Browsing by Author "Hughes, Ashley Taylor"
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- Philologia, Volume 6 : 2014Nicholson, Ren; Chadha, Natasha; Baugh, Katie; Wiley, Benjamin; Weber, Britney Lauren; Hughes, Ashley Taylor; Damiano, Daniella; Herdegen, Hanna; Lower, Erika; Mulholland, Grace; Sumper, Cameron; Ivanovic, Tea; Davis, Cara; Albertson, Ashlee; Keup, Brittany; Robertson, Rebecca; Marsters, Robert; Lee, Demetria (http://www.philologia.clahs.vt.edu/, 2014)The journal was created for the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences at Virginia Tech and accepts liberal arts research from all thirteen Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) universities. It is an annually published, multidisciplinary peer-reviewed journal.
- Women in Combat: A Critical Analysis of Responses to the U.S. Military's Recent Inclusion EffortsHughes, Ashley Taylor (Virginia Tech, 2015-06-01)In this thesis, I analyze responses to the 1994 Direct Ground Combat Definition and Assignment Rule (DGCDAR), the policy that until January 24, 2013 formally barred women from serving in combat. Specifically, I use feminist theories of embodiment, equality, and difference to interpret how interlocutors represent female service members in the "Letters" section of the Marine Corps Gazette and interviews I collected from members of the military community. I find that the most common arguments against women in combat locate gender difference in the physically sexed body, centering primarily on female nature, sexuality, and strength. Throughout this project, I demonstrate how these arguments are persuasive because the discourse understands equality as sameness to a male norm. This equality as sameness paradigm perpetuates gender-based barriers to parity by expecting women to function just like men. Ultimately, I argue for a more inclusive conception of equality that acknowledges difference.