The Hibiscus Snake is a collection of poetry investigating the female experience encountering danger. She explores psychic landscapes descended in the unconscious uncanny, the feminine body within the context of horror, and lyrical poems about living in working class communities in San Bernardino. The collection attempts to subvert the presentation of the female body in Horror genres, moving it from a position of victimization to empowerment. In other poems, the speaker ventures into horror-like psychic landscapes filled with images representing the anxiety experienced growing up in a city where danger is quite real. The protagonist risks these journeys to overcome her fear and achieve a transformation. The collection also contains elegies written in lyrical, free-verse form. I also explicate how I employ line breaks to exaggerate the multiplicity of lines, words and connotations. This collection works toward understanding and redefining the female experience and identity within a range of male dominated contexts and dangerous environments.

Typified rhetorical situations are often a result of normalized ideologies within cultures; however, they also have the capability to produce new ideology. Within these discursive sites, identities are constructed among these normalized social acts. More importantly, these identities are constructed across many layers, not limited to one social act, but many that overlap and influence each other. In this paper, I focus on the identities that are constructed in marginalized spaces within sites of interacting discourse. Focusing on the rhetoric of abjection posited by Julia Kristeva, along with McKenzie Wark’s exploration of gamespace, a liminal theoretical space that encompasses the sites of analysis and ideology formation from the perspective of gamers, I analyze disruptions of normalized social practices in the gaming genre in order to implement the use of abjection as a method of understanding how sites of difference produce meaning for minoritarian subjects.

A genealogical framework highlights the important role sexuality has played in constructing the current label of intellectual disability (ID). The genealogical framework is meant to replace the social, medical, and/or rights-based model(s) that have dominated social work and social services working in the disability field. With this framework, or perspective, I use a Foucaultian discourse analysis to read through seminal texts regarding person-centered practice. Person-centered practice is the foremost intervention used in social work, and other disciplines, to work with people labeled with intellectual disability. My research questions focus on what is revealed about ID in PCP through a genealogical framework and what implications do these discoveries hold for sexuality education and social services, including social workers? Predetermined concepts taken from the genealogical framework are used in the Foucaultian discourse analysis. These concepts (subject, government, biopower, and normalization) provide insight into how ID has been constructed and maintained through the practice of person-centered processes. Paradoxes emerge throughout the analysis, providing space for productive resistance by professionals working in sexuality education and social services to improve equity for people labeled with intellectual disability, specifically regarding their sexuality and healthy expression of it.

This thesis project is centered on the female body, specifically body image, in relation to Western, cultural images of women. This is a problem that has been around, essentially, since the beginning of Western art. While different scholars argue whether or not this problem has become worse, it is nonetheless problematic that we are still, in 2018, fighting patriarchy’s control of our bodies via body image. Grounding my project in Susan Bordo’s 1993 text Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body, this thesis explores Bordo’s argument that the female body is culturally produced through the lens of Jean Baudrillard’s theory of simulation and simulacra. Reading Bordo via Baudrillard allows us to explore this age-old problem at a new angle, giving us new reasons that explain why we are still stuck in patriarchy’s chains. Through this lens, I demonstrate how and why Third-wave feminist activism (I focus specifically on the Body Positive Movement) is failing in their attempts to reclaim the female body: the issue lies within Third-wave activism’s desire to portray othered bodies as beautiful and desirable. This becomes problematic in the era of simulacra: abject bodies do not resemble the (un)real ideal so they become “unreal” in the eyes of society. This attempt to represent abject bodies (obese, racialized, trans, disabled) as beautiful results in stigmatization and disgust towards said bodies, and thus the Body Positive Movement leaves out abject bodies because these abject bodies cannot be seen as beautiful in a society that deems them unreal. I argue that in order to reclaim the female body, we must first reclaim the mind side of the mind/body dualism before we can successfully reclaim our bodies. To demonstrate how this is possible, I use Margaret Atwood’s novel Lady Oracle as a case study that not only shows how the female body is culturally produced in the era of simulacra, but also allows us to see how reclaiming the mind side of the binary does allow the protagonist, Joan, to reclaim her past and body as her own, without shame. It is through fiction that reality is represented, and I conclude my thesis with my own personal anecdotes, showing how resistance via fiction can transcend into real life and point to a new, hopeful future.

This thesis examines the story of a thirteenth-century woman from the diocese of Metz, named Sibylla of Marsal, as the contemporary monk and chronicler Richer of Senones recounts it in his Gesta Senoniensis Ecclesiae. According to Richer, Sibylla feigned sanctity using various props--including a demon costume that she wore to terrify villagers--and was locally venerated as a holy woman before authorities discovered her fraudulence. This thesis offers the first full-length study of Sibylla and is the first study of this fascinating case to focus on Richer's perspective. After establishing the single extant thirteenth-century manuscript of the Gesta Senoniensis Ecclesiae--Paris, BnF ms. lat. 10016--as the most reliable witness to Richer's original text, this study analyzes Richer's agenda to situate Sibylla within his apocalyptic worldview and his desire to denigrate the emerging mendicant orders. Finally, Sibylla's story is placed within the broader context of thirteenth-century women's religion; because Sibylla exhibited accepted behaviors associated with female sanctity and yet was not ultimately considered a saint by her contemporaries, her story provides insight into the social construction of sainthood in the High Middle Ages. Several appendices edit and translate the crucial medieval sources for the thesis.

Previous research on HIV stigma and the use of spirituality by people living with HIV/AIDS is scarce. Moreover, the research with older Black men who have sex with men (BMSM) is scant. The focus of this qualitative transcendental phenomenological study was to examine the lived experiences of BMSM living with HIV aged 50 and older with encounters of HIV stigma on the use of spirituality. The research questions were designed to explore the lived experiences of aging, HIV stigma, and spirituality. Conceptually, this study was framed within the minority stress theory and the HIV stigma framework. Data were collected through in-depth individual interviews, which provided detailed descriptions of the participants' experiences and created a basis for analysis. Ten participants from an HIV service organization in the Mid-Atlantic United States were selected for participation. Semi-structured interviews were digitally recorded, and data were coded and thematized using a modified vam Kaam data analysis method, which lead to the disclosure of 8 critical themes that illuminated the participants' lived experiences of living with HIV, aging, stigma, and spirituality. Older BMSM identified stigma as a stressor that reinforced the use of their spirituality. The results of this study may provide social workers, community organizations, and policymakers with data that inform a deeper understanding of the challenges older BMSM face due to HIV stigma. This study contributes to positive social change by providing practical information for social workers to inform intervention strategies that might reduce stigma and increase coping resources.

Researchers have demonstrated that the Nigerian government has failed to protect women's rights and advance gender equality in political leadership; consequently, women's political participation in Nigeria remains low. Although international laws grant women political participation rights, little is known about the struggles and experiences Nigerian women face in their quest to participate in the political life of Nigeria. The purpose of this basic interpretative qualitative study was to explore and describe the perceptions and experiences of Nigerian women on gender equality and other issues affecting their political leadership. The theoretical framework used was Eagly's social role theory and Ayman and Korabik's leadership categorization theory. The research questions focused on how women describe their participation in the political sector and their obstacles. Ten purposefully selected Nigerian women in Nigerian political leadership were interviewed. Data analysis included coding, categorizing, and analyzing themes. The resulting 7 themes were underrepresentation, gender inequality, male dominance, women's empowerment, spousal support/approval, financial support, and legislation reform. The findings indicated that women were still underrepresented in the political sector of government and lacked full political power as they strived for equality to become political leaders. The implications for positive social change are to educate the public, inform policy makers, and create legislative initiatives to support an equitable society in Nigeria in which women can participate fully in the political process.

Females have been discouraged from taking science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) classes during high school and college, resulting in limited access to high-paying STEM careers. Therefore, these females could miss opportunities for these high-paying careers. The rationale of this research was to quantify the relationship between the number of STEM classes the sampled females took, the number of female role models they had during high school and college, their career choices, and salaries. The theoretical construct was based on Erikson's social developmental theory, which postulates a relationship between earlier life events and later life events, and Acker's masculinity theory, which postulates that females in traditionally male fields may be uneasy performing functions opposite to what they naturally perform. Key questions examined the relationships between STEM classes, role models, career choices, and salaries. The sample was a stratified random sample (n = 48) of female alumnae of 4 universities, born after 1980. Data were collected from a designed online instrument, validated by a pilot. The data were analyzed with a multiple regression and an analysis of variance. The findings revealed a significant relationship between the number of STEM classes, career choices and salary. However, there was no significance found between the numbers of role models, career choices and salary The implication for social change is that by making scholars in the fields of education and management aware about the relationship between the number of STEM classes taken, career choices, and salaries, females can be more encouraged to become interested in STEM courses earlier in life, making it more likely they will choose STEM careers This can be accomplished through scholarly journals, which hopefully will improve perceptions of the STEM abilities of females.

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) studies on acute kidney injury (AKI) have focused on defined procedures and outcomes but not on gender differences. The purpose of this study was to investigate differences in health services utilization by gender and other predisposing factors (age and race) among hospitalized veterans with AKI during a 5-year period from 2008 to 2013. The study included a retrospective cohort design and the behavioral model of health services utilization as the underlying theoretical framework. Secondary data were collected from an existing VA cohort. Data from 1,636 hospitalized AKI veterans were subjected to t tests to assess gender differences in VA health services use and short-term outcomes. ANOVAs were conducted on data from 6,102 veterans to assess the effect of age and race on VA health services utilization. Results indicated no significant gender differences in VA health services use and short-term outcomes. However, significant differences were found in some VA health services utilization for age and race. Results may be used by VA policymakers and administrators to identify and reduce gender inequalities in VA health services use and outcomes.

Immigrants to Canada report better health status than the Canadian-born population when they first arrive in Canada, a phenomenon called the Healthy Immigrant Effect. However, by the fourth year after immigration, immigrants report a health status that is worse than that of the Canadian-born population. Visible minority immigrant women report the largest deterioration in health. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the lived experiences of visible minority immigrant women with encounters with the Canadian healthcare system to examine the multiplicative impact of gender, ethnicity, and immigration on their health. This phenomenological study, guided by Crenshaw's feminist intersectionality framework, explored the perspectives of a purposive sample of 8 immigrant women in Ottawa, Canada, about their encounters with the healthcare system. Data were collected through individual interviews. These data were inductively coded and subjected to thematic analysis following the process outlined by Smith et al. for interpretative phenomenological analysis. Key findings of the study revealed that immigrant women define health more holistically and have expectations of the encounters with healthcare that are not met due to barriers that impact them accessing healthcare services, experiencing healthcare services, and following the recommended options. The positive social change implications of this study include recommendations for public health to consider immigration and racism as determinants of health; and for Health Canada to undertake system-level lines of inquiry to shed light on the ways structural discrimination and racism have had an impact on immigrant women's social and health trajectory.