Gender and Sexuality Commons^™

Life Styles, Death Styles, And Posthumous Portraiture: Elite Female Burials In Iron Age Europe, Emily Ryan Stanton

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation analyzes the grave good assemblages in 222 burial contexts from HallstattD (c. 600-400 BCE) tumulus cemeteries in west-central Europe to test the hypothesis that certain combinations of grave goods were associated with particular categories of persons based on an intersectional marking of gender, status, age and social role. The primary data set consists of high-status graves – male, female, ungendered/pre-gendered subadults, and those of indeterminate gender – in the Heuneburg interaction sphere in southwest Germany. The results of this analysis are compared to a secondary data set of comparable burials from other west-central European locations, to determine whether …

Rural Masculinities In American Scripted Television Series Of The 2010s, Paul Doro

Theses and Dissertations

The 2010s featured a significant increase in the representation of rural masculinity on television. Much of the increase can be attributed to unscripted programming. Reality series have received considerable attention from scholars, particularly in regard to their representation of stereotypes. This dissertation examines the representation of masculinities in three scripted television series that aired during the 2010s and are set in rural America. The series provide perspectives on rural masculinities that can be placed in conversation with discourses on reality series set in rural environments. Justified, Rectify, and Outsiders depict male characters that veer away from stereotypes and are difficult …

Storytelling, Identity Development, And Decolonial Pedagogies: Frameworks For Teaching Indigenous Literatures Of The Great Lakes To Young Adult Readers, Katie Cary

Theses and Dissertations

This project examines Dakota and Anishinaabe literatures of the Great Lakes region with an emphasis on themes of homeland, identity development, community, violence, transformation, and healing. Each chapter of the dissertation focuses on a specific genre, medium, or theory, such as nineteenth-century autobiography, young adult literature, comics, and Two-Spirit critiques, along with pedagogical practices that can be incorporated into English curriculums to help educators teach Indigenous literatures more effectively. This dissertation provides teaching frameworks and suggestions for activities and discussions that other educators can adapt and model in their own secondary school or university classes. I consider texts by Zitkala-Sa, …

Against Identity: A Positionalist Approach To Resisting Identity-Based Violence, Barbara Walkowiak

Theses and Dissertations

I develop and defend a positionalist theory of identity as a basis from which to resist identity-based violence. On this account, identities are the social positions that individuals occupy due to belief that operate upon them. This contrasts with and is intended to replace the dominant intrinsicist model, which conceives of identity as something about individuals in and of themselves. Taking gender as a focal point, I develop three overarching positionalist kinds: monogyne, polygyne, and androgyne. I propose that additional sub-kinds (e.g. monogyne woman) be developed in order to more exactly track gender positionalities and the operational beliefs that produce …

Ojibwe Women And Maple Sugar Production In Anishinaabewakiing And The Red River Region, 1670-1873, Susan Deborah Wade

Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACTOJIBWE WOMEN AND MAPLE SUGAR PRODUCTION IN ANISHINAABEWAKIING AND THE RED RIVER REGION, 1670-1873 by Susan Wade The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 2021 Under the Supervision of Professor Carolyn Eichner and Professor Adele Perry Beginning with the origins of the Hudson’s Bay Company in 1670 and ending when the Canadian government signed Treaty 3 in 1873 with the Ojibwe in the Lake of the Woods region, this study is placed at the intersection of gender, kinship, imperialism, and food studies. This dissertation takes place in Anishinaabewakiing and the region the Northern Ojibwe migrated into, the Red River region. The landscape that …

Joan Rivers: Comedy And Identity On The Road To Fashion Police, Melanie Gaw

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis analyzes how Joan Rivers’ comedy content and style changed during the first 30 years of her career and how these changes impacted Rivers’ presentation of her identity as a Jewish female comedian. This project focuses on Joan Rivers’ career in two sections: her early career with its reliance on a self-deprecatory style of humor spanning roughly from her first appearance on The Tonight Show in 1965 to the early 1980s, and a transitional period in her career that saw a shift toward a celebrity gossip style of humor during the 1980s. I perform textual analyses of some of …

“Mirrors Can Give Us Space To Imagine…” Representations Of Gender And Sexuality In Bbc’S Dracula (2020), Riana S. Slyter

Theses and Dissertations

What follows discusses how BBC’s Dracula uses character representations, scripted dialogue, and narrative to challenge and perpetuate the dominant ideologies of our society. Dracula exposes the tensions in the growing cultural acceptance of, but also increased resistance to, the fluidity of gender and sexuality in contemporary western culture. I contextualize representations of women and queer characters in Dracula with the broader issues of gender and sexuality in our current socio-political environment. Queer horror looks at Dracula as a text that arouses cultural anxieties concerning sexuality, while also attempting to illustrate fear within queer communities and subcultures. In many ways, the …

Social Movement And Reaction: The Joe Rogan Experience And Making Sense Of #Metoo With Standup Comedian Podcasters, Daniel James Russo

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores standup comedian podcaster reactions to the #MeToo Movement (2017-2020). The Joe Rogan Experience podcast is used as a database to explore commentary on #MeToo from 12 standup comedian podcasters (SCPs). The exploration seeks to answer if and how SCPs represent a dominant social group using discourse to pushback against, accept, or, at the least, critically reflect on the #MeToo movement as it relates to appropriate sexual conduct and appropriate reactions to inappropriate sexual conduct. With the understanding that frames provide schema for making sense of issues, a rhetorical framing analysis was conducted to looked at how standup …

“Being Myself Paid Off:” Blackness, Feminized Labor, And Authenticity In Black Beauty And Lifestyle Content On Youtube, Melissa Monier

Theses and Dissertations

My thesis centers Black women in conversations of digital feminized and aspirational labor online, reframing prior scholarship that has generally identified digital content creators as young, white, female, cisgender, and upper class. I use an intersectional, Black cyberfeminist approach to better understand how race and gender impact digital feminized and aspirational labor. In a 2015 study of fashion bloggers, Brooke Duffy and Emily Hund identified three elements of entrepreneurial femininity: discourses of “the destiny of passionate work,” staging “the Glam Life,” and sharing “carefully curated” intimate details of one’s personal life on social media. My thesis applies these three elements …

'Would You Say You Had Sex If...' Rhetorical Meaning-Making Within Intimate Encounters And Their Discourses At The Macro, Meso, And Micro Levels, Megan Orcholski

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation advances a deeper understanding of the rhetoric of intimate encounters by analyzing meaning-making practices at the intersections of sex, sexuality, and sexualized violence at the macro, meso, and micro levels. The object of my analysis is discourse about sex, sexuality, and sexualized violence, but this analysis also has implications on understandings of how corporeal rhetorics, or communicative meaning within bodies, are operating in moments of intimate encounters. Throughout my chapters, I interrogate how normative scripts around sex are constructed, disseminated, and perpetuated, how these normative assumptions impact intimate encounters and their connected public discourses, and how these normative …

The Impact Of Gender And Class On Disease And Trauma In 18th Century London: A Case Study Of Three Cemetery Populations, Maria A. Barca

Theses and Dissertations

The bioarchaeological study of paleopathology integrates interdisciplinary approaches, such as gender and class theory, and the study of trauma and disease. Using multiple lines of evidence, this thesis examines the impact of gender and class on skeletal evidence for disease and trauma in three 18th century London cemeteries serving different socio-economic populations. Contemporary written sources for prescribed gender and class roles are tested against the bioarchaeological evidence to investigate the extent to which these norms reflected lived reality or differentially impacted the incidence of trauma and disease in populations of varying socioeconomic status. Conformity to prescribed gender roles should be …

"They're Protecting Whiteness And Their Fragility Is Showing": How Feminist Praxis Disrupts White Supremacy In Neoliberal Predominately White Institutions", Christina Nelson

Theses and Dissertations

Predominately white institutions (PWIs) embody white policies, culture, and ways of educating that disproportionately affect Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC). This research addresses the ways in which feminist praxis disrupts white supremist violence in PWIs. Literature highlights the ways in which white supremacy is disguised through the language of diversity, how the university community is able to build community despite barriers in the university, and how each primary player (faculty, staff, and students) navigate institutional violence. This research draws on ten interviews with faculty, staff, and students at a public and private PWI in an urban Midwestern city. Although …

Lifestyle Tv For Men: The Nostalgic Fantasy Of History Channel's Blue-Collar Infotainment, Stephanie Ann Menders

Theses and Dissertations

This work considers the commercial and ideological implications of History's branding shift as exemplified by the debut of its reality programming slate in 2007. History's blue-collar infotainment, which focuses on men in rugged and traditional forms of work, represents a masculinized and conservative response to the feminized and often socially liberal-minded lifestyle-programming trend. The social, industrial, and cultural context within which these texts exist, particularly the 2008 recession and the growing emphasis on workplace and TV diversity, are foundational to History's rejuvenated brand. Themes from Ice Road Truckers, Ax Men, Swamp People, Pawn Stars, American Restoration, American Pickers, and Forged …

Cw Is Open To All: Post-Difference Representation And Hegemonic Time-Travel Narratives In Dc's Legends Of Tomorrow, Claire Elizabeth Hackett

Theses and Dissertations

My thesis examines how a post-difference perspective, where diversity is shallowly embraced, can influence the characters and narratives of a television show, with DC’s Legends of Tomorrow as the prime example. Legends is a great example of this because it is an ensemble show that features characters who are from different races, religions, sexualities, ages, genders and historical time periods. A post-difference lens myopically pushes the narrative that everyone in society is equal, and the discrimination faced by marginalized communities is no longer relevant. This perspective is problematic because it reinforces how whiteness is the norm in society, and the …

Marriage Maintenance, Miscategorization, And New Manifestations: How People Are Reinforcing And Disrupting Gender And Sexual Inequalities In Married Life, Daniel John Bartholomay

Theses and Dissertations

This research positions marriage as an institution that has historically served to privilege men, masculinity and heterosexuality. Overall, this project is intended to advance our understanding of gender and sexual inequalities in the realms of marriage and family by examining the lived experiences of married people. It draws on data from 41 in-depth interviews conducted with married people living in Wisconsin, many of whom identify as part of the LGBT+ community. Using qualitative social science methods, this research speaks to unanswered questions regarding the capacity of a more gender-fluid society to reshape key social institutions (like marriage) in ways that …

Partisans And Soldiers: Themes Of Gender And The Commemoration Of Jewish Resistance In The Soviet Union During World War Ii, Taylor Marie Dews

Theses and Dissertations

Following the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, thousands of Red Army soldiers, peasants, and Jewish men, women, and children escaped imprisonment and certain death by fleeing into the vast forests of Belorussia. Using oral histories, archival websites, and survivor testimony, this thesis explores the Soviet partisan units and the Jewish partisan units and family camps that were organized in the forests and raises questions including: How do the experiences of Jewish women in the partisans compare with Jewish women who fought in the Red Army? How are the Jewish partisans remembered around the world today? What postwar …

Conformity Among College Students: The Effect Of Gender On Sexually Violent Beliefs, Hanna Christine Klecka

Theses and Dissertations

Sexual violence continues to be a global issue that yields startling statistics of victimhood among collegiate populations. This study explores relationships between gender, social influence, conformity, and gender role orientation, in addition to the impact these factors have on perceptions of sexual violence. Undergraduate students (N = 210) evaluated a vignette detailing a case of possible sexual assault after reading about decisions indicating victim blaming made by previous groups of students. The results showed one’s predisposition to conform and endorse traditional gender roles predicted the likelihood to victim blame and endorse rape myths. Additionally, results revealed that the gender of …

Masculinity In American Television From Carter To Clinton, Bridget Kies

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines American television during a period I call the long 1980s. I argue that during this period, television became invested in new and provocative images of masculinity on screen and in networks’ attempts to court audiences of men. I have demarcated the beginning and ending of the long 1980s with the declaration of Jimmy Carter as Time magazine’s Man of the Year in 1977 and Bill Clinton’s inauguration in 1993. This also correlates with important shifts in the television industry, such as the formation of ESP-TV (later ESPN) in 1979 and the end of Johnny Carson’s tenure as …

An Intersectional Examination Of The Portrayal Of Native American Women In Wisconsin Museum Exhibits, Erica Rodenbeck

Theses and Dissertations

This project examines how White curators at four museums in Wisconsin portray Native American women based on a number of institutional and individual curatorial choices. Intersectional Theory is used to explore how museums and museum professionals navigate questions of representation of a traditionally marginalized group. It places specific emphasis on the relationship between Community Curation and Intersectional Theory and explores whether or not the involvement of Native groups noticeably impacts representation of Native American women.

The study examines the exhibits of four museums: The Abel Public Museum, The New Canton College of Anthropology, The Pineville Public Museum, and The Wisconsin …

"Don't Be Such A Girl, I'M Only Joking!" Post-Alternative Comedy, British Panel Shows, And Masculine Spaces, Lindsay Anne Weber

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis discusses the gender disparity in British panel shows. In February 2014 the BBC’s Director of Television enforced a quota stating panel shows needed to include one woman per episode. This quota did not fully address the ways in which the gender imbalance was created. This thesis argues that the gender imbalance stems from post-feminist sensibilities and masculine-centric trends in British comedy and culture. This work demonstrates this through a discourse analysis of the opinions expressed about panel shows by the British popular press and media personalities from 2002 to 2017. The discourse analysis exposes patterns where British producers …

Young Adult Authors, Readers, And Feminized Social Media, Margaret R. Kohlmann

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis looks at YA literature, a feminized genre that continues to gain momentum in publishing and popular culture. Specifically, I look at YA authors and their readers’ interactions on social media and the manner in which these conversations are gendered. I argue that YA authors are expected to utilize feminized traits on social media with their readers and fellow authors, but they use same traits to create social change in the genre and industry. This project analyzes three different types of readers: Readers, Reader-Creators, and Bloggers and their interactions with YA authors on social media. My interviews with five …

Queer Literary Criticism And The Biographical Fallacy, Shawna Lipton

Theses and Dissertations

“Queer Literary Criticism and the Biographical Fallacy” engages with three fields of inquiry within literary studies: queer literary criticism, modernist studies, and author theory. By looking at the critical reception of four iconic queer modernist authors – Oscar Wilde, Henry James, Radclyffe Hall, and Virginia Woolf– this dissertation reinvestigates the relation between criticism and the figure of the author. Queer criticism-- despite its fundamental critique of identity—relies on the identity of the author when it blurs the distinction between the literary text and the author’s biography. Ultimately this work provides a deeper understanding of the queer relation to the modernist …

Retrograde Returns Of The American Housewife: Reimagining An Old Character In A New Millennium, Ruth Emelia Wollersheim

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores the immensely popular return of the housewife character in the twenty-first century. From films like The Stepford Wives (2004), to television dramas like Desperate Housewives (2004-2012) and The Good Wife (2009- ), to reality shows like Wife Swap (2004- ), Bravo’s The Real Housewives franchise (2006- ), Basketball Wives (2010- ), Mob Wives (2011- ), and most recently on the blogosphere with personalities like The Pioneer Woman, Ree Drummond, the housewife character has reentered our imaginations on a mass scale. This anachronistic character trend is in stark contrast to the urban, working superwoman ideal of the 1980s …

A Case Study: The Role Of Women In Creating Community On The Dakota Frontier, 1880 To 1920, Ruth Page Jones

Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACT

A CASE STUDY: THE ROLE OF WOMEN IN CREATING COMMUNITY

ON THE DAKOTA FRONTIER, 1880 TO 1920

by

Ruth Page Jones

The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 2015

Under the Supervision of Professor Genevieve G. McBride

During the Dakota Boom years of 1878 to 1887, Dakota Territory welcomed droves of new families, adding close to 400,000 people in the 1880s. Creating new homes on the treeless prairie, many people faced the challenge of sustaining life without the benefit of an established community. The conditions were too harsh, the weather too unpredictable, and the economy too fragile for anyone to live in …

"Anne Rice For Kids" And Twilight For Tv: Young Adult Media Franchising And The Vampire Diaries, Megan Corinne Connor

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines The Vampire Diaries as representative of the contemporary state of feminized media franchises, especially those that address young women. The Vampire Diaries exists primarily as a book series and a television series, produced by Alloy Entertainment and The CW Network respectively. Alloy’s production of the franchise, and others like it, connects to the company’s history of feminized media production as a book packager, and is indicative of its current transmedia consumerist model. Further, it underlines the importance of trends and the problematic role of the author in YA literature. The CW’s use of franchises like The Vampire …

Utterly Confused Categories: Gender Non-Conformity In Late Medieval And Early Modern Western Europe, Marissa Crannell

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis argues that gender non-conforming individuals in the late medieval and early modern periods were influenced by cultural examples of "deviant" gender behavior including cross-dressers, religious figures, women with male characteristics, literature, and popular entertainment. The thesis also argues that the fragmented approach historians have previously taken when examining the lives of gender non-conforming individuals has been inadequate and could be improved by envisioning the individuals not as individual anomalies or aberrations, but as participants in a long cultural tradition of gender non-conformity and transgression throughout western Europe.

Lived Experiences Of Nursing Autonomy: A Phenomenological Exploration, Rebekah Kalen Dubrosky

Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACT

LIVED EXPERIENCES OF NURSING AUTONOMY: A PHENOMENOLOGICAL EXPLORATION

by Rebekah Dubrosky

The University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee, 2015 Under the Supervision of Professor Mary Jo Baisch

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore the meaning that acute care, bedside nurses’ assign to their autonomous actions. A feminist critique of the nursing work environment was applied using standpoint theory. This was balanced and supplemented by a post-modern critique using Foucault’s method of assessing power and knowledge in relation to the discipline of a profession. This study was designed to explore how issues of gender, knowledge, and power affected …

Containing Fatness: Bodies, Motherhood, And Civic Identity In Contemporary U.S. Culture, Ruth J. Beerman

Theses and Dissertations

The body, and visualizations of the body, serve as a way read appropriate consumption and citizenship: Weight operates as a key way to see literal consumption. U.S. citizenship is now commonly understood as consumptive bodily citizenship, where one's body, or one's child's body, communicates their civic standing. Drawing on three case studies concerning childhood obesity, this dissertation demonstrates how rhetorics of and about the fat body construct the public identity of good citizen and good mother.

Performing Private Life On The Public Stage: Tracing Narratives Of Presidential Family Lives, Leisure And Masculinities In Us News Media, Kathryn Michele Kallenberger

Theses and Dissertations

Images and stories about US presidents’ family lives, private vacations and athletic identities are constants in the political news media landscape. These news representations texture and shape how the presidents are envisioned in popular imagination as powerful political figures and embodiments of contemporary masculinities. This study explicates US news media representations of President Bill Clinton and President Barack Obama in select mainstream political news publications from the 1990s to the 2000s. This study further considers how the cultural forces of heteronormativity, patriarchy, Baby Boomer masculinity, class, race and taste influenced popular presidential images. Much of the news discourse regarding presidents …

Recombinant, Ching-In Chen

Theses and Dissertations

The hybrid texts (poems and prose) in the following dissertation investigate female and genderqueer lineage in the context of labor smuggling and trafficking. In this book-length project, I examine the challenges of communal memory by juxtaposing voices from Asian, African and indigenous communities in the Americas. Set in a speculative future, these voices simultaneously inhabit their own spaces and share pathways, a theme developed through manipulation of white space on the page. The narrative speculates about the origins of M. Lao, a snakehead matriarch who has created a business empire from a fictional edu-tainment park, CoolieWorld, which traffics in the …