Matching Items (3)
Filtering by
- All Subjects: Women's Studies
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
ABSTRACT
As a graduate student earning both a Master of Arts in Social Justice and Human Rights and a Graduate Certificate in Nonprofit Leadership Management, I have tried to bridge the theoretical and the empirical in a meaningful way. A problematic chasm between the nonprofit professional and the client being served existed, and I wanted to research this chasm. I wanted to understand what challenges a woman of color faced if she was both a client and a nonprofit professional, possessing dual identities and engaging in a sort of welfare system border crossing. There was a gap in the academic research on women in the nonprofit sector, more specifically the charitable, human services sector, and there was little to no research on women who have been both clients and caseworkers. Therefore, I conducted a series five of in-depth, semi-structured interviews with women of color working at a local food bank. As an employee of the food bank, I recorded my own observations and field notes in order to write a feminist institutional ethnography. I employed interpretive, less conventional design methods, which were aligned with my commitment to social justice. The research highlighted many negative stories about oppression and exclusion women faced in the nonprofit sector. It also confronted the problematic stereotype welfare recipients, specifically women of color, are faced with as a result of the politics of disgust and dominant myth of the Welfare Queen. The research sought to explain how and why women of color transition in and out of the welfare state, and how they manage to work within a food bank, where they are constantly surrounded by inequalities.
As a graduate student earning both a Master of Arts in Social Justice and Human Rights and a Graduate Certificate in Nonprofit Leadership Management, I have tried to bridge the theoretical and the empirical in a meaningful way. A problematic chasm between the nonprofit professional and the client being served existed, and I wanted to research this chasm. I wanted to understand what challenges a woman of color faced if she was both a client and a nonprofit professional, possessing dual identities and engaging in a sort of welfare system border crossing. There was a gap in the academic research on women in the nonprofit sector, more specifically the charitable, human services sector, and there was little to no research on women who have been both clients and caseworkers. Therefore, I conducted a series five of in-depth, semi-structured interviews with women of color working at a local food bank. As an employee of the food bank, I recorded my own observations and field notes in order to write a feminist institutional ethnography. I employed interpretive, less conventional design methods, which were aligned with my commitment to social justice. The research highlighted many negative stories about oppression and exclusion women faced in the nonprofit sector. It also confronted the problematic stereotype welfare recipients, specifically women of color, are faced with as a result of the politics of disgust and dominant myth of the Welfare Queen. The research sought to explain how and why women of color transition in and out of the welfare state, and how they manage to work within a food bank, where they are constantly surrounded by inequalities.
ContributorsRoland, Kimberly (Author) / Behl, Natasha (Thesis advisor) / Murphy Erfani, Julie (Committee member) / Elenes, C. Alejandra (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
Do adult women survivors of childhood sexual abuse see their past victimization as having any relation to or impact on their current political engagement? While it is important to know how having experienced childhood sexual abuse (CSA) impacts women survivors’ adult personal relationships, health, and wellbeing, more research must be done on how these abuse experiences affect women survivors’ political engagement. Nearly 25,900,000 women voters in the United States have likely experienced childhood sexual abuse (National Sexual Violence Resource Center 2011), therefore it is imperative and participation. This interpretive autoethnographic and ethnographic study examines the narratives of six women CSA survivors currently attending a counselling support group, and employs feminist methodology to conceptualize the women’s beliefs and feelings on the impact of CSA on their political participation. The findings of this study, however, do not seek to be generalizable to all women survivors of CSA, but instead reveal how six adult women survivors of CSA cope with and interpret their victimization as having an impact on their adult political engagement and participation. Utilizing interpretive concepts of power, citizenship, and civil society, this study finds that adult women survivors of CSA may be more politically active if they have a safe space to disclose their abuse experiences to fellow survivors of CSA. This study suggests that a civil society community of adult CSA survivors might be beneficial for survivors and may encourage survivors to see political engagement as a viable avenue for healing from the trauma of CSA.
ContributorsDykstra, Joelle (Author) / Behl, Natasha (Thesis advisor) / Colbern, Allan (Committee member) / Murphy Erfani, Julie (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020