Susan Douglas discusses many important issues focusing on enlightened sexism in her chapter “Lean and Mean”. Douglas starts off this chapter with the prevalent issue in today’s society of breast implants. She uses Victoria’s Secret as a prime example of how women feel there is only one way to be “sexy” and that is by being clones of the Victoria’s Secret models. Some of the models include Giselle Bundchen, Claudia Schiffer and Heidi Klum; all of these women are beautiful with perfect “Barbie” bodies, including a size zero waist and big sized boobs. These models create the mindset in normal, everyday women that they must look like that to be sexy. However, we all know having a size zero wait is almost impossible when your boobs are the size of watermelons. When women realize they cannot naturally become this image of sexy, they turn to plastic surgery to be reconstructed in to a beauty. In 2004, 247,000 women got breast implants, when only 32,000 women got them in 1992. This statistic that Douglas gives shows the massive change in targeting women to become a perfect, Barbie-like figure. Something interesting that Douglas points out is how the ideal women has changed from fashion icons Jackie Kennedy and Audrey Hepburn to women featured on the cover of Maxim and Sports Illustrated. This change is essential to the fact that women are now more self-conscious of their bodies. According to a study Douglas uses, “the number one wish of girls between the ages of eleven and seventeen is to lose weight”(Douglas 217). I found this statement extremely upsetting, while at the same time very truthful. Two out of the six girls in my friends group from high school have eating disorders. However, it was not until they went to college where their boyfriends broke up with them, they lost an excessive amount of weight and they lived off extreme diets. My friend who weighs about 100lbs and is 5’7” says she feels “big”. My other friend, well not my friend anymore, lost 30lbs in two months and thinks she is healthy now because she does not eat and exercises all the time. She has also become extremely mean, but I’ll get in to that later. This a huge problem facing girls. Douglas goes on to discuss the plastic surgery industry and how women are starting to get plastic surgery as early as there 20s. I am not an advocate of plastic surgery at all and find it to be an extremely unfortunate, booming industry. It was interesting to see how older famous women has said they did not see any point in having plastic surgery. Also with that, it was upsetting to read about the fact that plastic surgeons encouraged patients to start surgery in their 20s and 30s so then they can get touch-ups through their lives. Douglas discusses the TV show The Swan. The Swan takes average looking, everyday women and transforms their face in a three-month process while the woman is not allowed to see her face until after the three months. When the transformation is finally done the women get to look at their new faces in the mirror. One woman questioned if her mirror reflection was someone else. Douglas argues that these shows create a false sense of feminism. She says, “To challenge the concern that the cosmetic procedure frenzy is just another way to oppress women, and to extract any unsightly swelling in their checkbooks, words like “choice” and “empowered” seek to equate having work done with being truly liberated” (Douglas 233). Douglas goes on to say plastic surgery is portrayed as feminist because it shows women have the power to be in control of their bodies. My best friend’s Mom, who is 67 now, got a face life when she was 60. She spent all this money and time recovering from the surgery and when she had healed her face did not look much different. It is crazy to think how much money is spent on plastic surgery, most of it coming from the pockets of women. Douglas further discusses how women are the big contributor to the plastic surgery industry. This is really interesting because when you look at most of the women on shows like The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills have all had multiple surgeries, yet they are married to average, most times over-weight and balding, men. My friends and I were talking the other day about how there are huge double standards for women and men. We came to the conclusion that a guy who was not very attractive, but had a great personality was able to get attractive girls. However, when we were looking at girls with awesome personalities, but a heavy body they were not able to get attractive guys. This idea is really interesting and shows why women subject themselves to so many expensive and dangerous plastic surgeries. I found this article in the Times discussing how young people feel more self-confident after having plastic surgery than the control group who feels self-conscious about a specific attribute and did not have plastic surgery.
Monday, February 28, 2011
Short Post 3/1
The “Hormonal Hurricanes” article by Fausto-Sterling discussed the changing and sometimes ridiculous ideas of women’s body and health throughout history. These are ideas that I have read about and discussed at multiple times during my college career and yet the still manage to disturb me. I think that the reason these ignorant seeming ideas bother me so much is because they make me wonder about the medical theories and practices for modern women. Looking back at beliefs such as higher education depriving women of the energy they need to be reproductively successful it seems obviously false. It must not have been so clearly obvious to the people at the time because if it is still being written about today it clearly was reasonably popular. This leads me to question what beliefs we follow today that future generations will consider ridiculous. Women’s health issues are a particularly vulnerable area because for so long the medical profession was dominated by men. This has long term consequences because men may not be as motivated to further research in a field that does not affect them and also they simply do not know the experience of being a woman. A perfect example of this that Fausto-Sterling brings up is that women experiencing PMS were considered hysterical and told that their symptoms were imaginary. It would be extremely frustrating to be told that the experiences you are having are simply a figment of your imagination.
So what contemporary beliefs could be the modern equivalent to believing that the amount of food you eat translates to your brain power? I have often considered this question, but Fausto-Sterling made a suggestion that kind of surprised me. She brought up how contemporary psychologist and biologist contribute the majority of sex differences to hormones in our body. As a psychology major I have been taught this many times and I have never really taken the time to question it. This reminds me of the fact that often when information is presented to us as Science we take it as undisputable fact. The problem with this is looking back on all the supposedly scientific claims about women from the past. Clearly sometimes science is subjective, biased and/or just plain wrong. This article reminded me of why it is important to question even what is believed to be fact.
So what contemporary beliefs could be the modern equivalent to believing that the amount of food you eat translates to your brain power? I have often considered this question, but Fausto-Sterling made a suggestion that kind of surprised me. She brought up how contemporary psychologist and biologist contribute the majority of sex differences to hormones in our body. As a psychology major I have been taught this many times and I have never really taken the time to question it. This reminds me of the fact that often when information is presented to us as Science we take it as undisputable fact. The problem with this is looking back on all the supposedly scientific claims about women from the past. Clearly sometimes science is subjective, biased and/or just plain wrong. This article reminded me of why it is important to question even what is believed to be fact.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Short Post 3/1
Hormonal Hurricanes: Menstruation, Menopause, and Female Behavior
I never realized how much discrimination women faced based on their biological functioning. It seems like in the past, women’s premenstrual changes were more noticeable and were thought of as extreme changes in a woman’s behavior. Today, I don’t see that in our society. Its basically impossible to tell whether a woman has her period or not at any given time just through daily interactions. But that made me question why do we hide it so much? We don’t talk about this issue because it is considered taboo, especially when males are present.
It caught my attention when Fausto-Sterling brought up young girls and boys’ perceptions of menstruation. She says that “in one recent study most premenarcheal girls and boys of the same age believed menstruation to be a physically and emotionally disruptive event, while another found that 85 percent of the premenarcheal girls studied thought it inappropriate to discuss menstruation with boys.” It’s a very confusing thing and because it’s a taboo topic, a lot of young kids don’t get the right information about menstruation.
Lean and Mean
I agree with a lot of what Douglas is saying and I can see how the media makes it seem like every woman needs to be thin in order to be beautiful. I don't know if I completely agree with her logic of why girls are mean to one another. I don't think that girls are mean to one another because they feel angry by the pressure to be thin. I think some girls are just inherently mean sometimes. Especially at age 15 or 16, girls focus pretty much all of their attention on themselves. I like that Douglas included the statistics that show that only a minority of students actually experience bullying. Douglas should have also talked about the extent of bullying. Some students experience one or two minor incidents while other go through years of torment. I think there is a huge difference between those.
I didn't experience bullying in school but I did experience discrimination by boys like Douglas mentions as another issue that girls face but it doesn't get much attention. I felt like boys in my classes were always willing to get me to help them out with a math problem or have me write out the group essay, but when it came to respecting my intelligence and feelings, that wasn't so important. It was really frustrating and I remember going home on multiple occasions and venting to my mom that some cocky guy had insulted me in front of the entire class and I felt like there was nothing I could do about it. Thats definitely something that I'm glad is over. In college I feel like girls are respected more because we feel more confident in this setting some how.
I never realized how much discrimination women faced based on their biological functioning. It seems like in the past, women’s premenstrual changes were more noticeable and were thought of as extreme changes in a woman’s behavior. Today, I don’t see that in our society. Its basically impossible to tell whether a woman has her period or not at any given time just through daily interactions. But that made me question why do we hide it so much? We don’t talk about this issue because it is considered taboo, especially when males are present.
It caught my attention when Fausto-Sterling brought up young girls and boys’ perceptions of menstruation. She says that “in one recent study most premenarcheal girls and boys of the same age believed menstruation to be a physically and emotionally disruptive event, while another found that 85 percent of the premenarcheal girls studied thought it inappropriate to discuss menstruation with boys.” It’s a very confusing thing and because it’s a taboo topic, a lot of young kids don’t get the right information about menstruation.
Lean and Mean
I agree with a lot of what Douglas is saying and I can see how the media makes it seem like every woman needs to be thin in order to be beautiful. I don't know if I completely agree with her logic of why girls are mean to one another. I don't think that girls are mean to one another because they feel angry by the pressure to be thin. I think some girls are just inherently mean sometimes. Especially at age 15 or 16, girls focus pretty much all of their attention on themselves. I like that Douglas included the statistics that show that only a minority of students actually experience bullying. Douglas should have also talked about the extent of bullying. Some students experience one or two minor incidents while other go through years of torment. I think there is a huge difference between those.
I didn't experience bullying in school but I did experience discrimination by boys like Douglas mentions as another issue that girls face but it doesn't get much attention. I felt like boys in my classes were always willing to get me to help them out with a math problem or have me write out the group essay, but when it came to respecting my intelligence and feelings, that wasn't so important. It was really frustrating and I remember going home on multiple occasions and venting to my mom that some cocky guy had insulted me in front of the entire class and I felt like there was nothing I could do about it. Thats definitely something that I'm glad is over. In college I feel like girls are respected more because we feel more confident in this setting some how.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Short Post 2/24
Rupp brings up the issue of “same-sex sexuality” and explores how “same-sex sexuality” goes beyond the term homosexuality. She does this by studying global patterns from many different dates and places. Something I found extremely interesting was that how Rupp defended two bodies of the same genitals now relating to same-sex sexuality, but together due to age difference, class difference and gender difference. She further investigates this topic by studying cultures where men have what we would consider “sexual experiences”, however these experiences are exactly the opposite of sexual. This culture goes back to ancient Athenian society. Elite men had the privilege to have engage in sexual contact with anyone who was beneath them, class wise. They had the power to penetrate women, young men, foreigners and slaves. Rupp questions whether this culture of dominating, elite men has anything to do “same-sex sexuality”. She further identifies other cultures where boys must swallow semen from a man to ensure his transition from boyhood to manhood. This obviously is a foreign concept to most of us as we now have laws against that exact behavior. It is interesting to see how what we see as a sexual experience is seen as a maturity from boy to man. Rupp further discusses Mexico City and how men will dress as women and work as prostitutes. Men, who identify as heterosexuals, will come by and pay for the services of these male prostitutes. Rupp states, “A study of the jotas of Mexico City point out that the “real men” who have sex with men dressed as women eventually, or sometimes, or often, want to reverse roles, even if they will never admit it”. This study is claiming that all men have a sexual desire to encounter a sexual experience of the same-sex but will never admit it. I have trouble understanding this study because I do not see that as true. Of course, some heterosexual men do feel that urge, but I would have to believe most do not. My problem with this article is that Rupp is portraying all men and women to desire the same-sex, whether it may be sexually or love. I find it challenging, once again, because in order for these men to become hard and ejaculate they must have been aroused sexually. Rupp tries to defend that some of these experiences are clearly rituals or tribal practices that are not sexual at all. Scientifically, the dominator, the man, clearly must be sexually aroused for penetration. This leads me to the topic of rape in our modern culture. A classic example, which is illegal, would be Priests having anal sex with young boys. This is a modern example in America and other countries that to me is the most similar to these historic cultural events. I think it is interesting how we think of sex, nowadays, for pleasure for both women and men. However, it is interesting to understand whether a rapist wants sexual pleasure or to display his power. This whole article covers what we have been talking about in class. Men have power over women and if they admit it or not they like to have the power. We talked about men and if they would be willing to give up some of their privilege, power, in order for women to become more privileged or powerful. But when it comes down to it, men seem to always have the power because they are the ones with a penis. This is a scary idea for women especially because biologically they will always have a penis and women will never have one. Does this mean men will always be more powerful? Another thing Rupp and Rich discuss is the idea of a loving relationship as oppose to a purely sexual relationship between two of the same-sex. Rich discusses the continuum of a lesbian friendship on one end and a sexual relationship on the other. I have seen girls have a “girl crush” on another girl, however the relationship was not sexual. With that said it was a very close relationship and in the end one girl turned out to identify as a lesbian. I think is it hard to have a lesbian friendship without considering a sexual relationship.
Short Post 2/24
Rich: Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence
Rich questions “whether in a different context or other things being equal, women would choose heterosexual coupling and marriage.” And she goes on to claim that women are drawn to relationships with other women because they care for each other emotionally and don’t objectify or demean each other. She also relates women’s attraction to other women as stemming from a child’s connection with its mother. She says that there is a spectrum of lesbianism with friendship on one end and sexual relationships on the other. However, I don’t think that this is truly a continuum of female relationships. I think that there is definitely a dividing line between friendship and closeness and sexual interactions. There is also a clear dividing line between loving a child or parent and loving a sexual partner.
I also think that most women who are straight would still choose heterosexual relationships if they were in the “different context” that Rich speaks of. Many women have a psychological sexual attraction to men that is not caused by society.
When Rich lists the ways that men control women, I found some areas that I didn’t quite understand or I didn’t agree with.
1. “To command or exploit their labor to control their produce-[by means of the institutions of marriage and motherhood as unpaid productions.]” What does she mean by “unpaid productions?” Does that mean childcare? Housework? Sexual interactions? She also includes in this section “male control of abortion, contraception, sterilization, and birthing.” If she means that men control these things because men typically make the laws around these things or men typically have economic control over women, then maybe I can see where she is coming from, but she doesn’t really explain her reasoning there. I think today, women have a lot of control over whether or not they want an abortion, what type of birth control to use, how they want to give birth, and I have never actually heard of a man forcing a woman to be sterilized.
2. “To confine them physically and prevent their movement-.by means of…high heels and “feminine” dress codes in fashion.” I know that high heels are a fashion item that were apparently created to make women’s’ legs look better but I don’t see how men are forcing women to wear high heels. And women have the choice to dress as they please. Many women consciously choose to wear feminine clothing, is that bad?
3. “To withhold from them large areas of society’s knowledge and cultural attainments-by means of noneducation of females:…sex-role tracking with deflects women from science, technology, and other “masculine” pursuits.” I guess when Rich wrote this in 1980 things were different for girls trying to get an education. But today I don’t see women being turned away from science and technology. As a biology major, I have never been deterred from pursuing a career in science and I see a lot of biology professors who are women. In fact, the head of the
Rich questions “whether in a different context or other things being equal, women would choose heterosexual coupling and marriage.” And she goes on to claim that women are drawn to relationships with other women because they care for each other emotionally and don’t objectify or demean each other. She also relates women’s attraction to other women as stemming from a child’s connection with its mother. She says that there is a spectrum of lesbianism with friendship on one end and sexual relationships on the other. However, I don’t think that this is truly a continuum of female relationships. I think that there is definitely a dividing line between friendship and closeness and sexual interactions. There is also a clear dividing line between loving a child or parent and loving a sexual partner.
I also think that most women who are straight would still choose heterosexual relationships if they were in the “different context” that Rich speaks of. Many women have a psychological sexual attraction to men that is not caused by society.
When Rich lists the ways that men control women, I found some areas that I didn’t quite understand or I didn’t agree with.
1. “To command or exploit their labor to control their produce-[by means of the institutions of marriage and motherhood as unpaid productions.]” What does she mean by “unpaid productions?” Does that mean childcare? Housework? Sexual interactions? She also includes in this section “male control of abortion, contraception, sterilization, and birthing.” If she means that men control these things because men typically make the laws around these things or men typically have economic control over women, then maybe I can see where she is coming from, but she doesn’t really explain her reasoning there. I think today, women have a lot of control over whether or not they want an abortion, what type of birth control to use, how they want to give birth, and I have never actually heard of a man forcing a woman to be sterilized.
2. “To confine them physically and prevent their movement-.by means of…high heels and “feminine” dress codes in fashion.” I know that high heels are a fashion item that were apparently created to make women’s’ legs look better but I don’t see how men are forcing women to wear high heels. And women have the choice to dress as they please. Many women consciously choose to wear feminine clothing, is that bad?
3. “To withhold from them large areas of society’s knowledge and cultural attainments-by means of noneducation of females:…sex-role tracking with deflects women from science, technology, and other “masculine” pursuits.” I guess when Rich wrote this in 1980 things were different for girls trying to get an education. But today I don’t see women being turned away from science and technology. As a biology major, I have never been deterred from pursuing a career in science and I see a lot of biology professors who are women. In fact, the head of the
Long Post 2/24
The article “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence” raise some interesting ideas about heterosexuality is an institution of oppression within our society. Rich begins with article with a critique of four books. Each of these books were published with the intention of furthering understanding of the feminist movement. Rich proceeds to break down the argument of the books and demonstrate the ways in which they are subject to the institution of heterosexuality. Even when books are meant to benefit the feminist movement heterosexuality is so ingrained within our culture that it influences these writings. These writings often either entirely ignore the lesbian experience or they write as if lesbian sexuality and existence requires an explanation. It is interesting to note that through this lens the lesbian community becomes the abnormal or “the other”. Hardly ever in writing to authors find it necessary to justify or explain heterosexuality instead it is accepted as natural. Rich then presents the audience with a framework created by Kathleen Gough in which men deny women of their own choices in their sexuality. The eight categories of this framework are: to deny women sexuality, to force it, to command or exploit their labor to control their produce, to control or rob them of their children, to confine them physically and prevent movement, to use them as objects in male transactions, to cramp their creativeness, and to withhold them large areas of the society’s knowledge and cultural attainments. Most of these categories clearly fall into the force of heterosexuality upon women; even pornography which is considered consensual is focused upon a heterosexual lens. A perfect example is the wide variety of “lesbian porn” intended for male viewers. Women are often asked to play the part of the heterosexual female, even in jobs when gender should not have a part. Women are more likely to be hired if they know how to perform their sexuality correctly.
When women realize that they are trapped in a society where they must always perform their gender, they often turn to marriage. Here men have once again forced women into accepting heterosexuality because it is the only way to achieve economic equality. An attitude has developed in our society that is a type of “boys will be boys” sentiment, which allows men to get away with this forced heterosexuality. When women become victims of violence and slave trade people have begun to look to the women to analyze why she would have fallen into such a trap. This perspective completely excuses the man who perpetuated the act because men are seen as slaves to their sexuality. By saying men cannot control themselves in some ways all women become victims and subordinates to men. Female indoctrination of this heterosexual myth begins from a young age where in the media women are never seen to be happy unless they have a man by their side. This creates a mentality of a need for love, which overwhelms women and causes them not to resist the heterosexuality institution. Women continue to buy into this institution even when they try to fight it because often in their literature they refer to “most women” being heterosexual. Simply putting this phrase into the writing once again creates an other effect of the lesbian women. It is an essential step for all of society to stop treating heterosexuality as if it is a choice that one can make.
The lesbianism is not a newly emerging trend created out of bitterness towards men. To further this point Rich chooses to use the term “lesbian existence”. By calling it an existence classifies lesbianism as a lived experience. It is an act of resistance against compulsory heterosexuality, while at the same time getting to the truth of the experience. Lesbians have a long history filled with both victories and pain, but most of all it is filled with denial. Much of the Lesbian existence has been covered up by lost voices. These voices were lost either through punishment of those who spoke out or a merging of the lesbian voice with the homosexual male voice. Rich makes an interesting comparison of lesbianism with motherhood, describing it as a distinctly feminine experience and therefore resistant to blending with any male experience. In order to fight compulsory heterosexuality it is imperative that all women reclaim the lesbian experience throughout history. This is important for not only lesbian women, but also women who identify as heterosexual. This will help move away from a society where being heterosexual automatically mean that one is subordinated. It will help to remove the myth that women need men and therefore will always return to them ever when treated poorly. Once women are unafraid of acknowledging how much they need other women it will lead to a better place for both heterosexual and homosexual women.
When women realize that they are trapped in a society where they must always perform their gender, they often turn to marriage. Here men have once again forced women into accepting heterosexuality because it is the only way to achieve economic equality. An attitude has developed in our society that is a type of “boys will be boys” sentiment, which allows men to get away with this forced heterosexuality. When women become victims of violence and slave trade people have begun to look to the women to analyze why she would have fallen into such a trap. This perspective completely excuses the man who perpetuated the act because men are seen as slaves to their sexuality. By saying men cannot control themselves in some ways all women become victims and subordinates to men. Female indoctrination of this heterosexual myth begins from a young age where in the media women are never seen to be happy unless they have a man by their side. This creates a mentality of a need for love, which overwhelms women and causes them not to resist the heterosexuality institution. Women continue to buy into this institution even when they try to fight it because often in their literature they refer to “most women” being heterosexual. Simply putting this phrase into the writing once again creates an other effect of the lesbian women. It is an essential step for all of society to stop treating heterosexuality as if it is a choice that one can make.
The lesbianism is not a newly emerging trend created out of bitterness towards men. To further this point Rich chooses to use the term “lesbian existence”. By calling it an existence classifies lesbianism as a lived experience. It is an act of resistance against compulsory heterosexuality, while at the same time getting to the truth of the experience. Lesbians have a long history filled with both victories and pain, but most of all it is filled with denial. Much of the Lesbian existence has been covered up by lost voices. These voices were lost either through punishment of those who spoke out or a merging of the lesbian voice with the homosexual male voice. Rich makes an interesting comparison of lesbianism with motherhood, describing it as a distinctly feminine experience and therefore resistant to blending with any male experience. In order to fight compulsory heterosexuality it is imperative that all women reclaim the lesbian experience throughout history. This is important for not only lesbian women, but also women who identify as heterosexual. This will help move away from a society where being heterosexual automatically mean that one is subordinated. It will help to remove the myth that women need men and therefore will always return to them ever when treated poorly. Once women are unafraid of acknowledging how much they need other women it will lead to a better place for both heterosexual and homosexual women.
Monday, February 21, 2011
Short Post 2/22
Patricia Hill Collin’s chapter, Why Black Sexual Politics? depicted black’s sexuality in the media. It was interesting to hear what Collin’s thought about black music stars such as Destiny’s Child and the infamous JLO. I remember listening to these songs as a child and did not even notice that black artists wrote them. It was not until I was much older that I noticed they were black. Even when I did notice they were black female artists, I did not notice the differences in their music videos from a Britney Spear’s music video. Both to me seemed extremely undermining women and showing them as sexual objects for men to want to possess and women to want to be. After reading Collin’s article, I youtubed Destiny Child’s Survior music video and right away noticed exactly what Collins was referring to. I’ll attach the video, but I noticed how Beyonce is crawling on the beach like an animal and how all three of the girls are wearing ripped clothing as if they were Amazon women. They then continued to behave in an animalistic way, in addition to changing in to revealing clothing of animal prints. It was interesting to see how they were connected to animalistic characteristics and were even dressed that way too. When Collins talked about The Maury Show, The Montel Williams Show and Jerry Springer, I was able to connect the stereotypical “animalistic” trait of the black race to the people on these shows. Collins described the black women as not knowing who their baby’s father was because she was so sexually wild. A black man’s sexual drive was also portrayed by having the black man not be able to know who is child is because he too has so many sexual partners. The worst part of these portrayals of the black race is that white people are watching it and taking it as true.
Long Post 2/22
Sex R Us
This chapter from Douglas explores sexuality in the media from the 90’s to today. She focuses first on advertisements like Calvin Klein underwear ads. Here is one example of an ad that happens to feature Mark Wahlberg.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJXvHGgNZEo
I was so shocked that the woman in the ad is completely topless and only covering herself with her arms. That is the most blatant utilization of sex appeal that I have ever seen on television ever I think. Clearly the ad is targeting young men to buy the underwear and what better to get their attention than a beautiful topless woman?
Next Douglas discusses popular magazines that transformed from giving lifestyle advice to sex advice like Cosmo and Maxim. Douglas gives a lot of examples of phrases used on the covers to attract readers attention. She seems kind of obsessed with that idea. Like we get it, we have all seen those magazines, just make your point. The problem I have with Douglas is that she usually does not make a clear point at the end of her rants. She just shows you what she thinks is wrong with any form of media and then moves on.
Her next target is prime time television. Because the major networks were competing against fox’s hits 90210 and Melrose place, other networks started making tv shows that had high sex appeal to attract teenagers. Douglas argues that the increase in sex on tv influenced teens to be more open to sex and be more sexually active. I don’t know if there is an actual causal relationship between teen sexual activity and what they watch on television. I can see how there would be, but I also think that there are a lot of teens who watch those shows on tv but don’t follow the characters footsteps. I also think that teens learn a lot about sex from tv. Some might say that’s bad because tv shows don’t accurately portray sex in a good way to educate teens. But on the other hand, it is much less awkward for teens to watch their favorite character on a show go through an experience that teaches them a lesson about sex rather than have to go through awkward conversations with their parents.
Next Douglas tackles the sensation of Sex and the City. She says that the show portrays the main characters as women who only think about sex and nothing else. I would say that from watching this show, yes they talk and think about sex a lot but not 100% of the time. And they talk about sex because that is the focus of the show. That is why women watch the show, to watch the characters juicy sex stories.
Douglas discusses the Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction, and female rappers. Then she starts a discussion of how the United States has a very high teenage pregnancy rate. She says that “34% of young women become pregnant at least once before they reach the age of 20” (184). I am skeptical about this figure and I would like to know where she found that statistic. Does she mean 34% of young women in the united states? Or in one specific state? As a girl nearing the age off 20, one third of my friends certainly have not been pregnant, at least that I know of.
Finally Douglas discusses child beauty pageants like the ones featured on Toddlers and Tiaras and in Little Miss Sunshine. I personally think that TLC should not have a full blown tv show about that, but they should do periodic exposés or documentaries to educated people about the pageants. Instead, they are making a spectacle out of something that is already ridiculous.
This chapter from Douglas explores sexuality in the media from the 90’s to today. She focuses first on advertisements like Calvin Klein underwear ads. Here is one example of an ad that happens to feature Mark Wahlberg.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJXvHGgNZEo
I was so shocked that the woman in the ad is completely topless and only covering herself with her arms. That is the most blatant utilization of sex appeal that I have ever seen on television ever I think. Clearly the ad is targeting young men to buy the underwear and what better to get their attention than a beautiful topless woman?
Next Douglas discusses popular magazines that transformed from giving lifestyle advice to sex advice like Cosmo and Maxim. Douglas gives a lot of examples of phrases used on the covers to attract readers attention. She seems kind of obsessed with that idea. Like we get it, we have all seen those magazines, just make your point. The problem I have with Douglas is that she usually does not make a clear point at the end of her rants. She just shows you what she thinks is wrong with any form of media and then moves on.
Her next target is prime time television. Because the major networks were competing against fox’s hits 90210 and Melrose place, other networks started making tv shows that had high sex appeal to attract teenagers. Douglas argues that the increase in sex on tv influenced teens to be more open to sex and be more sexually active. I don’t know if there is an actual causal relationship between teen sexual activity and what they watch on television. I can see how there would be, but I also think that there are a lot of teens who watch those shows on tv but don’t follow the characters footsteps. I also think that teens learn a lot about sex from tv. Some might say that’s bad because tv shows don’t accurately portray sex in a good way to educate teens. But on the other hand, it is much less awkward for teens to watch their favorite character on a show go through an experience that teaches them a lesson about sex rather than have to go through awkward conversations with their parents.
Next Douglas tackles the sensation of Sex and the City. She says that the show portrays the main characters as women who only think about sex and nothing else. I would say that from watching this show, yes they talk and think about sex a lot but not 100% of the time. And they talk about sex because that is the focus of the show. That is why women watch the show, to watch the characters juicy sex stories.
Douglas discusses the Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction, and female rappers. Then she starts a discussion of how the United States has a very high teenage pregnancy rate. She says that “34% of young women become pregnant at least once before they reach the age of 20” (184). I am skeptical about this figure and I would like to know where she found that statistic. Does she mean 34% of young women in the united states? Or in one specific state? As a girl nearing the age off 20, one third of my friends certainly have not been pregnant, at least that I know of.
Finally Douglas discusses child beauty pageants like the ones featured on Toddlers and Tiaras and in Little Miss Sunshine. I personally think that TLC should not have a full blown tv show about that, but they should do periodic exposés or documentaries to educated people about the pageants. Instead, they are making a spectacle out of something that is already ridiculous.
Short Post 2/22/11
The chapter “Sex R Us” in Douglas’ book really struck a chord with me because there are aspects of this chapter that I see being very relevant to the Colgate campus. The “hook up” culture at Colgate is certainly subject of much discussion. Last year I went to a brown bag about this culture and I could not help, but feel like I was in a room with a bunch of girls complaining in a not constructive manner. I decided to ask one of my good guy friends about his opinion on the topic. His response was that the majority of his guy friends would agree that they would also prefer to be in relationships rather than hook up. He went on to say the problem with this was that the girls at Colgate were simply to slutty and therefore not dateable. This response immediately frustrated me and after reading Douglas’ article I was able to understand what it was that made me so angry. It is this idea that girls are trapped in a culture that it both prudish and pornographic. I have heard guys’ complain both about girls not dressing slutty enough for certain party themes and then also that girls at Colgate girls make it too easy. It seems that if there are not relationships at Colgate it is the girls’ fault. We cannot be prudish or slutty enough to be the perfect girl. Women at Colgate are made to feel embarrassed if they become emotionally attached, but also considered gross if they do not. It makes me want to yell at guys who say that girls are too slutty because maybe they should stop trying so hard to sleep with girls then. It sometimes seems like girls are dehumanized at this school to the point that they are simply a goal to conquer. Once guys wear down their defenses enough either through alcohol or by acting charming that girls are willing to sleep with them then that girl is no longer interesting. Talk about being in a birdcage there is no right course of action for a girl to take in terms of her sexuality.
Friday, February 18, 2011
News Flash 1/18
On November 23, 2010, I made my way to the Bradley International Airport in Hartford, CT. It was a quiet Tuesday morning resulting in a non-existing security line. I made my way up to the conveyer belt and placed my belongings on it to be screened. At that point, I was motioned to step through the new, full-body scanner. I had no idea why TSA felt it was necessary for me to be subjected to a full-body scan, however I had little knowledge about them and dismissed my questions. There were about four TSA guards standing near by since nobody else was going through security at the time. Soon after, I was on my way home to Chicago. It was not until I was home with my immediate and extended family where I learned of the exposure of theses new full-body scanners. The questions brought up were are these full-body scanners necessary and are they exploiting the privacy of men and women? I believe these new security devices are unnecessary and exploit women to the fullest.
While visiting my family in Chicago, I struck up a conversation with my brother about why these full-body scanners were implemented. Through this conversation, and research of my own, I found that the Ex-Homeland Security secretary, Micahel Chertoff, owns Chertoff Group, his security-consulting agency. Chertoff Group’s client is the company that manufactures these full-body scanning machines. Many critique Chertoff for abusing the public trust in order to ensure private gains.
In addition to Chertoff abusing his power, many women have felt subjected to humiliation as they were selected for full-body scans. Numerous women have felt singly pointed out because of their breast size or attire. Eliana Sutherland claims she was chosen for a pat down because of her noticeably large breast size. Sutherland expressed concern when she saw two TSA personnel clearly starring at her chest. She says, “It was pretty obvious. One of the guys that was staring me up and down was the one who pulled me over” (Daily Mail Reporter). Many woman are concerned with this issue because they feel their privacy is being taken from them solely on the fact that they are women. As I mentioned above, I subjected myself to the full-body screener one time, before I understood why I did not care for them. When I traveled back to Colgate after Thanksgiving, I opted to have the alternative pat down. I had been waiting in the long line at security in O’Hare when it was finally my turn to approach the metal detectors. All of the people in my line had been going through the “regular” metal detectors. The girl in front of me, a young college girl like myself, was asked to go through the full-body scanner as oppose to the medal detector the rest of the people in our line went through. She went through and then it was my turn. The TSA man had asked me to step over to go through the full-body scanner as well. I politely said I would rather have the pat down. What struck me odd at this point was the fact that the TSA man asked me why I did not want to go through the full-body scanner and looked surprised when I said no. I was so shocked that he actually had the nerve to ask why I did not want to go through it. It is clearly written in TSA rules that one can deny the full-body scan by subjecting themselves to the pat down. It made me wonder if he had chosen the other girl and I purposely so he could see our “naked” figure.
As much as many men and women do not like this new safety precaution, women generally feel more exposed by these intrusive pat downs. Kelly Kleiman states she will boycott any airport with these full-body scanners because she finds them unnecessary and too reveling. Kleiman further discusses the difference between men and women’s attitudes about the invasive pat downs as well as the naked images displayed by the full-body screeners. She points out the inherent difference between men and women growing up. Women have lived their whole life trying to avoid and in fear of being stripped, or raped, by a stranger. I have luckily never encountered such a horrible event and I do not like how I legally have to allow an invasive pat down of my body. Kleinman argues that a man’s public nakedness may put him in mind of a gym class or an Army physical; something of pure annoyance. However, Kleinman says, “the threat of rape-including the notion if not the actuality of nakedness-is the pervasive device by which men keep women in line” (Huffington Post 2010). I found this statement extremely intriguing because it is exactly correct. We have spent so much time in class discussing how our society is indeed patriarchal and women are considered less powerful in all aspects of life. These full-body scans are exactly doing what men have done to remain “in control”. By allowing TSA workers to see naked images of each body, women feel like their power and privacy is literally stripped away from them. Like Kleinman said, men may feel like some of their privacy is taken away, however I do not believe they feel as if their power is being take away. Kleinman further states, “Public nakedness puts a woman in mind of the fear she carries around all the time, whether parking in a garage or going to sleep in a house with an unbarred back door or heading out for an evening” (Huffington Post 2010). This is why many women feel these full-body scanners have gone too far. With the anger of the full-body scans brings the anger of the pat downs. Some air travelers will be lucky and get exempted from both the body scan and the pat down. However, if chosen for the full-body scan, one must participate in either the scan or the pat down. The pat down procedures are set up to ensure women TSA workers will pat down other women travelers. Barry Steinhardt, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s technology and liberty project, is getting complaints from women about the new pat down security method. He says, “What these women are complaining about is being groped” (MSNBC). Many women have felt that the pat down was too intrusive and resulted in them feeling “humiliated and deeply offended”.
This issue of women feeling exposed by airport security methods is relative to class discussions of women being subjected by men in other channels. Full-body scanners are definitely a feminist issue and needs to be dealt with. A New York Times article written by Ariel Kaminer, shows us that these pat downs are not sufficient. Kaminer decided to run a little experiment involving airport security at Kennedy International Airport. Kaminer went through security and opted out of the full-body scan for the pat down. She was asked if the had any metal objects in her pockets. She honestly answered no and the TSA agent continued with the pat down. After going through security, Kaminer reached in to her pockets only to find keys and coins. She decided to place a battery in her pocket and get back in the security line. She traveled through security eight times in one day and not one TSA worker noticed. Clearly, the TSA workers did not do their job adequately. The full-body scanners and pat downs are unnecessary and humiliating. Women all over the United States feel even more powerless than they already feel from society. What will TSA do next when a terrorist resorts to putting explosive up his rectum? How will they create a security system for that inspection? Why should women feel even more fearful at an airport where their safety should be ensured? The truth is we should not be fearful traveling through airport security.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6617853/ns/us_news-security/
NEWS FLASH
Link to Article: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/11/world/asia/11shelter.html?_r=1
News Flash #1: Afghanistan Women’s Shelters
These shelters create problems in families and homes, and they motivate girls to flee from their houses.
This quote comes from Hajji Neyaz Mohammed, a lawmaker in the Ghazni Province of Afghanistan in reference to potential new laws that would place control of women’s shelters into the hands of the Government. It strikes me as ironic that this lawmaker sees the problem being that women will be lured from their homes rather than considering why these women are so unhappy that they wish to run away from home. The article in New York Times by Alissa Rubin details the harrowing journey of starvation and homelessness that eighteen year old Sabra endured after she ran away from home. She left home because she was terrified at the prospect of being forced to marry a fifty two year-old man who already had five children. Her story certainly does not make it seem like leaving home would be a decision that any women in Afghanistan would take lightly. It is an endeavor that only the most desperate of situations would inspire a woman to undertake. Desperate situations are something that many women, especially in rural areas of Afghanistan, encounter throughout their lifetime. Example of these hardships includes arranged marriages for child brides, public punishments and mutilation of women. This article serves as a reminder that many women do not have to privileges that we often take for granted since the second wave of feminism. With the threat of losing control of these safety havens for abused women in Afghanistan it is clear why we need to fight against embedded feminism and how those of us living in the third wave of feminism need to help.
By placing these shelters under control of the Government I am reminded of the dangers of patriarchy for everyone in a society. While I am well aware that in the United States we still live within a patriarchal society, seeing a society even further under the control of men reminds me why it is important that we do not feed into the cycle of patriarchy. Jonah Gokova discussed in his article, “Challenging Men to Reject Gender Stereotypes” the way in which a patriarchy punishes not only women, but also the men within a society. This is evident in the struggles that are taking place in Afghanistan, where the oppression of women can tear families apart. If a woman rejects pressure from her family to marry a certain man and she runs away from her family, then she immediately becomes an outcast from society. From then on if she is ever reunited with her family, they experience overwhelming pressure from society to severely punish her or kill her for her revolt. This oppression of women hurts the men who are shamed by the rejection, the women who are then rejected by society, as well as the family who can be expected to take their own child’s life. In this situation there is no one who benefits from the pressure a patriarchal society puts on its members.
Even if it is obvious to those involved in a patriarchal society, such as Afghanistan that almost everyone is being hurt, the most difficult aspect is that patriarchy is a cycle. In his article, “Patriarchy, the System: An it, Not a He, a Them, or an Us”, Johnson discuss the way in which individuals feed into the system of a patriarchy and how that makes it difficult to escape. A system becomes so embedded within a society that even when people do choose to fight the system it can be almost impossible. An example of this is the proposed eight-member Government panel, which would be put in place by these new laws to serve as a judgment committee to decide on women’s cases. One of the issues that I see with this proposal is that the Government in Afghanistan is certainly subject to the pressures of patriarchy and is a male dominated body. This creates a situation where women are forced to bring their complaints against their oppressors in front of a group of more oppressors. Once again the cycle of patriarchy perpetuates itself and when women try to fight their battles within the limits of the law they become trapped. As a member of a country that does seem to have reached the third wave of feminism, it is important to examine how we feed into this system and how we can fight it.
As the world becomes more global rather than individual countries one of the ways that communication crosses boarders is through the media. In this article one of the main issues that men in powerful positions of the Afghani Government had with these shelters for abused women was the amount of negative media attention that they drew. They talked about the ways these shelters perpetuate an image that women throughout the entirety of Afghanistan are abused and they referenced in particular the case of Bibi Aisha. She was a child bride who was featured on the cover of Time magazine, whose husband cut off her nose after she attempted to run away from home. This public display of violence committed by men upon women stands in stark contrast with Douglas’ chapter on the media obsession with violence women commit against men. This discrepancy seems like an intersection between racism and sexism. The American media has no problem displaying Afghani men as monsters who regularly commit domestic violence, but embedded feminism in America tells us that we have progressed past that place. Afghanistan is portrayed as a backward place that needs America to come along and drag it into the third wave of feminism. The truth is that there are plenty of horrific instances of domestic abuse of women that take place within the United States and yet is ignored by the media. The media may think that they are doing Afghani women a favor by showing their battle, but in reality it only puts Afghani society on the defensive. The best possible thing that the American media could do would be to provide equal attention to the violence occurring in both culture and acknowledge that we all still have a long way to go.
Reading an article like this reminds me how lucky I have been throughout my life, while reminding me of the importance of continuing the fight against sexism. While some of the third wave arguments may seem trivial compared to the plight of these women, it is important to not settle back and give up the fight. With a never ending cycle of patriarchy it would be easy to lose the progress that we have made, especially when this kind of oppression still exists. It is necessary that we keep fighting our own battles in the United States, but it is also essential that we stay educated about what is happening around the world. This reminds me of a sentiment that Audre Lorde expressed in “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House”. She expressed her frustration that white women claim that they did not invite more black women to speak because they did not know who to ask. Lorde argued that part of the responsibility of being a feminist is understanding all the arguments not just those that affect you individually. If one is not aware of all the issues then they are at risk of committing the same act of oppression that their oppressors do.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Long Post 2/17
I thought Fausto-Sterling’s writing in “Of Gender and Genitals” and “Should There Only Be Two Sexes” developed strong ideas in the reader. Fausto-Sterling did a great job at presenting facts in addition to voicing her own opinion. Of course, her opinion does not go unnoticed, however by providing factual information I was able to significantly increase my knowledge on intersexes. In “Of Gender and Genitals”, Fausto-Sterling discusses the surgical practice of doctors transforming intersex infants. When infants are born with XX chromosomes and an enlarged clitoris and testes, the male genitalia are often converted to female genitalia. Fausto-Sterling provides details that tell you how the doctors sometimes will go ahead with these surgeries without telling the parents. Doctors defend this procedure by saying that if the parents truly knew, this would affect their gender identity in society. Parents would also have trouble naturally nurturing their child in to their specific gender identity. In the case of an intersex infant—1.7% of 100—doctors ill-inform the parents by not allowing time for the parents to consult with other families who have experienced an intersex child. Fausto-Sterling argues the necessity of conducting surgery on the genitals of an infant saying, “doctors may choose to remove a small penis at birth and create a child, even though that penis may have grown to “normal” size at puberty” (58). Many cases provide that doctors will perform surgery on a female infant’s clitoris if it is “too big” and on a male infant’s penis if it is “too small”. In both cases, the child would be reconstructed to be a “normal” girl. Most women who have had this surgery performed have complained of the impossibility of a clitoral orgasm. These women, who were intersex as infants, are horrified that the doctors constricted them for the rest of their lives when no surgery proved necessary. Fausto-Sterling argues that genitalia reconstruction should only be performed when life-threatening; not because of it’s appearance to society. Money and Hampsons researched the story of an infant boy who was reconstructed to be a girl and had an identical twin brother. John/Joan was nurtured as a girl and loved to do “girly” things. Money argued that because of Joan’s ability to function in the gender of a girl, infants were born neutral to sex. Sex was not identified until gender identity identified their sex for them. Diamond argues that sex is innately biological and is determined in the infant’s brain before birth. Joan ended up feeling drawn to being a male as she got older. Diamond believed this case of John/Joan/John falsified Money’s statement of nurturing sex and “sex neutrality” at birth.
The chapter “Should There Only Be Two Sexes” deals with issue of constructing sex to fit in to one of the two categories of sex. Fausto-Sterling argues that this infant, reconstruction of sex reiterates that there are only TWO sexes. She also argues that the only reason doctors feel the need for each infant to have a definite sex is because of a gender system that WE created. She believes that nature did not create these gender identities and that society constructed gender identities. I thought it was extremely interesting how doctors are trying to avoid a child facing psychological hardships by genitalia surgery. From the personal experiences in the chapter, all of them felt more psychological pain because of the scarring surgeries and the visits to the hospital to be inspected by researchers, interns and students. Fausto-Sterling says, “Many intersexual adults report that repeated genital examinations, often with photographs and a parade of medical students and interns, constitute one of their most painful childhood memories” (86). Many of these intersex people struggled with the fact that their parents and doctors have lied to them for most of their lives. Fausto-Sterling concludes the chapter with proposing the question of why sex should be identified in the first place. Why do you other people need to know the sex that you identify with? She says, “If cultural genitals counted for more than physical genitals, many of the dilemmas just described could be easily resolved” (113). This statement is extremely powerful and sets a platform for what Fausto-Sterling believes.
Short Post 2/17
I think that because this book is about something I haven't really thought about before in-depth, I have a hard time forming my own opinions. I like the way Sterling presents the material because she seems like she is trying to give the reader as much information as possible and she tries to make the complicated stuff easy to understand.
I was shocked by the stories Sterling told about doctors hiding the full truth from parents and patients and how they performed surgeries that were not medically necessary. The problem with this is that for a long time these medical conditions were poorly understood and there was no unified model for how to treat intersex children. Also, the wide variety of intersex conditions provides another challenge to designing a method of treatment. Another issue I see is that a child's genitalia is such a private thing and not something that parents want to talk about with others. I think that causes intersex conditions to be hidden and most people are not made aware of the children who fall into that category. Thats probably good and bad. The children can be raised as a boy or a girl and people will hopefully treat them like any other child. But when issues of their differences come to light it can cause uncomfortable and confusing situations.
I wonder if a person who had a surgery as a child but then grew up and was unhappy with the result could sue their doctor?
Because the patient never had any say in the matter and now they could have serious psychological issues and feel the need to undergo more surgery to give them the sex organs they feel they were meant to have.
I was shocked by the stories Sterling told about doctors hiding the full truth from parents and patients and how they performed surgeries that were not medically necessary. The problem with this is that for a long time these medical conditions were poorly understood and there was no unified model for how to treat intersex children. Also, the wide variety of intersex conditions provides another challenge to designing a method of treatment. Another issue I see is that a child's genitalia is such a private thing and not something that parents want to talk about with others. I think that causes intersex conditions to be hidden and most people are not made aware of the children who fall into that category. Thats probably good and bad. The children can be raised as a boy or a girl and people will hopefully treat them like any other child. But when issues of their differences come to light it can cause uncomfortable and confusing situations.
I wonder if a person who had a surgery as a child but then grew up and was unhappy with the result could sue their doctor?
Because the patient never had any say in the matter and now they could have serious psychological issues and feel the need to undergo more surgery to give them the sex organs they feel they were meant to have.
Short Post 2/17/11
Short Post 2/17/11
I finished the reading for this class feeling very conflicted because I simply did not know what I believed was the right course of action for an intersex baby and their family. Much of the medical treatment sounded rather barbaric and did not always even produce the desired results. It certainly seems wrong for Doctors to lie to families about the procedures that they are performing on their children. Then there is another side of me that feels as if I were an intersex person I would want the surgery performed when I was a child. I feel as though that way I could live the most normal childhood and life that is possible, My real problem in comprehending the entire experience of an intersex person is that I am always have felt strongly that I am meant to be a girl. I do not know whether it was socially constructed or if I was born feeling that way, but it is hard for me to imagine not feeling at home within my gender. Before I could even possibly make any judgment calls I needed to gain insight into the experience. I found an article in the New York Times that really helped me understand, the link to this article is
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/24/magazine/24intersexkids.html
This article is about Cheryl Chase who received surgery as an 18 month old to make her a “normal” female. Chase without ever knowing that she had received surgery struggled with feelings of unhappiness her entire life. She ended up discovering her past and becomes a strong advocate for intersex individuals. What really spoke to me about this article was the standardized treatment plan that Chase was calling for in dealing with intersex babies. Chase believes that a gender should be assigned at birth based on an analysis of chromosomes, hormones, physiology and other factors, but that no surgical treatment should be performed. I strongly agree with this method of treatment because I think that in order to have any hope of a healthy childhood a kid should be assigned a “best guess” at a gender. That way the families and doctors can hope that this ends up being and if it is that individual can make an educated decision about whether they wish to have surgery when they are older. If the decision is wrong there will be difficulty in switching genders, but at least there will be no scarring or trauma caused by surgery. I know that it can seem insensitive that I believe a gender should be declared rather than attempting to raise the child with an ambiguous gender. My only defense to this position is that I feel like it is a realistic strategy given the world in which we live. I cannot imagine trying to raise a child and socialize them while remaining entirely gender neutral. It would be ideal to believe that one could protect a gender neutral image for a child and then let them develop their own, but I cannot see how that would function within our society.
I finished the reading for this class feeling very conflicted because I simply did not know what I believed was the right course of action for an intersex baby and their family. Much of the medical treatment sounded rather barbaric and did not always even produce the desired results. It certainly seems wrong for Doctors to lie to families about the procedures that they are performing on their children. Then there is another side of me that feels as if I were an intersex person I would want the surgery performed when I was a child. I feel as though that way I could live the most normal childhood and life that is possible, My real problem in comprehending the entire experience of an intersex person is that I am always have felt strongly that I am meant to be a girl. I do not know whether it was socially constructed or if I was born feeling that way, but it is hard for me to imagine not feeling at home within my gender. Before I could even possibly make any judgment calls I needed to gain insight into the experience. I found an article in the New York Times that really helped me understand, the link to this article is
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/24/magazine/24intersexkids.html
This article is about Cheryl Chase who received surgery as an 18 month old to make her a “normal” female. Chase without ever knowing that she had received surgery struggled with feelings of unhappiness her entire life. She ended up discovering her past and becomes a strong advocate for intersex individuals. What really spoke to me about this article was the standardized treatment plan that Chase was calling for in dealing with intersex babies. Chase believes that a gender should be assigned at birth based on an analysis of chromosomes, hormones, physiology and other factors, but that no surgical treatment should be performed. I strongly agree with this method of treatment because I think that in order to have any hope of a healthy childhood a kid should be assigned a “best guess” at a gender. That way the families and doctors can hope that this ends up being and if it is that individual can make an educated decision about whether they wish to have surgery when they are older. If the decision is wrong there will be difficulty in switching genders, but at least there will be no scarring or trauma caused by surgery. I know that it can seem insensitive that I believe a gender should be declared rather than attempting to raise the child with an ambiguous gender. My only defense to this position is that I feel like it is a realistic strategy given the world in which we live. I cannot imagine trying to raise a child and socialize them while remaining entirely gender neutral. It would be ideal to believe that one could protect a gender neutral image for a child and then let them develop their own, but I cannot see how that would function within our society.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
http://www.loyolamaroon.com/theologians-call-for-reform-of-priesthood-1.2464442
I have been a Catholic all my life. Both of my parents are Catholic and my dad even has three uncles who are priests. I love my religion and the Catholic community but I have always struggled with a few of the rules that are implemented in the Church. The Catholic church is not accepting of homosexuality, priests are not allowed to marry, and women are not allowed to be priests. When I was younger these rules seemed to just be things that everyone accepted. But when I got older and I started to question why they were the rules, I could never find an answer that satisfied me. For example, people find quotes in the bible that condemn homosexuality but there are also a lot of other laws in the bible that no one follows. And priests were actually allowed to be married up until the first millennium; issues of property rights and corruption led Pope Gregory VII to require all priests to be celibate (1). Finally, the issue that I will focus on most is that women are not allowed to be priests mainly because Jesus only chose men as his apostles so therefore only men can carry on the duty of the apostles (2). This article brings up these issues because last week University Theologians in Germany made an appeal to the Catholic church to change the rules on these three issues. I believe that women should be allowed to be ordained as priests because the reasoning behind why women are not priests now is not convincing without a doubt. In addition to this, women are clearly able to perform the duty of priest and the Catholic church is in need of more priests so allowing women to be ordained would help solve that problem.
Women and men are not treated equally in the Catholic church when it comes to vocational choices. Men are allowed to become priests which means that they take on a leadership role, make decisions in the parish, and guide a parish. They can also choose to become a monk or friar which is more closely related to a nun but with different responsibilities and so forth. Women are only allowed to become nuns, a vocation that has the stereotype of submission, self-denial, reclusiveness, and generosity. (There is also the image of the strict school teacher nun who will pull your ear and slap your wrist with a ruler: not appealing either.) I honestly don’t know very much about the life of a sister but I can recognize that they do very important work: teaching in catholic schools, working in hospitals, and caring for the poor(3). They really know what it means to work for social justice. I think a lot of women do not want to become nuns today because women have reached a certain level of independence and a desire to be successful and be a leader. Becoming a nun seems like a way to go back to a simpler time when women had not choices and were that pillar of moral esteem in society. The main job of a priest is to say Mass, perform marriages, funerals, and other sacrament ceremonies, and visit the sick. There is clearly nothing in those duties that a woman could not do. There are actually a small group of women who were ordained as priests secretly and they serve as priests openly. However, the priest who ordained them was excommunicated from the church for doing so (4).
The explanation the church gives as to why women cannot be ordained as priests is as follows:
1. Christ only chose men as his Apostles.
2. Priests have always been men since the appointing of the Apostles.
3. The church does not consider herself authorized to ordain women.
4. Christ did not choose men only because of sociological or cultural motives (although the Vatican document I found gives no more support to that.)
5. The Blessed Virgin Mary was not a priest. But this does not mean that women were considered of lesser dignity nor can it be construed as discrimination against them (5).
The Catholic church is currently in a very bad positions when it comes to its staff of priests. The average age of a working priest in the U.S. is very high (I couldn’t find the exact number but it is around 70 I believe) and fewer and fewer young men are joining the seminary. In addition, the Catholic population is growing at about the same rate as the general population growth. The lack of priests has forced many retired priests to continue working and many parishes do not have a permanent priest; instead, priests travel around to serve multiple parishes. With the added issue of the sex scandal in the past years that has made the Catholic priesthood look very bad, I don’t see these trends getting any better just by praying about it. Something needs to change to make more men want to become priests or open up the job to the women who want the job.
The Catholic church is led by all men. From the top to the bottom, men make the decisions. That is how it has always been and I think in some way, that’s how the men want it to stay. The bishops and cardinals who run the church are not married and have never had women in power positions so I’m sure they wouldn’t exactly feel comfortable if all of a sudden women were allowed to do the same jobs that men do in the church. But as Johnson wrote, patriarchy hurts men and women (6). Its not that the men are making decisions to actively put down women and make them inferior. But they institution set up does that by limiting the role of women in the church. It seems like the Pope and other priests who set forth the church doctrines are hiding behind scripture and ancient traditions and going along with what has been done for thousands of years instead of doing what makes the most sense at this point in time.
This brings me to the main article I chose for this newsflash. This article explains that last week 143 University Theologians in Germany made an appeal for the Catholic Church to allow priests to abandon the vow of celibacy, to allow women to be ordained as priests, and accept gay couples into the church. When I found this article I was so shocked that it came from quite a large group of university theologians and it addressed more than one very controversial issue. I know that it is just an appeal for changes but at least this is a step in the right direction. I appreciate that people of some power are stepping up and taking a risk to say what I think a lot of other people have been thinking lately. I hope that in my lifetime I can see at least one of these changes take place, if not all three of them.
1. http://www.uscatholic.org/glad-you-asked/2009/08/why-are-priests-celibate
2. http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_letters/documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_22051994_ordinatio-sacerdotalis_en.html
3. http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2011-02-09 Catholic_nuns_08_ ST_ N.htm
4. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/22/AR2010012202919.html
5. http://www.vatican.va
6. Johnson, Patriarchy, the System: An It, Not a He, a Them, or an Us.
I have been a Catholic all my life. Both of my parents are Catholic and my dad even has three uncles who are priests. I love my religion and the Catholic community but I have always struggled with a few of the rules that are implemented in the Church. The Catholic church is not accepting of homosexuality, priests are not allowed to marry, and women are not allowed to be priests. When I was younger these rules seemed to just be things that everyone accepted. But when I got older and I started to question why they were the rules, I could never find an answer that satisfied me. For example, people find quotes in the bible that condemn homosexuality but there are also a lot of other laws in the bible that no one follows. And priests were actually allowed to be married up until the first millennium; issues of property rights and corruption led Pope Gregory VII to require all priests to be celibate (1). Finally, the issue that I will focus on most is that women are not allowed to be priests mainly because Jesus only chose men as his apostles so therefore only men can carry on the duty of the apostles (2). This article brings up these issues because last week University Theologians in Germany made an appeal to the Catholic church to change the rules on these three issues. I believe that women should be allowed to be ordained as priests because the reasoning behind why women are not priests now is not convincing without a doubt. In addition to this, women are clearly able to perform the duty of priest and the Catholic church is in need of more priests so allowing women to be ordained would help solve that problem.
Women and men are not treated equally in the Catholic church when it comes to vocational choices. Men are allowed to become priests which means that they take on a leadership role, make decisions in the parish, and guide a parish. They can also choose to become a monk or friar which is more closely related to a nun but with different responsibilities and so forth. Women are only allowed to become nuns, a vocation that has the stereotype of submission, self-denial, reclusiveness, and generosity. (There is also the image of the strict school teacher nun who will pull your ear and slap your wrist with a ruler: not appealing either.) I honestly don’t know very much about the life of a sister but I can recognize that they do very important work: teaching in catholic schools, working in hospitals, and caring for the poor(3). They really know what it means to work for social justice. I think a lot of women do not want to become nuns today because women have reached a certain level of independence and a desire to be successful and be a leader. Becoming a nun seems like a way to go back to a simpler time when women had not choices and were that pillar of moral esteem in society. The main job of a priest is to say Mass, perform marriages, funerals, and other sacrament ceremonies, and visit the sick. There is clearly nothing in those duties that a woman could not do. There are actually a small group of women who were ordained as priests secretly and they serve as priests openly. However, the priest who ordained them was excommunicated from the church for doing so (4).
The explanation the church gives as to why women cannot be ordained as priests is as follows:
1. Christ only chose men as his Apostles.
2. Priests have always been men since the appointing of the Apostles.
3. The church does not consider herself authorized to ordain women.
4. Christ did not choose men only because of sociological or cultural motives (although the Vatican document I found gives no more support to that.)
5. The Blessed Virgin Mary was not a priest. But this does not mean that women were considered of lesser dignity nor can it be construed as discrimination against them (5).
The Catholic church is currently in a very bad positions when it comes to its staff of priests. The average age of a working priest in the U.S. is very high (I couldn’t find the exact number but it is around 70 I believe) and fewer and fewer young men are joining the seminary. In addition, the Catholic population is growing at about the same rate as the general population growth. The lack of priests has forced many retired priests to continue working and many parishes do not have a permanent priest; instead, priests travel around to serve multiple parishes. With the added issue of the sex scandal in the past years that has made the Catholic priesthood look very bad, I don’t see these trends getting any better just by praying about it. Something needs to change to make more men want to become priests or open up the job to the women who want the job.
The Catholic church is led by all men. From the top to the bottom, men make the decisions. That is how it has always been and I think in some way, that’s how the men want it to stay. The bishops and cardinals who run the church are not married and have never had women in power positions so I’m sure they wouldn’t exactly feel comfortable if all of a sudden women were allowed to do the same jobs that men do in the church. But as Johnson wrote, patriarchy hurts men and women (6). Its not that the men are making decisions to actively put down women and make them inferior. But they institution set up does that by limiting the role of women in the church. It seems like the Pope and other priests who set forth the church doctrines are hiding behind scripture and ancient traditions and going along with what has been done for thousands of years instead of doing what makes the most sense at this point in time.
This brings me to the main article I chose for this newsflash. This article explains that last week 143 University Theologians in Germany made an appeal for the Catholic Church to allow priests to abandon the vow of celibacy, to allow women to be ordained as priests, and accept gay couples into the church. When I found this article I was so shocked that it came from quite a large group of university theologians and it addressed more than one very controversial issue. I know that it is just an appeal for changes but at least this is a step in the right direction. I appreciate that people of some power are stepping up and taking a risk to say what I think a lot of other people have been thinking lately. I hope that in my lifetime I can see at least one of these changes take place, if not all three of them.
1. http://www.uscatholic.org/glad-you-asked/2009/08/why-are-priests-celibate
2. http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_letters/documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_22051994_ordinatio-sacerdotalis_en.html
3. http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2011-02-09 Catholic_nuns_08_ ST_ N.htm
4. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/22/AR2010012202919.html
5. http://www.vatican.va
6. Johnson, Patriarchy, the System: An It, Not a He, a Them, or an Us.
Monday, February 14, 2011
Short Post 2/14
I couldn’t help but to relate the reading for today to the book I read in high school called Middlesex. Middlesex tells the story of a girl named Callie growing up and realizing she is an intersex. When she is young she has no idea that she could possibly be an intersex. However, through adolescence puberty she realizes something is wrong with the way she feels inside and out. She starts to have a crush on the “Obscure Object”, a girl she is friends with. Callie realizes she has more than an understandable “girl crush” and that is a feeling of sexual desire. When Callie first has sex as a teenage girl she is shocked by the sharp pain she feels inside of her. At that point, she realizes something is wrong with her female genitalia. In the end, Callie meets with numerous doctors and decides she feels most comfortable identifying as a male. At that point, Callie decides to change her name to Cal and take on the role of being a male in society. Throughout Middlesex, you see Cal grow up as a girl and really feel connected to Cal and the issues he has gone through in his life. The author also presents other problems that are more “normal” that many of the readers can relate to.
While reading Sexing the Body, historian John Boswell discusses how homosexuality existed centuries ago within ancient Greek history. I think the concept of the Kinsey scale is extremely interesting in that many people can be identified as heterosexual, homosexual and everything in between. Boswell makes the argument that if an ancient Greek was cloned and brought to present day he would be homosexual in the present if he was in the past. Boswell makes an extremely controversial argument because some people believe nurture creates homosexuality. Cleary science does not tell us which is true and to be honest I do not see why it matters. It should not matter if a man or woman is gay or an intersex. For example, Maria Patino’s situation with being banned from the Olympics because she had a Y chromosome is ridiculous. She identifies as a woman and is a woman. During Link training, we went through safe zone training. Safe zone training was designed to teach Links how to understand and act appropriately when dealing with homosexuality and gender identification. I learned the appropriate terms for identifying men, women and people who do not identify with a gender. We are suppose to identify people with no gender as ze. The whole training raised my awareness and taught me how many sexes and genders really exist. I am excited to continue reading Sexing the Body and see what else Fausto-Sterling discusses about sex and gender.
Long Post 2/15
This chapter begins with the story of the Olympic hurdler who after genetic testing was determined to be genetically XY. This sparked a debate over whether Maria should be allowed to compete as a woman. This is just one example of the long standing debate over how do we determine a person’s gender. Different groups in society all bring different opinions on this topic. Feminists believe that gender is only a social construct. Biologists believe that sex is a product of the hormones and physical structures that make us who we are. Fausto-Sterling also discusses Loveweb, which is made up of people who believe that we are born with certain preferences. This book is unique because its author does not fully validate nor discredit any of these viewpoints. In fact she states that as a member of all the above groups she wants to come to an understanding of how these viewpoints might interact in order to create a whole picture. Understanding of human sexuality cannot be approached as black and white or male and female because it is much more complex than this. Just as there is a continuum of masculinity and femininity there may also be a continuum of the importance of nature vs. nurture. Individual life experiences as well as the culture that one grows up in play an important role in how one expresses their sexuality. In different cultures throughout history sexuality has been defined in a variety of ways, which once again shows that there really is no right and wrong. For example in some ancient cultures it was considered normal for older men to have sexual relationships with young boys. In our culture now a person is classified as a homosexual and therefore not “normal” if they have same sex sexual experiences. This idea of “normal” and ‘not normal” stems for a tendency in modern culture to classify the world into dualisms. Dualisms create a rigid structure where behavior and people are either accepted or there not. This has created discontent in society because humans and life are not that simple.
In this modern era we often attempt to use science to explain the way things are. Fausto-Sterling brings up an interesting point that science may not be as objective as we like to believe it is. Scientists are humans and are therefore subject to the pressures and influences of society. Some of scientists’ findings are the result of a search in order to prove something. Often as long as one searches long enough evidence in support of it can be found. This brings us to the developmental systems theory which offers a less rigid structure to analyzing human sexuality. This theory offers an approach that looks more at each person as an individual case rather than forced classification into groups. This is a necessary change when one looks at the way hermaphrodites have been treated throughout history as well as the formation of the modern viewpoint on intersexual. Hermaphrodites and intersexual have been treated differently depending on the time and culture in which they lived. Despite this difference there is one thing that has remained fairly common and that is there isolation at the outskirts of society. Systems within cultures, for example medical, legal, and educational, have struggled to define the place of hermaphrodites in society. Each group struggling to determine the correct gender of the individual through physical structure or self identification. In summary of these two chapters perhaps the main point was that analyzing human sexuality is not something that can be broken down into a dualism.
In this modern era we often attempt to use science to explain the way things are. Fausto-Sterling brings up an interesting point that science may not be as objective as we like to believe it is. Scientists are humans and are therefore subject to the pressures and influences of society. Some of scientists’ findings are the result of a search in order to prove something. Often as long as one searches long enough evidence in support of it can be found. This brings us to the developmental systems theory which offers a less rigid structure to analyzing human sexuality. This theory offers an approach that looks more at each person as an individual case rather than forced classification into groups. This is a necessary change when one looks at the way hermaphrodites have been treated throughout history as well as the formation of the modern viewpoint on intersexual. Hermaphrodites and intersexual have been treated differently depending on the time and culture in which they lived. Despite this difference there is one thing that has remained fairly common and that is there isolation at the outskirts of society. Systems within cultures, for example medical, legal, and educational, have struggled to define the place of hermaphrodites in society. Each group struggling to determine the correct gender of the individual through physical structure or self identification. In summary of these two chapters perhaps the main point was that analyzing human sexuality is not something that can be broken down into a dualism.
Short Post 2/15
Sexing the Body Chapters 1 and 2
I was really curious while reading this as to the frequency of people who are intersex. Fausto-Sterling gives so many examples of the variation that is out there that it seems like this could be a pretty common thing. I found this website that actually has statistics from a study done by Fausto-Sterling.
http://www.isna.org/faq/frequency
The most shocking stat was at the end where it says the total number of people whose bodies differ from normal male or female is 1 in 100. That means that most of us probably know at least a couple of people who have some sort of abnormality of their sexual organs. That really reminds me that we need to be more sensitive about this subject because you never know who it might be affecting.
When Fausto-Sterling talks about the gender continuum and how not everyone is completely male or female, it made me wonder what should the people in the middle be called? How do they want to be treated? I'm sure Fausto-Sterling will bring up these issues in the future while we read this book. At what point along the continuum does someone switch from one thing to the next?
This is a two-part segment of 20/20 about intersexuals that I foundon youtube. The most surprising thing I saw was that one woman had a clitorectamy as a baby and now she cannot have an orgasm. I think that was kind of short-sighted of her doctors to not think about what would happen to her as an adult. It begs the question is it better to have genitals that look normal or to be able to have pleasurable sex with abnormal genitals? I think the women in this video would argue for the latter. The woman in the video who did not have any surgery seems to be very happy with her life and I think that by appearing on television she was a voice for intersexuals and maybe some young intersexuals watching that show might see her and have a better understanding of their situation and give them hope for a happy future.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xv1yk2Va9qc&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHbBTEeayEU&feature=related
I was really curious while reading this as to the frequency of people who are intersex. Fausto-Sterling gives so many examples of the variation that is out there that it seems like this could be a pretty common thing. I found this website that actually has statistics from a study done by Fausto-Sterling.
http://www.isna.org/faq/frequency
The most shocking stat was at the end where it says the total number of people whose bodies differ from normal male or female is 1 in 100. That means that most of us probably know at least a couple of people who have some sort of abnormality of their sexual organs. That really reminds me that we need to be more sensitive about this subject because you never know who it might be affecting.
When Fausto-Sterling talks about the gender continuum and how not everyone is completely male or female, it made me wonder what should the people in the middle be called? How do they want to be treated? I'm sure Fausto-Sterling will bring up these issues in the future while we read this book. At what point along the continuum does someone switch from one thing to the next?
This is a two-part segment of 20/20 about intersexuals that I foundon youtube. The most surprising thing I saw was that one woman had a clitorectamy as a baby and now she cannot have an orgasm. I think that was kind of short-sighted of her doctors to not think about what would happen to her as an adult. It begs the question is it better to have genitals that look normal or to be able to have pleasurable sex with abnormal genitals? I think the women in this video would argue for the latter. The woman in the video who did not have any surgery seems to be very happy with her life and I think that by appearing on television she was a voice for intersexuals and maybe some young intersexuals watching that show might see her and have a better understanding of their situation and give them hope for a happy future.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xv1yk2Va9qc&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHbBTEeayEU&feature=related
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Short Post 2/9
Abby brought up in her post the idea of the oppressed being oppressors themselves. I too was thinking of how the Civil Rights Acts in the 1960s set aside women and first focused on race. The white feminist 3rd Wave movement seems to be acting with the same intentions of the Civil Rights movement. The white feminists seem to be thinking “sure we will include some black women in our campaign and some lesbians, but really our goal is first for white women. Then once we get equality we will fight for you all”. The Civil Rights Act passed in 1964 I believe. About fifty years later women are still fighting for equality and to be viewed as equals. I understand Lorde’s complaint with the white feminist movement. The white feminist movement might be successful for white women, however when will it be successful for black women or lesbians? Lorde clearly believes the whit feminist movement should be modified to a simple feminist movement including all women.
McIntosh’s excerpt on white privilege raised awareness of exactly what Lorde is calling for. Women want men to acknowledge their male privilege and not support it. But when black women call on women to acknowledge their white privilege, they brush it off and most do not understand their white privilege. Just like white women, who are not conscious of their white privilege, men are unaware of their privilege as well. It is extremely hard to consciously be aware of something that does not affect you. For example, if I was one of two final candidates for a job and got the job over a black woman I personally would not feel I got it because I was white. On the contrary, if the black women got the job I would not think I did not get it because I was white. I would imagine this situation to be extremely different in regards to how a black woman may feel if I got the job over her. This article was relevant to the article we read last time on patriarchy. Men are not consciously thinking of their male privilege because the system, patriarchy, allows them to be unconscious. This is the same with white women. The patriarchy system involved in the world of race allows white women to be unconscious of their privilege. This cycle seems to point at the problem of patriarchy. Somehow, as a society, it is our duty to raise consciousness of the people who are generally unconscious of their privilege. Clearly, from Johnson’s chapter on patriarchy, it is extremely difficult to question the system.
2/9 Long Post
Today’s readings all fall under the theme of black women in the feminist movement and their push to have race included as part of the feminist movement during the second wave. I understand that they are advocating for an all-inclusive fight for women’s rights (mainly by including black and lesbian women) but I was not totally convinced by their arguments. In my analysis of each text I will try to explain why.
Combahee River Collective
This piece gives an overview of the Combahee River Collective’s ideals and the issues they were trying to address at the time. I was surprised when I read that they identified as socialists; I never really considered capitalism as one of the sources of the problem. Its hard for me to envision a socialist society and how that would change how women are treated, especially how black women are treated. Some of the quotes I found most interesting in this piece that I just want to point out are:
“No one before has ever examined the multilayered texture of black women’s lives.” (328)
-I thought this was a very beautiful image of a woman’s life having texture and layers but the writers never expounded on this idea which left me kind of disappointed. I am not a black woman so I don’t know what exactly they mean by this layered life.
“If black women were free, it would mean that everyone else would have to be free since our freedom would necessitate the destruction of all the systems of oppression…”(328).
-Again, I wanted to know more about what they were saying here. I can’t imagine how this thought would play out in real life. What events would take place to free black women? And would everyone else really be free afterwards? How can you be sure? Would these be social changes or legislative changes? What freedoms would they gain exactly anyways?
The Collective give examples of things its members have done to work on issues facing black women. They mention that one issues in particular they are dealing with is racism in the white women’s movement. They say that black women often don’t feel like they have any say or power in the white women’s movement. But there were no specific examples given. I’m not doubting what they are saying, I just don’t see a clear picture of their experiences of racism.
Lorde
I couldn’t enjoy reading this essay because Lorde’s tone is too spiteful and hostile. Most of the time I didn’t even feel like she had clear arguments going except that black and lesbian women should be considered when looking at women’s rights and that she was offended that only two black women were invited to speak at the conference she was asked to attend. I think her piece would be more compelling if she didn’t criticize white women for that one incident. She should be trying to appeal to white women to include her; this seems like it would make them push her even further away.
McIntosh
This essay is mainly a list of things that McIntosh found in her daily life as privileges she has based on her race. Most of them are true and I understand that she is saying that she gets treated better by others because she is white. However, some items on her list did not seem to relate to race (or only faintly). For example, she writes, “if I want to, I can be pretty sure of finding a publisher for this piece on white privilege.” If she means that she has a greater chance of finding someone to publish a piece of her work, then that is really based on her reputation as a writer. And if she means that a publisher would be more willing to publish a piece on white privilege than something else (I’m not sure what the opposite of this would be, probably not black privilege) then I don’t really know what she’s getting at. Next, she writes, “I can talk with my mouth full and not have people put this down to my color.” Well no one should talk with their mouth full anyways, and I don’t think that talking with your mouth full is a racial stereotype anyways. There are more examples that I found fault with but I won’t continue critiquing her list.
This essay really got me thinking about an issue that I don’t think many people talk about which is ageism. On both ends of the spectrum, people are discriminated based on their age. I feel like teenagers are discriminated because they are young and adults assume they don’t know very much and they don’t respect them as much as other adults. Yes, maturity, experience, and wisdom come with age, but is it really okay for people to treat younger adults and teens as if they don’t deserve the same respect as older adults? For example, I feel like doctors and nurses don’t treat me with the same respect that they give to my mother. They act as if I don’t know what I’m talking about and they just tell me what to do, give me a prescription, and don’t discuss my full options unless I explicitly ask. What they probably don’t realize is that my mom is usually the one who asks me for medical advice because that is something I’m interested in. So doctors should really give me the same respect they give my mother, regardless of our age, our knowledge, or our gender or race. Age discrimination is probably more visible when teens are applying for jobs or dealing with police officers. Now that I’m thinking about it, I’m surprised that people don’t talk about age discrimination more often.
Combahee River Collective
This piece gives an overview of the Combahee River Collective’s ideals and the issues they were trying to address at the time. I was surprised when I read that they identified as socialists; I never really considered capitalism as one of the sources of the problem. Its hard for me to envision a socialist society and how that would change how women are treated, especially how black women are treated. Some of the quotes I found most interesting in this piece that I just want to point out are:
“No one before has ever examined the multilayered texture of black women’s lives.” (328)
-I thought this was a very beautiful image of a woman’s life having texture and layers but the writers never expounded on this idea which left me kind of disappointed. I am not a black woman so I don’t know what exactly they mean by this layered life.
“If black women were free, it would mean that everyone else would have to be free since our freedom would necessitate the destruction of all the systems of oppression…”(328).
-Again, I wanted to know more about what they were saying here. I can’t imagine how this thought would play out in real life. What events would take place to free black women? And would everyone else really be free afterwards? How can you be sure? Would these be social changes or legislative changes? What freedoms would they gain exactly anyways?
The Collective give examples of things its members have done to work on issues facing black women. They mention that one issues in particular they are dealing with is racism in the white women’s movement. They say that black women often don’t feel like they have any say or power in the white women’s movement. But there were no specific examples given. I’m not doubting what they are saying, I just don’t see a clear picture of their experiences of racism.
Lorde
I couldn’t enjoy reading this essay because Lorde’s tone is too spiteful and hostile. Most of the time I didn’t even feel like she had clear arguments going except that black and lesbian women should be considered when looking at women’s rights and that she was offended that only two black women were invited to speak at the conference she was asked to attend. I think her piece would be more compelling if she didn’t criticize white women for that one incident. She should be trying to appeal to white women to include her; this seems like it would make them push her even further away.
McIntosh
This essay is mainly a list of things that McIntosh found in her daily life as privileges she has based on her race. Most of them are true and I understand that she is saying that she gets treated better by others because she is white. However, some items on her list did not seem to relate to race (or only faintly). For example, she writes, “if I want to, I can be pretty sure of finding a publisher for this piece on white privilege.” If she means that she has a greater chance of finding someone to publish a piece of her work, then that is really based on her reputation as a writer. And if she means that a publisher would be more willing to publish a piece on white privilege than something else (I’m not sure what the opposite of this would be, probably not black privilege) then I don’t really know what she’s getting at. Next, she writes, “I can talk with my mouth full and not have people put this down to my color.” Well no one should talk with their mouth full anyways, and I don’t think that talking with your mouth full is a racial stereotype anyways. There are more examples that I found fault with but I won’t continue critiquing her list.
This essay really got me thinking about an issue that I don’t think many people talk about which is ageism. On both ends of the spectrum, people are discriminated based on their age. I feel like teenagers are discriminated because they are young and adults assume they don’t know very much and they don’t respect them as much as other adults. Yes, maturity, experience, and wisdom come with age, but is it really okay for people to treat younger adults and teens as if they don’t deserve the same respect as older adults? For example, I feel like doctors and nurses don’t treat me with the same respect that they give to my mother. They act as if I don’t know what I’m talking about and they just tell me what to do, give me a prescription, and don’t discuss my full options unless I explicitly ask. What they probably don’t realize is that my mom is usually the one who asks me for medical advice because that is something I’m interested in. So doctors should really give me the same respect they give my mother, regardless of our age, our knowledge, or our gender or race. Age discrimination is probably more visible when teens are applying for jobs or dealing with police officers. Now that I’m thinking about it, I’m surprised that people don’t talk about age discrimination more often.
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Short Post 2/10/11
Lorde and McIntosh both brought up an issue that has baffled and frustrated me for quite some time. This issue is the idea of oppressed groups oppressing other groups. Perhaps this is a product of a fear of an unstable position in society. I can see how there is a need to subjugate another group below yours so that no matter what, you know that you will never reach the bottom of society. This may be an unconscious wish that people write off as simply being in contact with the correct people. Lorde makes a very strong point in saying that one should make the effort to become educated rather than hiding behind ignorance. It is tempting to claim that in the women’s movement we must first achieve equality for women and then it will be time to worry about race and sexual orientation. This sounds dangerously similar to the way that women’s issues were eventually excluded from the civil rights movement. If women saw this setback in our own battle, then how can we with good conscious turn around and commit the same offense. Women of color and lesbians are women and when we are saying that this is a battle for women’s right they are automatically included. This is not something that can just be said, but it must also be acted upon. A genuine effort must be made to include their voices in the main argument and not be kept to the periphery.
Lorde’s list of the unearned advantages gained simply by the color of my skin was certainly eye opening. This list was so powerful because as she expected many of the things she listed I never even think about. The two on the list that I identified the most with were points number seventeen and twenty. These two points are very relatable to the things I have experienced as woman. They express the basic idea that when a person of color does something positive or negative it is seen as reflective of their entire race. She used the example of chewing with your mouth open, but for women I feel as though there are different things attributed to our gender. This example made me think of the times when a woman will start to talk about something that is bothering her and she will be immediately written off as being dramatic or catty. In my experience with men they can get just as frustrated with their friends or situations, but when they want to talk about it they are never called dramatic. By calling women dramatic it immediately discredits their concerns and puts them in a place where they feel unheard and alone. The insight I gained from these articles is that any movement against oppression would be infinitely stronger if it would unite with other oppressed groups rather than putting them down.
Lorde’s list of the unearned advantages gained simply by the color of my skin was certainly eye opening. This list was so powerful because as she expected many of the things she listed I never even think about. The two on the list that I identified the most with were points number seventeen and twenty. These two points are very relatable to the things I have experienced as woman. They express the basic idea that when a person of color does something positive or negative it is seen as reflective of their entire race. She used the example of chewing with your mouth open, but for women I feel as though there are different things attributed to our gender. This example made me think of the times when a woman will start to talk about something that is bothering her and she will be immediately written off as being dramatic or catty. In my experience with men they can get just as frustrated with their friends or situations, but when they want to talk about it they are never called dramatic. By calling women dramatic it immediately discredits their concerns and puts them in a place where they feel unheard and alone. The insight I gained from these articles is that any movement against oppression would be infinitely stronger if it would unite with other oppressed groups rather than putting them down.
Monday, February 7, 2011
Long Post 2/7
Patriarchy, the System: An It, Not a He, a Them, or an Us by Johnson
I really enjoyed reading this chapter because it identified the larger problems with oppression of women and the violence they are subjected to by men. It was not until almost that end that I realized Johnson was a man. At that point, I actually found the chapter more interesting because we have not ready anything from a man’s perspective yet. I think the 3rd Wave Feminists are doing a great job and need to continuing raising women’s awareness of the oppression they face. However, I really liked Johnson’s writing because like all civil movement people on the inside with the power are needed to help the movement reach it’s goal. Johnson examines patriarchy as a whole system of U.S. society. He starts off by examining how we are “stuck in a model of social life that views everything as beginning and ending with individuals”. We are identified with titles depending on where we are. He goes on to talk women’s participation in these titles and how women are participating in patriarchy whether they are going with or against it. Something really interesting Johnson discusses is how society asks how can people do that when discussing violence against women. Johnson believes the question should be why do we live in a society that permits that behavior? This leads him to question the whole system and what the cycle of the system and the individual is. Johnson says the individuals create the system, yet the system is making the individuals act in certain ways. The paths of least resistance, as Johnson refers to, are ways of acting that are easier and the least confrontational. For example, a man will make a sexist joke and instead of speaking up and saying that is not funny stop, he will not say anything, ignores it or laughs. All three are paths of least resistance that are not challenging the “normal” patterns of society. Johnson uses the game Monopoly as an analogy of how people do not question the system. The individuals playing the game are caused to behave in the way that the rules are written. The individual want to win the game by having the most money and seeing their opponents become bankrupt. This does not reflect any of the players in how they really feel; yet they do not challenge the system of the game. This is similar to men who might not find a sexist joke funny, however they take the path of least resistance. Johnson argues that socialization tells us how patriarchy works, but it does not tell us what and why. He talks about patriarchy and the roles it creates in society. Men are at the center of the society with strong characteristics of manliness and power. Women are the feminine, nurturing, sensitive “other” that participates in this system. Whether or not individuals believe this or not we are still all participating in patriarchy. Johnson later on talks about male-privilege and how he did not ask for it but he received it. This male-privilege is similar to white-privilege. However, both identifies are able to abuse their privilege. Men use violence to control women sexually as they see them as potential sex objects. The idea of women as sex objects has come about through pornography. Johnson is upset because he has to be related to this behavior because he is a male. I thought it was significant how at the end Johnson said what he believed needed to happen. And he also said turn to Chapter 10 to find his solution.
Oppression- Marilyn Frye
I found Frye’s piece on oppression to be helpful in understanding oppression, but also the examples were a little silly. Frye demonstrated how people are oppressed without physically being seen as oppressed. I liked how she used the example of the bird cage and how unless you look at the wires macroscopically, you will not be able to understand the significance of the cage. This is the case with women. Women are oppressed for being too sexy, unfeminine and everything in between. They are oppressed if the have too much sex and if they have too little sex. There is no way for women to find grounds where they are not oppressed. Frye used the example of how men open the door for women. The door acts as a barrier and men need to remove it for women. I did not really find this example applicable to women’s oppression. All people open doors as a sign of respect and out of politeness. I open doors for my friends, parents and grandparents. I do not think it is fair to say that only women, and more attractive women, get doors opened for them. Opening doors use to be a sign of chivalry, strictly for men towards women. Some argue chivalry still exists yet people open doors because it is polite not because people cannot physically open it.
“Challenging Men to Reject Gender Stereotypes”- Jonah Gokova
Jonah talks about how men need to stop believing in they myth of how they are. Men are trying to live up to this myth and often fail to do so. He calls for men to realize their ways and that is their duty to want gender change. Men need to help women to become equals. Jonah says men need to change the attitudes about sex. They should never see women as something to conquer. They should see sex as “an opportunity to communicate mutually”. Men play a large part in creating gender separation whether they are conscious of it or not. Jonah makes a good point that men are losing creativeness by having to act in certain “manly” ways and not do anything to jeopardize their manhood. Jonah seems very optimistic and believes with the right work men can change their existence and end violence and abuse of women.
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