Author: Former Student

Feminist Mixtape: Lizzo’s “Like A Girl”

Posted on by Former Student

When I first heard about this assignment, I immediately thought of Lizzo’s “Like A Girl.” To me, it is the epitome of a feminist anthem that proclaims the power of women.

Woke up feelin’ like I just might run for President
Even if there ain’t no precedent, switchin’ up the messaging
I’m about to add a little estrogen
Buy my whip by myself
Pay my rent by myself

Only exes that I care about are in my fucking chromosomes
I don’t really need you, I’m Macaulay Culkin home alone
Bad bitch, diamonds in my collarbone
Buy my whip by myself
Pay my rent by myself

This opening verse is an embodiment of female power. In Lizzo’s eyes, there’s never been a female president—so what? There needs to be, and I can do it! It is incredibly self-empowering and asserts the independence of women. Who needs a man to help pay rent? I’m doing just fine on my own.

Sugar, spice, and I’m nice
Show me what you’re made of
Crazy, sexy, cool, baby
With or without makeup
Got nothing to prove
But I’ma show you how I do

I really enjoy these lyrics because they take the common stereotypical image of a woman or belief of what women should be—“sugar, spice, and everything nice”—and both accept it and turn it on its head. Lizzo asserts that she is sugar, spice, and nice, but also crazy, sexy, and cool—with or without makeup. This is fighting back against the idea that women are only beautiful with makeup or that makeup is a method to cover insecurities or build confidence. Lizzo is saying that she wears makeup because she wants to, not because she needs to—she’s sexy without it too and she doesn’t have to prove it to you.

Find me up in Magic City bustin’ hundreds by the bands
And I throw it like a girl
Throw it, throw it like a girl
Hangin’ out the 750
Feelin’ bossy in my city
‘Cause I run it like a girl
Run it, run it like a girl
I work my femininity
I make these boys get on their knees
Now watch me do it, watch me do it
Look it, look it, I’ma do it
Like a girl (like a girl)
Like a girl (like a girl)

In modern culture, the phrase “like a girl” has a negative connotation: if you throw like a girl or hit like a girl, you’re doing it weakly or daintily. Lizzo is arguing the opposite. She’s painting her “throwing it and running it” like a girl as powerful and strong, and perhaps even surpassing the power and strength of boys as she sings “I make these boys get on their knees.”

Shoot the car through the fire, light the kerosene (we can do it)
Lauryn Hill told me everything is everything (we can do it)
Serena Willy showed me I can win the Wimbledon (we can do it)
Put me on a pedestal
Bet on me, bet I will

Here, Lizzo is citing specific women as inspiration for her self-empowerment. She mentions Lauryn Hill, who is often regarded as one of the most influential musicians of her generation and one of the greatest rappers of all time, and Serena Williams, who is among the greatest tennis players of all time, as encouragement for her realization of what she can do. The background vocals also chant “we can do it,” a reference to Rosie the Riveter’s popular phrase that asserts female empowerment.

So if you fight like a girl, cry like a girl
Do your thing, run the whole damn world
If you feel like a girl then you real like a girl
Do your thing, run the whole damn world
If you fight like a girl, cry like a girl
Do your thing, run the whole damn world
If you feel like a girl then you real like a girl
Do your thing, run the whole damn world

This echoes the earlier positive reframing of the phrase “like a girl.” I also especially like the line “If you feel like a girl then you real like a girl.” To me, this is an intentional effort to include trans women in the conversation, saying that trans women are also real women and are just as powerful.

Overall, this song is a wonderful feminist anthem that encourages women to claim their rightful power and strength. Its message is that of self-empowerment and self-love. I highly recommend that everyone listen to it whenever they need a good confidence boost.

Diet Culture Diary

Posted on by Former Student

Sunday, November 20

I woke up and immediately headed to the gym. I had noticed that I had gained a bit of weight over the summer, so when I came back to Davidson in the fall, I created a strict exercise routine. I exercise for my health, but my mind can’t help but think about the possibility of losing weight as a positive side effect. I exercised for longer and more intensely than usual today I think subconsciously because I’m going to see my parents on Tuesday for Thanksgiving break. For some backstory, I grew up not exercising quite as regularly as the rest of my family, so my parents would warn me about gaining weight. I think I subconsciously want my parents to notice that I’ve been exercising and am keeping weight off.

Tuesday, November 22

I arrived in Asheville right before dinnertime, so we headed to a nice restaurant. I hadn’t eaten much beforehand, so I was really hungry and cleaned my plate. Growing up I was always told that I ate “like a bird,” so my mother commented that she’d never seen me eat that much. I sheepishly answered that I had been hungry, thinking to myself that maybe I should have slowed down a bit.

Thursday, November 24

After cooking all morning, we enjoyed a lovely and delicious Thanksgiving meal for lunch. My mom asked me what my favorite Thanksgiving dish was growing up, and I answered that dressing (which I’ve been told some people call stuffing?) has always been my favorite as I stood up to get a second serving. “I love it too, but it’s way too carb-y,” she replied as she looked down and patted her thighs. “We need to go work out to burn all this off!” I didn’t get as much for my second serving.

Friday, November 25

I had been talking with my mother about my exercise habits, so the morning after Thanksgiving we got up and went to the gym together. As I lifted weights, wearing leggings and only a sports bra, my mom admired my form. “You look great,” she said. “You’re so skinny!” I felt some pride that she noticed, but knew it wasn’t an accurate reflection of my health—my diet and sleep schedule for the previous few weeks had been exceptionally poor.

Authority and Uncertainty in Trans Medicine

Posted on by Former Student

For decades, transgender medicine has been a site of confusion, fascination, and intense conflict. There remains disagreement in how to provide gender-affirming medical interventions as well as how to determine who should receive it. Stef Shuster (they/them) tackles these questions in their book Trans Medicine: The Emergence and Practice of Treating Gender. They argue that the uncertainty in trans medicine has led to a medicalization of gender that identifies medical providers as experts and ignores trans people’s expertise in their individual bodies and experiences. Because contemporary medical perspectives are influenced by old assumptions about gender, this power dynamic perpetuates inequalities in healthcare.

When the era of what we now know to be trans medicine first began, the few healthcare providers who entered the field faced intense backlash from those who viewed such interventions to be inappropriate or even immoral (26). To protect themselves from the critique, medical providers who treated transgender patients corresponded extensively with each other, creating a shared understanding of trans medicine and establishing a sense of authority within the field (24). The focus became on “normalizing” trans people’s bodies and experiences—strict guidelines were set for who could be provided with medical intervention. Providers needed to be assured that their patient would be able to “successfully” live in their target gender; this definition of successful was entirely based in the medical and scientific community’s expectations for gender conformity and sexuality (24). Anything that deviated was met with suspicion that the patient was not truly transgender. Due to this, trans patients were judged based on appearance and were subject to intensive questioning about their personal life in order to establish their credibility (34). Trans people who did not fit these expectations were deemed unworthy of access to gender-affirming medical interventions (24). The author argues that due to the strict guidelines enacted to establish medical authority, trans people were forced to acquiesce to public expectations of gender conformity in order to receive gender-affirming medical care.

Still, uncertainty on how to determine who should receive gender-affirming care remained, leading physicians to reach out to psychiatrists and psychologists for assistance in assessment with the expectation that they would support their recommendations (50). Rather than working together, however, each group of healthcare providers argued that their field’s method of understanding transgenderism was sufficient. The author argues that this disagreement resulted in a battle over which field of medicine should claim power and authority over transgender treatment (49). Not long after psychiatrists and psychologists began assisting with the evaluation of trans patients, they began to offer recommendations for allowing or denying access to gender-affirming care, much to the physicians’ dismay, who thought their only role should be in assessing patients’ mental health (51). This resulted in a battle for not only power, but legitimacy as both sides questioned whether the other was equipped to claim authority.

Psychiatrists and psychologists, like physicians, focused on transgender patients’ personal lives in assessing them for receiving gender-affirming intervention: they also made recommendations based off gender conformity and physical appearance (59). However, they needed another way to distinguish their authority from that of physicians, so they turned to taking explicit sexual histories in order to ensure the credibility of transgender patients. They wanted to ensure that people were not using gender-affirming medical transition as a method of ignoring homosexuality (60-1). Shuster argues that this further subjected transgender people to adhering to the strict binary of gender and gender roles: therapists assumed that trans people would leave their existent families and go establish new, heterosexual ones where they would fulfill the familial role of their new gender. Therapists based their recommendation off trans patients’ intentions to do so (61-2). The efforts of both physicians and therapists were to assert their authority in trans medicine by establishing scientific guidelines in which to abide by and quell the uncertainty that existed in the field.

In contemporary transgender medicine, this uncertainty remains. Evidence-based medicine (EBM) has rapidly increased in popularity arising from critique that medicine needed to be more objective and standardized (77). Rather than basing guidelines off personal expectations as before, EBM represented an effort to base recommendations off scientific evidence. The author argues that in contemporary trans medicine, providers attempted to confirm the legitimacy of trans medicine by constructing evidence and codifying expectations (78). Codifying the trans experience led to it becoming a diagnosis: “gender dysphoria.” Shuster argues that this is a “double-edged sword:” a diagnosis increases the likelihood that insurance companies will reimburse out-of-pocket expenses for gender-affirming care, but it also implies that transgenderism is an illness (80).

Despite this, there was no clear path for clinical guidelines to follow in trans medicine because there was no scientific evidence: there were no randomized control trials determining risks or benefits of medical intervention (85). Trans medicine has rather been supported by case studies and patient reports (86). Because of the lack of scientific evidence, there remains ambiguity in the guidelines for providing gender-affirming care, leaving decision-making regarding trans care largely up to the discretion of the provider and allowing decision-making to be influenced by norms and societal factors. With healthcare providers vying to claim expertise, patients cannot claim the expertise over their gender identities themselves (88).

Shuster argues that this discomfort in the lack of scientific evidence has also resulted in a lack of confidence in healthcare providers in treating trans patients (90). Having been taught EBM, providers feel unequipped. Trans medicine is not taught broadly in medical schools (90). This discomfort and lack of experience in working with trans people leads to providers unintentionally exhibiting trans exceptionalism—where trans patients are perceived to be so unique that it is difficult for providers to use their knowledge and experience in other areas of medicine to inform their decision-making regarding trans patients (4). This makes it difficult for trans people to find a provider who feels comfortable working with them (91). The lack of scientific evidence backing gender-affirming care and lack of knowledge of the risks makes providers even more hesitant to offer access, particularly when trans people have coexisting conditions that may be affected. Though the guidelines no longer dictate gender conformity, their ambiguity allows providers to turn away trans people with mental health disorders or other health conditions due to the potential risk (95-97).

In summary, the author argues that due to the fact that medical providers are not trained in trans medicine, there exists uncertainty in how to assess trans patients and how to go about providing gender-affirming medical interventions. Because of this, there has a been an ongoing power struggle between different fields of healthcare in who can claim expertise in trans medicine and offer recommendations for care. This has medicalized understanding of gender and has given medical providers authority over gender, leaving trans patients at the whim of physicians’ interpretations of the ambiguous clinical guidelines based in EBM (104). This unintentionally perpetuates healthcare inequalities because decision-making is influenced by societal factors, cultural norms, and historical contexts (159). Their conclusive argument is that medical providers should not have authority over gender identity, nor should they impose medicalized understandings of gender onto trans people’s experiences: providers must advocate for their trans patients’ needs and place more trust in their patients’ expertise over their own bodies (164-6).

To support their arguments, the author employed several different methods of research. First, to provide historical context of transgender medicine, they examined letters of correspondence between medical providers in the 20th century found in the archives of the Kinsey Institute (11). These documents provided the discourse present in the medical and scientific communities on how providers were to make decisions regarding eligibility for gender-affirming medical interventions. From these Shuster gained knowledge of the assumptions that medical providers had when working with trans patients (11). They then conducted interviews with therapists and physicians from a wide variety of specialties and geographical locations. These interviews informed them how old assumptions of gender continue to influence contemporary structure of trans medicine and its lack of certainty today (12). The author also attended healthcare conferences and observed how providers taught each other to work with patient populations. Lastly, they examined diagnostic criteria and clinical guidelines related to transgender medicine from leading health organizations (13).

In conclusion, Shuster argues for the focus in trans medicine to be shifted away from the expertise of medical providers and onto the individual experiences of trans people. They call for better training in medical schools, increased research into the long-term effects of medical interventions such as hormones, and increased focus to be put on the healthcare disparities that trans people experience. Trans medicine is a place where science and values can coexist, and it needs to be redefined that way.

My Skin: An Anthem of Self-Love

Posted on by Former Student

As Lizzo’s presence in mainstream media has rapidly increased in recent years, so has the impact of her iconic messages of body positivity and self-love. Though many people know her for her 2019 album “Cuz I Love You” and her recent 2022 album “Special,” Lizzo has always been calling for reform in the way that society views women’s bodies. Her 2015 song “My Skin” and accompanying music video serves as a call to people everywhere to love and appreciate their bodies and skin.

Lizzo opens the music video with a brief monologue in which she states that learning to love yourself and your body is a journey that every person experiences—especially women. Her first verse paints a picture of why this is the case: society has created an impossible beauty standard that women feel that they must strive towards. Women are taught from birth to compare their bodies to what they see in media and to each others’, creating insecurity and self-hatred toward their own. This is an unspoken yet universal experience—one that Lizzo calls “the darkest, best kept secret.” As women compare their bodies to each others’, they are pitted against each other in competition for all the promises—love, respect, happiness—that society has convinced us we will receive if our bodies meet its standards. Lizzo articulates this in her lyrics “Let it bring us together, or it could tear us apart.” This comparison of bodies is currently tearing women apart. Lizzo is calling for women instead to unite against this harmful societal norm and revel in our universal beauty. She asserts that “the most beautiful thing that you have ever seen is even bigger than we think it means,” suggesting that the beauty of bodies and skin as well as self-love is much more significant and important than we give it credit for. She accompanies these lyrics with close-up images of diverse, seemingly unfiltered bodies painted in a beautiful light. These bodies are not perfect: they have fat, blemishes, stretch marks, hair, and other qualities that our societal standard would label as flaws. This representation of imperfect, diverse bodies in a popular music video tells women that their bodies are normal—and that their bodies are also beautiful, desirable, and worthy to be looked at.

Lizzo also applies this specifically to women of color. Societal beauty standards have created a very specific picture of what true beauty looks like: the “ideal body” is often portrayed as white and thin. Due to this association between whiteness and beauty, people of color are made to feel as if their skin inherently lacks beauty. The internalization of this belief takes away people’s ability to love and be proud of their skin, leaving shame in its wake. This can also be applied to fat women. Because thinness is seen as a requirement for beauty, fat women are made to feel as if they can’t be beautiful. In the chorus, Lizzo sings, “I woke up in this—in my skin. I can’t wash it away, so you can’t take it from me—my brown skin.” It is a call for women to reclaim the definition of beauty in their own skin. As Lizzo sings this in the music video, she runs her hands over her body with love and compassion and shows close-up images of her skin and hair, appreciating her body for its beauty.

As the music video nears its end, Lizzo, along with the other women in the music video, begin to pop the balloons that have been around them, sending glitter flying everywhere.

Throughout the video, it was not apparent that the balloons were filled with glitter—they seemed like regular balloons. As long as we believe the misconceptions that society has imposed on us, we cannot see the possibilities for ourselves that it hides. They initially appear unassuming, but when societal norms and standards of beauty are rejected, the result is magical. We can have full compassion for ourselves and unconditional love for our bodies and skin. Lizzo then runs her hands through the gold glitter and spreads it over her body, symbolizing an external layer of self-love and compassion.

This song and music video does a phenomenal job of encouraging women to reject societal standards of beauty and love their bodies as they are. Its inclusion of imperfect and diverse bodies adds representation to a historically image-conscious industry that has been plagued by photoshop, telling women everywhere that their bodies are normal and beautiful. Lizzo is an incredible role model for young women who face these standards—her unapologetic love for her body encourages others to do the same. Her popularity and presence in mainstream media gives hope that one day we can break free from societal standards and have universal unconditional love and respect for all bodies.