User:TaviWright/sandbox

To See A Clean Journal Of Project

• Users:TaviWright, Midgeholland, Lhanlon

click this link https://docs.google.com/document/d/15Uj7_mWQ9cc5r0nmXalfpQ2HMhBFJc1pAGn6VyWdmKo/edit?usp=sharing

The sandbox for our Womn St 60A group:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Midgeholland/sandbox

My Summary of all my works:

The standard model of the difference between sex and gender begins by affirming that both gender and sex are physical, and must only be male or female, albeit with some leeway given for gender-nonconforming individuals (tomboys, ‘cross-dressers,’ etc). The dichotomy between sex and gender arises when it is affirmed that sex must and does always arise from physical attributes (such as genitals), while gender is arguably mostly socially constructed; “in the development of masculinity and femininity…nurture matters a great deal more than nature”(Fausto-Sterling, 46). The confusion with this model lies with where the line is between these two concepts. This model is now being contested because it ends up holding sex, and possibly gender, to the standard of “nature’s intention” (Fausto-Sterling, 50). It requires that a child must be one or another sex, and that the real sex “lies underneath the surface of confusion” (Fausto-Sterling, 50). This assumption can only cause a gambit of problems when the reality of the situation does not fall under that assumption. One of these problems include performing “‘normalizing’ (medically unnecessary) genital surgeries and hormone treatments that were not consented to by the patient” ("Frequently Asked Questions | Intersex Society of North America." What do doctors do now when they encounter a patient with intersex?) on children born with intersex conditions. These kinds of surgeries assume that not only did nature intend for this specific child to be one sex or another, but that the doctor not only can, but is required to somehow figure that out and perform surgery on the newborn infant “before twenty-four hours pass” (Fausto-Sterling, 45) such that they can therefore leave the hospital with ‘normalized’ genitalia. Another problem is the idea that if sex is so streamlined by nature, homosexuality must therefore be an aberration. This results in reasoning that a child who has had normalizing procedures performed on them is somehow “safely heterosexual” (Fausto-Sterling, 72), as Anne Fausto-Sterling reports John Money stating in Sexing the Body. Money is asserting here that gender-repairing scientists were able to align the intersex person so correctly to what nature supposedly intended that the individual didn’t even have, develop, or turn out to assume the ‘wrong’ sexual preference. When it is revealed that homosexuality among intersexual individuals is a very common and natural occurrence (just as in all humans), Money flatly states that “the long term outcome is less than perfect” (Fausto-Sterling, 71). (It is important to note that in this case, the label of homosexuality assumes that the sex chosen for the newborn will match their eventual gender and sexual identity; this is not always the case). But maybe the most ingrained problem has to do not with genuine good intentions from doctors, but with the patriarchal aspect. One of these problems is deciding what is considered a ‘normal’ clitoris or penis when doctors have that small 24 hour window to ‘fix’ a child with “ambiguous genitalia” (“Frequently Asked Questions | Intersex Society of North America." Is intersex the same as “ambiguous genitalia”?), or other intersex condition. These doctors who have this life-changing responsibility base their decisions on ideas of what they think a ‘natural penis’ should be, even when it does not fit within their own biased “social definitions”(Fausto-Sterling, 58). For example, a child that is born with genitalia less than around 1.5 to 2 cm in length, the doctor would most often chose to perform feminization surgery; however, because “phallus size at birth has not been reliably correlated with size and function at puberty” (Fausto-Sterling, 58), these children may not be considered intersex later in life, had the doctors decided against performing the surgery. Indeed, “our ideas about how large a baby’s penis needs to be to guarantee maleness are fairly arbitrary” (Fausto-Sterling, 58). But this type of patriarchal bias does not only affect those children supposedly ‘intended’ to be males; as Anne Fausto-Sterling states, “despite published medical information showing a range of clitoral size at birth, doctors may only use their personal impressions to decide that a baby’s clitoris is ‘too big’ to belong to a girl and must be downsized, even in cases where the child is not intersexual by any definition” (60). In essence, these doctors decide that reducing the size of the clitoris is more important than even the sexual pleasure for the woman later in life. This can be seen when looking at the history of the surgeries, where doctors performed “complete clitorectomies on these children assigned to be females” (Fausto-Sterling 61). Fausto-Sterling summarizes that scientists determine that children born with genetically female reproductive organs are ought to “be raised as females, preserving reproductive potential” (57) regardless of their outer genitalia; while a child can be chosen to be male based solely on “the size of the phallus” (57), even if the child is a “potentially reproductive female” (Fausto-Sterling, 58). This dichotomy reflects the damning results of patriarchal aspects ingrained within the standard model of the differences between sex and gender, and why therefore modern scholars are beginning to criticize and reject it.

--- It’s baffling to me how some “antifeminists,” as Londa Shiebinger calls them in “Has Gender Changed Science”, insist that the mere fact that women have not contributed as much to science as men have, is proof that society should continue to prevent women from contributing to science. These include such men as notible as Charles Darwin. Not only is that reasoning circular logic, but it willfully ignores that women were already prevented from participating in science – and dismisses that as a possible cause for the disparity. And this attitude was enforced not only from scientists themselves, but also from society in general – mothers and fathers would scold their daughters if they ever posed an interest in something that was not meant for them. Shiebinger called this a "climate of opinion" (32) Indeed, “without proper training and access to libraries, instruments, and networks of communication, it is difficult for anyone—man or woman—to make significant contributions to science” (Shiebinger, 24) ---

• Fausto-Sterling, Anne. Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality. New York, NY: Basic Books, 2000. Print.

• "Frequently Asked Questions | Intersex Society of North America." Intersex Society of North America | A world free of shame, secrecy, and unwanted genital surgery. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Oct. 2013.

---Review of Tarzan---

-All the jungle scenes at the beginning of the movie were uncontrolled, wild, and all the England scenes were peaceful and serene. This set up and cemented the ladder of white men on top and animals at bottom. -"We'll find someone to marry you, preferably an Englishman" not only overtly racist but also subvertly sexist. What time period is Tarzan supposed to be set in? -Jane (The mother) was fearful for her life after the crash, until she found Jack, and then was no longer apparently hysterical. -Tarzan, upon seeing himself for the first time in a reflection on the water, smears mud onto his face to look more like his "ape friend"; even though the ape's face is of similar skin tone. More logically he would have smeared it on his hairless body, but the director instead decided to blackface Tarzan. -Tarzan did not make his own first tool, he instead found his father's (a civilized person's) knife. I think this signifies that while yes, tarzan was in fact a white man, he needed a civilized white man's help to begin climbing the ladder. -the pigmys were uncontrollable, signifying their lower place in the ladder -Tarzan had almost no facial hair, and shaved almost nothing; however the shaving the supposedly unkempt hair let him climb the ladder to be able to speak. -"how many other white apes have you seen" racist, etc -"gotta keep a sense of decorum or we'll all end up like savages" racist, etc -"this is not the world, just the edge of it." Implying the only thing that ought to be considered the world is what white man has created -they commented on how Tarzan climbed to the top of the apes so therefore it shows England's superiority -"that's your father, fine soldier. That's your mother, pretty girl." feminine norms; the highest achievement is to be pretty