The conversation regarding transgender students in the context of women's colleges is inherently complicated due to the binary gender system that the existence of women's colleges reinforce. The primary goal of this phenomenological research was to examine the lived experiences of transgender college students at U.S. women's colleges. Because the...
This study examines the theme of power in Naguib Mahfouz's The Cairo Trilogy (1956/57). Contrasting my analysis with earlier review of the novel that emphasized a hegemonic patriarchal power, I argue that such power was constantly subverted by the dominated: family members of the patriarch. Using James C. Scott's notions...
Over the past decade, the explosion of social media has secured the Internet as a venue for political discussions of all sorts; as well as a realm of consumption and commodification. One population of women that has utilized social media in this way is the plus-sized fashion ("fatshion") community on...
This research explores the experiences of Iraqi women during and after the 2003 U.S.-led war (2003-2011). The aim of the project was to provide an occasion for a group of Iraqi women to give voice to their lived experiences of war and to document these voices, adding their subjective perspectives...
With the reauthorization of the 2013 Violence Against Women Act all Title IV higher education institutions will now be required to provide "primary prevention and awareness programs for all incoming students." Yet, more research is needed to find prevention programs that are effective (White House Task Force to Protect Students...
Despite apparently supportive national policies, including nation-wide legalization of home birth and coverage by the national health care system of the costs associated with that option, these births account for less than 1% of all births in the Republic of Ireland. Using data collected during participant observation, both in person...
Books and literature help children and young adults develop language, cognitive, and social skills. Additionally children's literature enables individuals to develop a deeper appreciation for their own, and others' cultures and histories. This thesis analyzes the young adult historical fiction series Dear America, published by Scholastic press, and examines how...
Over two million people experience homelessness in the United States, but homeless people are often marginalized by invisibility and stigmas surrounding poverty within their local communities. This research seeks to amplify the voices of Corvallis area homeless women as a means to understand their everyday lived experiences. Six women residing...
Stories of the Guatemalan Civil War, which lasted from 1960 until 1996, have often focused on only encapsulating the violence indigenous people experienced at the hands of the Guatemalan government and military. Although these stories contributed to the many civil rights organizing and calls for justice that followed, these types...
La presente tesis provee una crítica al Programa de Educación para la Sexualidad y Construcción de Ciudadanía en Colombia y examina contribuciones teóricas de pedagogías feministas, Queer y pedagogías críticas con el fin de crear alternativas para la práctica de una educación sexual fundamentada en la justicia social. El desarrollo...
In the current armed conflicts that have become known to the international community since the sweeping attacks on northern Iraq on Aug. 3, 2014, the Islamic State (ISIS) perpetrated extreme forms of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) against a small ancient ethno-religious conservative Yazidi group. ISIS has used SGBV against...
According to Katherine McKittrick, black women’s geographies reveal and confront geographies of domination that have been erased or considered unworthy of analysis. This thesis positions #SayHerName protests and natural kink/coiled hair within a black women’s geographic analysis suggesting that both body and hair politics provide historical and contemporary geographic clues...
This thesis explores the gendered histories of slavery through the concept of haunting in two neo-slave narrative novels: Toni Morrison’s A Mercy and Octavia Butler’s Kindred. I offer readings of these texts through slavery’s geographic and temporal implications, in order to argue that the logics of antiblackness remain a fundamental...
Indigenous and Latinx communities have always used storytelling to pass along ancestral histories and memories, whether it be through the act of speaking, performing or other types of artwork. This thesis examines the ways that queer Latinx artists are retelling the stories that have been mistold to erase, repress and...
Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), the most common childhood neurological disorder in the United States, also affects grown women. But girls with ADHD, who tend towards symptoms of inattentiveness, often go undiagnosed until young adulthood. This is because (a) their symptoms are less obvious than the hyperactivity common in ADHD boys, and...
Women being elected into public office, a recent occurrence, raises questions and concerns about what it means to have women in office. Concerns include: policy differences women in office might produce, changing the image of what it means to be a leader, and ultimately the fear of a shifting society....
This thesis on online communities for sex buyers seeks to understand questions such as “what can we learn from online communities for sex buyers?” We explore these issues with the framework of Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis and through the use of qualitative research of both the review boards at Punternet...
School is a hostile environment for many LGBTQ youth. Teachers participate, consciously or unconsciously, in perpetuating oppressive heteronormative expectations in the classroom both through the overt and covert curriculum. Yet, pre-service teachers are under-trained about questions related to gender and sexuality during their teacher preparation. This qualitative study explores the...
Recent studies have shown that queer, trans, and non-binary students alike are experiencing sexual assault at higher rates than their heterosexual, cisgender counterparts (Cantor et al. IV). While conversations surrounding university sexual assault education and prevention have increased in recent years, this disparity suggests that not enough is being done...
Despite the now common usage of the term “girl”, there has been little call for pause and deeper analysis into what we actually mean when we use this term. In particular, animated film provides a wide scope of media texts that claim to focus on girlhood; but how do we...
The purpose of this study is to critically analyze whether India’s National Population Policy of 2000 represents a paradigm shift in terms of how the nation-state conceptualizes and address population growth through formal population policy. Analyzed through transnational feminist theory, this study employed political discourse analysis as the research method....
In this thesis, I deconstruct strategies of support for the LGBTQ youth of my home community,the Inland Empire. I call on Foucauldian understandings of discourse, knowledge, and power to analyze the existing support networks for LGBTQ youth in the Inland Empire. Gloria Anzaldúa’s theories of Nepantla and Nepantlera, and AnaLouise...
The LGBTQ population is widely recognized as an at-risk demographic—as a result ofstigma, studies report sexual and gender minorities experience elevated risk for depression,suicide, anxiety, and substance abuse, as well as greater exposure to sexual, physical, andinterpersonal violence (Logie 1244). Asexuality, a marginalized population traditionallyexcluded from the LGBTQ acronym, poses...
While the contemporary movement against sexual and domestic violence has roots in radical, feminist theory and anti-state, community-based modes of resistance, over the past several decades, advocates and activists have increasingly turned to corporations and the state for support through the non-profit, prison, and medical industrial complexes. This acceptance of...
Women spend substantially more time on unpaid care work than men; they spend a vital part of the day trying to meet the social expectations of their domestic and reproductive roles. The goal of this study is to examine Nigerian women’s experience of housework as a form of unpaid labor....
This thesis offers a feminist perspective on the stories and representations of Hijra individuals and gender non-conforming communities in Bangladesh. It considers these stories for how they represent resistance to dominant gender normative discourses and cultural values in Bangladesh, and I explore how they figure both the struggles and survivals...
Informed by feminist and queer theories, this thesis provides an alternate reading of selected narratives from the Hindu epic “Mahabharata”. By queering the narratives from the epic, this thesis highlights the existence of fluid notions of sexuality and gender present within Hindu religious texts. In doing so, the study aims...
This study looks at how gendered language circulates affect in order to coerce gender binary conformity. I analyze the ways gendered phrases like “sit like a lady”, “don’t be a bitch”, and “man up” communicate binary gender expectations within a U.S. context, and what they have to do with larger...
The trafficking of children is one of the gravest violations of human rights globally today. Every year, hundreds of thousands of girl child are smuggled across borders and sold as mere commodities. There are minimal scholarly works focusing on the girl child and analyzing it from the global trends among...
This Thesis examines Brazil’s political and historical context to explore and understand the logics behind the high rates of violence in our society. It focuses in education as one of our main vehicles of disseminating knowledge and therefore culture, language and values that might be contributing and perpetuating sexism, racism,...
In the fall 2015, students at the University of Missouri embarked upon an extended series of protests aimed at calling out the University’s failure to address recent racist incidents against Black students and a larger oppressive campus culture. The protests prompted the creation of a student group led largely by...
According to the Girls’ Opportunity Index formulated by Lenhardt, et al, (2016), Brazil is the least favorable country in South America to succeed being born a woman, ranking the 102nd position out of 144 analyzed countries. This macro-level statistic speaks to the present landscape of gender inequality, shaped since the...
Using intersectional, matricentric feminist of color approaches, this study interrogates the particularities of Afghan immigrants' mothering experiences—as one of the hidden facets of their lived experience—in the United States from a life-course perspective. Using a combination of feminist oral historical approaches, semi-structured interviews, and participant observation, this thesis explores the...
In the era of #MeToo, we have learned more about the plight of women in Hollywood as they seek employment as actors. While the recent public conversation about gender and sexualization in Hollywood is robust, few peer-reviewed academic articles examine the actor’s personal experiences of gaining meaningful employment in television...
The cultural and social constructions of gender and sexuality play a major role in shaping an individual’s reproductive agency within the Yoruba society. This thesis suggests the need to apply a reproductive justice framework and transnational feminist theory as alternatives to individual-driven ‘choice’ and reproductive and sexual human rights. In...
In 2016, the Oregon Community Foundation reported that twelve percent of Latinx folks graduated with their bachelor’s and/or master’s degree compared to the 31 percent of White counterparts (Latinos in Oregon Report, 2016). While Latinx students continue to be the largest minority in the United States, Latinx students enroll in...
This thesis focuses on performances of masculinity by British Royal Flying Corps (RFC) airmen in the charged landscape of the First World War prisoner of war (POW) camp. I examine how captive airmen coped with imprisonment by reasserting the familiar homosocial communities of pre-capture squadron life, particularly through practices associated...
This work examines the decolonial potential of queer and Two-Spirit Indigenous storytelling by telling stories using graphic novel chapters, literary analysis, and graphic analysis. I explore the importance of stories in defining us as individuals, as peoples, and as humans. As a mixed-race Indigenous (unregistered Cherokee) transwoman, I engage with...
This project is a personal exploration of happiness and optimism through the lens of a queer and transgender subject who experiences gender dysphoria, depression, and suicidality. Taking inspiration from Ann Cvetkovich’s (2012) Depression: A Public Feeling, this work incorporates both analysis of affective theory, especially Lauren Berlant’s theory of cruel...
In their master’s thesis, Mateo Rosales Fertig offers the framework of a Curanderismx soul retrieval ceremony as a method of grappling with queerness and multiraciality in anti-colonial border and Chicanx contexts. From the legacies of Chicana, women of color, and QTPOC feminisms, they write out of the works and theories...
“The system is fucked. Everything needs to change” was stated by Ashley Paige, a professional dominatrix and author in We Too: Essays on Sex Work and Survival, at a book launch event. Paige’s sentiments are poignant and a call to action to all of us. Through this thesis, I will...
This thesis thinks through the ways in which Black and Native storying offer epistemological interventions on neoliberal formations of multiracial identity. I argue that Black and Native storytelling methods and methodologies facilitate rethinking and re/unlearning relationships to the racial and ethnic categories of mixed-race, biracial, and multiracial, as well as...