Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Gendered Identity And Investment In Language Learning: A Case Study Of Heritage Spanish Speakers, Farah Ali

Friday Forum

Much of the existing research in second and heritage language acquisition (S/HLA) takes a traditional approach of focusing on the cognitive processes involved in S/HLA, as well as the resulting outcomes. A relatively recent approach that has emerged in S/HLA scholarship, however, relates the learner to the social world in terms of how sociocultural contexts may shape an individual’s language learning experiences and their personal investment in the process. This emergent approach also challenges traditional categorical conceptions of identity, positing that it is dynamic, fluid, constructed, and negotiated in social contexts. Following this approach, my objective is to demonstrate how …

Trapped In The Mouse House: How Disney Has Portrayed Racism And Sexism In Its Princess Films, Jessica L. Laemle

Student Publications

This paper analyzes the history of one of the most popular entertainment companies in the world, Disney. Through the discussion of multiple princess films, from the beginning of Disney to the more current films, I analyze the ongoing racism and sexism that is presented in these timeless Disney films. I will discuss the implications that this racism and sexism has on the children who view these films and what responsibility Disney has as a worldwide company in terms of what it displays to its audience.

Imagining Intersectional Anti-Rape Messaging At An Organization In Cape Town, South Africa: Visible And Invisible Subjects, Maslen Bode Ward

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Less than one month ago, South Africa held the first ever Summit on Gender-Based Violence and Femicide to assess the most effective ways to approach solving the country’s high rates of gender-based violence. My study aims to consider anti-rape messaging and advocacy under an intersectional framework, using one organization in Cape Town as a case study. I examine how anti-rape messaging in South Africa has failed to consider intersectional identities in their imagined conceptions of survivors and perpetrators. I explore the potential for intersectional anti-rape messaging and the role of race, class, gender, culture, and language in the distribution, audience, …

Hannah And Her Sisters: Theorizing Gender And Leadership Through The Lens Of Feminist Phenomenology, Rita A. Gardiner Ph.D

Education Publications

This article explores how feminist phenomenology can add conceptual richness to gender and leadership theorizing. Although some leadership scholars engage with phenomenological and existential inquiry, feminist phenomenology receives far less attention. By addressing this critical gap in the scholarship, this article illustrates how feminist phenomenology can enrich gender and leadership scholarship. Specifically, by engaging with the work of four women existential phenomenologists - Hannah Arendt, Simone de Beauvoir, Iris Marion Young, and Sara Ahmed, the rich diversity of phenomenological inquiry is explored. First, Arendt shows the benefits of conceptualizing leadership as collective action, rather than as concentrated in one person, …

Behind Closed Doors: Unpacking College Students’ Complex Relationships With Pornography Consumption, Samantha K. Saucier

Honors College

This thesis is a quantitative and qualitative study of University of Maine students attitudes and consumption habits of pornography. It contains a literature review of anti-pornography feminism from the Second Wave, as well as an overview of sex-positive and sex-critical theories of pornography from more recent years. The goal of the thesis is to understand how sex-negative and/or sex-positive ideas have or have not permeated college student’s understanding of pornography. Over 800 students were surveyed about pornography consumption through the Psychology Department’s Fall prescreen. 4 students from the survey, who all happened to be women, were interviewed about their relationships …

Building Brand Kurdistan: Helly Luv, The Gender Of Nationhood, And The War On Terror, Nicholas S. Glastonbury

Publications and Research

In the early 2000s, the Kurdistan Regional Government hired a US-based firm to begin a public relations campaign called “The Other Iraq.” Since that time, it has worked with a number of PR and lobbying firms to build a cultural, political, and financial apparatus that I refer to as Brand Kurdistan. This apparatus aims to prove to Western audiencesthat the Kurds are a liberal exception in an illiberal Middle East, and to build prospects of KRG’s eventual national independence. This article explores the connections between Brand Kurdistan and the gendering of Kurdish nationalism, focusing particularly on Kurdish pop diva Helly …

In Search Of “Healthy White:” How Whitening Products Are Packaged And What That Means For Global, National, And Gender Identities, Indigo Dacosta

Pac Rim Posters

This interdisciplinary study in South Korea, Japan, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Thailand, and India compares the origin of products—international and local—and the ways in which product labeling targets gender. I examine (1) the extents to which whitening products result from globalization and from local culture and (2) the ways in which whitening products and skincare at large reinforce traditional roles. This study concludes that whitening products (1) reflect neither globalization nor local culture and instead reflect complex and variable interactions between the two, and contemporary framing of national identity, and (2) enforce similar beauty standards on both men and women, …

Seeking Friends With Benefits In A Tourism-Based Sexual Economy: Interrogating The Gambian Sexscape, Mariama Jaiteh

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation engages with the driving motivations behind the actions of all those involved in The Gambia’s tourism-based sexual economy: the Gambian and other West African male and female sex workers, the Global North (habitually European) male and female tourists, the Gambian and expatriate Lebanese bar and restaurant owners, the Gambian state, and the semesters (members of the Gambian diaspora on vacation in The Gambia). It presents thick ethnographic accounts of interactions with Gambians and tourists, as they form temporary couples or friendships for the duration of tourists’ vacations, and sometimes for longer. This ethnography-rich dissertation pays careful attention to …

Why Wikipedia Often Overlooks Stories Of Women In History, Lara Nicosia, Tamar Carroll

Articles

Wikipedia's reliance on a volunteer editing base has resulted in a gender bias both in the quantity and quality of content around women. With less than 20% of Wikipedia's editors identifying as women, only 30% of biographical entries have been written about women and entries on women tend to be shorter and more focused on relationships and family roles than entries on men. This article explores the causes of Wikipedia's gender bias and offers ways that both individuals and institutions can help improve Wikipedia's content around women.

From Slut Shaming To Cultural Commentary: What Live Tweeting Practices Of Viewers Of Abc’S The Bachelorette Reveal About Gender Policing And Digital Activism On Twitter, Melissa Ames

Faculty Research & Creative Activity

No abstract provided.

Findings Of An Effect Of Gender, But Not Handedness, On Self-Reported Motion Sickness Propensity, Ruth E. Propper, Frederick Bonato, Leanna Ward, Kenneth Sumner

Department of Psychology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Discrepant input from vestibular and visual systems may be involved in motion sickness; individual differences in the organization of these systems may, therefore, give rise to individual differences in propensity to motion sickness. Non-right-handedness has been associated with altered cortical lateralization of vestibular function, such that non-right-handedness is associated with left hemisphere, and right-handedness with right hemisphere, lateralized, vestibular system. Interestingly, magnocellular visual processing, responsible for motion detection and ostensibly involved in motion sickness, has been shown to be decreased in non-right-handers. It is not known if the anomalous organization of the vestibular or magnocellular systems in non-right-handers might alter …

A Discourse Analysis Of Gender Perceptions, Twitter, The 2018 Progressive Convervative Leadership Race, And The 2018 Provincial Election, Mary E. Chamberlain

Social Justice and Community Engagement

The research seeks to bring awareness to how online discourse on Twitter can contribute to the reinforcement of unequal power relations against female electoral candidates. This project is a discourse analysis of gender perceptions of the 2018 Progressive Conservative Leadership Race and the 2018 provincial election as portrayed on Twitter. Using understandings of Liberal Feminism and Intersectionality, this project demonstrates the struggle of gender discrimination against women in political life and attempts to recognize the efforts of women attempting to shatter the glass ceiling. The findings suggest female candidates experienced Twitter as a gendered and bullying platform, while male candidates …

Asexuality: To Include Or Not To Include A Slice Of Cake In The Lgbtq+ Community, Devin Oliva-Farrell

Tredway Library Prize for First-Year Research

Due to the growing number of sexual orientations and genders that have joined the LGBTQ+ community, a debate has sparked on whether all of these should be included. Specifically, this paper analyzes the debate on whether asexuality should be included or excluded from the group. The results from including or excluding asexuality will have drastic effects on the LGBTQ+ community, self-identified asexuals, and society as a whole when it comes to examining sexualities and genders.

This is illustrated in the following ways: 1) examining the definition of asexuality; 2) exploring the debates surrounding its inclusion or exclusion; 3) highlighting the …

Jenyffer Nascimento’S Epic Poetry Of Black Female Empowerment Jenyffer Nascimento: A Poesia Épica De Empoderamento Da Mulher Negra, Sarah S. Ohmer

Publications and Research

This article presents results of auto-ethnography, literary analysis, and fieldwork research to answer an underlying, perhaps unresolved, concern, relevant to this dossier: how can we produce an ethical dialogue as transnational Black Feminists, among Black Brazilian women, and North American Black women, in an ethical manner, while realizing that one may (not ever) be a part of the “carnival without you in it.” Fertile Earth/ Terra Fertil tells a long overdue epic story to an audience within the poetry: Black women, family members, other times a Black man, Brazil, white women, or “you,” undefined. Joy to pain to chaos, sensuality, …

The Dmz Responds, Seo-Young J. Chu

Publications and Research

Seo-Young Chu’s “The DMZ Responds” appeared in Telos 184 (Fall 2018), a special issue on Korea edited by Haerin Shin.

Very Long Engagements: The Persistent Authority Of Bridewealth In A Post-Apartheid South African Community, Michael W. Yarbrough

Publications and Research

This article examines the persistent authority of the customary practice for forming recognized marriages in many South African communities, centered on bridewealth and called “lobola.” Marriage rates have sharply fallen in South Africa, and many South Africans blame this on the difficulty of completing lobola amid intense economic strife. Using in-depth qualitative research from a village in KwaZulu-Natal, where lobola demands are the country’s highest and marriage rates its lowest, I argue that lobola’s authority survives because lay actors, and especially women, have innovated new repertoires of lobola behavior that allow them to pursue emerging needs and desires for marriage …

Género Sobre Género. Vestimenta, Cuerpo Y Trabajo Doméstico En El Cine De Manuel Romero, Karina Elizabeth Vázquez

Latin American, Latino and Iberian Studies Faculty Publications

La vestimenta ocupa un lugar de privilegio en el estudio de las representaciones visuales y de los artefactos de consumo como textos culturales. Es una herramienta central de las corporalidades sobre las que se edifican las identidades sociales, puesto que la vestimenta cataliza las relaciones entre las representaciones impuestas por los que poseen los medios para significar y las que produce cada comunidad a partir del acceso a esos mismos medios. De este modo, las industrias culturales, especialmente el cine, la radio y la prensa vehiculizan figuraciones que mediante la publicidad y el consumo son apropiadas y resignificadas por los …