Browsing by Subject "Feminist"
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Item Academe Maid Possible: The Lived Experiences of Six Women Employed as Custodial Workers at a Research Extensive University Located in the Southwest(2013-03-14) Petitt, BeckyThis qualitative study sought to understand the ways classism, as it intersects with racism and sexism, affects how low wage-earning women negotiate their work world in the academy and the way the academy functions to create, maintain, and reproduce the context within which oppression is able to emerge. Field research took place at State University, a pseudonym for a Land Grant, Research Extensive institution located in the Southwest. Through the lenses of critical theory and critical feminist theory the stories of six women employed as custodial workers, nine administrators employed at State University, and two State University employees involved in the community's Living Wage initiative, were analyzed. The lives of women employed as custodial workers are largely unremarked and undocumented, and the ways in which their work serves to make the academy possible have been unacknowledged. This study found that the job of cleaning in the traditional higher education environment is laced with challenges. The nature of the academy, the ethos and operation of State University, and the interlocking systems of classism, racism and sexism fuse together arrangements of power that simultaneously obliterate and render these women agonizingly visible through systems of oppression. In an environment where honor is conferred upon "the educated," the custodial participants, whose opportunities were limited due to their social locations, exist on the border of the academy. Their marginality is reinforced daily, as they are in constant contact with higher-status individuals who perform raced, classed, and gendered behaviors that are woven into the fabric of our society. The study also found that the custodial participants and the university administrators are locked in a relationship of mutual distrust. State University administrators do not trust the custodians and the custodians do not trust State University administrators. Furthermore, existing at both the literal and metaphorical "bottom" of the organization, custodians are among the first to feel the impact of major institutional shifts, such as increases in student and faculty bodies, and large-scale economic recovery initiatives. Additionally, I reconceptualize the notion of "borrowed power" to name the impermanence of the authority which Black custodial supervisors, and people of color in general, hold in our racialized society. Finally, the data decidedly point to White male students as primary actors and architects of the overtly hostile work environment within which the women work. The custodial participants negotiate these challenges with facility. They find creative ways to resist and to negotiate the obstacles they face. Unfortunately, they also occasionally internalize negative messages and are complicit in their marginality. Administrators who participated in the study were aware of these conditions, but remained silent on the issue of resolution. Through various intentional (if unconscious) State University policies, practices, rules, norms, behaviors, and structures that sometimes act in insidious, hidden ways, the dominant groups? interests continue to be pursued while the interests, needs, and even the very presence of marginal members is ignored. Thus, systems of domination and subordination are produced, reproduced, validated, and institutionalized in the academy. This process is presented in a Conceptual Map of How Systems of Oppression Flourish and are Re/produced in the Academy. The findings of this study contribute to existing bodies of knowledge that discuss racial, gender, and economic inequality. Yet it opens new lines of inquiry into the overlapping conditions of gender, racial, and economic marginality as they impact the lives of women custodial workers in the academy. The findings issue a clarion call for institutions of higher education, one of our nation?s longstanding and respected foci of social change, to tap into its available expertise to end oppression, beginning in its own "backyard."Item Collage, bodybuilding and the male nude(2015-12) Schwinn, Erin Michelle; Sawyer, Margo, 1958-; Sutherland, DanielIn my work I am trying to put together and understand what is a man from a female viewpoint. To turn the gaze around where man is the observed and woman the observer is to challenge a power dynamic that has been in place for so long it seems the natural way for things to be. A lot has been done to address this inequality; women have reclaimed the right to their own bodies and the male nude as dependent on the gaze of another has been introduced by the gay male artist. To observe and define the other is a way to also understand and clarify our own identities. To see the male nude through a female lens is to open up a whole new way of looking at the world, one that accounts not simply for what we see but for who is doing the seeing.Item Examining women's experiences of sport participation and (dis)empowerment(2015-05) Lim, So Youn; Dixon, Marlene A., 1970-; Todd, Janice; Holahan, Carole; Jin, Su-hyun; Green, ChrisSport has demonstrated the capacity to generate positive personal change for girls and women (e.g., Blinde, Taub, & Han, 2001; Brandy, 2005). While it is suggested that women’s participation in sport can empower them and provide a safe place for them to be themselves, sport experiences can also reinforce the traditional gender roles and expectations and make women feel powerless (e.g., Brace-Govan, 2004; Wheaton & Tomlinson, 1998). The inconsistency of outcomes from women’s sport experiences suggests that sport does not automatically result in positive outcomes (Chalip, 2006; Green, 2008). Therefore, this study utilizes Zimmerman’s framework of Psychological Empowerment, empowerment at the individual level of analysis (Zimmerman, 1995), to explore the sport experiences of women and the empowerment processes and outcomes associated with those experiences. By utilizing the framework, this study aimed to examine how sport experiences affected female participants’ daily lives across different life domains and to identify which attributes of these sport experiences facilitated women’s empowerment or disempowerment. To understand how sport experiences relevant to empowerment, this study utilized an interpretive approach. Twenty three Korean female sport participants were interviewed in-depth using a semi-structured interview technique with probing. The interviewees were asked about their backgrounds of sport participation and then described their sport experiences that they think have strengthened and weakened their capabilities. As results, nearly all the components and elements of the framework were indicated in the interview data. Both empowering and disempowering outcomes and sport elements associated with the outcomes were identified. Some of the women’s empowerment was limited to the sport context, while others infiltrated other life domains such as at work, school, or home. The findings in this study suggest to re-think the conceptualization and boundary condition of Zimmerman’s empowerment framework by proposing two concepts of individual-level empowerment: self empowerment and action empowerment.Item Modalities of freedom : toward a politic of joy in Black feminist comedic performance in 20th and 21st century U.S.A.(2014-05) Wood, Katelyn Hale; Jones, Omi Osun Joni L., 1955-; Canning, Charlotte, 1964-Modalities of Freedom argues that comedy and the laughter it ignites is a vital component of feminist and anti-racist community building. The chapters of my dissertation analyze the work of three Black standup comedians from the United States: Wanda Sykes, Jackie Mabley and Mo’Nique. These three women have an outsized presence in standup comedy, but have been chronically underrepresented in academic literature despite their nuanced, complex and emboldening performance styles. I claim that their particular brands of humor are modalities of freedom. That is, under varying social, temporal and cultural contexts, Sykes, Mabley and Mo’Nique resist and expose marginalization and oppression. In turn, their comedic material and the act of laughter bond their audiences and generate anti-racist/feminist coalitions. The first chapter of my dissertation shows how Wanda Sykes employs comedic performance to “crack up” white supremacist historical narratives. That is, Sykes’ comedy functions as historiographical intervention that not only critiques history, but also moves Black lesbian women from silenced subjects to active (re)creators of United States’ collective memory. My chapter on Jackie “Moms” Mabley claims that Mabley’s legacy has been misremembered in both mainstream and scholarly texts. Employing Black queer theoretical frameworks, I trace how Mabley’s standup solidified important precedents for Black female comics in contemporary U.S. performance and generated specific modalities of freedom unique to Black feminist humor. The final chapter of my dissertation analyzes Mo’Nique’s 2007 documentary I Coulda Been Your Cellmate. This film is a live taping of Mo’Nique performing for convicts at the Ohio Reformatory for Women. Mo’Nique’s performance articulates the multiplicities of identity, and builds feminist community across difference. Mo’Nique and the women in the audience demonstrate how laughter is an intimate survival strategy and a freeing act even while under the restriction of state power. In short, my dissertation is an effort to validate how laughter can harness and express the complexities of Black feminist lives, and be a productive site for social change and stability.Item No bad memories : a feminist, critical design approach to video game histories(2014-05) Weil, Rachel Simone; Lee, GloriaCertain unique sights and sounds of video games from the 1980s and 1990s have been codified as a retro game style, celebrated by collectors, historians, and game developers alike. In this report, I argue that this nostalgic celebration has escaped critical scrutiny and in particular omits the diverse experiences of girls and women who may have been alienated by the tough, intimidating nature of a twentieth-century video-game culture that was primarily created by and for boys. Indeed, attempts to attract girls to gaming, such as the 1990s girls' game movement, are usually criticized in or absent from mainstream video-game histories, and girly video games are rarely viewed with the same nostalgic fondness as games like Super Mario Bros. This condition points to a larger cultural practice of trivializing media for girls and, by extension, girlhood and girls themselves. My critical design response to this condition has been twofold. First, I have recuperated and resituated twentieth-century girly games as collectible, valuable, and nostalgic, thereby subverting conventional historical narratives and suggesting that these games have inherent cultural value. Second, I have created new works that reimagine 8-bit style as an expression of nostalgia for twentieth-century girlhood rather than for twentieth-century boyhood. This report contains documentation of some relevant projects I have undertaken, such as the creation of a video-game museum and an 8-bit video game called Electronic Sweet-N Fun Fortune Teller. In these projects and in future works, I hope to disrupt dominant narratives about video game history and nostalgia that continue to marginalize and trivialize girls' and women's experiences and participation in contemporary game cultures.Item There’s more to their story : portraits about the everyday classroom lives of Mexican-origin teen mothers at an alternative school(2016-05) Reyes, Ganiva; Brown, Keffrelyn D.; Urrieta, Luis; Heinzelman, Susan S.; De Lissovoy, Noah; Adair, JenniferThere’s more to their story is a qualitative study that examines the pedagogical interactions of care and support that unfold between teachers and students within an alternative school located along the U.S./Mexico border. More specifically, I pay close attention to the interactions between teachers and mothering students of Mexican-origin, and how teachers and students perceive the notion of “care,” over the course of one academic year in three different classrooms. Drawing from theories of care, Chicana feminist theories, and culturally relevant pedagogy, and integrating Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot’s portraiture methodology in my research design, I assemble portraits that zoom in on the detailed pedagogical strategies teachers use to connect with mothering students. The main findings that emerged from the portraits are the following: (1) the academic and personal interactions of care and support that unfolded between the teachers and the mothering students contributed to the students’ sense of belonging in the school, thereby enabling them to be positioned as “model” students and “good” mothers who are “mature” and full of potential to pursue higher education (this is in contrast to their prior schooling experiences in which they were known as “bad” students or “troublemakers”); (2) the family-centric structure of the alternative school allowed for teachers to find the support they needed to provide the care necessary for mothering students to construct a pro-school ethos; (3) although interactions of care and support are exhibited, there are taken-for-granted gendered dynamics that play out in the classroom that curtail further possibility for students to redefine their identities in transformative ways; (4) in their quest to be supportive and caring to students, the teachers felt underprepared to help their students deal with complex issues like gender discrimination, sexuality, and gender violence. This study makes visible structures we take for granted by centering the educational experiences of Latina mothering teens. This is important work not just because of what we can learn about how structures shape teachers’ ability to do care work, but it also fills in the gaps of what is known about the needs of Mexican origin youth who live along the U.S./Mexico border, and for Latina mothering students more specifically.