Gender and Sexuality Commons^™

Torch (May/June 2007), Amy Homans, Civil Rights Team Project

Torch: The Civil Rights Team Project Newsletter

No abstract provided.

A Test Of The Homophily Principle Using On-Line Personal Advertisements, Amanda Schrock

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

With the increasing popularity and accessibility of the Internet, there is a need to reexamine dating and relationship preferences in the high-tech information age. Previously research pertaining to dating has focused on relationships and attitudes as well as the concept of homophily. In an effort to bridge the gap between previous dating conclusions and a modern means for meeting people, this research is an attempt to determine if previously established conclusions about homophily transcend to mate selection conducted through the use of the Internet. This research utilizes content analysis of online personal advertisements in order to compare the demographic characteristics …

Engendering Identity: The Women's Peace Movement In Israel From The 1960s To 1993, Molly Berger

Whittier Scholars Program

This project explores how the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has had an impact on women and altered their roles in Israeli society within the women’s peace movement from the late 1960s to the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993. This study includes a brief overview of the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, followed by a more specific history of the women’s peace movement, and then further develops the concepts of gender and identity within the historical context of the women’s peace movement in Israel.

Twelfth Annual Women's And Gender Studies Symposium Program, 2007, Illinois State University, Women's And Gender Studies Program

WGSS Student Research Symposium

Program from the Women's and Gender Studies Symposium

Torch (April 2007), Amy Homans, Civil Rights Team Project

Torch: The Civil Rights Team Project Newsletter

No abstract provided.

What’S A Girl To Do: Repatriarchalization And Croatian Women’S Reproductive Freedom, Brittany Rast

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Croatia is a country in transition. After decades of officially minimizing differences between itself and the rest of the former Yugoslavia, Croatia is now fiercely fighting to establish its own unique identity. As part of that battle, Croats have embraced their folk traditions, and they have brought the Catholic Church back into prominence. Approximately 85% of Croatians are Roman Catholic, and the Croatian government and the Catholic Church have very strong ties (Drakulic 1993: 125). As is the case in many transitional countries, the embracing of folk culture and its norms, coupled with the resurgence of the Catholic Church has …

Beauty Ideals & Body Image: Suva, Fiji, Melissa Kong

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Fiji is a country rich with traditions and culture. For many decades, the two dominant ethnic groups in Fiji- Indo-Fijians and Indigenous Fijians- have maintained their distinct cultural values and practices. As a country that is currently experiencing westernization, technological advancement, and the influx of mass media, cultural traditions, lifestyles, and ideals are changing rapidly. One such change from the traditional past is the emergence of a new body ideal and different beauty standards. In this research project, connections will be made between the past and present in regards to body and beauty ideals in Fiji. The differences and commonalities …

Kate 2007 Spring, Jen Roberts, Amber Robertson, Chrysm Harcalvel, Glenna Jackson, Jen Knox, Julie Eaton, Celeste Kaitsa, Laine Bair, Janice Windborne, Jenna Brader, Kelly Givens, Brittany Craver, Sarah Martindell, Colleen Deel

Kate

Each year, kate seeks to:

• explore ideas about normative gender, sex, and sexuality
• work against oppression and hierarchies of power in any and all forms
• serve as a voice for race and gender equity as well as queer positivity
• encourage the silent to speak and feel less afraid
• build a zine and community that we care about and trust

Camping Out With Ray Bourbon: Female Impersonators And Queer Dread Of Wide-Open Spaces, Don Romesburg

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

Mid-twentieth century pansy comedian and female impersonator Ray Bourbon's biography and stage materials suggest a disdain for "wide-open spaces" and queer ambivalences about the rural and the open road as sites of threat and danger. The performer's struggle reflected larger concerns for many queer men, especially traveling professional female impersonators. Often relying on long trips to small towns in order to find work, impersonators were vulnerable to a host of legal and socio-cultural repressions with little recourse. Examining how impersonators negotiated the natural and built environments of small towns and roadsides raises new questions about historical and contemporary understandings of …

Thinking Like A God: Nature Imagery In Advertising, Catherine M. Roach

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

This essay examines selected recent imagery from American advertising that evinces a "negative" sense of nature as hostile other - often portrayed as a persecuting and conquered female - and of humans as its/her master. Examples to be examined of nature as this "Bad Mother" include TV commercials, print advertisements, and a comic strip. I argue that these images spring from a fundamental ambivalence toward nature and that they assuage the anxiety aroused by such ambivalence through a fantasy that casts humans as gods. More specifically, I use the medieval Christian scholastic concept of 'aseity' to suggest that these media …

Effects Of Standardization On Cultural Identity And Community Involvement: Transgender Clients At The Vrije Universiteit Gender Clinic, Benjamin Davis

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

In the Netherlands, treatment for transsexual individuals has been institutionalized through the protocol established at the Vrije Universiteit Gender Clinic. However, for the population of transgender-identified individuals, those who transgress the gender binary and who identify among or in-between genders, the four phases of transition often do not suit their unique needs and expressions of gender identity. In this study, I examined the narratives of 9 trans-identified individuals who have utilized the services at the Gender Clinic. To supplement my analysis of these interviews, I spoke with S. Leigh Thompson, founder and acting director of the TransMasculine Community Network, Jos …

Living In The Margins: The Male Homosexual Experience In Salvador, Silvano Gonzalez

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Gay men across the world suffer through a reality of discrimination, violence, and hate. Academic literature supports this to be the case in Brazil, considered among many to be the world champion in the number of gay, lesbian and transsexual murders each year. Looking at the specific community of Salvador, Bahia, I have found this same homosexual reality to be the case. Though not experienced as directly as in other locations throughout Brazil, due in large part to the cities vast population and political activism, the effects of homophobia and prejudice are clearly demonstrated in this community.

My goal in …

Reconstructing Gender And Activism: The Case Of Women’S Initiatives In Al-Wihdat Refugee Camp, China Sajadian

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This paper explores the various ways that major social, political, and economic issues influence Palestinian women’s consciousness and initiatives in Jordan. Based on a set of interviews with self-identified female activists in Al-Wihdat refugee camp, I contextualize my findings in the multiple institutional and discursive realms through which female identity is constituted, such as nationalism, socioeconomic status, humanitarian development, and community. By investigating these women’s perspectives on a personal basis, I seek to uncover female subjective identities which subvert, complicate, and contest dominant constructions of the needs, roles, and ambitions of Palestinian refugee women.

Self-Employed, Self-Empowered: Working Women In Benares, Madeline S. Oatman

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

“Economic independence is the password to women’s empowerment.”

Sathi Nair, a Senior Administrative Services official in Andhra Pradesh.

Twenty or so women sit peacefully on a cool cement floor at the Kutumb program center in Benares, India. The room floats like an oasis above the dusty heat of the street, and unobstructed light pours in through a large window. The women, heads bowed, black hair shining, are stitching and measuring, brows furrowed in concentration despite the lull of the lazy afternoon. They have come to learn a skill in order to make extra income, to be around women, exchange advice …

Deconstructing ‘Gender And Development’ For ‘Identities Of Women’, Shweta Singh

Women's Studies & Gender Studies: Faculty Publications and Other Works

In this article, the gender and development paradigm is critically reviewed and an alternative framework of research –identities of women– is proposed. This article contends that the gender and development paradigm is primarily guided by the tenets of Western feminisms and economic development. The article also highlights other limitations of the paradigm, including its preoccupation with male–female inequalities, macro generalisations and symbolic representation of women and a limited inclusion of local contexts. The identities of women framework proposes to address the limitations of the gender and development paradigm by studying women's conception of their environment and women's understanding …

Balancing Rosie And June: A Study Of Lynchburg College Postwar Alumnae And The Impact Of The Feminine Mystique, Dinah Watson

Undergraduate Theses and Capstone Projects

In 2003, the movie Mona Lisa Smile debuted describing the frustrations that many college women may have faced in the years after World War II. Wellesley College was the elite all-female institution that openly and proudly prepared its young women with the proper rules of etiquette and correctness. Despite Wellesley’s own excellent academic reputation, its close proximity to the prestigious single-sex male college, Harvard, made it even more appealing and convenient for the Wellesley girls to find a “suitable” husband. The novice young art instructor, Katherine Watson, was unique in that she wanted to offer her students not only a …

Exporting And Negotiating Human Rights, Randall Kuhn

Human Rights & Human Welfare

In 2000, renowned Egyptian activist-sociologist Saad Eddin Ibrahim and 27 colleagues were tried, convicted and imprisoned by the Egyptian government on a range of politically-motivated charges. In 2003, Ibrahim was released after three years of imprisonment and torture and a concerted campaign to secure his release by concerned academics, activists, and political leaders. Two years later, physically weakened but morally indefagitable, he visited colleagues at the University of Colorado and talked about his experiences as an academic and activist.

Histoire(S) De Catherine M.: Echoes Of “O” And The Difference Of “I” In La Vie Sexuelle De Catherine M., Adrienne Angelo

The Coastal Review

This article compares Catherine Millet’s La vie sexuelle de Catherine M. (2001) to another work of erotic “fiction:” Pauline Réage’s Histoire d’O (1954). The scandal surrounding the publication of both works focused on the taboo subject of sexuality, and more significantly, on the role of the female author in writing such a graphic work. While Réage’s fictional account of one woman’s sexual experiences is told through a third-person narrator, Millet describes her own experiences in the first-person. However, the continual multiplication of this first-person narrator complicates a reading of her work that would presuppose that one is reading an autobiographical …

Sex Panic And The Welfare State, Benjamin Shepard

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

2006 marked the tenth anniversary of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act. The 1996 law was the culmination of decades of erosion in backing for basic provisions of the U.S. social safety net. The following reviews the political campaign that undermined thefoundationfor this vital component of the New Deal/Great Society income supports. A series of panics diminished approval for the welfare state, leading to the 1996 "reform." Panic discourse increasingly accompanies policy debate. Examples of anti welfare, anti outsider panic discourses are explored.

Cultural Rage: A Severe Threat To Gay Men, Rhoda Howard-Hassmann

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Men who have sex with men have become a world cultural flashpoint. Fomenting and exploiting cultural rage at the West is a useful way for Islamists to gain electoral and other types of support, even though the motives of the Islamists may have more to do with the drive for power, regional influence, or economic benefit.

Romance And Sexual Initiation Among Unmarried Young People In Vietnam: A Multi-Method Approach, Bussarawan Teerawichitchainan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Young men represent the highest proportion of sexually experienced unmarried population in Vietnam. Increasing levels of sexual activity, combined with reported low levels of knowledge about sex, HIV/AIDS, and STIs and an aversion to using contraceptives, suggest that they are ill-prepared to deal with Vietnam's emerging HIV epidemic. This study uses a multi-method approach to assess sexual activity and attitudes concerning romantic love among never-married men. I analyze the nationally representative Survey Assessment of Vietnamese Youth to examine patterns of emotional relationships and physical behaviors preceding young men's sexual initiation as well as determinants of premarital sex and an aversion …

A Benchmark Report On Diversity In State And Local Government, Carol Hardy-Fanta Phd

Publications from the Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy

The Pipeline to Public Service Initiative asked the McCormack Graduate School’s Center for Women in Politics & Public Policy at the University of Massachusetts Boston to ascertain the racial diversity in state and local government. The project had the following three goals:

--To identify the race (and gender) of those holding top-level positions filled through gubernatorial appointments, e.g., secretaries, commissioners, directors, deputy commissioners/directors, and undersecretaries, in the Commonwealth’s executive offices and major departments.

--To compile the same information for members of the most influential boards and commissions in the Commonwealth filled through gubernatorial appointments.

--To assess the diversity of elected …

Torch (February/March 2007), Amy Homans, Civil Rights Team Project

Torch: The Civil Rights Team Project Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Masculinity In The Quad, M. Kaufman, Jason A. Laker

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Transgender Justice, Richard M. Juang

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

Proceedings from CLAGS's Trans Politics, Social Change and Justice conference will be available in January 2007 under the title Transgender Justice.

Some Thoughts On China's Sexual Revolution: Sexuality And Social Change In Contemporary China, Sun Zhongxin

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

The last two years saw several changes in the public discourse around sex and sexuality in China. So what are some of the most controversial sex-related topics to be raised in China recently?

Letter From The Executive Director: Queer Studies Goes Digital, Paisley Currah

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

Google books, journals available only online, Wikipedia. With so much knowledge going digital, is print culture on its way our? While print probably won't disappear as a scholarly medium in the foreseeable future, it is important that CLAGS remain at the cutting edge not just in terms of the kinds of research we support, but in terms of how we disseminate that research. We are currently involved in several long-term projects to share digital resources with our membership and the community at large, expanding on our longstanding commitment to making print and analog materials available that are often not accessible …

Gender Identity Disorder, Jennifer Mckitrick

Department of Philosophy: Faculty Publications

According to the DSM IV, a person with GID is a male or female that feels a strong identification with the opposite sex and experiences considerable stress because of their actual sex (Task Force on DSM-IV and American Psychiatric Association, 2000). The way GID is characterized by health professionals, patients, and lay people belies certain assumptions about gender that are strongly held, yet nevertheless questionable. The phenomena of transsexuality and sex-reassignment surgery puts into stark relief the following question: “What does it mean to be male or female?” But while the answer to that question may be informed by contemplation …

Workin’ It Out At Curves – Religion, Gender, And The Body In Contemporary America, Jamie K. Singelais

Senior Scholars Papers in Computer Science

I performed qualitative research in the form of participant observation, surveys, and in-depth interviews to examine Curves, a fitness franchise for women found throughout the United States and, increasingly, the rest of the world. I conducted this exploratory study specifically at the Curves in Waterville, Maine, and made several trips to other franchises in the area for comparative purposes. One of my key findings is the importance of understanding Curves’ organization as a business, specifically, its status as a franchise and the effect that this has on its popularity and growth. Additionally, my research revealed the role, surprising to me, …

Girls In The Juvenile Justice System, Ryan Michelle Donley

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Juvenile crime has been a controversial topic of debate since the Industrial Revolution. More recently many studies on juvenile crime have turned their attention to sex differences in committing crime and being processed through the justice system. Current statistics of arrest, adjudication, and placement rates for different types of status offenses and criminal offenses will show whether Chesney-Lind’s and other researchers’ conclusions that juvenile females are treated more harshly within the juvenile justice system still holds true twenty years later. Given the literature review and the national juvenile crime statistics, there is strong evidence that suggests females continue to be …