No description available.

In this thesis, I analyze responses to the 1994 Direct Ground Combat Definition and Assignment Rule (DGCDAR), the policy that until January 24, 2013 formally barred women from serving in combat. Specifically, I use feminist theories of embodiment, equality, and difference to interpret how interlocutors represent female service members in the "Letters" section of the Marine Corps Gazette and interviews I collected from members of the military community. I find that the most common arguments against women in combat locate gender difference in the physically sexed body, centering primarily on female nature, sexuality, and strength. Throughout this project, I demonstrate how these arguments are persuasive because the discourse understands equality as sameness to a male norm. This equality as sameness paradigm perpetuates gender-based barriers to parity by expecting women to function just like men. Ultimately, I argue for a more inclusive conception of equality that acknowledges difference. / Master of Arts

This study examines secular mommy bloggers, a group of women who blog about the difficulties of being a nonbeliever parent in a predominantly religious society. In this study, I explore the rhetorical dimensions of four separate blogs by investigating how each mother builds identity within her personal blog and how her sense of identity enables her to construct individual ethos. Furthermore, I illustrate how the individual ethos of each blogger contributes to a group ethos representing the entire secular parenting community. Ultimately, I show how these mothers rhetorically set themselves apart from other nonbeliever/secular groups. / Master of Arts

No description available.

Ocular Demonstrations is a. feminist literary study of the theoretical implications of cross-dressing in early American texts. Feminist critics Judith Butler, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, and Laura Mulvey have discussed how epistemologies of gender are most often rooted in the visual. These analyses are concerned with what signifies gender, such a dress, or how our knowledge has been situated to view these signifiers. Cross-dressing crosses the wires of visual representations of gender and offers a challenge to early American social structure. In early American texts, cross-dressers are often re-assimilated into the context's accepted ideas of gender, or are tricksters who are out to do harm. By discussing Michel Foucault’s theories of the deployment of alliance and the deployment of sexuality as a genealogical approach, my project aims to find a way for the body to exist within constructivist theories of gender. In my analysis of three early American novels, I examine situations where crossdressing does not involve a discussion of a body, and exists within a multitude of assumptions on the part of the narrator. I believe, however, that knowledge of a "true" or "original" body is often sought, and thought to be essential .to the viewer's understanding. My project seeks to bring the body back into constructivist views, without challenging ideas of constructivism.

This dissertation argues that numerous parallels exist between Native American literature, especially that by women, and contemporary feminist literary and cultural theories, as both seek to undermine the hierarchy of voice: who can speak? what can be said? when? how? under what conditions? After the ideas find voice, what action is permitted to women? All of these factors influence what African American cultural theorist bell hooks terms the revolutionary gesture of "coming to voice." These essays explore the ways Native American women have voiced their lives through the oral tradition and through writing. For Native American women of mixed blood, the crucial search for identity and voice must frequently be conducted in the language of the colonizer, English, and in concert with a concern for community and landscape. Among the topics addressed in the study are (1) the negotiation of identity of those who must act in more than one culture; (2) ethnocentrism in ethnographic reports of tribal women's lives; (3) misogyny in a "canonical" Native American text; (4) the ethics of intercultural literary collaboration; (5) commonality in inter-cultural texts; and (6) transformation through rejection of Western privileging of opposition, polarity, and hierarchy.

African American women (AAW) have the highest incidence and prevalence of obesity among all cultural groups in the United States. Understanding cultural factors which influence perception of body size and ultimately impact decisions by obese AAW to lose or manage their weight is essential in ultimately designing culturally appropriate interventions. Gaining insight into the core cultural perceptions and factors that influence acceptable body size is imperative to furthering scientific knowledge with obese AAW. Larger body sizes for women are often culturally accepted and perceived as attractive and desirable within the African American community. Self-definition and self-worth, concepts found in Black Feminist Theory, play a pivotal role in the perceptions that obese AAW have about weight loss and weight management. The interconnectedness of the two concepts provided a strong basis for this qualitative research design to examine how these concepts may influence perceptions of acceptable body size among AAW. The purpose of this study was to describe the cultural perceptions of weight and ideal body size with obese AAW from an emic or insider's perspective. A focused ethnographic perspective was used to describe obese AAW's cultural norms about perceived body size and describe obese AAW's self-definition and self-worth that relate to perceived body size. A sample of eight obese AAW was recruited for the study. Data collection included: (a) individual interviews; (b) participant observation; and (c) field notes. The overarching theme derived from the data was "I'm Ok with Me." There were four subthemes that supported the overarching theme. They included: (a) acceptance of heavier body size by others; (b) acceptance of heavier body size by self; (c) cultural foods that impact heavier body size; and (d) sedentary lifestyles that impact heavier body size. The overarching theme lays a foundation for nursing towards cultural competency with obese AAW. Future studies are needed to further evaluate perception of body size and how obese AAW culturally define themselves and define their self-worth in relation to perception of body size.

In this dissertation I explore a number of contemporary science fiction franchises in order to ascertain how the figure of the action heroine has evolved throughout her recent history. There has been a tendency in film criticism to view these strong women as ‘figuratively male’ and therefore not ‘really’ women, which, I argue, is largely due to a reliance on the psychoanalytic paradigms that have dominated feminist film theory since its beginnings. Building on Elisabeth Hills’s work on the character of Ellen Ripley of the Alien series, I explore how notions of ‘becoming’ and the ‘Body without Organs’ proposed by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari can be activated to provide a more positive set of readings of active women on screen. These readings are not limited by discussions of sex or gender, but discuss the body in terms of its increased capacities as it interacts with the world around it. I do not argue for a Deleuzian analysis of cinema as such, because this project is concerned with aspects of representation which did not form part of Deleuze’s philosophy of cinema. Rather I use Deleuze and Guattari’s work to explore alternative ways of reading the active women these franchises present and the benefits they afford. Through these explorations I demonstrate, however, that applying the Deleuzoguattarian ‘method’ is a potentially risky undertaking for feminist theory. Deconstructing notions of ‘being’ and ‘identity’ through the project of becoming may have benefits in terms of addressing ‘woman’ beyond binaristic thought, but it may also have negative consequences. What may be liberating for feminist film theory may be also be destructive. This is because through becoming we destabilise a position from which to address potentially ideologically unsound treatments of women on screen.

This thesis is a comparative analysis of the African American author Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved and the Native American writer Louise Erdrich’s novel Love Medicine. The focus of this essay will be the theme motherhood. A feminist theoretical and critical approach are used throughout the thesis and focus is laid upon the third wave of feminism which: “borrows from post-structural and contemporary gender and race theories (…) to expand on marginalized populations’ experiences.” (Purdue OWL). In the novel Love Medicine the characters Marie and Lulu are examined. Both characters are strong independent women and through them the author challenges the Western-European image of motherhood, family and female characteristics. In the novel Beloved, the characters Sethe and Baby Suggs are studied with two focus points. The first is the impact that motherhood can have on the development of the self and how Morrison shows this through the character Sethe. The second focus point is the effects that come from slavery and mainly the effects that can come from the denial of motherhood. These novels manage to challenge the western norm of motherhood through different aspects and in different ways.

This paper describes the experiences of exploitation and liberation for neo burlesque performers using feminist theory as the context for analysis. The project had the following goals: to identify using phenomenology, the essence of new burlesque participant experiences, to analyze those experiences using feminist theories of exploitation and liberation regarding sex work, to compare burlesque to stripping, and to compare new burlesque to classic burlesque for understanding how burlesque is different today. To obtain these goals, participant observations were done of neo burlesque shows and neo burlesque performers agreed to an interview in which questions were asked that highlight their perceptions. The phenomenological aspect of the studies emphasizes their experiences of exploitation and liberation. There were specific experiences regarding the structure of participation that allowed for differences between stripping and burlesque, as well as perceptions that burlesque is an empowering medium of self-expression.