Graduation Year

2012

Document Type

Thesis

Degree

M.A.

Degree Granting Department

Womens Studies

Major Professor

Jane Jorgenson

Keywords

class, gender, mind-body-spirit, race, sexuality

Abstract

This project is a translation of ideas I have encountered in my journey through Women's Studies. With this interactive book, I offer a concise, understandable, and empowering method for self-discovery from one feminist's perspective. Traditional self-help materials often set the reader up as the one with the issue or problem and they rarely call out the functioning systems of oppression as a stumbling block or offer ways to circumvent them. With this project, I hope to shine light on the functioning systems of gender discrimination, racism, classism, and heterosexism, and to provide a framework for understanding. There are three main theoretical contexts for this project. The first context includes perspectives on language and the ways in which language limits women's communication with themselves and with each other. .The second is gender socialization and how it enforces norms of "appropriate" female behavior. The third context is recent work in feminist spirituality and the possibilities it offers for recovering a spiritual self in direct relationship to a higher being. By narrating my own experiences in these three areas, and by offering resources and tools for further exploration, I hope this thesis will enable readers to understand that it is not they who are sick or in need of "self-help" but the society and culture in which they live.

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