Women's Studies Commons^™

Artemisia Gentileschi: A Deeper Look Into Burghley House Susanna, Emma M. Rochlin

University Honors Theses

In this article Emma Rochlin investigates the debated topic amongst art historians regarding Artemisia Gentileschi's Susanna and the Elders of 1622. References to the research of Mary Garrard, stated in her book Artemisia Gentileschi Around 1622 encouraged this discussion. Rochlin examines expressions, landscapes, and signatures while referencing other paintings during this period of Gentileschi's career, along with the discoveries of Garrard, in order to decipher the authenticity of this painting.

Cora Ann Westmoreland, Kelli Johnson

Oral Histories – NPS AACR Civil Rights In Appalachia Grant

Kelli Johnson conducting an oral history interview with Cora Westmoreland.

This oral history is part of the National Park Service African Americans Civil Rights History and Appalachia Grant Program.

Vulnerable Resistance In Victorian Women’S Writing, Stephanie A. Harper

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores how socially vulnerable characters, often dismissed as lacking access to agency, create space for resistance in nineteenth-century women’s writing. Central questions the dissertation addresses are, “Why is resistance by vulnerable characters not read?” and “How are women writers encoding resistance?” Working within a comprehensive historical picture of the challenges and concerns women writers of the nineteenth century had to contend with, and informed by feminist scholarship on women writers of the nineteenth century, the dissertation looks at vulnerable characters within Charlotte Brontë’s Shirley, Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Aurora Leigh, George Eliot’s The Mill on the Floss, and Olive …

Sandra Clements, Kelli Johnson

Oral Histories – NPS AACR Civil Rights In Appalachia Grant

Kelli Johnson conducting an oral history interview with Sandra Clements.

This oral history is part of the National Park Service African American Civil Rights History and Appalachia Grant Program.

Teaching Activism: The Feminist Pedagogical Possibilities Of Why We Fly, Miranda M. Findlay

Beyond the Margins: A Journal of Graduate Literary Scholarship

Young adult fiction possesses the pedagogical power to educate young readers about activism, and more recently, authors of the genre have answered the call from young aspiring activists to deliver narratives that are reflective of and relevant to their own lives and communities. Published in October of 2021, the novel Why We Fly illustrates the complexities of participating in social justice activism while also providing entertaining and inspiring characters. In honor of Colin Kaepernick, authors Kimberly Jones and Gilly Segal craft the fictional hero Cody Knight who encourages the text’s young protagonists to look at the world around them to …

A New Politics Of Black Regality: Zora Neale Hurston And Alice Walker’S Monarchical Method, William Martin

Beyond the Margins: A Journal of Graduate Literary Scholarship

Literary critics conducting a comparative study of Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God and Alice Walker’s The Color Purple diligently tend to the relationship between the two women, particularly at an intertextual level. This paper sheds light on an important third member of this relationship: Black women readers. An articulation of Black regality, which involves the incorporation of monarchical symbols and titles in characterizations of Black people, provides these readers with political tools poised to liberate Black women from hegemonic male authority and control. Examining the significance of adornment for the self exclusively to combat invisibility, the power …

Historical Memory And Feminist Consciousness In Almudena Grandes’ Episodios De Una Guerra Interminable, Alba Fernández-Fernández

Dissertations

General Francisco Franco’s brutal dictatorship (1939-1975) was one of the darkest periods in Spain’s recent history. During this dictatorial regime, political detractors were mercilessly persecuted, tortured and massacred. In 1975, Franco died leaving the legacy of nearly four decades of repression and over 150,000 victims on his back. Spain then cautiously headed into a process of democratization, with fear and horror still etched on the country’s memory. While politicians promised a smooth transition to democracy, their insistence to look ahead meant Spaniards were asked to neglect the country’s painful past. No legal action was taken against those responsible for mass …

The Weak, The Wicked, The Divine: A Collection Of Poems, Grace Hedin

University Honors Theses

The Weak, the Wicked, the Divine is a collection of thirteen original poems based on the female figures of the Iliad and the Odyssey with scholarly analysis. The Introduction gives background on Homer and his works as well as their impact on both modern day and myself. The second section contains both the original work of Grace Hedin and the author's scholarly analysis of both their own work and the figure the poem is based upon. The Conclusion will hold the final thoughts and dedications from the author. An audio reading of all poems is attached to this thesis, with …

Staging Retro-Perspectives: Performing Age, Memory/Loss, And Queer Desire In The Later Works Of Split Britches (2009–2020), Benjamin Gillespie

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This project investigates the later works of the celebrated New York–based lesbian-feminist performance troupe Split Britches made up of founding members Peggy Shaw (b. 1944) and Lois Weaver (b. 1949). Revealing how the duo consciously interlaces aspects of aging and age-based identity into the very fabric of their later performances in both form and content, this project analyzes how Shaw and Weaver integrate an explicitly anti-ageist and overtly queer representation of aging on the experimental stage. Their later performances serve to challenge narratives of decline and debilitation that come with (hetero)normative representations of old age and the life course in …

Cultivation, Conflict, And Consumption: Food Systems In Syria, 1920–1946, Sara Pekow

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines Syria during the French Mandate using food as a primary unit of analysis. The exploration of food pushes this project beyond the boundaries of political and diplomatic histories of Syria during the French Mandate, bringing forward the hidden voices of the nonelite. Nonelites are often not visible in archives, but their absence in most written sources permits us to ascertain their experiences in studying the materials that comprised their everyday lives. The sources consulted for this work include memoirs, print media, and state archives, to name a few.

Each chapter of this dissertation follows a different link …

An Overview And Assessment Of The Editorial Assistant Position At Women’S Studies Quarterly, Amy M. Iafrate

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This paper represents the culmination of my internship at Women’s Studies Quarterly, and documents my experience of working from September 2020, to June 2021. I will begin with a discussion of the journal’s historical importance; from its origin in 1972, to its more contemporary issues. This background will segue into a critical analysis of my role at the journal, supported by anecdotes and ideas of critical feminist theorists.

Brujas Of Yesterday, Their Legacy Today, Maggi Delgado

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Brujas of Yesterday, their Legacy Today explores the impact of witch narratives on the lives of Latin American women. This bilingual interactive space collects both myths passed down through generations, ones still taught today, and stories of real women who bear the consequences of the legendary bruja character. Like witch hunts of women who did not fit the model of a “good woman,” the now correctly named femicides are examples of the prevailing misogynistic and anti-feminist rhetoric plaguing Latin American cultures diasporas. With a digital interactive map and timeline, the project aims to breathe new life into these old tales, …

How Marlon T. Riggs Queered The Documentary Form, Anthony M. Sweeney

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Marlon T. Riggs’s documentary films and their paratextual elements are rooted in his intersectional identities as a Black and gay man. His activist goal of Black gay liberation was based on what he saw as deeply engrained internal and external racist and homophobic societal structures that subjugated Black queers. In this thesis, I place research from Black cultural studies, gender and sexuality studies, and film studies in conversation with one another to show how Riggs’s filmography is an example of queer form. In doing so, I attempt to redefine the focus of the scholarship on Riggs from an avant-garde filmmaker …

Homage To Eleanora: A Musical Journey Through The Billie Holiday Songbook, Keith A. Dames

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Billie Holiday was a singer, songwriter, vocalist, bandleader and composer in the fields of music, black culture and more specifically the genre of jazz. The primary focus of this study is Billie Holiday’s discography, music, and compositions as treated in relation to the black culture of production. This study will explore a secondary content analysis of Billie Holiday’s music, musicianship, musicality and compositional skills within the American jazz mainstream, broader jazz audience and world at large. This project will take an analytical look at the structure and form of the compositions of Billie Holiday. Billie Holiday is credited with composing …

The Feminine Harp As Feminist Tool: Early Professional Footing For Women In Mid-Twentieth-Century America, Chelsea Lane

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In 1930s North America, women—for the first time—were accorded permanent principal positions in significant American orchestras. Edna Phillips, Alice Chalifoux, and Sylvia Meyer, all students of the legendary harp pedagogue Carlos Salzedo, have been celebrated as pioneers for the prestigious employment they obtained in the Philadelphia Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, and National Symphony Orchestra, respectively, between 1930 and 1933. Despite the impressiveness of these accomplishments, however, the narrative of their “firstness” is not wholly accurate. In actuality, female harpists have occupied orchestral posts as acting principals, substitutes, and second harpists since the very inception of orchestras. The cause for their early …

Testimony, Violence, And Silence: An Examination Of Agamben And His Critics, Yagmur Uygarkizi

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

This paper investigates the difficulties faced by survivors of atrocities in testifying. I work on the case of female victims of domestic torture as reported by Jeanne Sarson and Linda MacDonald. The starting point is Giorgio Agamben’s Remnants of Auschwitz with his discussion on Primo Levi’s paradox and the testis/superstes/auctor distinction. I build on his nuances while arguing that he has not looked enough into power dynamics that render one speechless. “Unspeakable violence” refers simultaneously to incapacity and not being allowed to speak. Pain renders the victim speechless; perpetrators distort language and speak over survivors. Victims are often not allowed …

The Economic Empowerment Of Women In The Hadith And Its Application In The Indonesian Context, Umma Farida, Abdurrohman Kasdi, Yuyun Affandi

Journal of International Women's Studies

Discrimination against women's rights in the economic sector based on Islamic teachings is still common in Indonesia. This article aims to reveal the economic empowerment of women by the Prophet Muhammad. During his life, he took sides with women by giving them their rights, including those in the economy. Also, it aims to portray the implementation of the Prophetic teachings related to women's economic rights in the Indonesian context by using descriptive-analytical research methods. The collected data is then analyzed using gender and Islamic approaches. The results showed that the Prophet had upheld and implemented women's economic rights through his …

Our Fluttering Stranger, Luma Balaa

Journal of International Women's Studies

Currently, Lebanon is undergoing dire economic and political crises, in addition to, the August 4, 2020, Port explosion, and the worldwide Corona Virus pandemic. The country is badly in debt and a third of its population is suffering from extreme poverty. More specifically, in the past year, the country has been suffering from a shortage of fuel. To express her anger at the high rate of pollution, the narrator wrote a poem describing how the Lebanese have been living in the dark because the government can no longer supply electricity. All citizens are obliged to pay another bill for private …

The Persistence Of Gender-Blind Phenomena In Indian Science Academia, Tanu Shukla, Madhurima Das, Virendra Singh Nirban

Journal of International Women's Studies

Using the theoretical tool of gender-blind sexism, an extension of Bonilla Silva’s (2003) color-blind racism, the current study explores the key determinants which are responsible for discrimination of women in science disciplines in Indian higher education. We argue that gender-blind sexism demonstrates how gender discrimination operates as institutional tools to discriminate between men and women in science fields. Although the science stream proclaims gender neutrality/blindness, it ultimately disfavors women over men. This study with the aid of extensive in-depth face-to-face interviews, aims to recognize the pattern accountable for women’s reduced progress in the sciences. Against the backdrop of the recently …

Women’S Empowerment In Pakistan: Dissection Of Paradoxical Depth, Sarwat Rauf

Journal of International Women's Studies

This article analyzes the status of women in Pakistan as well as the effectiveness of new legislation on women’s empowerment in Pakistan. I examine the impact of governmental efforts to empower women on social practices in Pakistan. The concept of women's empowerment is becoming popular horizontally, but vertically, actual empowerment is hindered because of the glass-ceiling and social taboos; hence, a lot of sincere and strenuous efforts are required to change the prevailing mindset. To support gender equality, Pakistan, like other states, encourages women's participation in social, political and economic spheres. However, the success of a few female role models …

Women And Brains Go Together: Mapping Sophia Kovalevsky’S Animus In Alice Munro’S ‘Too Much Happiness’., Suparna Karkun, Anoop Kumar Tiwari

Journal of International Women's Studies

Women and brains have always been an epicentre of intrigue and controversy delineating that women must use brains in dimensions that have been predestined for them by misogynists. An intelligent woman is often marginalized as unfeminine and hoydenish capable of threatening the heteropatriarchy thereby rendering it impotent. Several pioneering works on gender identity and equality began to be written in the eighteen and nineteenth century drawing attention of the intelligentsia as well as the common folk equally, towards this burning issue. Feminist reforms were initiated as a result of the untiring endeavour of writers and critics throughout the world. The …

Understanding Women’S English Writings As A Paradigm Of Resistance, Mudassir Ali Shah, Humaira Riaz

Journal of International Women's Studies

Women face numerous political, economic, cultural, and religious barriers in the world. To remove the barriers, fight for survival, and pave their way for development, women show resistance in politics, legislation, literature, theatre, songs, marches, art, sports, movies, and seminars. The previous studies have explored patriarchy as the best reason for women's resistance to fight against male-domination, ideological divisions, policies, traditions and cultures, and religion to claim their individual identity and equality. The present study demonstrates the role of literature in awakening society and explores how writing helps in resistance and maintains the struggle of liberation for the vulnerable section …

Transitioning To The Top: Learnings From Success Stories Of Indian Women Leaders In Academia, Hemlata Vivek Gaikwad, Suruchi Pandey

Journal of International Women's Studies

Women leaders in Indian organizations experience several challenges and obstacles that affect their career progression as well as performance. The study was premised on the under-representation of women in leadership positions across organizations. The challenges and barriers faced by Indian women leaders have been well documented, but very little research has been conducted on the experiences of women who aspired and achieved the top positions. The study intended to explore and develop a deeper understanding of the lived experiences of women leaders so as to define pathways for future leaders to come. The study through the prism of intersectionality theory …

The Road To Femvertising: Stereotypes And Empowerment Analysis In Turkish Television Advertisements, Emel Yarimoglu

Journal of International Women's Studies

Women have been represented by stereotypes and gender roles in the advertising industry for years. A new era of strong women representations has begun with female empowerment activities in advertising. Female empowerment in advertising is called femvertising. Femvertising activities aim to destroy stereotypes in advertisements, ignore sexuality, give pro-female messages, and represent women in an authentic way. The purpose of the study is to investigate women’s representations in television advertising by analyzing stereotypes and female empowerment in Turkey. For this purpose, television advertisements, broadcasting on Turkish television channels between September 2020 and November 2020, were examined by content analysis. In …

Gender Policy In Kazakhstan, Venera Khairullayeva, Meiram Sarybayev, Assiya Kuzembayeva, Adilbek Yermekbayev, Gulnara Baikushikova

Journal of International Women's Studies

This article discusses the issues of gender policy in Kazakhstan. Since gaining independence, in order to strengthen the international image of the state, Kazakhstan has attempted to provide equal opportunities for women to participate in politics. The purpose of this article is to detail the history of formation and the main problems and prospects for the development of gender policy in Kazakhstan. The main principles of political research were used as a framework for analysis. This article attempts to dissect the perceptions of women's participation in politics as a result of Kazakhstan's mostly conservative views of the expansion of women's …

Golgotha, Beirut: A Feminist Memoir Of The Port Blast, Sleiman El Hajj, Sleiman El Hajj

Journal of International Women's Studies

This partly biographical narrative recounts its narrator’s first-hand, ground-zero experience of the Beirut Port explosion, one of the largest and most destructive in living memory. As the narrator recollects her mother’s distress over the possibility of losing her children post-divorce and her joy at finally obtaining—after a seven-year legal battle—the annulment of an abusive marriage, Beirut Port explodes. The focus shifts to a memorable encounter with another anguished mother who, on the heels of the blast, is hysterical but then completely transformed once reunited with her children. The writer of the memoir culled its material through a number of interviews …

Colonial Hotspots: Reflecting On My Conditional Citizenship As A ‘Coloured’ [Woman] In Post-Apartheid South Africa, Danille Arendse

Journal of International Women's Studies

The prevailing geopolitical situation has perpetuated epistemic and ontological violence against the citizens of Africa. This indicates that geopolitics have an impact on socio-spatial relations and human interactions that may affect the citizenship of oppressed persons. This paper contains reflections on the conditional citizenship of the author, who is legally identified as a Coloured [woman] in post-Apartheid South Africa. The racial classification Coloured [women], which was created during Apartheid, remains a divisive racial category in post-Apartheid South Africa, one that preserves stereotypes and negative connotations. The author draws the reader’s attention to her geographical location as a specific site of …

Decoding The Internet Trolls And Their Implications On Female Youtubers, Tanaya Salian, Munmun Ghosh

Journal of International Women's Studies

YouTube was one of the first platforms fuelling every layperson's dream to get a taste of stardom. Standing true to its promise, it exposed everyone to content creation and every aspect of fame that comes with content creation. The good, the bad, and the ugly side of the online platform involve the trolls and hate comments on the online platforms. It was eventually noticed that the trolling phenomena are shaping up biasedly and follow gender inequality recently. The online trolls are severe and ugly, especially for female content creators. The comments were harsh, demeaning and sometimes vindictive. Looking at this …

Corporeal Crisis And The Contested Female Terrain: An Ecofeminist Reading Of Nathaniel Hawthorne’S “The Birth-Mark”, Ahmad Qabaha

Journal of International Women's Studies

This paper originally and substantially studies Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Birth-Mark” from an ecofemninsit perspective, while exploring the interconnections and interdependency between the systematic and institutional ways in which the woman and nature were dominated by male-centred society in 19th century society. It explores the ways in which this interconnection mirrors the hegemonic and repressive structure of 19th century patriarchal Victorian culture, paying particular attention to the oppressive mechanisms operating on feminine human and non-human beings. More importantly, this article accounts for the story’s critique of the multifaceted domination of nature and female terrain. This article builds on significant contributions to …

Addressing Gender Disparities Through Folklore: A Cultural Study Of Female Child Appellation Among The Bāsukuma Of Tanzania, John P. Madoshi

Journal of International Women's Studies

Among the Bāsukuma, folklore plays a significant role in describing different issues pertaining to their society and culture. Gender is one of the important issues emulated through female appellation. Some of the female names describe a gender tug of war which involves not only married couples but also families of the couples. In this conflict, names particularly of female children are used by each side as a means of channeling a particular message which signifies grievances of the sufferers. Nevertheless, the appellation is done in such a metaphoric way as to call for a meticulous literary examination analysis.