In the Media: Death by Abortion

http://www.policymic.com/articles/84185/hollywood-s-problem-with-abortion-in-one-chart
So this article from policymic points to recent research that covers the abortion trope within movies and television. The researchers found that in media 9% of women die directly as a result of abortion, while in the real world these deaths are less than 1%. Even when these fictional women just contemplate abortion, the stories occasionally end with that woman dead.

The article goes on to say that these media presentations of abortion have tangible consequences. Policy-makers in many states are considering legislation that treats abortion as a dangerous procedure. These media interpretations "a false understanding of abortion, one that paves a clear path for bad policy."

What happens when you use the R word

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-c-mcginley/what-really-happens-when-you-use-the-r-word_b_4896444.html?1393947357

This link is to an article that talks about the use of the word "retard" or "retarded" in slang language. I just saw this and it reminded me exactly of what we were talking about in class today. It has a really good message and goes well with our study of disability studies. Please take the time to read it, you won't regret it.

Extra Post: Disability in Boden's Campaign

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/fashion/features/bodens-campaign-features-a-girl-with-cerebral-palsy-but-disabled-child-models-are-still-rare-8925534.html

Going off our discussion on disability, I found this particular article after we talked about the integration of disabled children and "normal" children in our schools. Like I mentioned in class, I grew up with my mom's best friend's son, who I did not know for several years had a disability. I noticed that there were differences in the ways we communicated with one another, but I did not equate that to him and I being different in any way.

That led me to find this article about Boden, an agency that has started to incorporate children with disabilities into their modeling. For example, Holly has cerebral palsy and Francesca has Down's Syndrome. But what I love about this article is how adorable they are. In class, we discussed how our society puts such a stigma on beauty, especially for women and for disabled individuals. I think this article really emphasizes that even individuals with a disability are beautiful whether it "lives up" to our patriarchal society's definition of beautiful or not.

This part of the article also really stood out to me:

Richard Hawkes the chief executive of disability charity Scope, says the high-profile casting of Greenhow and White represented "huge steps forward when it comes to changing the way we think about disability".

But he adds that "it's still too rare to see disabled children and adults in popular media. If we're going to change the way the public thinks about disability, then we need disabled children and adults to be much more visible."

Overall, I think this is a very powerful campaign with a message that having a disability is does not by any means mean that you are not beautiful. What do you guys think of the campaign?

Disability in Swiffer Commercial

http://lostcoastoutpost.com/2014/jan/6/local-guy-swiffer-commercial/

After our talk today about disability and the representation of disability in the media, I immediately thought of this Swiffer commercial. Swiffer lately has been known for its cute, feel-good commercials (like the adorable old couple). This particular commercial features a bi-racial couple with the father being physically disabled due to only having one arm.

Although I love this representation of disability in commercials, I am a little conflicted about this particular commercial. First of all, I love how this commercial strays from the stereotypical "nuclear family" not just in number of kids but in race and disability. Also, when looking at this particular short article, I like how this commercial did look at the life of Zack Rukavina, a young man who lost his arm to cancer, and painted him in a positive light.

One thing that disappoints me about this commercial, however, is the fact that his disability is almost sensationalized to the fact that he needs a Swiffer to be able to do chores. I may be a little negative about this particular ad, but it kind of reminds me of the whole "sex sells" thing, except for it being "disability sells."

What do you guys think of this particular commercial? Do you think it is important to analyze how Zack is being represented or should it be a victory in itself that he is being represented in this commercial?

Oscars

I was watching the oscars and thinking about how we were talking about how actresses get paid much less than actors. And then I realized that there are different categories for actresses and actors. I feel like this is part of the problem. We can't expect there to be a change in gender discrimination if we don't compare male and females in the public eye. The oscars are watched by millions of people, and I think this would be a good venue to show that males and females don't need to be separated for awards. They can compete against each other and have it still be fair and work.

Marriage in Indian Culture

I mentioned this topic in class, but wanted to talk about it in depth. In India, there are two different forms of marriage, arranged and love. Lover marriage is the "falling in love" and ending up with them and Arranged marriages are through connections in the society and the people meet each other and then decide. It is always interesting to see the difference between the marriages and how they end up. My parents had an arranged marriage and I still find it so weird and feel mind blown when they tell me about how they got married. Personally, I would never see myself getting married to a person who I have only known for 6 months. However, I have grown up seeing my parents maintain their relationship beautifully. Even though, they only knew each other for few months, they have an understanding and respect each other which sometimes makes me doubt if it was actually arranged or not. I feel at the end every relationship depends on the two people and they are the only ones who can make it or break it.

Historical lack of solidarity amongst oppressed groups/ downside of intersectionality

I find it interesting that there seems to be a historical trend of already oppressed or marginalized groups wishing to further distance themselves from other members of their group whom society perceives as being even farther from the spectrum of what is considered “normal”. For example, many of the first wave feminists wished to distance themselves from lesbians, because they did not want their cause to be associated with them. While I found this very disappointing, I also found it interesting that they would not want to form a solidarity against the society that is oppressing them all, rather than further dividing their ranks. It made me wonder, does the structure of this sort of exclusionary behavior discourage a sense of solidarity amongst these "outcasts" of society? We discussed this in another of my classes, and someone brought up how, if an individual were to emphasize the role of intersectionality in their own life, they would be potentially limiting their support group because they would find fewer people with each of the forms of oppression.