Women's Studies Commons^™

Constructing An Early Modern Queen: Posturing, Mimicry, And The Rhetoric Of Authority, Megan K. Mize

English Theses & Dissertations

As the illegitimate daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, a woman executed for treason, Elizabeth Tudor stood at the center of discourses that often sought to contain or even destroy her. Early on, Elizabeth understood that constant re-invention, performance, and mimicry were key strategies for survival. When she finally ascended the throne in 1558, Elizabeth continued to use these rhetorical methods to retain her autonomy, as far as possible, garnering public support and the loyalty of her court. Although Elizabeth has long been acknowledged as a historical icon and has received considerable scholarly attention, particularly from feminist and feminist-leaning …

Broadening The Focus: Women's Voices In The New Journalism, Mary C. Wacker

Master's Theses (2009 -)

The New Journalism Movement chronicled a decade of social turbulence in America by breaking the rules of traditional journalism and embracing narrative elements in the writing and publication of literary nonfiction. The magazine publishing industry was controlled by men, and the history of this transitional time in journalism has been chronicled by men, neglecting to recognize the significant contributions of women working in their midst. This study shines a light on the historical narrative that defines our understanding of the significance and key contributors to the New Journalism Movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s. To better understand the …

Sexual Violence Victimization, Mental Health, And University-Based Health Service Use Among College Females, Julie E. Stoner

Health Services Research Dissertations

Females between the ages of 18 and 24 consistently experience higher rates of sexual violence compared to females in any other age group (Sinozich & Langton, 2014). Approximately one in five college women experience sexual violence victimization (SVV; Krebs, Lindquist, Berzofsky, Shook-Sa & Peterson, 2016) during the academic year. Among undergraduate female students, 23.1% are victims of sexual violence due to physical force, violence or incapacitation (Cantor et al., 2015). Sexual victimization has been associated with several short- and long-term psychological health consequences, accounting for enhanced symptoms of depression, anxiety, PTSD, and suicide risk (Basile, Smith, Breiding, Black & Mahendra, …

When Silence Screams: An Examination Of Reporting Behaviors Among Sexual Assault Victims On Hbcu Campuses, Natasha Robinson

Sociology & Criminal Justice Theses & Dissertations

According to National Sexual Violence Resource Center (2015), 20% to 25% of college women experience a completed or attempted rape victimization during their college career, but less than 5% of college women file a report with law enforcement (Fisher, Cullen, and Turner 2000). Prior literature indicates that student characteristics/background, alcohol use, and affiliation with Greek life influence students’ chances of being sexually assaulted as well as victim decisions to report. Current research on campus sexual assault victimization and students’ decisions to report has neglected Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) but seem to show that minorities are less likely to …

Activismo, Literatura Y Cambio Social En El Caribe Hispano: Aproximación En Tres Movimientos, Maria Alejandra Aguilar Dornelles

Languages, Literatures and Cultures Faculty Scholarship

Este ensayo convoca a la reflexión de los vínculos entre literatura, activismo y cambio social en el Caribe hispano privilegiando ciertas intervenciones lideradas por mujeres, las cuales han contribuido a la defensa de mejores condiciones de vida y a un pacto social más equitativo. Teniendo en cuenta la diversidad y movilidad que caracteriza a la región caribeña, esta reflexión comienza examinando las organizaciones feministas autónomas que surgieron en la década del 70 en Puerto Rico para luego desplazarse hacia el trabajo de cuestionamiento a la historia planteado por la poesía de Aída Cartagena Portalatín en República Dominicana, concluyendo con una …

Trauma And The Credibility Economy: An Analysis Of Epistemic Violence And Its Traumatic Functions, Gina Stinnett

Theses and Dissertations

In this thesis, I argue that the work done in philosophy on epistemic injustice can put pressure on the assumptions driving the work of both trauma theory and rhetorical theory. In addition to arguing how epistemic injustice can reinforce trauma, I argue that epistemic injustice has its own power to traumatize. I refer to this as “epistemic trauma,” or a trauma to one’s ability to know their experience and to make a claim based on this knowledge. Research on epistemic injustice states that when one encounters repeated epistemic injustice, they become less likely to share their experiences at all—they fall …

Valuing Women’S Contributions: Team Projects And Collaborative Writing, Jennifer C. Mallette, Harold Ackler

Materials Science and Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Team projects offer opportunities for student engineers to learn how to work on a team and produce collaborative written reports. However, research has shown that women often do more writing during these projects, and that their writing labor is unrecognized or undervalued, particularly when the technical work is viewed as more essential. In this paper, we examine the results of a study focused on the writing component in a year-long senior capstone materials science and engineering (MSE) course sequence. This course requires students to complete projects for clients and produce a written report, among other deliverables. To focus more on …

Measuring Women's Empowerment In Sub-Saharan Africa: Exploratory And Confirmatory Factor Analyses Of The Demographic And Health Surveys, Ibitola O. Asaolu, Halimatou Alaofè, Jayleen K. L. Gunn, Akosua K. Adu, Amanda J. Monroy, John E. Ehiri, Mary H. Hayden, Kacey C. Ernst

Epidemiology and Environmental Health Faculty Publications

Background: Women's status and empowerment influence health, nutrition, and socioeconomic status of women and their children. Despite its benefits, however, research on women's empowerment in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is limited in scope and geography. Empowerment is variably defined and data for comparison across regions is often limited. The objective of the current study was to identify domains of empowerment from a widely available data source, Demographic and Health Surveys, across multiple regions in SSA.

Methods: Demographic and Health Surveys from nineteen countries representing four African regions were used for the analysis. A total of 26 indicators across different dimensions (economic, …

Diamante, Robert, Wendy Chapkis

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Robert Diamante is a photographer from an Italian America family from New Jersey. He also has a graduate degree in theology. At an early age, he began to doubt religious dogma. He came out as gay in 10^th grade and stood up against homophobic taunting by successfully physically defending himself. He briefly had a girlfriend in high school who remains one of his best friends. He moved to NYC and attended Pratt University before transferring to the Portland School of Art (now MECA) where his interests in art and theology combined in a body of work based on Catholic …

Crewe, Dan, Wendy Chapkis

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Description: Dan Crewe is an 84 year old gay man originally from New Jersey. He graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1957. Crewe was a member of the United States Air Force for four years, after which he moved to New York City and began a lucrative career in the music industry in production and publishing. He then moved to Los Angeles, California where he met his then wife, the musician Cindy (now Cyd) Bullens, and they had two daughters. The family eventually moved to Maine, where Crewe opened Gateway Mastering Studios and continued working in music. During …

Latinas And Sexual Health: Correlates Of Sexual Satisfaction, Christine Marie Velez

Dissertations and Theses

Latinas/os are one of the fastest growing and most heterogeneous minority ethnic groups in the US. One in 5 women in the US are Latina; by 2060, it is projected that Latinas will compose 1/3 of the female population. Latinas continue to experience disparities in sexual and reproductive health outcomes compared to non-Hispanic whites. While factors impacting undesirable consequences of sexual activity for Latinas have been well documented, Latinas' experiences with sexual satisfaction in the broader context of sexual health remains understudied, despite sexual satisfaction having been identified as an integral component of sexual health. A focus on positive sexual …

Where Woman Is Her Center: Interrogating Morality And Spatiality In The Works Of Joan Didion, Hannah Nicole Martin

Honors Projects

This project outlines new and expansive critical categories for discussing Joan Didion’s work through an interrogation of Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking and earlier personal essays using an interplay of close reading and affect theory. This paper seeks to help move the critical conversation in new directions by shifting the focus towards an analysis of Didion’s unique spatialization of memory, articulated through her use of particular details. Divided in two parts, the first section of this paper discusses The Year of Magical Thinking while the second engages in a dialogue with the critical voices surrounding Didion, as well as …

Self-Care Of Women Enrolled In Doctoral Psychology Programs: A Concept Mapping Approach, Amanda L. Almond

Publications and Research

As increasing numbers of women pursue degrees in health service psychology, it is important to understand what they do to promote their wellness in light of the psychosocial stressors associated with doctoral studies. The purpose of this investigation was to identify and conceptualize a diverse range of health promotion behaviors through the application of a mixed methods concept mapping design. Twelve participants sorted qualitative responses from 390 women in health service psychology pertaining to their personal self-care behaviors, resulting in a list of 112 'moderately' to 'extremely' important self-care behaviors. Six clusters of self-care activities emerged: physical wellness, relaxation and …

The 'Lean In' Theory, Validated By Three Supreme Court Justices, Celene Valenzuela

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

The definition of leadership is not gender specific; however, the role of a leader continues to be defined in mostly male terms by society. While, women have outpaced men in gaining an undergraduate education, women are not being hired for top leadership roles. There continues to be a gender leadership gap in both the private and public sector. Women continue to advance in their education and career, yet they are unable to break the invisible glass ceiling and attain top leadership roles.

This study proposes that in order to gain equality and reduce the gender leadership gap, in both the …

Bushler Bay And Hood View, 40 Years On: Gender, Forests And Change In The Global North, Carol Jean Pierce Colfer

Humboldt Journal of Social Relations

In 2017, Carol Colfer revisited the communities of Bushler Bay and Hood View on the Olympic Peninsula, where she had spent three years doing ethnographic research in the 1970s. The purposes were two-fold: to test several rapid rural appraisal techniques and, as emphasized here, to assess the changes that had taken place in the interim. The ultimate goal was to contribute to USFS efforts to collaborate more effectively with women and men in forest communities. Her findings suggest that changes occurred in three (or more) spheres: livelihoods, demography, and gender relations, each of which is discussed below for each time …

A Challenge To Socio-Ecological Resilience: Community Based Resource Management Organizations’ Perceptions And Responses To Cannabis Cultivation In Northern California, Yvonne Everett

Humboldt Journal of Social Relations

Local nonprofit organizations in the Pacific Northwest have stepped up to fill a leadership void in forest management since the Timber Wars of the 1980s and 1990s. Community based resource management groups (CBRM) have focused on stewardship of ecosystem services, and leading efforts to employ local workers to restore forest ecosystems and watershed functions. In Northern California, even as CBRM capacity has grown since the Timber Wars, a new transformative challenge threatens community and landscape adaptive capacity. Cannabis cultivation, which can have significant environmental and social impacts, has become a pervasive economic driver. I used interviews to explore CBRM leaders’ …

Reimagining The Discourse: Media Representation Of Women In Boston Public Schools' Superintendency, 1991 - 2016, Lisa M. Cullington

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

This study examines the relationship among public discourse, power and leadership for women superintendents in Boston Public Schools. For this qualitative study, I use a feminist poststructural discourse analysis (FPDA) to examine newspaper articles from The Boston Globe from 1991 to 2016. Through a FPDA, I illuminate the ways in which women superintendents have been discursively produced amidst neoliberal educational reform movements. In this study, I focus on how the superintendent’s role was conceptualized as a male endeavor in The Boston Globe, and the implications of this for current educational leaders.

Two major discursive stages frame the study’s time period: …

Unescorted Guests: Yale’S First Women Undergraduates And The Quest For Equity, 1969-1973, Anne G. Perkins

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

“Unescorted Guests” provides a richly detailed portrait of a fundamental change at one US institution: Yale University’s 1969 transition from an all-men’s to a coed college. This study disputes several dominant narratives about the 1970s youth and women’s movements, and deepens our understanding of three core issues in higher education research: access, the experiences of previously excluded students, and change towards greater equity. I contest the myth of alumni as foes to coeducation, and show that the greatest opposition to equity for women came instead from Yale’s president and trustees. I document how women students, absent as powerful figures in …

Labor And Delivery: Television Performances By Pregnant Actresses From 1948-2016, Evleen Michelle Nasir

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Labor and Delivery: Television Actresses’ Pregnant Performances from 1948-2016, examines the labor of six pregnant actresses working on United States television. Mary Kay Stearns, Lucille Ball, Jane Leeves, Kerry Washington, and Katey Sagal all worked through pregnancies while filming their respective television shows. These women exemplify the multitude of actresses who maintained their careers and their pregnancies in the television industry. This is the first study of its kind to examine the labor of an actresses’ pregnant body on film while she performs a role other than herself. Previous examinations of pregnancy in performance are few but have largely focused …

Initiation Of Sexual Behaviour And Early Childbearing: Poverty And The Gendered Nature Of Responsibility Amongst Young People In South Africa, Monde Makiwane, Ntombizonke A. Gumede, Lien Molobela

Journal of International Women's Studies

Childbearing is an important life course event and a decision to give birth has significant implication in contemporary society, especially if it occurs before the completion of schooling and predating the start of being gainfully employed. Globally, teenage pregnancy is more common among young people who have been disadvantaged in childhood and have low expectations of education or opportunities in the job market. Literature shows that youth living in poverty have higher teen pregnancy rate than the average population. Socio-economic circumstances seem to play a major role in the rates of teen pregnancy. Poor access to contraception and inconsistent or …

A Theoretical Perspective On Women And Poverty In Botswana, Gwen N. Lesetedi

Journal of International Women's Studies

Botswana has made remarkable progress in terms of economic and social development. The position of the government is that policies and programmes should benefit all citizens equally. More specifically, the government of Botswana has recognised women’s role in economic development and efforts have been made to integrate gender in the development process. Access to economic opportunities for everyone to development is an overall goal clearly stated in the various national development plans, policies and programmes. Gender plays a major role in the formulation and implementation of these intervention strategies. For instance, the National Gender Programme Framework implemented and monitored by …

Defying The Odds, Not The Abuse: South African Women’S Agency And Rotating Saving Schemes, 1994-2017, Mark Nyandoro

Journal of International Women's Studies

Employing a feminist lens that places emphasis on women’s agency South African feminists have challenged the dominant narrative of hapless women who need external saviours to climb out of poverty. In particular, black South African feminists have drawn attention to the appropriation and deployment of both indigenous and other concepts and practices by women to fight poverty. This article employs these perspectives to interpret the importance of rotating saving schemes in South Africa. It explores the debate about women’s economic, community-participation and entrepreneurship strategies with reference to the Stokvel and other rotating saving-schemes (e.g. mashonisa) to improve the status of …

Women And Renewable Energy In A South African Community: Exploring Energy Poverty And Environmental Racism, Khayaat Fakier

Journal of International Women's Studies

This paper argues that the rights of women to be included in decisions about energy use and their experiences with energy use are ignored. Using an eco-feminist perspective this article explores how the rhetoric of ‘renewable energy for the poor’ which bypasses women’s voices and experience in domestic uses of renewable energy result in reverse outcomes of pro-environmental policy for the poor, as well as, for society in general. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with 20 women in Lwandle, in South Africa, the article identifies three themes reflecting on how the women experience the installation of solar water heaters. The first …

Women Entrepreneurship In Kwazulu-Natal: A Critical Review Of Government Intervention Policies And Programs, Obianuju E. Okeke-Uzodike, Ufo Okeke-Uzodike, Catherine Ndinda

Journal of International Women's Studies

Entrepreneurship is considered one of the key drivers of economic development. It is widely recognized that female entrepreneurs in formal and informal sectors play crucial roles in building and sustaining economic growth and development. In South Africa, however, women’s participation in entrepreneurial activities remains on the periphery of formal government policy. This is despite formal pronouncements and recognition that women’s integration and role in the economy is vital for both the economic and socio-political development of the country. Indeed, the South African government has introduced various policies and programmes in line with the Sustainable Development Goal 5 – achieve gender …

Gender Differences In Water Access And Household Welfare Among Smallholder Irrigators In Msinga Local Municipality, South Africa, Sithembile A. Sinyolo, Sikhulumile Sinyolo, Maxwell Mudhara, Catherine Ndinda

Journal of International Women's Studies

This study investigates the gender differences in water access and its welfare effects using a sample of 291 irrigators from two irrigation schemes in the Msinga Local Municipality, South Africa. The data were analysed using the Blinder Oaxaca (BO) decomposition method and the instrumental variable (IV) regression approach. The study findings highlight unequal access to irrigation water between male and female farmers, with women accessing irrigation water more frequently than women. The results also indicate a positive and significant effect of water access on incomes per capita, and that men had higher welfare than women. The results suggest that women …

The ‘Stigma’ Of Paid Work: Capital, State, Patriarchy And Women Fish Workers In South India, P. Aswathy, K. Kalpana

Journal of International Women's Studies

This paper explores the changing dynamics of women’s labor in a Muslim fishing village in the South Indian state of Kerala in the back drop of two global processes viz., state-initiated capitalist modernization of the fisheries sector and state-sponsored livelihood promotion programs. It traces the shifting contexts in which Muslim fisherwomen, alternately, engaged in and disengaged from, paid work outside the household and shows how women experienced different kinds of paid work, as self-employed fish vendors and wage earners of employment guarantee schemes. Changes in women’s labor force participation were mediated by the social institutions of family and religion, community …

Determinants Of Female’S Employment Outcomes In Vietnam, Ngo Quynh An, Yamada Kazuyo

Journal of International Women's Studies

In the context of reducing female labor demand and restructuring female work in integration, determinants of women's employment are studied using data of 2010 VHLSS with 11,085 women aged 15 and older who were working in the Vietnamese labor market. The economic and care needs, values and opportunities of women working are important. At the region-level, economic development and equality will give women opportunities for better work. Women's education and training clearly take a key position. The analysis shows the effect of education and training are strongest and positive for women with employment in the group of "Leaders, managers, and …

Gender-Based Household Compositional Changes And Implications For Poverty In South Africa, Chijioke O. Nwosu, Catherine Ndinda

Journal of International Women's Studies

Poverty is one of the most challenging socio-economic problems in South Africa. Though poverty rates have been substantially reduced in the post-apartheid period, many South Africans remain poor. Available evidence also indicates a substantial gender gradient to the prevalence of poverty in the country. A standard indicator of gendered power structures is the gender of the household head. We examine the effect of transitioning from a male- to a female-headed household over time (relative to remaining in a male-headed household) on changes in the probability of transitioning into poverty from a non-poor state over a two- to six-year period. This …

Preventing The Leaky Pipeline: Teaching Future Female Leaders To Manage Their Careers And Promote Gender Equality In Organizations, Nicole Böhmer, Heike Schinnenburg

Journal of International Women's Studies

The paradox of Indian women’s declining presence in the labor market despite their advancements in higher education leads to questions regarding how this “leaky pipeline” can be patched and (partly) prevented. At the same time, female educational advancement in Western countries, such as Germany, does not equate to significantly more females in leadership positions or changes in gender role expectations. In both the Indian and German contextual setting, women face hurdles in developing their career and the risk of lifelong dependency or poverty.

This paper clarifies the perspectives of young females on leadership careers and success before they enter the …

Gender, Poverty And Inequality In The Aftermath Of Zimbabwe’S Land Reform: A Transformative Social Policy Perspective, Newman Tekwa, Jimi Adesina

Journal of International Women's Studies

Gender equality is re-emerging as an important global and national agenda with emphasis placed on closing the gender gap in terms of women’s representation in public and private decision-making bodies. Though unrelatedly, the period had coincided with the elevation of social protection in the form of cash transfers as the magic bullet in tackling gendered poverty and inequality. Adopting a Transformative Social Policy Framework and land reform as a social policy instrument, the paper questions the efficacy of the current approaches in transforming gendered poverty and inequalities. Land reform is hardly ever assessed as a policy instrument for its redistributive, …