Response to Chris M's post

Chris-

I don't see how sleep can control a person really. I mean everyone sleeps no matter what. Even if someone was being held captive, the captive-holder will allow the person to sleep, or that is just morally wrong. An example of this is in Ironman 1, Tony Starks was held captive in the mountains of the Afghanistan, he is forced to build a suit; yet he is allowed to sleep. The terrorists have the respect to allow him to sleep because, if not then he would NOT have been able to build the sleep fully without focusing and coherence- which he was better at since he was able to sleep!!

I really don't see how sleep deprivation is a torture device. I mean being awake all the time is not a bad thing- many people do it all the time. The worst thing that can happen when you fall asleep is killing someone, if you are driving- but that doesn't happen all that often.

~Chad S.

Sleep in American History

Did you ever think there was a correlation between sleep and American history?

I found it very fascinating that Dr. Ben Reiss focused on this unusual topic for a book. I never thought of the connection between sleep and historical events. For example, 1) Harriet Tubman (the most famous slave "conductor" on the Underground Railroad) had to deal with chronic sleeping spells in her life after trying to rescue a coworker from being beaten for running away during the wee hours of the night. I also found out that 2) Nat Turner's infamous slave rebellion focused on his masters' sleeping patterns, to discover when was the "best time" to cause a slave revolt. He relied that the nighttime would be the best time to "strike" (both literally and figuratively).

In a way that was very smart of Turner to strike during the night because no one suspected anything to happen, and that the slaves would be obedient and sleep throughout the night. However, as history is the reminder, this was false! Turner and his followers killed 50 whites.

The third event in American history that has dealt with sleep in a way was in 1777, during the midst of the American Revolution. This is very unknown to us because it is really covered in our American history textbooks. The British commander, Charles Grey, ordered his troops to kill the Americans during the night, since no one would ever think of an attack at night. At the end of this "battle," about 200 Americans were killed during their sleep.

Overall, sleep has caused a few massacres in our history as a nation. We take sleep for granted and we should always be alert when we are tired, because you may never know what might happen to you!

~Chad S.

Hysteria and Psychology

Being a psychology major I felt it best for me to take a second and reflex on hysteria, as we discussed during class, but relate it to the Freudian ideas. Ideas that even now heavily influence our culture, and ideas that during Freud’s time were highly regarded. Freud usually is not well considered for his ideas for women, one of his major ideas regarding women being penis envy. However Freud did deal with female patients and enforced his own ideas upon them. Hysteria was already a condition during the time of Freud, though he explored many reasons for it. When Freud worked with one of his most famous patients, Anna O, he can to a few conclusions. At first Freud believed that hysteria was caused by abuse during childhood, but afterward changed his idea that of women being sexually repressed, the same idea that Moira spoke of in American Horror Story. I found it interesting that this idea could be sourced back to psychology and thought it was interesting that a man who often seems to disregard females came up with this concept. Luckily, psychology has advanced past the point of hysteria being an acceptable diagnosis for women.
-Joan Welch

Benjamin Reiss - Presentation

Thursdays discussion and presentation brought to us by Benjamin Reiss brought a few things to my attention.  During the class discussion I discovered that Reiss did not want to declare his opinion on the media and its impact on society.  The author had truly meant to leave it up to the reader to decide his own opinion. I felt like this was such a unique opportunity for us as a class to hear the story directly out of the horses mouth.  We also learned that he was not actually a historian, but author and a teacher of sorts.  So in this way I'm sure Reiss has strong feelings towards how the media impacts society, however he does not wish to impose his opinion on his readers. In addition to his opinion he also brought an interesting historical occurrence in his presentation.  His talk about doctors and their ability to "diagnose" certain problems with sleep, and claim that there were correlations between race and sleeping ability was quite shocking.  To think that doctors would buy into the evils of racism and incorporate them into their diagnoses.  For instance, some doctors believed that ludicrously racist factors were a way to legitimize certain illnesses or disabilities.  It makes me wonder whether or not we should completely trust doctors today.  So in all, I learned not to take everything at face value, even from trained medical professionals, and also that Reiss truly values his readers' opinions.

"Sickness" in The Walking Dead

With the presentation of American Horror Story as an artifact in class and it's correlation to the topic of discussion, I thought I would make a reference to another television show. I've recently been going through the episodes of The Walking Dead on Netflix and there is a moment in the second season when one character imposes his authority on another character on the basis that they are "sick." When Andrea loses her sister in a zombie ambush, she begins to feel that there is nothing left to live for and it's clear that she is depressed. Dale observes this and repossesses Andrea's handgun when she leaves it lying around. He refuses to give it back to her because he believes it is in her best interest. I thought that this instance was interesting and relevant because earlier in the show, another character, a male, is bitten by a zombie and becomes infected. When he tells the group that he wishes to be left behind to die, Dale does not oppose to the idea. I think it's interesting to think how the show's writers would have handled the scene if the character was a female.

Using sleep to control people

In class on thursday and then thursday night Dr. Reiss talked about sleep. It got me thinking on how sleep can be used as a way to control people. There have been different methods by which people or groups could do this. One of the ways sleep could be used to get what you want is through the method of sleep depravation.

Some government agencies use sleep deprivation as a form of torture against suspected terriorist. There have been several cases of this being documented at the United States military base at Guantonimo Bay in Cuba. It has been used to extract information from suspected terroist for a number of years.

One of the reason this is such an effective form of torture is because of what it does to both the body and the mind. Sleep deprevation is lowers the bodies resistance to pain as well as breaking down the detaines will. Making other forms of tourtue more effective.

Is using sleep agains others morally wrong if it can have a positive outcome? What if it ends up saving thousands of lives? At the same time what if it leads to nothing but that person was still an enemy of the country? Isn't it better knowing that there isn't anything being planned against us?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/16/torture-memos-bush-administration

http://un-truth.com/human-rights/sleep-deprivation-is-torture

Reaction to American Horror Story discussion

I was very intrigued by the discussion we had on Tuesday about American Horror Story, and how much it really does relate to the concept of "sick" and "sickening" women, in the first two seasons.  The first season focuses on a family and the past inhabitants of their new house.  The main female character is the mother whose husband cheated on her and she unfortunately also suffered from a miscarriage.  She is somewhat ridiculed by the gynecologist when she is unsure about having another child.  This shows that even in modern times, women are somewhat viewed for their role as chore fillers and baby makers.    The maid is seen as the promiscuous character, because she is single and "lowly", and is used as a scapegoat for the cheating/curious husbands.  It's almost as if she is being made out to represent a prostitute.  The second season focuses on a hospital for the mentally ill, during the mid 20th century.  The staff is made up of a head priest and the nuns.  The head nun is in charge of most of the hospital, until she starts to see that things are going awry and sees that even the doctors there are not stable or genuine people.  Because she "rebels", she is made out to be crazy and taken in as a patient.

Ridiculing Menstruation

A quote from a Dr.’s publication, mentioned in Ehrenreich and English’s The “Sick” Women of the Upper Classes, showed how society used to view a female’s ovulation cycle as an ailment that restricts them from everyday activities.  

 “We cannot too emphatically urge the importance of regarding these monthly returns as period of ill health, as days when the ordinary occupations are to be suspended or modified… Long walks, dancing, shopping, riding and parties should be avoided at this time of the month invariably under all circumstances…”

Throughout this article, women’s susceptibility to specific illness and disease because of how their bodies are built is consistently emphasized.

This short clip from the TV Show “New Girl” shows how menstruation is still often viewed as an illness that gets in the way of everything ranging from the ability to control one’s emotions, to getting off the couch and going about your day. Jess, the main character, uses PMS as an excuse to why she hasn’t been looking for a job and how her male roommates don’t understand the suffering that she’s going through. Winston, one of her roommates, develops ‘Sympathy PMS’ and begins to act like Jess when she has her period. I think this episode does a good job of showing how our society has significantly attached PMS, menstruation to weakness and sensitivity of females.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QapFMnOcDkk

http://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=relmfu&v=QNDS7BzmgZU

Why is it that a natural occurrence in females can be used to evoke laughter? Why do we allow people to use it as an excuse for our or others, behaviors and actions? Menstruation doesn't have the exact connotation as it did in the article, but it is still seen as an unpleasant occurrence. For example, if you ask a male what he thinks about a woman's period you will usually get the same response, "gross" or that girls on their period are not fun to be around. Most of us know that having a period does not mean that you are “ill” and should be bed-ridden. We also know that the symptoms of a period, usually portrayed in TV shows and movies, are usually exaggerated; however we still get entertainment out of this idea. 

Why Do Relationship Norm Types Exist?

One question I try to keep in mind when considering questions such as the inequality of relationships is, "Why?". Sure, it's easy to say that it's bad when men force women into a role that they resent. Half the battle is recognizing such, but the other half is understanding why men do this and why society is (or was) accepting of this. After all, what good is knowing the answer to a problem if you don't know the internal logic that led to the solution?

Therefore, I'm merely going to speculate (as Porfessor Reiss was apt to say) on why this dynamic existed, especially so around the end of the 19th century. I think a good place to start is this: why did men feel the need to do this? Were they threatened? Did they benefit economically, socially or romantically? Why did society accept this? The answer, I think, is that many men simply believed that this was truly the right thing to do. Socially they had been conditioned all their lives that women were the weaker sex. Their actions were not malicious (generally speaking), they were just trying to do what they thought was best. It certainly did not hurt that women were kept out of jobs, but they didn't believe women were qualified in the first place or even capable of finding a job. They also benefitted from having their wife stay home and do household chores. Overall, it was a working balance between the sexes that seemed natural and orderly.

It was only when women went of their way and tried to show men they were perfectly capable of operating on the same plane as men did perceptions of women's role begin to change. I think, to summarize, that men were acting consciously out of their moral and natural duty, and perhaps unconsciously for their indirect benefit. After all, women occupying a predominantly working, bread winner type role is a rather new concept. It was only when women demonstrated their worth did society's norms shift.  

Media Explortaion

In class on Thursday Ben Reiss talked about how the media exploration made people more interested in what was going on by just touching on something that is going to anger the public. He talked about how at the time he was writing there was the OJ Simpson trail going on and how the public was so into every aspect of this trail just because it was something that the media followed intently and ensuring that they kept certain things to just get the public angry. This is still the same thing the media does today, such as with the Casey Anthony trail and the Manti Teo's imaginary girlfriend. Why is it that the media feels the need to give these people so much exposure when they either broke laws or made things up?

The Sickness

Continuing our conversation on Tuesday about women being "sick", Jeff mentioned the story of The Yellow Wall Paper. It just so happened that the next day in my Women Writers class we were reading that story and there were several connections between the articles we had to read for class as The Yellow Wall Paper. In the story a girl is made to stay in an old nursery all day just being able to rest. Her husband  treated her like a child. Telling her that he knew what was best for her, calling her "little goose" and not taking her opinion into consideration. Also one could say that simply because she was put into an old nursery exemplified the child doctor relationship.

When looking at the wallpaper, the women in the story kept seeing women being trapped within the pattern. I saw this as mirroring the way women were trapped in the pattern of being the women within society. They have their duties to carry out on a daily basis. Men think that this is how it should be and if something isn't quite right they isolate the women from everything, letting there minds rest when in reality this really just makes everything worse. If a women struggles to get out of the pattern then she is bound to loose her head. Just like the women in the story, in the end she gets pushed over the edge into insanity.

Ben Reiss and Sleep

   It was very interesting talking to Benjamin Reiss in class on Thursday and later that evening. I was surprised to find that he did not receive any backlash from what he wrote about. I thought for sure someone from the medical community or even the minority groups that he was exposing would have something to say about his work. After describing how he went about his research and his writing it made more sense to me. Rather than rehashing the story and re-exploiting the people he was researching he paid special attention to how he told their story. The way he approaches his work, as a story teller and not a scientist allows for him to ask questions not typical of questions asked in articles about science. Reiss' approach gives the “freaks” a story out of the public eye.

   His talk Thursday night brought up more interesting points about race and sleep. He showed an image from the Civil War era that showed a white women in bed. He said that white people and slave masters often slept. This made me think about Gone with the Wind and how during the war Scarlet, the main character, is always being taken care of because she has slaves. After the war when she doesn't have any slaves she is still working to get back to Tara, her plantation. She increasingly becomes depressed throughout the film and must rest often. While the slaves earlier in the film were being worked to the bone they didn't have time to take bed rest. Sleep became a sign of affluence. If someone could sleep often it meant that they did not have to work; that they had slaves to do it. In class as we discussed how simple things in life like head shape gets medicalized, Reiss took it a step further and made us all think about how sleep can be used to control other people.  

Response to Darren's post

I thought that Darren's post about Kate Middleton's pregnancy was very intriguing. Since her involvement with Prince William, she has always been a press favorite. The interesting thing about Kate is her rise into royalty or upper class. She as always been portrayed as the everyday girl who met the prince in college (as many couples do) and now will become the future queen of England. In a lot of cases the press portrayed their courtship as almost a modern love story. Her rise to stardom and ascension into upperclass begs the question of whether or not she should be viewed as a role model because of her status or because her "everyday-ness." Regardless, the press loves her either way. But Darren's post about her pregnancy does spark some concerns. Obviously, being hospitalized for morning sickness seems a bit unusual. The royal family would have the best access to hospitals and treatments because of their wealth and popular support. But this access is because she is apart of royal family now. If she was still the "every girl" she might not receive such treatment if she was a pregnant with non-royalty. It seems very paradoxical that the "every-girl" status is being portrayed through her high class, especially in the press. Because of their wealth and popularity, upper class has always had a fair amount of attention drawn to them. But Kate Middleton who seems to be a bit of both will always have the spotlight on her, and she isn't even the queen yet...

An Upper Class "Issue"

Kate Middleton is a contemporary example of a high class woman. Coincidentally, she is now pregnant with her first child and developed a case of morning sickness. The media took advantage of this opportunity for a story and exposed to the public, to the dismay of the Queen and their family. Kate Middleton obtained the morning sickness and was placed in a hospital for a few days. This has some resemblance to bed rest and how women were advised to stay in bed for the sickness. Would a middle class woman have had the opportunity to receive the same treatment? I believe that a middle class woman would not have been able to take off of work if she was working. Middleton, being upper class did not have to worry about work; she only had to cancel some commitments that she had made before.  Prince William was not with her the full time she was recovering. This Hollywood Life article shows a statement that shows a patriarchal society still in use, “[Kate] wants him to quit the military — she’s terrified he might get killed! But William is torn between his traditional duty to ‘Queen and country’ and his devotion to his wife.” William does not choose to comfort his wife while she is recovering, but chooses to keep working and provide for the country. Does this show any inequalities in the relationship? Why or why not?

Article: http://hollywoodlife.com/2013/01/09/kate-middleton-pregnancy-healthy-skinny-morning-sickness-stress-worried/

Darren Pope

American Horror Story: Insane Asylum

For those who are familiar with American Horror Story, the first season took place in the haunted house. In this season it was showing how the male subject of authority is more dominant than the women's authority. However we transition into the next season, with different characters and a totally different setting. In the second season, instead of a house, it is taking place in an insane asylum. In this show however, there is a whole new transition in authority. It seems in this episode, the authority is switched between genders. For those who are not familiar with the show, there is this nun who is in charge of the asylum, and she has authority and power on all of the patients in the hospital.
This could also tie in with the sick people arguement. Of course all of the patients in the asylum are supposed to be insane. However in the show, we see the authority as being more insane than the patients, while the patients are in the asylum (some patients get out and the show gets crazy from there). I just thought that between the show there is an interesting transition between authority between both seasons.

-Courtney O'Donnell

From Hysteria to Hypochondria

As the readings present us with the class differences between the upper-middle class women and middle class women in the medical field I could not help myself to think about how the so called medical "conditions" of the past have evolved into our modern day society. When Hysteria is mentioned in our first readings about the sick upper class woman all I could really think about is how this still exists to this day in other forms and how it has become a non-gender bias situation. We as a society have gone the term Hysteria to Hypochondria. The way I have seen this and how society has seen this just in the past few decades has been because of outbreaks such as swine flu, bird flu, mad cow disease, etc. These outbreaks alone made our modern day society fearful and it did not help that the mass media was spending every day of each epidemic reminding us to watch out or we could be next. Now we live in a society where I would like to call it the "germ-x" society. We are constantly fighting these mysterious problems and risks to our health and while we are worrying about we eventually worry ourselves to a point when our immune system is affect. We believe that if our own personal space is clean 24/7 then we are safe from the invisible threats. When in fact we are so worried that the newest generations are potentially being put at risk the most. In todays society people are starting to beleive that vaccines are harmful to their children and therefore not getting them. When infact one of the first basic principles to being a parent is learning that sometimes your child needs to get sick in order to build a stronger immunity. But some of society is turning their backs on this ideas and we are starting to see the same problems in our medicalized society as seen in the days when they were out of control. This constant worrying about getting sick is unhealthy in its own way, yet some people believe in at least a germ free utopia we can live happier lives. I on the other hand look forward to getting my next cold as frustrating as it might be, I know it will make me that much stronger in the long run for my basic immunity. So in general I am saying that our society has taken a turn for the worst in worrying about health problems as much as they are trying to eliminate them. So I hope that within the next generation of people, the people of today will realize that having the flu can benefit you and help you when some actually serious might occur. However, if you think that if the world did not have such problem then please try an explain to me how having life threating chicken pox as an adult will be less problematic if you are placed in a health bubble for your entire childhood.

-William Webster

Artifact presentation: American Horror Story

Description and Analysis

            The artifact that I have chosen to discuss for my presentation is the miniseries “American Horror Story: Murder House”. The show centers on a husband, wife and their teenage daughter who move cross-country to live in a restored mansion, unaware that its former occupants haunt the home. The reason for uprooting their family is Ben, the husband, is caught cheating by his wife Vivian, who then suffers a miscarriage. This show aired from October 5^th through December 21^st, 2011. The show’s main storyline takes place present day, but the former inhabitant’s stories are told in flashback, all they way to 1922 when the house was built. The two clips I closely relate to today’s readings, “The “Sick” Women of the Upper Classes” and “The “Sickening” Women of the Working Class.

            The readings by Barbara Ehrenreich and Dierdre English, address how upper-middle class women were treated by their doctors and husbands in comparison to their working-class counterparts based on their gender and social class. Any ailment or disorder found in affluent women at the time were traced back their sexual organs or to “the inherent defectiveness of female physiology”. In the first clip, a male gynecologist is examining Vivian. This takes place some time after her miscarriage and the doctor is offering a new hormone that will make her body able to conceive again. Vivian is skeptical and when she asks for the side effects, the doctor tries to sell her on it by using female age stereotypes and describing how taking this drug will “make you feel 10 years younger”. In the clip, I see the gynecologist as a salesman almost and treating his practice like a business trying to sell his “customers” on ways to keep them coming back for more visits. In the reading, the same method was used when treating upper-middle class women. They would be required treatment that would last a very long time and unless it was “corrected” by a drastic surgery, it kept the necessity for frequent medical attention. Upper middle-class women had “the domineering and indulgent physician”, while the working-class women had the Public Health Officer. Working class women were often grouped together with prostitutes and were all considered sickening. At the time, the spread disease was thought to be stemming from the working class.

            Whatever social class women were in, their bodies were under the authority of men. In the second clip, Vivian’s maid, Moira, explains how not much has changed in the way men use their authority over women. In the “Sick” reading, the treatment used by doctors, instilled a “morbid cult of hypochondria” that really made women believe that they were weak also made them more dependent on their husbands, not only financially, but to help them seek treatment. In this clip, Vivian is feeling defeated and feels like she is in fact going “crazy”.

Discussion Questions

1)       In the first clip, the gynecologist says to Vivian: “Your body is like a house. You can fix the tiles in the bathroom and kitchen, but if the foundation is decaying you’ll be wasting your time.” How does this comparison demonstrate the view medical professionals had towards the bodies of “sick” upper-class women?  And how might have a woman’s miscarriage been portrayed during the early nineteenth century?

2)       In “The “Sick” Women of the Upper Classes, Ehrenreich and English refer to the upper class women as the “ideal patient”. What factors might attribute to this classification, and what kind of patient would the working class women be identified as?

3)       Moira’s summary to “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, is described more as a liberation for the female character.  As Ehrenreich and English write, “she frees herself from her prison--- into madness”. Do you see this as a triumph for the empowerment of Gilman’s heroine, or has she been debased and dehumanized?

4)       Do you think the upper-middle class and working-class women of today are still divided in certain ways when it comes to social change?

In Response to "Too Much Exposure"

In response to the Mutter Museum video, I believe that the museum has many displays that have significant teaching value but considering our society today I think it may have more of an entertainment value. Although you can learn a lot from the displays today there are many new technologies and experiences that out do the museum experience, and science and medical school students gain more from these experiences than utilizing the museum.  Such experiences consist of cadaver labs and other dissections of animals, models used for teachings, and many other things. With these new opportunities it is not as demanding for the students to utilize such a museum as the Mutter Museum, as they can experience such things displayed in the museum first hand. Also considering time periods today many of the diseases displayed in the Mutter Museum may not even be common anymore due to new and improved technology and medical care. I believe that the Mutter Museum appears to be used more as and entertainment factor rather than a learning experience, so if this is the case, is it right to keep displaying such graphic and personal displays in a museum open to the public for entertainment?