Browsing by Subject "Gender studies"
Now showing 1 - 10 of 10
Results Per Page
Sort Options
Item Constructing Afro-Cuban womanhood : race, gender, and citizenship in Republican-era Cuba, 1902-1958(2011-08) Brunson, Takkara Keosha; Guridy, Frank Andre; Garfield, Seth; Gill, Tiffany; Arroyo, Jossianna; Smith, CheriseThis dissertation explores continuities and transformations in the construction of Afro-Cuban womanhood in Cuba between 1902 and 1958. A dynamic and evolving process, the construction of Afro-Cuban womanhood encompassed the formal and informal practices that multiple individuals—from lawmakers and professionals to intellectuals and activists to workers and their families—established and challenged through public debates and personal interactions in order to negotiate evolving systems of power. The dissertation argues that Afro-Cuban women were integral to the formation of a modern Cuban identity. Studies of pre-revolutionary Cuba dichotomize race and gender in their analyses of citizenship and national identity formation. As such, they devote insufficient attention to the role of Afro-Cuban women in engendering social transformations. The dissertation’s chapters—on patriarchal discourses of racial progress, photographic representations, la mujer negra (the black woman), and feminist, communist, and labor movements—probe how patriarchy and assumptions of black racial inferiority simultaneously informed discourses of citizenship within a society that sought to project itself as a white masculine nation. Additionally, the dissertation examines how Afro-Cuban women’s writings and social activism shaped legal reforms, perceptions of cubanidad (Cuban identity), and Afro-Cuban community formation. The study utilizes a variety of sources: organizational records, letters from women to politicians, photographic representations, periodicals, literature, and labor and education statistics. Engaging the fields of Latin American history, African diaspora studies, gender studies, and visual culture studies, the dissertation maintains that an intersectional analysis of race, gender, and nation is integral to developing a nuanced understanding of the pre-revolutionary era.Item It's just this animal called culture : regulatory codes and resistant action among Dagara female musicians(2011-08) Lawrence, Sidra Meredith; Erlmann, Veit; Seeman, Sonia; Tucker, Joshua; Heinzelman, Susan; Jones, Omi Osun Joni; Falola, ToyinThis dissertation is an exploration of the African female body as a site of regulation and resistance. Based on ethnographic fieldwork among the Dagara of northwestern Ghana, I illustrate how Dagara women are regulated through narratives of exclusion, through the mobilization of the rhetoric of tradition and cultural authenticity, and the racialization of gender ideologies. I then illustrate how Dagara women carve resistant spaces through song writing, dance, and instrumental performance, pointing to how female bodies in performance essay critiques of existent power structures. I argue that Dagara women redefine the terms of their sexed bodies through performance, as they open up new cultural possibilities. By mediating multiple categories of belonging, Dagara women expand the narrow demarcations that are mapped onto their bodies. Such divisive categories of African/Western, black/white, and traditional/modern are challenged through musical performance. Dagara women subvert regulation in ways that are instructive in re-theorizing the possibilities of resistant and transgressive action.Item Little ladies should be seen and not heard: A study of gender bias in the communication of female educational leaders(2012-08) Taylor, Tracy; Mendez-Morse, Sylvia; Claudet, Joseph; Valle, FernandoThe purpose of this study was primarily to investigate the issue of communication in leadership and its impact on female educational leaders. This study has expanded present understanding of the perceptions associated with female leaders and their communication styles. It has also yield information on how female leaders could better address individuals within their organizations. Finally, this study examined the issues of communication based gender bias in leadership and explored possible recommendations which would benefit women, who are currently in, or advancing toward, leadership positions as principal or higher rank. The guiding questions of this research revolved around three central themes. 1. In what ways do female educational leaders perceive that their approach in communication has affected their career advancement opportunities or leadership? 2. In what ways have educational female leaders with atypical communication styles been viewed differently from men or women with typical communication styles? 3. What do aspiring female leaders need to be aware of concerning communication if they seek career advancement opportunities? This study has added to the current body of literature on female leaders and shed light on the possible pitfalls and as well as advantages associated with communication. The need for research in the realm of female educational leaders stems from what was currently available or rather not available, in the field. A good portion of the research continued to investigate “the glass ceiling” and how this invisible barrier was restricting great female leaders. This study clarified how communication styles have restricted these leaders as well as who was holding the key to doors. It was the understanding of this researcher that some of the barriers were the biases associated with gender based communication. Through personal experience and study, the impact of communication on a female leaders’ success or opportunity for advancement must be studied and was studied during this research. The focus on female change agents, leadership communications and perceptions through a critical feminist perspective which was strongly rooted in a qualitative approach was the basis for this study. This research added to the body of knowledge available in female leadership and communication. This study laid the groundwork for women to analyze pit falls that were ahead of them, therefore allowing them the opportunity to adjust their approach or communication style in order to achieve success.Item Mothering a nation : the gendered memory of Kenya’s Mau Mau rebellion(2015-05) Murimi, Wanjira; Richardson, Matt, 1969-; Livermon, XavierThis paper approaches fiction as a site of gendered history and memory and presents two pieces of literature by Kenyan authors - Passbook Number F.47927 by Muthoni Likimani and The Trial of Dedan Kimathi by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o and Micere Githae Mugo - as examples of countermemory production that disrupt dominant and colonially and post-colonially perpetuated narratives of Kenya's fight for independence within the context of the Mau Mau uprisings. I assert that historical fiction can be a medium of challenge and disruption of hegemonically formed reports of history, reweaving into the tapestry of national memory voices forgotten or excised. I posit that this contestation of history and memory through countermemory can be an ethical and feminist project. However, countermemory, much like the history and memory it challenges, does not exist in a vacuum, and is subject to structures of power that may result in its being participant and enacting of oppressive power. Using gender as a lens, I elucidate the ways in which both these pieces participate in and challenge heteropatriarchal notions of manhood and womanhood as resistance strategies for nation building.Item O partigiano, portami via! Men, sexuality, and the Italian Resistance(2016-05) Rabatin, Matthew Ryan; Bini, Daniela, 1945-; Bonifazio, Paola, 1976-; Raffa, Guy; Insana, Lina; Johnson, MichaelThis dissertation examines the representations of sexuality in male-authored narratives, both cinematic and literary, inspired by the Italian Resistance of the Second World War. My theoretical framework builds on the assertion that such narratives question predominant modes of representing the male partisan figure as a heterosexual man to include gay and queer sexualities. I foreground my work through a close reading of Carlo Coccioli’s Il Migliore e l’ultimo, a novel written during Coccioli’s imprisonment that narrates his love for a fellow partisan named Alberto. I proceed to novels and films produced during the 21st century. I engage each work with postmodern theories of writing and filmmaking, which I discuss alongside queer theorists whose studies affirm postmodernism as a site of openness and productivity for queer and eccentric subjects. I demonstrate how these works respond avant la lettre to calls for the revision of Resistance historiography made by official organizations of former partisans, such as Italy’s National Association of Partisans of Italy (A.N.P.I.). The works I examine are the aforementioned "Il Migliore e l’ultimo", Wu Ming’s "Asce di guerra", Bert D’Arragon’s "La libellula", and Ferzan Özpetek’s "Magnifica presenza".Item Sexualized representation of female athletes in the media: How does it affect collegiate female athlete body perceptions?(2012-05) Riebock, Andrea; Bae, Sungwon; Massengale, Dana; Hart, Melanie A.The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of the sexualized representation of female athletes within the media on the body perceptions of collegiate female athletes. The intention of the research was to examine if such effects varied depending on college grade rank, ethnicity, or grade and ethnicity as interrelated factors. Data were collected using questionnaires which consisted of questions addressing the following aspects of self-objectification: (1) body shame, (2) consequences of body shame, and (3) goal of appearance. The only significant effect identified by the statistical analysis was on body shame for ethnicity. Overall, the results suggest that grade level and ethnicity do not play a significant role on the effects of the media on body perceptions.Item The spectacle of transformation : (re)presenting transgender experience through performance(2016-05) O'Rear, Jess; Gutierrez, Laura G., 1968-; Rossen, RebeccaIn December 2015, when The Public Theater cast two cisgender actors in the leading roles of a musical based on the true story of two transgender individuals and their fight against transphobia in the United States, performance makers from across the country spoke out against the casting decision. This outrage joins a chorus of transgender people and allies speaking out against a continuously growing film, television, and theatrical archive of performance which focuses on transgender characters without centering actual transgender people. While media attention on transgender individuals in the United States might be at an all time high, when it comes to representing transgender experiences in performance, transgender-identified characters are repeatedly performed by cisgender actors whose gender identities do not match that of their character. This thesis argues that these casting choices and the critical praise that these performances (termed “cross-gender performances” by the author) garner reinforce cissexist and heteronormative ideology wherein biological sex and gender identity are inextricably linked. Therefore, self-determined gender identity is invalidated and the lives of transgender individuals are devalued in favor of valorizing the “spectacle of transformation” that the cisgender actor undergoes in preparation for the role. This thesis tracks the legacy of these “cross-gender performances” across U.S. film and stage history in order to demonstrate how critical responses to these performances shift attention away from the transgender character and onto the body of the cisgender actor. After tracing this legacy from the late 19th century theatrical stage and late 20th century Hollywood to early 21st-century Broadway, this thesis arrives at the work two contemporary transgender performance artists, Sean Dorsey and Annie Danger, in order to demonstrate how transgender stories told by transgender performers refutes, reclaims, and repurposes the harmful tropes and stereotypes perpetuated by performances helmed by cisgender directors and producers with cisgender actors for mostly cisgender audiences. Finally, this thesis imagines the revolutionary and liberatory possibilities of finding joy through queer and transgender bodies and experiences, ultimately asserting the value of these lives through their celebratory presence in performance.Item Starke menschen in starken texten - Die darstellung von identitat und geschlecht in elke heidenreichs geschichten und erzahlungen(2012-05) Pilz, Kristina; Grair, Charles A.; McChesney, Anita; Borst, StefanieDer Forschungsbereich der vorliegenden Arbeit ist eine Analyse und Annäherung an das literarische Werk der deutschen Schriftstellerin Elke Heidenreich im Kontext der postfeministischen Debatte.Item Unruly voices : narration of communal memory and the construction of gender and communal identity in Assia Djebar’s Far from Madina(2012-05) Davey, Jennifer Lynne; Spellberg, D. A. (Denise A.); Shirazi, FaeghehAssia Djebar’s Far from Madina retells the stories of the women who appear on the margins of the earliest sources of Islamic history from a contemporary Muslim feminist’s perspective. Djebar uses formal elements of early Islamic historiography and relies upon classical Sunni sources. These techniques place her novel in conversation with classical Islamic tradition and bring legitimacy to her subversive project which aims to shift the boundaries of that canon. Though crafted in relation to classical sources, Djebar’s critique of gender identity is also addressed to the discourses and institutions of Islamic authority that evolved over the centuries and that continue to delineate narrow roles for women, up to and including contemporary regimes. In chapter one I argue that by grounding her critique of circulating discourses on Muslim women within a project that appropriates canonical Sunni historiography, Djebar refuses the disjunction between feminism and Islam, critiquing normative Islamic discourse on women in contemporary Algeria without framing the conflict in terms of an East/West or a religious/secular binary. Chapter two examines Djebar’s treatment of Fatima in particular. I consider Djebar’s selection of classical sources and compare the earliest canonical Sunni renderings of Fatima and those found in the novel. I argue that the vision of empowered women in the first Muslim community posited in Far from Madina destabilizes the ideal of gender identity constructed in early Islamic historiography. Far from Madina focuses on the moment after the death of Muhammad when Muslims were left to interpret their scripture and recall their Prophet’s words and deeds. Djebar constructs the novel around the question of what role Muslim women would play in this process, a move which foregrounds her own choice to write the novel and embrace her role as witness and transmitter of the stories of these early women. Chapter three examines the reflexive character of Far from Madina and considers how Djebar’s narrative strategies and hermeneutical approach facilitate the articulation of identity through difference. I argue that the narrative is Djebar’s performance of contemporary Muslim identity and an example of “lived Islam.”Item Warriors of the classroom : liberatory teaching practices in low-income settings in Brazil(2014-05) Lisboa de Sousa, Andréia; Foster, Kevin Michael, 1969-; Urrieta, Luis; Jones, Omi Osun Joni L.; Valenzuela, Angela; Brown, Anthony L; Paixão, Marcelo; Rossatto, CesarThis study is based on Black female high school teachers’ experiences in Salvador, Bahia/Brazil, as they have adopted African Diasporic curricula and attempted to install counter-hegemonic teaching practices that empower Black and other low-income students. I draw on my experience as a working-class, Black female teacher and on extensive fieldwork with teachers who were recognized by their communities for their commitment to Black liberatory practices and educational activism. Their practices illuminate creative strategies to address issue of race, gender and class within curricula, teaching and classroom’s pedagogical practices. I argue that the educators of this study, although their voices still remain largely invisible within mainstream curricula design, shed light on the ways schooling settings become a “site” of racial scripts and alternative racial alterities. My research has been guided by a multipronged theoretical approach that includes: a) Critical Pedagogy; b) Critical Race Theory (CRT); c) Black Feminist Theory (specifically regarding Black women’s role in creating alternative forms of resistance to address curriculum materials); d) an African Diasporic framework that contextualizes the Brazilian curricula reforms within the global formations of race, class, gender and spirituality. This study is heavily ethnographic and includes a two-year field work in a predominately low-income school, named as Quilombo High. After six months of observation across campus, I worked with five Black female teachers in particular. I also interviewed students, and administrated a survey to students. Archival research helped to provide a historical context in which the curricula reform has been discussed and implemented. I studied the Ministry of Education and the State Department of Education policies designed to carry out the new curriculum legislation, as well as the political landscape in which it took place. This research is part of a larger project that aims to foster and give visibility to alternative pedagogical practices deployed by Black educators to counter hegemonic/white supremacist curricula. It is my contention that such counter-hegemonic practices not only to unveil the insidious system of domination embedded in schooling practices. More imperatively, it brings about a resignification of the classroom as a field of resistance and blackness as transformative pedagogy of activists’ educators across the African Diaspora.