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.

Gender and Work

Gender and work was an interesting topic for us to discuss this week, as I recently received a job offer in Chicago for after I graduate. It got me thinking about how many things I will need to plan about a move to Chicago- obviously where to live, who to live with, etc.,  but even other things in the more distant future. I realized that if I plan to stay at the same company for a while, I will also need to look at factors like how long they allow for maternity leave, how flexible hours are to allow for family-work balance, and the quality of school districts in the city. I then realized many of these things are factors that men don't usually have to worry about, especially this early in the future. 

As Joan Acker says in our recent reading, "Inequality Regimes: Gender, Class, and Race in Organizations," the typical 9-5 workday is structured around the needs of a white, middle class man who does not need flexibility for childcare and has no other worries during the day except making a living. It wasn't until I read this that I realized how true- and how outdated- this was.

With all the technology available to us, and the ability to communicate halfway across the world with just a touch of a button, a work-life balance should be easy to maintain. The typical rigid, 8-hour, Monday to Friday workday is not necessary or conducive to the normal family now- nor does it allow for a balance of power in families who have dual incomes. 

Gender Relationships and Roles in Marriage

This week in lecture we talked a lot about gender differences in the family and how mothers and fathers often have different roles. In one of our assigned readings, "Thinking About Gender and Power in Marriage," Veronica Tichenor discusses the idea of gendered power in marriages and how this can affect the family dynamic. She talks about how since men are seen as the breadwinners and the ones that must provide for the family through working, this takes power away from the woman and puts her in a more submissive position.

We discussed this same idea in class when we watched the video about the struggle that one family had while trying be fair and balanced in the amount of housework they did and the time they spent with their children. They took days off work and split household chores 50/50 for the amount they did. This family was held up as the standard to which we should all model our families and didn't present any other ways that a marriage could be evenly split in power.

I was raised in a very traditionally-structured home where my father was the breadwinner and my mother was the stay at home mom who cleaned and cooked. I know from first hand experience that they had a very fair and balanced marriage and that this kind of family structure can work. I always had enough time to spend with both parents, and both of them made important decisions together- they just had a different kind of "work."

I think that several of the examples and readings we have had in class have looked at the issue of power balance in marriage in a very universal way and have not presented all the options that are available for families who want to have more balance of power in their lives. The issue must be taken on a case by case basis, accounting for the unique situations of each family and what is best for the members in it.

If it's not on, it's not on: College Edition

Reading "If it's Not On, It's Not On" by Gavey, McPhillips and Doherty reinforced the "Hookup Culture" that we learned about last semester. In college and (in my observation) in the Greek system, both the coital imperative and the scarcity of discourse around female desire coupled with the male sex drive discourse are both exhibited prominently.

A coital imperative is defined as "how much control women (or men) have in determining what sexual activity counts as 'real sex' (Gavey, McPhillips and Doherty 323).  I have often heard my friends, especially girls, talking about their night with a guy or boyfriend. Their friends will ask them if they "hooked up" "made out" or "had sex," and each "category" has a specific meaning. When they ask if the girl "had sex," they almost always mean traditional heterosexual coitus.

This also reinforces what the women interviewed said when they often felt like using condoms meant a relationship was less serious. They said condoms were more of a "one night" thing. In the same way, girls in college often feel like going "all the way" means they may get more serious, while they save other sex acts (not "real sex") for one-night stands.

I also see the male sex drive discourse at work in the college/Greek environment. Girls often talk about going further than they normally would, but say that they "feel bad" because they're giving guys "blue balls," which guys often complain about to get girls to do just that. I've heard several different girls talk about how they feel like a "tease" if all they do is kiss, even if that's all that they personally want to do. They want to have a reputation as a good date or a fun girl, and not as a tease or a prude.

One extreme example of this that I have come across is a man who is in the same fraternity as my friend. He once said that if a girl doesn't go "far enough," he criticizes them or their sorority. Girls feel like they need to "prove themselves" and go further than they really want to so that they can protect their and their sorority's reputation. This is the opposite of what sororities are supposed to stand for: educated, strong and empowered women and sisterhood, and shows how women buy into the male sex drive discourse.