Women's Studies Commons^™

Florence Nightingale, The Colossus: Was She A Feminist?, Susan Hogan

Journal of International Women's Studies

Nightingale displayed a particular brand of feminism that reflected the circumstances of her era. The question of women’s involvement in healthcare is addressed through an analysis of Nightingale’s most famous work, Notes on Nursing. What it is, and what it is not (1859/60). Then other key works are scrutinised with reference to ideas about female involvement in healthcare and how she addresses the position of women in general terms. Nightingale’s works, Notes on Hospitals (1859); Suggestions for Thought to the Searchers after Truth among the Artisans of England (1860); Introductory Notes on Lying-In Institutions (1871) are focussed upon illustrating her …

Girl Friends, Camila Santander

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Friendships between women are common and essential parts of women's lives; however, they are often overlooked. This capstone project titled Girl Friends is a film on which eight women are interviewed and asked about their friendships with other women. They discuss the importance of having female friends and how they create love, support, and companionship. The interviewees also talk about female friendships and romantic partners coexisting, the pressures to find a romantic partner to find fulfillment, as opposed to good friends. Additionally, they describe how friendships between women can be competitive and catty, and how female relationships can change as …

Elgin's "Native Tongue": A "Me Too" Universe?, Amir Barati

Tête à Tête: Journal of Francophone Studies

Suzette Haden Elgin’s novel Native Tongue (1984) provides a fascinating critique of the ideologies inscribed into patriarchal language and evokes an extremely valuable linguistic and political awareness. This article will examine the liability of the ways the novel revolts against the patriarchal society via the introduction of a gynocentric linguistic intervention. I claim, Elgin’s novel showcases an invaluable instance of how it is possible for women to revolt against the pillars of patriarchy through manipulations at the gestalt and schematic level of language and most specifically, the bodily metaphoric quality of the English. This proposed transformation of the schematic and …

Imagined Locality Of A Girlhood Home: A Performative Reading Of Maxine Hong Kingston’S “White Tigers”, Jing Tan

Tête à Tête: Journal of Francophone Studies

Both the locality and the language of Sze Yup are of immense significance to Kingston, as well as to her narrator-protagonist: it is the locus of her mother’s storytelling, the land whence her mother absorbed the incredible power of “talking-story” that has been inherited by Kingston and has permeated her text, the soil whose spirit has been transplanted to her birthplace in America and whose mystery has never ceased to inspire her imagination. Likewise, the Sze Yup dialect is the language that both the writer and her narrator first learned to speak (Jaggi): she “entered school speaking no English” (Talbot …

Internalized Misogyny As Displayed By Aunt March In Little Women, Sydney Lofton

[Archive] Belmont University Research Symposium (BURS)

It seems that more women fight against each other than for one another. Women have developed a reputation for gossiping to disparage the reputation of each other, leveraging terms like “floozie,” “bimbo,” and “slut” against one another. While women will rage against men who support the patriarchy, women are often some of the strictest enforcers of its standards. In Kate Hamill’s playscript Little Women, an adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s 1868 novel, it is Aunt March, not a man, who places pressure on Jo to assimilate to society’s expectation of women. This push of conformity may reflect Aunt March’s own …

Renegotiating Liminal Spaces: Catholic Nuns As Spiritual And Feminist Activists, Emily M. Lauletta

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The objective of this thesis is to recognize the critical work being done by the women in two Sister-led organizations, Talitha Kum, and Network. Throughout this thesis, I make note of how the actions of these groups of nuns align with several values attributed to spiritual activism. Simultaneously, I discuss the complications that arise from doing social justice work within the confines of an institution that has perpetuated settler colonialism and white supremacy. My analysis is grounded in three theoretical frameworks; spiritual activist theory as articulated by Gloria Anzaldúa, Indigenous Feminism(s), and Womanism. In reference to the nuns' status as …

In Search Of A Homeland: Jewish-American Women Writers And Their Struggle With Cultural Alienation, Alisa K. Burris

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This study examines the lives and fictional works of five Jewish-American women writers of the twentieth century within the complex context of cultural alienation. Authors Anzia Yezierska, Dorothy Parker, Grace Paley, Cynthia Ozick, and Marge Piercy are each featured in separate chapters that examine how personal experiences of estrangement weave through and influence their texts. As a result of this dissertation’s scrutiny, meaningful connections emerge between these diverse Jewish women authors and the transformation of painful struggles into profound journeys to seek belonging. Through their works’ literal and figurative pilgrimages to reach an ultimate homeland, all five writers creatively illustrate …

Pedagogies Of The “Irresistible”: Imaginative Elsewheres Of Black Feminist Learning., Mecca Jamilah Sullivan

Journal of Feminist Scholarship

In her foreword to the groundbreaking anthology, This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color, Toni Cade Bambara (1983) famously argues that the great work of feminist writing is “to make revolution irresistible.” This statement is often read as a founding call of women-of-color feminism, and of feminist literary expression in particular. Yet Bambara’s notion of the “irresistible” extends beyond the page; throughout her works, she also uses the term as a key descriptor of her pedagogy, and her vision of the classroom. Bambara joins Audre Lorde and other Black feminist writer/teachers in insisting on a …

The Digital Age: Our Feminist Echo Chamber, Amanda H. Nguyen

Journal of Feminist Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Archiving Feminist Truth In Trump’S Wake Of Lies, Julie Shayne

Humboldt Journal of Social Relations

This article is about an assignment I do in one of my Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies social movement classes. I revised the assignment the first time teaching the class after Trump lost the 2020 election. For the assignment, students work in groups to research local feminist and gender justice organizations and deposit all of their original materials – recordings, photos, flyers, etc. – into a digital, open access archive I co-created several years ago with librarians and staff on my campus. In 2021 I had my students do the “post-Trump” edition where they researched local organizations about how their …

Femicides: The Other Growing Epidemic We Don’T Want To See, Natalia Gutierrez

Capstones

This report analyzes how gender-based killings is a growing topic within the feminist community of New York and Mexico City and how the use of the right terminology is essential to understand the scope of the problem. I worked for 18 months with the feminist community in both cities and the term ‘femicide’ came over and over in the interviews Femicide, how it is referred in the rest of the world, is the intentional killing of women or girls because they are female, and it is a growing epidemic in the U.S. and in Mexico. I interviewed more than 40 …

Hannah & Nana: A Personal Memoir On Appalachian Intergenerational Trauma, Womanhood, & Family, Hannah Dunn

Honors Projects

I was deeply affected by the death of my beloved nana in 2018. After her death, my family asked me to be the storyteller for us. Thus, for my Honors Project at Bowling Green State University (BGSU), I decided to write a personal memoir on my family. This memoir explores how we fit into notions of womanhood and family in Appalachia, as well as studying the effects of intergenerational trauma on us. Qualitative research, in the form of the autoethnography, serves as the methodology for this project. In writing a creative memoir, I have transformed my personal to the academic.

“We Are Working For A Caste-Free India”: An Interview With M. M. Vinodini, Bonnie Zare

Journal of International Women's Studies

The present interview with M.M. Vinodini extends the context of her two stories printed in this issue, “Block” and “Villain’s Suicide” and the contemporary context for Telugu Dalit women writers. It enables readers to consider the combination of factors that must align for a woman and therefore, a secondary citizen of a severely stigmatized community to take action and protest through activist organizing and creative storytelling. Discrimination, self-respect, and assertion are repeated themes in Vinodini’s body of work and here she discusses changing views of caste among young people, the reception of her work, the ongoing mistreatment of sanitation workers, …

Patriarchal Limitations Imposed On African Women: A Deconstructive Reading Of Chinweizu’S Anatomy Of Female Power, Itang Ede Egbung

Journal of International Women's Studies

Patriarchy is one of the crippling limitations that women face in contemporary societies despite the effects of modernism. Patriarchy is a system that thrives on the domination of women and promotes the superiority of men. The system places so many limitations on women to the extent that the subversion of these limitations is considered a violation of social norms and values. This paper discovers that patriarchal limitations have confined unassertive women to be at the whims and caprices of men and their domination. Using deconstructive critical theory, this paper deconstructs Chinweizu’s Anatomy of Female Power which claims that women wield …

If I Knew What My Mother Was Going Through. Book Review. Not Dead Yet: Feminism, Passion, And Women's Liberation. Edited By Renate Klein And Susan Hawthorne, Dana Vitalosova

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

No abstract provided.

Autobiographical Narratives Of Sexual Violation: Trauma, Genre, And The Politics Of Telling, Sarah M. Hildebrand

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation engages with literary trauma theory and rape studies by investigating how scholars through the 1990s theorized the relationship among trauma, narration, and silence, and how the #MeToo movement causes us to rethink these views. Attending to the specific silence generated in the wake of sexual violation reveals how power structures influence the act of telling, challenging the idea that trauma is untellable. I argue that literary trauma theory needs to push beyond its foundation in biomedical models of trauma—in which the (in)ability to recall or articulate traumatic events is rooted in neurology—to examine the ways traumatic narratives are …

Put Yourself First (In A Sexy Way): Postfeminist Beauty Messaging And Resistant Media Texts, Margarita Artoglou

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The makeover montage trope is one of the most recognizable in media content aimed at young women, sending the message that social status and acceptance are only a new outfit and face of makeup away. While this trope and its message have been heavily critiqued by scholars, the message that beauty—and all its social benefits—can be achieved through consumerism has not disappeared, though the means by which this message is conveyed has changed. As a result of companies co-opting feminist rhetoric, conforming to standards of beauty has been recast as a “choice” one makes for herself, often wrapped in the …

The 1848 Declarations Of Sentiments: Usurpations And Incantations, Leah Shafer

The Seneca Falls Dialogues Journal

Three video recordings of participants reciting the "1848 Declaration of Sentiments" at the Seneca Falls Dialogues conferences. In the first video titled "Sentiments and Usurpations", an excerpt is repeated over and over until it begins to sound like an incantation. In the second video, "Declaration of Sentiments 2014", still images accompany an audio track featuring the voices of the participants. The third video, "Declaration of Sentiments Wesleyan Chapel" uses the 2014 audio track for an avant-garde exploration of the interior of the Wesleyan Chapel.

Confronting Student Resistance To Ecofeminism: Three Perspectives, Jennifer Browdy De Hernandez, Holly Kent, Colleen Martell

The Seneca Falls Dialogues Journal

Teaching ecofeminism is a dynamic, vital practice, demanding a great deal of both educators and students. At the heart of this essay is the question: how can we teach ecofeminism effectively? In this work, we reflect on our successes and failures teaching ecofeminism within various topics and in different settings. While each co-author of this piece brings ecofeminism into our classrooms, we do so in very different ways and have diverse approaches to making ecofeminist theories and ideas feel vital, necessary, and relevant for our students. In our essay, we aim to offer some productive and provocative suggestions and ideas …

Mother Monsters And Monster Mothers From Dracula To Stranger Things, Melissa Dinsman

Publications and Research

Netflix’s hit show Stranger Things is an homage to 1970s and 1980s sci-fi and horror, including Alien and Aliens, Carrie, the Star Wars trilogy, and Poltergeist, as well as buddy adventure films like Goonies and Stand by Me. But it is also, in its obsessive presentation of monsters as mothers and mothers as monsters, a show that takes its 1980s mothering cues straight out of Bram Stoker’s 1890s. Despite its 2016 production date, the Duffer Brother’s Stranger Things presents viewers with very old fashioned ideas of mothering, with Joyce Byers (Wynona Ryder) as the single, but exceedingly pro-active mom from …

Black Lips Don't Turn Blue: A Womanist Critique Of Discriminatory Language In Medical Education, Alison Lawrence

Augustana Center for the Study of Ethics Essay Contest

This paper examines race and gender inequities in healthcare as it pertains to the unequal presentation of descriptors of illness in medical textbooks. The author adopts a womanist perspective to criticize the use of the white male body as the standard for all patients, which causes signs and symptoms in women and people of color to be dismissed as less important. Following an analysis of normalizing language in current medical texts as well as its consequences for patients, the author calls for a system-wide shift to more inclusive, intersectional medical education that not only acknowledges differences among patient groups, but …

Empirical Analysis On Knowledge, Attitudes And Practices (Kap): Puberty And Menstrual Hygiene, Jisha V. G., R. Rupashree, T. Somasundaram

Journal of International Women's Studies

Puberty and menstruation bring major physical and mental changes in a girl’s life; they mark the beginning of procreation. In many countries lackof knowledge and poor hygienic practices during menstruation lead to serious illness ranging from genital tract infections and urinary tract infections to bad odor. This study on Knowledge Attitude and Practice (KAP) aims to understand the awareness level of menstrual health and hygiene among adolescent girls, and the study also focuses on identifying the average age of attaining menarche among early adolescent girls and the problems associated with menstruation. To meet the above objective, a sample of 187 …

«Cuida Tu Alma Y Tu Cuerpo Por Dios Y La Falange»: Women’S Education And La Sección Femenina In Franco’S Spain, Madeleine Fontenay

College Honors Program

My thesis exploration is on La Sección Femenina and its diffusion of female cultural guides and shaping of female education in the early francoist period, from 1939 to 1959. The Sección Femenina and its field offices published work in many facets of women's lives to influence and reeducate women or their values and place. The contrast of rhetoric and reality gives insight into the values and upbringings of generations of Spaniards. By setting the female figure as the foundation of their francoist society, the Sección Femenina held immense cultural power. I am approaching the topic from an educational perspective, focusing …

Space-Praxis: Towards A Feminist Politics Of Design, Mary C. Overholt

Masters of Environmental Design Theses

Outside of the academy and professionalized practice, design has long been central to the production of feminist, political projects. Taking what I have termed space-praxis as its central analytic, this project explores a suite of feminist interventions into the built environment—ranging from the late 1960s to present day.

Formulated in response to Michel de Certeau’s theory of spatial practices, space-praxis collapses formerly bifurcated definitions of ‘tactic’/‘strategy’ and ‘theory’/‘practice.’ It gestures towards those unruly, situated undertakings that are embedded in an ever-evolving, liberative politics. In turning outwards, away from the so-called masters of architecture, this thesis orients itself toward everyday practitioners …

Gender Inequality In The Workplace, Katelyn Barger

Finance Undergraduate Honors Theses

This paper analyzes the history of gender inequality in the workplace, the detailed nature of issues that society faces, research in today’s world, and how to aid in the removal of gender stereotypes and thus removing consequences, unbeknownst to women a lot of the time. The goal of this analysis is to broaden the view of the reader and gain perspective into a world, which may or may not be familiar to them.

“It Could Have Happened To Any Of You”: Post-Wounded Women In Three Contemporary Feminist Dystopian Novels, Abby N. Lewis

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

My goal for this thesis is to investigate the concept of (mis)labeling female protagonists in contemporary British fiction as mentally ill—historically labeled as madness—when subjected to traumatic events. The female protagonists in two novels by Sophie Mackintosh, The Water Cure (2018) and Blue Ticket (2020), and Jenni Fagan’s 2012 novel The Panopticon, are raised in environments steeped in trauma and strict, hegemonic structures that actively work to control and mold their identities. In The Panopticon, this system is called “the experiment”; in The Water Cure, it is personified by the character King and those who follow him; …

A Study Of Young American Women, Conservatism, And Feminism, Laurel Lux

Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects

As of June 2020, only 31% of self-identified conservatives in the United States were women. Modern political conservatism is known for rejecting modern feminism as well, which is often stereotyped as a women’s issue. With such a small percentage of women identifying as conservative, the question arises as to why young American women reject modern feminism and identify with modern political conservatism. In this study I examined the literature comparing modern conservatism, conservative women’s movements, and modern feminism, and conducted a small questionnaire of conservative women 18-24. I concluded by describing three generalized schools of thought regarding conservative women’s views …

The Sea Calls: A Selkie's Liminal Existence, Frances Avery

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

Traditionally, the selkies (or seal people) of Scottish-Irish lore exist between spaces: the land and the sea, human and animal, childbearing and childless. Their existence at sea is voluntary but their existence on land is forced. Once the selkie has left behind its sealskin and both the literal and metaphorical sealskin has been stolen, the selkie becomes subject to human will. The lenses of body, reclamation, violation, and abuse prove that the reason why selkies have faded from popularity is because the lessons are too mature for a young audience. A feminist and queer reading and interpretation of this traditional …

"What Camelot Means": Women And Lgbtq+ Authors Paving The Way For A More Inclusive Arthuriana Through Young Adult Literature, Jeddie Mae Bristow

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

Arthurian literature has long been regarded as the domain of “dead white men,” dominated by Thomas Malory and Lord Alfred Tennyson. However, since medieval times, women have also been producing Arthurian literature that not only treats the women characters of the story more equitably, but makes social commentary on how the marginalized of their societies are treated. More recently, women and LGBTQ+ authors (basically, authors who are not cisgender white men) have answered the call for more diverse Young Adult literature with an Arthuriana that has a place for all, both creating a more diverse and equitable Camelot and giving …

Intersectional Alliances To Overcome Gender Subordination: The Case Of Roma-Gypsy Traveller Women, Laura Corradi

Journal of International Women's Studies

By linking the oppression of women with other axes of oppression, the intersectional theories and methodologies employed in the last few decades have proved to be strategic in building awareness, forming alliances, and influencing transversal politics. In this paper, the case of Roma/Gypsy/Traveller (RGT) women is discussed through the multiple discriminations they suffer from, the birth of feminism and gender activism in the communities, intersectional alliances with non-Gypsy feminists, and the anti-racist and LGBTIA-Queer movements. In the second part of the paper, I offer a focus on shared political ‘emotions’, ‘fluid identities’, ‘travelling activism’, and the need for decolonization of …