abstract: This project will attempt to supplement the current registry of lesbian inquiry in literature by exploring a very specific topos important to the Modern era: woman and her intellect. Under this umbrella, the project will perform two tasks: First, it will argue that the Modern turn that accentuates what I call negative valence mimesis is a moment of change that enables the general public to perceive lesbianism in representations of women that before, perhaps, remained unacknowledged. And, second, that the intersection of thought and resistance to heteronormative structures, such as heterosexual desire/sex, childbirth, marriage, religion, feminine performance, generate topoi of lesbianism that lesbian studies should continuously critique in order to index the myriad and creative ways through which fictional representations of women have evaded their proper roles in society. The two tasks above will be performed amidst the backdrop of a crucial moment in history in which lesbianism jumped from fiction to fact through the publication and obscenity trial of Radclyffe Hall's novel, The Well of Loneliness. Deconstructive feminist and queer inquiry of under-researched novels by women from the UK and the US written within the decade surrounding the trial reveals the possibilities of lesbianism in novels where the protagonists' investment in heteronormativity has remained unquestioned. In those texts where the protagonists have been questioned, the analysis of lesbianism will be delved into more deeply in order to illustrate new ways of reading these texts. I will focus on women writers who, as Terry Castle suggests, "both usurped and deepened the [lesbian] genre" with the arrival of the new century (Literature 29). It is my attempt to combat heteronormativity through a more positive approach. As Michael Warner asserts, "heteronormativity can be overcome only by actively imagining a necessarily and desirably queer world" (xvi). This is not to say this study will be all roses and no thorns; a desirably queer world is not about a wish for an utopia. For this project, it is about rigorously engaging in the lesbianism of literature while acknowledging how a lesbian reading, a reading for lesbianism, can continue to both expand and enrich the critical tradition of a text and the customary interpretation of various characters. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. English 2012

In a media landscape that continues to be characterized by heteronormativity, queer female audiences are continuously finding ways to make popular texts their own. Previous scholarship on queer female reception has largely approached queer meaning-making as a text-audience relationship, a perspective which disregards the position of films as commodities surrounded by an extensive promotional network. This thesis investigates the role of commodification in the process of queer meaning-making in popular film through a reception study of the film Ocean’s 8 (Gary Ross, 2018). Using a netnographic method that places social media reception in dialogue with the film and its promotional materials, it challenges the idea that queer meaning is always either embedded in the film text or brought in by the audience “(in)appropriating” the text. Rather, the film and its promotional context create an ambiguity that allows queer readings to flow freely, and actively interacts with a pre-existing Cate Blanchett-as-lesbian fantasy amongst audiences to steer those readings in particular directions. Queer female meaning-making, then, is far from a one-directional action, but rather a complex and constant renegotiation of queerness between commercial actors and audiences alike.

The purpose of this review is to evaluate the methodology of past and present research with female homosexuals and then to summarize the current state of knowledge in psychology and psychiatry. The data presented in this review have been derived predominantly from material abstracted in the Medicus Index (1900-1976) and Psychology Abstracts (1927-1976). This reviewer has established specific criteria by which all studies throughout this literature review will be examined. These are: sample size, sampling of experimental control groups, variable controlled (age, education, etc), how sexual orientation was determined, and tests and questionnaires employed, their reliability, validity, administration, and interpretation. It has been shown that both the clinical and nonclinical research populations are extremely biased. Historically and currently, the clinical researchers have utilized small and unspecified populations. This type of research is usually in the form of case studies and has been psychoanalytically oriented. Currently, clinical researchers have attempted to overcome the methodological problems by using control groups, standardized tests, statistical analysis of data, etc. However, adequate clinical studies have been few and their findings highly tentative. The most serious problem with the clinical research is sampling. Nonclinical research on the other hand, has used samples comprised of young, white, educated and middle class subjects. Researchers have attempted to find objective criteria that would discriminate between heterosexual and homosexual women, using projective techniques and self-report inventories, but their results are inconclusive. Data have shown, however, that there are significant differences between “butch” and “fem” lesbians and male homosexuals. Future research will need to determine the sex role "preference of both the homo sexual and heterosexual groups, otherwise differences between the two groups may be the result of a larger proportion of “butch” lesbians being compared to "fem" heterosexuals. The etiology of female homosexuality has been an enduring topic in psychology and psychiatry. To date, researchers have not found any genetic or hormonal characteristics associated with the phenomenon of homosexuality in women. Research focusing on the psychodynamic aspects of homosexuality have found that lesbians have poorer relationships with both parents, experience more interparent friction and less family security, feel less feminine, and are less accepting of the feminine role then heterosexual women. Although these are statistically significant differences between heterosexual and homosexual women it is unknown how, or even whether they affect the development of homosexuality. Female homosexuality has been considered by many mental health professionals as a disease, neurosis, or degenerative condition. The data have failed to show that female homosexuals are less well-adjusted then their heterosexual controls. The treatment of female homosexuality has almost been completely neglected. The majority of the literature has reported on the techniques and theories used on male homosexuals. The few studies that have used female homosexuals are methodologically inadequate. They did not use control groups, standardized instruments to measure the degree of change of sexual orientation, or, adequate follow-up studies. Extensive research needs to be completed to determine if the techniques and theories derived from the treatment of male homosexuals are applicable to lesbians. Considerable more research in the areas of etiology, diagnosis, and treatment of female homosexuality needs to be completed before any tentative statements can be made.

No description available.

No description available.

This research studies the interaction between sex role identity, sexual preference and intrapersonal competence. The subjects were 46 homosexual and 30 heterosexual white, single women of the Central Florida area. Subjects were classified as Masculine, Feminine, Androgynous or Undifferentiated using the Bem Sex Role Inventory. Intrapersonal Competence was measured using the Personal Adjustment, Self Confidence and Self Control scales of the Adjective Check List. A Two-way Analysis of Variance showed no significant main effects for sex role or sexual orientation. Post hoc analysis of the three Intrapersonal Competence subscales indicated that the Androgynous and Masculine women were higher in self confidence than the Feminine and Undifferentiated women. When the two groups, Masculine-Androgynous and Feminine-Undifferentiated were analyzed by homosexual and heterosexual groups using a 2 X 2 Chi-square procedure, a significant association was found between sex role categorization and sexual orientation. It is believed that future studies would benefit from including the bisexual sexual preference, the effects of coupling, and a measure of the effects of active involvement in the feminist movement. It is the opinion of this writer that society is in flux on these issues and a longitudinal study is also needed for a fuller assessment.

This study concerns the practices of woman/woman marriage among the Gikuyu of Kenya. Though widely practiced, such marriages have seldom been studied, and virtually not at all among the Gikuyu. Such practices had been only lightly, and inadequately, addressed over five decades ago by Leakey (1938/1977). This study, designed as preliminary fieldwork, explores Gikuyu woman/woman marriage practices to gain useful basic information to provide a point of entry for future research. In this study I address shortcomings of previous research on woman/woman marriages, such as the prevalent emphasis on reductionist explanations for their occurrences. On the basis of preliminary fieldwork among Gikuyu women engaged in these practices, and my experiences as a member of Gikuyu society, I assert that women have much greater latitude in choosing how and why they participate in woman/woman marriages than the literature suggests. Such marriages take diverse, and often complex forms that are not adequately addressed by single-explanation definitions or descriptions. Secondly, the study attempts to locate a space for these practices in the feminist and family studies literatures, while questioning the absence of woman/woman marriages from both arenas of discourse. I argue that the exclusion of woman/woman marriages from feminist discourse and the family studies literatures is not an accident, as both discourses have marginalized voices from so-called "third world" locations. / Master of Science

This thesis foregrounds a question unanswered in queer theory�s account of the ongoing reproduction of heteronormativity. In Gender Trouble, Judith Butler asks "From where does the performative draw its force, and what happens to the performative whose task it is to undo" that discursively legitimated enacting? (Bodies That Matter 224-5). While queer theory offers a compelling account of how the normative fictions of identity privilege heterosexuality, the first part of Butler�s question remains relatively under-theorised. This thesis addresses this gap and argues that to understand the source of performative authority, we must address the intimate relationship between gay identity and commodity culture. Thus, I investigate the connections between the marketing industry, an historically politicised gay press, and a lesbian and gay politics imagined through the paradigm of identity, and argue that they combine in a citational feedback loop to performatively produce gay identity as the "ideal consumer." I then undertake case studies of two media texts, the website Gay.com and the television series Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, in order to demonstrate how the white, male, middle-class gay aesthete functions hegemonically as gayness in culture. My analysis then turns to the second part of Butler�s question -"what happens to the performative whose task it is to undo?"- and examines the consequences of the absence of an analysis of commodity culture for the notion of queer. To that end, I suggest that alongside their repetitions of gay normativity, both Gay.com and Queer Eye perform queer possibility. However, the case studies I undertake, along with the critical reception of Queer Eye and the internet technologies behind Gay.com, suggests that these media texts fall short of the promise of queerness. This apparent failure to disturb heteronormative reproduction is connected in these critiques to each text�s commercial imperatives. This thesis argues that such critiques tend to rely on determinations of the authenticity of queer performance, and emphasise veracity over queer theory�s potential to exploit the critical potential of deliberate indeterminacy. I argue, instead, that a key part of queer theory�s contingency is its capacity to respond to the changing performative contexts of the normative repetitions it seeks to undo. To put this more simply: If consumer desire defines contemporary gayness, then it is with consumer desire that queer theory must contend. It is precisely the indeterminacy of queer that enables such shifts in its strategies of subversion. Recognition of how queer�s indeterminacy enables those subversive moves returns us to the importance to queer theory of a sustained consideration of the constitutive capacities of commodity culture. What I suggest in this thesis is that if we do no ask "From where does the performance draw its force?" then we cannot answer "And what happens to the performative whose task it is to undo?" the normative framework of identity.

<p>The means that the Swedish State has to legitimize and standardize different perspectives of women and their sexuality is significant. Persecution of gender and sexuality is today something that can grant refugee status according to the Swedish Aliens Act. By studying the documents that forestall the amendment of the laws is it possible to unveil the concept and ideas about women sexuality that the state manifests and reproduces through these laws and official documents.</p><p>The aim of this essay is to look upon the sexual policy as it occurs in official the documents that deal with lesbian refugees. The study cover and maps present research on this group of women and gives an answer to how norms about women sexuality are expressed in these documents.</p><p>Throughout the survey of the research field not much previous research was found, therefore even research that only partly covers the field is included and reviewed.</p><p>As method a detailed reading of the official documents and a discourse analysis with it’s emphasize on theoretical themes like gender and sexuality, lesbianism and state feminism, was made. Lesbians are missing in the official state documents and the one time the Migration Board’s documents refer to lesbians they are ascribed to as gender and not as sexuality.</p><p>The essay concludes that the confusion about the category gender and the category sexuality has the result that the lesbians become invisible. Lesbians tend throughout the material to be ascribed to the category gender and gay men to the category sexuality.</p><p>The standardized perspective and normative discourse that has been found in the official documents has the effect that women is looked a pound as gender and therefore, by the same logic loose their sexuality. In this way the Swedish State discriminates lesbian.</p><p>Another conclusion is that the Swedish State has a somewhat ambivalence perspective on their own work on promoting gender equality.</p>

This thesis foregrounds a question unanswered in queer theory�s account of the ongoing reproduction of heteronormativity. In Gender Trouble, Judith Butler asks "From where does the performative draw its force, and what happens to the performative whose task it is to undo" that discursively legitimated enacting? (Bodies That Matter 224-5). While queer theory offers a compelling account of how the normative fictions of identity privilege heterosexuality, the first part of Butler�s question remains relatively under-theorised. This thesis addresses this gap and argues that to understand the source of performative authority, we must address the intimate relationship between gay identity and commodity culture. Thus, I investigate the connections between the marketing industry, an historically politicised gay press, and a lesbian and gay politics imagined through the paradigm of identity, and argue that they combine in a citational feedback loop to performatively produce gay identity as the "ideal consumer." I then undertake case studies of two media texts, the website Gay.com and the television series Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, in order to demonstrate how the white, male, middle-class gay aesthete functions hegemonically as gayness in culture. My analysis then turns to the second part of Butler�s question -"what happens to the performative whose task it is to undo?"- and examines the consequences of the absence of an analysis of commodity culture for the notion of queer. To that end, I suggest that alongside their repetitions of gay normativity, both Gay.com and Queer Eye perform queer possibility. However, the case studies I undertake, along with the critical reception of Queer Eye and the internet technologies behind Gay.com, suggests that these media texts fall short of the promise of queerness. This apparent failure to disturb heteronormative reproduction is connected in these critiques to each text�s commercial imperatives. This thesis argues that such critiques tend to rely on determinations of the authenticity of queer performance, and emphasise veracity over queer theory�s potential to exploit the critical potential of deliberate indeterminacy. I argue, instead, that a key part of queer theory�s contingency is its capacity to respond to the changing performative contexts of the normative repetitions it seeks to undo. To put this more simply: If consumer desire defines contemporary gayness, then it is with consumer desire that queer theory must contend. It is precisely the indeterminacy of queer that enables such shifts in its strategies of subversion. Recognition of how queer�s indeterminacy enables those subversive moves returns us to the importance to queer theory of a sustained consideration of the constitutive capacities of commodity culture. What I suggest in this thesis is that if we do no ask "From where does the performance draw its force?" then we cannot answer "And what happens to the performative whose task it is to undo?" the normative framework of identity.