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<p>This thesis examines how obscenity can be used either to maintain or to challenge gender stereotypes. Though this thesis focuses on only three texts, the questions raised concerning the relation between obscenity, gender, and subjectivity have wide applications. The primary theory applied here is a feminist poststructuralism which sees gender as socially constructed through language. According to poststructuralism, everything is formed socially or culturally through language. This includes the realities people experience of themselves and their surroundings; therefore, the language used to describe, and ultimately to construct, gender, is extremely important for a feminist critique of gender construction in our patriarchal society. Obscenity plays an often theoretically neglected role in the construction of gendered subjectivities. Drawing attention to the interconnection between obscenity and gender construction is important to feminists for several reasons. Understanding this interconnection may allow feminists not only to undermine stereotypical gender subjectivities, but to create entirely new subject positions.</p> <p>To investigate the relationship between obscenity, gender, and subjectivity, this thesis examines the following texts: Last Exit to Brooklyn, The Women of Brewster Place, and for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf. The Introduction provides a general survey of critical work concerning obscenity and gender construction as well as providing an introduction to poststructural theory. Chapter I examines Last Exit to Brooklyn and raises questions about, among other things, the misappropriation of obscenity by Selby's female characters where women swear but do so in a patriarchal manner. Selby, in privileging violence over language, silences his female characters in his reinscription of the patriarchy. Chapter II examines The Women of Brewster Place and the context Naylor creates which clearly condemns male violence and gives power to female voices. Chapter III examines for colored girls ... and finds several similarities between Naylor's and Shange's use of obscenity. The new subject positions that these two authors create will be investigated.</p> / Master of Arts (MA)

Drawing from gender studies, cultural studies, and feminist technoscience literature, this dissertation employs an interdisciplinary approach to analyze the androcentric imaginaries through which humanoid sex robots ("sexbots") emerge. Specifically, I utilize sexbots to interrogate and reflect on issues such as consent, whiteness, and humanity. By situating sexbots as proxies for feminized and racialized humans, I argue that the production, portrayal, and proliferation of sexbots are reflections of how we treat marginalized people, reifying existing hierarchal power relations. This project begins by analyzing the creation and dissemination of sexbots by popular sex technology ("sextech") companies. Critically surveying published papers, interviews, and research from various sexbot texts, I attend to gendered and racialized discourses of sexbot consent and companionship in human-sexbot relationships. Next, I analyze the overwhelming presence of whiteness with/in sexbots, exploring how anti-Black racism manifests in sexbots, and underscoring how both the present and "future" of sextech remains rooted in the past. Then, I catalog and dissect the published materials and interviews of prominent sextech creators, critically juxtaposing the marketing discourses of sexbots and evincing how both the sextech elite and science journalists—specifically writers I refer to as "sexbot journalists"—influence, change, and inform the meanings of sexbots. Finally, I turn to robots and robot alternatives found in feminist speculative fiction, utilizing these stories as a way of looking elsewhere in order to theorize what is possible for sexbots as well as our (current and future) relationships to these emerging technologies. At its core, this dissertation is an invitation to question white heteropatriarchy mediated through the controversial existence of sexbots. While synthetic women are the ostensible "subjects" of investigation—as well as commodities exchanged by creators and subsequently praised by enthusiasts—it is the "real" feminized and racialized humans who lie at the heart of this project. Through a much-needed feminist intervention, this project offers an in-depth analysis of humanoid sex robots and what they reveal about violence and power in the world around us. / Doctor of Philosophy / Humanoid sex robots ("sexbots") have served as inspiration for countless inventors, scholars, and writers of science fact and fiction. Sexbots, as I intend to show, are also shaped by gendered and racialized imaginaries, leading to their condemnation by feminist and race-critical science and technology scholars. At the same time, sexbots are popularly advertised as suitable alternatives for human companionship, promoted as emerging technologies designed for users uninterested in, or unable to, have sexual relations with "real" or "organic" women. Interrogating the troubling imaginaries behind these synthetic women, I analyze the creation, production, and dissemination of sexbots by popular sex technology ("sextech") companies. Specifically, I use sexbots to explore urgent issues such as humanity, consent, and whiteness. Unable to consent to the acts they are programmed to perform, or combat the abuse directed toward them, sexbots are often associated with sexual and gender-based violence. By situating sexbots as proxies for feminized and racialized humans, this project argues that the production, portrayal, and proliferation of sexbots are reflections of how we treat marginalized people, reinforcing existing problems related to patriarchy, misogyny, and anti-Black racism. While this project is deeply interested in sexbots, its heart is intimately human. Ultimately, I use sexbots to critically reflect on issues of power and violence in our world, as well as to (re)imagine feminist relationships to these emerging technologies.

Discussions of rape inevitability tum to the actions of the victim. This thesis documents some of the ways that American law tends to blame rape victims for the crimes against them, rather than blame the perpetrators of rape. This study contends that such an anti-victim reaction arises because patriarchal anthropology, the philosophy of living which grows out of patriarchal theology, proclaims that women are not only sinful but the very cause of sin. The central focus of this thesis is American case law pertaining to rape, critiqued through the lens of patriarchal anthropology. The cultural bias against the victim extends into the heart of the American legal system. This study seeks to demonstrate that patriarchal anthropology and the normalization of rape culture has created a justice system in which blaming the victim is acceptable, and in which the state of mind, previous actions, or appearance of the victim are inappropriately considered when deciding the innocence or guilt of an alleged rapist.

This thesis is built on the knowledge and experience I learned working with CURB and as a member of L.A. No More Jail, particularly in the ongoing fight against the Mira Loma gender responsive “Women’s Village” Jail expansion, which is part of a larger jail building boom on going in California right now. I write this thesis to engage in the reimagining of justice that abolitionist community organizers, formerly and currently incarcerated people and others who work to challenge the prison industrial complex have been envisioning for California.

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[Truncated abstract] Conservative, incremental and modest approaches to redressing gendered workplace cultures have had limited success in challenging the demographic profile of densely masculinist workplaces. In this thesis I draw on a study of women in police work to argue that combating highly institutionalised, entrenched masculinist practices calls for more than modesty. Indeed the study shows that ambitious, even contentious, recommendations for new procedures can play an important role when the goal is tangible change in cultures where there is an excess of men. In conclusion I posit the need for some bold risk-taking, alongside incremental tactics, if the aim is to change the habits and practices of masculinist organisations . . . This dissertation maps that interventionist process across a four-year period. In assessing the role played by the feminist methodology I analyse what people can learn to see and say about organisational practices, how they participate in or seek to undermine various forms of teamwork, as well as how individual team members display their new understandings and behaviours. I conclude that the techniques for supporting women in authoritarian, densely masculinist workplaces should include some bold and highly visible ‘critical acts’, based on commitment from the top coupled to strongly motivated and highly informed teamwork.

This study explores how futures studies could engage with critical feminist perspectives in an intrinsic manner and what feminist futures might mean. The study brings attention to the less discussed subject of epistemological basis in futures studies. Literature study and semi-structured interviews with practitioners and researchers working with feminist approaches in the fields related to futures development was deployed. I’ve analyzed Wendell Bell’s discussion on epistemological foundation of futures studies from feminist epistemological perspective, and have suggested the potential of feminist epistemology of situated knowledges and partial objectivity for futures studies. Based on the findings from the semi-structured interviews, an alternative feminist scenario set in Swedish society in the year of 2050 in the format of a fiction is presented with the aim to provide a detailed and situated narrative of political and daily lives in feminist futures. The feminist futures scenario should not be understood as the singular feminist future suggested for implementation. The intention is to demonstrate how the visionary dimensions of feminist studies could be articulated in various forms of futures studies, and to open up space for rich debates on envisioning feminist futures. / Denna studie utforskar hur framtidsstudier skulle kunna anta ett kritiskt feministiskt perspektiv på ett djuplodande sätt och vad feministiska framtider skulle kunna innebära. Litteraturstudier och semistrukturerade intervjuer med utövare och forskare som arbetar med feministiska tillvägagångssätt inom fält relaterade till framtidsutveckling har genomförts. Jag har analyserat Wendell Bells diskussion om den epistemologiska grunden för framtidsstudier utifrån ett feministiskt epistemologiskt perspektiv, och har föreslagit feministisk epistemologi om situerad kunskap och partiell objektivitet som potentiell epistemologi för framtidsstudier. Utifrån fynden i de semistrukturerade intervjuerna presenteras ett alternativt feministiskt scenario för ett svenskt samhälle år 2050 i ett fiktivt format med syftet att ge ett detaljerat och situerat narrativ om det politiska och dagliga livet inom feministiska framtider. Det feministiska framtidsscenariot bör inte läsas som den enda feministiska framtiden avsedd för implementering. Avsikten är att visa hur feministiska studiers visionära dimensioner kan uttryckas på olika sätt i framtidsstudier och ge utrymme för en bred debatt om hur feministiska framtider kan gestaltas.

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