Transsexuals and Provocative Manikins

Last night my mom and I were watching a documentary on the Discovery Health channel called Sex Change. Though we have watched documentaries and read about transsexuals on several different occasions throughout the semester, it is still a subject that fascinates me and crushes me at the same time. Over the course of the show, we were able to meet five different people (4 females and 1 male) who went through with the surgery and the hormone treatments. While I was hearing each of the individuals’ stories, I kept thinking about how I never would have known that they were born as something different. I think it is so amazing that we have the capability to improve peoples’ lives like this so that they are able to live feeling “normal” and happy about themselves. The show ended with the camera focusing in on a bustling city street with the time sped up, and the narrator explained that at any moment in our day-to-day lives we might come in contact with a transsexual and not even know it. We then zoomed in on a man leaning against a building who we found out was the producer of the show and who is also a successful writer. The narrator then informed us that this man was born as a female. I loved the way that the show was filmed and produced. It showed that people who do get sex changes are able to live more normal lives without the daily stigma of feeling different or abnormal.

Something else I have been thinking about has to do with the manikin displays in store windows. When I went to the mall with Brittany and Kayse about a week ago, I felt like I was paying more attention to the ways that males and females are represented because of what I have learned in this class. Every female manikin had her legs showing (except for maybe one in the ENTIRE mall, which is strange—shouldn’t the stores be marketing winter clothes?) and she was placed in a pose that was both unnatural and unrealistic. Victoria’s Secret, for example, featured women in the front window in very provocative and sexual poses that were incredibly unnatural. Victoria’s Secret ads get to me anyway because I have trouble believing that they are geared towards their female customers…

This is an interesting article about how New York City is going to make it easier for transgendered people to change the sex on their birth certificates--even before they have surgery...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/07/AR2006110701262.html


Maybe they'll lead the way with this.

What is Feminism?

I just came from my sociology class, where we had a somewhat disturbing conversation about feminism. Our professor asked us to get out a sheet of paper and write "What is feminism?" at the top. Then underneath the question, he asked us to write whatever came to mind about feminism and to indicate on the back of the sheet whether we were male or female. He collected these papers and showed them to us on the overhead projector so that we could see our peers’ comments/opinions about the meaning of feminism.

Out of 120 students in the class, there were only about 15 of us who would even dare to raise our hands and identify ourselves as feminists or who, on our comment sheets, even knew what feminism was. One male student wrote on his sheet that feminism is "petty," and when his comment was shown to the rest of the class, quite a few people were upset. He attempted to explain himself by saying that he thought women who want to change the language are just being petty and that they should focus on larger problems. The example he used was the word "mankind." He could not begin to understand why a feminist would be upset by a word that describes the species (his exact words) and he thinks it is dumb that women focus their attention on such "stupid" things.

When he said this, it even got my professor (who is a male) riled. The student obviously has not been paying attention in class this semester if he couldn’t understand why words and the structure of our language could cause such a problem. One of the first things we learned about in the class was the Sapir-Whorf principle, which explains that language shapes how we think about and perceive everything in society. He couldn’t grasp that words like "mankind" or the pronoun "he" are the basis of male superiority and gender inequality in our society. These generalizations fail to recognize that something else exists and it creates a sense of otherness to those it excludes (like we talked about yesterday in class).

A female in the class suggested to this confused student that we use "womankind" to describe the species. I’m sure you can only guess what his reaction to that was…

Halloween Madness

Yesterday morning I caught the beginning of a story on the Today Show before I had to run out the door for school. The report focused on the change that has taken place in women’s Halloween costumes, and how the vast majority of the costumes out there are basically another contributing factor to the objectification of women.

There were two costumes that struck me the most. One was supposed to look like a correctional officer’s uniform, but really did not look like one at all. It consisted of a pair of disgustingly short booty shorts and a short sleeve button-up shirt that would accentuate a woman’s chest. Another costume was supposed to make a woman look like Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz. Honestly, if I had seen someone wearing this costume--Dorothy is probably the last thing I would have thought of if a person asked me to guess what they were trying to be. In the movie, Dorothy is a very conservatively dressed person, and there is nothing revealing about her. The costume was a completely different story. Besides being blue and white with ruffled sleeves, it was nothing like what was worn in The Wizard of Oz.

These costumes were terrible. I think that if I hadn’t been running out the door for class, I probably would have shut off the TV anyway. This class has really made me start to see the consequences of almost everything around me, and sometimes it can be too overwhelming and frustrating to take in—but I love it at the same time.

While I was out trick-or-treating with my 8-year-old sister last night, we passed a woman who was basically naked. She was standing with a large group of kids—I think some might have been her own children and the others were the kids’ friends, which makes what I am about to say even worse. Her husband/partner was dressed as Superman and I believe she was supposed to be Wonder Woman. Her costume consisted of a red, white, and blue skin-tight leotard that didn’t really have any chest coverage and then it also had a cape (thank God!). I was offended by this costume for several reasons. The first is because there were so many young kids around and I think it is completely inappropriate for them to be exposed to things like that—I don’t even think I should have to be exposed to that. Second, I don’t think she was wearing the costume for her own comfort. Its aim was obviously to appeal to men. And by wearing this costume, especially in the presence of so many impressionable children, she was demonstrating that women are supposed to dress in a revealing way in order to be seen as attractive in the eyes of men. I think it is another factor that will perpetuate the objectification of women and make the terrible cycle continue for years to come.

What needs to change...

I was reading an article this morning for my sociology class from the American Sociological Review. The article is called "Antiblack Discrimination in Public Places," and it gives personal accounts of situations and experiences that African Americans have had that showcase the oppression they face in their everyday lives and how they deal with this discrimination. One section really caught my attention because it reminded me of something that we have talked about before in class (and in the blog!), relating to the oppression of women. The section in the article that I am referring to focused on the personal account of a middle-class African American woman who happens to be a professor at a major all-white university. Here is a chunk of what she said:

"…Because I’m a large black woman, and I don’t wear whatever class status I have, or whatever professional status [I have] in my appearance when I’m in the grocery store, I’m part of the mass of large black women shopping. For most whites, and even for some blacks, that translates into negative status. That means that they are free to treat me the way they treat most poor black people, because they can’t tell by looking at me that I differ from that."

The last sentence is what really caught my attention because, as writer Joe Feagin explains later in the article, when she says "they can’t tell by looking at me that I differ from that," she is talking about her status as a professor. I felt that her statement was strange because she is almost trying to separate herself from her race and from her fellow African Americans by saying that she is different from them and that she basically doesn’t deserve to be lumped into that category.

This reminded me of an earlier discussion we had about the oppression of women and how there is no way that we are ever going to be able to overcome oppression if we keep picking on each other and pointing out our differences. This woman is an African American, whether she realizes it or not. I know that being a professor gives her more status than the "poor black people" that she refers to, but I think she needs to join forces with the poor, rather than try to separate herself from them, in order to combat the oppression that they are all facing because of the color of their skin.

Two thoughts...

Yesterday’s class was amazing. Kate Bornstein made me think of new issues that relate to the idea of gender, and I feel like my mind has been opened even more than it was before. Prior to listening to her speak, I had never heard of anyone who was born a male, had gender reassignment surgery to become a female, but was attracted to women the entire time. This makes complete sense though because as she explained, she never felt like she was in the “right” body. I thought it was interesting how she doesn’t relate herself to one particular gender and how she strongly believes that she is neither of the genders. When she said this, I was curious to know how she would classify herself in the sex portion of a test or survey, where you are only given two choices and you have to pick one — male or female. I know that Kate prefers people to use the pronoun “she” when they refer to her, so maybe this means she would classify herself as a female in one of those pick-and-choose scenarios.

Now on a completely different note…

In my sociology class, we have been talking about gender inequality and today the topic of female genital mutilation came up. A person began talking about how some (if not all) of these mutilations are done to prevent the female from experiencing any sort of sexual pleasure (e.g. clitoridectomy). My professor then brought up the point that this is normal in the cultures that practice it and that females who aren’t circumcised are viewed as dirty by the rest of their community/society. He then asked us if we thought there was any difference between female genital mutilation and various types of plastic surgery that is performed in the United States, such as breast enlargement. I thought that this was an interesting comparison and I don’t know that I would have ever thought to connect the two. Many females in the class said that the two are completely different because choice is involved in plastic surgery. My professor had a good comeback to that comment by saying that in our society, women often don’t have a choice because of the pressure that is placed on them to conform to the "ideal" body image. He also added that, much like genital mutilation, women who get breast enlargements then aren’t able to experience any feeling or pleasure in that part of their body.

How do you feel about these comments? I’m not sure which side of this debate I agree with because we are comparing two different cultural practices and I feel like I have a bias to say that one is worse than the other. Do you think that these two practices are in anyway similar? Would you have ever thought to compare them to one another?

Stereotype Frustration

Yesterday when I was on my way to the dressing room in Target, I noticed a bunch of shirts displayed straight ahead, along the back wall of the men’s section. They were those solid-color t-shirts that have a saying written on them that is usually supposed to be funny. I stopped to read the shirts and was very frustrated by what I saw. The one that struck me the most was a bright green shirt that had a pair of stick people holding hands. You could tell by looking at the stick figures that they were supposed to be a bride and a groom. Underneath the picture, it said “Game Over.” I stood there feeling a little bit shocked for a moment, and I explained to my mom and my older sister the problem that I was having with the shirt.

I do not have any dreams or aspirations to get married because there are many aspects of marriage that I don’t agree with, so that was not the cause of my frustration. I felt that the shirt had the potential to perpetuate many of the gender stereotypes that surround us today, and that something like this could contribute to how males and females are socialized. This shirt, along with other equally terrible shirts, were hanging on the wall for the world to see, including little boys and girls who are still trying to figure out where their places are in our society. It shows them that this is how men view relationships and that their life is basically over when they get married or enter a commitment. It almost makes it seem acceptable to society because the message is printed on a t-shirt for a grown man.

This class has already changed the way that I view the world. I can’t go anywhere without noticing things like t-shirts and connecting them to the way that our society views masculinity, femininity, and gender. I feel much more aware of why things are the way that they are in our society.

Oppression

I have thoroughly enjoyed reading the assigned sections in Race, Class, and Gender for next class. There were many interesting points that were brought up about how we all need to view race, class, and gender in relation to one another, rather than as separate entities. I liked seeing how the authors of each of these essays were talking about very specific and different types of oppression, but how when you take a step back and view the essays in relation to one another (like Marilyn Frye’s birdcage!), each of these people share the common problem that they are being excluded, for whatever reason, from the rest of society.

I found the essays about the oppression of women to be particularly intriguing. It was interesting to read about Cherrie Moraga’s definition of the "oppressor’s nightmare." She said, "It is not really difference the oppressor fears so much as similarity. He fears he will discover in himself the same aches, the same longings as those of the people he has shitted on…He fears the hatred, anger, and vengeance of those he has hurt" (33). I thought that this was an interesting idea, and I think I agree that the oppressor does have a tremendous amount of fear. The oppressor points out the differences between him/her and the oppressed person so that those characteristics will stand out more than the similarities, and so that the oppressor will remain the more privileged one in society. Moraga continues, "We women have a similar nightmare, for each of us in some way has been both oppressed and the oppressor. We are afraid to look at how we have failed each other" (33). This reminded me of a discussion we had in class about how women are never going to gain the proper respect from men and from society if we don’t stop picking on ourselves and pointing out each other’s differences. Even if our gender is the only thing that we have in common, that is still a place to start. We are both females and, because of that, we have had similar experiences in life even if our backgrounds are different.

I think that June Jordan summed this point up nicely. She said, "It is not only who you are…but what we can do for each other that will determine the connection" (42). We must stand up for each other, before society will stand up for us.