Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons^™

Between The Lens And The Gaze: Reflections Of Femininity In Film, Noureen Sakr

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the male gaze’s construction of femininity through the use of glass and reflective surfaces, particularly mirrors, windows, glasses, and cameras in film. Reflections and depictions of women are recurring motifs in cinema, often symbolizing dynamics of perception and power. This thesis mobilizes related psychoanalytic and feminist conceptions to examine and compare the recurring visual motifs in the following films: Alfred Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train (1951) and Rear Window (1954), Paul Verhoeven’s Basic Instinct (1992), & Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan (2010). This thesis employs a qualitative, interdisciplinary methodology that integrates psychoanalytic theory, feminist film theory, literary criticism …

A Journey To The Midwest For Migrant Farmwork: Women's Testimonies Examining Their Lived Experiences Using Autoethnography And Plática Research Methodologies, Yesenia G. Alcalá

Theses & Dissertations

A JOURNEY TO THE MIDWEST FOR MIGRANT FARMWORK: WOMEN’S TESTIMONIES EXAMINING THEIR LIVED EXPERIENCES USING AUTOETHNOGRAPHY AND PLÁTICA

RESEARCH METHODOLOGIES

Yesenia Garza Alcalá, Master of Business Administration

University of the Incarnate Word 2026

The purpose of my research was to share the stories of five women who experienced a yearly migratory routine from Del Rio, Texas, to work in farms and factories in the Midwest, and how that annual journey shaped and educated us. The women are four of my older sisters and me, all of whom traveled and worked in the Princeville, Illinois, migrant camp, where we experienced the …

Lost In Chaos: The Battle Between Selfcare And Motherhood, Sarah Shahzad

MS Marketing Research Projects/Theses

Motherhood in collectivist societies such as Pakistan is deeply intertwined with caregiving, leaving limited space for women’s self-care or personal well-being. This study explores how young Pakistani mothers negotiate self-care within competing expectations of maternal sacrifice, cultural morality, and structural constraints. Guided by the Institutional Logics Perspective (ILP), it examines how familial norms, religious values, and market forces collectively shape women’s self-care practices, framing self-care not as an autonomous act but as a negotiated process embedded within social and institutional boundaries. This study adopts an interpretive phenomenological approach to explore how Pakistani mothers experience and negotiate self-care within cultural and …

Arbiya, Hamida T. Riahi

Journal of International Women's Studies

This short story narrates the lived experience of a young, rural, Tunisian student confronting the intersecting oppressions of class, gender, and regional marginalization in her pursuit of higher education. Positioned as an arbiya—a term loaded with regionalist and classist disdain—the protagonist is marked as inferior within the urban academic milieu. Her daily struggles with poverty, hunger, and moral scrutiny reveal the precarious conditions under which many women students from rural backgrounds must survive. The dormitory space, far from being a refuge, exposes her to exploitation, judgment, and social surveillance. The story reaches its emotional apex when her lover’s urban bourgeois …

Birthing In A Foreign Land, Sadhiya Saleem

Journal of International Women's Studies

This narrative poem explores the embodied experience of childbirth in a foreign land. Set within the unfamiliar environment of a hospital far from the speaker’s linguistic roots, the poem traces the physical and emotional landscape of labor as one profoundly shaped by displacement and disconnection. Through sensory imagery and fragmented memory, it portrays how giving birth in an unfamiliar context amid the absence of familiar support systems and linguistic comfort creates a profound sense of bodily estrangement. The poem enters broader feminist conversations to reclaim the maternal body, marked by migration and displacement, as a definitive site of memory and …

Film Review: Ajmer 92, Investigative Journalism, And Justice For Rape Survivors, Amit Sharma, Amitabh Srivastava

Journal of International Women's Studies

No abstract provided.

Film Review: Education As A Legal Right, Yet A Socially Negotiated Privilege: A Feminist Review Of Sthal (A Match), Ankit Anand, Rajneesh Kumar

Journal of International Women's Studies

No abstract provided.

Film Review: Queer Happiness And Family Myth In My Therapist Said, I Am Full Of Sadness, Ni Luh Ayu Sukmawati

Journal of International Women's Studies

No abstract provided.

Gender-Based Violence, Legal Protection, And Intersecting Narratives: A Conversation With Flavia Agnes, Barnana Baidya, Partha Bhattacharjee

Journal of International Women's Studies

Flavia Agnes is a leading advocate for gender justice because of her legal expertise in marital law, divorce, and property law and her activism as an Indian women’s rights lawyer. Her scholarly work on systemic and legal gender-based oppression has appeared in the journals Subaltern Studies, Economic and Political Weekly, and Manushi. Her book, My Story...Our Story of Rebuilding Broken Lives, released by her non-profit organization named Majlis, depicts how Agnes battled domestic violence while addressing the law’s restrictive abilities to offer protection. We conducted an interview through Google Meet with Agnes to discuss her work as a legal activist …

Book Review Essay: The Keloid As Episteme—Corporeal Healing And Colonial Afterlives In Sarah Soanirina Ohmer’S The Keloids We Heal, Md Samiul Azim, Farida Parvin

Journal of International Women's Studies

No abstract provided.

Book Review: Reproductive Labor And Innovation: Against The Tech Fix In An Era Of Hype, Lipika Kankaria

Journal of International Women's Studies

No abstract provided.

Book Review: All She Lost: The Explosion In Lebanon, The Collapse Of A Nation, And The Women Who Survive, Noor Obeid

Journal of International Women's Studies

No abstract provided.

Book Review: Letters From The Edge: Outrider Conversations, Raeesabegam Usmani

Journal of International Women's Studies

No abstract provided.

Book Review: Artificial Women: Sex Dolls, Robot Caregivers, And More Facsimile Females, Evie Kendal

Journal of International Women's Studies

No abstract provided.

Book Review: I Criticize, Therefore I Am A Woman Poet—Sex And Style: Literary Criticism And Gender In Early Modern England, Rizwan Akhtar

Journal of International Women's Studies

No abstract provided.

Book Review: Challenges For Chinese Women In The Early Twenty-First Century, Zakiyah Zakiyah

Journal of International Women's Studies

No abstract provided.

Book Review: Body Politics In Contemporary Irish Women’S Writing: The Literary Legacy Of Mother Ireland, Taylor Follett

Journal of International Women's Studies

No abstract provided.

A Feminist Analysis Of Post-Independence Administrative Reforms In Bihar, Shrey Sharma, Rajeev Kumar Jain, Ashutosh K. Pandey, Shashikant Nishant Sharma

Journal of International Women's Studies

This paper critically examines the administrative reforms in Bihar since India’s independence, focusing on the evolution of women’s roles and representation in state governance. Drawing on historiographic and textual analyses of academic scholarship, government reports, reform commission findings, and policy documents, the study uses the case of the Indian state of Bihar to explore how political leadership, bureaucratic structures, and gendered hierarchies intersect in shaping postcolonial governance. Bihar, historically marked by institutional fragility and social inequality, provides an illustrative context for assessing how national-level reforms— such as the 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendments, civil service modernization, and e governance—have attempted …

The Role Of Tribal And Dalit Women In Water Conservation: A Case Study Of The Western Indian Trans-Himalayan Region, Vivek Kumar, Anuradha Choudhary

Journal of International Women's Studies

Water scarcity and environmental degradation are pressing contemporary issues, and the Himalayan regions are especially at risk. The Trans-Himalayas in particular face severe resource scarcity as water availability is totally dependent on the now dwindling supply of glacial meltwater. Women in the Spiti Valley in the Trans-Himalayan region are particularly exposed to these issues because they spend significant time collecting water and fodder for domestic animals and managing agricultural irrigation. As the primary caregivers and managers of households, women in this region face greater challenges in adapting to and mitigating resource scarcity. This study focuses on the role of Dalit …

Twitter’S Role In Challenging The Marginalisation And Subjugation Of Women In Northern Nigeria, Tioluwalogo Olakunbi-Black

Journal of International Women's Studies

This paper aims to examine social media’s role in advocating against the marginalisation and domination of women in Northern Nigeria with a focus on Twitter (X). This study analyses women’s strategies of digital advocacy drawing on feminist theory, specifically difference feminism, intersectional feminism, and post-structuralist feminism, alongside theories of technological determinism. Difference feminism argues that women possess distinctive qualities, experiences, and perspectives that differentiate them from men, and that these differences can be a source of strength rather than a basis for disadvantage. Intersectional feminism foregrounds intersecting identities such as race, class, ethnicity, and sexuality, emphasising the multiplicity of women’s …