The Business of Being Born

While I got a little queasy at times, I though the Business of Being Born was very interesting and eye-opening. The most shocking statistic for me was the one about how the rate of Cesarean sections for women has increased so dramatically as of late, and how the prevalence of C-sections increases around 4 p.m. and 10 p.m. This suggests that doctors are performing them so that it will be quicker for them, with no regard for the baby or the mother.

For me, this doesn’t change my preference for a sterile, clean hospital environment with the latest technology as an environment for my child to be born into. However, it does underscore the importance of having a doctor that you can trust and that you are sure will respond to your wishes. This reminded me of the scene in Knocked Up where Katherine Heigle’s doctor is out of town, and the doctor who fills in doesn’t want to perform a natural birth as she requests.

I really appreciated how the movie was very balanced on how it presented different views of the best way to give birth. They included accounts from a variety of doctors, midwives, and other experts that all had different opinions and input on the birthing process. I also like the way the producer followed around a couple who were deciding how to have their child. This humanized all the facts and figures that they threw at you, and helps the audience to see that the people who choose alternative birthing practices aren’t crazy, uneducated hippies.

Our Bodies, Our Crimes: Bad Mothers

I had mixed feelings about the "Bad Mothers" chapter of Our Bodies, Our Crimes. On the one hand, I think Flavin makes several good points about how a woman's substance abuse or past mistakes should not automatically make her ineligible for parenting. I had never thought before about what it would be like to have the right to parent your child completely stripped away, and cannot imagine the pain this would cause a mother.

However, I think the way that Flavin portrays social workers, government agencies and foster families as the "bad guys" who are trying to strip away incarcerated mothers' rights to their children is wrong. As one woman she quotes says, "Don't go throwing words around like 'partnership'. Because no one who has the power to take away my child is my partner." (Flavin 156).

Though I'm sure there has been several cases where the rights to their children have been stripped from mothers unjustly, and foster families have not taken care of children of incarcerated mothers as well as they should have, it is unfair to portray these people as simply wanting to take children away at all costs. Foster parents and social workers make many sacrifices and receive extremely low compensation for putting the rights of these children first.

While Flavin makes many references to the rights of women being breached, she makes little reference to the rights of the children in question- such as the rights to a permanent and stable home and adequate care. While there may be instances where permanency should be sacrificed for reunification, as Flavin suggests in the end of the chapter, often it is difficult for incarcerated women to secure things like housing after release.

Flavin also fails to bring up the rights of the child when it comes to visitation rights of the mother in prison. Children who are old enough should have the right to discern for themselves whether or not they want to visit their mothers in prison. In some cases, the lack of reunification or keeping in touch with their mother while she is incarcerated, especially in cases of neglect or abuse by the mother, may end up being beneficial for the child in the long run.

Michael Dixon and Mizzou Rape Culture

Though we haven't done much discussion in this class on gender and how it directly relates to the pervasive rape culture of our school (and our country), I thought it would be timely to do a post on the recent events and buzz surrounding Michael Dixon.

As everyone at Mizzou now knows, Dixon was named in two separate rape allegations in the past week. Nearly everyone I've spoken with about it is either confused or misinformed about what happened, what it means, and perhaps most importantly, what actually constitutes rape.

The Maneater recently published an editorial  addressing many of the arguments that "Dixon supporters" have been using- and shockingly, there are quite a few. The hashtag #FreeMikeDixon has been all over Twitter. The editorial brings up several great points- that reporting rape in this culture that we have created is almost more trouble than it's worth, and inflicts even more pain on the survivor.

It's important to look at the gender constructs that have created this culture... where did it come from? At the very heart of the matter, I believe that most people as humans believe that rape is wrong... so where did these shades of grey and victim blaming come into play? How did we, as gendered and sexualized human beings, get to this point?

Several of our readings have touched on this point, and how we can prevent and hopefully reverse it. Jeanne Flavin suggests that we need to get rid of the "patriarchal structure"and blames it for the unequal and anti-woman culture that we live in. This may be the case... but what steps can we take today to begin reversing this structure? I believe it will take the large amount of men and women who are sick of the horrifyingly frequent sexual assaults and rape on our campus to begin the movement and truly unify us as One Mizzou.

Our Bodies, Our Crimes: Baby Killers

This book has brought up many points that I've never considered before, especially the chapter on infant abandonment. I had never heard of "safe havens" for women who want to abandon their children  and was surprised that they aren't better advertised as a last-resort option for women who have unintended pregnancies- especially considering the high rate of neonaticide.

Flavin did a great job of showing the complex issue of neonaticide from many different angles. While it is easy for most of the world to condemn women who kill their children as merciless, cold blooded baby killers, she explains the different facets of these women and the complex emotions that they feel. It was also interesting to me the way that women who kill their babies often serve much lesser sentences in prison that those that kill their children or other adults. This suggests that newborn babies are not considered as "people" as others are. This leads to the question of when "personhood" happens for a human life. It seems that Flavin does not see fetuses or even late-term fetuses as people and wants all women to have the option to abort whenever they feel they want to- but when do you draw the line for those that have been born?

One topic that I was surprised Flavin didn't discuss further was that of adoption. With so many men and women faced with infertility, as well as an increase in the number of gay and lesbian couples that want children, adoption seems like it would be a very viable option.

Women who want to give up their babies for adoption also have a large amount of control over the family their child will be raised by.

However, when I looked up statistics, it seems that many women with unplanned pregnancies do not choose this option for their children. In 2006 and 2007, only 136,000 children were adopted in the US according to a report by the Child Welfare Information Gateway.  There was a 5 percent decrease in the number of adoptions per 100,000 adults between 2000 and 2008.

You Throw Like a Girl: Sex, Gender and Sports

I thought our guest speaker on sex, gender and sport this week was really interesting. The topics we discussed related very closely to topics I covered in my paper about how gender is demonstrated and "done" at the Rec Center.

After talking about the different stereotypes that are attributed to women in sports, such as women not being athletic or strong, or that only homosexual women play men's sports, I tried to do a little bit of research to dive deeper into why this was the case. In class we discussed historical factors and the "psychology of the uterus" as factors in why we attribute different behaviors to different genders.

Outside of class, I found a few interesting articles that try to give physical explanations for this. Most of them recognize that there are far more similarities between men and women than there are differences, and that biological factors cannot explain the vast differences in stereotypes concerning sport. However, many studies suggest that men and women display different throwing patterns at a very young age.

While the common phrase "you throw like a girl" can be seen as offensive, this may be a contributing factor to this stereotype. This particular graphic was taken from a 2010 Washington Post  article that summed up various studies on throwing styles of young girls and young boys. The author also makes the argument that boys are taught to throw at a younger age and in a different way than girls are, which could also be a factor. However, to decrease this for the sake of the study, they also studied aboriginal boys are girls who are both taught to hunt and throw in very much the same way. This study also concluded that boys threw "better" than girls.

Our Bodies, Our Crimes?

I am 37 pages into "Our Bodies, Our Crimes" by Jeanne Flavin, and I am already frustrated with this book.

In the introduction, Flavin condemns everyone from abortion activists who focus too much on abortion when it comes to rape and harm of the mother all the way down to members of the judicial system who attempt to combat the problem of fathers who don't pay child support by issuing "pay up or zip up" orders. She says that "incarceration punishes women not just for their crimes but for their perceived shortcomings as women and mothers" (Flavin 4).

This frustrated me not because I completely disagree, but because, as in many sociological readings and articles we have been assigned, she presents one side of the issue with a universal look on an issue as a whole- and offers no explanation for a way that these problems could be remedied or fixed. I agree that women  who are pregnant in prison do not receive adequate care for their unborn children- but wouldn't the mother's addiction to drugs, mental instability, or violent tendencies be more than "perceived" shortcomings? Flavin addresses this by saying that the government should not have a right to limit a woman or man's reproductive rights, even when they are "perceived" to be unfit mothers or fathers. If we go with this logic, is it not the government's right to limit a person's freedom because they are "perceived" to be criminals because of rape or murder?

I do agree with Flavin on a few points. She talks about the problem of "reproductive rights" being reduced down to simply pro-choice or pro-life abortion stances. While I feel that the topic of abortion is a very important and very divisive issue that is still at the forefront of society today, reproductive rights should also include things like the right to pre- and post-natal care.

The Bear Hugger and What it Means in a Gendered World

There's been lots of hype about the "bear hugger" this week after two clery releases were sent out about  a third-degree assault on the MU campus. 

Pretty much everyone had something to say on the topic, and whatever your stance on the police, the subsequent arrest of the alleged assaulter, and the wording of the clery releases, it got me thinking about how this whole ordeal and the buzz surrounding it was affected by gender.

I noticed that most people took it as a joke, especially the first email, which described the assault as a "bear hug"- not a stranger forcibly holding a female or another more detailed description of what happened. When people did stand up for the victim, whether it was through social media or verbally, it was almost always women. Perhaps as fellow women, we feel an empathy with the female victim more than men do.

As far as the actual assault goes, both victims were women- and African American women, which adds  another cross-sectional factor into the mix.

I wondered if the clery release would have been worded the same- or even been reported at all- if a male had been the victim. To me, this would be another way that masculinity and hegemonic masculinity can get in the way of health and safety- a man would feel too "manly" to report something that may seem harmless to some, but made him feel threatened or uncomfortable. Similarly, I wondered if the same outcome would have occurred if the "bear hugger" was a female- would the circumstances have played out the same way, or would it have been reported at all? Women are seen as more docile and weak- perhaps a victim wouldn't have felt as threatened by a female as opposed to an unknown male.