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Low-income women's standpoint: Recognizing poor and working-class American women as generators of resistant knowledge
| Title: | Low-income women's standpoint: Recognizing poor and working-class American women as generators of resistant knowledge. |
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| Name(s): |
Larson, Holly Ann. Florida Atlantic University, Degree grantor Caputi, Jane, Thesis advisor |
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| Type of Resource: | text | |
| Genre: | Electronic Thesis Or Dissertation | |
| Issuance: | monographic | |
| Date Issued: | 2003 | |
| Publisher: | Florida Atlantic University | |
| Place of Publication: | Boca Raton, Fla. | |
| Physical Form: | application/pdf | |
| Extent: | 208 p. | |
| Language(s): | English | |
| Summary: | This dissertation puts economically disadvantaged American women at the center of analysis. I turn to standpoint theory to demonstrate that low-income women construct knowledge out of resistance to systemic oppression in their everyday, concrete worlds. In addition, I create a distinct theory on low-income women's standpoint to show that poor and working-class women are grounded in and produce knowledge from the messiness of contradictions and the murkiness of ambiguity in the immediate, material world. Therefore, their forms of resistance is as complex, ambiguous, and messy as the world from which they struggle. Discerning and analyzing low-income women's standpoint does not create a value hierarchy that places more worth on one form of resistance than on another. Nor does it make an ethical judgment on how low-income women resist or uphold moral absolutism that categorizes their acts of resistance as "good/healthy" or "bad/dysfunctional." Rather, uncovering and examining low-income women's standpoint focuses on how poor and working-class women struggle to be whole, complex beings who daily fight against economic oppression under structural limitations and within contradictory situations. Low-income women's standpoint theory acknowledges the messiness of life and the imperfection of humanity. Furthermore, it illustrates that knowledge is an ongoing process of seeking "truth"; there is no one correct way of finding "truth." Hence, low-income women's standpoint theory shows that there is "truth" in the murkiness and confusion of contradictions and ambiguity. My dissertation is set up as the following: in chapter one, I explain what poor and working-class women's standpoint is and highlight how their resistant knowledge is grounded in their immediate and everyday world; in chapter two, I examine how low-income female performing artists and writers openly express their sexuality as "bad girls" through their art and writing to claim sexual agency; in chapter three, I analyze how low-waged female workers encountering structural limitations negotiate power relations in the workforce; and, in chapter four, I look at how low-income women deal with emotional pain and anger as they resist being crushed by economic and social oppression. | |
| Identifier: | 9780496426553 (isbn), 12046 (digitool), FADT12046 (IID), fau:8959 (fedora) | |
| Collection: | FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection | |
| Note(s): |
Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters Thesis (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2003. |
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| Subject(s): |
Poor women--United States Oppression (Psychology) Working class women |
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| Held by: | Florida Atlantic University Libraries | |
| Persistent Link to This Record: | http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/12046 | |
| Sublocation: | Digital Library | |
| Use and Reproduction: | Copyright © is held by the author, with permission granted to Florida Atlantic University to digitize, archive and distribute this item for non-profit research and educational purposes. Any reuse of this item in excess of fair use or other copyright exemptions requires permission of the copyright holder. | |
| Use and Reproduction: | http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ | |
| Host Institution: | FAU | |
| Is Part of Series: | Florida Atlantic University Digital Library Collections. |
