Friday, October 1, 2010
Newsflash: Bryn Mawr Making Strides for Women Worldwide
http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/22/conference/?scp=3&sq=women&st=cse
Although there are many recent news stories relevant to Intro to Women’s Studies, I found the review of the discussion between Jacques Steinberg, a New York Times education writer, and Jane Dammen McAuliffe, the president of Bryn Mawr College, particularly interesting and relevant. “The Choice” is a blog-like venue, on which writers from the New York Times discuss all things college related, and readers are strongly encouraged to comment. As a female senior here at Colgate, gender/sex issues are quite obvious to me. As a beginner to the world of feminism, I am fascinated by what steps other colleges are taking regarding gender differences and stereotypes and how they are exploring women’s studies. Bryn Mawr College has made a name for itself as a progressive and powerful institution, one which looks to educate and raise consciousness about important issues, including the fight for women’s rights and equality. Bryn Mawr’s accomplishments, open-mindedness and general ambitiousness in facing towards the future place it, despite being 66 years younger than Colgate, a much more progessive and sophisticated institution and perhaps one that we can learn from.
This question and answer session, which took place on September 22nd, 2010, specifically addresses the celebration Bryn Mawr will be holding in honor of their 125th birthday. The conference, beginning on September 23rd, explored the role of women’s colleges in helping to improve women’s lives all around the world. One topic that was addressed was a response to the fact that Bryn Mawr College believes and looks to “prepare students to respond to the abuses and violence that many women endure, not just here in the United States but abroad”. President McAuliffe reiterated that it is disconcerting that even in the world today, in the 21st century, women still suffer from oppression, prejudice, and violence, just for being female. As Anne Fausto-Sterling wrote in “Sexing the Body”, “in some parts of the world, we have even altered the sex ratio by selectively aborting female fetuses…” (page 54). It is amazing that females are “less desired” in our world, especially considering that we are the ones who are vital to population growth and making families. It is disconcerting that some of our newer medical technologies such as fetal ultrasound and amniocentesis can be used for gender selection and could work against making the world a more equal place. As McAuliffe said, “young women are still forced into sexual slavery, subjected to genital mutilation and murdered to save the family ‘honor’. It is astonishing that these practices continue on today. The fact that in some underdeveloped countries, women still “die in childbirth at rates that rival those in the Middle Ages,” suggests that not enough resources are being spent to preserve and ensure women’s health; perhaps this is because women are not considered a priority.
Despite this, Bryn Mawr feels that their role as one of the leading women’s colleges, one that has been empowering women for so long, is beginning to move things in the right direction. With a heavy emphasis on “service learning”, a diverse student body, and a larger selection of “Fields of Study” than even Colgate offers (including “Gender and Sexuality” as a major: http://www.brynmawr.edu/academics/), McAuliffe feels that conferences like this are important to bring about partnerships, awareness, and progress. She feels that her students “can be agents of change in addressing this worldwide challenge of women’s oppression… whether they become doctors, lawyers, chemists, artists, or C.E.O’s”. It appears to me that the students and faculty of Bryn Mawr College are looking to make an impact on the lives of women worldwide, and to me their efforts seem more respectable that they do not have the benefit of millions of dollars or, per se, a nationally televised television show.
As someone who vehemently refused to consider attending an all women’s college, I can’t help but marvel at the advances women’s colleges have contributed to our society and their hope to continue that in the future. McAuliffe states while there are only approximately 60 exclusively women’s colleges, the alumni of these schools are often more qualified and excel at a higher level after their undergraduate years, pursue graduate school degrees more frequently, and in science, technology, mathematics and engineering, surpass those women who attended co-ed universities. These facts highlight why “women’s colleges remain a vitally important part of our higher education system”. Bryn Mawr’s president also feels encouraged that women’s colleges are developing all around the world. New institutions created exclusively for women include Asian University for Women in Bangladesh, Effat College in Saudi Arabia, Kiriri Women’s University in Kenya, among others.
As McAuliffe reiterates how positive the existence and contributions of these institutions are, it makes me reflect about some of my experiences here at Colgate. At the brown bag lunches I have attended, I noticed that the number of males in the room was, as expected, incredibly small. Our women’s studies class is comprised of around 20 females and just 2 males. In the Western Traditions course that I took sophomore year, I felt that my male teacher displayed unfair favoritism towards the male students, almost uncomfortably. I unfortunately feel that if such a conference were held here, highlighting and activating for the betterment of women’s lives worldwide, it would (generally) not be received positively. The students and faculty of Bryn Mawr College are proud, powerful, and ambitious. As a Colgate student for the past three years, I have observed my fair share of less than positive experiences and attitudes towards women in general. I sense an overall expectation of females here at Colgate, and regrettably, many go along with and propagate it. Women at Colgate are expected to be smart, but not too smart, etc. At Colgate, we have a college gossip website www.collegeacb.com/sb/Colgate, where students can write in about a variety of subjects, and others can comment. On this website, one girl, ‘anonymous’ writes, “what can we do as girls to show guys that we want more than just a one night stand?” A boy also named ‘anonymous’ replied, “Don't be prude. Have fun, but don't be a whore… Make an effort to look good all the time, not just when going out…” To me this illustrates the negative attitude the Colgate men have of women here. I find it embarrassing, that at a respected place of higher education like Colgate, a bridge still exists between the attitudes of males and females. Both the male and female students at Colgate needed to have demonstrated high intelligence and well-rounded personality skills in order to be accepted at this school. Now that we are all here, it is time that the men of Colgate treat the women students with more equality and respect.
References:
Bryn Mawr College. www.brynmawr.edu
Douglas, Susan J. Enlightened Sexism. Copyright 2010. Times Books.
Fausto-Sterling, Anne. Sexing the Body. Copyright 2000. Best Books.
Steinberg, Jacques. “A Women’s College That Wants to Change the World”. September 22, 2010. New York Times Online. http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/22/conference/?scp=3&sq=women&st=cse
Thursday, September 30, 2010
News Flash #1
She “is J.Lo curves meets Jessica Simpson rack meets Audrey Hepburn elegance—a head-turning beauty (Bennett). The Village Voice, a New York City newspaper, described the thirty-three year-old Citibank employee, Debbie Lorenzana, as thus. Lorenzana, who was fired from her job in the summer of 2009 as a result of her cited poor “work performance,” sued the company in December for discrimination, claiming that she was actually fired for distracting her male colleagues and supervisors with her appearance. Lorenzana’s case serves as evidence of one of the many suppressive double binds, which we have read about and discussed in class, that women all over the world face.
According to Debbie Lorenzana, her bosses at Citibank repeatedly told her that they were unable to focus on their work because they were distracted by her sexually appealing appearance. They even went so far as to demand that she dress herself differently, forbidding her from wearing turtlenecks, pencil skirts, three-inch heels, or fitted business suits and suggesting that she wear looser-fitting clothing instead. Lorenzana tried to point out to them that the attire of many other women in the company was much more provocative and revealing, as they were clad in mini-skirts and low-cut blouses, allowing “anyone [to] see what God gave them” (Dwoskin) when they bent down. However, her bosses simply fired back, claiming, “their body shapes were different from [hers], and [she] drew too much attention” (Bennett). Lorenzana claimed that she shopped at the same places that her female coworkers shopped, like Zara, and thus she felt she was being punished for her body rather than her purchases and actual dress. As she reflects, other women "were able to wear such clothing because they were short, overweight, and they didn't draw much attention…but since I was five-foot-six, 125 pounds, with a figure, it wasn't appropriate…Are you saying that just because I look this way genetically, that this should be a curse for me?” (Dwoskin).
Debbie Lorenzana faces a double bind. A double bind, as defined by Marilyn Frye (author of the article we read in class, “Oppression”) is a “situation in which options are reduced to very few and all of the expose one to penalty, censure or deprivation” (Frye). Women in the workplace face a double bind in terms of their appearance: there are perils to being unattractive (especially to the male sex) as well as being too attractive. As Jessica Bennett, Newsweek writer, claims, “it's a known fact that attractive people have it easier: résumés get more favorable assessments when they’re thought to belong to attractive candidates; pretty students get doted on more by teachers” (Bennett). She even went on to reveal that attractive women on average make 4% more than, what she calls, their “Ugly Betty counterparts.” I am not exactly sure what the criteria is for determining who is attractive and who is an “Ugly Betty,” and for that matter, who makes this determination, but it is nevertheless a telling statistic. Attractive women definitely have advantages over less attractive women in the career world, especially when (sex-driven) men are primarily the ones in control and doing the hiring. Even though she was fully qualified for the job and should not have needed her looks to land the job, it appears that Lorenzana may have been hired at Citibank at least partially because of her stunning looks. After being hired by Citibank, Lorenzana was told by one of her new female coworkers that the branch was “pretty much known for hiring pretty girls” (Dwoskin), and that she was positive Lorenzana had the job as soon as she saw her when she came in for her interview.
However, from Lorenzana’s situation, it becomes obvious that there are also pitfalls to being too attractive. Even if you are not fired for being too sexy or beautiful, you have to work in an environment that is “hostile, painful, and unbearable” (Dwoskin), words Lorenzana used to describe the work settings she has faced throughout her career. While working at Citibank and other companies, she faced harassment on a daily basis. For example, when she worked at the Municipal Credit Union in 2003, her boss once called her into his office to ask her opinion of a picture, which turned out to be a picture of his penis. If that is not sexual harassment in the workplace, I do not know what is. Before Lorenzana was fired from Citibank, she faced a year of constant harassment from within the company. Her bosses singled her out every day and were relentless in their comments about her appearance and dress, as evidenced by the following statement from Lorenzana: “I could have worn a paper bag, and it would not have mattered. If it wasn't my shirt, it was my pants. If it wasn't my pants, it was my shoes” (Bennett). Lorenzana even stopped wearing makeup and wore her hair back in attempt to draw attention away from her; but nothing she did seemed to prevent her from being a “distracting force” in the office for the men. She was essentially being punished for her natural beauty and curves, as her clothes were in no way slutty or revealing, and were completely in line with the company dress code. However, as her bosses made clear to her, her body type demanded that she follow a completely different dress code—one that Lorenzana refused to comply with, as she believed she was dressing appropriately and being discriminated against. In the end, Lorenzana had to pay the price for being too hot in the workplace. Thus, Lorenzana faced what Bennett calls, a “double-edged sword”–if she was not attractive enough to her supervisors, she might not have even gotten the job (or made the high salary that she made), yet, the fact that she was too attractive ended up costing her the job. How was she supposed to win? The true answer is she cannot win and is not supposed to win. As Frye claims, in the case of double binds “you can’t win. You are caught in a bind, caught between systematically related pressures” (Frye). Lorenzana is just one example of a women caught between one of the innumerable double binds that women face constantly in their day-to-day life.
Women should not have to make themselves unattractive to be able to work in a healthy, non-discriminatory environment, where they feel safe. It should not take them being ugly for them to not be viewed as sexual objects. At the same time, women should not have to be attractive to have advantages or success in the career-world (unless they are trying to become models, of course). The story of Debbie Lorenzana clearly shows how we still live in a patriarchal, man-driven world. The man lies at the center of all things and women must revolve around him. As Lorenzana’s lawyer claimed in regards to her situation at work and the complaints she received from her bosses, “[i]t’s like saying we can’t think anymore 'cause our penises are standing up—and we cannot think about you except in a sexual manner—and we can’t look at you without wanting to have sexual intercourse with you. And it’s up to you, gorgeous woman, to lessen your appeal so that we can focus!” (Bennett). Hearing about Lorenzana’s situation led me to the question, why must women always be the ones to change to accommodate men?
Works Cited
Bennett, Jessica. "Too Hot in the Workplace? It'll Cost You." Newsweek. 4 June 2010.
30 Sept. 2010.
Dwoskin, Elizabeth. “Is This Woman Too Hot To Be a Banker?” The Village Voice. 1
June 2010. 30 Sept. 2010.
Frye, Marilyn. “Oppression.” The Politics of Reality. Trumansburg, N.Y: The Crossing
Press, 1983.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
As we discussed last class gender is something that is socially constructed where as sex is biological. So it is easy for one to see how decisions about a Childs gender can greatly affect their future. Doctors and parents are faced with difficult moral and ethical choices when placed in this position. Often times a decision needs to be made in a timely manner so the most important party is not included in the decision and that is the child. If the wrong sex is chosen for the child and the child identifies with the opposite sex then that can cause significant psychological damage. Children that are born with a genital abnormality are born with a cloud over their head and will often always have questions about their sexuality. Ciara is an incredible singer songwriter but rumors of her being a hermaphadite follow her. Lady Gaga also has been rumored to have a penis. As we discussed in class a genital abnormality can be as subtle as internal testes an can often go years unnoticed. Pop culture icons may experience some of these slight abnormalities but due to them constantly being in the spotlight this is just magnified. These situations need to be handled delicately and as technology and medical advancements continue to improve hopefully the situation for these children will also.
Response to Brittany (9/29)
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Main Post 9/29
Continuing on in our reading by Anne Fausto-Sterling’s “Sexing the Body”, Chapter 3 concentrates on how decisions about a child’s gender at birth are made and how they can affect their future. Once a child’s body exhibits sexual ambiguity, there is a multitude of issues that they, as well as their parents, face, both physically and psychologically. For parents, doctors use the most medically-technical vocabulary as possible, in order not to bring about the thought that their child is not male or female, rather that they show signs of unusual physiology. There are also many different diseases that can cause this, that are mentioned, such as CAH, AIS, gonadal dysgenesis, Klinefelter’s or Turners.
Doctors felt that their patients “required medical treatment because they ought to have become either a male or female” and warned that “freak hood” (as a result of sexual ambiguity) “will, indeed, be the baby’s fate should the case be improperly managed” (pages 46-47). The author continues with saying that the general agreement today is that intersexual children should be corrected as soon as possible, though practices for taking care of this surgically are quite variable, because there are not yet any regulations for this practice. Though it seems that doctors do want to help, they often are unaware of resources that can help both themselves and parents in better dealing with this circumstance, that occurs in 1.7% of all births (though this varies across the world and across different ethnic/racial populations), and might be on the rise as a result of environmental pollutants and in vitro fertilization. All of this technology available to “fix” these problems, has led to an even further emphasis on the fact that people fall into one of the two categories, male or female, even though there is a fairly high frequency of it.
The author describes the ways in which prenatal treatments can attempt to eliminate gender ambiguity, but these have many side effects for both mother and child, and have not proven to be actually effective. Thus, as the author refers to it, “doctors must decide, as they would put it, nature’s intention” (page 56), and surgically assign a newborn’s gender. Many of these decisions are made on social means as opposed to medical, as many families prefer male children, “you can make a hole but you can't build a pole,” etc.
The psychological piece arises with a discussion of a new “gender doublespeak” in which parents are discouraged from telling their children that they are part male and part female, and rather that they are the sex that they “became”. These doctors feel that medical honesty is of no benefit of the patient, but this is at odds with “sound medical practice”. Amongst the parents having issues dealing with this, obviously the patients themselves have exhibited problems, most notably with the John/Joan/John incident, in which a boy had a problem when circumcised, underwent surgery to become a girl, began identifying as a girl, then had difficulty fully adjusting as a female, at which point he underwent corrective surgery to become male once again. Clearly, it isn’t easy.
There has been an ongoing feud between Money and Diamond, in their theories of how humans became sexual. While Money argued that humans were sexually neutral at birth and the environment played a part, Diamond argued that it was hormones that determined sex. This led to a debate that “individuals are psychosexually neutral at birth, and that healthy psychosexual development is intimately related to the appearance of the genitals” (page 70). One more debate that has surfaced among this question of intersexuality is the issue of homosexuality versus homosexuality. “When doctors chose to assign a definitive sex to an ambiguously sexed child, then it was not enough that the child become psychologically male or female. For the treatment to count as successful, the child had to become heterosexual” (page 72), believed some scientists. Was a girl who still had testes and an XY chromosome, who fell in love with a man homosexual or heterosexual? These issues still are questioned, but Diamond argues that nature permits more than two normal types of sexuality, and diversity is okay.
Finally the author talks about the fact that “the rules for living as a male or female are strict” (page 75), that there are contradictory practices and views in our world, and our current cultural system of gender is constantly called into question.
“Should there only be two sexes?”, Chapter 4 in Fausto-Sterling’s book, begins with an anecdote about how she wrote a proposal that we change our two sex system to a five sex one, and the multitude of reactions she received as a result. Some were positive, some were not (such as the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, who believe that there are “but two sexes, both are which are rooted in nature” (page 78). At the very least, however, she seemed proud that the debate had started, and the lines between male and female were becoming harder to define. Fausto-Sterling states her wishes for the future of intersexuals, that being:
1. Let there be no unnecessary infant surgery
2. Let physicians assign a provisional sex to the infant
3. Let the medical care team provide full information and long-term counseling to the parents and to the child
She further talks about a utopia in which gender hierarchies have been abolished, and intersexuals have only major/life-threatening medical concerns.
Continuing on, the author makes a point about how the surgeries/“cures” for intersexuals often cause more harm than good, and includes many statistics and stories about horrific experiences of real life people. Many of these stories contain people who have gone further to try and help those in situations similar to their own, like Cheryl Chase who founded the Intersex Society of North America, and Helena Harmon-Smith who started the Hermaphrodite Education and Listening Post. These advocates support truth and nothing but the truth when discussing gender identities, amongst patients, doctors, and parents. Along with physical pain associated with the surgeries, the Fausto-Sterling once again reiterates the psychological suffering that intersexuals deal with. These surgeries have an incredibly high failure rate, and often times patients must actually undergo several surgeries. This chapter also includes many pages of a chart detailing “outcomes of reduction clitoroplasties”, including the number of subjects, age at first surgery, results, and comments.
“Dogma has it that without medical care, especially early surgical intervention, hermaphrodites are doomed to a life of misery. Yet, there are few empirical investigations to back up this claim” (page 93). There are many examples, actually, in which hermaphrodites have lived happy and productive lives, and many have assumed normal role and activities of whichever “sex” they have chosen. The author brings up an interesting (and not surprising) point that males appear more anxious to change their feminized bodies than vice versa.
The last major topic in the chapter has to do with transsexuality, and the fact that many transsexuals feel extremely strongly about having their bodies “conform with his/her psyche” (page 107), and thus often end up having surgery. However, it is the exact concept of our two-gender system that allows transsexuals to have this surgery- they are choosing one sex, versus falling into one of Rothblatt’s “shades of gender”. Although “no woman or man fits the universal gender stereotype” (page 108), transsexuals and transgenders have difficulties in their daily lives; obtaining passports, licenses, etc. An International Bill of Gender Rights was written by transgenders, and things are currently in the works to help the legal statuses of intersexuals, transsexuals, etc.
At the end of the chapter, Fausto-Sterling leaves the reader with glimmers of hope. “Perhaps we will come to view such children as especially blessed or lucky” (page 113), and there is a “general trend toward greater tolerance for gender multiplicity and ambiguity” (page 114).
Monday, September 27, 2010
Response to Olivia 9/27
The short piece “One Bad Hair Day Too Many…” by Jennifer Myhre in “Listen Up”, I found her views to be somewhat fitting of the stereotypical “feminist”. Because of this, to be honest, I felt somewhat uncomfortable and the story kind of put me off. She is somewhat aggressive in stating her points, which is, for me, what made it the most difficult to read.
Jennifer decided to get a crew cut and eventually shaved her head, and stopped caring about her appearance. She no longer shaved her legs or armpits, wore makeup or jewelry. As she said, “… but not working at looking like a woman meant that most people considered me masculine. I chose to call myself androgynous and hoped to destroy the distinction between masculine and feminine, male and female” (page 86). I understand that some people feel that they don’t fit into a gender category, per se, and I support that they should be able to feel at ease with themselves. I do think though, that in society, there are social norms, gender norms, etc. and if people are willing to go so far as to call them selves androgynous (which I feel is okay if they want to), they have to understand that as humans, we inherently feel as other humans should fit into a category of male or female, as that is how, since the beginning, God made people- male or female and nothing in between. Thus, the decision to give up one’s sexual “distinction” should be made keeping in mind that intrinsically, people are going to feel awkward around them; it’s just the way we are.
The author goes further on to say that “women are expected to comply with standards set by society” (page 87). I feel that society also has standards set for men- tough, strong, somewhat emotion-less, etc. While I agree that in many senses women are oppressed in our society, I think she does not admit the fact that other people face issues with being stereotyped and being called names as well (minorities, etc.). I do however appreciate that the author comes out and says, “I am a feminist with whom even other feminists are sometimes uncomfortable” (page 88), because I am certainly uncomfortable with her story, and I do consider myself somewhat of a feminist, now that I have been enrolled in this course.
http://www.crimethinc.com/tools/posters/gender_back.gif