Matching Items (7)
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- All Subjects: feminism
- All Subjects: Juvenile Offenders
- Creators: Gruber, Diane
Description
This research explores how to best communicate positive body images to women. This project was intended to improve a blog I created my freshmen year in college called You're Not A Potato where I used original illustrations to tell a narrative about body image issues. The thesis begins with an historical overview of body image issues and finds that women have been dealing with high levels of body dissatisfaction since the Victorian era. The thesis then recaps the role of traditional media as well as contemporary social media and the role they play in imposing rigid beauty ideals on women's bodies. After an analysis of social media culture, it becomes evident women still communicate about their bodies in a negative manner, not only towards themselves, but towards others. To address this issue, I define the Body Positive movement and explore how public figures are using social media to implement Body Positivity. To conclude this project, I utilize my new-found knowledge in body positive communication by impacting my university campus community. I started a "You're Not a Potato" Campaign for Body Pride week with the help of the ASU Wellness Team and designed and facilitated several engaging programs that reflected the values of the Body Positive movement to our students. Through this research, I discovered how our appearance-based culture has stolen self-confidence from young women today, but by the end of this project, I explain how we can attempt to rebuild our culture by effectively communicating self-love and body acceptance in our online and physical communities.
ContributorsMouton, Brianna Anais (Author) / Gruber, Diane (Thesis director) / Taylor, Jameien (Committee member) / Manninen, Bertha (Committee member) / School of Social and Behavioral Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
As a writer and reader of young adult (YA) literature, I find it is impossible to ignore the rise of traditional masculinity within new, adolescent heroines. In the 21st century, readers have seen the rise of supposedly strong female characters—heroines who carry assault rifles and avoid their emotions. By relinquishing their emotions and their flaws, these heroines have sacrificed the qualities about themselves that initially made them appear so interesting. My desire to see more realistic heroines like myself developed into a creative fiction project that follows and acknowledges the voices of feminine heroines. I call these protagonists “female strong.” My project—a collection of linked short stories—is peopled with the types of heroines that are severely lacking in YA novels and in the film industry. In my own short stories, I have embraced the narratives about young women who are both strong and emotional. I wanted to create memorable female characters that the reader could root for simply because of their feminine strength, even if their flaws were naivety, or lack of confidence, or even if they failed to achieve their resolution in the end. Female-strong characters are vital because they present a view of women who aren’t purely fantasy; they are placed in the real and are feminine, too. In other words, they don’t have to be a gorgeous, knockout model who can kick butt; instead, they can derive strength from their intellect, or their intuition, or perhaps even from their emotion.
ContributorsGoldsmith, Ilyssa Sallie (Author) / Gruber, Diane (Thesis director) / Amparano, Julie (Committee member) / School of Humanities, Arts, and Cultural Studies (Contributor) / School of Social and Behavioral Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
Fifty years after the beginning of the modern feminist movement, there is still much to criticize when looking at female representations in all types of media through a feminist lens. With the enormous popularity of the superhero genre in so many media \u2014 comic books, films, television, comic-cons \u2014 now is the time to ask: how much has the depiction of female superheroes changed? Due to the huge amount of superhero media, there is a wide range of depictions of female characters. Will new audiences be presented with empowering female protagonists or simply new variations on the same basic character types? This thesis will explore that question by, first, presenting an historical overview of superheroes in their various media. It then turns to the history of female superheroes, comparing them to their male counterparts to trace the ways in which they were presented as characters in their own right, or as merely appendages to the male characters. Some female superheroes represented a new type of female protagonist: powerful, independent, and committed to fighting justice. In others, the female superheroes were simply retreads of already existing perceptions and expectations of women. They were less powerful than their male counterparts, dependent and clingy, and fighters of injustice only because it made them better girlfriends, wives, or prospective wives. The thesis also looks at the visual depictions of women, who never seem to have fully broken away from the oldest dichotomy in Western culture: the virgin or whore. Female superheroes have, for the most part, been drawn as either demure, modest, girlish figures, or as highly sexualized, sometimes borderline pornographic, figures. After completing this historical overview, the thesis turns to an examination of what many have hailed as the most progressive contemporary depiction of the female superheroine: the recent television series Jessica Jones. For many fans, the character breaks important ground in the superhero genre. Jessica is a realistic, multi-dimensional character who channels strength by overcoming her PTSD and defeating her former abuser. She is not dependent on male characters, and her interactions with others show that she is a self-sufficient, compassionate person who can both control her own sexuality as well as pick up a minivan. While the character herself is not overtly feminist, her characteristics, interactions with others, and the story itself have feminist overtones. Jessica Jones shows us that it is possible to have a multi-dimensional, lead female protagonist in a superhero show.
ContributorsSwartz, Alex Cole (Author) / Gruber, Diane (Thesis director) / Kolomyjec, Wanda (Committee member) / School of Social and Behavioral Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
The juvenile justice system was established over a century ago with “the goal of diverting youthful offenders from the destructive punishments of criminal courts and encouraging rehabilitation based on the individual juvenile’s needs” (National Research Council and Institute of Medicine, 2001, p. 154). Although significant progress has been made in maintaining the goals set out when the juvenile justice system was established, there is still a lack of awareness about the dehumanization of juvenile offenders who have been incarcerated. Individual failures of juvenile offenders can occur for a variety of reasons, including a lack of support from their communities and the juvenile justice system as a whole. Throughout the years, there have been several reformations made to the juvenile justice system as there seems to have been a prime focus on punishment rather than rehabilitation. Reformations were made through a few court cases regarding sentences such as capital punishment and life imprisonment without parole. The cases that have brought reform to the juvenile justice system have also brought awareness to the immaturity and cognitive development of juvenile offenders. There are numerous risk and mitigating factors that children face as they grow up, which is exacerbated for those who are incarcerated. The fact that juveniles come out of incarceration with more problems than they did when they entered juvenile facilities is an indication of the need to focus on restorative justice rather than punishment.
ContributorsArellano, Kiana (Author) / DeCarolis, Claudine (Thesis director) / Gruber, Diane (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Criminology and Criminal Justice (Contributor) / School of Social and Behavioral Sciences (Contributor)
Created2022-05
Description
For the sake of this thesis, two scholarly collections edited by Dr. Robin S. Rosenberg – Our Superheroes, Ourselves (2013) and The Psychology of Superheroes: An Unauthorized Exploration (2008) – were reviewed. From these two collections and the multitude of psychological theories they cite, those most relevant to adolescent character development are considered. Three broad theories are examined first: positive psychology, equity theory, and attachment style. Then, six additional specific theories that define temperament (behavioral activation system and behavioral inhibition system), personality theory, duel identity, media identification, parasocial interaction, and comparison theory are reviewed. After reviewing each theory, Heroes in Crisis (2019) , a recent bestselling DC offering that addresses superhero trauma, is analyzed through the lens of these psychological theories in order to provide insight into the psychology or both superheroes and their adolescent fans.
ContributorsGutierrez, Jairo Gerardo (Author) / Gruber, Diane (Thesis director) / Amparano, Julie (Committee member) / School of Social and Behavioral Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05
ContributorsArellano, Kiana (Author) / DeCarolis, Claudine (Thesis director) / Gruber, Diane (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Criminology and Criminal Justice (Contributor)
Created2022-05
ContributorsArellano, Kiana (Author) / DeCarolis, Claudine (Thesis director) / Gruber, Diane (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Criminology and Criminal Justice (Contributor)
Created2022-05