This study investigates the transitioning terms of lesbian visibility and identity in the distinctive spatio-temporal context of Northampton, Massachusetts in the 1980s. Drawing on interviews with a diversified sampling of lesbian-, bisexual-, and queer-identified participants, I consider the coalescing of two lesbian communal formations – a social community and a social audience – as mediating sites for the interrelations between subculture and dominant culture. Informed by the literatures and methods of queer theory, cultural studies, and feminist film criticism, I examine the 1980s queer crossover from lesbian subcultural separatism to mitigated assimilation by the end of the decade. The 1980s crossover was a constellation of interlocking factors manifested through the entrance into national visibility of gay liberatory and feminist politics, the incorporation of overt lesbian sexuality into Hollywood and independent films, and the surfacing of the conservative and feminist backlashes alongside “Reaganomics.” These converged in an anti-lesbian backlash produced in Northampton in the 1980s through the interrelations between the rapid revitalization of the city’s downtown and the increasing visibility and concentration of the lesbian population. The emergence into public visibility of a lesbian social community and a lesbian social audience in 1980s Northampton prefigured questions about the desirability of a goal of cultural assimilation for lesbian and gay people along with concerns about the role of consumption in the assimilative process that were to become important to LGBT politics in the 1990s and 2000s. In this project, I consider the multidimensional and conflictual aspects of assimilation as well as the gender-specificities of lesbian film consumption and the lesbian Sex Wars as part of the crossover from subcultural separatism to mitigated assimilation. In spite of the strides in the acceptance of the lesbian population in Northampton in the 1980s, I argue that such changes were laden with tensions negotiated through the contradictions between appearances of tolerance and acceptance versus experiences of discrimination and violence. The constellation of factors that manifested in the 1980s queer crossover provided symbolic materials not only for a realignment of lesbian subjectivity, but also for a realignment of heterosexual subjectivity.

This dissertation examines the role of women in post-Soviet Kazakhstan as both productive members of society and the loci of national anxieties that have created fault lines in public opinion, government policy, and international development programs. It explores how Kazakh cultural concepts of ideal womanhood are used to identify categories of women eligible for state support or who become targets of community intervention. These include survivors of domestic violence, unwed young mothers, and “at risk” girls who may strive to fulfill or deviate from the expected Kazakh norms deemed appropriate for their specific life stage. These contested expectations are embodied in national legislation, international human rights programs, and Kazakh civil society. They are implemented by social service officials who provide the aid and who perceive the women involved in them as objects of their reform projects. Ethnographic fieldwork that provided the bulk of the research data was conducted between March 2018 and August 2019 in urban Almaty and provincial cities in southern and eastern Kazakhstan in domestic violence shelters, homes for unwed mothers, and girls’ empowerment programs. This included extended periods of participant observation supplemented by open-ended interviews with activists, crisis shelter directors and employees, and other stakeholders to generate multi-cited case studies. Because media played a significant role, the research incorporated an analysis of relevant Kazakhstani films and plays that highlight the challenges of negotiating ideals of womanhood and motherhood, propriety and martyrdom, which are also central themes animating my text. The research concludes that women in these programs respond to directives from international human rights organizations, national legislation, and changing social mores by deploying and reinterpreting Kazakh life stage ideals of womanhood. In so doing, they illustrate how women’s work and reproductive choices intersect with the goals of a national state, a changing Kazakh society, and the global discourse on women’s rights. As a contribution to the larger discourse on identity and citizenship in post-Soviet states, gender, Islam, and contemporary Kazakhstan, this study illustrates how “women’s issues” remain an unusually sensitive barometer of social values where the implicit becomes the explicit. / 2024-03-04T00:00:00Z

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Populism is widely understood to be a masculine style of politics due to its antagonistic and aggressive nature. Populism often centers a “strong leader” who is personable, tough, and willing to fight to protect “the people” from the threats posed by “the elite.” Gender politics literature tells us that people are less likely to see women as strong leaders, and generally want women to engage in a more civil version of politics. Literature on populism also tells us that populist politicians are predominantly male and will also use masculinity as political currency to show dominance over competitors. These facts would suggest that women cannot be successful using the populist style, but female politicians Kari Lake and Marjorie Taylor Greene have built formidable bases using a Trumpian populist style. This thesis intends to explain this apparent paradox by bridging the gap between gender politics literature and populist literature. I argue that female populist politicians make appeals to motherhood and religion in order to legitimize their roles as populist protectors and to connect to conservative feminine identity.

This thesis set out to explore how, through a radical feminist lens and using the theory of a continuum of violence by Dr. Liz Kelly, the Everyday Sexism Project community thinks about the issue of everyday sexism, how they view everyday sexism in relation to larger, more severe acts of sexist violence, and whether they see potential for change and/or eradication of the former. The analysis discovered that there is strong cognitive dissonance (mental discomfort that results from holding two conflicting beliefs, values, or attitudes) in how the community speaks about the impact of everyday sexism has had on them. It also found that the frequency of acts, and not the severity, should be more of a focal point when discussing everyday sexism and its relation to larger acts of sexist violence. It also found that, generally speaking, the community is not hopeful for change but does desire it and posit ways to achieve it.

This dissertation examines Black women’s sexual narratives in contemporary Soul music. Through a close analysis of various songs, videos, and images from Erykah Badu, Jill Scott, Syd Bennett, and Ari Lennox this research explores the relationship between sexual narratives in contemporary-Soul music and African social and spiritual thought and practice. I examine Black women’s eroticism as a production and reflection of African pleasure, sexuality, and intimacy. This work employs Afrocentricity as a methodological tool to engage with sexual expressions that center on African historical, social, political, and social phenomena. Location theory, Womanism, and ADQT (Afrocentric Decolonizing Queer Theory) provide a framework for interrogating Afrocentric erotic politics historically and contemporarily through patterns of traditional practices of intimacy and cultural productions of sexuality. Ethnographic Content Analysis and Iconography are utilized to examine the artists' work in their discography, interviews, photographs, and social media content. The heart of this work examines how Soul as a cultural symbol and aesthetic can be used as a tool for Black women in this context to acquire agency through freely exploring eroticism. Through analysis of Erykah, Jill, Syd, and Ari, this research develops an ongoing conversation about Black Americans’ relationship with the erotic and its role in African culture and spirituality. Ultimately this research demonstrates the importance of Black women’s erotic expression and how this importance reflects a more extensive conversation of what sexual expression means to African people. Through analyzing these artists' iconography and lyricism, this work demonstrates how erotic expressions in Soul are a self-affirming, self-determining, agentic force of African life. / Africology and African American Studies