The other day when we were discussing Christine Henseler’s “Contemporary Spanish Women’s Narrative and the Publishing Industry” in class, Erin brought to the attention of the class something that I myself had noticed when reading and, that is, the phenomenon that with the women authors considered “successful” by Henseler, there was a very evident theme of separation from their partners. For example, in the text, Henseler describes Concha Espina’s “short and troubled marriage” (6) and Carmen de Burgos’s “abusive husband whom she left” (5). This seeming correlation between success and troubled romantic relationships for women was reminiscent, for me, of a mathematics project I did in high school where I mathematically (using Pearson’s correlation coefficient) evaluated the question: Is there any correlation between the increase in the number of women participating in the workforce and the increase in the divorce rate in the United States of America between 1890 and 1960? (Additionally, Did the number of women entering the workforce contribute to (or cause) the increase in the divorce rate between 1890 and 1960 in the United States of America?). I’ve attempted to attach my study if anyone is interested in the math but, essentially what I determined is that “There is a strong Positive Correlation between the increase of the number of women in the workforce and the increase in the number of divorces in the United States between 1890 and 1960 based on graphing and statistical analysis.” That being said, it is important to keep in mind that correlation is not causation but, I though this was a unique insight into Henseler’s article and more broadly the life of women in general.

Math Internal Assesment Final A.Corcoran

http://www.artslant.com/ew/articles/show/45471

Danna Lorch explores the intersection of art and gender in this article. Since 1989, when the Guerrilla Girls noted that under 5% of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s modern section comes from women, gender influence in art elitism has been acknowledged. But the patronizing assumption that often-veiled Middle Eastern women must be more censored and stifled in art than Western women are hasn’t been adequately challenged. This piece argues that gender equality in elite art will likely be realized in the Middle East sooner than in the West. Although there is considerable variation in gender participation rates across galleries, at the enormous Art Dubai fair, 45 percent of featured artists are women. This is “extraordinarily high compared to other major international fairs.” In “Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving?,” Lila Abu-Lughod criticizes the blind Western assumption that Muslim women are all oppressed and forced to wear veils. The reality is, many Muslim women see veils as innovative and liberating “portable seclusion” (p. 785). The veil is an especially recognizable symbol often seized as proof of oppression, and faulty assumptions about gender repression in art is no different than the ease with which most Western people accept veil oppressiveness as fact.

In Laura Freixas lecture tuesday she made note of the lack of female representation in novels. However, in my Reproduction and Childrearing Anthropology class the next day we made note of how almost all literature pertaining to childbirth and child rearing are female oriented, often times leaving the male out. Yes, I believe that female representation in high literature is a problem, but this could be seen as a double edged sword. Perhaps one way to fix this problem is to make the male more involved in feminine matters such as childbirth.

While reading Lila Abu-Lughod’s study arguing about whether Muslim woman need saving or not, I remembered two pictures that I had recently come across.

The first image reminded me of Abu-Lughod’s argument when she was referring to the burqa.  It is a common belief of those outside of the Muslim culture to believe that the burqa is a form of severe oppression, which is depicted in the first image as the burqa literally has prison bars running across the opening.  The second image continued to remind me of her argument, especially when she wrote, “as anthropologists know perfectly well, people wear the appropriate form of dress for their social communities and are guided by socially shared standards, religious beliefs, and moral ideals, unless they deliberately transgress to make a point or are unable to afford proper cover”.  Most people fail to see that the burqa is a piece of culture rather than oppression.  Westerners have learned to except other forms of conservative clothing (like in the images above) as culturally acceptable and respectable, but because the burqa is foreign; it is not understood and many do not take the time to understand the meaning behind it.  As Abu-Lughod said, “why are we surprised that Afghan women do not throw off their burqas when we know perfectly well that it would not be appropriate to wear shorts to the opera”.  This analogy summarizes what the image is saying perfectly, that the burqa raises the problem of “how to deal with cultural “others”, rather than how to protect/save these women from their own culture.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKb12aDy0K8

In this video Jody Steel uses her talent with body painting to convey an important message to society about body image.  In this video Steel creates the illusion of her stomach being tied into a knot by and incredibly tight and restricting rope.  This rope binds her stomach, not allowing it to expand.  This video is meant to depict that way society “binds” the stomachs’ of women, causing them to believe that they must be thin/skinny in order to be accepted.  Although society causes women to believe this, this video shows just how aggressive and horrifying it is to put this sort of a restraint on women.  This video reminded me of the Jean Kilbourne TedTalk and her research on how society and the media has affected the way we perceive beauty and the way we treat our own bodies.  This societal pressure to be skinny in order to be beautiful is harmful and needs to be addressed.

The clothing company Zara is starting a movement to blur the lines of gender in the fashion industry.  Zara has created an engendered clothing line.  “The fast-fashion retailer released a set of unisex pieces that include jeans, shorts, sweatshirts, tanks, and sweaters. The new styles are modeled on its website by both men and women, proving how versatile the basics can be when the aren’t labeled by gender.” When hearing about this push towards showing the world that gender should be seen as a spectrum rather than a binary option, it reminded me of Butler when she wrote, “there is no “proper” gender, a gender proper to one sex rather than another, which is in some sense that sex’s cultural property” and “I am permanently troubled by identity categories, consider them to be invariable stumbling blocks”.  This new wave in society to move away from a binary gender system is becoming more popular, so much so that high-end fashion designers are supporting and marketing for it.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/max-baumbach/why-bernie-sanders-mental-health-joke_b_9412124.html

Max Baumbach argues in “Why Bernie Sanders Should Apologize for his Mental Health Joke” that Bernie’s Republican mental-illness joke and use of the words “crazy” and “lunatic” in discussing violence trivializes and further stigmatizes “non-neurotypical people.” Bernie is merely saying what is popular, meaning that statements like his are more symptom than cause. America as a whole tends to blame gun violence on mental illness, which not only fails to address the real issue, but also perpetuates the widespread mental health stigmatization which has led to the incarceration of 1.2 million mentally-ill Americans. Baumbach is quick to note that this is “ten times the number receiving treatment in state hospitals.” He explains his particular frustration with Sanders below:

“The reason this quip really rubbed me the wrong way is not because I found it particularly shocking; language that associates non-neurotypical people with moral inferiority and violence remains rampant and largely unquestioned in virtually all social circles, including those that purport to care about social justice. The left-wing habit of calling conservatives crazy or “wingnuts” is as vogue as calling violent people crazy or “lunatics” — something Bernie Sanders did multiple times during the debate. Even people with psychiatric diagnoses are taught to essentialize a relationship between mental illness and violent tendencies as an objective matter with no bearing on how we’re perceived and perceive ourselves.” (Baumbach)

Issues of systemic ableism require addressing, but doing so effectively will require a modernization of current cultural norms. McRuer suggests that current discussions of disability “reveals more about the able-bodied culture doing the asking than about the bodies being interrogated” (McRuer p. 93). The problem is that all of our cultural dialogues (hmmm…. Perhaps monologues) about disability start with the presumption that able-bodied perspectives constitute the ideal, and the patronizing implicit question “yes, but in the end, wouldn’t you rather be more like me?” (McRuer p. 93). Until we welcome the non-able-bodied and “non-neurotypical” as equal participants in, rather than subjects of, our discussions on health, we cannot make progress. This is something even well-meaning proponents of healthcare improvements such as Bernie Sanders must come to terms with.

https://authoritynutrition.com/fat-shaming-makes-things-worse/

In “Science Confirms: ‘Fat Shaming’ Just Makes Things Worse,” Kris Gunnars advises people to avoid fat-shaming. Not only is it morally-repugnant to make normative statements about others’ bodies, but even well-intentioned “motivating” comments usually backfire. Authority Nutrition, the host site, touts itself as “evidence-based approach,” reminding readers of the healthy skepticism various literature and even our own thinking processes deserve. And contrary to popular opinion, the evidence is there: an abundance of psychological research suggests fat-shaming often results in stress-triggered overeating. In a cruel irony, platforms such as Reddit’s now-closed fatpeoplehate subreddit actually perpetuate that which they mock. A study of nearly three thousand people found that “weight discrimination was linked to a whopping 6.67 times greater risk of becoming obese.” (Gunnars). Moreover, if people realized that risk of suicidal behavior is twenty-one times higher among the extremely obese than among the average pool of people, they would stop and consider that “health” encompasses physical and mental. Depression, low self-esteem, and eating disorders are not “healthy.” These effects are especially strong among women, whom society typically judges more harshly than men based upon weight. This brings issues of intersectionality into play.

“Dominant paradigms, predefined concepts that exist as unquestionable, unchallengeable, are transmitted to us through the culture. Culture is made by those in power: men…. The culture expects women to show greater acceptance of, and commitment to, the value system than men” (Anzualda p. 2).

Anzualda wrote these words in a very different context, but they hold true in discussions of fat-shaming. Are not women held to higher standards of sexual restraint, beauty, and many other traits under the umbrella of femininity? To be a woman is to face a unique set of challenges, as is to be fat. However, combining the two creates an entirely new experience involving more harassment and judgment. This is entirely avoidable, and following the science leads people to the same conclusion as does basic respect: support and acceptance are both morally- and scientifically-superior.

http://finance.minyanville.com/minyanville/news/read?GUID=31651515

“Special Olympics and Best Buddies International Celebrate 8th Annual Spread the Word to End the Word Day on March 2nd” describes global efforts to inform people of the misuse of the word “retarded.” The article references a recent report by Maria Shriver, from which three key numbers emerge: Although 89% of Americans think it’s offensive to call someone with clear intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) “retarded,” more than half think it’s acceptable to use the word to jokingly reference oneself, and 38% think it’s okay to use the word on a friend doing something foolish. Millenium women are found by a Harris Poll conducted survey to be most accepting of IDD but there is much progress to be made even for them. What gives this word so much destructive power? I look to the Naming section of Eli Clare’s “Freaks and Queers” for insight.

Clare goes word by word, from handicapped to disabled to cripple to… retard. He recalls the specific pain that word caused him in childhood, whether it was spoken out of pity or with intent to bruise. Though he embraces some of those terms in an act of defiance, that word is not among them. Neither is “freak.” Says Clare, in exploring the untouchability of the word “freak,” “The social construction of freaks always relied upon the perceived gap between [able-bodied] normality and a freak’s abnormality” (p. 76). In denying the spectrum of human bodies and minds, society seeks to reinforce binaries of ability, gender, sexuality, etc through the fabrication of the “original” from the “other.” Using pathological, offensive, and outdated terms does nothing to advance humanity’s interests, and is in fact destructive.

http://www.businessinsider.com/wish-fat-shaming-fail-2016-3?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=referral

In this Business Insider article posted just yesterday, Mallory Schlossberg lambasts Wish.com’s offensive plus-size apparel advertisement. Noting that clothing shopping is “notoriously different for curvy women” already, she suggests that online shopping has presented larger women with a safe and reliable retail environment– until now. Wish’s ad shows a thin woman standing in one leg of a pair of plus-size shorts, holding the excess waist room far out to the side to exaggerate its bagginess on her frame. Imagine marketing skinny jeans to thinner people by showing a larger person trying to fit in them. It’s incredibly offensive to persons of size in both cases; note that due to widespread social stigmas even the reverse of Wish’s fat-shaming ad would still be fat-shaming.

In “What is Health at Every Size?,” Deb Burgard argues that “weight discrimination and stigma” may very well be the “primary health threat” to fat people (Burgard 45). The seriousness of this claim is illustrated by the fact that the weight loss industry commands $58.6 annually, whereas plus-size clothing is worth a mere $17.5 billion per year (Wann 9, Schlossberg). If fat-shaming weren’t so ubiquitous, perhaps clothing, a basic necessity for all people, would represent greater expenditures than an spending on an industry devoted to upholding beauty norms and selling nonfunctional products. Moreover, it’s absurd that businesses are reluctant to cater to plus-size clothing shoppers when they’re shelling out so much for clothing each year.

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2015/08/06/experts-mens-overuse-supplements-classifies-as-eating-disorder.html

I found a very interesting article written for Fox New’s Men’s Health, which elaborates on a male’s desire for large muscles and a masculine physique.  Several men will take supplements in order to help gain the “perfect masculine” body because of the way society has caused them to believe that they should look.  Some men who do not achieve the fit/toned body feel ashamed of their body, which is when men can become obsessed with supplements and muscle gaining. This article argues that this excessive desire to achieve this masculine body image should be considered an eating disorder. This article reminded me of what HAES stands for in Burgard’s What is “Health at Every Size”.  HAES stands for “1) Enhancing health 2) Size and self-acceptance 3) The pleasure of eating well 4) The joy of movement and 5) An end to weight bias.  In particular, the Fox News article reminded me of HAES’s second bullet point, which was elaborated on by Burgard saying, it means “respecting and appreciating the wonderful diversity of body shapes, sizes, and features (including one’s own!), rather than pursuing an idealized weight, shape, or physical feature.”  The men suffering from the eating disorder of obsessing over supplements and dietary restrictions in order to achieve a body type would benefit from the goals of HAES.

The exercise we did in class last Thursday where we listed our privileges and oppressions reminded me of this video entitled “Modern Educayshun” written by Neel Kolhatkar, an Australian entertainer. It explores (to a dystopian extreme) the detriments of today’s political correctness and the phenomenon the “oppression Olympics.” Although the point of our exercise in class was far removed from the Privilege Point system seen in this video, many of my personal oppressions (and those of the people with whom I was discussing) voiced in class correspond/reappear as “Privilege Points” in the video, something I think is very interesting.