Matching Items (5)
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- All Subjects: Women
- Creators: Elenes, C. Alejandra
- Creators: Fonow, Mary M
- Member of: ASU Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Description
This study was done in collaboration with the Kino Border Initiative. The Kino Border Initiative is a Catholic, bi-national organization run by Missionary Sisters of the Eucharist, Jesuit priests and lay people. The organization is dedicated to providing services to recently deported migrants and migrants-in-transit through their soup kitchen, women's shelter and first aid station in Nogales, Sonora. Based on their experiences in the women's shelter, the Missionary Sisters of the Eucharist and researcher sought out to further understand migrant women's experiences of gender-based violence prior to migration. Using data collected by the Sisters, it was decided to use an analysis rooted in testimonio, and, in this way, use the women's words as a foundational basis for understanding the migration of women. The analysis is based on 62 testimonies related to women's histories of violence and their migration experiences, and the information from 74 intake questionnaires that were all analyzed retroactively. The analysis of data and testimonios has led to the realization that violence suffered by migrant women is not limited to the journey itself, and that 71% of women report having suffered some sort of violence either prior to or during migration. Often times, the first experiences of violence originated in their homes when they were children and continue to repeat itself throughout their lifetimes in varied forms. Their stories reveal how the decision to migrate is a consequence to the transnational and structural violence that pushes women to seek out ways to survive and provide for their families.
ContributorsConrad, Marla (Author) / Elenes, C. Alejandra (Thesis advisor) / Simmons, William P. (Committee member) / Téllez, Michelle (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
"The Globalization of Indigenous Women's Movements and The United Nations System (1992-2012)" is a comprehensive study of the globalization of indigenous women's movements that materialized in the early 1990s. These movements flourished parallel to other transnational social movements, such as International Zapatismo, the World Social Forum, and Gender as Human Rights Movement, yet they are omitted and remain invisible within transnational and global social movement literature. This study is an inscription of these processes, through the construct of a textual space that exposes a global decolonial feminist imaginary grounded in the oral histories of thirty-one international indigenous women leaders. The primary site for this study is the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII), a venue where contact amongst indigenous women worldwide occurs annually at the United Nations (UN) Headquarters in New York City. This qualitative study uses decolonial and feminist methodology to examine in-depth semi-structured interviews, transcriptions of key speeches, plenaries and interventions made by indigenous women at the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues and other relevant international forums, and field notes compiled from my full-participant and participant-observation in international forums. My dissertation makes two claims. First, I argue that indigenous women have made formal gains within the UN System via an unprecedented process of simultaneously accepting, contesting and altering the structural opportunities and constraints present within the UN. These processes made it possible for UNPFII's actors and their key claims to be effectively integrated within the multiple agencies that make up the UN. I identify key Indigenous actors and trace their claims for social justice, which have transcended the domestic sphere to the global political arena. Second, I argue that, globalization has reconfigured transnational political spaces for indigenous women activists and that these UN advocates frame their claims for rights in a unique way, in a process that combines individual human rights as well as collective indigenous peoples rights.
ContributorsGonzález, Rosalee C (Author) / Fonow, Mary M (Thesis advisor) / Zatz, Marjorie (Committee member) / Archuleta, Elizabeth (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
Overt forms of sexism have become less frequent (Swim Hyers, Cohen & Ferguson, 2001; Sue & Capodilupo, 2008). Nonetheless, scholars contend that sexism is still pervasive but often manifests as female microaggressions, which have been defined as often subtle, covert forms of gender discrimination (Capodilupo et al., 2010). Extant sexism scales fail to capture female microaggresions, limiting understanding of the correlates and consequences of women’s experiences of gender discrimination. Thus, the purpose of the current study was to develop the Female Microaggressions Scale (FeMS) based on an existing theoretical taxonomy and content analysis of social media data, which identifies diverse forms of sexism. Two separate studies were conducted for exploratory factor analysis (N = 582) and confirmatory factor analysis (N = 325). Exploratory factor analyses supported an eight-factor, correlated structure and confirmatory factor analyses supported a bifactor model, with eight specific factors and one general FeMS factor. Overall, reliability and validity of the FeMS (general FeMS and subscales) were mostly supported in the two present samples of diverse women. The FeMS’ subscales and body surveillance were significantly positively correlated. Results regarding correlations between the FeMS subscales and anxiety, depression, and life satisfaction were mixed. The FeMS (general FeMS) was significantly positively correlated with anxiety, body surveillance, and another measure of sexism but not depression or life satisfaction. Furthermore, the FeMS (general FeMS) explained variance in anxiety and body surveillance (but not depression, self-esteem, or life satisfaction) above and beyond that explained by an existing sexism measure and explained variance in anxiety and depression (but not self-esteem) above and beyond that explained by neuroticism. Implications for future research are discussed.
ContributorsMiyake, Elisa (Author) / Tran, Giac-Thao Thanh (Thesis advisor) / Bernsten, Bianca (Committee member) / Tracey, Terence (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
This research study analyzes the use of piropos as a dominant part of Buenos Aires street culture. Piropos are locally defined as advances made by male strangers toward women in the public sphere, and they typically include: following, staring, unsolicited sexual/romantic comments and physical contact. Although these amorous or sexually expressive advances have been historically viewed as harmless, the local development of anti-piropo campaigns in Buenos Aires indicates that this flirtatious public act is more damaging than previously recognized. The current debate in Buenos Aires concerning the use of piropos in public has rendered this social practice worthy of investigation. Throughout this study, I examine women’s experiences with and interpretations of piropos by utilizing participant observation, surveys, focus groups, and semi-structured individual interviews. I explore women’s diverse emotional and verbal responses to these interactions, and I analyze how the use of piropos has impacted some women’s sense of wellbeing and security in the public realm. In order to demonstrate the effect of piropos on women’s daily lives in the public sphere, I examine the ways in which women alter their behavior in order to avoid piropos. Furthermore, this investigation examines how piropos are often interpreted by female recipients as a public display of gender-based power differences. Thus, I argue that piropos are consistently used to reflect and sustain machismo, and they consequently restrict women’s equal access to public spaces in Buenos Aires. The quantitative and qualitative data presented throughout this thesis unveil the weighty ramifications of a social practice that has often been overlooked.
ContributorsMitchell, Mia Lael (Author) / Elenes, C. Alejandra (Thesis advisor) / Murphy Erfani, Julie (Committee member) / Luna, Ilana (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
This study investigates the perceptions and experiences of U.S. urban poverty among Mexican immigrant women living in La Villita, a neighborhood in Chicago. La Villita is the largest Mexican and Mexican American neighborhood in the Midwest with a population of 77% Mexican and Mexican Americans, with women making up 43% of the population, and 34% of the population living below the poverty line. Although women are less than 50% of La Villita’s population, immigrant women are more likely to experience poverty and earn lower wages than immigrant men. Using qualitative methods and a demographic survey, this study explores the ways in which immigrant women perceive and experience living in a low-income neighborhood. This study addresses the following three questions: 1) How do citizenship status, migration experience, and gender inform the ways Mexican immigrant women experience and manage poverty in Chicago? 2) How do their pre-migration experiences in Mexico influence the women’s perceptions of U.S. poverty? And 3) How do Mexican immigrant women develop and/or find resources from in their low-income neighborhood in Chicago? This study applies a transnational feminist framework to thirty-five semi-structured interviews and demographic surveys. The findings demonstrate that women’s perceptions about poverty are constructed before migrating to the U.S. Once in the U.S., these perceptions begin to change because of their continued referencing to what used to be their living situations in Mexico. However, even though some of the women might not identify as poor after years living in the U.S., their perceptions of escaping poverty in the U.S. are based on attaining basic necessities such as shelter, food, and clothing. Based on the findings of this study, the women’s experiences of poverty informs us that the lack of social opportunities in the women’s lives hinders their full participation in society, an exclusion that perpetuates poverty. Thus, this study shifts the focus from material deprivation to social exclusion as an additional factor that sustains poverty. The last finding demonstrates how women manage living in poverty and how La Villita itself is a resource that offsets some of the material and social challenges they face in the U.S.
ContributorsGutierrez, Julia (Author) / Leong, Karen J (Thesis advisor) / Romero, Mary (Committee member) / Fonow, Mary M (Committee member) / Durfee, Alesha (Committee member) / Estrada, Emir (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2021