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Animal behavior & gender/sexuality norms

Submitted by jmorgant on Mon, 10/03/2011 - 10:45am

The video “Nature: What Females Want…and What Males Will Do” featured clichéd, even asinine commentary about animals’ reproductive behavior. The DVD showed heterosexual animal interactions punctuated with quotes from biologists and the narrator such as “Males will do anything they can do copulate with a female – we know that!” In a look a male geladas, whose ability to withstand sub-0 nighttime temperatures is demonstrated by the deep red of their chest patches, were described as “Pretty tough!” Female fireflies that mocked another species’ light patterns in order to eat the males were described as “true femme fatales.” In reference to jumping spiders, a biologist explained, “Females are looking for complex things; they want more and more, so males have evolved these dances.” Red-sided garter snakes that were forcibly inseminated would in a day or so “have another chance at love.” This constant commentary, while meant to be entertaining, was not only distracting but often times offensive because of the way it demonstrated stereotypes about gender and sexuality.

Is rape biological?

Submitted by jmorgant on Mon, 10/03/2011 - 10:41am

I was fascinated by the concept of “cryptic choice” introduced in the video “Nature: What Females Want…and What Males Will Do.” Female red-sided garter snakes are rendered immobile by males competing to inseminate her. They have, however, evolved a means of defense against forced copulation: they can choose which of the snake’s sperm will fertilize their eggs. Another example of “cryptic choice” is seen in ducks’ reproductive systems: they twist opposite ways to make reproduction more difficult. A third of ducks’ copulations are forced, but they produce only 3% of the young. Explained the narrator, “Evolution has given females the edge.” Last week, my psychology-major roommate sent me an article called “Women’s Avoidance of Rape” which, like the video, acknowledged that “Sexual coercion and rape have been documented in many different species.”

Redefining Difference: The Emergence of the Disability Movement

Submitted by jmorgant on Mon, 10/03/2011 - 9:43am

My interest in the disability movement was generated by our class discussions on the meanings and constructions of disability. Along with Interdisciplinary Gender and Sexuality Studies, I am currently taking a class at Haverford called Social Movement Theory, where we have discussed how and why movements emerge under certain conditions. Throughout the course of my research on the disability movement, I found that three phenomena were pivotal in accounting for its emergence, expansion, and relative success: organizers managed to build broad and diverse coalitions, garner the support of influential political elites, and spark vast changes in consciousness.

Scholars vary in their estimations of the time period during which the disability movement emerged. The first legislation relating specifically to the disabled was passed after World War I in order to accommodate wounded soldiers returning from Europe. However, a flurry of legislation and organizing activity did not surface until the 1970s alongside other social movements in the United States. The first significant piece of legislation was the 1973 Vocational Rehabilitation Act. Section 504 of the bill read,

“No otherwise qualified handicapped individual in the United States, shall solely be reason of his handicap, be excluded from the participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”

Challenging The Idea of Independence As A Desirable End

Submitted by S. Yaeger on Mon, 10/03/2011 - 8:27am

Precarious and Performative Play Web Paper 1

In thinking about a topic for this paper, I was utterly confused. I have never actually written a promptless paper before, and the idea of doing so ramped up my anxiety to the point of crippling any productive thought. Then, I encountered Margaret Price and her writings on the intersection of mental disability (an umbrella term for mental and neurological illness) and academic discourse. I am drawn to Price’s analysis of how academia excludes those who have mental disabilities for several reasons. The first is that I have, as some would say, a dog in the race of disabilities studies as the interact with academia, since I have a variety of common mental ailments, including several learning disabilities and what therapists are now thinking might be P.T.S.D. Additionally, my peer mentor at my previous school is a schizophrenic who actually uses the rigors of college to cope with the hallucinations and delusions which plague him. However, beyond the initial attraction of seeing something of myself reflected in a non-cure oriented text, I was driven to interest in some of the issues which Price examines through our classroom discussion on the topic.

Finding “Home”: The Gay Evangelical Body

Submitted by Kammy on Mon, 10/03/2011 - 12:37am

Precarious and Performative Play Web Paper 1

Finding “Home”: The Gay Evangelical Body
At some point or another in our lives, we generally come to realize that we are unique beings; furthermore, we also discern that much of our individual essence is encoded in our physical bodies. From height and weight to race, gender, crooked teeth, bum leg, or speech impediment; it is in the body that we may find so many of our defining attributes: our general appearance, our physical strengths and limitations, even our illnesses and diseases. It is the body that Eli Clare conceptualizes as “home” in Exile and Pride, that is tied in so strongly with our notions of self and identity. In light of this assertion, one might question whether the gay Evangelical is able to come “home” to his body. How is it that religion and sexuality are reconciled somatically? Is it even a possibility?

Initially, one might be tempted to immediately say that “yes”, of course the gay evangelical is at home in his body. If his body is that of a white cisgendered man, then what is there not to like? What resentment could there be, and what other form besides white cisgendered man could be desired? But it is not so simple as that, because being at “home” in one's body is not merely an issue of liking and accepting oone's body, nor is it fair to objectify the white, cisgendered, male body as ideal, despite its normalization and acceptance as such in Western culture. The question is one that deserves more thought and consideration.

Visiting the High School

Submitted by snatarajan on Sun, 10/02/2011 - 11:25pm

I am really excited, but at the same time, i am nervous about what it is that I really will be bringing to the table. Throughout everything we've discussed in class, through readings, and simply through the opinions shared in class, I've learned that this visit will be a two-way learning street. However, no matter how excited I am to be meeting with these students and interacting with them through dialogue (as Noguera says is the best way to learn and to teach) I feel as though the experiences that these students have had will be far more expansive than many of those that I have encountered. I wish that I can in some way engage in conversation regarding their thoughts of class and stereotypes placing a threshold on not only their education, but the education system in general. I feel that by visiting this high school, I will be inspired, shocked, awed, and amazed and all the while I will want to question what it is that makes the differences between more urban schools like this one and the well-to-do prep schools.

snatarajan's blog

Medical Authority in the Discourses of Disability and Transsexuality

Submitted by Katie Randall on Sun, 10/02/2011 - 10:58pm

Medical Authority in the Discourses of Disability and Transsexuality

Exile and Pride: Disability, Queerness and Liberation is an impossibly far-ranging book. Its author Eli Clare covers many topics that are entangled within his own life: tensions of class, sexuality, gender, abuse, disability, environmentalism and exile. Here I want to use his discussion of the medicalization of disability as a springboard to approach Rachel Ann Heath’s description of the pathologization of transsexuality in The Praeger Handbook of Transsexuality: Changing Gender to Match Mindset. Medicalization and pathologization are not precisely equivalent terms, but to me both represent a process of delegitimizing their subjects and placing this lost authority into the hands of medical professionals. Both produce negative or limiting effects that are not widely acknowledged. In addition, both are oriented towards “curing” or “normalizing” difference.

Exile and Pride: disability history

Visit to Philadelphia High School

Submitted by meggiekate on Sun, 10/02/2011 - 7:52pm

In general, I am very excited to visit the high school after fall break, because we’ve been discussing education and class for quite a while using just our own personal experiences and our readings. I’m looking forward to actually perhaps witness first-hand some of the theory and experiences we’ve talked about in class. I’m hoping we’ll be able to sit in for a little bit on a typical class at the high school as well as talk with the students about their experiences and backgrounds. The thing is, I’m figuring that part of going to this high school is to see the interactions of education and class in action, but I don’t want to assume which socioeconomic class the students are from. At the same time, I know I probably will not feel comfortable enough with these students who are basically strangers to ask them their class. It reminds me of our first day in class when we were asked to classify ourselves and no one chose to name their socioeconomic class.

Our future trip

Submitted by nbnguyen on Sun, 10/02/2011 - 7:48pm

Through our readings in class, I understand more about the schools in American cities. Therefore, I have some expectations about the school we are going to visit. Pictures about the high school we saw in class on Thursday somehow fostered my expectations. I guess most students are black and from working class. I expected that the quality of education is not up to the US standard as Traub described in his article. However, I desire to see something that challenges to what I expected. I want to have a different point of view in the future. I want to know whether this high school is one of a few successful stories about public education in the US.