This thesis is an in-depth analysis of beauty ideals in South Korea and India. These two countries have recently turned to skin lightening and cosmetic surgery in order to achieve their new beauty standards. Not only do these two countries share a propensity for those two trends, but they also have an overwhelming majority of the population that identifies with a specific religion; Hinduism in the case of India and Confucianism in the case of South Korea. However, it is not clear that the current beauty ideal in each country aligns with the beauty ideal set out in the respective foundational religion.

This thesis explores how today’s Sheherazades, in this case women photographers from the Middle East, create alternative representations that constitute new meanings and understandings of life, gender, and politics in Iran and the Arab world.

This paper is an in-depth analysis of music artist Beyoncé Knowles's career in relation to female autonomy and sexuality. It delves into the symbolic annihilation of an accurate portrayal of female sexuality in the media and how that translates to young women being misinformed about their own sexual pleasure and satisfaction. This misinformation and its effects on the sexual experiences of college-aged women are demonstrated through a series of original creative short stories.

This thesis looks to explore the rise of women in television comedy and the accompanying implications of this phenomenon. Using a historical framework, this thesis looks at the progression of representations of women in television comedies beginning in the 1950s up to today. Considering factors such as the rise of social media, as well as online television streaming services such as Hulu and Netflix as more legitimate avenues to distribute content, this thesis traces women’s place within television comedy, and argues that shows such as Parks and Recreation, The Mindy Project, and Broad City serve as examples of the progress that has been made in achieving gender equality on television, as well as stepping stones for how much more progress must be made in the future.

Perhaps, under the consciousness of today, “neoliberalism” has defined our world during the previous and current centuries more than any other socioeconomic system. But the evolution of this ideology, which initially aimed to enhance, or rather, reinvent capitalism and individual freedom, has, in essence, induced an unrecognized problem. I argue that neoliberalism is the catalyst for much of the hostility in this globalized society where tensions and poverty are casualties of individual and corporate prosperity. Because of this revelation, I argue that neoliberalism inadvertently instills violence that is both unseen and gendered. In order to formulate my argument, I introduce a historical chronology to the ideological origins of neoliberalism and how it manifested its way to its socioeconomic prominence. I then concentrate my attention to neoconservatism, most notably, Reaganism, with the year 1984, which I feel is the official christening of neoliberalism. From that year, I bring forth, three films about the crisis of farming in the 20th century, Country, Places in the Heart, and The River. Through these “farm crisis films,”which centers their themes around pastoral virtues, I argue that the violence conveyed in these films critiques neoliberalism. On the surface, these films demonstrate violence through an invisible and unrecognizable antagonist. But at the heart of this violence is a gendered angle that has much more to do with neoliberalism than with feminist debates. The gendered violence of neoliberalism is, in actuality, linked to the characters’ struggle to maintain some sense of autonomy, but this possibility is always uncertain because of their failure to recognize their inevitable interdependencies.

This thesis explores the challenges that Shvetambar Terapanthi Jain female mumukshus (religious aspirants) face during their training at the Parmarthik Shikshan Sanstha, an institute unique to this sect dedicated to training young females to become nuns. The educational requirements, secluded social environment, disciplined rules, and monastic hierarchies train aspirants to understand the demands of nunhood. Based on interviews and observations, aspirants express their struggle to balance the personal desire to progress spiritually toward liberation (moksha) that motivated them to renounce with the requirement to raise their juniors as part of the ascetic community, a new kind of familial structure. The disparity in the training of female and male renouncers in the Terapanth reveals problems that remain in the gendered way female renouncers are treated in their training. Renunciation is shown not to be gender neutral, leading to a more nuanced understanding of Jain asceticism in contemporary India.

La narrativa de Silvina Ocampo (1903-1993) no goza del lugar que merece en la ficción argentina y latinoamericana como obra de la principal cuentista del siglo XX. Hace relativamente poco que su obra comenzó a despertar el interés de la crítica, atención que se evidencia en la cantidad de artículos y disertaciones recientes. Mediante una disección de la narrativa ocampeana a partir de las grandes coordenadas que la intersectan se pueden caracterizar los aspectos peculiares y distintivos de su estilo. Desarrollada tras la consolidación del psicoanálisis y su influencia en la estética surrealista, la narrativa de Ocampo incorpora algunos de esos elementos. El género fantástico también se articula aunque mediante una selección de rasgos configurados a su modo. Si bien Ocampo rechaza la etiqueta de feminista, ciertos aspectos de su estilo sólo pueden explicarse a partir de la visión particular de una mujer escritora y su representación de la identidad y las relaciones. La lectura pormenorizada de varios cuentos recogidos en “Cuentos completos” I y II (1999), once volúmenes publicados durante su vida, pertenecientes a distintos períodos de su producción permiten realizar un análisis diacrónico que ofrece una caracterización redonda de su estilo y evolución. El análisis sincrónico de estos textos incorpora datos históricos acerca del contexto de producción; a la vez que otras obras literarias del período ofrecen un punto de comparación para identificar influencias y contribuciones. Este análisis, realizado desde el marco teórico de la crítica literaria, da cuenta de la presencia de constituyentes narrativos (narrador, ironía, ambigüedad) que configuran espacios de indeterminación, noción postulada por las teorías de la recepción. Éstos explican las peculiares características de la obra ocampeana: su habilidad para inquietar, intrigar, sorprender y, en suma, desestabilizar al lector y sus expectativas. Es más, sirven para explicar la idiosincrática representación de la realidad que emana de su obra, su interés en lo fantástico y la articulación de lo anti-convencional, como mecanismo subversivo para escapar del orden social dominante, lo cual revela sensibilidades protofeministas. La narrativa de Silvina Ocampo se resiste al reduccionismo y construye una visión peculiar y multifacética de la artista y su obra.

Inspired by her obsession with the South and informed by the liberating socio-political changes born from the 1970s lesbian feminist movement, North Carolinian author Bertha Harris (1937-2005) provides a poetic exploration of Southern Gothic Sapphism in her complex and tormented novel Confessions of Cherubino (1972). Despite fleeting second-wave era recognition as “one of the most stylistically innovative American fiction writers to emerge since Stonewall,” Harris’s innovation remains largely neglected by readers and cultural theorists alike. Nearly all academic engagements with her work, of which there are few, address her 1976 novel Lover. Instead, this thesis focuses on Confessions of Cherubino and examines the novel’s relationship to poststructural feminist thought that led to a critical but undervalued position within contemporary literature of the queer South, particularly through the work of Dorothy Allison, who has noted Harris’s influence on her writing.

In Japanese, there are various kinds of first-person pronouns, and some of them express the referent’s gender identity. Gender-neutral pronouns are made in English- speaking world day by day, but there is not any common first-person pronoun which indicates the gender identity that positions the referent’s gender somewhere between masculine and feminine. The present paper conducted a life story research on the “Japanese life” of an advanced learner of Japanese at a university in the United States who has been exploring his gender identity by coining and using a new Japanese first- person pronoun 㛪 ore, which indicates “in the middle between masculine and feminine.” This new Japanese gender pronoun has enabled the research participant to express his gender identity as he desires to be, and brought the gender non-binary view to the Japanese-speaking world. His invention and usage of the new pronoun has been achieved between two languages, Japanese and Chinese, with the help of his friends. The study also shows the influence of the ideology of gender binary view in the society, which made a gap between his preferred gender expression and actual expression that occurs when he speaks Japanese. Finally, the present study suggests teachers and educational institutions of Japanese to provide students with environments where they can try out different identities and expressions before asking them what kind of language user they aspire to be.

Women continue to be in the minority in school administration in public schools in the United States, although the majority of teachers are female. The role of assistant principal is the gateway to school administration. The purpose of this study was to describe the essence of the transition from teaching to school administration, the role of a female assistant principal, and the career aspirations of female assistant principals. This study used a phenomenological approach to understand the essence of the transition for the participants. Six women were interviewed using a semi-structured interview protocol to collect data on their experiences transitioning to the role of assistant principal. Using the process of horizonalization, the data were transcribed and analyzed using statements and quotes from the interviews to develop themes common to all participants. Findings revealed that these women continually seek to better themselves, others, and their organizations. They experienced a significant sense of loss as they transitioned to their new role. Lastly, the supports needed by women as they continue in their career as school administrators were uncovered.