Wednesday March 20, 2013 at 3:00 pm – 4:00 pm in Education South Building at the University of Alberta the Living Archives on Eugenics is sponsoring a panel discussion featuring Professor Lise Gotell, Chair of Women’s and Gender Studies and Dr. Lane Mandlis, with Moyra Lang, and Professor Rob Wilson. ASL interpreting services will be offered at this event. Find us on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/#!/events/270019033131796/?fref=ts
Category Archives: Gender
Follow up on Hidden Ultrasound Results
On April 18, 2012, I posted an article from the Toronto Star, detailing how hospitals in the GTA have been telling their staff to stop telling the sex of a fetus from an ultrasound to parents, in order to prevent gender-based abortions. Recently, the CBC used “hidden cameras” in order to explore the state of the situation in private ultrasound clinics across Canada. Their discoveries are detailed in the article below.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/story/2012/06/12/ultrasound-gender-testing.html
Gender testing is very prevalent in private clinics, and further, Canada offers no law preventing clinics from sharing gender with parents before the 20 week mark (after which most doctors will not provide abortions), unlike China, India, and the UK. The US recently tried to pass a similar law, but the proposal fell through, as it was determined to be impossible to prove why parents would request gender.
The article suggests that further education would be greatly beneficial to parents on the value of both female and male children.
Eugenics in Toronto – Hiding Ultra-sound results
The Toronto Star recently released an article on the fact that many GTA hospitals, “particularly those in ‘ethnic’ areas [...] won’t let their ultrasound staff tell pregnant women the sex of the fetus,” in order to prevent abortion.
A study from St. Michael’s Hospital reveals that while male/female rations for first child of immigrants from India is 105/1oo, the ratio for third children of immigrants was 136/100. Although researchers caution that their findings are not actually evidence of female feticide (indeed, they do not know why results have turned out as such) and urge people not to racially profile citizens after that, it has caused some concern in the community, and resulted in withheld ultrasounds.
http://www.thestar.com/news/article/1162357–female-feticide-is-it-happening-in-ontario?bn=1
Bioethicist, Tom Koch, commented on pregnant women who choose to abort a fetus with Down syndrome, “We’re engaged in eugenics.”
Gender Stereotyping and Parenthood Dilemmas
In an effort to avoid gender stereotyping, Beck Laxton and partner Kieran Cooper concealed the gender of their son from the world. The gender neutrally named Sasha has now turned five and is starting school. Prior to the commencement of formative school years, Sasha has been given the choice to dress in clothes that appealed to him, be they hand-me-downs from an older sister or an older brother. When Sasha turned five, his parents were forced to reveal his gender, which means that Sasha will have to get used to being perceived as a boy by his peers. Although the school requires different uniforms for boys and girls, Sasha’s mom is intervening by letting Sasha wear a girl’s blouse with his pants.
Last year, a different couple made a similar decision not to reveal their child’s gender. Some psychiatric experts voiced their concerns:
“To have a sense of self and personal identity is a critical part of normal healthy development,” Dr. Eugene Beresin, director of training in child and adolescent psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital, told ABC News. “This blocks that and sets the child up for bullying, scapegoating and marginalization.”
The article continues:
But as parents well know, bullying is hard for any child to avoid. It’s more important to raise someone who’s confident enough in himself to overcome peer pressure. It’s also important to have his parents have his back.
The question of personal identity is interesting as gender is certainly a big part of it. However, that’s precisely the problem couples like Beck Laxton and Kieran Cooper are attempting to avoid. The question of bullying, scapegoating and marginalization is a bit trickier since such actions are certainly a product of dogmatically ingrained gender stereotyping, but they will not cease to exist just because Sasha’s parents have grown past them. Although bullying may well be hard for any child to avoid, some children do get bullied more than others. And although Laxton and Cooper are trying to inculcate a sense of self and others in Sasha, which they hope will be lacking gender stereotyping, are they also not sacrificing their child’s emotional and physical safety by setting him up for potential bullying? It is quite important to raise someone who’s confident enough in him or herself to overcome peer pressure, but it could also be the case that exposing a child to more risk of bullying may have an adverse effect on his or her confidence.
That’s not to say that Sasha will be bullied, but it will depend on his environment. If Laxton and Cooper chose an appropriate school, perhaps their goal of raising their son to be confident in himself and have a valuable dual perspective on gender will not be compromised by the very gender stereotypes they are attempting to undermine. “Egalia,” a preschool in Stockholm, Sweden comes to mind (as an example of the kind of environment in which Sasha could flourish). Staff do not use words like “him” or “her,” but rather a made-up neutral term and students are encouraged to do the same. Moreover, traditional “boy” and “girl” toys are spatially integrated so as to obliterate any value systems associated with stereotypical gender preferences. For those interested, here is the article.
Bullying has not ceased in spite of a laudable movement to curb it. Although Laxton and Cooper’s hearts may be in the right place, they have influence only over Sasha’s worldview and not that of other children (who get theirs from their own parents or guardians). Are they putting Sasha at risk, as Dr. Eugene Beresin claims? And if the answer is yes, are they entitled to make such choices for Sasha if they lead to increased risk of bullying, which could potentially be developmentally as well as physically harmful?
David Lee Hull and Mary Anne Warren
This week saw the death of two colleagues-at-a-distance whom I more than respected, not simply and coldly for their contributions to philosophy, but for the friendship and caring mentorship they each showed to me early in my career, as I know they did with others. I’ll keep this brief here, just giving some general pointers and two short memorial anecdotes I’ve already posted at other sites.
David Hull was the founding figure in the philosophy of biology. John Wilkins has already got three posts up on him at Evolving Thoughts, David Hull is dead, David Hull’s Philosophy, and Ruse on Hull: A Memoir. The last makes me cringe a little, but that’s probably because Michael Ruse often induces that effect, at least in me. In response to the first, I said:
David was one of the three people I sent my first attempt in phil of biology to–the others were both people in the field whom I’d had some contact with before in other contexts. I was a third year assistant professor mainly working in phil of mind and cog sci at the time, and the paper was on John Dupre’s “promiscuous realism”. Like the others, David wrote back encouragingly and sympathetically. The welcoming response from David, especially since I was a complete stranger to him, marked an important contrast with the fluff and competitiveness of phil of mind at that time, and it made phil of biology a truly attractive option for me to pursue more seriously. There are likely many other short anecdotes about David’s kindness and professional integrity, but this small one with a big effect for me is what comes to mind first. He will be missed all round.
I also admired David for his successful efforts to convince the Philosophy of Science Association to avoid holding its meetings in overtly homophobic states.
Mary Anne Warren was one of four philosophers who, in essence, put applied ethics on the philosophy map in the early 1970s. Continue reading
Revolutionary Voices – a resource by & for queer and questioning youth of every color, class, religion, gender and ability
Access to information and information ethics need have revolutionary voices and here is an excellent reason why!
Intersexed in Oz
From The Scavenger, author Katrina Fox; h/t to Not Dead Yet. At the site itself you can get an article by the subject of the post, Norrie.
The NSW government in Australia has issued what is believed to be the world’s first ‘Sex Not Specified’ Recognised Details Certificate in place of a birth certificate, writes Katrina Fox. Norrie, a member of Sex and Gender Education (SAGE), a lobby group campaigning for the rights of all sex and gender diverse people has been issued with what is understood to be the world’s first ‘Sex Not Specified’ Recognised Details Certificate in place of a birth certificate. This means that Norrie (also known as norrie mAy-Welby) – a resident of Sydney, NSW – is legally recognised as neither male nor female according to the Australian government. Originally Norrie, 48, was born in Scotland and registered as male at birth. At age 23 Norrie commenced sex and gender conversion to female through hormone and construction of a vagina and was then issued with a gender recognition certificate as female in Australia. But this did not work out for Norrie as zie (gender-neutral pronoun) did not feel comfortable living solely as a female so zie ceased lifelong hormone treatment and took up a neuter identity which is neither male nor female, resisting any further female or male normalisation. Continue reading
Emi Koyama explains why she is suspicious of bioethics
Emi Koyama just posted a really great article on the Bioethics Forum site reviewing a research practice of intersex fetus treatment using a synthetic hormone and the Ashley case. She says, “I am starting to question seriously what role bioethics and bioethicists play in medical controversies involving children who cannot make decisions for themselves, and parents, especially mothers, who are forced to make the decision under complicated social, cultural and economic circumstances” and “After all, what is the relevance of risk/benefit analysis when the intended goal is unethical?”
http://www.thehastingscenter.org/Bioethicsforum/Post.aspx?id=4492
Emi writes toward the end of her wonderful article, “I trust many of these scholars and their judgment. But that was how I felt about the disability theorists who were part of the working group that ended up helping to polish up growth attenuation as a legitimate treatment.”
That reminds me. I have a small piece of advice for anyone who has a chance to read Dr. Adrienne Asch’s commentary to the Diekema & Fost AJOB article. Please don’t miss the footnote on Page 46. Dr. Asch is a member of the Seattle Growth Attenuation and Ethics Working Group and signed the group’s statement that claimed growth attenuation to be ethically admissible for severely disabled children in general without court orders, something Dr. Wilfond called “a compromise” the group had reached. But Dr. Asch explains in the footnote that she signed it because she “supported the process through which the statement was produced” and not because she supported all its conclusion. But normally, signing a document means that you support its contents including the conclusion, whatever process there was in its production. And whatever excuse you might have. This footnote leaves me really curious about what happened in the working group discussions.
Human Trafficking
National Human Trafficking Awareness Day in the US today, and a video from World Vision’s STIR in Australia to reminds us that the problem is real, and growing.
A lot more detail, extra vids, etc., at Like a Whisper.
Getting Burlesque in Edmonton, May 8th
Our friends at the Alberta Public Interest Research Group (APIRG) have a fun fund-raiser coming up in Edmonton on Friday, 8th May. Bare details below. Full details over at APIRG.
[Poster for "Life is a Cabaret"; descriptive details of event below]
Poster art: Craig Campbell
With Toronto Burlesque Pioneers: Skin Tight Outta Sight
and featuring amazing local talent
A little something for everyone!
Burlesque, Belly Dance, Tribal Fusion, Comedy and Drag show.
May 8 2009
Doors: 8:30 pm Show time: 9 pm
New City Suburbs 10081 Jasper Ave, Edmonton
www.newcitycompound.com
Tickets: $20 in advance $25 at the door
COME EARLY: Limited Seating!
Saving the World with Viral Eugenics
Randall Gordon, a character from Paul Chadwick's Concrete series, points his finger at YOU, a la Uncle Sam, with the following speech bubble: "I'm completely serious, and I repeat my appeal. You, out there. Somewhere. Sexually transmitted; no undue harm; infertility. Go save the world."
And so a tale already fraught with controversy unleashes an ethical bombshell… Continue reading
Julia Serano’s “Cocky”
Author of Whipping Girl Julia Serano performing “Cocky”:
h/t to Womanist Musings, including for the transcript beneath the fold (small corrections made by me). Continue reading
The Modern Pursuit of Human Perfection
On October 23rd last year, the What Sorts Network, in conjunction with the Canadian Association for Community Living and the Alberta Association for Community Living, sponsored a public dialogue at the University of Alberta called
The Modern Pursuit of Human Perfection
Defining Who is Worthy of Life
The event began with a panel of people who talked about their experiences with children, doctors, families, and disability. There were then several short commentaries, followed by some open discussion. The event was free and open to the public, and we have videocasts of all parts of the event to share.
Over the next month or so, we will put the videos of the public dialogue up on the What Sorts blog; each runs for 5-10 minutes or so. Today Continue reading
Chris Bell on living with AIDS and teaching about HIV/AIDS in Disability Studies
Close-up photo of Chris Bell from the shoulders up. He is wearing a midnight blue t-shirt, rectangular glasses, silver hoop earrings, and has a thin moustache/goatee. There are books on the shelves of bookcases in the background.
“This is not a death sentence”
by Rebekah Jones
When Chris Bell found out he was HIV-positive, he went home, sat down and watched “Law and Order.” He didn’t cry or lash out at his partner who infected him, he said. He watched television and started his homework. “I had papers to grade,” said Bell, a post-doctorate research fellow and soon-to-be professor at Syracuse University. Eleven years after his diagnosis, at 6-foot-2 and 135 pounds, Bell’s emaciated figure proves how the infection plagues his body. His medicine makes him tired and sick, and he keeps losing weight.
Bell isn’t doing well health wise, but he’s pushing forward. He’s learned too much in his 34 years of living to just quit – giving up isn’t in him, he said. “This is not a death sentence; we’re all dying,” Bell said. “Nothing has changed but my level of awareness.” While the virus overwhelms his body, Bell continues to focus on what’s important to him: being an activist and an educator.
Bell’s first class as a professor at SU, CFE 600 (Disability, AIDS & U.S. Culture) starting Spring 2009, will be the only class at SU focused specifically on HIV and disability studies in American culture. His class will examine, critique and aim to redefine the way people think about disabled persons and HIV/AIDS patients. Read the entire story here: http://media.www.dailyorange.com/media/storage/paper522/news/2008/11/12/Feature/this-Is.Not.A.Death.Sentence-3538354.shtml
Acknowledgement to Beth Haller at Media dis and dat
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: The Body as a Site of Discrimination
The Body as a Site of Discrimination: A Multidisciplinary, Multimedia Online Journal
The Body as a Site of Discrimination will be an interactive, educational, multi-disciplinary, high quality, critical, and cutting edge online journal. This creative project will fulfill the degree requirements for two Master’s of Social Work students at SFSU. This is a call for submissions to explore the following themes, but other interpretations are also encouraged.
– Disability and Ableism
– Fatphobia or Size Discrimination
– Ageism
– Racism
– Gender Discrimination, transphobia, non-conforming gender identities, sexual assault, sexism, and reproductive rights Continue reading
Call for Contributions: Feminist Disability Studies and/in Feminist Bioethics
NOTE FROM ST: Readers of the blog may notice that I have posted this cfp to the blog several times. Please excuse the repetition, but I am keen to get many submissions for the issue which should be pathbreaking.
CALL FOR CONTRIBUTIONS
TO A SPECIAL ISSUE OF
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF FEMINIST
APPROACHES TO BIOETHICS (IJFAB)
Vol. 3, no. 2, Fall, 2010
From the Margins to the Center:
Feminist Disability Studies and/in Feminist Bioethics
Guest Editor, Shelley Tremain
In recent years, work done in mainstream bioethics has been challenged by the emerging field of disability studies. A growing number of disability theorists and activists point out that the views about disability and disabled people that mainstream bioethicists have articulated on matters such as prenatal testing, stem cell research, and physician-assisted suicide incorporate significant misunderstandings about them and amount to an institutionalized form of their oppression.
While some feminist bioethicists have paid greater attention to the perspectives and arguments of disabled people than other bioethicists, these perspectives and arguments are rarely made central. Feminist disability theory remains marginalized even within feminist bioethics. This issue of IJFAB will go some distance to move feminist disability studies from the margins to the center of feminist bioethics by highlighting the contributions to and interventions in bioethics that feminist disability studies is uniquely situated to make.
The guest editor seeks contributions to the issue on any topic related to feminist disability studies and bioethics, including (but not limited to):
Call for papers: Skin, Culture and Psychoanalysis
Edited by Sheila L. Cavanagh, Rachel Hurst and Angela Failler
Deadline for submissions: 15 February 2009
Email: psychoanalysisandskin@gmail.com
The editors of Skin, Culture and Psychoanalysis invite contributions for an interdisciplinary collection on the cultural politics and psychoanalysis of skin. We welcome papers that unhinge skin from the biological sciences to examine its layers of significance by way of social and psychoanalytic critique. Skin is the first and enduring medium through which we encounter the world. It delimits interiority and exteriority and, consequently, our relationships to self and others. Skin is laden with unconscious meanings and those we attach to it with respect to gender, sexuality, ‘race’ and racialization, religion, nationality, class, and dis/ability. Moreover, as both “screen” and “container,” skin functions to simultaneously reveal and hide the ways we negotiate identity, body and culture. Perhaps due to these complexities, skin remains an under-theorized yet productive site of inquiry. Continue reading
NY Times article: Move Over, My Pretty, Ugly is Here
Photo of the Wicked Witch of the West (with lovely green hands and face) from the Hollywood film “The Wizard of Oz.” Everett Collection
Published: October 29, 2008
IT would be close to impossible to tally all the magazine articles, scholarly treatises and philosophical works, reality shows and Internet sites, college courses, lectures and books devoted to the subject of beauty.
But what about ugliness?
It is an awkward topic, a wretched concept, really, and, of course, a terrible insult when flung in your direction. When a woman once told Winston Churchill he was drunk, he is said to have replied: “And you, madam, are ugly. But I shall be sober tomorrow, whereas you will still be ugly.”
Ugliness is associated with evil and fear, with villains and monsters: the Wicked Witch of the West, Freddy Krueger and Harry Potter’s arch-meanie, Lord Voldemort, with his veiny skull, creepy slits in his nose for nostrils and rotten teeth. There are the gentle souls, too, plagued through no fault of their own by their disturbing appearance: Dr. Frankenstein’s monster, the Elephant Man and Shrek, who is ugly and green but in a cute way.
Ugliness has recently emerged as a serious subject of study and academic interest unto itself, in some small part because of the success of television’s “Ugly Betty,” which ABC promoted with a “Be Ugly” campaign stressing self-esteem for girls and young women. Sociologists, writers, lawyers and economists have begun to examine ugliness, suggesting that the subject has been marginalized in history and that discrimination against the unattractive, while difficult to document or prevent, is a quiet but widespread injustice.
Researchers who have tried to measure appearance discrimination, or “uglyism” and “looksism,” and the impact of what they call the “beauty premium” and the “plainness penalty” on income, say that the time has come for ugly to peek out from beauty’s shadow.
Read the entire article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/30/fashion/30ugly.html?th&emc=th
Society for Disability Studies (SDS) Annual Convention 2009: Call for Proposals
NOTE FROM ST: If you are organizing a conference and wish to make it inclusive of, and accessible to, a diverse range of disabled people, you should take some cues from the requirements for accessible presentations which are provided in this CFP following the description of themes for this conference. Notice, for instance, that the accessibility provisions are made explicit in the CFP itself. Thus, disabled individuals who wish to submit a paper and/or attend the conference are not required to contact the conference organizers themselves in order to inquire about the accessibility of the event, nor are they left to guess, hope, or take their chances in regard to its accessibility.
THEME: “IT’S ‘OUR’ TIME: PATHWAYS TO AND FROM
DISABILITY STUDIES—PAST, PRESENT, FUTURE”
The Society for Disability Studies is pleased to announce a call for proposals for its annual convention, to be held June 17-20, 2009, in Tucson, Arizona, at the Hilton El Conquistador Resort. The theme for this convention is “It’s ‘Our’ Time: Pathways to and From Disability Studies—Past, Present, Future.” Time, in all its forms, conceptualizations, and manifestations, will be the central focus of the conference, though proposals on any topic relevant to Disability Studies are welcomed. We imagine a number of different ways of approaching the issue of time, a concept critical to all aspects of disability experience and culture: Continue reading
Saturday Night Live (SNL) parody of Lennon sisters mocking disabled people
A discussion on the Disability Studies in the Humanities listserv has centred around a skit recently performed on this American-produced late-night variety show. While SNL prides itself on being an alternative to mainstream television which pushes the limits of conventional cultural attitudes and mores, the skit serves to bolster deeply-entrenched biases, stereotypes, and ideas about disabled people (and disabled women in particular) as revolting, sexually disqualified, and so on. Check it out at the link below (uncaptioned of course):
http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/video/clips/the-lawrence-welk-show/727501/
Acknowledgements to Tobin Siebers, Margaret Finkand, and Rosemarie Garland Thomson on DS-HUM.
