The more I think about it, the more nauseous I feel that I saw the Sex and the City film. There are a lot of reasons to feel this way, but there is a small storyline in which one of the characters refuses to eat anything in Mexico except pudding cups. Even though they are staying at the poshest resort. She accidentally opens her mouth in the shower, gets water in her mouth, and then develops a horrible case of diarrhea. And this prompts the other three women to laugh hysterically. No one seems at all disturbed that she thinks only the pudding cups are "safe," though they do roll their eyes at her.
Clearly, there are a slew of other problems with this film, and I went because it was important to a friend of mine to have someone to do such 'girly' things with. But now I feel dirty. And shameful.
Jezebel has a good rant about the horror of the film, as well. Perhaps, though, we ought not give it so much media time and just turn our backs. At least I didn't pay to see it! That's a small consolation, I guess.
6.02.2008
Owning up to Racism and Sexism
I obviously really enjoy reading Bitch, PhD. There's a posting up from yesterday that asks the readers to seriously recognize their own racism and sexism. What's so wonderful about the way the author (who is not always the same on the site) addresses it is that she points out how subtle and tacit our own racism can be -- even when we think we're quite thoughtful and conscientious. The naivete of escaping forms of these prejudices fully gets addressed without being antagonistic, and I think this is something that needs to be better integrated into American conversations. In lieu of self-flagellation, this more reflective approach might actually change things quite radically.
I do think, however, that she ought to have included class as part of the triad of prejudices. She comments that she is surprised when she interviews a black woman in her 30s who doesn't have children, but she doesn't feel surprise at a white woman of the same age. (This made me think that my reactions to such a circumstance would be highly mediated by my knowledge of the woman's educational level -- so if I were to meet a black female professor, I wouldn't find it odd that she didn't have children, and I might actually find it stranger if she did -- depending on age, of course.) I have a friend with whom I've lost touch who has worked extensively on race in the States, and I know that because she and her family are immigrants, she identifies with a working class culture. Yet, her mother was a professor in their home country -- and this friend attended the same prestigious college and is now pursuing her PhD in one of the most rarified academic tracks in this country. It's hard for me to feel sympathy for her when I think that in spite of our economic differences as children we share a lot of the same class beliefs and experiences. Though we may seem to have different class backgrounds (my father was a successful white collar worker and his parents had money, though their parents were immigrants, and her parents were struggling to make a good life for their kids when they immigrated in the late 80s), I do think education equalizes quite a lot, even if I don't want to dismiss the difference of knowing that my parent could afford to support my education, and my friend's parents couldn't. They clearly valued higher learning and both their daughters have advanced degrees.
We need to integrate class more explicitly in American debates (and that is one thing I have found deeply disturbing in Clinton's bragging about her "owning" the blue collar workers -- the lady is as pedigreed as Obama, neither can fully claim shared experiences with such people). I remember looking at houses in Baltimore, and I felt far more uncomfortable in the white working class neighborhoods of Baltimore than in the poorer black neighborhoods. It was a shock to recognize that I was actually far more classist (and in a way racist -- that I was understanding of poverty among blacks but far less sympathetic to poverty among whites) than I had ever acknowledged. I guess part of why I found the freak-out about a half-black male presidential candidate and a white woman candidate so strange was that it seemed irrelevant to me that we could have a (self-identified?) black man in office or a white woman in office. I mean, I understand why this caused a hub-bub, but I don't understand these as important distinctions -- they are different people with very different cultural experiences. But I certainly feel confident that they're both adequately educated and capable of becoming president, and it would be far stranger if we were to have a working-class white man running for office.
I'm not explaining this as well as I'd like (this is becoming a running theme in my posts, incoherence), but ultimately, I think we can't just reduce debates to race-gender. Americans need to stop pretending that anyone can advance in society regardless of where they come from; the Horatio Alger myth is kind of dated, don't you think?
I do think, however, that she ought to have included class as part of the triad of prejudices. She comments that she is surprised when she interviews a black woman in her 30s who doesn't have children, but she doesn't feel surprise at a white woman of the same age. (This made me think that my reactions to such a circumstance would be highly mediated by my knowledge of the woman's educational level -- so if I were to meet a black female professor, I wouldn't find it odd that she didn't have children, and I might actually find it stranger if she did -- depending on age, of course.) I have a friend with whom I've lost touch who has worked extensively on race in the States, and I know that because she and her family are immigrants, she identifies with a working class culture. Yet, her mother was a professor in their home country -- and this friend attended the same prestigious college and is now pursuing her PhD in one of the most rarified academic tracks in this country. It's hard for me to feel sympathy for her when I think that in spite of our economic differences as children we share a lot of the same class beliefs and experiences. Though we may seem to have different class backgrounds (my father was a successful white collar worker and his parents had money, though their parents were immigrants, and her parents were struggling to make a good life for their kids when they immigrated in the late 80s), I do think education equalizes quite a lot, even if I don't want to dismiss the difference of knowing that my parent could afford to support my education, and my friend's parents couldn't. They clearly valued higher learning and both their daughters have advanced degrees.
We need to integrate class more explicitly in American debates (and that is one thing I have found deeply disturbing in Clinton's bragging about her "owning" the blue collar workers -- the lady is as pedigreed as Obama, neither can fully claim shared experiences with such people). I remember looking at houses in Baltimore, and I felt far more uncomfortable in the white working class neighborhoods of Baltimore than in the poorer black neighborhoods. It was a shock to recognize that I was actually far more classist (and in a way racist -- that I was understanding of poverty among blacks but far less sympathetic to poverty among whites) than I had ever acknowledged. I guess part of why I found the freak-out about a half-black male presidential candidate and a white woman candidate so strange was that it seemed irrelevant to me that we could have a (self-identified?) black man in office or a white woman in office. I mean, I understand why this caused a hub-bub, but I don't understand these as important distinctions -- they are different people with very different cultural experiences. But I certainly feel confident that they're both adequately educated and capable of becoming president, and it would be far stranger if we were to have a working-class white man running for office.
I'm not explaining this as well as I'd like (this is becoming a running theme in my posts, incoherence), but ultimately, I think we can't just reduce debates to race-gender. Americans need to stop pretending that anyone can advance in society regardless of where they come from; the Horatio Alger myth is kind of dated, don't you think?
6.01.2008
The perversity of insurance in the United States
A while ago, a friend told me that she was denied life insurance because she'd had an abnormal Pap. For the record, almost every woman in the U.S. will probably have an abnormal Pap at least once in their life -- or at least, the odds are very good that she will. (Purportedly, 80% of Americans have HPV at some point in their lives, though data on this are inconsistent because HPV is a bitch to track for a variety of reasons, some structural (limitations of tests, tracking, etc) and some due to the etiology of the infection.) To add insult to injury, her husband and her insurance broker received the letter declining Mrs. X her coverage, though Mrs. X herself did not get notified. [She would go by Ms. X, but her marital status seems important for the argument here! Apologies, Ms. X.] She could receive coverage after she received a normal Pap. Leaving aside the inanity that Mrs. X was not treated as her own individual, adult person worthy of receiving the information directly, equally disturbing is that she could be denied coverage because of a fairly routine abnormality. True, an abnormal Pap may slightly increase the chance of her developing cervical cancer, but on the other hand, her diligence in getting her Pap and the fact that it was identified by her doctor probably will more likely increase her chance of catching precancerous cells, and being able to get treatment before developing cancer (thereby, saving everyone a lot of time and money -- if we're going to look at this in such a grim way). Basically, penalizing my lovely friend Mrs. X for being careful about her health seems a very ass-backward way to actually increase her longevity. Dumb-asses.
Now, the Sunday The New York Times has an article about how women who've had caesarean sections to deliver their children are being denied insurance coverage when they seek individual health insurance plans. For those who don't follow such things as religiously as I do, caesarean sections have been on the rise -- part of the obsessive medicalization of women's bodies and pregnancy, in general. A number of my friends have had home births lately, and their decisions are not just personal preference, but they are in fact, a form of resistance. I'm a bit agnostic about the home birth vs. the hospital birth (as I've never been pregnant, and prefer not to worry about this issue right now, though I think it's great that my friends have been so determined) -- but the caesarean practice has gotten out of control. And now, to read that women are therefore penalized for the decision, which I suspect is not always "theirs" -- but rather obstetricians, who don't want to be disrupted from their weekend plans, schedule these in order to make life easier. And to be fair to the women who agree to these unnecessary caesareans (there is an important difference between the elective caesarean and the necessary one), child birth is a scary scary unknown, so it's hard to blame these women for choosing a more controlled way of delivery.
I am tempted to write a letter to Obama telling him that health insurance reform and health care reform better damn well be a big part of his platform. I find the constant double standard of insurance in this country so deeply frightening. You really are damned if you do and damned if you don't. I've been thinking a lot about the privatization of health in the United States, and I read an interesting article that made the point that the concept of "confidentiality" is a very American idea when you compare the UK and French socialized health systems -- the consequences of this "confidentiality" is much more far-reaching than simply a notion of the autonomous individual. The ways in which confidentiality taps into capitalist discourses and corporate interests is pretty fascinating. I know I'm not articulating this very well, yet, but I hope to eventually. Anyway, I see this NYT article as really tapping into this morass of conflicting interests -- as I've said before, ultimately, health ought not be on the marketplace.
Now, the Sunday The New York Times has an article about how women who've had caesarean sections to deliver their children are being denied insurance coverage when they seek individual health insurance plans. For those who don't follow such things as religiously as I do, caesarean sections have been on the rise -- part of the obsessive medicalization of women's bodies and pregnancy, in general. A number of my friends have had home births lately, and their decisions are not just personal preference, but they are in fact, a form of resistance. I'm a bit agnostic about the home birth vs. the hospital birth (as I've never been pregnant, and prefer not to worry about this issue right now, though I think it's great that my friends have been so determined) -- but the caesarean practice has gotten out of control. And now, to read that women are therefore penalized for the decision, which I suspect is not always "theirs" -- but rather obstetricians, who don't want to be disrupted from their weekend plans, schedule these in order to make life easier. And to be fair to the women who agree to these unnecessary caesareans (there is an important difference between the elective caesarean and the necessary one), child birth is a scary scary unknown, so it's hard to blame these women for choosing a more controlled way of delivery.
I am tempted to write a letter to Obama telling him that health insurance reform and health care reform better damn well be a big part of his platform. I find the constant double standard of insurance in this country so deeply frightening. You really are damned if you do and damned if you don't. I've been thinking a lot about the privatization of health in the United States, and I read an interesting article that made the point that the concept of "confidentiality" is a very American idea when you compare the UK and French socialized health systems -- the consequences of this "confidentiality" is much more far-reaching than simply a notion of the autonomous individual. The ways in which confidentiality taps into capitalist discourses and corporate interests is pretty fascinating. I know I'm not articulating this very well, yet, but I hope to eventually. Anyway, I see this NYT article as really tapping into this morass of conflicting interests -- as I've said before, ultimately, health ought not be on the marketplace.
5.29.2008
One take on implicit media misogyny
Though calling the double standard for women in the media misogyny so glibly might get me taken down a notch or two by some critics, this Salon article about the ways in which women writers and bloggers are represented, specifically one blogger who wrote about her sexual adventures and criticizes the Sex and the City phenomena, points to the consistent discrepancies in male and female representations in the media (such as the difference in the New Economist's Obama and Clinton covers).
Risks for lady-bodies
I try very hard not to have knee-jerk feminist reactions...because as much as we still need to monitor public discussions of female bodies, it gets soooooo old to have to keep saying, "urgh, please can we not make the lady body so specialized for scrutiny?" And yet, nothing changes.
A friend was telling me about her visit to the nurse practitioner the other day, while requesting a refill of birth control pills (which it is worth noting has a yearly check-up mandate in order to make sure women are getting their pap smears, by the way...fascinating secondary by-product of pharma regulation -- the pairing of one thing to another, related but not intrinisically necessary thing).** The nurse practitioner took the opportunity to discuss with her the long-term reproductive planning things that she might want to consider. As in, you are a reproducing-age woman, having sex, perhaps you would like me to advise you on the next ten years or so of your fertility? Now...this is all well and fine if my dear friend had come in with the intention of discussing her long-term fertility, baby-planning strategies, etc. However, coming in for birth control pills does not mean the patient is interested in discussing her, yawn, hetero-normative reproductive future. The presumption that my delightful spitfire friend even wants to reproduce (and oh, by the way, contraception is intended to prevent said procreation) is really tiresome. I think next time she ought to explain that she's getting the pill because her girlfriend thinks she's too moody without it....
Similarly, my inbox received its daily Kaiser Women's Health Report (now owned/run by some other outsource org), announcing that the FDA is proposing new regulations for risks to pregnant women and fetuses. And so, the female body continues to be a special category of human, and the pregnant body in particular.
Or as I wrote to a fellow anthropologist friend:
** It is logical that women who are a) sexually active and b) sexually active presumably without condoms should be receiving regular Pap smears. The cervix is a very delicate part of the body and susceptible to HPV and therefore potentially cervical cancer. I just find it useful to note the ways in which public health and medicine have neatly tied practices to pharma. For example, as I discovered, in Morocco, you can walk into a pharmacy and request the birth control pills you want. No doctor's note. No pelvic exam. This may not be a completely good thing, but it is kind of odd, don't you think, that in a Muslim country, I felt more liberated in that respect than I would in the States. Think of the money saved, the time saved, the middle-men taken out of the equation (medical staff, physicians, insurance) but also, the personal responsiblity attributed to any adverse outcomes if I had taken the wrong pills, or had a bad reaction.
A friend was telling me about her visit to the nurse practitioner the other day, while requesting a refill of birth control pills (which it is worth noting has a yearly check-up mandate in order to make sure women are getting their pap smears, by the way...fascinating secondary by-product of pharma regulation -- the pairing of one thing to another, related but not intrinisically necessary thing).** The nurse practitioner took the opportunity to discuss with her the long-term reproductive planning things that she might want to consider. As in, you are a reproducing-age woman, having sex, perhaps you would like me to advise you on the next ten years or so of your fertility? Now...this is all well and fine if my dear friend had come in with the intention of discussing her long-term fertility, baby-planning strategies, etc. However, coming in for birth control pills does not mean the patient is interested in discussing her, yawn, hetero-normative reproductive future. The presumption that my delightful spitfire friend even wants to reproduce (and oh, by the way, contraception is intended to prevent said procreation) is really tiresome. I think next time she ought to explain that she's getting the pill because her girlfriend thinks she's too moody without it....
Similarly, my inbox received its daily Kaiser Women's Health Report (now owned/run by some other outsource org), announcing that the FDA is proposing new regulations for risks to pregnant women and fetuses. And so, the female body continues to be a special category of human, and the pregnant body in particular.
Or as I wrote to a fellow anthropologist friend:
risks! risks! risks for pregnant ladies!-----------
sorry -- I get so irritated by the morning news and updates. Also, as my friend XX bemoaned to me, it is quite tiresome to find one's body so perpetually MONITORED. though, I wish they'd get their shit together a wee bit more and monitor ALL drugs, not just ones that go in lady-bodies.
** It is logical that women who are a) sexually active and b) sexually active presumably without condoms should be receiving regular Pap smears. The cervix is a very delicate part of the body and susceptible to HPV and therefore potentially cervical cancer. I just find it useful to note the ways in which public health and medicine have neatly tied practices to pharma. For example, as I discovered, in Morocco, you can walk into a pharmacy and request the birth control pills you want. No doctor's note. No pelvic exam. This may not be a completely good thing, but it is kind of odd, don't you think, that in a Muslim country, I felt more liberated in that respect than I would in the States. Think of the money saved, the time saved, the middle-men taken out of the equation (medical staff, physicians, insurance) but also, the personal responsiblity attributed to any adverse outcomes if I had taken the wrong pills, or had a bad reaction.
5.28.2008
Los Angeles Countdown
As I prepare for the next move (both figurative and literal), I've been focused very narrowly on the CDC/STD project. It's kind of reassuring to have a focus, but I noted to my dad on the phone the other day that it's frustrating that my work doesn't have its own momentum. This is why I have felt I need to leave LA. Without my attention and constant pushing, I don't have a lot of fieldwork that goes on. After 7 months, I really feel this is a problem with my own project (and with LA), and something has to change. The radical decision to leave the field entirely does not, perhaps, seem like the logical conclusion for these frustrations, but I remain optimistic that the shift may produce some useful results.
I am, however, tired of the transient nature of fieldwork. I realized last night that after 7 months here, instead of feeling at home and relaxed, I'm plotting, again, another dis-location. Instead of feeling that this little mint green apartment is my home, it seems more like an obstacle to being somewhere else. (In fact, after a weekend at someone else's place, I woke up the other night, confused about where I was and where the door was, thinking I was still in SF, even though I've slept in this room for long enough not to be so easily disoriented.) I find that unease very hard to deal with. It's important to me to feel that I'm comfortable at home, and that's not the case here. The truth is, it has never felt quite that way here, but since it was all I had, it had to be good enough. I'm not sure I'm cut out for the fieldworker's lifestyle. I like familiarity, and I don't know how people do it for the length of their careers. I suppose that partly, when you feel that you have a home that you know you can always come back to, it's easier to leave. Life in Baltimore, though it became my home, still had an expiration date. I didn't plan on living there forever. When I moved to LA, I retained a small bit of optimism that I could continue living here past fieldwork, but that quickly became clear that it was not a possibility.
I guess what I'm trying to reconcile is what does it mean to do fieldwork at home -- and how can one navigate the merging of one's life with work/research/domesticity. I think my resistance to more traditional anthropology comes from the skepticism that one ought to freeze one's life and play outsider for an extended period of time. The segregating of time/place/life feels incredibly false. It's not so much that I want to begrudge those who choose such a life, but I do wish there were more guidance for what to do when one sees research as a more integrated approach. That's why I do what I do, because it allows me to officially think critically about the world around me. It is also exhausting and alienating in its own way. Yet, I suspect I was going to live in the world this way regardless, so why not get paid (if that's what you can call my income!) for what I do.
I am, however, tired of the transient nature of fieldwork. I realized last night that after 7 months here, instead of feeling at home and relaxed, I'm plotting, again, another dis-location. Instead of feeling that this little mint green apartment is my home, it seems more like an obstacle to being somewhere else. (In fact, after a weekend at someone else's place, I woke up the other night, confused about where I was and where the door was, thinking I was still in SF, even though I've slept in this room for long enough not to be so easily disoriented.) I find that unease very hard to deal with. It's important to me to feel that I'm comfortable at home, and that's not the case here. The truth is, it has never felt quite that way here, but since it was all I had, it had to be good enough. I'm not sure I'm cut out for the fieldworker's lifestyle. I like familiarity, and I don't know how people do it for the length of their careers. I suppose that partly, when you feel that you have a home that you know you can always come back to, it's easier to leave. Life in Baltimore, though it became my home, still had an expiration date. I didn't plan on living there forever. When I moved to LA, I retained a small bit of optimism that I could continue living here past fieldwork, but that quickly became clear that it was not a possibility.
I guess what I'm trying to reconcile is what does it mean to do fieldwork at home -- and how can one navigate the merging of one's life with work/research/domesticity. I think my resistance to more traditional anthropology comes from the skepticism that one ought to freeze one's life and play outsider for an extended period of time. The segregating of time/place/life feels incredibly false. It's not so much that I want to begrudge those who choose such a life, but I do wish there were more guidance for what to do when one sees research as a more integrated approach. That's why I do what I do, because it allows me to officially think critically about the world around me. It is also exhausting and alienating in its own way. Yet, I suspect I was going to live in the world this way regardless, so why not get paid (if that's what you can call my income!) for what I do.
5.20.2008
The inspiration
Today one of my neighbors asked me if I was the girl he always sees on her bike. I said, probably. He chatted with me and asked me how far I ride. He said he'd seen me bike around the neighborhood, as well as on our street. He told me that I was an inspiration -- which was kind of great. He was older, so I'd like to believe he wasn't actually hitting on me. I prefer to believe it was just a pure compliment. It's kind of nice to be an inspiration to someone, sometimes. I was feeling very grouchy because I've destroyed one of my feet, from running more frequently, was having trouble walking normally, and feeling achy in ways that just make me feel like I'm getting old. But in a city where neighbors rarely speak to one another, not only is it cool that my biking has inspired him (whatever the hell that actually means -- I doubt he'll drive less, for example), but also that my biking prompted a form of social interaction. Sometimes it's good to be an oddity.
Public Healthians and Anthropologists -- in a teleconference-off
Gotta work on these post titles -- never my forte. Though since I know that not even my father is reading this blog (thanks, Dad! I feel so loved), the odds of anyone else doing so seem slim, as well.
Yesterday I spent a number of hours in my role as "consultant" to a public health research project. Originally wooed by being told I would be the "architect" of the study, the reality is, of course, more base. The LA people have been great, and they were receptive to anthropological methods (or what public health people like to call, often dismissively, "qualitative" methods) and really did give me a lot of free reign. (Though in retrospect, I learned from the project coordinator, with whom I work the most, and whom I really like a lot, they had not intended to do this part of the project and it just got dumped on the director's desk. Thus, the sense of independence and liberty comes from a desire not to have to take care of it themselves...but as long as I get paid, I'm pretty pleased.) But then, there was the CDC.
I've known, since my own days in the public health research world, that the kind of work I do is baffling and not highly valued to the epidemiologists/traditional science researchers. They love statistics! Counting! Denominators! Risks! And I think those things are also highly subjective measures, though you can try to front-load the subjectiveness by making it all very well-defined at the outset. Still, if I said, all white girls who live in the Los Angeles area, well, not all white girls might consider themselves white, or I might live in L.A. but actually have residence in, say, Baltimore...and then, the categories that the researcher thought were self-evidently defined suddenly are still skewed. Ok...these variations are perhaps rare, etc, but I do think it's important for the public healthians (and some of my best friends are public healthians...though in my mind, the good kind) to not make such clear divides between us and them. Though a number of my friends are trying to fight the good fight by showing how "qualitative" methods can radically enhance information about data sought, we are mainly seen as an amuse-bouche to the more hearty main meal. (Which, let's be fair, is mainly just counting stuff.)
In the course of the conference call, when we were discussing my proposal, for which I have termed anthropology practices as non-alarmingly as possible, it was clear that the bigwig at the CDC felt that the methods were too labor-intensive or not collecting "useful" data. They were also very concerned that in conducting observations in the clinic that the researchers would "influence" the behaviors of the providers. This concern with objectivity really irks me. It's naive at best and over-simplifies and reduces research methods at worst. I have learned in working on projects not to get overly attached to my ideas, especially when I'm low on the totem pole. So I've tried to remain zen about the major reworking.** Though, I suppose in this instance, I'm the one who's going to analyze the data and write the paper, so if it's not something I find well-designed or well-thought out, I'm going to be the one to suffer the consequences.
On the upside, after the conference call, we had a postmortem discussion in the director's office. When I first met in her office months ago, I got a kick out of seeing her glass dildo standing upright on her windowsill so that the light streams through it (no, I don't mean that it's actually "hers"). I noticed this time that she has tacked a vulva puppet up on her bulletin board. While I'm sure I could analyze to bits (urgh, unintentional pun) the material differences between the glass object and the plush puppet, mainly, I'm just happy to be working somewhere that these things are de rigueur (crap, potential pun again). Even if they are public healthians.
----
** I do sort of enjoy their resistance. I get a big kick, as many who do not read this blog know, out of making persuasive arguments to demonstrate that I am RULER of all LOGIC, and that those triflin' arguments can be poked apart. This makes me an obnoxious friend/relative, but an excellent pseudo-lawyer. I also write very good contracts.
Yesterday I spent a number of hours in my role as "consultant" to a public health research project. Originally wooed by being told I would be the "architect" of the study, the reality is, of course, more base. The LA people have been great, and they were receptive to anthropological methods (or what public health people like to call, often dismissively, "qualitative" methods) and really did give me a lot of free reign. (Though in retrospect, I learned from the project coordinator, with whom I work the most, and whom I really like a lot, they had not intended to do this part of the project and it just got dumped on the director's desk. Thus, the sense of independence and liberty comes from a desire not to have to take care of it themselves...but as long as I get paid, I'm pretty pleased.) But then, there was the CDC.
I've known, since my own days in the public health research world, that the kind of work I do is baffling and not highly valued to the epidemiologists/traditional science researchers. They love statistics! Counting! Denominators! Risks! And I think those things are also highly subjective measures, though you can try to front-load the subjectiveness by making it all very well-defined at the outset. Still, if I said, all white girls who live in the Los Angeles area, well, not all white girls might consider themselves white, or I might live in L.A. but actually have residence in, say, Baltimore...and then, the categories that the researcher thought were self-evidently defined suddenly are still skewed. Ok...these variations are perhaps rare, etc, but I do think it's important for the public healthians (and some of my best friends are public healthians...though in my mind, the good kind) to not make such clear divides between us and them. Though a number of my friends are trying to fight the good fight by showing how "qualitative" methods can radically enhance information about data sought, we are mainly seen as an amuse-bouche to the more hearty main meal. (Which, let's be fair, is mainly just counting stuff.)
In the course of the conference call, when we were discussing my proposal, for which I have termed anthropology practices as non-alarmingly as possible, it was clear that the bigwig at the CDC felt that the methods were too labor-intensive or not collecting "useful" data. They were also very concerned that in conducting observations in the clinic that the researchers would "influence" the behaviors of the providers. This concern with objectivity really irks me. It's naive at best and over-simplifies and reduces research methods at worst. I have learned in working on projects not to get overly attached to my ideas, especially when I'm low on the totem pole. So I've tried to remain zen about the major reworking.** Though, I suppose in this instance, I'm the one who's going to analyze the data and write the paper, so if it's not something I find well-designed or well-thought out, I'm going to be the one to suffer the consequences.
On the upside, after the conference call, we had a postmortem discussion in the director's office. When I first met in her office months ago, I got a kick out of seeing her glass dildo standing upright on her windowsill so that the light streams through it (no, I don't mean that it's actually "hers"). I noticed this time that she has tacked a vulva puppet up on her bulletin board. While I'm sure I could analyze to bits (urgh, unintentional pun) the material differences between the glass object and the plush puppet, mainly, I'm just happy to be working somewhere that these things are de rigueur (crap, potential pun again). Even if they are public healthians.
----
** I do sort of enjoy their resistance. I get a big kick, as many who do not read this blog know, out of making persuasive arguments to demonstrate that I am RULER of all LOGIC, and that those triflin' arguments can be poked apart. This makes me an obnoxious friend/relative, but an excellent pseudo-lawyer. I also write very good contracts.
5.19.2008
Not all empiricism produces foregone conclusions
One of the things I find most fascinating when reading scientific studies (or secondary/tertiary discussions of those studies, because I am lazy) is the conclusions drawn from the data collected. This is something I enjoy teaching to students -- forcing them to ask whether the conclusions are necessarily self-evident from the data, and introducing the possibility that many of our interpretations of outcomes are highly mediated through social and cultural constructs.
There are a number of times in which this article, about the neurological "roots" of the "orgasmic mind," makes inexplicable conclusions about current data on the way a brain functions (and functions differently in men and women, homosexuals and heterosexuals) in the course of an orgasm. While I suspect the author intended to challenge social norms about the female orgasm, I find he reinforces simplistic tropes of female desire. The article's conclusion raises one of the more compelling problems for me. The last section is titled "Pleasure Pill?" and returns to the article's opening example, one woman's ability to overcome sexual "dysfunction" depended more on social triggers than any physiological/chemical alterations. Thus, the article points out, though neurological mapping of the mind during sexual response may be a possible solution in the future for those who have difficulty reaching orgasm, understanding the social phenomena that contribute to sexual pleasure may be equally relevant.
Much of the article is about women's sexual response as distinct from men's, but it identifies these differences through an evolutionary framework. (A very questionable framework, in my mind.) But more concerning, the article focuses far more on the "problems" of women's sexual response rather than considering male sexual response as equally as arbitrary or constrained. Most of the article takes female sexual response as more complicated and demanding than male sexual response, which may or may not actually be true, and what bothered me was the intrinsic problematizing of female desire, and the article's failure to ask whether male sexual response could have nuances as well. One example is that males purportedly exhibit arousal only to visual stimuli of their preferred sexual partners, that heterosexual men do not find seeing men naked arousing nor do homosexual men find seeing women naked arousing. In contrast, women are aroused more "generally" regardless of sexual partner preference. Yet, there is no way of evaluating how much of sexual response has social and cultural norms that influence sexual interpretations.
The article suggests that "Indeed, many sex therapies revolve around opening the mind to new ways of thinking about sex or about your sexual partner." The claim that many sex therapies can address mental challenges, rather than chemical ones made me immediately think of how odd it is that male sexual dysfunction has thus far been treated with a pharmacological solution, while women's purported dysfunctions require extensive social probing. I would argue that Viagara didn't involve any "mind opening" at all. Has anyone bothered to conduct Viagara research on heterosexual men to see if they exhibit signs of arousal when viewing non-preferred sexual objects? It just seems that the article takes far too many concepts for granted, and fails to even acknowledge that the availability of Viagara has a lot of social and cultural consequences. The counter to this article, and it seems that the author is thinking of it indirectly, is that we have developed pharmacological solutions, not "mental" ones, to male sexual "dysfunction." Women's desires, as this article ultimately seems to suggest, are far more complicated and "emotional," even though the point of this article is that women's emotional centers turn off during orgasm.
Perhaps I am reading this article incorrectly, but it does seem that there are a lot of logical inconsistencies. Most of them stemming from a retro-romanticizing** of female desire. (Oooh, "retro-romanticizing," that seems like a good new term.)
---
** I see that I've been using "retro" in more than one post as a means to suggest it's not a very forward-thinking interpretation. Got to get out of that linguistic slump.
There are a number of times in which this article, about the neurological "roots" of the "orgasmic mind," makes inexplicable conclusions about current data on the way a brain functions (and functions differently in men and women, homosexuals and heterosexuals) in the course of an orgasm. While I suspect the author intended to challenge social norms about the female orgasm, I find he reinforces simplistic tropes of female desire. The article's conclusion raises one of the more compelling problems for me. The last section is titled "Pleasure Pill?" and returns to the article's opening example, one woman's ability to overcome sexual "dysfunction" depended more on social triggers than any physiological/chemical alterations. Thus, the article points out, though neurological mapping of the mind during sexual response may be a possible solution in the future for those who have difficulty reaching orgasm, understanding the social phenomena that contribute to sexual pleasure may be equally relevant.
Much of the article is about women's sexual response as distinct from men's, but it identifies these differences through an evolutionary framework. (A very questionable framework, in my mind.) But more concerning, the article focuses far more on the "problems" of women's sexual response rather than considering male sexual response as equally as arbitrary or constrained. Most of the article takes female sexual response as more complicated and demanding than male sexual response, which may or may not actually be true, and what bothered me was the intrinsic problematizing of female desire, and the article's failure to ask whether male sexual response could have nuances as well. One example is that males purportedly exhibit arousal only to visual stimuli of their preferred sexual partners, that heterosexual men do not find seeing men naked arousing nor do homosexual men find seeing women naked arousing. In contrast, women are aroused more "generally" regardless of sexual partner preference. Yet, there is no way of evaluating how much of sexual response has social and cultural norms that influence sexual interpretations.
The article suggests that "Indeed, many sex therapies revolve around opening the mind to new ways of thinking about sex or about your sexual partner." The claim that many sex therapies can address mental challenges, rather than chemical ones made me immediately think of how odd it is that male sexual dysfunction has thus far been treated with a pharmacological solution, while women's purported dysfunctions require extensive social probing. I would argue that Viagara didn't involve any "mind opening" at all. Has anyone bothered to conduct Viagara research on heterosexual men to see if they exhibit signs of arousal when viewing non-preferred sexual objects? It just seems that the article takes far too many concepts for granted, and fails to even acknowledge that the availability of Viagara has a lot of social and cultural consequences. The counter to this article, and it seems that the author is thinking of it indirectly, is that we have developed pharmacological solutions, not "mental" ones, to male sexual "dysfunction." Women's desires, as this article ultimately seems to suggest, are far more complicated and "emotional," even though the point of this article is that women's emotional centers turn off during orgasm.
Perhaps I am reading this article incorrectly, but it does seem that there are a lot of logical inconsistencies. Most of them stemming from a retro-romanticizing** of female desire. (Oooh, "retro-romanticizing," that seems like a good new term.)
---
** I see that I've been using "retro" in more than one post as a means to suggest it's not a very forward-thinking interpretation. Got to get out of that linguistic slump.
5.18.2008
Difference and Sameness
As with most of the posts, this is not an entirely formed thought -- but I've been considering the particular challenges to fieldwork when one is conducting research at home. I spent this afternoon and yesterday with one of the main mothers I've been working with. I've interviewed her twice, been to her home both times, and gotten to know her as a leader of the mothers' group. Though our conversation the last two days faltered often, a few things became clear, mainly the ways in which we were very different, and how that difference may make it hard for me to develop sustainable relationships here in the field, ones that take on their own continuity without the enormous amount of labor I feel that I've encountered thus far. As I think about reducing fieldwork in LA due to the move north, I'm trying to evaluate, as well, why things did not go as well as I had hoped. I tend to internalize and take responsibility for outcomes -- often excessively (and one might even call narcissistically). But when I am the means through which fieldwork "occurs," it's hard not to feel that I've somehow damaged the experiment.
What has happened multiple times in my fieldwork, with various people, is a heightened sense of how much I am not like the people I work with. If I were in another country, that difference might be presumed or taken for granted. But I think being an American, complicates the relationship and the expectation. It's not that I am surprised that fellow Americans are from entirely different cultures than mine (this is why I am intrigued and compelled to study America and its cultural phenomena), but I find it hard to navigate these differences. While conducting research with these other Americans, it's awkward to make clear how my research works. I think that often in foreign places, participants may chalk up their lack of understanding to cultural differences, but that lack of transparency is harder to ignore when you're working in your own country.
A couple of weeks ago, at the mothers' group meeting, we played a game that required you to find people who matched certain categories on the game card. At the end, one mom read off the categories, and if you had been part of that category -- you raised your hand (basically, a form of bingo, but with descriptors rather than letters and numbers). One of the squares identified someone who "reads more than 5 books a month". I raised my hand, but was the only person to do so. A number of the mothers muttered -- well, I read parts of 5 books a month, or, how about kids' books? I read more than 5 kids' books a month. I qualified my book-consumption by pointing out I was a student, but somehow I think I ended up making the mothers feel bad and threatened. There's lots of stuff like this that happen in the course of fieldwork, where my education, or my interests or my lack of having children, somehow stands out in particular ways.
In Morocco, these differences usually were interpreted as misfortunes -- everyone was quite concerned that at 26 I was unmarried. The Moroccan women were eager to help me, as I was clearly in a disadvantaged position. When I admitted to not practicing Judaism, a number of the women I knew worked very hard to help illuminate me and explain to me why I might have not found the connection. So I'm trying to figure out what it is about my role as a researcher in the groups I find myself in here that doesn't allow for a level of openness or eagerness to learn "more" about the lives of the people I'm getting to know. There must be a good way to translate the naive, eager researcher from a place in which I am an obvious outsider, to a place where I'm a less obvious outsider, yet somehow more obviously different.
What has happened multiple times in my fieldwork, with various people, is a heightened sense of how much I am not like the people I work with. If I were in another country, that difference might be presumed or taken for granted. But I think being an American, complicates the relationship and the expectation. It's not that I am surprised that fellow Americans are from entirely different cultures than mine (this is why I am intrigued and compelled to study America and its cultural phenomena), but I find it hard to navigate these differences. While conducting research with these other Americans, it's awkward to make clear how my research works. I think that often in foreign places, participants may chalk up their lack of understanding to cultural differences, but that lack of transparency is harder to ignore when you're working in your own country.
A couple of weeks ago, at the mothers' group meeting, we played a game that required you to find people who matched certain categories on the game card. At the end, one mom read off the categories, and if you had been part of that category -- you raised your hand (basically, a form of bingo, but with descriptors rather than letters and numbers). One of the squares identified someone who "reads more than 5 books a month". I raised my hand, but was the only person to do so. A number of the mothers muttered -- well, I read parts of 5 books a month, or, how about kids' books? I read more than 5 kids' books a month. I qualified my book-consumption by pointing out I was a student, but somehow I think I ended up making the mothers feel bad and threatened. There's lots of stuff like this that happen in the course of fieldwork, where my education, or my interests or my lack of having children, somehow stands out in particular ways.
In Morocco, these differences usually were interpreted as misfortunes -- everyone was quite concerned that at 26 I was unmarried. The Moroccan women were eager to help me, as I was clearly in a disadvantaged position. When I admitted to not practicing Judaism, a number of the women I knew worked very hard to help illuminate me and explain to me why I might have not found the connection. So I'm trying to figure out what it is about my role as a researcher in the groups I find myself in here that doesn't allow for a level of openness or eagerness to learn "more" about the lives of the people I'm getting to know. There must be a good way to translate the naive, eager researcher from a place in which I am an obvious outsider, to a place where I'm a less obvious outsider, yet somehow more obviously different.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)