Women's Studies Commons^™

Human Dignity And Prostitution, Clara Kernodle

Harding Undergraduate Research Conference

In the twenty-first century, it is common to see feminists and pro-sex work voices lauding prostitution and other forms of the sex industry as viable expressions of women’s sexual and financial agency. As long as every participating party consents, they argue, sex work is not only tolerable, but admirable and positive – a form of transaction or service deserving license, protection, and respect in the name of individual freedom and female agency. Such voices argue that prostitution can even be dignified, as the sex industry supposedly allows participants full freedom to express their sexuality. In this paper, I offer an …

El Sonido Del Exotismo: Retratos De España En Carmen, Grace Quasebarth

Vernacular: New Connections in Language, Literature, & Culture

Este artículo examinará la “orientalización” de la identidad nacional de España, que resulta de la creación de estereotipos tanto creados en el extranjero como apropiados por la misma España durante el siglo XIX. Específicamente, voy a examinar la influencia de la ópera francesa Carmen de Georges Bizet (1875) en la creación de la imagen nacional española actual en la “Canción del torero” de dicha la producción de Ana Zamora para el Teatro de la Zarzuela de la zarzuela por el mismo nombre (1887) en 2014. Como obra plenamente romántica, hace hincapié en las características de ese movimiento cultura; por ejemplo, …

"Quiero Ser Hombre": Grito De Libertad Y Afirmación Feminista En La Obra De Carmen De Burgos Y Julia De Burgos, Lizely M. Lopez Cordero

Vernacular: New Connections in Language, Literature, & Culture

A las escritoras Carmen de Burgos (España) y Julia de Burgos (Puerto Rico) las separa un mar, las clases sociales y el tiempo. Aunque ambas escritoras comparten un apellido que está lejos de parentesco alguno, el denominador común que las une es la transgresión. Una transgresión definida por su desafío a las normas sociales impuestas a la mujer y por penetrar esos espacios que les eran vedados, mediante su producción literaria y el activismo social y político. Las muestras claras de estos actos de transgresión y subversión quedan reflejadas en la última obra de Carmen de Burgos, Quiero vivir mi …

Winter's End: Stopping The Rite And Reclaiming Spring, Jessica Wilson

Theatre & Dance ETDs

This dissertation examines intersections of patriarchy, feminist movements, and the recurring theme of women’s sacrifice, through an artistic lens. Using The Rite of Spring as a central subject, I explore the societal expectation of women’s sacrifice and its persistent representation in art. By analyzing two pivotal interpretations, Vaslav Nijinsky’s Le Sacre du Printemps (1913) and Pina Bausch’s Das Fruhlingsopfer (1975), within the chronological context of feminist waves in the United States, I investigate how these works reflect and critique cycles of violence against women. Four core patterns emerge as focal points: tradition, autonomy, witnessing, and betrayal. Additionally, my choreographic reinterpretation …

Celibacy, Or Death, Ari I. Stanley

Toyon: Multilingual Literary Magazine

No abstract provided.

What Is A Nation? Colonial Legacies, Identity, And Reclaiming In Métisse Autobiographical Narratives – A Case Study Of Sugar And Slate And Garçon Manqué, Thaïs Maëlle Autin

Foreign Languages & Literatures ETDs

This thesis examines the question of national belonging in autobiographical narratives of second-generation immigrant métisse women. I study the similar aesthetic manner in which individuals with different regional and cultural influences grapple with concepts of identity, gender, racism, exile, and negotiation, and the way in which the authors anchor themselves in a broader familial and national heritage. I argue that such an enterprise can be understood as part of the alternative heritage wave, based on Andrew Higson’s theory. The texts put in question traditional understandings of nation. Doing so opens the possibility of engaging in a dialogue that expands the …

Women’S Rights Across Borders: Challenges And Progress In Afghanistan, India And The United States, Zita Mpinganzima, Taylor Romer, Gracie Richter, Sydney Hersom

INSPIRE Student Research and Engagement Conference

The Violation of women's rights remains a significant issue worldwide, with women facing challenges with access to opportunities, inequality to their male counterparts, negative social norms, and lack of legal protections. According to the World Bank 2.4 billion women do not have the same economic rights as men, women still have only three-quarters of the legal rights afforded to men and one in three women globally has experienced physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence. In countries such as Afghanistan, India, and the United States, women face severe restrictions under Taliban rule, gender discrimination, wage gap, gender discrimination, violence, and efficient …

“They Are Fat And Want Special Treatment For Being Fat”: Backlash To And Lay Theories Of Fat Activism, Flora Blanchette-Oswald, Minh Duc Pham, R. J. Harr, Alexandra Garr-Schultz, Kimberly E. Chaney

Faculty Publications

Fat activism is a movement that seeks to acknowledge and eliminate the oppression of fat people. The movement and those who participate face significant backlash, yet fat activism is understudied. We sought to understand lay theories about fat activism; that is, how everyday people think about the goals and motivations of fat activism, and people who engage in fat activism, to understand how these perceptions shape support for and backlash toward fat activism. In Study 1 (N = 294), we qualitatively elucidated lay theories of fat activism in a US nationally representative sample. We identified lay theories that both …

Ua19/16/2 Women's Basketball Press Releases, Wku Athletic Media Relations

WKU Administration Documents

Press releases and game statistics for WKU women's basketball team in spring 2025.

Ua19/16/2 Volleyball Press Relations, Wku Athletic Media Relations

WKU Administration Documents

Press releases and game statistics for WKU volleyball team in spring 2025.

Ua19/16/2 Track & Field Press Releases, Wku Athletic Media Relations

WKU Administration Documents

Press releases and game statistics for WKU track teams in spring 2025.

Ua19/16/2 Tennis Press Releases, Wku Athletic Media Relations

WKU Administration Documents

Press releases and game statistics for WKU tennis teams in spring 2025.

Ua19/16/2 Softball Press Releases, Wku Athletic Media Relations

WKU Administration Documents

Press releases and game statistics for WKU softball team in spring 2025.

Trump: Small Hands, Big Lies

Women's & Gender Studies Student Scholarship

A zine outlining PC’s response to Trump’s reelection, the necessity of accountability, a call for action, ways to get involved in activism, and an archival offering for those who have been affected by Trump.

Ivy Leaves, Volume 100, Anderson University - South Carolina

Ivy Leaves

The 2025 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 Jaylee Koon, Jenna Martin, Rachel Riddle, Milena Ulrich, Emma Brightman, Corinne Lowe, Torie Johnson, Anna Leigh Avant, Darcy Hseih, Kaylie Sheriff, Claudia Sarmiento, LIly Gregory, Ethan Wright, Elise Frauenholtz, KJ Lian, Ellie Gramm, Iley Gramm, Kenzi Miller, Ellie Ruperto, Miriam Cabrera-Santana, Ashlee Keller, Mateo De Los Cobos, Jacob Enzor, Claire Nunes, Abby McDonald, Heidi Dillow, Derek Updegraff and Tim Speaker.

Painting Stories And Filming Change, Coralynn V. Davis

Faculty Contributions to Books

Mithila Art has helped illuminate various aspects of the relationship between gendered Maithil social roles and Maithil women’s narratives in connection with a feminist participatory action research project conducted primarily in 2016-2017 in and around the northern Bihari town of Madhubani. While participatory action research philosophically and methodologically attends to process as much as product, Mithila Art played a role in the process and product of making a documentary film and in our capacity to understand and communicate with varied audiences about shifting Maithil gender norms. The research and filmic project provided insight into the complex relationship among the stories …

Painting The Other: Mary Cassatt's Spanish Portraits And The Feminine Gaze, Delaney Batter

Undergraduate Theses in Art History

The historical viewing of women artists, in conjunction with Mary Cassatt’s biography and later depictions of women and children, suggests that Cassatt's gender is identified within the art historical canon as an essential component to the interpretation of her work. The language attached to Cassatt's work is most often taken from discourses surrounding female-produced artwork of the nineteenth century, attaching passive and stereotypically feminine attributes like 'delicate,' 'light,' and 'tender' to the style, composition, and subjects of her works. These characteristics were among the accepted nineteenth-century descriptions of artworks, with inherent femininity translating to inherent domesticity.

Rather than further reducing …

Tolerance Of Homonegativity And Transnegativity Predicts Negative Evaluations Of Lgbt People And Lgbt-Supportive Policies Among Us-Based Heterosexual, Cisgender Participants, Abigail M. Folberg, Jennifer S. Hunt, Ellen D. B. Riggle

Gender and Women's Studies Faculty Publications

Many people in the United States express anti-LGBT attitudes and oppose LGBT rights. These views are perpetuated when others, including allies, tolerate expressions of anti-LGBT bias. In this study, we adapted and validated a measure of tolerance of homonegativity and transnegativity (TOHT), and assessed its associations with evaluations of LGBT people, straight people, support for LGBT rights, and system-justifying ideologies among heterosexual, straight, binary-gendered/non-trans (i.e., cisgender) women and men who identified as liberal, moderate, or conservative (N = 295). Participants completed measures of TOHT, evaluations of LGBT people, support for LGBT rights, authoritarianism, religiosity, and contact with LGBT people. Analyses …

Anti-Feminisms, Authoritarianism, And Digital Culture: A Pedagogy Project, Charlie Ambrose

Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies M.A. Final Projects

This project began, broadly, with my exposure to TikTok’s tradwives—a subset of content creators and influencers who advocate traditional gender roles as women, homemakers, wives, and mothers, with a particular focus on moral and religious beliefs and aesthetic practices of “womanhood.” To me, tradwives encapsulated the internet’s capacity to weaponize subtly: slow-paced, pastel videos, gentle music, and even gentler voices delivering increasingly extreme ideas about masculine and feminine roles, Christian nationalism, and white supremacy. But other threads began to appear as I delved deeper into the world of tradwives. I noticed the men’s rights groups who praised tradwives while openly …

Deconstructing Ancient Allegories: Eleanor Antin’S 'Historical Takes' On Subverting Classical Motifs And Typologies, Lainey Tomasoski

Undergraduate Theses in Art History

The New York-born artist Eleanor Antin erupted into the male-dominated American conceptual photography art scene in the 1960s and 70s with feminist works that reimagined the female body in terms of representation and history. In congruence with the feminist and civil rights movements, conceptual photography represented a shift in how art was utilized to criticize the social and political institutions in which it is rooted. Antin and other feminist artists engaging in conceptual photography and video played with the embodiment of characters, performance of the body, and an intrinsic “self-reflexivity” of subject, viewer, and artist. However, Antin pivoted her work …

Uncovering Artemisia: Turning Rage Into Fame, Sophie Longo

Undergraduate Theses in Art History

During the fifteenth through seventeenth centuries in Italy - more commonly known as the Italian Renaissance and early Baroque periods - masters like Titian, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Caravaggio made a name for themselves and secured legacies through the widespread popularity and study of their masterpieces. As time progressed, however, more artworks have been found, and more histories, especially by women Baroque artists, have been explored. With the rise of women’s rights movements and social justice campaigns from the mid-20th century on, stories of female artists and figures have further emerged from the woodwork and hold greater precedence in …

For The Birds, Charlotte L. Middleton

School of Art, Art History, and Design: Theses and Student Creative Work

For the Birds is a homogenous material exhibition of porcelain pottery that explores the relationships between, expectations of, and roles placed upon women and pottery. Using traditional craft processes, still life imagery, and the language and limits of porcelain, I create arrangements that expose the viewers assumptions of both subjects. Pottery- pitchers, cups, and vases—is a product of anthropocentrism and anthropomorphism and can be entirely taken for granted- their role is assumed and unquestionable—to serve. The language and expectations of these objects are the medium I build with.

The title of the show, For the Birds, is both a …

Rationing Hunger: The Gendered Consequences Of India's Public Distribution System, Krisha Silwal

Audre Lorde Prize

This paper examines how the Public Distribution System (PDS) in India, while introduced to address hunger and food insecurity, displaces women from traditional farming, weakens their nutritional autonomy, and erases their cultural roles in food systems. The focus on subsidized rice and wheat benefits male landowners and excludes women, especially Dalit and Adivasi farmers, from agricultural decision-making. Drawing on a grassroots initiative led by Dalit women in Zaheerabad, the paper highlights how community-driven, decentralized food systems rooted in women’s knowledge can improve food security and restore autonomy. It calls for a reimagined PDS that centers women’s lived experiences and leadership.

State Of Women In The Media: A Look At Kenya, Tanzania, And Uganda - Policy Brief 2025, Hesbon Owilla, Nancy Achieng' Booker, George Nyabuga, Shitemi Khamadi, Alykhan Peermohamed, Clare Mogere, Pauline Muriuki

Graduate School of Media and Communications

In 2023, Aga Khan University’s Graduate School of Media and Communications (AKU-GSMC) undertook a study examining the representation of women in East African news media organisations with a focus on the coverage and portrayal of women in prominent newspapers, television, and digital news platforms across Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania. The study specifically sought to assess gender representation within the media workforce, the distribution of leadership roles and responsibilities in media companies, and the way women are covered and portrayed in the media. Using content analysis, the study reveals that women are frequently underreported in news stories and disproportionately portrayed in …

Rising From The Ashes : How African American Women From North Tulsa Overcame The Oppressions Of Race, Gender, And Class And Achieved Success, Cynthia A. Talley

ATS Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Compulsory Sterilisation And Reproductive Injustice In India: The Global Impact Of The American Eugenics Movement, Marina Cortez

Institute for the Humanities Theses

On 8 November 2014, Dr RK Gupta performed eighty-three tubal ligations at a makeshift clinic in Bilaspur, India — thirteen of which resulted in death. The women, most of whom belonged to the Dalit or “untouchable” caste, were recruited by family planning agencies, lured in by cash incentives or other gifts in exchange for sterilisation. Sadly, however, the Bilaspur tragedy does not exist in isolation — but rather belongs to an extensive history of government-sponsored abuse, the majority of which has been directly led by white, Western powers. Funded by the New York-based Population Council, India was one of the …

Corsets Of Empowerment, Dorsa Farzi

Department of Textiles, Merchandising and Fashion Design: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This project explores the intersection of fashion and activism, using contemporary design to reflect on significant women’s rights movements from around the world. This exhibition presents four uniquely crafted corsets, each representing a pivotal movement, from the Suffragette era to the ongoing fight for gender equality in Iran. Through modern aesthetics, innovative construction, and symbolic details, this project transforms clothing into a medium for dialogue and advocacy. Fashion becomes more than just design—it becomes a powerful tool for storytelling, sparking awareness, and encouraging new perspectives on gender equality and activism.

This project was exhibited at the Robert Hillestad Gallery, University …

Empowerher:A Digital Mosaic Celebrating Six Black Feminist Icons, Jessica M. Mcguire

SACAD: Scholarly Activities

Abstract

EmpowerHer: A Digital Mosaic of Six Black Feminist Icons is a research project that explores the lives and work of Angela Davis, Patricia Hill-Collins, bell hooks, Sojourner Truth, Audre Lorde, and Anna Julia Cooper. This digital project expands our knowledge of feminist theory beyond the women's words to encompass information about their education, work, motivations, and areas of focus. It also expounds on why they are important and highlights their accomplishments. This project was completed by researching these women’s lives, primarily with the use of biographies, journal articles, and online resources. In addition to the narrative provided for each …

Nebraska Women In Agriculture Conference Marks 40 Years, Lindsey Mckeever, Sarah Sivits, Jessica J. Groskopf

Cornhusker Economics

The Nebraska Women in Agriculture program marked 40 years of educating and empowering females in farming, ranching, and agribusiness, with nearly 370 people attending its annual conference on February 20 and 21, 2025, in Kearney.

Illustrations Of Benevolent And Hostile Heterosexism In Lgbtq+ People’S Lives, Jes L. Matsick, Lindsay Palmer, Flora Oswald, Mary Kruk, Kenneth Ye

Faculty Publications

In this study, we aimed to define heterosexism—a form of sexual stigma that accounts for interpersonal attitudes and institutionalized ideology—in a multi-dimensional way, centering on LGBTQ+ people’s experiences. We draw from an ambivalent theory of prejudice and focus on heterosexism, or an ideology that stigmatizes nonheterosexual behaviors, identities, relationships, and communities. We aimed to learn how LGBTQ+ people would narrate their experiences of heterosexism within a benevolent and hostile framing. In a qualitative online study, LGBTQ+ participants (N = 77; 49% White) reviewed definitions of and recalled encounters with benevolent and hostile heterosexism, providing examples of how heterosexism manifests …