Overview
This week’s discussion has 6 parts:
1. Introduce yourself. Tell us your home town, one of your favorite pastimes, something else characteristic about yourself, and why this course interests you. Try to really give us a feel for who you are. If you're okay with it, post a picture of yourself. (1/2 p0int) (I will do this part Rita :)
2. Consider the introduction from The Body, Culture and Society, especially pages 6-10. In your own words, explain how the way the body is understood shapes the way humans treat it, as individuals or as institutions. This doesn't need to be a long paragraph; what's important is that you get to a clear statement that captures the meaning of what's stated in those pages. 50 words is good for this one. (1/2 point)
3. Now consider Judith Lorber’s “Believing is Seeing: Biology as Ideology,” which explores how belief shapes perception, with a special focus on gender. (3/4 point)
This complex dynamic has two parts: first, we believe there are two sexes, each of which is predictably connected to one of two genders (in other words, we believe that there are only two sexes—female and male—and a person with a female sex has a female gender, and a person with a male sex has a male gender).
The second part is that because we believe that every person must have either a female or a male gender, we treat people THAT WE SEE AS DIFFERENT GENDERS in different and unequal ways. All humans are really much more alike than they are different, but because we believe that differently gendered people must have different bodies, we treat them in very different ways. Using Lorber’s article (and if you feel like it, Goodman's too), explain how an understanding of bodies as gendered led to women largely being excluded from sports.
4. Now find your own example, and show the evidence. In part 3, you explained how an understanding of women’s bodies as less appropriate than men’s bodies for sports resulted in much lower pay for female athletes. What's another way in which a biased understanding of a person's body, or a group of people's bodies, led to that person or group of people being treated differently? (1/4 point for example description + 1/4 point for posted article=1/2 point)
Link a current/recent news article that illustrates your example.
5. What is an interesting question on this topic to guide discussion in this week's forum? (1/4 point)
Your initial post should be at least 300 words long, and appropriately reference each reading you use, with in-text references and an APA-style bibliography. Always include page numbers, paragraph numbers, or time stamps with your in-text citations.
6. After finishing with your own post, also post a comment on at least two of the posts of your classmates. You are welcome to post even more than 2 comments! Thoughtful, positive, questioning, and educational comments, which help to develop the group conversation, can both help others engage the subject more deeply AND improve your own grade! (1/4 point for each comment=total 1/2 point)
Make sure you've properly cited, including page numbers, paragraph numbers, and/or time stamps for all in-text citations.