Therapy And Music Therapy Education, Eva M. Steward

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

This capstone thesis presents current research on the queer (LGBTQ+) community and music therapy. Research on the education of music therapists in working with queer identified clients and patients as well as the current theories and recommendations when providing affirming music therapy for queer clients and patients is discussed. Queer theory is defined and its relationship to psychotherapy, expressive arts therapies, and music therapy is explored. This research shows that even though there is a current push for music therapists to create an affirming and therapeutic environment with queer clients and patients, there is a lack of research, education, and …

The Contradictory Faces Of “Sisterhood”: A Case-Study On Charlotte Brontë’S Jane Eyre And Its Theatrical Adaptation By James Willing And Leonard Rae, Gloria Naylor’S The Women Of Brewster Place, And Liane Moriarty’S Big Little Lies And Its Miniseries Adaptation On Hbo, Lama Alsulaiman

English (MA) Theses

Feminist “Sisterhood” has been a debatable term throughout multiple generations and its ideology is mostly rejected by feminists in the younger generation. The concept mainly denotes a sense of collectivity and it is viewed as a gendered term due to its coinage by second wave feminists as a response to patriarchy. Hence, “Sisterhood” authorizes a collective identity that portrays women as victims and thereby the ideology that is associated with this term reduces the complexity and fluidity of female identity. Various representations of female bonds, in the political, literary and filmic spheres, have valued the idea of collectivity among females, …

Van Gogh’S Yellow Flowers: The Influence Of Post-Impressionism On Mansfield And Woolf, Gabriella M. D'Angelo

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

In a letter to Dorothy Brett, Katherine Mansfield responds to Van Gogh’s painting of sunflowers explaining, “That picture seemed to reveal something that I hadn't realised before I saw it. It lived with me afterwards. It still does... They taught me something about writing, which was queer—a kind of freedom—or rather, a shaking free” that she felt after experiencing his painting (O’Sullivan, The Collected Letters of Katherine Mansfield, 4: 333). The aesthetic emotion resided with her thereafter, as she claimed: “I can smell them as I write” (O’Sullivan, TCLKM, 2: 333). French paintings of the late nineteenth and early twentieth …

Cultural, Social And Family Shadows: Finding A Place In The Rainbow, Lingfeng Xu

Master's Projects and Capstones

Due to Chinese traditions, certain living environments are not friendly towards the LGBT community in China, who experience immense pressure to keep silent in society. They often are discriminated against, and in the case of most, their families do not support them. It is difficult to have healthy self-identification for sexual minorities. Besides cultural and family pressure, and representation in media, the current legal framework and society are unfriendly to this community. There is no legislation on homosexuality in China at present, and China does not make any clear provisions on homosexual marriage.

In this environment, most LGBT people are …

Indigenous Women's Bodies: Primer Territorio De Defensa, Ana Gabriela Avalos Tizol

Master's Theses

The teen pregnancy “epidemic” in Guatemala is a focal point when international and national NGOs demand that the government protect the civil and political rights of girls. In accordance, the state created laws (legal age for marriage - Ordinance 13-2017), implemented penal codes (statutory rape - Article 173) and created Programa Vida (conditional cash transfer of Q. 1,500 - $200 every two months) to address this ‘epidemic.’ Yet, only sixty-one teen mothers were involved in the program by the first year in 2018, indicating its inaccessibility. This thesis proposes to challenge the dominant narrative on teenage pregnancies, which blames “Mayan …

Marxist Ideology In Alice Chilress’S Like One Of The Family, Elizabeth Elliott

The Downtown Review: An Interdisciplinary Journal Written and Peer-Reviewed by Mandel Honors College Students at Cleveland State University

This paper explores Alice Childress work Like One of the Family, a collection of short stories originally published as a column the newspaper Freedom, and how Childress uses the highly personable work to advocate for socialist ideology and exhibit how socialism could positively affect the black working class, particularly domestic workers. Through her work, Childress humanizes the domestic worker, a group that was often not only disenfranchised by whites but also prohibited from labor organizing with other African-Americans. She engages with Marx’s ideology in an understandable and personal way: by utilizing the African-American oral tradition. This exposed her audience to …

Does Money Indeed Buy Happiness? “The Forms Of Capital” In Fitzgerald’S Gatsby And Watts’ No One Is Coming To Save Us, Allie Harrison Vernon

English (MA) Theses

Looking primarily at two critically acclaimed texts that concern themselves with American citizenship—F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and Stephanie Powell Watts’ No One is Coming to Save Us—I analyze the claims made about citizenship identities, rights, and consequential access to said rights. I ask, how do these narratives about citizenship sustain, create, or re-envision American myth? Similarly, how do the narratives interact with the dominant culture at large? Do any of these texts achieve oppositional value, and/or modify the complex hegemonic structure? I use Pierre Bourdieu’s “The Forms of Capital” to investigate the ways in which economic, cultural, …

For Cheryl: The Long And The Short Of It, Rachel Lebo

Graduate School of Art Theses

Short stories are an indirect way of creating a truth by showing instead of telling. They are a way to observe and communicate a single idea. A short story for me is a vehicle for hiding my truth behind a character, exploring myself in the safety of an identity that is not my own. When I read Chunky in Heat, author A.M. Homes and I hide together behind her character, Cheryl, and find solidarity.

The following writings, paintings, and sculptures are collaborations between myself and the women of short story fiction. Those women being the authors, the subjects, and …

Panmela Castro: Feminism In Brazilian Graffiti Art, Giulia Chu Ferri

Student Theses and Dissertations

This paper is an analysis on the graffiti artist Panmela Castro and her murals in Brazil and around the world. My thesis emphasizes the importance of feminist subject matter for graffiti art in Brazil, as well as its impact on the public sphere. The paper is separated into four sections: “Formative Years,” describing her biography and the development of her works; “Interaction with the City,” analyzing the interaction between graffiti and the urban environment, and using that discussion as a frame to contextualize Castro’s work; “Feminist Imagery and Ideology,” examining some of her concurrent themes and imageries; and finally “Transnational …

Women Artists Shows·Salons·Societies: Towards A Global History Of All-Women Exhibitions, Catherine Dossin, Hanna Alkema

Artl@s Bulletin

The Women Artists Shows·Salons·Societies project was launched in 2017 as a collaboration between Artl@s and AWARE. Combining AWARE’s ambitions to restore the presence of 20th-century women artists in the history of art, and Artl@s’s desire to provide scholars with the data and tools necessary to question the canonical art historical narratives through quantitative and cartographic analyses, we decided to work on group exhibitions of women artists.
Our first ambition is to build a community of scholars and work together to develop a common terminology and even possibly a common and consistent methodology to study these events, because the ones used …

Lesbianism, Feminism, And The National Women's Conference Of 1977: A Turning Point, Diane Perrault

Augsburg Honors Review

The decade of the 1970s proved to be an eventful time for American women. For those who supported the movement to increase women's rights, progress finally seemed possible. Advancements such as the Equal Employment Opportunity Act, Title IX, the Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade, the opening of battered women's shelters, and the increased number of organized groups that encouraged and assisted women all gave hope to ferninists. While much more needed to be done, women had taken some steps forward. ln November of 1977, a conference took place in Houston, Texas to provide Americans with an opportunity to …

The Queer Literature Club, Olivia Behm

Honors Projects

The Queer Literature Club was established August 30, 2018 with the purpose of distributing young adult literature with LGBTQ+ characters and themes as well as providing a space space for LGBTQ+ students. The QLC spent the 2018-2019 academic year establishing itself as a thriving community and has gained standing as an officially recognized campus organization. The club is open to students who want to see themselves reflected in the literature they read - literature meant for an age that is particularly difficult for LGBTQ+ youth - and allies. Through the progression of the year, it was found that the QLC …

(Re)Insurgent Ecologies: Dwelling Together Between Queasy Worlds, Kirsten Elizabeth Mundt

American Studies ETDs

Discourses that construct the “self” as something to be fixed, or made whole, chart a retreat from relational ecosystems back to the individual, reinforcing colonial politics rooted in bounded individualism. This project animates an ontological, relational framework that, in detaching from liberal humanist discourses of healing and “self,” makes affective links from autopoietic frameworks for healing and survival to de-colonial, sympoieitic concerns for expanded kinship. New meanings and attachments are forged within queasy border zones of incommensurability, toggling between the particular and the universal, between desires for solidarity and recognition that colonial violences continue to be unequally distributed and borne. …

À L’Assaut ! Explosion D’Expositions De Femmes Artistes En France Pendant Le Mouvement Féministe, Fabienne Dumont

Artl@s Bulletin

En France, durant les années 1970, les plasticiennes se sont regroupées afin de lutter contre leur invisibilité sur la scène artistique. Plusieurs collectifs ont porté leurs revendications, accompagnés de quelques théoriciennes qui ont œuvré pour faire connaître leurs travaux. La décennie voit ainsi surgir de multiples expositions de femmes artistes, liées à des collectifs aux idéologies variées. Cet article s’attache au foisonnement d’expositions, à partir de recherches pionnières, parues dans l’ouvrage Des sorcières comme les autres. Artistes et féministes dans la France des années 1970.

Femmes Artistes Italiennes Du Xxe Siècle : Il Complesso Di Michelangelo, Rome 1977, Laura Iamurri

Artl@s Bulletin

Une exposition historique de femmes artistes s’ouvrit à Rome en février 1977 : installée dans une galerie privée, la première rétrospective consacrée aux artistes italiennes du XX^e siècle avait été organisée à l’occasion de la parution du livre Il complesso di Michelangelo [Le complexe de Michel-Ange], écrit par l’artiste Simona Weller. Cet ouvrage, premier essai de recensement de la présence féminine dans l’art contemporain en Italie, citait 270 artistes tout au long du siècle, la plupart d’entre elles oubliées ou inconnues ; seules les artistes professionnelles étaient prises en considération.

Se Rendre Visible Dans L’Espagne De Franco: Le Salón Femenino De Arte Actual (1962-1971), Maria Lluïsa Faxedas, Isabel Fontbona, Patricia Mayayo

Artl@s Bulletin

The paper examines the history and the critical reception of the Salón femenino del arte actual, an annual all-female exhibition organized by a group of women artists in Barcelona between 1962 and 1971. Unique at the time, the Salón challenged the traditional role attributed to women under Franco's dictatorship, managing at the same time to obtain support from local authorities. The paper argues that it was the ability of the organisers to take advantage of political ambivalence, to find a delicate balance between complicity and resistance, which allowed the exhibition to survive for a decade.

Α “Guarantee Of Clustered Energy And Collective Promotion”: The Association Of Greek Women Artists And Its Exhibitions In The 50s And 60s, Glafki Gotsi

Artl@s Bulletin

Founded in Athens in 1954 the Association of Greek Women Artists aimed at promoting art among the Greek public, confronting the problems of women artists through collective action, and encouraging the presentation of Greek art on the international scene. In the 1950s and 1960s it organized a significant number of group exhibitions in Greece as well as abroad, where its members showed their work. This paper examines the context of the association’s all-women shows and their meaning in relation to feminist cultural politics inside but also beyond national borders. More specifically, it analyzes the circumstances under which the collectivity was …

Women Artists' Salon Of Chicago (1937-1953): Cultivating Careers And Art Collectors, Joanna P. Gardner-Huggett

Artl@s Bulletin

This article reconstructs the history of the Women Artists’ Salon of Chicago, which was founded as an exhibition society in Chicago in 1937, and argues that the Board of Directors turned to the 19^th century precedents of the Palette Club and the Woman’s Building at the World’s Columbian Exhibition as models for their organization. The essay also traces how members of the Women Artists’ Salon deliberately exhibited traditional artworks associated with the feminine and domestic and coordinated social events in order to cultivate greater sales and a new generation of female art collectors.

Women's Art Club And Women’S Group Exhibitions In Zagreb From 1928 Until 1940, Darija Alujević, Dunja Nekić

Artl@s Bulletin

In 1927 painters Nasta Rojc and Lina Crnčić Virant, inspired by their British colleagues founded the Women's Art Club in Zagreb. From 1928 until 1940 the Club organized group exhibitions of its members. The main idea of the Club was to improve arts and crafts, to organize female exhibitions and to collaborate with other international women associations. The Club took part in the organisation of the exhibition of Bulgarian women artists and the exhibition of the Little Entente of Women held in 1938 in Zagreb. Women`s Art Club was an important factor of the female artists' emancipation – organizing the …

The Exhibitions Of The Femmes Artistes Modernes (Fam), Paris, 1931-38, Paula J. Birnbaum

Artl@s Bulletin

The Société des Femmes Artistes Modernes (FAM) opened up a productive space for women artists who were active in Paris during the 1930s through annual multigenerational exhibitions and international collaborations. I argue that FAM embodied a paradox: on the one hand, it supported artists wishing to question stereotypes of gender, race, class, and nation; on the other, its institutional structure and leadership did not challenge patriarchal assumptions about women’s subordinate role in society. The paper explores this tension by comparing the work and critical reception of several artists in the group who represented the theme of motherhood.

An Exhibition Of One’S Own: The Salón Femenino De Bellas Artes (Buenos Aires, 1930s-1940s), Georgina G. Gluzman

Artl@s Bulletin

From the late 1920s on, Buenos Aires witnessed the emergence of exhibition spaces of a separatist character for women artists. In spite of their importance, these regular shows have not received any attention from art history literature. Their vast development, the extensive coverage by the press, and their links to feminist institutions have gone completely unnoticed. Focusing on the Salón Femenino organized by the Club Argentino de Mujeres, the purpose of this article is to reconstruct the organization of these events, to examine their reception by art critics, and to analyze the careers of some of the participating women …

"Women Artists To Victims Of War" - The First Exhibition Of The Moscow Union Of Women Painters And Its Reception By The Contemporary Press., Natalia Y. Budanova

Artl@s Bulletin

A few surviving visual and documentary sources related to the exhibition Women Artists to Victims of the War organised by the Moscow Union of Women Painters in winter 1914 represent a useful primary material for piecing together fragments of the history of this short-lived female art group. The Union exemplified impressive gender changes in educational and professional spheres of Russian art. Yet, it failed to attract strong membership and disintegrated within few years after its institution. By analysing available evidence this essay seeks to uncover and assess the causes of the Union’s defeat in establishing a prominent public profile.

Le Cercle Des Femmes Peintres De Bruxelles : Un Collectif, Quatre Expositions (1888-1893), Denis Laoureux

Artl@s Bulletin

Entre 1888 et 1893, le Cercle des femmes peintres de Bruxelles organise quatre expositions rassemblant 400 tableaux peints par près de 80 femmes. Celles-ci sont décrites par la presse d’époque comme des dilettantes. L’analyse montre pourtant qu’elles présentent un niveau de professionnalisation contraire à l’oubli qu’elles connaissent aujourd’hui. Plusieurs paramètres permettent d’en prendre la mesure. Le réseau relationnel, le niveau de visibilité dans les Salons d’État, les indicateurs de légitimité (prix, titres…) et les valeurs chiffrées des œuvres font ressortir un corpus d’une trentaine d’artistes qu’il conviendrait de réintégrer au canon de l’histoire de l’art de la Belgique fin de …

L'Esposizione Internazionale Femminile Di Belle Arti (Torino, 1910-1911; 1913). Note Su Genere, Arte E Professione In Italia All'inizio Del Xx Secolo, Francesca Lombardi

Artl@s Bulletin

Il contributo intende ricostruire la vicenda delle Esposizioni Internazionali Femminili di Belle Arti (1910-11; 1913), prima manifestazione artistica di taglio internazionale riservata esclusivamente alle donne organizzata in Italia. Promosse a Torino dalla rivista La Donna, le due rassegne si svolsero in un momento storicamente determinante per l'affermazione di un nuovo status delle artiste, contribuendo a dare visibilità e legittimità al fenomeno della produzione artistica femminile. La ricerca ripercorre, sulla scorta soprattutto di documenti d'epoca e fonti d'archivio, la storia e gli esiti di questa innovativa esperienza, evidenziando la complessità delle reti istituzionali, sociali, di patronage e matronage che concorsero …

Autour De Frances Benjamin Johnston, Gertrude Käsebier Et Catharine Weed Barnes Ward: Stratégies Séparatistes Dans L’Exposition Des Femmes Photographes Américaines Au Tournant Des Xixe Et Xxe Siècles, Thomas Galifot

Artl@s Bulletin

Cette étude inclut une nouvelle analyse de l’exposition des photographes américaines conçue par Frances Benjamin Johnston à l’occasion de l’Exposition universelle de Paris de 1900. Dans une mise en perspective inédite, l’événement est également replacé dans un contexte américain élargi, riche en initiatives et en débats aussi fondateurs que méconnus. Cette enquête, qui donne lieu au premier panorama des expositions collectives de photographes américaines jusqu’en 1914, aboutit à une nécessaire remise à l'honneur de Catharine Weed Barnes Ward et de Gertrude Käsebier, personnalités dont le rôle central sur ces questions est largement mésestimé.