Date of Award

2026-05-01

Degree Name

Doctor of Education

Department

Teaching, Learning and Culture

Advisor(s)

Cesar A. Rossatto

Abstract

This study examines gender politics and the unlearning of patriarchy in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands, centering lived experiences of Latinas and Black women while critically engaging men's roles in both reproducing and challenging gender inequality. Grounded in Critical Pedagogy, intersectionality, Critical Race Theory (CRT)/LatCrit, and whiteness studies, the research employs a mixed-methods design, including metadata analysis, surveys, interviews, focus groups, and critical discourse analysis. Intersectionality serves as the analytical framework, highlighting how patriarchy, white supremacy, predatory capitalism, race, class, and geopolitics intersect to shape differentiated experiences of marginalization and agency. Critical consciousness is conceptualized as the capacity to link lived experiences to structural systems of power, forming the basis for transformative awareness and praxis. Pattern I reveals that men often recognize inequality without engaging in structural critique or accountability, reflecting constrained critical consciousness. Pattern II identifies an emerging yet uneven movement among men toward naming power, acknowledging complicity, and developing early forms of allyship. Pattern III demonstrates that women of color exhibit a situated, intersectional critical consciousness grounded in lived experience, enabling them to identify and challenge systemic inequality. Pattern IV shows how women extend this awareness into collective, relational, and culturally grounded feminist agency that resists individualistic frameworks. Central to these dynamics is unlearning patriarchy, understood as a critical pedagogical process through men interrogate and dismantle internalized norms and privileges. The study argues that gender justice requires intersectional analysis, critical education, and structural transformation.

Keywords: feminism, critical pedagogy, intersectionality, unlearning patriarchy, critical consciousness, borderlands, women of color, gender politics

Language

en

Provenance

Received from ProQuest

File Size

659 p.

File Format

application/pdf

Rights Holder

Laura Erickson Alvarado

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