Oregon Undergraduate Research Journal: Vol. 13 No. 1 (2018)

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https://hdl.handle.net/1794/23512
Cover art by Vinitha Gadiraju

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    Cover Art-- "Light at Antelope Canyon"
    (University of Oregon, 2018) Vinitha, Gadiraju
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    Guest Editorial- "On Undergraduate Research"
    (University of Oregon, 2018) Mohr, James C.
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    Letter from the Editor
    (University of Oregon, 2018) Zhou, Allison M.
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    Responding to the Hyde Amendment: Abortion Discourse, Race, and a Conspiracy of Silence
    (University of Oregon, 2018) Wilms-Crowe, Momo
    This research project examines the discourse about abortion and reproductive justice in order to analyze how race shaped politics within the second-wave feminist movement. Specifically, I explore why more black women did not engage in the national debate about abortion in the wake of the 1976 Hyde Amendment, even when restrictive abortion legislation had a disproportionately negative effect on them. Historically, scholarship has focused either on women’s liberation and feminism, or on civil rights and black liberation. This paper, however, connects those themes using an intersectional approach by examining reproductive justice in terms of women’s multiple, intersecting identities, especially race, class, and gender. This multidimensional identity complicated black women’s involvement in the second wave feminist movement, leading to a so-called “conspiracy of silence.” Primary sources, including feminist publications, interviews, and autobiographies reveal that black women were largely absent from the mainstream pro-choice feminist discourse and mobilizations in the 1970s. Their silence and lack of involvement, however, was not because access to abortion was unimportant nor irrelevant to them. Rather, my research suggests that their silence was rooted in complex historical and ideological barriers as well as a failure of the mainstream feminist movement to consider their unique history, needs, and circumstances. This research project draws attention to the historical silences by reading “against the grain” with the aim to shed light on the complicated politics within the second-wave feminist movement and provide a framework for understanding why black women’s voices were silenced in this sphere.
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    Spitting Bars and Subverting Heteronormativity: An Analysis of Frank Ocean and Tyler, the Creator's Departures from Heteronormativity, Traditional Concepts of Masculinity, and the Gender Binary
    (University of Oregon, 2018) Elkins, Lizzy
    This paper seeks to investigate an emerging movement of rap and pop artists who actively subvert structures of the gender binary and heteronormativity through their music. The main artists considered in this research are pop/rap/R&B artist Frank Ocean and rap artist Tyler, the Creator, both of whom have claimed fame relatively recently. Artists like Ocean and Tyler make intentional departures from heteronormativity and the gender binary, combat concepts such as ‘toxic masculinity’, and hint at the possibilities for normalization and destigmatization of straying from the gender binary through lyrics, metaphysical expressions, physical embodiments of gender, expression of fluid/non-heteronormative sexualities, and disregard for labels in their sexual and gendered identities. I will discuss the history and context around music as an agent for social change and address privileging of the black heterosexual cisgender man as the central voice to pop/rap/R&B in the following research. This project will draw on Beauvoirian philosophy regarding gender as well as contemporary sources of media like Genius, record sale statistics, and album lyrics. By illustrating and evaluating how these artists subvert traditional concepts of gender and sexuality, I hope to also shine a light on how their music, which reaches millions of people who are less aware of or accepting of gayness, catalyzes social change and is significant in this current political moment, which is an era of increasing public tolerance of queer ideas and less binary gender expression.
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    Women's Biological Threat to Confucian Social Order: An Examination of Gender Constructs through an Analysis of Pre-modern Chinese Literature
    (University of Oregon, 2018) Pellouchoud, Megan
    Cultural views embedded within an array of pre-modern Chinese literature unveil social and gender constructs designed to promote Confucian social order. Confucian culture prioritizes the reproduction of sons, in order to maintain ancestor worship and social order, whereas literature from this period does not celebrate the female’s biological role in reproduction. Instead, women’s biological role in reproduction is characterized as unfavorable and disrupting to social order, while the social role of motherhood is idealized and represented as stabilizing to social order. Consequently, the biological processes associated with female reproduction are ranked on a hierarchical scale reflecting women’s social position that conforms with Confucian gender hierarchies and social mores. An interpretation and analysis of traditional Chinese literature reveals that the positive aspects associated with the social role of motherhood override the negative aspects associated with the biological role. Within this construct, the biological role of motherhood was restrained by depictions of pollution and represented as inferior to the social role. Furthermore, female reproductive power was framed as secondary to men. These societal views parallel Confucian social and gender hierarchies that promote the female role of biological reproduction as a threat to social order.