Syracuse University SURFACE Cultural Foundations of Education - Dissertations & Theses School of Education 5-2013 Feminisms at the Door: Gender and Sex at a Women's College Susan Chappell Overton Syracuse University Follow this and additional works at: https://surface.syr.edu/cfe_etd Part of the Education Commons, and the Women's Studies Commons Recommended Citation Overton, Susan Chappell, "Feminisms at the Door: Gender and Sex at a Women's College" (2013). Cultural Foundations of Education - Dissertations & Theses. 57. https://surface.syr.edu/cfe_etd/57 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the School of Education at SURFACE. It has been accepted for inclusion in Cultural Foundations of Education - Dissertations & Theses by an authorized administrator of SURFACE. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Abstract This dissertation is a qualitative study of early 21 st century American female college students’ experiences of their gender, sexuality, and racial identities, and of institutional politics as their single-sex college transitioned to co-education. It is an ethnography that utilizes feminist theorizing to understand tensions between feminists of different generations or waves; the complexities of identities and institutions in which gender, sexuality, and race intersect (bell hooks and Kimberle Crenshaw); and the workings of dominant gender and sexual norms (Judith Butler). As the College prepared to ‘go coed,’ the prospect of introducing male bodies into this environment generated rich discourses about sexual differences, and the operations of individual and institutional power. Data for this dissertation were gathered through individual interviews with five senior administrators and twenty-two students, a group interview with four students following one semester of coeducation, and participant observations over the course of four years.