The R Word

Throughout the past few classes we have been talking about madness, mental retardation, and people who are mentally handicapped. I just wanted to point out that many people still use the word "retard". People would say things like "This is retarded" or "That guy is a retarded". I really hate it when people use that word. My great-aunt Anne has down-syndrome, and she is 50 years old. Whenever I walk her around her hometown, a lot of people see her, and people say something like "That retarded girl". Even though we have so many people that believe that the word is wrong, it is surprising to hear that people are still using that word.

What Did You Call Me?

So today's class brought out many frustrations on what the correct way of terming an individual with a disability was. This post is somewhat of a relation to last week but I wanted to further investigate into what the proper ways of addressing those that have certain obstructions were. This file from the Amherst Museum of Disability (the same museum that we will be visiting this weekend) shows a list of commonly used terms towards people with disabilities and addresses the correct way of terming people.
http://museumofdisability.org/pdf/List_Acceptable_Terms.pdf

Many of the terms listed include the words, "people" and "person" and do not address the obstacle head on. The class also focused their attention towards certain people embracing their issues and others trying to stay away from the spotlight. As a society, I think we should learn to respect those decisions instead of criticizing them because the social aspect is diminished for these individuals. Do you feel like there should be classifications of people? Do these classifications help with understanding an individual's problem and allow anyone to help? I listened to how people were addressing the issue and could not think of the proper way of addressing the issue without stepping on some sharp rocks.


Darren Pope

Madness Presentation

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lG9gijOzuI

Description:

           For my artifact I chose the video “Psychiatric Survivor Pride Weekend”. I chose this video for my artifact because it is a perfect representation of the community behind the term “Psychiatric Survivor”. In the video, a celebration of uniqueness and disability is shown and I think it’s important to take note of. The video also has an interview with a father who was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. He not only sheds light on the community he has been welcomed into, but also shows him proving his ability to be a “normal” father to his children, and husband to his wife.

Analysis:

            I think this artifact is especially important because of the amount of information that fits in the 3 minutes that is shown. Not only do you get an inside story of one survivor, but the video also shows multiple clips of the Pride Weekend events, and many of the attendants. In the video, the other survivors are shown displaying their talents, that may be unknown to many because of the way society has dismissed these survivors, and for many, this event maybe their only showcase for their talents. Survivors are seen reading their own poetry, role-playing, and homemade art.

            This artifact coincides with reading specifically because of the vocabulary that is used. The title itself proves that the description of ‘survivors’ in the reading is something that exists in our society today, and that people really do come together as a community and celebrate their unique qualities. This video also proved that, not only do survivors have to do undergo discrimination or judgment by society, but that emerging out of this seemingly inferior position they’re put in, they can carry themselves just like any other person. This video proves that, although they’ve been diagnosed with a mental disability such as autism, or bipolar disorder, they can overcome the labels given to them by the medical professionals, and pursue a normal life.

Questions:

Based on Awareness

1.         What is your opinion of Mad Pride Weekend, and have you ever heard of it before? Do you think there is enough awareness for this cause, and if not, do you know of any ways this message could be spread more affectively?

Based on the Reading

2.         What is your opinion of the way the terms ‘cure’ and ‘survivor’ are used within the reading? Do you think these terms downgrade the people with these disabilities?

           

For example: Do you think calling someone a survivor gives the idea that they had to overcome their disability in order to live a normal life?

3.         Do you think it’s necessary to try and pursue a cure for disabilities such as Autism, or do you think it’s unnecessary? Also, do you think trying to find a cure is a considerate gesture to the autistic, or do you think it makes them feel even worse about their ‘condition’ that needs curing?

Based on the Video

4.         Would you have been able to tell that Richard was ‘disabled’ if you hadn’t heard him tell you he was? Do you think these ‘disabilities’ such as bipolar disorder really separate people from being ‘normal’?

Madness, crazy, insane, and in need of help

To me our readings for Margaret Price's Mad at School hits two sides of my academic learning history about the field of psychology and history. The terms crazy, madness, and insane are all words which have plagued and shadowed what is the real problem in our society is and that is giving help to those who can't help themselves. When people say things like nuthouse, looney-bin, cuckoo's nest and other nicknames we have trouble realizing that what all of those words symbolize is society mistreatment of those people who are mentally unable to function as a "normal" person in today's society. As a psychology major I have learned through direct and indirect affects of society turning a blind eye to people in help because those same individuals don't fit their schema of what a person should act like. To me Margaret Price's article is exactly what the world needs in order to realize some of their faults and imperfections. Miss Price also made a valid argument in a major problem in this world and that is naming the problem, issue, or condition someone might suffer from. To society a mislabel of any kind can influence the rest of your existence as part of the human race and can literally affect how you are treated based on that label. For example, mental stress from war used to be called "shell shocked" but in today's society it have developed into post tramatic stress disorder or PTSD. It is labeling and relabeling which can shift a society of people to loss focus of what is important and who is involved and suffering. Between shell shock being switch to PTSD our society saw a mistreatment of veterans and it is not until in our present day that we see a major improvement to the men and women returning from active duty over seas. We also see that a difference is being made in the world of psychology and the medical profession. For example, the negative term retarded has been relabeled cognitive impairment. I can only say that time will tell if this relabeling will be a change for the better. But as long as people such as Margaret Price keep pushing some of the issues like negative label only then will society pay closure attention to its own actions as a whole.

The Male and Female Brain Artifact

My artifact is an image of the male and female brain next to each other. This image was taken from a discussion by Dr. Oz on the Oprah. Dr. Oz was essentially discussing how the brain develops early in life and how certain events in a woman’s life such as pregnancy will lead to some shrinking in the brain. The main reason I choose this image was to have a side by side image for the class to see for themselves that even though the female brain is smaller it is not necessarily a case of “size matters.” I feel that by seeing this image the class will be stimulated to discuss that even if there is a size difference between the two brains displayed, it is not the real sex difference. The real problem with sex differences in neuroscience are due to the fact that they were developed with stereotyping and misrepresentation in conclusions of research involving male and female brains. One other point I would want to make it is that even though the female brain is not necessarily as big as the male’s there are some important facts to keep in mind. One of the best to think about is that according to the Huffington Post, of the ten smartest people still alive today one of those individuals is a woman by the name Judith Polgar with an estimated 170 IQ. This is just place emphasis on the ability of what men and women are truly capable of developing into. For the comparison of my artifact and our readings for today I couldn’t help but question what, if any, significant research has come from past research in the field of Psychology as it pertains to female and male brain activity. In the analysis of “Picking Barbie's^TM Brain” we see that the previous research preformed by Simon Baron-Cohen was not only incorrectly concluded and riddled with problems with such things as his operational definitions, but his entire hypothesis was based on finding sex differences. For his conclusion he wrote the results as if he had found a significant result when in fact he simply implied that due to there being a difference in his statistics it must be that female and male brains function differently thus supporting his hypothesis. However, I am pleased to see that the authors of the analysis article on such research pointed out the mistakes and enlightened the reader with the real problem with medical research in neuroscience and psychology. The running stereotype that if the female brain is smaller than the male brain then it is less capable to function as well as the larger male brain. This to me means that all research preformed in the past is riddled with this stereotype and possibly leading researchers down the wrong path of understanding knowledge capacities in both genders. As for the other reading for today, even though, it is more of an activist ideal it is still a step in the right direction for eliminating the stereotype of smaller brains functioning less than male brains in such matters as education. To me the reading of “Neurocultures Manifesto” is a piece of information that all new neuroscientist such keep in mind when starting their careers as researchers. In conclusion, based on the readings for today I say that previous research on neuroscience needs to be scrutinized if emphasis was placed on gender or sex differences. This is because the medical-scientific authority has filled its history books with the idea that the female brain is less functional in the educational sense due to its size when in fact if enough testing is produced then we might see a different answer altogether. Perhaps males are at a disadvantage that we never knew about, due to years of belief that female brains are simply inferior and therefore males will always be the more dominate species as it concerns the brain. Only time will tell if the world will start to understand that “size doesn’t matter” when it concerns the fully functioning brain of a male or female.  Discussion Questions:

1.    Do any of you believe that the stereotype of females having smaller brains has affected the society at large and spilled into other areas of concern other than the medical or scientific field?

2.    As it pertains to the “Picking Barbie’s Brain” article does anyone agree that previous research has been riddled with problems and has shaped our current beliefs about the neuroscience of women in a negative way? For example, the author of the study that was being analyzed concluded “We have demonstrated that at 1 day old, human neonates demonstrate sexual dimorphism in both social and mechanical perception. Male infants show a stronger interest in mechanical objects, while female infants show a stronger interest in the face.” But the authors of the article made the observation that this conclusion did not hold water by stating, “this conclusion incorporates comparisons that were not significant: Boys did not look at the mobile more than the face; they only looked at the mobile more than girls did, and girls did not look at the face more than boys did; they only looked at the face more than the mobile.

3.    As it pertains to the “Manifesto” article do you believe that some of the suggestions given by the authors will change the ideals of future neuroscientists if all new researchers are requested to read such an article, and if so how will it be affected in your own opinion? For example, the statement from the article, “We should all participate in negotiating these stakes. Neuroscientists are expanding their reach far beyond their training, into realms of philosophy, ethics, society, and culture. Scholars of these fields must return the favor. When boundaries are broken down between biology and culture, cultural theorists need to be as empowered to speak about biology as biologists are about culture.”

4.    Do you believe if the situation was turned around and males were the ones with the smaller brains would things be different in that one type of gender difference or would males find a way to turn it around and make it work to their advantage?
Here is the link to the picture of the male and female brain: https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&site=imghp&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1440&bih=799&q=male+and+female+brain&oq=male+and+female+brain&gs_l=img.3..0l4j0i5j0i24l5.955.6739.0.6926.30.23.2.5.5.1.991.3848.10j7j1j3j6-1.22.0...0.0...1ac.1.9.img.Lkeu297O950#hl=en&site=imghp&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=male+and+female+brain+dr.+oz&oq=male+and+female+brain+dr.+oz&gs_l=img.3...22365.23718.0.23893.7.7.0.0.0.0.89.463.7.7.0...0.0...1c.1.9.img.ySpzT1EJqKA&bav=on.2,or.r_qf.&bvm=bv.45175338,d.dmQ&fp=2d74829b90cb510&biw=1440&bih=799&imgrc=9QQr5hX8BkrMVM%3A%3BD2-hmWzicuCx9M%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fcache.jezebel.com%252Fassets%252Fimages%252F39%252F2008%252F10%252Foprahbrains_jez_Sm.flv.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fjezebel.com%252FHead-cases%252F%3B475%3B268

-William Webster

Prosthetics as Pro-war narrative, The aggression of War discourse.

I thought that it was interesting that in the examples we talked about last week, in the case of prosthetic limbs, that we primarily discussed WWII veterans. I was curious as to how the conversation might have been different if the examples used were cases of less popular wars. It struck me that we felt safe discussing war so long as we were talking about a "popular" war or one which we can space over half a century back.

I thought about how when it comes to injured vets, we tend to create hero structures not only as an admission of a probable horrible circumstance, but also as a way to adapt pro-war narratives without breaking them. It seems to me that equating wounded vets as "heroic" is an attempt to not only shape but to control discourse about military culture and about war. There's a sense of a large dis-service that is done when the young people of this country are sent over seas in occupational wars and in turn are violently injured as a consequence. War hungry "hawks" Imperializing the third world for the sake of U.S. posturing, and as a means to bolster U.S. dominance, find far too much comfort in "support our troops" yellow ribbon rhetoric.

The "heroicizing" of soldiers is difficult when many of our soldiers return home injured. Soldiers without limbs don't fit our conventional/traditional understandings of hero and therefore the discourse itself has to be reshaped in order to accommodate instead of ignoring injured vets, to broaden the idea of hero so that it can now sustain within it mutilated bodies. But the problem is that in creating the Heroic out of the brutally injured we attempt to alleviate or disregard any dis-service done to the young waves of people signing up for service in the U.S. military.

I'm not saying that injured vets are "un-heroic" (or insert any arbitrary binary opposition to "heroic). What I am saying is that the "Hero" narrative is a lie, and a dangerous lie at that. Instead of entitling individuals as "hero" we should consider more deeply the larger hands at work in order to be able to critically address our country's morally apprehensive Geo-political stance without feeling that such analysis is a disservice to the many U.S. military personal who have fought, served, and died in the service of their country.

It comes as no surprise the power of war rhetoric and all the ways in which war is at often times reduced to the "heroic" actions of "Soldier" (Army of One) in order to symbolize the "good" that is done by a U.S. military presence in just about every corner of the globe. With the war on terror exhibiting no signs of slowing down, I find it ironic that we are now considering wounded vets, a group of people who are arguably most affected by war (if not the neo-colonized themselves), as those who can be normalized and rightfully cared for by the employment and advancement of prosthetic limbs. And at least dully "compensated" by the corrections provided by adequate post-war medical care, and all the while being elevated to the status of "hero" in the process.



-Jayson Castillo

A little off topic...

So my post for this week doesn't necessarily directly relate to what we've been discussing recently, but it does relate to the idea of men as the "norm" and how men are still the preferred gender in our society. I would argue that disability is not just about someone who got injured and lost a limb, or someone who needs special assistance in a physical or mental way. I think anyone who is stigmatized, oppressed, and discriminated against is disabled, and this could include racial minorities and even women.

Patriarchy is still present no matter how many advances the women's movement have made. For anyone who doesn't think this is so, please check out the link below to see some products being sold by the popular store, Spencer's Gifts.

http://www.spencersonline.com/stuff-to-wear_guys-tees-clothing_tees_humor-attitude/sortType_newProducts/



(I had a difficult time copying and pasting all the examples I wanted to show, so the link will bring you to all the "humor" themed shirts for guys. Granted, some are funny! But I wanted to focus on the ones that specifically objectify women and "glorify" masculinity.)


Although some people may think that these things are just teasing and all in good fun, I would argue that it perpetuates the idea that men are dominate and women are subordinate. These thoughts further buy into patriarchy and can have damaging repercussions for women.  There is nothing healthy about teenage boys wearing a shirt that says "I have the dick so I make the rules" , "Calling all Sluts" or "Is it OK if I just call you Bitch?" It can make boys and men truly feel like they can treat women poorly; and may also make girls and women feel as though they deserve to be treated poorly.

Personally, I would like to boycott stores that sell these products and, essentially, are saying it's OK to say and believe these things. A friend of mine in another class even suggested having a company that sold shirts saying things such as "This is what a Feminist looks like" and "I will not live by gender binaries." I think it's just important to realize that even things that might seem innocent or funny can have damaging effects on people, and we need to make sure we practice what we preach. It's bad enough that some people really do think that these statements are OK, but I think it's just as bad as the people who know it's not OK but do it anyway. ("I don't really think that so it's fine! It's just a joke!") We need to be the ones to take a stand and fight against things if we don't believe in them, not just go along with it.