January 2012 – The Other Sociologist

Sociology of Race and Reproductive Health

Posted on Tuesday, 31 January, 2012Sunday, 28 June, 2020 by Dr Zuleyka Zevallos

Barron Lerner reports how, over time, scientists have protested the fact that three statues were built to commemorate gynecologist Marion Sims (in South Carolina, Alabama and New York City in the USA), but none have been built to acknowledge the sacrifice of his three main “test subjects” Lucy, Anarcha and Betsy.

“The story of J. Marion Sims is a reminder of how history gets rewritten over time. The hope, of course, is that each new account gets closer to the truth”.

Similarly, the history of the clinical trials for the oral contraceptive pill were tested on poor women in a small town in Puerto Rico in the 1950s. The women were deceived about their participation in the trial. They not told about the possible side effects of the untested drug. They did not give their informed consent. Many women died and had ongoing health complications as a result of the trials.

Today, many women in Western nations benefit from the experiments conducted on poor, enslaved and disempowered Black and Brown women, but few people know about the women whose health was compromised as a result. Additionally, for all the past sacrifices, poor women are less likely to benefit from scientific trials.

While Sims’ experiments have been attributed to the eradication of vesicovaginal fistulas in advanced countries, this is still a major problem for 3.5 million women in developing nations, particularly in different countries in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. The argument that unethical practices of the past might be excused for their present-day benefits is wilfully ignorant of the reality of who didn’t benefit back then and who hasn’t benefited today. In particular, impoverished Black women and other women of colour.

Otzi the Iceman

Posted on Wednesday, 25 January, 2012Tuesday, 23 April, 2019 by Dr Zuleyka Zevallos

More on Ötzi the Iceman. The South Tyrol Museum of Archeology reports that Ötzi is a “wet mummy”. This term refers to the fact that Ötzi’s cells have retained humidity even after 5,000 years. The Museum’s website documents that:

The body tissue is elastic and suitable for performing detailed scientific investigations. Moreover, he is a natural mummy, unaltered by burial rites or other interventions. The Iceman with his complete clothing and equipment provides a snapshot of Stone Age life in Europe.

In the video above Dr. Albert Zink, Director of the Institute for Mummies and the Iceman at Eurac, Bozen, talks about how Ötzi’s cells are being used in DNA studies. He has said:

the decoding of the Iceman’s genome offers us a unique opportunity to make important discoveries about the genetic bases of so-called common disorders such as diabetes and circulatory system diseases.

Fred Williams Abstract Landscapes

Posted on Wednesday, 25 January, 2012Tuesday, 23 April, 2019 by Dr Zuleyka Zevallos

Fred Williams (1973) Lysterfield Landscape.

Williams is one of Australia’s most revered abstract landscape painters. This piece helped make him an icon. The composition evokes a triptych structure, with its depiction of the swamp, hills and sky.

I have learned to appreciate the texture and emotion in Williams’ paintings. His reverence for the unique palette of the Australian bush has won me over. Over the past six years, I have taken many long drives interstate and not once did I fail to revel in the beauty of the Victorian countryside without thinking of Williams’ art.

Image source: gleneira.vic.gov.au

Hollywood Racism: The Magical Negro Trope

Posted on Tuesday, 24 January, 2012Tuesday, 23 April, 2019 by Dr Zuleyka Zevallos

By Zuleyka Zevallos

Adam Serwer reports in Mother Jones that George Lucas’ latest film, Red Tails had trouble getting made, partly because the “studios weren’t willing to finance a film without a White protagonist as an anchor”. Lucas’ claim can be put into wider historical context by examining the entrenched racist practices of big Hollywood studios. In particular, the idea of the “magical negro trope” puts things into perspective. This term refers to the way valiant Black characters in movies exist only as a narrative device to teach the White protagonist how to be a better person. I also delve into other variations of the “magical negro” and the gendered dimensions of these characters. Hollywood studios bemoan that paying audiences have stopped going to the cinemas. Is it any wonder, when big productions treat us all as if we’re stuck in some arcane mono-cultural bubble?

Continue reading Hollywood Racism: The Magical Negro Trope

Anime and the Social Construction of Race

Posted on Thursday, 19 January, 2012Sunday, 5 May, 2019 by Dr Zuleyka Zevallos

A common misconception about anime cartoons amongst uninitiated audiences in majority-English-speaking countries is that anime characters are drawn to look ‘White’ rather than ‘Asian’. First of all, neither of terms are factual fixed categories – they are social constructions. That is, the meaning attached to race, whether ‘White’, ‘Black’, ‘Asian’ and so on, and the groups classified under these labels, change from one society to another, depending upon culture, time and place.

In an excellent exploration of the social construction of race in popular culture, sociologist Julian Abagond shows that Japanese animators do not, in fact, draw anime characters to personify their aspiration to be ‘white’. Instead, these characters reflect the animators’ own cultural biases – which is that Japanese people are the prototype model of the ’default human being’. Continue reading Anime and the Social Construction of Race

‘Wretched Embrace”: Art of John Perceval

Posted on Thursday, 19 January, 2012Tuesday, 23 April, 2019 by Dr Zuleyka Zevallos

John Perceval (1943) Boy With Cat 2.

Deborah Hart, writing for the National Gallery of Australia:

Portraits of children often create a nostalgic aura around the idea of childhood, casting these formative years in a rosy glow. Idyllic portraits of children, posed in comfortable rooms or playing in gardens, accompanied by tame, loyal family pets, abound in the history of art. John Perceval turns this romantic notion on its head with his terrifying image Boy with cat 2. Here the boy is locked in a wretched embrace with a wild cat. With sharp claws bared, extended tail bristling and demonic red eyes, the feline creature looks up at the boy who has his eyes shut tight; his face contorted in pain. Gradually, as we contemplate this image, we realise that the cat is inseparable from the boy—a projection of his own tortured state of mind.

Perceval created astonishing expressive images in the 1940s. Like his friends Arthur Boyd, Sidney Nolan, Joy Hester and Albert Tucker, he was concerned about the fate of humanity during the war years, and was able to express anxieties in personal and universal ways. The emotive tenor of Boy with cat 2 recalls the German Expressionists, while the shallow stage set echoes the surrealist artist, Giorgio de Chirico.

Personal childhood memories also play a part. When Perceval was only eighteen months old, his parents’ marriage broke up and his mother departed the family home. A sense of early abandonment along with memories of his father’s violent outbursts informed his emotional and artistic landscapes. For instance, Perceval was traumatised by his father’s insistence that his small son and daughter decapitate chickens on the farm for the family meal. The difficulty of coordination for a child ‘holding a live neck in the left hand while landing an axe with the right’ was a chilling memory.[2] In Boy with cat 2 the creature rising up epitomises a desperate struggle for physical and emotional survival. Perceval’s affliction with polio as a teenager cast another long shadow.

Later in life Perceval battled with alcoholism and psychological disturbance that may partly be related to his early experiences. The intense power of Boy with cat 2 was undoubtedly informed by a depth of feeling that both points to Perceval’s own circumstances and transcends them. He reminds us that childhood is often fraught with difficulty; fodder for great art but often far from the proverbial bed of roses.
[2] T Allen, John Perceval, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, 1992, p 11.

Source: cs.nga.gov.au

Making asexuality more visible

Posted on Wednesday, 18 January, 2012Sunday, 14 April, 2019 by Dr Zuleyka Zevallos

A BBC News article features the story of 21 year old Jenni Goodchild who identifies as asexual, meaning that she has no interest in having sex. She talks about how this impacts on her relationship with her boyfriend who is not asexual. Goodchild is a romantic asexual, which means that despite her lack of interest in sex, she does enjoy the intimacy of being physically and emotionally involved with her partner. Aromantic asexuals are not interested in sex nor in experiencing emotional and physical intimacy with another person within an intimate relationship. The article features British sociologist Mark Carrigan. He talks about the marginalisation that asexual people experience in British society, and how the activism of The Asexual Visibility and Education Network (AVEN) has helped to lift the social status of asexual individuals. Carrigan says that as asexuality is discussed more publicly, this may ultimately change how societies understand the complexity of human sexuality:

For instance there wasn’t a concept of heterosexuality before there were homosexuals,“ says Carrigan. "It was only when there were people calling themselves homosexuals that it made sense for anyone to think of themselves as heterosexual.
If it is true that up to 1% of the population are asexual and more people are aware of them, will that change how ‘sexual’ people think about themselves, because there is not really a good word to refer to people who aren’t asexual.

Gender differences in maths abilities varies in different countries

Posted on Wednesday, 18 January, 2012Sunday, 12 May, 2019 by Dr Zuleyka Zevallos

Writing for Sociological Images, Philip N. Cohen reports that the stereotype that men are innately better at maths than women is not supported by the evidence. He uses data from an international study by Jonathan Kane and Janet Mert, published in the Notices of the American Mathematical Society. Cohen writes:

The main message I get is that gender ability in math differs so much across social contexts that any conclusion about “natural” ability is untenable. Also, gender equality is good.

Cohen writes:

In the Czech Republic there is no difference in either the means or the distributions for boys versus girls, and the average ability is high. Bahrain shows a much greater variance for boys versus girls — which is sometimes used to explain why to many top achievers are men — but women’s average is higher. Finally, in Tunisia the girls have a higher variance but a lower mean. Where’s the natural ability story?

Homo Academicus Redux

Posted on Wednesday, 18 January, 2012Sunday, 12 May, 2019 by Dr Zuleyka Zevallos

jtotheizzoe:

Shit Scientists Say

I’m a little tired of the “Shit ____ Say/Don’t Say” meme already, but I’ll make an exception for this one. It’s mildly hilarious.

Stochastic.

(by RoseEveleth)

zeezeescorner:

Pretty good parody video. “In conclusion more research is required” (ha!).

Part of the joke in this video is the little regard some scientists have for treating living beings empathically and ethically, instead referring to animals and people as disposable tools: “Do you have an extra monkey?” “Hey, you got an extra undergrad?”. And feeling superior to everything and everyone: “She keeps talking about her Nature paper, but she was only the third author”. “I mean there’s science and then there’s social science”.

Funnily enough apart from this remark, the only science portrayed in this video are the natural sciences. Yes, this is a reflection of the producers of the video (who may be natural scientists doing a parody), but this is also indicative of how science is constructed in the public imagination. Plus on Tumblr I might add: the science and social science tags are separate, though I’ve yet to see social science show up in the science stream. (Also our thread has no editors, which I know some other sociologists have pointed out.)

Before we sociologists get up on our moral high horse about scientific superiority, I have heard some amazing derision amongst our peers, particularly from senior academics putting down applied sociologists.

Where does all this science holier-than-thou-shit come from? Read Bourdieu Homo Academicus, where he talks about how scientific disciplines structure knowledge, status and symbolic power. Here’s a clue, where Bourdieu quotes Hobbes: “Reputation of power is power”.

Ahh science, science, where for art thou science…