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