What is it about feminism that invites so many different opinions on what ‘counts’ and what doesn’t? People from vastly different cultural situations variously categorise feminist practices as extreme, radical, reactionary, unbalanced, co-opted, revolutionary, elite, exclusive, progressive, passé, and hysterical. The desire of both feminists and anti-feminists to control feminism emerges as the limiting of what feminism is, whom it is for, and where it is going. The urge to limit feminism seems, in some cases, to overtake the urge to spread the word and celebrate feminism’s successes. And it is not just anti-feminists who attempt to limit feminism – even feminists spend an inordinate amount of time defining certain practices out of the feminist spectrum. In this thesis, I document and analyse the way we limit feminism – its participants, meaning, practices, language, history, and future. I explore the reasons why we need to contain feminism in this way, looking in particular at those who have an investment in keeping feminism comfortably small. I invite back into the realm of feminism a wide range of activities and theories we generally invalidate as feminism, including the words of several ‘unofficial’ feminists I interviewed for this project. In essence, this project goes towards the rethinking of the term ‘feminism’ by examining the widely differing and often contradictory definitions of ‘what counts.’

This research examined definitions of feminists and the relationship between self-identification as a feminist and willingness to engage in action to reduce inequality between men and women. Two focus groups were held to discuss these issues with undergraduate women. All but one of the members self-identified as feminists. Group members aligned themselves with one of two definitions of feminist. Some women defined feminists as those who desire equality for women. This group distanced themselves from radical feminists. The other women asserted that feminists were concerned with human rights for both men and women. The women emphasized that men as well as women could be feminists. Consistent with social identity theory that posits that important identities are associated with action, the women participated in two types of activities that were related to reducing gender inequality. One type of action was individualist, such as responding to sexist remarks. The other type was involvement with groups and organizations that collectively worked to reduce inequality. The one group member who rejected the label of feminist held views and engaged in behavior consistent with a cultural definition of feminist. / Master of Science

Grounded in a historical, socio-cultural consideration of Indigenous women’s theatrical production, this dissertation examines representations of gendered violence in Canadian Indigenous women’s drama. The female playwrights who are the focus of my thesis – Monique Mojica, Marie Clements, and Yvette Nolan – counter colonial and occasionally postcolonial renditions of gendered and racialized violence by emphasizing female resistance and collective coalition. While these plays represent gendered violence as a real, material mechanism of colonial destruction, ultimately they work to promote messages of collective empowerment, recuperation, and survival. My thesis asks not only how a dramatic text might deploy a decolonizing aesthetic, but how it might redefine dramatic/literary and socio-cultural space for resistant and decolonial ends. Attentive to the great variance of subjective positions occupied by Indigenous women writers, I examine the historical context of theatrical reception, asking how the critic/spectator’s engagement with and dissemination of knowledge concerning Indigenous theatre might enhance or impede this redefinition. Informed by Indigenous/feminist poststructuralist and postcolonial theoretical perspectives that address the production and dissemination of racialized regimes of representation, my study assesses the extent to which colonialist misrepresentations of Indigenous women have served to perpetuate demeaning stereotypes, justifying devaluation of and violence – especially sexual violence – against Indigenous women. Most significantly, my thesis considers how and to what degree resistant representations in Indigenous women’s dramatic productions work against such representational and manifest violence.

The current study intends to investigate how processes related to acquiring well-being support are experienced by feminist activists in Belarus and what are the key ideas and notions in their statements. As a result of collected interviews and performed discourse analysis on the empirical material, the author has concluded that activists position themselves within the notion of productive “activism” where burn-out is considered to be a negative, yet normalized part of activist engagement. To receive support, activists narrate their stories in a manner that aligns with the project-based logic of applications for support. Proving personal un-wellness and committing to getting better through short-term actions, activists design their requests for support as contributions to their continued engagement in activism, submitting to a position where exit from activism is impossible.

This thesis represents an attempt to challenge power hierarchies infusing white Western European academic and political fields. It constitutes a project, built on decolonial critique of privileges of research, that aims at attending to local and marginalised feminist perspectives in order to reach a deeper understanding for a complex and ambivalent Serbian post-socialist reality. A critical scrutiny of previous research conducted within the field of Comparative Politics and post-socialist feminist critique of academic knowledge, has led to the identification of problematic results of unequal distributions of power within politics and the academia. Moreover, through a historical overview of the geopolitical context and the feminist legacy of the region, the importance of contextualisation and the necessity of an epistemological and ontological shift within knowledge production has further been emphasised. Lastly, with a combining approach of qualitative interviews and autoethnography, lived experiences of postsocialism and its intersections with feminism have been sought and analysed. By highlighting women’s activism in democratisation processes and the severe socio-political problems facing contemporary Serbia, these experiences problematize the hegemonic Western projections of a post-socialist transition as an elite project towards ‘progress’ and Europeanisation.

In this thesis, the author draws upon data collected through in-depth interviews with twelve social justice activists and organizers in London, UK and Austin, TX to look at contemporary practices of feminist antiracist social justice work. Informed by the Civil Rights, feminist and antiracist social movements of 1960s and 70s, activists and organizers in the United States continue to build upon theoretical understandings of intersecting systems of oppression to build new practices of community and racial justice. / text

Due to the participatory nature of social media platforms, users contribute to the narratives built around online action for social change and shape the discourse on societal topics through their participation. At the same time as social media has become a space for societal activism and participation facilitating connective action of individuals, social media platforms are ultimately, for most, owned by private companies. This makes them products of the attention economy, where the attention of consumers has been quantified and commodified and where different players compete for such attention. The current research presents an analysis of content related to online advocacy to inform on the effects of a social media platform on social change and the use of a platform by citizens. More specifically, the research focuses on collective identity building through visual self-representation and how the commercial structures of the platform and the participation of users affect the representation of women in the context of the Black Lives Matter movement on Instagram. Methodologically the research was performed through a quali-quantitative exploration of publications associated to the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter, using cultural analytics and content analysis. The research concludes that while the complexity of technological and human variables in online societal participation makes the research on representations of women challenging because of the various actors and forces at play affecting it directly or indirectly, the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter is largely used for collective identity building that can contribute to empowering marginalized groups on social media. This type of finding nevertheless emphasizes the memetic characteristic of the hashtag rather than a tool for direct social activism.

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Made available in DSpace on 2016-10-13T14:10:43Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Beatriz Beraldo Batista.pdf: 4163628 bytes, checksum: 2020707d8cdd8fb52c554010bba07465 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-03-21 / This dissertation, inserted in the debate that articulates feminism, the consumer society and media agenda, analyzes contexts and communicative actions that confront hegemonic representations of women and femininity in contemporary times. To do so, we delineated as object of analysis the Marcha das Vadias (Slut Walk Brazil). It was understood that this research object represents a new configuration of the feminism, and share common grammar to other political movements of the current youth scene, understanding these youths as expressions of the spirit of the time and as potential catalysts for behavioral changes. The research, based on multimethodological investigation, includes bibliographic, documental and empirical studies. As main theoretical contributions we have Edgar Morin, Everardo Rocha, Norval Baitello, Rose de Melo Rocha among many other theorists who think the interface between communication, media pictures and consumption practices. The analysis uses two corpora previously selected: i) an ethnographic character, that corresponds to the material collected through field research, ii) and other iconographic comprising the photos, posts and other texts published online (emails/ blog /Facebook ), all elements that make up the public image of the activists. Articulating the steps we propose a reflection on concepts and representations of women and feminism mobilized by the Marcha das Vadias SP . From this reflection, we launched some hypotheses about the connection between these experiences and the overall scenario in contemporary feminist practices, strongly demarcated by the union between the cultures of consumption and media universe. / Esta dissertação, inserida no debate que articula feminismo, sociedade do consumo e pauta midiática, analisa contextos e ações comunicacionais que confrontam representações hegemônicas da mulher e da feminilidade na contemporaneidade. Para tanto, delimitou-se como objeto de análise a chamada Marcha das Vadias . Entendeu-se que este objeto traduz uma nova configuração do feminismo, além de compartilhar de gramática comum a outros movimentos políticos da atual cena juvenil, percebendo estas juventudes como expressões do espírito do tempo e como potenciais catalisadoras de mudanças comportamentais. A pesquisa, de base multimetodológica, contempla estudo bibliográfico, documental e empírico. Como principais aportes teóricos contamos com Edgar Morin, Everardo Rocha, Norval Baitello, Rose de Melo Rocha, dentre tantos outros teóricos que contribuem para pensar a interface comunicação, cenas midiáticas e práticas de consumo. A análise se vale de dois corpora, previamente selecionados: i) um de caráter etnográfico, que corresponde ao material coletado por meio de pesquisa de campo; ii) e outro iconográfico, que compreende as fotografias, postagens e manifestos divulgados online (lista de e-mails/ blog/ Facebook), principais elementos que compõem a imagem pública das ativistas. Articulando as etapas, propomos uma reflexão sobre as concepções e representações da mulher e do feminismo mobilizados pela Marcha das Vadias SP. A partir desta reflexão, lançamos algumas hipóteses sobre a conexão entre tais experiências e o cenário global de práticas feministas na contemporaneidade, fortemente demarcada pela união entre as culturas do consumo e o universo midiático.

My thesis maps a genealogy of patriarchal structures that underpin Algerian history, culture, and institutions between the war of independence and the 1991-2001 civil war. More specifically, I contextualize the ways in which patriarchal lineages and origin stories—and thus the symbolic and structural promises of the family—underpin political struggle. In mapping these symbolic lineages found at work in the promise of independence, and the ways in which they underpin political struggle, I demonstrate how the war of independence reified and redefined familial and patriarchal kinships within political and social structures. I suggest that historical and social conditionings found at work at these different historical moments have legitimated, to a certain extent, the domination over women and a normalization of violence against them. My thesis examines social and political discourses at four central moments in Algerian history. Firstly, in the constructions of the Algerian nation-state post independence in 1962; secondly, in the Islamic Renaissance of the 1980s and the creation of the Family Code; and in a third moment, I draw connections between the Family Code, violent political clashes of 1990s and the civil war that ensued. Finally, I analyze laws and discourses created after the civil war and the resistance movements that have continuously contested power and oppression throughout these different periods. / Thesis (Master, Gender Studies) -- Queen's University, 2014-01-30 10:39:01.867