This weekend my boyfriend and I were looking to rent a movie and we came across Repo: The Genetic Opera. (Unfortuantly, my boyfriend refused to rent it, but I still plan to see it.)
The movie takes place in the future after an epidemic which caused widespread organ failure. As a result, a company starts a business of selling organs to the many that need them. But if you default on your debt, they send the repo man after you!
http://

I thought that this was an interesting premise for a movie. Imagine if a legitimate fear was that your organs could be taken away from you. I wonder how would this change the view of bodies in society? Even though this movie is abstract I think it brings up a lot of the issues that we have talked about dealing with organ transplants.
PS. Paris Hilton is in the movie.

Bodies Exhibit

Hey y'all! I don't know if any of you have ever checked this out or not but it's SO WEIRD (or cool...but I don't know). The bodies exhibit is full of bodies that have been "meticulously dissected and preserved" as they put it. I did not actually go the first time but I have a good friend who is hoping to go into medicine in some form who loved it. We were just talking about it and she said that nothing really "got" her in the exhibit until she came to the body of a pregnant woman. It was the first body that made it connect in her mind that these were human bodies. I just don't know how I feel about this exhibit; it seems to be detracting from the sanctity of the body. I don't know why this is so extreme in my mind though; I mean, we put our bodies on display when they are alive and medical students use them (some of them, anyways) when we have passed on to learn more about the body. But to be put on display for all of the public to come and view? That just struck me as being quite strange. Just thought I'd share the link though because I've heard that it's an interesting exhibit!

Bodies Exhibit in Atlanta Info

Science Fiction? No, this is REAL life, baby!

So, I think I made mention in class before that my ex-husband is in the Army. I don't know if I've ever mentioned how long we were married, but it was just shy of ten years (yep, I got married before you all were in middle school. Now you see why I feel so old? LOL), so I had a lot of experience as an Army wife, which is truly a subculture of it's own. I got to play a unique role as a liaison between Army families and military units, which I truly loved. I got to see some unique perspectives between how families view circumstances and how the Army views them. I say all this to premise this interesting article I just read.

The Pentagon is actually funding research to investigate regrowth of human tissue for Soldiers who lose a limb in combat. At first, I was a little taken aback with "okay, sure, let's spend money in this economy on some science fiction . . . why don't we create the Incredible Hulk while we're at it . . ." but then as I read further, it sounds really cool and not too far outside of current scientific capabilities.

The unit I volunteered for was an Engineer unit. Now, for normal human beings, we would think this means they design and construct things (which they do), but for the Army, Engineers not only build things, they blow them up. (The unit motto for 391st Engineers is actually "Build and Destroy") When this unit was sent to Afghanistan, their mission was to build roads, but in order to build roads, they had to clear mine fields and be on constant alert of IEDs (roadside bombs). These two tasks made their mission very dangerous, and we actually lost 5 Soldiers during the deployment (one to gunfire, four to an IED). No Soldiers lost any limbs, but the threat is ever present.

I don't know if you are aware, but the body armor Soldiers are provided covers their head (Kevlar helmet), neck (there is a flap on the IBA, Interceptor Body Armor that flips up), and trunk (Ceremaic plates that cover the chest and stomache, a flap that covers the genitalia and plates which cover the back and kidneys). Because the armor is so heavy, it is would not be functional to cover limbs as well. Therefore, although life may be protected in an attack, limbs are extremely vulnerable to loss.

In addition to the grief that comes simply with the loss of a limb, losing a limb could end the career of a Soldier. This can be doubly devestating to someone who has dedicated his whole life to a career he loves. He not only loses his job, he is expelled from the community and culture he is accostomed to. There are many factors that compound the devestation a Soldier feels.

Regenerated limbs sounds a little freaky to me, but it would be an ideal resolution for military personnel. I think it's a really cool idea in this context, but how would it play out in regular society?

Referring back to our conversation on Tuesday about genetics and the impact of genetic knowledge on our understanding of disability, how would this capability redefine disability in terms of amputation? Would it change the way we view someone missing a limb? Would we form negative opinions about the person with the amputation who makes the choice not to, has a medical obstruction that prevents him, or is unable to afford this procedure? Would Soldiers feel pressured to undergo this process and continue their enlistments? Is this a way for the military to increase the quality of life for an injured servicemember or is it a manipulative way to obligate Soldiers to more service? I would hate to think this about an entity I have so much respect for, but I would hope that there would not be a "we'll only provide this for you if" clause attached.

Anyway - what are your thoughts? I'll include the link to the article below.


http://www.agi.it/world/news/200903262107-cro-ren0099-art.html

Women's Studies Graduate Forum

If anyone is so inclined, here's the schedule for the research forum this afternoon:

Women's Studies Graduate Research Forum

Friday, 27 March 2009

1:30p.m. to 3:30 p.m.

Daniel Studio (Daniel Hall)

1:30-2:00  Amanda Booher (RCID) Docile Bodies, Supercrips, and the Plays of Prosthetics

2:00-2:30  Lori Dickes (Policy Studies) Policy Effectiveness of Female Governors in the United States

2:30-3:00  Carrie DuPre (Higher Education Leadership) Leaving the Chilly Classroom Behind

3:00-3:30  Marisa K. Orr (Mechanical Engineering) Career Motivations of Freshman Engineering and Non-Engineering Students: A Gender Study

Complicated

What we talked about on Tuesday was really confusing.  It was really interesting the way the text focused on the different issues associated with bodies.  I feel like the terms were very complicated and hard to get through.  What I thought about when we were discussing the reading was the way the terms apply so much to the political issues that face our government.  I did feel like some of the other issues turned away from that though becuase they dealt with issues that faced adult bodies rather than pre-birth bodies.  Hm.  I was a litte confused about exactly what a cyborg is.  Is this one?

Cyborg??

Woman in Burqa condemns woman in chador

This is an article about a woman who completely covers herself for her religious ideology, and claims that a woman who only wears a chador is not following religion as seriously. I just finished reading the Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood over the break and it's steeped in Catholic mysticism. I remember the condemnation in the church when girls didn't behave appropriately, but no one criticized the boys if they acted out. It seems rather universal that women bare the burden for the world's shame. In the Ya Ya book, a very pious mother had a daughter who was a cheerleader. The cheerleader daughter indulged in the sin of vanity because she was pretty and popular, which was simply too much for her mother to understand. Her mother sent her to a very strict Catholic boarding school for bad girls and girls who wanted to become nuns.
I remember rebelling against the church's doctrine when I was told, after four years of service as an altar server, that girls were not supposed to be servers. The priest at our church had "made a mistake" and it would now be corrected by expelling all the girls. I cried, and lost faith in the rediculous doctrine that said I wasn't good enough for God because I had the wrong parts.
My views on religion at the time were just forming, as the little cheerleader in the book, and forming around someone else's views of how girls should act.
I think the woman in the chador is very brave for standing up for her views in the face of such hostility simply because a man might see the color of her eyes. In her country, her actions are quite risque although here she may still be viewed as very concervative even with her whole face showing.


http://www.theonion.com/content/news/woman_in_burqa_condemns_woman_in

how young is too young to decide?

Hey guys! My project is on gender identity disorder, specifically in children. So of course I've been doing a lot of research and decided to get out of the journal articles and look up some actual cases and this is one that I've found. It's about Jazz, a little boy who truly believes that he is a girl. Jazz's parents are very supportive of Jazz's gender identity and though they say that they just support it and do not encourage it, it would appear as though they are actually encouraging it (at least a little bit) whether they mean to or not. Regardless, here's the question I've been pondering...how young is too young for a child to decide their gender? Do you think that a child can inherently know at age 6 that for the rest of their life they would prefer to be a member of the opposite sex and will take step necessary to become a member of the opposite sex? I think it's a really interesting topic and I was just curious to know what y'all think!

Jazz's Story from ABC and 20/20

Everyone Matters

To continue our discussion/thoughts about transgender issues, check out this excellent video:

The Apprentice

I realize I may be the only person posting this week because I happen to be here, but . . . LOL

Do any of you watch The Apprentice? The show is so completely sexist, I'm amazed that no one has said anything. The tasks so far have been 1) baking cupcakes 2) creating an ad for a website that caters to the "everday woman" and 3) selling wedding gowns. The groups are, of course, segregated by gender.

On the first episode, I feel like the men had a much stronger ad campaign. They had a good location, they generated a lot of attention, and they sold a lot of cupcakes. However, they lost. Do you know where the women set up camp? In front of the Playboy offices and a former Playboy model called in favors and sold extraordinarily pricey cupcakes to a lot of men (in her defense, some women, too). Seriously - I was thinking are these cupcakes purchased in exchange for sexual favors? I'm sure that's not the case, but that was clearly the implication. Can they not just be good business women? Do they have to involve sex appeal? I'll not even go into all the crude remarks made by Andrew Dice Clay that were poitedly ignored by everyone on set. Seriously - "reality" TV? Either way you look at it, this is a sorry example of reality. Either women are routinely treated as unintelligent bimbos or we live in a society that never speaks up when such comments are made. I don't like either of those choices.

I didn't catch all of the second episode, but I did see the end product each group created. The website they were creating an ad for was www.zappos.com. From what I can see on the site, it caters to both men and women in apparel, but the comic book character both groups designed was a "superwoman" who saved the "everyday" woman from portraying a poor physical appearance. Why was a woman chosen to be the comic book character and why was a woman chosen as the victim who needed saving? And seriously - what did she need to be saved from? From not complying the the sociocultural standards for appearance demanded by men in a sex-for-consumption environment? Maybe I've been reading too many articles for my paper, but I just couldn't see past this issue in this episode. In addition to that, Trump goes so far as to mention how he tried to hook up with one of the apprentice candidates (the Playboy bunny) back before he became THE Trump and asks her why she didn't wear the supergirl outfit. Oh, so now "reality" TV includes sexual harrassment of women in major corporations?

I haven't yet watched the third episode, but the commercial implied that the women have an unfair advantage because they are females. Because all females inherently understand weddings and wedding dresses?

Part of me cannot believe I am reading so much into all of this, but the other part of me cannot believe that this goes unchallenged on TV! Really - what message does my daughter grasp from this show? That to be a successful business woman she must comply with the social dictates that oppress women? Although the women have won every task so far, I can't help but wonder if they're wins are the result of skill and talent in the job or skill at utilizing her beauty currency/feminity to manipulate men?

Bathroom Humor

I meant to post on this a couple of weeks ago but forgot until now when I just posted the video. This is the sign that we have in our bathroom (a really bad picture of it too...I took it with my cell phone!) My mom got it for us to hang up in there as a joke because I'm always complaining about how dirty the bathroom gets around here (not that people are peeing everywhere thank goodness). Anyways, it has made me think of our class a lot because of the reactions that it gets. When the guys use our bathroom, they usually come out looking disgruntled and now having had the sign up in there for quite sometime, we know the typical reaction. So, we usually inquire about their feelings about the sign which are usually quite unfavorable. In very rare instances, (meaning I think 2 or 3 times now out of the many many men who have used our bathroom), we hear very loud laughter when they enter the bathroom and they come out and tell us about our great sign. This has left us wondering about some of our male friends on multiple occasions. None of the women come out of the bathroom offended, only the men. But recently (meaning a couple of weeks ago when I meant to post this), one of our male friends informed us that it was because our sign was not attacking the female body, only the female habits in the bathroom. Not only was the sign attacking the male habits in the bathroom, it was attacking their bodies as well and a part of the body that is not acceptable to joke about. I inquired why it is not acceptable to joke about a man's when they can (and do) joke about my body parts. This does not seem like much of a fair trade to me. Anyways, it just made me think about our class on bodies and I find it kind of funny so I just thought that I would share! (it's kind of fun to insult the boys sometimes :)

Propaganda BBC news report - Should we have a one child policy ?

Hey guys! Here's a video entitled Propaganda BBC news report-Should we have a one child policy? It's a pretty short video and it relates having larger families to global warming issues. In the opening there's a lady who is talking about how she teaches her children to recycle and take care of the environment. The announcer talks about China's one child policy and states that advocates aren't looking to implement the same policy but rather to implement incentives. I think that this is still placing great restrictions on the family. Seeing this video made me think of the question that posed in class as to whether the one child policy was taking away the rights of women or whether it was just an economic policy. In this video it appears that they are trying to set it up as merely an economic policy to solve a social issue and not as anything actually limiting. I certainly find it a bit limiting, however. I just find it strange that the government would offer incentives to not have children and thus control the population. I realize that this has been in practice for a while but still, I thought about what it would be like to be offered an incentive here in the US to keep my family small. (Especially in light of the current state of the economy...I think that perhaps we'd see a larger drop in birthrate than we would have in previous years). But that's about the extent of my thought processes on the matter so far. What do you all think?
side note-the girls in the family of 5 are wearing head scarves!

men's skirts

We spend so much time discussing women's attire in class but even though we've earned the right to wear pants like men, men have lost the right to wear skirts. Today's Dear Abby addresses the issue of men wearing kilts. There's even an online store called Utilikilts that offers a variety of styles for even the most fashion-conscious. It's not everyday that we see a man in a skirt or even a kilt here at Clemson! It's more common to see a veiled woman.

When I was in kindergarten, I got to wear whatever I wanted even though it was at a Catholic school. I remember talking on the playground, how badly we wanted to be in those uniforms so we would look like the graders! As luck would have it, we got to wear them the very next year when we entered first grade. It was awesome to look just like everyone else. For about two weeks. Then it was tedious and dull. I can sympathize with the early veil wearers because it was a little disorienting once finally sunk in that I couldn't go back to wearing whatever I wanted at school.
What had been so coveted in June was repressive by August. I hated not being able to swing from the monkey bars on the playground because it was "indecent." If I hadn't been forced to wear the stupid uniform, I could wear pants and hang upside down like I did in kindergarten!

How American Tradations strain other tradations

This women who had on a veil wanted to get her CU ID but it was part of "Clemson's policy" that no head garmets...veils, hats, shades should be worn in the picture. If it was me I would have taking her picture no problem becasue that was a part of her religion, but because some Americans are so use to our culture or tradation that she was forced to take off her veil, with tears streaming from her face. She eventually just could not bring herself to do it.

My question is: who are we to tell her that she cannot illustrate her religion?

Embryonic Research

Embryonic Research Article

I found this article today on the front page of the Washington Post.  I was surprised to learn that this research is still getting funding from the government, even with all budget cuts around the nation.  I have very mixed feelings on embryonic research. The one part of me thinks this is great that we can map and plan for disease's and potentially grow new organs that are a perfect match to replace the bad ones.   I have a hard time with it, because people are now able to choose the characteristics they want for their children (in select clinics).  I think that people should let the body be what it is supposed to be, regardless of what science can do.  

As far as growing organs for people, this could definitely relive the endless lists of patients on the organ donation lists, and maybe even reduce the number or organs that are taken illegally. What are your thoughts on this issue?

happy international women's day!

Learn more here.

Did You Know?

Here is the video that I played during my presentation on Thursday.

I think this video teaches us about our world and the new innovations that are being made. Even though I am aware of the advancements of technology (seeing new computers, cell phones, ipods, etc...) seeing the magnitude of these advancements really blows my mind! I think it is very important to have an idea about the world and events taking place, and this video is a good starting point!

The two most interesting facts of this video I think are:
1. 1 out of 8 couples who marry met online
2. If Myspace was a country if would be the 5th largest
Really I can't believe how much time people spend on the internet nowadays!

Muslim Women

Muslim Woman in Olympics

So this is a picture of the Muslim woman who ran in last year's olympics.  As you can see, she represents a woman who accepts her religion and the things we may see as restricting.  Rather than choosing to hide her talent, she accepts it shows it off, while still remaining covered in the traditional way.  This reminds me of today's presentation/discussion as we discussed the different perspectives on the veil.