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 quantitative investigation focused on women high school principals at Jewish secular schools throughout Israel. Despite challenges, Israeli women have succeeded in obtaining over half of the principal positions at Jewish secular high schools, but the degree to which there is equal gender access to leadership roles in the school system remains unclear. This study examined whether there was clustering of women in high school principal positions in certain geographical areas, the process by which these women obtained principal positions, what obstacles the women overcame, and an analysis if respondents differed by district in terms of their career paths, career breaks, and military experiences. This study showed that although women are in principal positions in equal or greater numbers as men depending on the region, women had a different path than men to obtain this role. The key findings in this research were that 89.5% of women principals were able to return at the same level prior to taking a career break and that 31.8% of female principals had male mentors.

Late-adolescent African American students face unique difficulties on their journey to womanhood. As members of a double minority (i.e., African American and female) (Jean & Feagin, 1998), certain limiting stereotypes relevant to both race and gender pose challenges to these students. They must overcome these challenges in order to excel within the various and changing environments they move through on a daily basis (hooks, 1981, 1994). Within the context of social justice, this dissertation provides insight into the role that language and literacy practices play to help enable the positive and affirming development of self-hood of African American college freshmen. This research is qualitative and employs critical narrative inquiry to analyze data collected from six academically high-achieving African American female freshmen college students attending Ivy League, Historically Black Colleges, and private and state universities in the United States.

Gender discrimination is an ongoing topic, including discrimination that occurs in higher education. Previous studies have shown female faculty experience a variety of workplace discrimination including sexual harassment/bullying, salary disparities, and lack of worklife balance. This dissertation aimed to analyze equity issues for female faculty at a private university. The researcher utilized a narrative inquiry methodology, conducting interviews with five full-time female faculty. The purpose of this dissertation was to understand the participants’ everyday stories and lived experiences. The researcher utilized critical feminist theory and leadership theory to examine the notion of equity at this campus. The findings, shown through narrative profiles, demonstrate the five women have experienced equity issues at the institution including workplace bullying and lack of work-life balance. It also found the women utilize a self-silencing voice, struggling between challenging equity issues while maintaining their positions at the university. In addition, gender issues experienced prior to working at the university were discussed, demonstrating larger societal issues in relation to gender equity. This dissertation adds to the current studies on equity issues in higher education by focusing on the participants’ stories rather than quantitative or coded data. In addition, it bridged two seemingly disparate frameworks, critical feminist theory and leadership theory, to demonstrate how these concepts can work toward alleviating equity issues in organizations.

Despite his own conservative values, D.H. Lawrence writes sexually liberated female characters. The most subversive female characters in Lawrence’s oeuvre are the Brangwens of The Rainbow. The Brangwens are prototypical models of a form of femininity that connects women to Nature while distancing them from society; his women are cast as monsters, but are strengthened from their link with Nature. They represent what I am calling the Lawrentian-Woman. The Lawrentian-Woman has proven influential for contemporary British authors. I examine the Lawrentian-Woman’s adoption by later writers and her evolution from modernist frame to postmodern appropriation. First, I look at the Brangwens. They establish the tropes of the Lawrentian-Woman and provide the base from which to compare the model’s subsequent mutations. Next, I examine modern British writers and their appropriation of the Lawrentian-Woman. The Lawrentian-Woman’s attributes remain intact, but are deconstructed in ways that explore women’s continued liminality in patriarchal society.

Cauldron Calling is a compilation of poems ranging in poetic forms from the sonnet to free verse to lyric prose that incorporates a number of processes including: hypnopompic texting, hypnagogic automatic writing, and direct observation. The purpose of this myriad of poetic forms is to peer through the psychic shells we create and examine the workings of the mind so as to give form to the nebulousness found within while most closely recreating physical experiences of pain. In the collection, domestic spaces, particularly kitchens, serve as filters and lenses through which to process anxiety and pain. Conversely, domestic spaces are viewed as areas of both liberation and confinement and the voices of the various speakers throughout the manuscript struggle with this duality/plurality and whether there is a choice to participate in the intergenerational recycling and handing down of these beliefs and behaviors or not. Through sound sense, enjambment, deep image, and the elevation of the mundane, these poems are meant to give insight into the feminine experience as it relates to ritualistic acts of release as opposed to product-driven enterprises for mass consumption.

Research indicates that many students have difficulty with mathematics, which can be attributed to many factors including math anxiety. Students who experience math anxiety have poor attitudes towards mathematics and perform below grade level based on class and statewide assessments. The purpose of this quasi-experimental quantitative study was to investigate the effectiveness of cooperative groups on the math anxiety levels of Grade 5 male and female students. The theoretical foundation of the study included Vygotsky's social learning and Piaget's concept of knowledge. Thirty-two students from 2 Grade 5 classrooms were administered the pre and post MASC inventory. A repeated-measure ANOVA was used to compare the overall mean difference for each group. Key results revealed that students in the treatment group (cooperative grouping) had less math anxiety after 9 weeks than students involved in the control group (noncooperative grouping). Females in the treatment group had lower math anxiety scores than the females in the control group, while males in the treatment group showed no change in math anxiety levels when compared to males in the control group. A conclusion from this study suggests that cooperative grouping, especially for females, may have a positive impact on students' attitudes and overall mathematics performance. It is recommended that administrators schedule professional development on cooperative grouping to implement successful cooperative learning in the classroom. Positive social change could be realized by teachers incorporating strategies in lessons that promote a positive learning environment as well as support learning and academic achievement.

This thesis contextualizes Appalachian murder ballads of the 19th- and early 20th-centuries through a close reading of the lyric texts. Using a research frame that draws from the musicological and feminist concepts of Diana Russell, Susan McClary, Norm Cohen, and Christopher Small, I reveal 19th-century Appalachia as a patriarchal, modern, and highly codified society despite its popularized image as a culturally isolated and “backward” place. I use the ballads to demonstrate how music serves the greater cultural purpose of preserving and perpetuating social ideologies. Specifically, the murder ballads reveal layers of meaning regarding hegemonic masculinities prevalent in 19th-century and turn-of-the-20th-century Appalachian culture. This work also explores the biases and agendas of the early folksong projects in the United States. Examining the arguments of early scholars, I consider the American tradition in juxtaposition to the earlier British forms of music. Rejecting earlier scholarship that argues for the relatedness of British and American balladry, I find that ballads associated with, and circulating in, the United States instead reflect a new cultural idiom grounded in the beliefs of those who sought a conservative Christian aesthetic and way of life in the southern Appalachian mountains. The murder ballads witness that Appalachia, specifically in the 19th-century period of industrial change, was defined by essential tensions between cultural traditions of the past and emerging notions of American modernism. This tension is met in the songs with responses of violence against women whose life situations—marked by sexual freedom—are the very depiction of a new cultural modernism that threatens the hegemony of the past.

This dual thesis seeks to explore the implications of socioeconomic class position for the formation of gender and sexual identities. Utilizing social theories of class and gender, I suggest that because a disadvantageous class location frames social relations in terms of privilege and movement, gender and sexual identities are thus similarly conceptualized; effectively, gender performance and sexual behaviors become attached to notions of value and movement. I turn to Sandra Cisneros's The House on Mango Street to think through the nuances of such an argument, highlighting the experiences of foiled characters Sally and Esperanza to realize how classed confines and gendered expectations literally and figuratively shape their understandings of social relations and movement.

This thesis focuses on four women-directed films as a way to illustrate some characteristics shared by the new Catalan creative documentary: El cielo gira ( The Sky Turns, dir. Mercedes Álvarez, 2004), Nedar (Swim, dir. Carla Subirana, 2008), La plaga (The Plague, dir. Neus Ballús, 2013), and Penèlope (Penelope, dir. Eva Vila, 2018). My aim is to highlight their alternative cinematographic strategies, which stray from the hegemonic discourses of documentary filmmaking. In so doing, I analyze these films from three different angles: the relationship between the filmmaker and the material world; the alternative modalities of time; and the haptic connection between the spectator and the screen. Instead of preparing a traditional thesis in manuscript form, I engage with these films through a video-essay, the most appropriate mode of academic rhetoric and presentation to address this topic (Keathley 190). Entitled Cinema “Turns”: Catalan Creative Documentary, my video-essay articulates my study into three parts: in the first part, I analyze the limits of the realist discourse; in the second, I focus on how these films approach temporality; and in the third, I address their haptic visuality. To view the accompanying video essay, please download the additional file below.