Women's Studies Commons^™

Women's Studies Newsletter Spring 2014, Women's Studies Program, Wright State University

Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Newsletter

This is a fifteen page newsletter created by the Wright State University Women's Studies Program documenting current affairs, events, as well as other happenings on campus.

This issue features profiles on outstanding students, a faculty profile of Paulette Olson, a faculty spotlight on Julianne Weinzimmer, a schedule of Women's Studies Summer and Fall 2014 courses, and more.

Paradoxes Of Porn, Jessie M. Pierce

SURGE

So I have a confession: I’m kind of obsessed with porn. Which is weird considering that I have never actually seen any. [excerpt]

A Genealogy Of The Lesbian Herstory Archives, 1974-2014, Rachel F. Corbman

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

This paper traces the collection development of the Lesbian Herstory Archives, a community based repository founded in 1974. I argue that the collection grew organically as a reflection of a dialogue between an evolving cohort of volunteer archivists and a community of donors. Primarily focusing on the first five years, this paper pinpoints key early decisions made by volunteer archivists. Specifically, I examine the Archives’ early collecting priorities and the introduction of the special collections in 1978. These decisions, I argue, laid the foundation for the Lesbian Herstory Archives and continue to shape it today, forty years later.

University Scholar Series: Cathleen Miller, Cathleen Miller

University Scholar Series

Champion of Choice: The Life and Legacy of Women's Advocate Nafis Sadik

On March 19, 2014, Cathleen Miller spoke in the University Scholar Series hosted by Interim Provost Andy Feinstein at the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Library. Dr. Miller spoke about her book, Champion of Choice: The Life and Legacy of Women's Advocate Nafis Sadik. Viewed as “one of the most powerful women in the world,” by the London Times, obstetrician Dr. Sadik took a post at the United Nations Population Fund in 1971. By 2000, the average birthrate had been cut in half because of Sadik’s new …

Checking Out: A Qualitative Study Of Supermarket Cashiers' Emotional Response To Customer Mistreatment, Michael E. Lawless

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In Western culture, and especially the United States, the increasingly service based economy focuses on creating an emotionally positive experience for customers. This leads to increasing pressures on service workers to hide and suppress their emotions even when mistreated by customers, in order to meet their employers', and general cultural, customer service standards. This thesis investigates the questions of what kinds of emotional challenges supermarket cashiers experience as a result of mistreatment from their customers, how do they manage to cope with these challenges, and whether there are any differences in challenges or coping strategies between younger and older cashiers, …

Love For Sale: Prostitution And The Building Of Buffalo, New York, 1820-1910, Rachel V. Nicolosi

The Exposition

Generally referred to as “the oldest profession in the world,” prostitution often earns nothing but derision when spoken about in mainstream media. Women who find themselves in this line of work are often thought to be classless, uneducated, and sexually promiscuous outside of their occupation, and are generally considered to be an example of morally unfit behavior. Despite evidence pointing otherwise, this view of prostitution is one which has unfortunately prevailed since the 1800s. On the American Frontier, prostitution was one of the only legal means a woman could survive, and in east coast cities like Buffalo, New York, one …

The New B-Word, Dayna M. Seeger

SURGE

I get all of my career advice from Cosmopolitan magazine.

Okay, maybe not all of it. But sitting in the airport this past weekend, I breezed through articles about Khloé Kardashian and confessions about why guys cheat, and, somewhere in the middle, stumbled on an article called “Like a Boss.” It was written by Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook and author of Lean In, and described an issue I had never really given much thought to: why female leaders are, seemingly more often than male leaders, described as bossy. As a woman with a leadership position on campus, the …

Impacts Of Gender Inequality And Poverty On Trafficking In Women, Jihye Park, Cara Rabe-Hemp

Graduate Research - Criminal Justice Sciences

Women represent approximately 75% of human trafficking victims. This study reviews what is and is not known about human trafficking and what might be accomplished in future research.

Tammy Rae Carland's Queer Riot Grrrl Zine"I ( Heart ) Amy Carter": A World Of Public Intimacy, Annah-Marie Rostowsky

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis analyzes Tammy Rae Carland's queer Riot Grrrl zine I (heart) Amy Carter as a counterpublic sphere engendered by acts of public intimacy that make visible the intersectional complexities of gender, sexuality, class, and race that insidious traumas continually work to conceal. It looks to Ann Cvetkovich's inquiries into the positive aspects of public cultures in the book An Archive of Feelings: Trauma, Sexuality, and Lesbian Public Cultures (2006) as well as Mimi Thi Nguyen's investigation of the Riot Grrrl race crisis in the article "Riot Grrrl, Race, and Revival" (2012) as frameworks to critique Carland's visual and textual …

Ivy Leaves, Volume 89, Ivy Leaves Editorial Staff

Ivy Leaves

The 2014 edition of the Anderson University journal of art and literature, Ivy Leaves.

The names of the known editors for this issue of Ivy Leaves were Christopher Mauldin, Anna Falardeau, Jonathan Kurtz, Jordan Sears, J.E. Tankersley. Cody Rabideau, Laurie Epps, Christian Bare, Nichole Dorontich, Hunter Burton, Charity Reed, Joy Hiller, Sarah Leugemors, Rebekah Rhoden, Julia Madden, Dixie Hemingway, Gage LaGreca, Kenneth Keller, Justin Parker, Teresa Jones, and Tim Speaker. Cover art photography by Julia Madden and Heidi Pettit.

Trends In Midwifery In The United States, Alexandra P. Alvarez

Social Sciences

Midwives have become more popular in recent years, and a rising percentage of women have been choosing midwives over doctors. Originally midwives were mostly used by minority women, but now more caucasian women are finding midwives to be a natural and preferable way to give birth. Due to this change in trend, midwives are becoming more accepted in society. This paper examines and defines the reasons behind the changing trends of midwifery in the United States. Specifically, if this changing trend has to deal with interventions, such as pitocin or cesarean sections, by doctors to speed up the delivery process. …

Women’S Municipal Leadership In Massachusetts: Snapshot Of Cape Cod, Center For Women In Politics And Public Policy, University Of Massachusetts Boston

Publications from the Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy

The center tracks the status of women at all levels of government in New England. It also provides dynamic web resources to inform and support the public leadership of women of color.

"Purple People": "Sexed" Linguistics, Pleasure, And The "Feminine" Body In The Lyrics Of Tori Amos, Megim A. Parks

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

The notion of a “feminine” style has been staunchly resisted by third-wave feminists who argue that to posit a “feminine” style is essentialist. Yet, linguists such as Norma Mendoza-Denton and Elinor Ochs discuss indexicality and shifting through salient variables, a process called entextualization. Further, French feminists such as Hélène Cixous and Julia Kristeva use the linguistic concept of intertextuality to explain certain poetic uses of language that might cause what Luce Irigaray calls “irruption of the semiotic chora”—moments within language where boundaries in the semiotic chain of signification are “blurred.” Thus, while current feminism has moved strictly away …

From The Inside Out, And Through., Dominique Ovalle

The Transdisciplinary STEAM+ Journal

These photographs describe “Science” born of consumerism, hijacked by me, economically disenfranchised, or rather—temporarily embarrassed, artist. I was putzing around Malibu—my old college stomping ground, looking for free food; maybe a sample of some gourmet $5 chocolate, and all I got were these photographs.

Fearless: Haya Mohanna, Haya M. Mohanna

SURGE

Constantly pursuing new avenues on and off campus to engage in different communities, raise awareness about issues in the Gaza Strip, and learn more about leadership, Haya Mohanna ’17 fearlessly pursues knowledge and activism opportunities to learn more about her own leadership style and capability to create change in her home community. [excerpt]

No Blood In The Water: The Legal And Gender Conspiracies Against Countess Elizabeth Bathory In Historical Context, Rachael Leigh Bledsaw

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explains and discusses the conspiracies reported against the Hungarian noblewoman, Countess Elizabeth Bathory, regarding her confinement and the arrest of her accomplices in December 1610. The conspiracies state that the Countess was unjustly targeted and charged not because she was guilty of the deaths of several dozen girls from torture, but because she represented a threat to the Hapsburg Empire due to her wealth, her political influence, and her widowhood. This thesis explores the rationality of these two conspiracies using historical context regarding the position of noblewomen in Central and Eastern Europe and the function and use of …

Book Review: Female Soldiers In Sierra Leone: Sex, Security And Post Conflict Development, Nompilo Mjwara, Nokuthula Ngubane, Philani Hlengwa

Journal of International Women's Studies

Review of Female Soldiers in Sierra Leone: Sex, Security and Post Conflict Development by M.H. MacKenzie; New York: New York University Press, 2012.

Housewives And The Sex Trade - A Desperate Strategy To Save The Household: A Study Of Housewives Of Industrial Workers, Harasankar Adhikari

Journal of International Women's Studies

The present paper examines the household economies of male industrial workers of India after their sudden retrenchment. They had been victims of a defective industrial policy, and they did not get compensation as per the recruitment policy of the Government of India. As they were ill-prepared for retrenchment, they have struggled over extended periods. In a desperate attempt at household survival, their wives chose the sex trade. These women used a brothel in Kolkata to ply the sex trade as floating sex workers. They operated in a clandestine manner as the brothel was restricted to daytime use. They used their …

Women And Information Technology: How Do Female Students Of Education Perceive Information Technology, And What Is Their Approach Toward It?, Rachel Baruch

Journal of International Women's Studies

Researchers and scholars consider the Internet today to be the most far-reaching technological tool, in regards to its implications for our present-day society. Its development and usage has, among other things, implications for gender perceptions, as well as for education and studies. The main purpose of the study was to examine attitudes held by female education students toward information technology in general and studying within an Internet-environment in particular, as well as the way they perceive themselves in such a changing world.

Twenty interviews with students of education were analyzed during the course of this study. Results of the study …

The Global Family Begins At Conception: Reconfiguring Feminist Theory To Include Intentionally Unmarried Heterosexual Women Who Choose Not To Become Pregnant, Kimberly Petrovic

Journal of International Women's Studies

The global family begins at conception. Every person born into this world enters into a global society in which beliefs and ideas about the meaning of life and its purpose are shared, regardless of one’s country of origin or the demographic characteristics of one’s birth parents. Ultimately, we are related to one another. Our genetics do not differ significantly; there is no gene for race. If the global family begins at conception, then how might the meaning of a ‘global family’ cause us to rethink our antiquated ideas about conception, marriage, and parenting, particularly for heterosexual women who choose to …

Women In American Energy: De-Feminizing Poverty In The Oil And Gas Industries, Lauren E. Mckee

Journal of International Women's Studies

Women have historically been excluded from work in the male-dominated American oil and gas industry due to unfavorable working conditions and industry hiring biases. However, due to recent developments in on-land drilling techniques and increased overall production, this gender discrimination is slowly beginning to change as more women are being hired for energy industry jobs. In the short term, this means a greater distribution of wealth in what can be a lucrative field. Greater access to employment with security and room for advancement could also mean a long-term structural change in industry hiring norms, granting women greater access to energy …

Rhetoric And Politics Of The Female Body And Sex In Two Contemporary Chinese Tv Drama Serials: The Place Where Dreams Start And Blow The North Wind, Cai Shenshen

Journal of International Women's Studies

The discourse of body and sex has long been a taboo subject for Chinese females from time immemorial, and despite the Chinese Communist Party’s stated policies and legislation of “female equality”, the situation for females after the communist takeover improved only marginally and was most often just ‘window-dressing’. However, with the end of the Cultural Revolution and the beginning of reforms to ‘open up China’ and the growing importance of modern Western cultural thought, there appeared a gradual change in the Chinese people’s attitude towards discussions on body and sex. People began to understand the ideas of femininity, female desire …

Women's Political Participation In China: Improved Or Not?, Benxiang Zeng

Journal of International Women's Studies

Continuous rapid economic growth has made China one of largest economies in the world. Chinese women have been playing an important role in many aspects of socio-economic activities. However, in recent decades overall women’s political participation in China has not been significantly improved. The spindled shape of women’s representation in the power structures will not support a sustainable improvement in women’s political participation in China. This paper argues that high-profile women politicians would contribute to political gender equity, but a broader participation in politics from the grassroots female population is more important and fundamental. Therefore, a proactive policy in women’s …

Stealing Women, Stealing Men: Co-Creating Cultures Of Polygamy In A Pesantren Community In Eastern Indonesia, Bianca J. Smith

Journal of International Women's Studies

This article explores how the practice of polygamy is maintained in a Sasak pesantren (a traditional Islamic boarding school for the study of the Qur’an, Hadith and classical texts) in Lombok, eastern Indonesia. Pesantren are patriarchal institutions that are managed by male Muslim teachers and preachers known in Lombok as tuan guru. I demonstrate how tuan guru play critical roles in the reproduction of polygamy in Sasak society by implicating women in the co-creation of polygamous marriage and simultaneously teaching strategies for resisting it. By situating Muslim women’s experiences in wider Indonesian and local Sasak discursive contexts, and based …

Work-Life Balance, Family-Friendly Policies And Quality Of Work Life Issues: Studying Employers' Perspectives Of Working Women In Oman, Shweta Belwal, Rakesh Belwal

Journal of International Women's Studies

Family-Friendly Policies (FFPs) aim to help employees manage their family responsibilities, create flexible-work conditions and enable women to perform better on both domestic and work fronts. In comparison to other countries in the Gulf, women in Oman are joining the workforce in large numbers. This trend continues as educational and vocational institutions within the country consistently enroll a higher proportion of women. Currently, women comprise 55% of the total workforce in Oman and contribute significantly in education, health, media, banking and other business sectors. Challenges such as work-life balance (WLB) constrain their Quality of Work Life (QWL). Omani Labor Law …

"You Keep Yourself Strong": A Discourse Analysis Of African Women Asylum Seekers' Talk About Emotions, Maria Clare, Simon Goodman, Helen Liebling, Hannah Laing

Journal of International Women's Studies

The current study investigates how asylum-seeking African women use talk about emotion to construct empowered roles for themselves. A discourse analysis was conducted on interviews with African asylum-seeking women. Participants used two interacting repertoires, ‘rejecting pity’ and ‘being strong’, to resist inferior positions. By constructing themselves as strong and not needing pity, participants positioned themselves as in control of their lives, and thus presented as responsible and capable mothers, a role they are accountable for. Clinical implications and findings for future research are discussed.

Re-Inscribing The Indian Courtesan: A Genealogical Approach, Meenal Tula, Rekha Pande

Journal of International Women's Studies

Women historiography has been one of the major concerns of the feminist movement particularly since 1960s. Looking at the figure of the courtesan in India–its histories, representations, repression and re-emergence, the paper seeks to problematize discourses of both Universalist and minority history writing that have been built around these women. In the context of Post-Colonial theory, and in the light of the dynamic nature of the categories of Truth, Power, Knowledge, and Discourse, the paper seeks to salvage Foucault’s methodology of writing a genealogical history as opening new avenues within the history of the courtesan in India in particular and …

Pinched Lives And Stolen Dreams In Arab Feminist Short Stories, Rula Quawas

Journal of International Women's Studies

The short fiction of Arab women writers epitomizes their penetrating feminist voices and contributes to our understanding of the diversity of Arab women short-story writing in the second half of the twentieth century. This fiction, which should be read with an open mind and with a nod to the culture and social context in which it is born, cradled and bred, deals with family relations in the Arab world and the ways in which the members of these families show each other love, or perhaps neglect to do so, with social and cultural dominion that emphasizes the collective and downplays …

The Palestinian Women's Movement Versus Hamas: Attempting To Understand Women's Empowerment Outside A Feminist Framework, Sara Ababneh

Journal of International Women's Studies

This paper asks whether–and if so, how–Islamic groups such as Hamas that clearly define themselves outside a feminist framework can be studied in terms of women’s empowerment. The material discussed is based on fieldwork conducted with Hamas-affiliated female Islamists, as well as women’s rights activists in general, in the occupied Palestinian territories in 2007. Centrally, this work debates whether it is possible to think of women's empowerment in non-feminist terms. The significance of this study lies in two critical contributions to questions of women’s empowerment in Muslim societies: Firstly, the case of Islamism exposes the hegemony of feminism–religious and secular–as …

Educating And Mobilizing The New Voter: Interwar Handbooks And Female Citizenship In Great-Britain, 1918-1931, Véronique Molinari

Journal of International Women's Studies

British women’s access to the electorate in 1918 and 1928 triggered off a series of efforts to reach out to the new voters both on the part of political parties and of women’s groups. New organisations were created, the role of women’s sections within political parties was reassessed and a wealth of propaganda material was published at election times that specifically targeted women. While some of these efforts were avowedly aimed at mobilizing the female vote in favour of a political party or around an ideological (feminist) agenda, others were seemingly simply intended to arouse women’s interest in politics and …