Thesis (M.A.) -- Central Connecticut State University, 2007. / Thesis advisor: Aimee Pozorski. "... in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in English." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 85-88). Also available via the World Wide Web.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 2007. / Title from PDF title page screen. Advisor: Glenn Hudak; submitted to the School of Education. Includes bibliographical references (p. 281-294).

The abuse of a woman’s body had been a normative practice since the recordings of Old Testament narratives. This study is designed to confront the inherent gender bias that contributed to the devaluation and abuse of a female body, especially for women in minority communities. How did such a transgression become acceptable behavior for men, while women are penalized and even harshly judged for being the victim? Once the pattern of abused has been identified, the research will show sexual traumatization detrimentally impacts the overall behavior of the victim, occasionally leading to criminal activities which further exacerbate mental health issues never properly addressed. Women who are violated suffer mentally and emotionally, yet minimal attention is given to a woman to acknowledge and address the impact of the violation. The research consists of a historical autopsy of sexually traumatized women in the biblical narratives, throughout certain periods of slavery and its aftermath and in society in the 21st century. The goal was to determine if common trends are present for women who endured sexual assault. How did they survive, and did they manage to lead a productive life after trauma? It will also examine the failure of society to support victims, by providing a pathway toward healing and wholeness. The research will show that when the biblical narratives are theologically reexamined, the sacred text provides a strategic plan to help any woman recover from any sexual trauma they endured. It will conclude with a vision life workbook to help women begin the difficult work of moving forward after sexual traumatization.

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<p>The Emancipation of Celie: The Color Purple as a womanist Bildungsroman</p><p>The purpose of this essay is to study The Color Purple as a Bildungsroman, focusing on the development of the protagonist, Celie. The Color Purple is related to both the traditional Bildungsroman and to the female Bildungsroman, but the essay shows that it can also be seen as a womanist Bildungsroman. Initially, Celie believes that being a woman inescapably means that she has to serve and obey men and she is oppressed by patriarchy. She is eventually introduced to another way of living by the strong female characters of Sofia and Shug who embrace her in a kind of sisterhood, which is vital for Celie as she has nothing else to help her liberate herself from the patriarchal values that keep her down. In conclusion, this essay shows how Celie has developed from being a young girl, forced to act in an adult way, into a woman who displays signs of all the criteria for having achieved a womanist development: she is grown up (not just acting as though she is), she is in charge of a business, a house and, in short, her life. She is serious, she has a universalist perspective, and most importantly, she loves. Furthermore, the essay highlights which characteristics of her development can be linked to the traditional and the female Bildungsroman and which characteristics can be seen as typical of a womanist Bildungsroman.</p>

Thesis advisor: Janet E. Helms / As the first generation born after China introduced its "one-child policy," Chinese female students in the United States belong to a special population that is under the dual pressures of their parents' expectations to succeed and the conflicting traditional Chinese stereotypes of women as obedient to men, dependent, and home orientated. Previous research on Chinese female students' acculturative experiences indicates that these women face unique challenges in redefining their gender roles. However, no studies have explored whether womanist and acculturative processes are related to this psychological transition. The current study explored womanist identity and acculturation attitudes as processes influencing Chinese women's negotiations of their gender roles and redefinitions of themselves as women while living in the United States. Chinese female international students (N=192), enrolled in colleges or universities in the US, completed a demographic questionnaire; the Womanist Identity Attitude Scale (Helms, 1990), which assessed their manner of coping with traditional role expectations; and, the Acculturation Scale for Asian International Students (Gu, 2008), which measured acculturation attitudes. Their gender-role traits and stereotypical attitudes toward American women were examined by the Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI) (Bem, 1974) and Attitudes toward Women Scale (AWS) (Spence, Helmrich, & Stapp, 1978). Canonical correlation analyses were used to investigate relationships among (a) womanist identity and acculturation attitudes, (b) womanist identity and gender-roles, and (c) acculturation attitudes and gender roles. Two identity-acculturation patterns, three identity-gender role patterns, and two acculturation-gender role patterns were identified. When the Chinese women were self-defining their gender-role identity, they were participating in U.S. culture and integrating traditional and non-traditional gender-role traits and attitudes. Traditional womanist attitudes were associated with increased levels of rejecting the U.S. culture, traditional gender roles, and perceived dissimilarities between themselves and U.S. women. The current study is the first to investigate gender-role and acculturation developmental issues of "One-Child" women from a psychological perspective. Obtained results suggest that their adaptive processes are more complex than anticipated. Methodological limitations of the study are discussed. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2015. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Counseling, Developmental and Educational Psychology.

This interdisciplinary study traces the relationship between place and ontology in anglophone and francophone Caribbean contexts, respectively, in selected fictional texts by contemporary Afro-Caribbean women writers Jamaica Kincaid and Gisèle Pineau. In particular, the thesis considers the ways in which notions of place are complicated by the fact that these authors are doubly diasporic. Kincaid and Pineau are of the African diaspora, and they are also migrant writers who travel back and forth between the Caribbean neocolonies and the neoimperia (the United States for Kincaid and France for Pineau). The Antiguan-born Kincaid relocated to the United States as an adolescent and continues to reside there today – despite not having renounced her Antiguan citizenship. Pineau was born and raised in Paris by Guadeloupean parents, who later transplanted the family to their Caribbean homeland when Pineau was an adolescent. After moving between the Caribbean and Paris throughout the ensuing decades, Guadeloupe is now her primary place of residence. Kincaid and Pineau, who are of the same generation and from neighbouring Caribbean islands, share fascinating points of intersection and divergence with regard to their treatment of place and ontology in their oeuvres. This project draws upon a number of theoretical paradigms and examines them in conjunction with Kincaid and Pineau’s fiction in order to discern whether or not these models are apposite to their work. Some examples are: decolonisation/decolonial, postcolonial, womanist and feminist, gender, critical race, psychoanalysis, trauma, ecocritical, spatial, semiotic, ethnographic, Marxian and post-Marxist, poststructuralist, deconstructionist, postmodernist, aesthetic and anti-aesthetic, and photographic theories. The thesis opens with an introductory chapter that locates my research within larger, ongoing discussions of place and ontology in the field of postcolonial studies. It also explains the methodological approaches of the project, in addition to brief descriptions of subsequent chapters. The first chapter of the investigative body of the thesis outlines the decolonising theoretical axiomatics which underpin Kincaid and Pineau’s fictional writings. Next I provide a chapter each on key works by Kincaid and Pineau in order to establish their individual thematic and formal concerns before turning, in the ensuing chapters, to connective readings of their texts within certain contextual frameworks. I also examine Kincaid and Pineau’s imbricated treatment of connecting themes that appear to ricochet throughout their corpora of writings. This linkage between landscape and ontology is fundamental to understanding migration experience in that multiple landscapes and cultures become rooted in individual and collective identities as complex biographic phenomena. Kincaid and Pineau address this relationship between the environment and (auto)fiction as a way of investigating the constitutive relations between place, body, and ontology.

Black women remain at a higher risk for HIV infection than women of any other ethnic group. Of all new infections reported among U.S. women in 2010, 64% occurred in African Americans compared to 18% Whites and 15% Hispanic/Latina women (CDC 2013a; CDC 2014b). While the literature on HIV risk among African American women is extensive, it mostly focuses on low income, low education subgroups of women or those involved in high risk behaviors such as drug use. Very little has been done to understand the risk for HIV among college educated, middle class women who do not fit into traditional "risk categories." Based on extensive fieldwork in Atlanta, GA, this study illustrates how middle class African American women's attitudes, beliefs, perceptions, and behaviors related to HIV risk are influenced by their social and cultural norms. This research employed a womanist framework to examine the intersection of race, gender, and class and the way these factors interact to shape HIV risk in middle class African American women. Whereas some middle class African American women perceive their HIV risk as low based on social class, structural factors associated with experiences of being an African American woman in Atlanta, GA (e.g., gender imbalance, geographic location, sexual networks) weaken the protective influence of class and put them at risk for HIV. Thus, findings from this study will help inform prevention strategies to focus on African American women who fall outside of "traditional risk groups."

Searching for the Womanist Within is a play about self identity and the daily experience of African-American women who are at the intersecting oppressions of race, gender and class. The unique life perspective of Afeican-American women is explored through the retelling of stories from the writer’s life as well as the lives of other black women. In Feminist, Black Feminist, Afrocentric and Womanist drama it is common to steer away from conventional theatrical structures, Solo drama, a less conventional structure, was selected for this play. In addition to the play is an essay about the writing process, as well as a literature review and a statement of significance about this creative thesis.

Throughout history African–American women have struggled against oppressions that have stereotyped their identities, scrutinized their character, and ultimately labeled their bodies inferior and inhuman. Despite the debilitating ideologies and barriers African–American women have been forced to operate within, they have fought against these racist, sexist, classist, homophobic environments, crafting their own “new” ethos through writing, as well as entertainment and popular culture. Although Black women remain plagued by history, the New Age of the 1980s as discussed by Akasha Gloria Hull in Soul Talk: The New Spirituality of African–American Women seemed to spark a new spirituality amongst African–American women. During this time, they acquired new spiritual practices and beliefs (meditation, chanting, Tarot readings, and following of Eastern religions and medicine), and deeper spiritual connections with their pasts (including their ancestors). These new forms of enlightenment quickly became a major part of many Black women’s public and private identities. Hull notices that these new “spiritually-inspired”practices simultaneously became integrated into African–American women writer's, such as Alice Walker, Toni Cade Bambara, Toni Morrison, Audre Lorde, bell hooks, Susan L. Taylor and more, literature produced in the late 1970s and 1980s, resulting in a surge of three-dimensional writing that Hull says is political, creative, and spiritual. Drawing from Hull’s findings, I respond to a need within African–American rhetoric(s) for more research on the use of nommo (the word) and magara (the spirit) as rhetorical figures within African–American discourse. Although nommo is commonly recognized as an essential part of African–American discourse, magara (the spiritual force within the word) has been less discussed as a rhetorical device. I believe that this has to do with the controversial nature of spirituality within our culture, especially within the academy and social politics. To recognize the importance of `the spirit' within Black women's practices, I turn to a particular way of understanding—womanist thought—which embraces the spiritualization of the everyday, as well as African philosophy, which recognizes the inherent spiritual power of language, as background sources to my claim that African–American women use spirituality as a rhetorical device within their writing. Then, using a variation of Kenneth Burke’s cluster-agon method developed by Carol A. Berthold, I analyze three 1980s womanist texts: This Bridge Called My Back: Radical Women of Color, Sister Outsider, and The Color Purple. Through this analysis, I locate a womanist of color rhetoric during the late 1970s and 1980s New Age movement.