Student Projects

This website serves as a one-stop shop for all that sex education doesn't teach people with uteruses. There are two main sections: medical and pleasure. The medical side details female anatomy, the menstrual cycle, and birth control. The pleasure side defines different forms of sexual arousal and response, along with sexual expression. Hannah Skarstad created this website with sex positivity—the idea that people should have space to embody, explore, and learn about their sexuality and gender without judgment or shame—in mind.

Project link: https://sites.google.com/view/buildsexpositivity/home

After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade in the summer of 2022 and states such as Florida, Indiana, and Kentucky enacted new abortion bans restricting abortion to very limited circumstances, a new legal argument emerged for abortion rights. Contrary to the perception that all religions oppose abortion access, members and leaders of Judaism, Islam, and the United Church of Christ filed lawsuits in favor of abortion access on the grounds of religious freedom. This thesis provides an explanation of the lawsuits in the context of each state’s laws and presents research on the religious beliefs that motivate the groups filing the court cases (as well as the opposing views of Mormonism and Catholicism). 

Fournier Thesis

Hannah Miller, a Drake ’22 graduate and WGS concentrator, was invited to present her senior capstone at the 2022 Midwestern Psychological Association conference in Chicago. At the conference, Hannah presented a data blitz titled ‘Gender, Power, and Money: Effects of money-gender stereotypes in social and professional domains’ and was awarded a Psi Chi Diversity Research Award for her outstanding presentation.