Women's Studies Commons^™

Women And Peace Talks In Africa, Akin Iwilade

Journal of International Women's Studies

This paper interrogates the role of women in peace talks in Africa. It addresses the exclusion of women and their peculiar interests from deliberations aimed at constructing a post conflict state framework that resolves the contradictions that incite violent conflict and provides safeguards against recurrence. The paper argues that the failure of peace talks to deliberately incorporate women interests detracts from their potential to effectively confront the questions of post conflict rebuilding. It notes the increasing inclusion of women but argues that this does not amount to gender representation. This is because at the heart of the inclusion is the …

Critical Theory And Gender Communication Studies In Small Organizations, Ellie Parvin

Communication & Leadership Dissertations and Theses

This thesis explores gender and organizational communications by utilizing Deetz’s (1982) Critical Theory of Communication. Furthermore, this qualitative study examines how communication practices within a firm (Powder Blue Productions) can distort decision-making, possibly affecting the health of the organizational environment. The thesis expands on Deetz’s theory by addressing two fresh angles: One, this research looks at small organizations; and two, it examines a company that is primarily female staffed (two males only). In addition, the research examines interpersonal communication and its effects on the work culture within an organization. Due to the explorative nature of this study, the research questions …

Brazen (Fall 2010), Hollins University

Brazen - Gender & Women's Studies Department Newsletters

No abstract provided.

The 2010 Racial And Gender Report Card: National Basketball Association, Richard Lapchick, Christopher Kaiser, Christina Russell, Natalie Welch

Faculty Publications

The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport (TIDES) at the University of Central Florida publishes the Racial and Gender Report Card to indicate areas of improvement, stagnation, and regression in the racial and gender composition of professional and college sports personnel and to contribute to the improvement of integration in front office and college athletics department positions. Each year the National Basketball Association (NBA) has made progress in almost all categories examined for both race and gender.

The NBA continues to set the standard for the industry as the leader on issues related to race and gender hiring practices. …

Brazen (Spring 2010), Hollins University

Brazen - Gender & Women's Studies Department Newsletters

No abstract provided.

Dangerous Obscurity: A Study Of The Female Suicide Combatants Of Sri Lanka, Jessica Santala

Political Science Theses and Capstones

Since 1991 the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam have used female suicide operatives in their civil war with the Sri Lankan government. Gaps in research about these phenomena suggest that it’s not seen as a gender specific problem and that female suicide bombers can be compared toe to toe with their male counterparts. I contend that the situation surrounding female suicide terrorism is unique and that certain discernable socioeconomic indicators can explain the reasons behind why some women of Sri Lanka become more active in suicide terrorism. I have compiled a suicide terrorism dataset out of terrorist acts perpetrated by …

La Mujer Se Va Pa’Bajo: Women’S Health At The Intersections Of Nationality, Class, And Gender, Mary Alice Scott

University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations

This research utilizes an intersectionality framework to examine the complexity of social location and its effects on women's health. By examining connections among the state, processes of globalization, and the production of health inequalities for poor women in a rural community in southern Veracruz, Mexico, the research highlights the nexus of nationality, class, and gender. Four interconnected contexts are explored: (1) women's increasing paid and unpaid labor in the context of a poverty of resources brought on by sustained economic crisis; (2) the maintenance of reproductive labor as the responsibility of women; (3) the development of migrant "illegality" and its …

Boundaries Of Modernity: Spanish Women Writers At The Turn Of The Twentieth Century, Carmen Arranz

University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations

Spanish women writers that establish their literary careers early in twentieth century find themselves at an interesting historical crossroads as the world changes from an agrarian to an industrial paradigm. On one hand, this change leads to a strong current of traditionalism, to which most male writers adhere, as it offers the attractive idea of return to a pre-modern simplicity; on the other, this change opens up possibilities for social improvement and participation for those groups traditionally excluded from power. Embracing this change poses the opportunity for female subjects to reshape fundamental structures of society and, in sum, eventually create …

Modern Day Mary Poppins : Uncovering The Work Of Nannies And The Expectations Of Employers, Laura Ann Bunyan

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Throughout the past few decades the number of parents relying on child care has risen. Most research on parental use of child care focuses on relationships between employers and employees of differing racial-ethnic, social class, and educational status. This dissertation was designed to examine the experiences of those who perform nanny work, the process of selecting care, and understand the experiences of those who do not seek to maximize social space between employee and employer.

Black And White Women In Blue: A Case Study Of Policewomen, Danielle Marie Teunion-Smith

Wayne State University Dissertations

This exploratory study examines the policing experiences of fourteen African American and White female police officers using interviews and observations. There is ample research that addresses the ability of women to perform policing duties, but most of the literature presumes that White and African American policewomen are a single aggregate. These ignored societal differences and social realities of black and white policewomen, based on distinctive assigned social positions, histories, images and location, possibly contribute to different perspectives and experiences in law enforcement. These same social realities shape occupational positions, perspectives, perceptions, and treatment within law enforcement organizations. There are broad …

“Globalized Philomels: State Patriarchy, Transnational Capital, And The Femicides On The Us-Mexican Border In Roberto Bolaño’S 2666”, M Laura Barberan Reinares

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Cross-Race Relationships As Sites Of Transformation: Navigating The Protective Shell And The Insular Bubble, Karen Audrey Geiger

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

The context of leadership has evolved to incorporate greater social identity differences. Therefore, learning ways to navigate differences in social identity becomes important work leaders must now do. Because these differences surface in relationship with others, examining a relational framework helps us understand the nature of what happens between people (Ely & Roberts, 2008). This study explored the processes by which Black African American and White European American women enact leadership by creating and sustaining cross-race relationships as they work to change unjust systems around them. Using grounded theory methodology (Charmaz, 2006; Strauss & Corbin, 1990), a model was developed …

Visible Under The Veil: Dissimulation, Performance And Agency In An Islamic Public Space, Julie Billaud

Journal of International Women's Studies

This paper seeks to characterize new meanings attached to women’s veiling in an Islamic public space, drawing from observations, interviews and field notes collected among various women’s groups in Afghanistan. It is argued that while the chadari – or burqa, as the Western press miscalled it, using the Urdu denomination – has become the ultimate symbol of women’s oppression for Western audiences, it is necessary to take a closer look at its multiple and often contradictory uses and to contextualise the reasons for its maintenance, despite the downfall of the Taliban regime. Ethnographic research demonstrates that women who are attempting …

Polygamy Talk And The Politics Of Feminism: Contestations Over Masculinity In A New Muslim Indonesia, Sonja Van Wichelen

Journal of International Women's Studies

The political downfall of the Suharto administration in 1998 marked the end of the “New Order,” which was characterized by a 32-year period of authoritarian rule. Opening the way for democracy, it included the unlocking of Indonesian politics for the influence and participation of political Islam, which the New Order discouraged or banned. This shift led to a proliferation of Islamic issues in the public and political sphere. Many of them concerned issues of gender and have triggered profound debates about women’s rights and gender equality. This article examines one of these public concerns over “Islam and gender,” namely polygamy. …

Brazen (Fall 2009), Hollins University

Brazen - Gender & Women's Studies Department Newsletters

No abstract provided.

Combating Violence Against Women (Vaw) In South Kivu: A Critical Analysis, Giulia D’Odorico, Nathalie Holvoet

Journal of International Women's Studies

During the on-going civil conflict in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo or DRC), which has raged on and off since 1996 and throughout the post-2002 transition period, thousands of cases of rape and other forms of sexual violence against women have been reported. Drawing on secondary data and evidence from our own field research, this article describes and assesses aid delivery to victims of sexual violence. Aid practices on the ground, as well as the underlying policy framework are critically analysed through a gender lens. It is argued that the lack of a gender perspective in the relevant …

Understanding Gender Differences In Online Experience And Internet Advertising, Seema Harryginsingh

Honors College Theses

The purposes of this article is to first review the literature on gender differences in advertising then explore areas that are important in today’s online environment including differences in the various areas of online experience and behavior such as shopping, privacy issues, internet usage, use of website, and new media and user generated content considerations. I will also look at online advertising particularly, online video ads and banner ads. I will attempt to show through research that there are differences that exist among the genders, which also translate to the online environment and specifically in the various areas of experience …

Virginia Woolf’S Answer To “Women Can’T Paint, Women Can’T Write” In To The Lighthouse, Daniela Munca

Journal of International Women's Studies

This essay addresses Virginia Woolf’s personal stand in her answer to “women can’t paint, women can’t write”, a reflection on the Victorian prejudice of the role of women in the family and society shared by both her parents, Leslie and Julia Stephen. By bridging a close textual analysis with the most recent psychological critical analysis, I argue that apart from the political, social and artistic implications, Woolf’s attitude to the Victorian stereotypes related to gender roles carry a deeply personal message, being undeniably influenced and determined by the relationship with her parents and her need to lie to rest some …

Brazen (Spring 2009), Hollins University

Brazen - Gender & Women's Studies Department Newsletters

No abstract provided.

Fighting For Subjectivity: Articulations Of Physicality In Girlfight, Katharina Lindner

Journal of International Women's Studies

The analysis of Girlfight (Karyn Kusama, 2000) in this paper is framed by critical discourses surrounding physically active female characters in the action genre, the conventions of the boxing film ‘genre’, the relationship between bodily spectacle and narrative structure, as well as the more general significance of the female boxer’s challenge to normative and binary notions of bodily existence and subjectivity. With a particular focus on the interrelationship between narrative structure and boxing sequences (‘numbers’), this paper explores notions of the (gendered) subjectivity constructed around the film’s female boxing character, Diana (Michelle Rodriguez). I will argue that the boxing ‘numbers’ …

Empowering, Degrading Or A ‘Mutually Exploitative’ Exchange For Women?: Characterising The Power Relations Of The Strip Club, Katy Pilcher

Journal of International Women's Studies

This paper seeks to characterise the gendered and sexualised power relations of both female and male strip clubs, and to signal what this means for establishing positive definitions of female desire. It is argued that while it is not useful to present female strippers, or female patrons of male strip clubs as purely passive victims of male heterosexism within these venues, it is equally damaging to assume that these venues represent a whole-scale challenge to conventional oppressive gender and sexual relations for women. Some research has even suggested that both strippers and their patrons are engaged in a ‘mutually exploitative’ …

Internet Defamation As Profit Center: The Monetization Of Online Harassment, Ann Bartow

Law Faculty Scholarship

Efforts to decrease the sexist aspects of online fora have been largely ineffective, and in some instances seemingly counterproductive, in the sense that they have provoked even greater amounts of abuse and harassment with a gendered aspect. And so, in the wake of a series of high profile episodes of cyber sexual harassment, and a grotesque abundance of low profile ones, a new business model was launched. Promising to clean up and monitor online information to defuse the visible impact of coordinated harassment campaigns, a number of entities began to market themselves as knights in cyber shining armor, ready to …

Im/Possible Lives: Gender, Class, Self-Fashioning, And Affinal Solidarity In Modern South Asia, Coralynn V. Davis

Faculty Journal Articles

Drawing on ethnographic research and employing a micro-historical approach that recognizes not only the transnational but also the culturally specific manifestations of modernity, this article centers on the efforts of a young woman to negotiate shifting and conflicting discourses about what a good life might consist of for a highly educated and high caste Hindu woman living at the margins of a nonetheless globalized world. Newly imaginable worlds in contemporary Mithila,South Asia, structure feeling and action in particularly gendered and classed ways, even as the capacity of individuals to actualize those worlds and the “modern” selves envisioned within them are …

Strange Duets: Impressarios And Actresses In The American Theatre, 1865-1914 (Review), Jocelyn Buckner

Theatre Faculty Articles and Research

"In Strange Duets: Impresarios and Actresses in the American Theatre, 1865-1914, Kim Marra invites readers into the tumultuous world of late-nineteenth and early-twentieth-century theatre through an examination of the on-and-off stage relationships between leading ladies and the men who claimed to have fashioned their success. The text is a pièce de résistance of intersectional historical scholarship, analyzing the ways race, class, gender, and sexuality both influenced and were influenced by the relationships forged between men and women of the theatre during the wax and wane of Victorian sentiment, the emergence of Darwinian theories on evolution, and the rise of …

The Role Of Gender, Self-Efficacy, Age And Extroversion On Smoking Behaviour Among Ambrose Alli University Students, Ekpoma, Nigeria, S. O. Momoh, H. O. Imhonde, E. Omagbe

Journal of International Women's Studies

This study examined the role of gender, self-efficacy, age and extroversion on smoking behavior among Ambrose Alli University Students. Two hundred and fifty (250) undergraduates participated in the study (males 160 and females 90). Questionnaire was used in collecting data that were analyzed in this study. The questionnaire consisted of 4 sections: the demographic variables, extroversion scale, self-efficacy scale and attitude toward smoking scale. Two out of the four hypotheses tested were supported. Results of the independent t-test indicated that there was a significant difference in the onset of smoking between females and males (t = 2.354, df = 248, …

Deconstructing Masculinity In A ‘Female Bastion’: Ambiguities, Contradictions And Insights, Charles C. Fonchingong

Journal of International Women's Studies

This article is informed by my experiences teaching women’s studies and specifically feminist theory to predominantly female and male students offering Women’s studies. As a mainstream academic discipline at the University of Buea, housing the only such Department in Cameroon’s Higher Education system, this study uncovers the broader polemics regarding gender and women’s studies.

Against the backdrop of a patriarchal society, this study attempts to account for the shifting strands on masculinity and femininity and gender transgressions as played out by students taking women’s studies. It also analyses the notions, misconceptions and stereotypes that characterise the discipline of women’s studies, …

Brazen (Fall 2008), Hollins University

Brazen - Gender & Women's Studies Department Newsletters

No abstract provided.

Effects Of Protégé-Mentor Gender Mix On Organisational Commitment, David E. Okurame

Journal of International Women's Studies

This study examined the interaction effects of protégé and mentor gender on organisational commitment in the Nigerian work setting. Data was collected from one hundred and sixty-one dyads in four gender combinations through a survey of a large government owned health institution. Results revealed that mean scores of all-male, all female, and the female protégé-male mentor dyads were comparable while that of male protégé-female mentor was significantly low. Whereas organisational commitment was better for male protégés when their mentors were males, it was better for females when mentors were females. The study narrows the gap created by the dearth of …

The Sita Syndrome: Examining The Communicative Aspects Of Domestic Violence From A South Asian Perspective, Archana Pathak Bhatt

Journal of International Women's Studies

This essay explores the communicative aspects of domestic violence by articulating the Eurocentric components of domestic violence research. Utilizing a post-colonial ethnography, this essay reconceptualizes domestic violence from a South Asian perspective, articulating the ways in which relational violence, its acceptance and its social function are gendered.

Male Identity And Female Space In The Fiction Of Ugandan Women Writers, Abasi Kiyimba

Journal of International Women's Studies

This article focuses on the voices of protest by Uganda women writers against age-old discriminative habits, and on the rebuttal made by women on questions of social and political power. The article particularly assesses the way women writers approach generally assumed positions on the power relations between men and women, a theme that runs through all the writing by Ugandan women. As part of the discussion, the paper inevitably pays particular attention to the presentation of male characters, and on the prominence given to issues of male dominance, injustice and discrimination against women, which take place at several levels of …