Women's Studies Commons^™

Writing As Resistance: Assia Djebar’S Vaste Est La Prison, Joyce Lazarus

Journal of International Women's Studies

This essay examines contemporary Algerian women’s condition, as it is articulated in Djebar’s autobiographical novel, Vaste est la prison (1995). After giving an overview of modern Algerian history, I offer a reading of Djebar’s novel that takes account of its potential to produce social change. This essay demonstrates that Djebar blurs the boundaries between autobiography, fiction and history in order to fully utilize the subversive potential of writing. Using the perspective of new historicism, I show how Djebar responds to her country’s unilateralism in language and its exclusion of women by her unique rhetorical strategies, in order to restore women’s …

A Woman’S Nature: Addressing Violence Against Women Through Femininity In Poland, Abby Drwecki

Journal of International Women's Studies

This article is an investigation of women’s self-defense courses in post-communist Poland. I focus on WenDo, a women’s self-defense seminar which is based on feminist principles and which seeks to empower women through changes in body culture: i.e. their physical capabilities, posture, demeanor and vocalizations when in a position of interpersonal threat or danger. Through an ethnographic study of this self-defense method, I show how WenDo’s pedagogy is designed to lead to these changes. In addition, I question whether WenDo can be conceptualized as a form of women’s empowerment which is disconnected from an organized feminist movement and is based …

She Dresses To Attract, He Perceives Seduction: A Gender Gap In Attribution Of Intent To Women’S Revealing Style Of Dress And Its Relation To Blaming The Victims Of Sexual Violence, Avigail Moor

Journal of International Women's Studies

Victims of sexual violence are often blamed for precipitating their own assault with their so-called “provocative” body-revealing style of dress, which is viewed as conveying consent for sexual advances. To explore some of the grounds for this allegation as well as its accurateness, the present study examines the attributions made by both sexes regarding the motivation for women’s sexualized appearance. The factual connection between revealing clothing and actual occurrences of sexual invasions is examined as well. The results demonstrate a gender-based attribution gap wherein men report perceiving the sexualized look as indicating an interest in sex and intent to seduce, …

Contradiction And The Role Of The ‘Floating Signifier’: Identity And The ‘New Woman’ In Italian Cartoons During Fascism, Efharis Mascha

Journal of International Women's Studies

This paper addresses the issue of political cartooning during Italian fascism, with specific reference to the role of women, as it is symbolised in the cartoons (i.e.the woman-mother/care-taker/fascist/worker). The latter will be revealed through a careful study of the contradictions generated by fascism and the representation of this ‘New Woman’ in political satire. The caricatures I will examine belong strictly to the Left discourse. They received high circulation figures and characterised Italy’s popular culture during the 1920’s. Whilst fascism did not provide any space for women to join the high ranks of the PNF (Partito Nazionale Fascista), the Left similarly …

Upscaling Community-Arranged Preparedness For Preventing Maternal Mortality In Ghana: A Case Study Of Keta And Akatsi Districts Of Volta Region, Chuks J. Mba, Irene K. Aboh

Journal of International Women's Studies

The main objective of the study is to assess maternal health in Ghana using empirical evidence from Akatsi and Keta districts of the Volta Region. Interviews were conducted from a sample size of 6,250 respondents within the reproductive age group of 15-49 years drawn from both districts in 2007. The results show that most of the women had only basic education and were generally petty traders, farmers and fishmongers. Overwhelming majority of the women stated that there was no community-arranged preparedness to aid them in times of emergency obstetric care. A significant proportion of the women (about 30%) relied on …

A Survey Of Osteoporosis Risk Factors And Practices Among Jordanian Women, Lubna Abushaikha, Suha Omran

Journal of International Women's Studies

The aim of this study was to explore osteoporosis (OP) risk factors among Jordanian women. Osteoporosis (OP) is a chronic complex health problem for millions of women worldwide, 80% of whom are postmenopausal women. Unless prevented or treated, this silent disease will continue to limit both the quantity and quality of life of many older women and significantly add to the health care cost for this group. A sample of Jordanian women in different settings in Jordan (N=192; mean age=43years). The study was descriptive and data were collected over a two month period in 2005 with the use of a …

Determinants Of Living Arrangements, Health Status And Abuse Among Elderly Women: A Study Of Rural Naogaon District, Bangladesh, Ahmed Mohammad Munsur, Ismail Tareque, K. M. Mustafizur Rahman

Journal of International Women's Studies

In this study, the socio-economic backdrops, living arrangements, health status and abuse of the women aged 60 years and older in the rural Naogaon district of Bangladesh are examined. The data were collected from seven villages by using probability proportional to size (PPS) sampling and the results show that an overwhelming majority of the elderly women in the age group 60-69 years who are widowed, illiterate, have no education and income, economically dependent, living with married children, unhealthy, suffer from arthritis related illness and are taking treatment from village doctors. Furthermore, the study shows that, nearly 35 percent elderly women …

A Feminist Struggle? South African Hiv Activism As Feminist Politics, Katarina Jungar, Elina Oinas

Journal of International Women's Studies

This paper is a feminist reading of HIV activism in South Africa, of a social movement that does not describe itself as a women’s movement: it advocates both women’s and men’s, trans, hetero- and homosexual peoples’ rights for adequate health care and antiretroviral medication. Like many others, Chandra Talpade Mohanty suggests that today’s powerful feminism is found in anti-globalization movements that do not necessarily call themselves feminist. These critiques maintain that the theory, critique and activism of grass-root women across the globe, for example around anti-globalization, should also inform academic feminist discussions. This article studies discourses on HIV in Africa …

Book Review: Our Stories, Our Lives: Inspiring Muslim Women’S Voices, Azza Basarudin

Journal of International Women's Studies

Review of Our Stories, Our Lives: Inspiring Muslim Women’s Voices, edited by Wahida Sahffi

Book Review: Law In The Service Of Legitimacy: Gender And Politics In Jordan, Stephanie Chaban

Journal of International Women's Studies

Review of Law in the Service of Legitimacy: Gender and Politics in Jordan by Catherine Warrick

Book Review: Everybody’S Family Romance: Reading Incest In Neoliberal America, Kristen Lambert

Journal of International Women's Studies

Review of Everybody’s Family Romance: Reading Incest in Neoliberal America by Gillian Harkins

Book Review: Servants Of The Dynasty: Palace Women In World History, Julia Landweber

Journal of International Women's Studies

Review of Servants of the Dynasty: Palace Women in World History, edited by Anne Walthall

Book Review: Racialized Migrant Women In Canada: Essays On Health, Violence, And Equity, Sarah Rudrum

Journal of International Women's Studies

Review of Racialized Migrant Women in Canada: Essays on Health, Violence, and Equity, edited by Vijay Agnew

Book Review: Rethinking Global Sisterhood: Western Feminism And Iran, Melissa Autumn White

Journal of International Women's Studies

Review of Rethinking Global Sisterhood: Western Feminism and Iran by Nima Naghibi

Book Review: Empowering Migrant Women: Why Agency And Rights Are Not Enough, Connie Oxford

Journal of International Women's Studies

Review of Empowering Migrant Women: Why Agency and Rights are not Enough by Leah Briones

Book Review: Crossing Borders: International Women Students In American Higher Education, Susan Iverson, Yu-Hui Chou

Journal of International Women's Studies

Review of Crossing Borders: International Women Students In American Higher Education by Dongxiao Qin

Book Review: Gender And Hiv/Aids: Critical Perspectives From The Developing World, Cassandra R. Warren

Journal of International Women's Studies

Review of Gender and HIV/AIDS: Critical Perspectives from the Developing World, edited by Jelke Boesten amd Nana K. Poku

Bartleby The Original The Queer, Rebecca Epstein

Pomona Senior Theses

Insofar as human beings try to “know” we must define concepts, objects, actions. We label, we distinguish between one concept and another, and in doing this, we make categories. Labels are categories. Our categories are imperfect. Our labels are always relative, defined by and dependent on that which they exclude. The boundaries of our terms, what “counts” as something or what is considered to be within a certain term, are always shifting. Our definitions change based on our method of analysis. For instance, the definition of “human” is different in different disciplines, like science, philosophy, sociology, economics, etc. Given their …

Belize As A Classroom, Jordan Norris, Molly Calico

Impact Belize

During the week of January 7-14, 2010, Molly Calico and Jordan Norris participated in the Impact Belize program through the College of Health and Human Services. This program took place in Gales Point, a rural, underserved community in Belize. Impact students provided medical, dental and public health services to the community in an interdisciplinary service-learning format. As Master of Public Health students, Molly and Jordan directed health education initiatives and served on the Leadership Team for the program. Having participated in January of 2009 as well, Molly and Jordan were well prepared to conduct public health research and to assume …

Women In The Aviation Industry, Maureen N. Mutisya

Senior Honors Theses

The Aviation industry has developed extensively since its establishment by the Wright Brothers in 1903. Over time, the highly male-dominated industry experienced significant changes to incorporate female aviators. Determined women initiated this process through participating in the aircraft engineering sector and pursuing careers as pilots. However, these women faced various challenges, which resulted in setbacks to their effective growth in the industry. In fact, vital issues encountered in the past are still present and often overlooked in today’s aviation industry. Therefore, identifying these problems and proposing solutions with effective corrective measures is necessary to increase and motivate female pilots globally.

Impact Belize 2010 Executive Report, Ritchie D. Taylor, Jordan Norris, Molly Calico, Bernie Strenecky, Daniel Carter, Dawn Garrett Wright, Eve Main, Bonny Petty, Molly Kerby, Jill Norris

Impact Belize

No abstract provided.

Blameworthiness And Dangerousness: An Analysis Of Violent Female Capital Offenders In The United States And China, Courtney Lahaie

Graduate Research Symposium (2010 - 2017)

The United States and China represent two of the leading nations that retain the death penalty in both law and practice. Research suggests that judges’ sentencing decisions are based primarily on two factors, blameworthiness and dangerousness. Studies involving gender and sentencing in capital punishment cases tend to provide inconsistent findings. The current study uses case narratives to examine the direct and conjunctive effects of various factors on the sentencing decisions of violent female capital offenders in the United States and China. The findings suggest that the concepts of blameworthiness and dangerousness are distinctly defined in the United States and China. …

An Excerpt From The 2009 Kessler Lecture: Ties That Bind: Familial Homophobia And Its Consequences, Sarah Schulman

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

Despite the emphasis on gay marriage and parenthood that has overwhelmed our freedom vision, how gays and lesbians are treated IN families, is far more influential on the quality of individual lives and the larger social order, than how we are treated AS families. Tonight I will try to articulate how and why systems of familial homophobia operate and more importantly, how they can be changed.

Brazen (Spring 2010), Hollins University

Brazen - Gender & Women's Studies Department Newsletters

No abstract provided.

Gender & Leadership: Do Human Resource Policies And Practices Affect A Woman’S Ascent In Organizations?, Arielle Langlais

Honors Projects in Management

As more women began assuming leadership roles in organization, researchers established a number of consistencies in the promotion of women into the upper ranks of an organization. Jonsen, Maznevski, and Schneider have taken a look at these differences in their study, “Gender Differences in Leadership: Believing is Seeing.” In this study they examine three ways in which organizations view women and the Human Resource policies and programs that support these views. Based on this and other research, I conducted a study in hopes of assessing the validity and existence of these views as they are evident in Southern New England …

Making The Boys Cry: The Performative Dimensions Of Fluid Gender, Shane Miller

Strategic Communication Studies Faculty Publications

This essay examines how young girls who participate in combat sports such as wrestling, a traditionally male stronghold, perform continually shifting gender identities that interweave physical traits and behaviors typically coded as masculine or feminine. Drawing upon auto-ethnographic and ethnographic methodologies, I demonstrate how a study of actual lived body experience grounded in a fluid conception of gender is able to remain sensitive to the unique performative gender work being done while providing a critical interrogation of the moments in which the performance of gender is inscribed as nonconformative. I suggest that if we wish to understand the gender dynamics …

Women's Studies Newsletter 04-2010, Susana Peña

Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies Newsletters

No abstract provided.

Women Gathered On Flat Rooftops And Thumprints In Black Coffee, Sana M. Amoura-Patterson

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Women Gathered on Flat Rooftops and Thumbprints in Black Coffee is a creative dissertation that examines the lives of Arab women living in Jordan and Arab immigrants living in the United States. The first portion of the dissertation, Women Gathered on Flat Rooftops is an excerpt from the early portion of the novel by the same name. These first 53 pages provide the background of the characters and highlights aspects that are culturally specific to the women of the stories. For example, issues of arranged marriages, funeral practices, women’s custody rights are all illustrated through these early stories. The early …

Representations Of Slavery And Afro-Peruvians In Flora Tristán's Travel Narrative, Peregrinations Of A Pariah, Julia C. Paulk

Spanish Languages and Literatures Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Female Ph.D. Completion: How Field Of Study Moderates The Predictive Relationships Between Social And Academic Interactions With Faculty, Research Productivity And Degree Completion, Miki Yoshimura

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to seek further understanding of how field of study moderated the predictive relationships between social interactions with faculty, academic interactions with faculty, research productivity, and female Ph.D. students' degree completion. A survey was conducted to collect data on the participants' degree completion, satisfaction with social and academic interactions with faculty, research productivity as well as their field of study. The sample included 412 female former Ph.D. students in various fields at a large, public research university in the mid-Atlantic region who were enrolled between 1993 and 2004.

Logistic regression analyses were conducted to see …