Gender, Sexuality & the Body

in everyday life, our bodies are absent, not because we do not pay attention to what they experience, but precisely because we do experience them  as  absent: “experiences of bodily  absence ”  Health is the silent body, and illness is the body made apparent: The advent of AIDS […] has literally made the body of the gay male an object of massive public curiosity and relentless cultural inquiry. His body is now widely perceived as a site of mysterious and fatal infections—a perception that has prompted its radical (re)othering and (re)medicalizing. The body has emerged as a supertext, a territory over which a bewildering number of competing medical, political, and cultural fictions seek domination. (Nelson 2) THE GAY MALE CLONE:  strong link exists (pre-AIDS)between being gay and taking care of one's body: going to the gym is an integral part of the gay urban lifestyle; gyms are places that are as important to gay neighborhoods as bars, discos and bathhouses.  the phrase “gym body”

  FILM  Muscle Moll & Butch Ballplayer: Women's Bodies and Athletics (Cahn) Looking at the development of women's athletics from 1900-1960 (and beyond) one can see that women's participation is sports has always been fraught with questions about FEMININITY. Athletics were defined as a MALE enterprise:  competition, strength, aggression, physicality, athleticism  all had a MASCULINIZING affect.  men played games together in this all male domain, but also affirmed their manhood women who displayed these features risks some as of their womanhood/femininity. the fear of lesbians in sport is mirrored by the rise of relative homophobia in society (as is illustrated in the changing views through WWI and WWII). Figure of the mannish lesbian athlete during times of scrutiny is always countered in some way by the corrective image of the feminine, beauty queen CHRIS EVERETT vs MARTINA NAVRATALOVA (e.g.) some version of this since the 1900s had beauty pageants at women's sporti

ISSUES OF ABORTION CROSS CULTURALLY--Japan and Buddhism (1)  Japanese obstetricians do not practice aggressive prenatal screening; women are encouraged to accept the baby that is born, and fetal selection for birth abnormalities or sex is regarded as unethical.  (2) A fetus is humanized—so much so that obstetricians routinely hail their clients as “Mom,” even from the early stages of the pregnancy.  (3) At the same time, terminating a pregnancy is accepted as a morally sound means of preventing a situation in which a child would go uncared for. Small statues commemorating the unborn at Buddhist temples mark an institutionalized space in which women mourn their aborted fetuses. (4) The discourse of “choice” offers little space to recognize the conflicted feelings often associated with terminating a pregnancy on the part of women, abortion rights advocates, and even health care practitioners themselves.  (5) The fetus is humanized in many contexts, and yet abortion is ethically acceptabl

DUE FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 18th at midnight   Reproduction is the basic form of economic production. In most cultures, where men enjoy more economic power, the productive work done by women is devalued or re-framed as male productive power.  After reading the articles in this section, critically discuss reproduction as a cultural product. How do cultural beliefs about sex and gender impact our understanding of the process and value of reproduction? How has technology impacted our understanding of reproduction, and how has this technology understood in terms of cultural beliefs about sex and gender? How does culture impact the way that we view men and women in the reproductive process? Make sure that you cite your readings on reproduction.  Essays should be a minimum of 6 paragraphs long, including a well-structured introductory paragraph, stating your thesis, and a summary conclusion, persuasively summarizing your arguments. Make sure that you support your analysis and theoretical positions

  Emily Martin: the Sperm and the Egg the picture of  egg and sperm  drawn in popular as well as scientific accounts of reproductive biology relies on stereotypes central to our cultural definitions of male and female.  The stereotypes imply not only that female biological processes are less worthy than their male counterparts but also that women are less worthy than men.  there are  gender stereotypes hidden within the scientific language of biology Female Biology of Reproduction By extolling the female cycle as a productive enterprise, menstruation must necessarily be viewed as a failure.  Medical texts describe menstruation as the "debris" of the uterine lining, the result of necrosis, or death of tissue.  The descriptions imply that a system has gone awry, making products of no use, not to specification, unsalable, wasted, scrap.  Male Reproductive Biology the maturation of sperm: "The mechanisms which guide the remarkable cellular transformation from spermatid to ma

 The Business of Being Born Consider Ultrasounds on Social media HERE . pro  HERE HERE . con.  HERE

 Women's Bodies Throughout Time The property of men defective and dangerous Aristotle: Only a sufficient amount of heat could allow an embryo to develop. Otherwise one became female. Lack of heat was associated with a number of other deficiencies of all kinds in all of the European "sciences" of the time. By 1900, women were still property of their husbands and experienced a "Civil death" at the time of their marriage (identity and legal status dependent on the husband instead of their father). husband had all rights of women, their property and even their children and became the basis for marital law in the US. African American women as literal slaves during this and the colonial period were the absolute property of their masters and were subject to rape and a variety of other abuses and entertainments animalistic hypersexuality inherent inferiority Challenges to men's ownership of women's bodies Married Women's Property Act 1839 Women's univers