The talk about brain differences in the sexes earlier this week was interesting. I was hoping for a bit of professor vs. professor debate (or all out biology vs. social construction cage match), but it was still very informative to hear about the differences between the brains in the sexes of many species.
What I really wondered, coming away from that lecture, was whether or not any of this had practical implications. If, on average, women have more connective tissue between the left and right sides of their brain than men, does that have any meaning in the real world? Even when it comes down to slight differences in the way men and women think, are there any ramifications of that in the world at large? Is the difference enough to change the way we think about the sexes?
I also wondered how these purported brain differences manifested in intersex individuals, or in individuals who didn't identify as the gender they were assigned at birth. It was mentioned in class that sexuality had some affect on regions of the brain. What of gender identity? I would imagine that would have a bigger impact still, but that comes from the point of view of a complete and utter layperson.
I without a doubt align myself with the social constructionist camp, but the biology of sex differences in the brain is still fascinating, and I'd be interested in learning more about it. What I question, though, is whether these brain differences are meaningful or not, and if they are, if that meaning is large enough to have any application in day to day life.
Sunday, September 30, 2012
Sunday, September 23, 2012
Gender, lineage, and surnames
I've neglected the blog for far too long, I know. It's hard for me to think of clever things to write about, sometimes. Or even not-entirely-stupid things to write about. So let me stop writing about writing and start writing about gender.
In the Basow reading we had for Tuesday, the author discussed a connection between the rise of an Agrarian society and the decline of the rights of women. As advances in agriculture led to personal wealth, not just living from meal to meal, the importance of ensuring family ties grew and grew. And rather than doing this matrilineally--logically--, most cultures developed a system where wealth was passed from father to son.
Because this all occurred long before the advent of Jerry Springer and the paternity test, there was no sure way to know who fathered a certain child. The only positive proof of parenthood was the fact that the mother had given birth to the child. However, this still didn't lead to wealth being passed form a mother to her children, even though it was only possible to completely, 100% ensure who the female parent of any child was. Instead, men still passed on their wealth, and to be as sure as they could that a child was theirs, they imposed harsh restrictions on women's sexuality.
If a woman was only having sex with one man, then her children would be his. Of course, this is hardly a foolproof method, but it's still the method that's prevailed the world over since the advent of private property. It's a system that essentially turns women themselves into property, and it's still prevalent today, with estimates of misattributed paternity between one and three percent.
And yet our heritage is still taken through the paternal line. Children are given their father's name, and women take their husband's name at marriage. In Czech names, female surnames are possessive adjectives, their father's or husband's name with an added "ova" to change the part of speech. It's such a prevalent, necessary system in that language that the names of women from other countries are altered in the news, so that "Michelle Obama" becomes "Michelle Obamova."
It's a bizarre system when you consider maternal lineage is the only lineage that can be proven at birth. Hopefully as we progress, society will break from this strict adherence to patronyms. Women aren't property, and our system of naming shouldn't function as if we are.
In the Basow reading we had for Tuesday, the author discussed a connection between the rise of an Agrarian society and the decline of the rights of women. As advances in agriculture led to personal wealth, not just living from meal to meal, the importance of ensuring family ties grew and grew. And rather than doing this matrilineally--logically--, most cultures developed a system where wealth was passed from father to son.
Because this all occurred long before the advent of Jerry Springer and the paternity test, there was no sure way to know who fathered a certain child. The only positive proof of parenthood was the fact that the mother had given birth to the child. However, this still didn't lead to wealth being passed form a mother to her children, even though it was only possible to completely, 100% ensure who the female parent of any child was. Instead, men still passed on their wealth, and to be as sure as they could that a child was theirs, they imposed harsh restrictions on women's sexuality.
If a woman was only having sex with one man, then her children would be his. Of course, this is hardly a foolproof method, but it's still the method that's prevailed the world over since the advent of private property. It's a system that essentially turns women themselves into property, and it's still prevalent today, with estimates of misattributed paternity between one and three percent.
And yet our heritage is still taken through the paternal line. Children are given their father's name, and women take their husband's name at marriage. In Czech names, female surnames are possessive adjectives, their father's or husband's name with an added "ova" to change the part of speech. It's such a prevalent, necessary system in that language that the names of women from other countries are altered in the news, so that "Michelle Obama" becomes "Michelle Obamova."
It's a bizarre system when you consider maternal lineage is the only lineage that can be proven at birth. Hopefully as we progress, society will break from this strict adherence to patronyms. Women aren't property, and our system of naming shouldn't function as if we are.
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
My beef with the term "female circumcision"
Before we get this started, I wanted to clear a few things up. First and foremost, this blog entry isn't about male circumcision. Yes, I'll be bringing up male circumcision, but only as an (awful) anatomical analogy for female genital mutilation (FGM, from now on). I'm not going to expound on my views on male circumcision--I'll say up front that I'm an "intactivist" (and what a clever term that is!), but I'm not going to go in depth into why, because this entry isn't about male circumcision. By discussing the extreme bodily harm caused by FGM, I'm not in any way trying to diminish or erase the harm done to some by male circumcision--I know that it can result in a variety of complications, up to and including some reported cases of death. I also acknowledge that there are huge consent issues with cutting the genitals of a child of any gender.
I'm not trying to deny any of that because, as I've said, I'm not really talking about male circumcision. What I want to talk about is FGM, and why "female circumcision" is a dangerous misnomer. Be warned: there will probably be diagrams (a la health class), but I'll put them all as links so you can click through (or not) as you wish.
In the US, at the very least (and I'd hazard a guess to say that the same is true for most of the world), the word "circumcision", unqualified, immediately brings to mind male circumcision, the removal of (part of or all of) the foreskin from the penis. By labeling FGM as "female circumcision", we normalize the term and equate it with a common practice that is not nearly so drastic or damaging to sexual health as FGM is.
Calling FGM "female circumcision" makes the act seem strongly analogous to male circumcision, when on a purely anatomical level, it isn't. The clitoris and the penis are homologous structures, both developing from the genital tubercle of the embryo. It follows, then, that the clitoral hood (see this diagram) is homologous to the foreskin found in male genitalia. "Female circumcision" would therefore imply simply the cutting away of the clitoral hood, and in some variations, this is the case. However, this is rarely true. Far more common in this is a full clitoridectomy, and/or mutilation of the inner or outer labia.
But the real horror of FGM is not simply the drastic mutilation, but the after affects there of. Along with a long list of possible complications, in some variations of FGM where all external genitalia are removed, the girl's legs are bound together for over a month to cause the wound to seal together. This covers both the urethral opening and the entrance to the vagina, and a small hole is left to allow the passage of urine and menstrual blood. The vulva can later be cut open to allow for sexual intercourse and childbirth. Because of the drastic nature of the surgery, FGM almost certainly takes away a woman's ability to reach orgasm, whether alone or with a partner--in fact, this is often the goal of the surgery itself. And more than that, it takes away a woman's sovereignty over her own body from an early age, and that may well be the most drastic and horrifying repercussion of FGM.
By calling FGM "female circumcision", we take away the impact of this dangerous and disgusting procedure. We normalize it, and we allow ourselves to look past what FGM does to a woman's sexual health and her control over her own body. "Female circumcision" doesn't show FGM to be what it really is--mutilation, and as such, I hope the term will fade out of use.
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
One of the most interesting points of the reading we did for this Tuesday was the discussion of women's quality of life as part of the progress towards equal rights. Some major things that affect quality of life seem obvious: nourishment, shelter, education, equal opportunities for work and other institutions, but what comes up less often is the topic of leisure time. As women have gained a larger presence in the work force and a greater right to work outside of the home in Western society, this has been seen as a striking blow for the cause of feminism. And I wouldn't contest that point: women joining men in the work force has given us a way to support ourselves and has led to greater dependence as a whole. But that doesn't necessarily mean it's improved our quality of life across the board, especially when it comes to having leisure time outside of the job.
When we discussed the idealized roles for men and women in society, we discussed briefly the idea of the "second shift", and what this means for women. The basis behind this concept, as I see it, is that, as women with families join the workforce, though their workload outside the home has increased, their workload inside the home remains the same. Women who once would have been housewives now have careers and do everything a housewife would have done when it comes to child rearing, keeping a tidy home, and providing food for the family. We've gained more gender balance outside of the home, but this balance has been slower to come in the family environment. This has left women with very little leisure time, and though it's not something often thought of, that definitely decreases quality of life.
While legal measures can be taken to bring gender balance to the work place, the government can't legislate the family dynamic.* In this way, it makes sense that balance has been slower to come for women at home. This has important repercussions on quality of life and should be more widely addressed.
*With some notable exceptions, especially as regards gay marriage and adoption by gay parents, but as far as gender balance goes, I think the point stands.
ETA: I realize I have left absolutely no links scattered throughout this post, so to make up for it, here's a video of some tiger cubs at a zoo in Seattle to brighten your day.
When we discussed the idealized roles for men and women in society, we discussed briefly the idea of the "second shift", and what this means for women. The basis behind this concept, as I see it, is that, as women with families join the workforce, though their workload outside the home has increased, their workload inside the home remains the same. Women who once would have been housewives now have careers and do everything a housewife would have done when it comes to child rearing, keeping a tidy home, and providing food for the family. We've gained more gender balance outside of the home, but this balance has been slower to come in the family environment. This has left women with very little leisure time, and though it's not something often thought of, that definitely decreases quality of life.
While legal measures can be taken to bring gender balance to the work place, the government can't legislate the family dynamic.* In this way, it makes sense that balance has been slower to come for women at home. This has important repercussions on quality of life and should be more widely addressed.
*With some notable exceptions, especially as regards gay marriage and adoption by gay parents, but as far as gender balance goes, I think the point stands.
ETA: I realize I have left absolutely no links scattered throughout this post, so to make up for it, here's a video of some tiger cubs at a zoo in Seattle to brighten your day.
Monday, September 3, 2012
Advertising Gendered Objects
Today* in class we talked about gendered objects, and a bit about how gendered objects are advertised. It seems to me that the way objects targeted towards women are advertised is, put simply, in the most embarrassing way possible. And after way too much time browsing Youtube for commercials for gendered objects, I'm pretty sure this has always been the case.
Prepare for a lot of links, and quite possibly a lot of secondhand embarrassment.
The year is 1978. Women have had the right to vote in the US for over fifty years, but no permanent solution has yet come to eradicate the most menacing problem facing women since the dawn of humanity: That Not So Fresh Feeling. Luckily, Massengill was there to help. Massengill was a pioneer in the area of awkward advertising of feminine products. Their advertisements for douches (now widely regarded by the medical community to be dangerous for women's health) are downright cringe worthy, and introduce a common trope in women's advertising: discussing a product as if it's a normal part of a conversation. Take this commercial. Two women at work in their design studio discuss the hassle of douching as if this is an entirely normal conversation. Don't get me wrong: we definitely talk about stuff like this some time, but not at all in this fashion. The conversation is stilted and outlandish. Why, for instance, does one woman have a douche sitting on her desk at work? Turning a day-to-day conversation into a sales pitch simply doesn't work. Time after time, this trope comes off as entirely artificial and embarrassingly awkward.
Thirty years later, and not much has changed. The conversation-as-sales-pitch is still all too common (and all too awkward) in advertising targeting women. Like this commercial for birth control. This commercial starts out alright, but it quickly spirals downhill as one of the characters in the pitch bursts into a list of possible side effects of Yaz like its a normal topic in any conversation. This could only be a realistic portrayal of someone's nightmare: when you're out at the club and that friend of yours with PMDD and that other friend with a medical degree start geeking out way too hard about women's health, and you're left sitting there, wondering how much alcohol you'll need to consume to make this stuff seem interesting. Despite the graceless handling of the conversation in the ad and the downright disingenous way this trope plays out, it's still incredibly prevalent in advertisements targeted at women.
It's also interesting to note that neither the commercials for douching nor the Yaz commercial directly discuss the main issues they address. This might not be so surprising for the Massengill commercials (I'm pretty certain vaginal odors weren't a topic widely discussed on television in the 1970s), but the Yaz commercial comes from the late 2000s. It is called a 'birth control pill' and it is mentioned that it doesn't prevent HIV or STDs, but never once is its effectiveness for preventing pregnancy mentioned. You're not going to see a commercial where women are out at the club and say "Wow, I'm glad I'm on the Pill so I can get laid tonight and not worry about getting pregnant!" No, instead we hear about how effective these pills are at regulating menstruation or treating PMDD or acne. That's not to say women don't go on the Pill for those reasons, but it's called a birth control pill for a reason.
There are many, many more issues with advertising targeted at women, but these are two of the biggest offenders as far as I'm concerned: disingenuous, stilted set ups and a refusal to actually come out and say what the products are actually for. I could go on for pages about this (and I may very well do just that in the future), but in the meantime, I can only urge consumers to look critically at what's being advertised to them, and for advertisers to reassess the group that they're advertising to.
*I picked at this over a couple of days, so there's a bit of a date discrepancy.
Thirty years later, and not much has changed. The conversation-as-sales-pitch is still all too common (and all too awkward) in advertising targeting women. Like this commercial for birth control. This commercial starts out alright, but it quickly spirals downhill as one of the characters in the pitch bursts into a list of possible side effects of Yaz like its a normal topic in any conversation. This could only be a realistic portrayal of someone's nightmare: when you're out at the club and that friend of yours with PMDD and that other friend with a medical degree start geeking out way too hard about women's health, and you're left sitting there, wondering how much alcohol you'll need to consume to make this stuff seem interesting. Despite the graceless handling of the conversation in the ad and the downright disingenous way this trope plays out, it's still incredibly prevalent in advertisements targeted at women.
It's also interesting to note that neither the commercials for douching nor the Yaz commercial directly discuss the main issues they address. This might not be so surprising for the Massengill commercials (I'm pretty certain vaginal odors weren't a topic widely discussed on television in the 1970s), but the Yaz commercial comes from the late 2000s. It is called a 'birth control pill' and it is mentioned that it doesn't prevent HIV or STDs, but never once is its effectiveness for preventing pregnancy mentioned. You're not going to see a commercial where women are out at the club and say "Wow, I'm glad I'm on the Pill so I can get laid tonight and not worry about getting pregnant!" No, instead we hear about how effective these pills are at regulating menstruation or treating PMDD or acne. That's not to say women don't go on the Pill for those reasons, but it's called a birth control pill for a reason.
There are many, many more issues with advertising targeted at women, but these are two of the biggest offenders as far as I'm concerned: disingenuous, stilted set ups and a refusal to actually come out and say what the products are actually for. I could go on for pages about this (and I may very well do just that in the future), but in the meantime, I can only urge consumers to look critically at what's being advertised to them, and for advertisers to reassess the group that they're advertising to.
*I picked at this over a couple of days, so there's a bit of a date discrepancy.
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