Long Lost Ancient Medical Text Unearthed!

I'm sure you've all heard Todd Akin's (R) sound bite or seen this clipping. I found this you tube song response fun.

In Ancient Greece and Egypt philosophers and "physicians" believed that a women's uterus, if it was tired of NOT being pregnant, would wander around in her body, bumping into other organs--kidneys, lungs, bladder--and causing all kinds of ailments--fainting, stomach ache, insanity. Plato suggested in the Timaeus that this was analogous to the male penis, which when deprived of sex, may move of its own accord in its desire to procreate. They called this wily uterus a "wandering womb," which is the original meaning of "hysteria." Neither Plato nor Hippocrates write of a similar function of the female body to prevent pregnancy when the female body has been forced to have sex against it's will. Perhaps Todd Akin has unearthed a long lost ancient text, since the "doctors" he cites seem as mystified by the female body as Plato and Hippocrates.

Most philosophers of science (Todd Akin sits on the house committee for science) until the eighteenth century, with the notable exception of Aristotle, believed that both male and female must orgasm in order to conceive a child, suggesting that they both must like the sex act (see Thomas Laqueur's outstanding history of sex, Making Sex). Although for the sake of female pleasure in consensual heterosexual sex this idea could be revolutionary now, this historical theory does support Todd Akin's claim that she must have wanted it, and that therefore if a woman is pregnant it was not "legitimate" rape. Still the bodily function to which Akin refers that actually does prevent pregnancy (does it prevent disease as well?) in the case of "legitimate" rape is not suggested even in these earlier scientific theories of the female body. Obviously Todd Akin has found some really monumental scientific evidence, or perhaps he was merely logically extrapolating from these theories? He seems to have skipped most recent scientific writings about the female body. I might humbly suggest he get a copy of the Boston Women Health Book Collective's Our Bodies, Ourselves to balance his knowledge base.

Upon reflection: For those of you who have been angered by Rep. Akin's statement, why not take this moment of anger and turn it into a teachable moment? Send Todd a copy of Our Bodies, Ourselves (available for purchase online at above link). Here are his mailing addresses. Why lambast when you can educate?

Hon. Todd Akin
117 Cannon HOB
Washington, DC 20515

OR, his district address at:
301 Sovereign Ct., Ste. 201
Ballwin, MO 63011

Best of Luck, Todd.

Gender and Sex

We have discussed feminism now for several weeks, but we are now moving into the territory of gender studies in many of our recent readings.
I think our readings, discussion and films have raised a lot of interesting questions about sex, gender, and gender performance. Talk a bit here about your understandings of what gender is. In what ways do we perform our genders by choice and in what ways do we perform our genders without choice?

Gender is a complex system and is not simply about display or simply about biology. I think it is fruitful to examine how we define gender in society and in what ways these definitions are limiting to our individual self-expression.

Here are two pictures of the same person:

This is Nora Vincent who, as an investigative journalist, lived for a year as a man. Here is an article about her book from the NY Times.  What do you notice as different in these two pictures?

Here is an experiment I'd like you to try and then to respond on this blog. Spend the weekend observing people of all genders. Take notes. How do they move in the world? Walk? Sit? Talk to one another? Once you have a good bit of observation, try on a different gender style. Walk or sit in a way that is uncomfortable for your own gender expression. Take note of how you feel doing this and of how friends and strangers react to you. You may enlist a friend to tutor you in how to walk this way, talk this way....

Write your responses here. Also comment on the films we've seen this week. What surprised you? Where do you think gender comes from? The Codes of Gender film really stressed gender as a social construct, while Tiger Devore (what a great name!) in the Sex, Lies and Gender film seemed to assert a more biological view of gender. What do you think?

History, feminism, and femininity

I'd like to open this post talking about the film, Iron Jawed Angels. Here is a link to the Alice Paul Institute, where you can look for more facts and information about the suffrage movement. And here is a link to the Susan B. Anthony Center for Women's Leadership. Check them both out and see what surprises you about the history of suffrage in the US. What has been surprising you in the film, historically?

Now I'd like to link this film to current discussions of feminism and femininity:

• At one point early in the film, Alice and Lucy convince Inez to join their cause as the woman on the horse in the parade in part by suggesting that "today's" suffragist is young, single, smart and beautiful. What do you make of this scene and this argument in general? In connection, what do you make of the scenes in which the women primp: makeup, hose, hat choices, etc.?

Here is a video I think relates. What connections do you see? What is the purpose of the video:



Some more info about the history of suffrage:

And here is a link to a timeline of world women's suffrage.

Questions to end on:

• How would you define femininity?
• How is "femininity" as a concept used to police or limit "feminism"?
• What is masculinity?
• Have are ideals about gender roles changed since the 1920s? How have they changed and how have they remained the same?
• Anyone want to comment on how they have felt limited by their gender role (male or female)?

Just a quick link

This is just an interesting link for everyone to look at concerning current legal discourses surrounding reproduction.

Sex and sexuality

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Fairies, Barbies, and Bias

This didn't translate all that well to the blog, but we'll make do. Remember the little survey you took in class a couple weeks ago? Some of you labeled a list of qualities either feminine or masculine. Some of you were asked to pick the top ten qualities (same qualities) for a leadership position. The above graph indicates your responses. Yellow is the leadership line, red the feminine, and blue the masculine. The qualities from bottom to top are: achiever, aggressive, analytical, caring, confident, dynamic, deferential, devious, intuitive, loving, manipulative, nurturing, organized, passive, planner, powerful, sensitive, strong, relationship-oriented, and rule-oriented.

What I find interesting: Responses from various classes always differ somewhat in regards to what they label feminine and in how much value is placed on different qualities for leadership. The thing that remains fairly constant (sadly) is that certain qualities are overwhelmingly labeled feminine and are not ranked high for leadership qualities. They are: loving, sensitive, and nurturing. Guys are lucky to get one or two masculine labels in these categories, as is evidenced above. Surprises with this group of surveys include how highly "organized" registered as feminine and as a highly valued leadership quality and even more surprising is the same occurence regarding "analytical." Of course, you know when I say surprising I don't mean that women don't possess these qualities or that the shouldn't be valued. I think they are highly valued in leadership (though organization, practically, often falls to the admin assistant to the leader). What is interesting is that this survey (which came off a WS listserv) I'm sure was originally put together to illustrate how the qualities that our society deems feminine (and teaches women to value) are not generally highly valued in leadership. But analytical (associated with math and science) is not generally gendered feminine. So maybe culture is changing? What do you think?

What do you notice in the results? Are you surprised by any of them? Can you draw any conclusions from them at all?

On another note: We missed getting to talk fairy tales today, so we will on Monday, but to get you started here are some videos relating to the Dances with Wolves article and to fairy tales in general:





How can you relate these images, and the words of the song, to Little Red Riding Hood? To fairy tales in general?

And about Barbie:

Here are two links to follow that are interactive sites featuring dolls like Barbie:
Barbie.com
Miss Bimbo

Register and play and come back and talk about what these dolls can do and in what ways they are related or not related.

Why doesn't the above Barbie really exist? What other barbies would you like to see? After reading all the readings on Barbie, how do you feel about her? Did she influence your life growing up? In good ways? Bad ways? Share your own Barbie stories. Or maybe GI Joe or even Ken?










The picture below is an ad in the UK for HIV awareness. It reads "He hasn't got the balls to talk about HIV."

Lastly, Go check out your hidden biases, and post if you'd like, but definitely be ready to talk about it Monday. Here is a blog discussing the test which contains a link to the test. Take a couple if you have time. It's very interesting. See you all Monday.

Puppy Dog Tails

What are Little Boys Made Of?

So, you have all now read several readings concerning the social construction of genders, and now more specifically the construction of masculinity. I would like you to discuss what you make of these readings and the film Tough Guise. Following are some video clips and quotes to add to the conversation and a few questions to get you started. I would like everyone to please post one question (with your name attached), and then you may post longer responses anonymously or signed. Please feel free to draw on your personal experiences to help fuel this discussion and add individual perspectives.


In addition, I would like you to please look over the comments from the last post. Consider what implicit judgements are being made in the observations of gendered behaviors. Where do these judgements come from?


Another area of discussion is the social construction of gender itself. Consider the We'Wha article, Transgender Warriors, any relevant video clips we have watched, and the Gender Aptitude Quiz you took (which some students felt was in itself too restrictive in its gender choices). What are you left thinking after all of this? How do you feel about it?

So here are two video clips: one from Michael Kimmel (who wrote the article on masculinity as homophobia), and an excerpt from a Jackson Katz lecture (which addresses our previous experiment quite nicely).





To add to the Kimmel video, here is a quote from an article he wrote about his own son in 2003:

Personally, I'm optimistic. Not long ago, Zachary and I were playing a game we call "opposites." You know the game. I say a word, and he tells me the opposite. They're simple and fun, and we have a great time playing it. One evening, my mother was visiting, and the three of us were walking in our neighborhood park playing opposites. Scratchy/smooth, tall/short, high/low, fast/slow. Then my mother asked, "Zachary, what's the opposite of boy?"

My whole body tensed. Here it comes, I thought, Mars and Venus, gender binary opposition, all the things I have been trying so hard to avoid in child-rearing.

Zachary looked up at his grandmother and said, "Man."

Here, at last, on planet Earth, there's one small voice that knows we're not from Mars and Venus, after all.

Some questions to get you started:

• What changes have you noticed since the Tough Guise video that are worth noting? Are men still getting more muscular and guns getting bigger? How are men represented in the media?
• Considering the above quote and clip as well, how are fathers represented in the media? Give us examples.
• Thinking of our experiment from last time and the clip above from Katz, why do you think girls and women sit the way they do and boys and men sit the way they do? What are the underlying reasons behind these social constructs?
• In the readings on masculinity, what hit home for you? What felt true based on your own or loved ones' experiences? What felt untrue?
• Can you think of examples of homophobia being a requisite part of masculinity?
• What stood out to you in the We'Wha reading? What knowledge might we gain as a society from this kind of anthropological essay?

Okay, now you add your own questions and comments. A bit later I'll be putting up our class (combined) results from the survey I gave last week, which you should look at but you only need to comment if you want to. We will discuss it as a class as well.

some you tube videos for class

You need not respond to this post. I am putting up the you Tube video referenced in the comments below, as well as a couple others I find interesting. We will look at them in class too.



Here is the video that was linked to earlier.

WELCOME

Hello WGS 100 classes. I just wanted to welcome you to the blog. By tomorrow I will have an interesting post up for you to respond to over the weekend. You will be alowed to respond anonymously, or to sign on with a google account. Please experiment with including links. To do so, follow these instructions:

To create a hyperlink, you use the a tag in conjunction with the href attribute (href stands for Hypertext Reference). The value of the href attribute is the URL, or, location of where the link is pointing to.

To see an example of the code, follow below.

I found this at a site that gives tutorials on html code



If you are hoping to comment right now on something, here's a little comic strip.

More to come tomorrow, but comment if you'd like to.