I’ve been told by a couple of people that my last post was attacking strawmen because I engaged the weakest arguments to my point and ignored the better ones.

Well…maybe.

But a decent argument can stand up for itself. Is it really a strawman if people have actually tried to argue the point at length with me, and expected me to take them seriously? Does it bother anyone else that, even though the argument seems weak to you, that someone out there thought it was brilliant and can’t see the glaring problems? That someone (lots of someones!) don’t see why judging someone based on their appearance or resorting to insults rather than discussing the actual matter at hand is…well, irrelevant? Rude? Especially when people who should know better participate in it? (Because there are feminists who attack other women as “sluts” or “bimbos” and don’t see the hypocrisy when they ask not to be judged by that same standard.)

Maybe it’s the weakest argument. I think sometimes attacking weak arguments is a good thing, because obviously someone actually made it and it didn’t occur to them on its own that there were problems. If people can’t understand why the argument is weak…

Whenever the topic of using non-offensive language comes up, someone invariably objects on one of two grounds:

1. I’m somehow impinging upon their freedom of speech.

This one is ridiculous since making suggestions about how to more politely communicate their points, especially to people who claim to care about anti-oppression work (which is really who my writing is targeted at — if I realize someone doesn’t care I’m not really going to bother explaining why racism, etc. is bad), is very different from me somehow forcing them not to use those words, which I clearly don’t have the ability to do. And I’m not threatening violence on someone who disagrees with me, which is more than I can say for some of the anti-feminists who’ve left comments on my blog. I’m also not going to go and actively harass other people online with whom I disagree until they change their opinions/language, which is also more than can be said for some people. They can say things if they really want to. I just don’t necessarily respect that choice of words. Just because I think everyone should be allowed to express an opinion doesn’t mean I have to agree.

Contrary to what some seem to believe, I highly value freedom of speech. Believe me, as someone who wants to pursue a professional career in writing, I appreciate the ideal probably more than most people will ever have a real reason to. (Being locked up or killed for publishing something the government doesn’t agree with? Yeah, that would be pretty bad and I’m glad that I’ll hopefully never have to deal with that. Being told by some random person on LiveJournal that you’ve offended them? Not so much.) But freedom of speech is not freedom from criticism, and freedom of speech is also responsibility for the words that one uses. I will call people on offensive language, language that hurts or demeans or perpetuates harmful attitudes and stereotypes — including my allies. People need to take responsibility for their actions, and that includes their words. Words are a powerful tool and people are sometimes entirely too careless with them. I “misinterpreted” you? That’s “not what you meant”? Say what you actually mean, then. Or try to, and if I still misinterpret you, clarify.

I have a firm belief that people need to actually say what they mean, rather than resorting to slang and curse words and hoping that people understand their intent and sympathize with it. It’s lazy at best, and that’s my non-judgmental assessment of the behavior.

2. There are no other words in the English language that will suffice except for those which are horribly offensive.

I’ve heard it all. Apparently “if we took out all the words in the English language that people find offensive we wouldn’t have any useful adjectives, adverbs, or nouns”. (Not an exactly word-for-word quote, but paraphrasing a sentiment I’ve seen more than once on various forums.) Besides being totally hyperbolic, I think that if people’s vocabulary is so limited that they can’t find any other words to describe a woman they don’t like besides “bitch”, that they either don’t have a very good grasp of language (which is unfortunate but not an excuse) or they aren’t particularly imaginative. Expressing this judgment has hurt some feelings, but I stand by it, because the English language has lots and lots of words in it. Use them.

You don’t need to call someone “crazy” and further stigmatize the mentally ill. There are already words which connote that someone is making an illogical argument, or a fallacious statement. You don’t need to call someone a “bimbo” or a “slut” since those are value judgments quite often based on someone’s appearance or dress and thus shouldn’t be relevant anyway. Et cetera. Lather, rinse, repeat. There are probably hundreds of different ways to express your ideas in equally powerful language that doesn’t have the side-effect of insulting others or expressing misogynistic, racist, etc., attitudes.

The other side of this argument is really what I want to get at: people argue that they simply have to insult people in order to adequately express themselves. You see, they have a need to assume that a woman is a “slut” or has an eating disorder just from looking at her. It’s absolutely integral to their argument against Ann Coulter that they make assumptions about her physical sex (namely, implying that she’s post-op MtF, because being trans is the worst thing in the world or something); it’s not enough that she’s a hypocrite who doesn’t bother to actually research anything she talks about. Similarly, one simply cannot discuss Hillary Clinton’s politics without bringing in unfounded assumptions about her sexual orientation. It’s totally central to the argument. It is, after all, impossible to actually discuss a person based on their ideas or actions. No one can do that. We need those words. We need to be able to make unfounded judgments and insult people rather than encourage critical thought.

Also, some people seem to argue that they need to be able to use “gay” or “retarded” as a synonym for “stupid”. Actually communicating why you disliked a movie, perhaps found it dull, is impossible. There’s this ephemeral quality to something that makes it “gay” that merely saying “this subject doesn’t interest me” doesn’t quite capture. Something transcending mere disinterest, dislike, or frustration.

People have an unalienable right to be insulting for no reason, with no actual relevance to the sentiment they’re expressing, just because they can, without being questioned about it. This, truly, is the American Dream. The ideal the founding fathers meant to capture when they penned the US constitution was obviously that people be able to make insulting and pejorative remarks at any time with no repercussions, because the only way to actually communicate is through direct and indirect ad hominem attacks. Freedom of speech isn’t about protecting those who disagree with the government or popular ideals. It’s just about people’s right to be insulting.

Uh huh. Okay. Forgive me my lack of sympathy for the fact that already put-upon people would like it if you stopped making their lives and identities synonymous with whatever negative concept you’re trying to express. Somehow I think you can survive.

Apparently, Ally Work is hosting a carnival to erase racism. I didn’t know about this until now, since I’m apparently really bad at keeping up with these things. But there you have it. Good idea, hosted by some awesome people.

Sorry I haven’t been posting more this month, all. Hopefully I’m getting quality over quantity, though. A word of advice: don’t get a pet who, in the event they should feel sick, won’t eat on their own. Especially if this pet needs to eat every few of hours throughout the day in order to live. Just saying. (She’s fine now, though. Amp can post pictures of his kids, I can post pictures of my ferret. Isn’t she cute?)

I’ve talked about this before, but it bears repeating. Basically, in the past few days on the Queer Rage community on LiveJournal, someone was banned for using the word “bitch” in a post as a synonym for “complain”…but only after being asked not to use that word, refusing, AND getting into an argument insisting that using the word isn’t misogynistic. (The post is locked, BTW.) It’s clearly stated in the rules of the forum that certain language is not permitted, and that those who use it will be asked to rephrase posts or not use it in the future, as the community is designed to be a safe space. This happens all the time in the LJ *_rage communities, because apparently people don’t actually read the rules before joining and then think people are being mean to them. I don’t really understand why anyone acts so surprised about this.

Anyway, that’s just the background for my post. See, after that, then someone else had to make a “goodbye cruel forum” post which has since been deleted (so I can’t link it), basically arguing that “it’s not words that matter, but the intent.” I see this defensive reaction a lot when people are asked to please examine their use of language and perhaps not use words which others find offensive.

While I agree that, sometimes, people unintentionally use language that can be offensive, once they have been informed that others find it hurtful, they should at least apologize. So “gay” and “lame” and “crazy” are often used as derogatory terms by people who don’t realize the history behind those words. (Especially “lame”.) Fine. Then, yes, intent is more important, and sometimes the language used does not accurately reflect it — but more often, intent is demonstrated through the word choice of the individual.

No matter what people claim their intent is, that doesn’t make it so. After all, people lie. People can say they intend whatever they like, but people prove themselves through their actions. Their actions are the only thing others have to judge their intent by. Speaking is an action. Word choice is, therefore, especially in a text-based medium, the most important indicator we have to judge a person by. If someone truly cares about the rights of oppressed groups to be treated with respect, they would understand why it’s important not to use words referring to those groups in a negative sense, even if they’re not actually referring to members of those groups.

I’ll just repeat what I said in the ensuing discussion:

I guess what it comes down to, for me, is, “Okay, so you don’t think use of this word is a big deal. If it’s not such a big deal, why do you have to defend it so hard? If it’s not a big deal, why is it so hard to just…not say it?” And I think that insistence on using words one has been informed are hurtful, just because it’s slightly easier than thinking for a couple of seconds before the words come out of your mouth, really reflects exactly the attitude that any anti-oppression work is trying to fight. “Allies” who refuse to change their use of language because it’s slightly inconvenient don’t really get a lot of respect from me. If it’s the intent that matters, not the words used (as one poster said), then…uh…I’d appreciate it if the intent was a conscious effort to be respectful expressed through language.

And that’s where I really stand when it comes to this. I have to seriously question anyone who claims to be an ally who is willing to use gender-based, anti-gay, racist, ablist, etc., slurs. (Not in a reclaimatory sense, of course. Totally different discussion.) It shows to me that these people say they care about the issues, but they aren’t willing to actually change the simplest, most basic aspects of their behavior in order to subtly combat the attitudes they claim to oppose. So many protest the idea of changing their word choice on the premise that it’s such a little thing that it shouldn’t matter. Were that true, it wouldn’t be so hard to refrain from saying certain things in company you don’t wish to alienate whom you know will not appreciate it.

The other thing which usually comes up when issues some deem “trivial” come up, is that someone has to invariably try to imply that anyone who cares about it obviously doesn’t have anything better or more important to do with their time. I find that usually the opposite is true. The more you care about anti-oppression work, the easier it becomes to see all manifestations of it, even the small ones. Does anyone honestly think that just because I want to discuss word choice, or issues which may seem trivial but which do actually impact people on an everyday, practical level (like the posts about grooming and makeup), that I somehow don’t care about bigger issues, like the war? Worse, it’s argued that paying attention to small manifestations of an oppressive society somehow detract from the larger struggle — it sets up a false dichotomy, an opposition which isn’t even there.

Fighting against little things is important, too. There needs to be a balance.

One of my ferrets is sick, and since I took her in to the vet today (she crapped all over the counter. way to go, Susie.) she’s on antibiotics, but I have to keep a close eye on her to make sure she eats and doesn’t get dehydrated, so much of my free time is being spent nursing an ill ferret.

This is why I’ve been too busy to keep up with comment threads at all on Alas, and probably will be for the next few days. (Because when you have a sick ferret to deal with on top of normal housework and cooking dinner and work and everything… Oh, yes, and she has a weird sleeping schedule so I’m not sleeping enough either, but hopefully that’ll be a little better now without the added stress about worrying if she’s got some horrible disease or not. It’s just like having a long furry baby!)

This post at Pandagon and some of the comments my posts about makeup, etc., have sparked really make me wonder. Common words people are using to describe certain socially-accepted practices of grooming and dressing seem very problematic to me. Specifically, people keep referring to this concept of the “feminine”. Feminine fashion. Girly dress.

And everyone seems to have at least a slightly different idea of what “femininity” entails.

This is why I purposely try to never use the words “feminine” and “masculine” in this context unless it’s tongue-in-cheek or I’m making it clear I’m using the popular understanding of words that I don’t particularly like. “Girly” has a particular place of loathing deep within my vocabulary because it sounds very dismissive and basically infantilizing, but I understand it’s not always used that way, so it’s not that I get angry at people for using it (unless it’s obviously in a pejorative context).

What’s “girly”? Why is makeup “girly”? Not all girls wear it. Not only girls wear it. Not only girls can wear it. Is long hair “girly”? Because even if it’s not as in fashion in America today, in plenty of places throughout history men have worn their hair long, too. There is no intrinsic definition of this word that has anything to do with the state of being female or identifying as a girl/woman.

Similarly with masculine/feminine. Any application of these words to certain ways of dressing or grooming or whatever seem entirely arbitrary to me. I usually treat these words as basically meaningless and highly subjective descriptors. I have no way of knowing what other people consider masculine and feminine, because it varies from person to person and culture to culture. There’s enough of a basic understanding of what is meant that people continue to use them, but it’s a serious pet peeve of mine, especially in this kind of discussion, because the words are usually too vague to really impart much.

(A note on usage: When I use these words in this kind of discussion, it’s usually in the context of gender roles, expected, enforced, or discouraged behavior and personality traits — and I’ll make clear to clarify “masculine gender role” when I use it as such. The other context I use it in is to describe gender identity, which isn’t necessarily a standard usage but I think using “men” and “women” and “masculine/feminine gender ID” makes it clearer when I’m talking about gender rather than physical sex characteristics, when I try to use the terms “male” and “female” to describe biology. Obviously one’s gender identity and sex usually coincide so there is some overlap and a little confusion, and I’m not always sure which word is appropriate. But if the discussion involves gender vs. gender roles vs. physical sex I always try to make the distinction, and that’s the only time you’ll hear me use the words “masculine” and “feminine” seriously.)

If “feminine” is what women do, how women dress, what women typically are, that doesn’t get us any closer to a standard definition than where we started, because individual women have so much variation in preferences and personality that I’m not sure there even is what we could call statistically average behavior. Men and women and everyone outside the binary act in pretty much any conceivable way possible regardless of physiology or psychology. Average where? When? Within which subcultures or groups? Even people who more-or-less conform to their assigned gender role typically exhibit a wide range of personality traits and interests. (And this definitely includes fashion sense.)

If femininity is what women are, then clearly whatever is typical for me can be labeled feminine. Therefore it is feminine to be geeky, obsessed with science fiction, into computers and video games, to enjoy action movies, read comic books, to be loud and aggressive in conversation, and to argue with people a lot.

If I’m not typically feminine, something I think few would accuse me of, I must be masculine…for a female. So it must be masculine to have long hair, wear skirts, cook, be willing to compromise and defer to others’ needs, write romance, watch musicals, love classical music, and read poetry. Oh, yes, and if I’m not feminine it must be a deeply masculine trait to be concerned with social justice, particularly queer issues and feminism.

If you’re going to disagree with either of the preceding paragraphs, if I’m not masculine or feminine, what am I?

What do “masculinity” and “femininity” mean to you and why? What do you mean when you use the words? If you know what you mean, why don’t you just state that definition instead?

Not the most important issue in the world; it just seems like something worth thinking about.

Just saw this: Female Chat Names Generate More Threats

Next time you chat online, think twice about your screen name. A new study finds that using a female screen name like Cathy, Melissa or Stephanie is more likely to elicit threatening and sexually explicit messages.

In the study, automated chat-bots and human researchers logged on to chat rooms under female, male and ambiguous screen names, such as Nightwolf, Orgoth and Stargazer.

Bots using female names averaged 100 malicious messages a day, compared with about four for those using male names and about 25 for those with ambiguous names. Researchers logging on themselves produced similar results.

Michel Cukier, the study’s author and a professor at the University of Maryland’s Center for Risk and Reliability, said the findings show the risks of placing personal information on the Internet, “even disclosing just your first name.”

Cukier said the difficulty of writing computer programs, or scripts, that can tell the difference between males and females online shows the menacing messages were not generated automatically.

“These are real users who seem to look for female names,” Cukier said.

The results are to be published in the proceedings of the Institute of Electronics and Electrical Engineers’ International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks, which will be held in June.

Parry Aftab, an online-safety experrt, said she was not surprised.

“It’s sad that we have to say to men and women, but especially women, ‘Don’t give away too much information and that includes your gender,’” she said. “There’s no reason for people to have to know that you’re a woman.”

This is pretty messed up, but it’s something that most women online could have told you already. I’ve observed more than once the disturbing and sometimes hilarious difference in treatment I receive online when people don’t know my gender. People are more likely to listen to me and treat me with respect online when they think I’m man (and that’s assumed, since a surname like “Earlbecke” should pretty much be gender neutral yet somehow it’s not).

Anyway, I find it outrageous and sad that women are being told they have to hide their gender in order to be safer online. Gender should be a non-issue. The crime of simply being born female shouldn’t be enough to warrant harassment. But here you have it. Just one more example of how women are targeted for verbal abuse just on the basis of the gender alone and nothing more.

I really don’t feel like I have much commentary to add to this one.

There have been a few interesting posts in response to my post Eyeliner, Razors, High Heels, and Bras. I really think that much of what different authors are describing is tangential to my original post, but…that doesn’t mean I didn’t find what they had to say interesting.
To sum up: it bothers me when feminists claim that women aren’t under pressure to dress/groom/act a certain way, and seems pretty akin to saying “sexism doesn’t exist anymore” because it’s plainly untrue to anyone who critically observes the world. It also bothers me when feminists assume women have no agency because of those social pressures, and set up a feminist anti-standard which says you can only be a “good” feminist if you don’t shave/don’t wear makeup/burn your bra/etc. The problem is that women have to make a “statement” politically in an arena which should be a matter of personal comfort and preference. Women are unable to make informed decisions for the sake of their health — shaving is bad for the skin, and so are many cosmetics, people fry their hair into submission rather than styling it in a way which keeps it healthy, and wearing or not wearing certain shoes or bras is uncomfortable for different women. The problem is that we feel we need to choose one way or the other, either for sake of fashion or feminism. Neither is the solution.

I think part of the problem is that I didn’t try to pretend to offer a solution other than “maybe we all ought to carefully examine our motivations before claiming that social conditioning doesn’t affect the way we present ourselves”. People can read a lot into something when you don’t pretend to know the answer; therefore, it seems that people had some wildly divergent ideas of what I was trying to get at when I was mostly making a pretty focused point (I’m sick of people claiming social pressure on women to dress/groom a certain way doesn’t exist) rather than a broad one (do I know how to fix this? hell no. dress how you want).

Right now, since I don’t want to make a massive post from hell, I’ll just address what Bitch | Lab had to say:

I don’t think young folks believe it — though it may still exist — but there was pressure on feminists to wear a kind of uniform. Anyone who wore make up or a dress? She had to have a really good fucking reason to get away with it and it would only be something temporary — like making your parents happy for their yearly visit. Your car should be appripriately “green” or a Volvo. Certainly not a beat up Plymouth that I had to crawl into from the passenger side.

But those things really aren’t the issue — though they are signposts marking the path I took to get to where I am now. Signposts that mark a rejection of what some might otherwise call hypocrisy. I was interested, not so much because it was hypocrisy, but to wonder why it existed at all. What seemed to make it impossible for us to not reproduce taste and style, even a feminist taste and style, which was enforced with its own judgments about what was feminist and what wasn’t, who belongs and who didn’t? Why, in spite of wanting to get away from that, did we reproduce it?

Where I differ is with Earlbecke is with the seeming certainty that it might be possible to create a world where everyone just wore whatever they pleased because they possess a self capable of making those decisions based on their little ol’ desires. It is a potentiality, this self, but it is a potentiality that’s being banked on: the potential for a self untouched by society in the self’s expression of its _true_ desires.

On this model, our true desires are like something we carry around with us in a little knapsack. In an ideal society, we’d be free of social structural systems of oppression and the stufff in the knapsack — our desires — would magically express who were are. We’d have this self beneath all the gunk and junk of oppression. It’d be our own special, unique self.

This really isn’t much different than the famous billiard ball model upon which classical economic theory is built. The little selves just bang up against each other: there are no internal relations. They carry around their properties and attributes, unfazed by banging up against all the other little self-encapsulated monads in a Leibnizian universe. (Leibniz is a philosopher who spoke of a world composed of monads)

On this model, we have our monad selves with attributes called preferences. We whip those preferences out of our knapsack when we go shopping, making decisions based on those preferences.

From a lefty perspective, the problem is that those preferences (desires) carry with them the mark of a structurally oppressive society. That society shapes our preferences and desires. We aren’t free. Our freedom is constrained by the demands of the system. We are, in other words, ideologically blinded by hetero/sexism, racism, ablism, and class exploitation and oppression.

Here, the problem is the knapsack — structural forms of oppression — that crush our true desires like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich that got tossed around in a poorly designed knapsack.

But the problem, for me, is that this assumes that we just need to fix the knapsack so it doesn’t crush the peanut butter and jelly sandwich. That, underneath the massive weight of those oppressions, there exist selves that could otherwise be free to have and express true needs and desires. They’ve just been prevented from expressing their true desires.

And what does this remind you of? Well, it reminds me of the essentialist gender categories that Butler worries about. Butler says that, even while social constructionists recognize that gender is largely socially constructed, you can still read an essentialism. It’s not just imported into the theory by accident. It’s also not simply a mark or trace left over by an ideology that hasn’t been completely erased from the theory. Rather, it is an essentialism that is constituted by social constructionist thought itself. Not shaped, but actually constituted by it.

Which is a fair enough point, and, I think, important to keep in mind when arguing just about anything. (Have I mentioned I love Bitch | Lab? Well, I do. She’s, like, so much more educated than I am.)

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I didn’t really know about this until a day or two before, so I’m a little late. Whoops. Today we’re Blogging Against Disablism. (Although I’ve always heard “ableism”. Ah, well.)

I wasn’t at first going to do this. I thought, such short notice, I won’t have time, and what will I say? It seems like something I can’t talk about. I don’t really have any disabilities. I enjoy a great deal of privilege in that I can travel wherever I want, I am capable of walking for miles at a time. I’m in very good health. I don’t have dyslexia or any other learning disability which makes it difficult to focus, read, or write. I’m very fortunate.

But not everyone I know is. In fact, I’m so surrounded by people with various disabilities that, while I hardly even think about it (which is of course my privilege), it might seem downright odd to some people. I’m not trying to say this as a, “I have a token (insert whatever here) friend”, simply making clear that I do have a personal stake in this and it is something I am aware of in my life. It’s just… what could I say? What could I do? I don’t want to take the focus off of the people it should be on. I want them to tell their stories, to tell their point of view. It’s difficult to balance my attempts at advocacy work with not wanting to unintentionally undermine it. But this is an issue which I think is important and I will say something. As Goldfish has said, this isn’t a sexy topic like sexism or racism or heteronormativity. But it is important. And it’s necessary. Because so many people don’t think about it. So many people are completely unaware.

The whole phenomenon of ableism is largely invisible. That’s why it’s necessary to write about it. People with disabilities are invisible, too.

Have any of you able-bodied people ever gone anywhere with a friend in a wheelchair? They’re ignored. You’ll be asked to speak for them, or they will be addressed like children — exceptionally stupid children, at that. That’s if they’re noticed or seen at all. People think that staring is rude, so they don’t stare, instead they willfully overlook and pretend the person isn’t there. Staring may be rude, yeah, but invisibility is worse.

What’s necessary is not pretending that some people don’t have problems. You’re not going to help someone who can’t walk by leaving them on the ground and pretending they don’t have specific needs. Able-bodied people need to overcome their discomfort, swallow their pride, and accept that sometimes you have to make accommodations for people, but that doesn’t mean they’re children. That doesn’t mean they can’t take care of themselves, or that you know what’s best for them better than they do. It just means that you ask them if they need help, and give it if they need it. Respectfully, nonjudgmentally, politely.

The two extremes I see able-bodied people take again and again are either ignoring the problem and hoping the person disappears, or overcompensating and assuming it’s okay to try to control the person’s life since they obviously can’t do anything for themselves. It’s invisibility or total lack of personal autonomy. Neither is the solution and I don’t advocate the latter at all.

One example I have personal experience with. For most of last year, I worked in a school for gifted children with learning disabilities, basically doing grading and data entry. The kids here range from severely autistic, to uncontrollable ADHD. Most of them are very sensitive and prone to sensory overload, shutting down or panicking or freaking out if they are overstimulated. This school is very small, and caters to the specific needs of each individual child, encouraging them to advocate for their needs — if they can’t take the noise, they can wear headphones, if they can’t hold still, they’re given “fidgets”, objects to play with while they do their work. I found the job extremely rewarding, and the teachers, though they sometimes get worn out, are all very wonderful people. There were some administrative problems, I thought, things not being handled as smoothly as they could have been, but overall the approach was good. And it works. There have been so many children in the short time this school has been open who were hopeless cases, violent or suicidal, who have been encouraged to work at their own pace, to develop their own unique creative skills, to follow their interests, and the results have been amazing. These kids are encouraged to understand their bodies, their needs, their triggers, so that they can control themselves and adjust to their environment. They are not treated as if they are broken and need to be fixed; instead the approach is more to empower them to make informed choices and to take care of themselves to that they can be happy instead of depressed and overwhelmed. Some of these teachers are saints.

This is the approach that we all need to take in combating prejudice against ableism. We need to be understanding and sympathetic to everyone’s individual needs, be they emotional, mental, or physical, and we need to do this all with respect and kindness. It doesn’t matter if the able-bodied among us don’t personally experience prejudice, because it is there, and anyone who thinks that prejudice is wrong can be an ally, so long as we realize that “ally” does not mean “savior” and it does not mean “surrogate parent”.

I went and saw Body Worlds 2 with my family yesterday. (The website for the Denver Museum of Nature and Science exhibit appears to be down, or I’d link it…) For those not familiar with the show, it is basically an exhibition of human bodies preserved through a process called “plastination” which essentially replaces all the organic matter in the body with a plastic compound. It’s sort of akin to the process by which bones are fossilized. There are whole bodies placed in various poses, with the skin and certain organs or other tissue removed so that visitors can view different parts of the body from different angles and see how everything looks and works together. There are also cross-sections of different parts of the body and preserved organs in various states of health placed side-by-side for purposes of comparison. Every display has a short explanation to accompany it.

This show is intended to be educational and give the layperson a better idea of how the body works, to see the physical variation between individuals, and a way to visually compare real healthy and unhealthy tissues from various parts of the body. I think this is a good goal and probably necessary, if the disturbing amount of ignorance of basic human anatomy and biology on the part of the other people at the exhibit is any indication. I really encourage everyone to see a Body Worlds show if they have a chance and it comes through their area.

For the most part, I really liked it, but there were a couple of things that bothered me. I think the subject matter itself is inherently neutral; it was the presentation of some of the displays that was problematic.

First, the ratio of male:female bodies was unbalanced. The relative lack of female bodies really bothered me. I suppose there is probably a valid explanation for this; maybe more men choose to donate their bodies for plastination or more men engaged in high-risk activities that led to their deaths, or any number of other reasons that could account for the imbalance. It’s important to recognize that there may be a variety of factors influencing this, so I’m not saying I believe there is a malicious bias at work, though I do think it’s unfortunate.

The problem with displaying almost entirely male bodies is that it reinforces the social and medical notion of the male bodies as “normal” and “default”. It’s no secret that historically the medical establishment hasn’t really spent as much time or effort attempting to understand the female body. Sometimes this lack of understanding regarding diseases which primarily occur in one sex or the other results in a lack of competent medical treatment, or a dismissal of women’s health concerns as “in their heads” or “hysteria”.

The other thing about the apparently gendered nature of some of the displays is how male vs. female bodies were posed and depicted. Several of the bodies are shown engaging in athletic activity. The males? Jumping in the air to kick a soccer ball (or, uh, football for the rest of you), and getting ready to throw a javelin. Most of the female displays are fairly neutral, just standing around not doing anything in particular; the only solo female display depicting any sort of “athletic” activity is as a ballet dancer. There is also one display with a male-female pair figure skating. I found this to be a, perhaps unintentionally, somewhat sexist portrayal of male vs. female athletic ability. There was no need to depict the bodies in a way that conformed to traditional stereotypes of “men’s sports” vs. “women’s sports”. Discussing this with my dad, we both agreed that a more neutral and interesting way to display the bodies would have been in male-female pairs engaging in the same activities, so that viewers could compare differences (or a lack thereof) in size and structure between the two bodies. Whereas I don’t think the larger number of male bodies is probably due to anything other than coincidence, the decision to display the bodies in these poses was deliberate, and I found it pretty problematic and unnecessary.

The final criticism I have, and, I think, perhaps the worst of the bunch, is the utterly offensive display on “obesity”. There is one final, extremely small, display which contains cross-sections of two torsos: one from a 120 pound man and one from a 300 pound man, with organs and fat and everything perfectly preserved. The brief explanation of the display simply states that we can see how “obesity” causes an extra strain on the internal organs and shortens life by comparing the size and condition of the 300-lb man’s organs to the healthy man’s. No mention is given to additional factors which could cause similar health problems in a thinner person, and nothing more is mentioned about the fat man’s health except that he is fat, the assumption being that fatness in and of itself will kill you. This was a cheap shot, with no attempt at real insightful analysis, pandering to the popular scare-tactics of the “obesity epidemic” without actually discussing relevant health issues. This is strikingly useless and uninformative in a purportedly “educational” setting.

There were certainly plenty of good points to the exhibit: the section on embryonic development was especially interesting and, I think, puts a lot of the debate on “when life begins” in perspective. The first few examples of embryos are so small they’re hard to really see, and even the more developed ones more resemble a lizard or a cooked shrimp than a baby. There were also some fetuses from earlier than I would have thought possible which fully resembled human beings in every way. I think that part of the exhibit, especially, was an enlightening experience, especially in a time and place where accurate, completely unbiased information about fetal development can be difficult to find.

All in all, I thought it was a very interesting, and educational exhibit. As I said before, I think human anatomy is an essentially neutral subject in and of itself, but that it could have been presented in a way that didn’t enforce gender stereotypes or lazily avoid discussing actual facts where fat is concerned.