Hey folks, I have a student who wants to interview women bloggers. Specifically, she needs women activist bloggers or as she put it bloggers with a cause. The cause could be political, so women political bloggers are welcomed, in addition to other activists.
She will be conducting the interview on-line. If you are interested in participating please contact her at veronica.vega@my.liu.edu
Thanks for your help.
A few months after my boys were born I stumbled across a message board for twin moms, I really started to enjoy the tips and the sense of community that I gained from reading and posting on the site. One of the things I enjoyed most was the forum for breastfeeding mothers, which gave me a strong sense of belonging and encouragement, and at that time, I needed encouragement. Breastfeeding was and is a struggle for me. I don’t know how things would be different if I was trying to feed only one baby, but I know breastfeeding two babies is one of the hardest things I have done. While the Mommy message board is a great source of support for breastfeeding, it’s also a place where many of the most contentious elements of motherhood and womanhood are laid bare. Sometimes it’s the stereotypical Mommy Wars– women in the paid labor force and women not in the paid labor force– but one of the more contentious debates is the bottle vs. breast debate.
As Hugo points out one subset of the Mommy Wars, is the “boob wars”:
And I’ve become aware of what might, for lack of a better term, be called the “boob war” — a sub-conflict within the larger “Mommy War” that continues to rage, exasperating and frightening and dividing women. And into this fight comes a bombshell article in the new Atlantic Monthly: Hanna Rosin’s The Case Against Breastfeeding. More on the article later. (Cap taps, belatedly and with apologies, to Rod Dreher and to Scott.)
The term “Mommy Wars” generally refers to the public and private debates, common among the middle and upper-middle classes of the developed world, about what makes a “good” mother. For years, the chief front in these wars has been the battle over daycare and work outside the home, though other conflicts rage in areas like nutrition and natural childbirth….
I read the Rosin piece; someone posted it on the twin Mommy board. I felt a great deal of sympathy for the mother who posted it. She said it helped her to feel less guilt about not breastfeeding, and from that point a discussion ensued with many formula feeding mother’s talking about how they feel that breastfeeding mothers are looking upon them unfavorably.
I’ll be frank; I don’t like the article, but there is one part of the article that stands out as true to me1 :
In her critique of the awareness campaign, Joan Wolf, a women’s-studies professor at Texas A&M University, chalks up the overzealous ads to a new ethic of “total motherhood.” Mothers these days are expected to “optimize every dimension of children’s lives,” she writes. Choices are often presented as the mother’s selfish desires versus the baby’s needs.
I have a great deal of empathy with mothers today who are striving to mother under a mothering ideology that demands perfection. What I also find fascinating is how both breastfeeding and formula feeding mothers really have the same underlying feelings; both groups feeling that their decision on infant feeding is not respected. Anytime these kinds of issues come up the Mommy board mantra is “do what works for you” “don’t judge each other’s parenting.” The down side is that this places limitations on honest communications between these mothers, and the upside is that mother’s, who are already operating under ideology that demands parenting perfection, feel validated.
Nevertheless, topics like this are hotly contested on Mommy boards, and one thing I find most fascinating is that many Mommies blame each other, not the dominant ideology. Here’s how I respond to the debate over this article on the Mommy board:
Women’s “choices” are often very heavily scrutinized, I wouldn’t say it’s primarily from women but from the entire society, and the hidden radical feminist in me says it’s because women as a class are not truly free. Every behavior that we engage in is held to a different set of standards than our male counterparts, and as you say we damned if we do and damned if we don’t. The can be extended to the abortion debate, the SAHM (stay at home mom) vs. working mom debate, debates over women and domestic violence, debates over women and plastic surgery, debates over hormone replacement therapy, and the list could go on and on. And I guess what bothers me is that we consistently divide women into dichotomies–e.i. virgins/w*hores, good girls and bad girls, bi*ches and nice girls. Thus, all of our behaviors are viewed in this context. I use the term choices loosely because I think that society convinces us that we have more choices than we really do. So many of our behaviors (or “choices”) occur in a societal context where we are so heavily scrutinized that our freedom is limited. It’s limited by peer pressure, it’s limited by sexism; it’s limited by patriarchal ideology; it’s limited by bottom line capitalism; it’s limited by racism; it’s limited by poverty; and I’m sure I could come up with a host of other factors that tell us “choices” are not just personal decisions.
Unfortunately this is where this crabs in a barrel problem comes in because we all feel heavily scrutinized but rather than blaming the social system that creates this mess we blame each other, and no matter what our so called “choice,” the constraints on our full personhood are still there.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t also say that constraints on mothering are radically different in diverse groups of women. For example, the breastfeeding vs. formula feeding debate has much different meaning for middle and upper income white women living in the US than it does for poor women of color in developing countries. The the structures of gender, race, class, sexuality, and nationhood operate simultaneously.
I’m not one who think women all have to tow the line and agree with each other, but what gets lost in translation is how social forces much greater than us shape our “choices” to formula feed, breastfeed, or combo feed our kids.
I started my boys on computers early. I found it was great way to break the monotony of breastfeeding twins, so once I figured the breastfeeding out, I would sit and read articles on the web while I fed them. I couldn’t really write much because I needed at least one hand to balance them, but they were able to figure out the keyboard.
In these pictures my Eli was 3 months old, and by this point, I had to stop feeding him (or only do it when he was really tired) while reading on the computer because he loved the computer. He was obsessed with that screen saver, and as you can see in the third picture he knew how to push the buttons on the touch pad mouse. It’s amazing what kids can pick up. Now at 8 months, I can’t let him near the computer he goes crazy and tries to bang the keys and the mouse.
I think we have a future blogger on our hands.
I think it’s fair to say that immigrants have long been positive contributors to the US economy. In recent years, highly skilled immigrants have filled high demand jobs in science, technology, and health care related fields. Many of these immigrants have attended US universities and have advanced degrees. They are relatively well positioned in US society, so why would they leave?
According to Vivek Wadhwa in this article from business Week, the pull to emigrate (Remember emigration with an “E” means exit.) back to their countries of origin has several origins. The researchers on Wadhwa’s team, surveyed Chinese and Indian emigrants. Some reasons given were personal and cultural,
Returnees cited language barriers, missing their family and friends at home, difficulty with cultural assimilation, and care of parents and children as key issues.
Another factor for the return was bureaucratic barriers that visa seekers faced in the US.
However, there were several pull factors that lead emigrants to feel they would have more opportunities in their countries of origin:
Eighty-seven percent of Chinese and 79% of Indians said a strong factor in their original decision to return home was the growing demand for their skills in their home countries. Their instincts generally proved right. Significant numbers moved up the organization chart. Among Indians the percentage of respondents holding senior management positions increased from 10% in the U.S. to 44% in India, and among Chinese it increased from 9% in the U.S. to 36% in China. Eighty-seven percent of Chinese and 62% of Indians said they had better opportunities for longer-term professional growth in their home countries than in the U.S. Additionally, nearly half were considering launching businesses and said entrepreneurial opportunities were better in their home countries than in the U.S.
The researchers don’t mention discrimination here in the US as a factor, but these statistics don’t preclude it as a possibility. In previous studies, many Asian Americans, from both immigrant and non-immigrant backgrounds have reported difficulties in promotions. These difficulties can be related to immigration status, ethnicity, or race.
Given the terrible state of the economy, I wonder if the sacrifice of leaving one’s culture and family isn’t being offset by financial rewards here in the US. I’ve also read recent reports about a decline in remittances sent to Mexico and other countries. This could mean either immigrants are living here but keeping money for themselves and/or immigrants are returning to their home countries. Then again, these trends may have been happening even without the economic down turn since the economies in places like India and China are rapidly expanding.
This kid is the master of facial expressions. I’ve caught him making some of the goofiest faces. He was making this face over and over again a few weeks ago. Believe it or not he actually likes the spinach, but he just has a funny way of showing it.
I don’t agree with every little tidbit of his speech, but I do think he’s right. The deny, avoid, ignore pattern is so prevalent when it comes to race, and it doesn’t serve the interest of racial justice at all.
Here’s a quote about Holder’s speech, and a link to the entire article:
In a speech to Justice Department employees marking Black History Month, Holder said the workplace is largely integrated but Americans still self-segregate on the weekends and in their private lives.
In the speech, Holder urged people of all races to use Black History Month as a chance for honest discussion of racial matters, including issues of health care, education and economic disparities.
“Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial we have always been and I believe continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards,” Holder said.
Race issues continue to be a topic of political discussion, but “we, as average Americans, simply do not talk enough with each other about race.”
Holder’s speech echoed President Barack Obama’s landmark address last year on race relations during the hotly contested Democratic primaries, when the then-candidate urged the nation to break “a racial stalemate we’ve been stuck in for years” and bemoaned the “chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.” Obama delivered the speech to try to distance himself from the angry rhetoric of his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
Holder cited that speech by Obama as part of the motivation for his words Wednesday, saying Americans need to overcome an ingrained inhibition against talking about race.
“If we’re going to ever make progress, we’re going to have to have the guts, we have to have the determination, to be honest with each other. It also means we have to be able to accept criticism where that is justified,” Holder told reporters after the speech.
So as many of you have probably noticed I’ve been MIA at my site and here at Alas for the past year. I try to put up the occasional post, but taking care of two infants is really overwhelming. I promised myself I would get back to blogging when the babies slept through the night, and finally last week, after 8 months we had to let the boys cry it out. I decided not to feed them anymore in the night, and it only took one night for them to sleep through the night.
I’m already starting to feel better, and I’m getting my mojo back. My career and my site have been suffering, and I’ve decided I’m the poster child for family leave.
On another note, my email is messed up. This weekend I was going through my email, which has really piled up, and I realized I’ve been having email troubles. Several emails I’ve sent haven’t gone through. I’ve been receiving messages (I think I’ve gotten all them them, but who knows.), but there was a problem with the server where messages weren’t going out. In the fog of my sleep deprivation, I somehow missed that this was happening, so if you wrote me and didn’t get a response, I’m sorry. It seems that my emails was not working properly, and I don’t know how long its been happening.
In the meantime, I’m excited about blogging and writing again. It may be at a slower pace, but my goal is 2 substantive/original posts a week, and 2 general posts a week. There are so many things to write about. We are in the Obama era, and I have a lot to say about our first black President. I’m also starting a new blog about parenting and diversity, which I will unveil soon.
I’m happy to be back, and thanks for sticking with me through the semi-hiatus. I’ll also try to add some baby blogging, so you guys can see how the boys have grown.
This is baby blogging, but it’s also a post about gender. As most of you know by know, I have two little boys, and one thing I really like to do is dress them in cute little outfits. Over the past few months, as I’ve perused the baby departments at numerous stores, I came to the conclusion that I like the clothes made for boys clothes better than I like the clothes made for girls. It’s not that I don’t like frilly dresses and ruffles. What I like about boys clothes is the bright primary colors that are more common in clothes marketed for infant and toddler boys and the themes used in both boy clothing and gender neutral clothing. My favorite themes are usually animal themed clothes, and above all else I like ducks and frogs–probably because yellow and green are my favorite colors. In my view frogs and ducks are generally androgynous, but many animal themed clothes are marketed for boys. For example, dogs, dinosaurs, lizards, bugs, and turtles are often found in boys clothing. I’ve also noticed two other common sets of themes that I like in baby boys clothing–occupational themes and activity themes. As I was looking through my little guys clothes, I noticed several outfits that had themes related to predominantly male (and mostly working class) occupations. The outfits they are wearing above are firemen themed. In the first picture, Mark’s shirt has a firetruck on it, and in the second picture Eli’s shirt says, “Chief Fire Dog to the Rescue.” I’ve also see baby boy clothes with policemen, construction worker, mechanic, pilot, and soldier themes. Activity themes involve clothes the promote going on safaris, hunting, fishing, eating, playing sports, and one outfit my little guys have promotes making robots (which could also be construed as an engineer’s outfit).
What strikes me about baby boys clothes is how much they promote activity and paid labor force work. Even as infants, we start to socialize baby boys into occupations. You rarely find occupation themed clothes for girls. Little girls clothes often have flowers, frills, and some animals (i.e. butterflies), but they don’t have occupational themes. They also rarely have activity themes outside of shopping or cheerleading. In fact, to me the worst subset of little girls clothes are those that say princess or diva. Diva is oftten used in a derisive way to indicate that the girl is overly demanding, and unlike the fireman or construction worker a princess doesn’t earn her title–she’s born with it or marries into it. Princess themed clothes also seem to play up baby girls looks–looking like a princess means looking pretty. I’ve seen a few shirts that have messages about boys being handsome or cute, but those are much less common.
One of the reasons that baby clothes are so strongly gendered is that babies themselves are often androgynous. If you put them only in a diaper, it’s often hard to tell what sex the baby is, but that androgyny doesn’t fit well into our gender polarized society, so this is where the clothes come in. Those clothes have underlying and blatant messages. Baby boy clothes have subtle and not so subtle messages. They say–be active, be bold, enjoy the outdoors, and get a paid job. It doesn’t seem that baby girls clothing has similar messages.
When I was reading Racialicious a while back I ran across this New York Times article, which notes that political pundits are more diverse than ever before:
Both MSNBC and CNN this election season have given new prominence to a handful of contributing commentators from varied backgrounds and perspectives: blacks, Hispanics and women. Whether such moves signal real progress in diversifying the punditocracy or merely reflect the needs of a particular news cycle is the question, some media experts say. The most prominent positions on television remain overwhelmingly with those who are white and male, and some critics note how striking that non-inclusion can seem during this election year.
As someone who has watched political shows for years, this is the first election where I have seen many panels with multiple white women, multiple African Americans, or any African American women (besides Donna Brazile). Overall this is a good sign.
There is still room for improvement. First of all, it appears that women of all races and men of color are not getting to be the primary host for political related shows. For example, take MSNBC, which had had a huge surge in viewers and is attempting to have a more liberal bent than the other networks, all but one of their shows has white men as the primary host–Keith Olbermann, David Gregory, Tom Brokaw, and Chris Matthews. The lone exception is Rachel Maddow, who is the new kid on the block. While the people who appear on those shows as commentators have become diverse the hosts still are not. A brief trip around the Sunday morning political shows reveals the same phenomenon. I also rarely see Asian American or Native American pundits, which is an other area where there can be improvements.
One of the more interesting observations I have about the racial make-up of Black and Latino political pundits– is that conservatives are overrepresented. I frequently see conservative Black and Latino pundits. If the pundits matched the political inclinations of these two groups, one would expect conservative Black pundits to be rare (definitely less than 20%) and conservative Latino pundits a little more common, but still less than half.
In spite of the areas for improvement that I identified above, I am very impressed with the dramatic difference over previous presidential elections. I’m not sure what the exact reasons are for this. Maybe it helps that we have had one black man and two white women who are knocking their heads on the glass ceiling that has kept everyone but white men out of our highest political office.1 Maybe the networks were already trending in this direction–I tend to think they were moving in this direction, but they got a little jolt from the emergence of Obama and Clinton as groundbreaking candidates.
What do you think?
One of the neat things about having infants is that they reach developmental milestones almost daily. My little Mark is really good with his eyes. He loves to follow things, and last week he found someone he really likes….
Yes, he found himself. He doesn’t know that baby in the mirror is Mark, but he sure likes to look at that baby. Actually, he likes to look at the baby until the baby frowns then he gets mad and starts crying.
When I first started teaching I taught a class called “Prejudice and Discrimination,” in order to get my students to examine race, class, gender, and sexuality issues (later I added disability) I gave them an assignment where they had to watch a TV program, and analyze it from a sociological perspective. Basically, I wanted them to apply a theory from sociology to the program they chose. It was 2000, and one student did his analysis on the Olympics. He decided to use what I’ll call a functionalist multicultural perspective. In sociology, functionalism is a conservative theoretical view that argues that society is made up of interrelated and interdependent parts, which work together to create stability harmony, and order. Functionalists generally want to minimize change, and they tend to see everything having a functional purpose. The competing theory is conflict theory. Conflict theorists see a society that is driven over competition for scarce resources–in particular they see conflict stemming from the competition between society’s haves and have nots. Since conflict theory is inspired by some insights of Marxism, conflict theorists believe that social change is necessary.
In my student’s view, the Olympics were great because they brought all the people of the world together. Furthermore, everybody was competing on an equal playing field. He also felt that the spirit of the Olympic movement wiped out race, class, gender, and sexuality issues. In other words, the Olympics made all of these things moot, and nobody cared about any of these things when watching the Olympics.
Sarcastically, I asked myself–is this student watching the same Olympics as I am. I suppose when we take a functionalist view, the Olympics is a sample of stability and harmony, but I don’t see how we can watch the Olympics without noticing the haves and have nots of the world. While one can see some functionalist elements at the Olympics; you have to be deliberately obtuse to miss how Olympic competition is just as much about the social inequalities between groups.
Let’s start with gender. If you watched careful, there were a few occasions when I saw events for men labeled in a neutral way–i.e. the basketball finals– but events for women were labeled as women’s events–i.e. the women’s basketball finals. Isn’t it interesting that even though women participate in most sports at the Olympics, the men’s events are still central in most of those sports. I’ve also noticed that some countries have significantly fewer successful women athletes, and that is often related to the limited number of opportunities for women to compete in those countries. Think about those Kenyan and Ethiopian runners–it has only been recent that women in those countries have been recruited and trained to run like their male counterparts. I also couldn’t stand looking at yahoo during the Olympics where butt shots of women’s beach volleyball players were consistently in the top 10. Don’t get me wrong these women were talented, but it was obvious that their skimpy uniforms were part of the reason the networks had them in primetime.
What about Patriotism and ethnocentrism? As a very public sociologist noted in the thread last week, the US media listed the medal count as opposed to the gold medal count. China ran away with the gold medal count, but I guess it makes us look better to note that we won more over all medals. You could also see the bias in coverage. For the most part if the US wasn’t doing good in an event, then the coverage of that event was either non-existent or relegated to a sound bite. I’ve always felt that the Olympics is largely about Patriotism; it’s a way for countries to feel good about themselves and their people, a way to show strength (quite literally). In the 1936 Olympics, Hitler wanted to prove how great the “Aryan” race was, but he was upstaged by the great African American athlete Jesse Owens. This was the classic example of the political clashes that often occur at the Olympics. Don’t get me wrong, there are events that symbolize coming together in spite of our differences–this year the Georgian and Russian competitors in the Women’s air pistol certainly would be an example. But overall, the examples of countries trying to upstage each other or athletes coming to be representatives for the social and political causes of their nations are probably more numerous. The Olympics are a competition after all.
The other issue that I’m reminded of is global inequality and its connection to immigration. I was struck by how the US and China dominated the competition, but one thing I noticed in particular is how many top athletes representing the US were born in other countries and, in many cases, competed for those countries in the past. I noticed a former Chinese ping pong player, a former Kenyan distance runner, and a Trinidadian sprinter. Under the 1965 immigration Act, these immigrants are given the fast track to citizenship because of their special skills.1 The US obviously benefits, as do many other Western countries. These athletes are able to leave poor countries and head to wealthier ones. When we are talking about science and occupations, this is called the brain drain. Perhaps in sports it should be called the “muscle hustle.” ; ) Wealthy countries siphon off the top athletes from poor countries; moreover, many of the athletes from poor countries train, compete, and live in wealthy nations. I don’t know how many people noticed how many of the West Indian (such as Trinidadian, Jamaican, Bahamian) sprinters attend college and train in the US. I’d be curious to know how many of these athletes are able to stay in the US because of their skills.
Now I haven’t even touched on racism in this already long post, so I’ll keep it brief. Sport is often used as a way to reinforce racial stereotypes. Rather than connecting the racial make-up of an Olympic sports team to social opportunities, many try to assert biological distinctions between races, ignoring those who defy racial stereotypes and ignoring economic and social factors that result in racial differences. (Feel free to share your own examples for this one.)
What do you think? How does conflict theory play out at the Olympics? What ways do you think the Olympics represents a functionalist world view?
Did you think that you would live long enough to see the first African American Presidential candidate nominated from a major party?
I sure didn’t. I did think that I would live long enough to see a white woman be a Presidential candidate for a major party, but I didn’t think I would see an African American President candidate for a major party. Now there’s a good shot that I will see an African American President–that’s a major milestone.
My little Eli is really growing fast. He’s been making talking sounds for a long time, and he tries to imitate people who talk to him. He kept saying some word that sounded like okra, so we tried to get him to make a long O sound. Here’s a youtube video of my husband trying to get him to say Obama. He comes pretty close to saying it. Of course, according to my mommy ears he actually said Obama. He also likes to say uncle, good, and his favorite made up word is “enguh.”
Over the past 2 months I’ve been inundated with baby care. My life has revolved mainly around feeding and diapering 2 little ones, so needless to say I haven’t had much time to blog, but I promise I haven’t given up blogging. I haven’t checked my email or my site, so if you wrote me, I’m just now getting it.
A few weeks after the little guys were born I pledged that I would get back to blogging when they started sleeping through the night–that hasn’t happened yet. But I figure I can put up a couple posts a week until they actually sleep more than 3 hours at a time.
In the meanwhile, here are a few pictures from their first week. The first picture is of Eli in the hospital. We spiked his hair. I think it helps to get a perspective of how big/small they where when you look at them next to their Daddy’s hands. Like most babies, they lost weight in the first few days of life, but what’s more amazing is how much they have grown since then. In this picture, Eli weighed around 7 lbs, and in the picture at the bottom Mark weighs a little less than 6lbs. They were really big for twins, and I admittedly was really happy when I looked at them in the nursery and they didn’t look any different from the singleton babies. That was a great relief for me, because, being a mom of twins, I was at a greater risk for pregnancy related complications, which lingered in the back of my mind throughout the whole pregnancy. I was very fortunate to give birth at 38 weeks and have two big boys. I’ll add more recent pictures over the next few weeks.
And finally, Daddy, Babies, and Mommy want to thank everyone for their well wishes.
We welcomed our twins into the world last Friday via C-section. Eli arrived weighing 7lbs. 3oz., at 8:16 AM. He was 19 inches long. His Nigerian name is Emeka. Mark arrived weighing 6lbs. 5oz., at 8:18 AM. He was 18 inches long. His Nigerian name is Akholisa.
We made a video of their arrival. They may have broken the recorded for the loudest birth. The doctors and nurses were all laughing as were Dad and I. They screamed like this for the entire time it took to repair my my incision–I’m guessing about 30 minutes.
Let me start by asking a question. Did anyone see Clinton’s, McCain’s, and Obama’s Tuesday night speeches in their entirety?
I watched Clinton and Obama both, but I missed McCain. One thing that struck me about Clinton and Obama is that I didn’t notice either one of them make note of the historic significance of having the first black nominee for President on a major party ticket. In contrast, both of them noted the groundbreaking campaign by Hillary Clinton, arguing that she was blazing a path for women, but I didn’t hear the same for Obama. Isn’t that an interesting distinction between racial politics and gender politics? The colorblind ideology silences almost any public discussion of racism by black candidates, who are vying for white votes. In contrast, we don’t have as much silence on the gender front (from the candidates). That has been a fairly consistent pattern in this Presidential election over the past few months. I’m not saying racism or sexism is a greater barrier to being elected President, but I think it is clear that they operate in different ways.
Furthermore, any complicated analysis that examines the interactions and intersections of race, gender, age, sexuality, and class are almost always missing from pundits and candidates analysis. I remember the point in the election when Hillary Clinton talked about getting pushed around by the boys (apparently it was on the Ellen DeGeneres show). While I can relate to being pushed around by the boys and having that make me stronger, I don’t believe for one minute that Hillary was being pushed around by any black boys. I know I sure wasn’t. I was getting pushed around by the whites boys who I went to school with. They were all white, presumably heterosexual1, and from class backgrounds remarkably similar to my own. I never heard any TV pundits point this out–Clinton wasn’t being pushed around by black boys.
All that said, why do you think there is a difference in a candidate’s ability to talk about his or her groundbreaking accomplishments in relation to race and gender? Do you think the political realm is exceptional in this way? Or do you things may be different in other fields? Why do you think it is so difficult to have a discussion that captures the intersections and complexities of various forms of social inequality?
(Not yet proofread; please bear with me.)
For me, one of the most striking things about pregnancy has been how pregnancy affects embodiment. In particular, I’m referring to how societal interactions and structures make affect social psychology and social interaction. One of the things I’ve noticed in the last few months of my pregnancy is the tendency for people to move over when I walk by them.
I first noticed this among men, especially younger men. It was almost like they would jump out of my way when they saw me coming. Some were clearly being gracious and definitely trying to be polite and considerate, and others looked almost scared, as if I was going to go into labor on the spot. What was fairly consistent was a lack of verbal interaction or sustained eye contact. Older men (those who seem to be over 50), have had very different reactions. They tend to hold doors, make more eye contact, and even strike up conversations. I’ve notice a little bit of difference in relation to ethnicity. Since I live in a neighborhood with many immigrants and different racial groups, I have day to day interactions with many men from different racial and ethnic backgrounds. In my own experience, both Latino and West African men (not African American, but West Africans) are much more likely to have to smiling, friendly, excited reaction. It seems that American born men (or those who are heavily assimilated), regardless, of race are more likely to jump out of the way and avoid eye contact. It is possible that many Latin American and West African cultures are very pronatalist that men view pregnant women in different ways than American men.1
As for women, it took much longer for women to do the move over thing. I’ve only noticed women moving over in the past few weeks when my stomach has been huge2 My experience has been that women are less likely than men to give this pregnant woman extra physical space. When women do move out of the way, it feels different. It rarely feels like their scared, but I do get a sense of pity from some of the women who move over. For most of the women who have a noticeable reaction to my pregnant body, their physical reaction is not really one of distancing themselves. They tend to try to do helpful things like hold the elevator, and then ask the programmed questions like: “When are you due?” “What are you having, boy or girl3?” Women, especially older women, may offer their own personal stories. Although I’ve also had some elderly and young women, act in a way that I interpreted as rude. For example, I’ve had a few cases of elderly women rushing to get ahead of me in line, which I would generally ignore if I wasn’t pregnant. I think there is an interesting conflict between women who are slowed because they are pregnant and women who are slowed because they are older. In terms, of ethnicity I haven’t noticed many differences. The Latinas in my neighborhood tend to have the most favorable reactions, but I felt that I had more pleasant interactions with Latinas before I was pregnant, so it is hard to know how much pregnancy has changed my interactions. I know I’ve had several cases of women speaking to me in Spanish about the babies, and I speak enough Spanish to communicate a little. I’m not comfortable generalizing about racial or ethnic differences in women in relation to moving over, but I think there are other race/class/gender differences in how women react to pregnant bodies or the idea of pregnancy.
The other factor that seems to influence how men and women react to my pregnant body in public interactions is the whether or not I’m alone, with a woman, or with a man. When I’m with my husband, I don’t get as many move over reactions from anybody, male or female. Moving over seems to happen more when I’m with women or, especially, when I’m by myself. I think when I’m with a man, who appears to be my partner, people think I have someone to “take care of me,” so they don’t feel compelled to respond.
From a social psychological perspective, this has made me very aware of my pregnant body. I rarely forget about being pregnant when I’m out in public. Of course, the smiles and other reactions make a big difference in how I interact, but the one that I really notice most is the move over reaction. That reaction has made me a little more sensitive to people with visible, physical disabilities. I don’t see pregnancy as a disability, but I think there are similarities in how people reaction to disabled bodies and pregnant bodies. Moving over is definitely one thing both groups have in common. I can see how people in each group can have their sense of self altered by these repeated move over interactions.
Hey folks it’s Rachel. I figured I’d give everyone an update.
Yes, my posting has been limited lately. I’m slowly getting prepared for the babies, and then we had some computer trouble last week, so needless to say I’ve been preoccupied with other things.
I’ve been really lucky because I haven’t had any major problems. I’ve also had a total of zero contractions, no high blood pressure, no diabetes, and no other common pregnancy problems. My doctor did suggest taking time off from work at 34 weeks. I think that is fairly standard with twins since twin pregnancies are generally more taxing on the body than singleton pregnancies. Fortunately, my semester ended right at that time, so I didn’t have to worry about going to my job. It was just the right time to stop because I really can’t be on my feet for more than 10-15 minutes without having back, hip, and buttock pain.
The babies are doing well. Since “discordance,” which is basically large differences in size or growth of multiples, is a potential problem I have to get them measured every 3 weeks. I get an ultrasound, and the neonatalogist and ultrasound tech measure their size, heart rate, amniotic fluid, and several other measures of health and growth. At 33 weeks and a half weeks, they weighed 5lbs. 1oz. each. I was happy to see that their sizes are the same because baby A was getting ahead of baby B, but B finally caught up. At this rate, I may have two 7lb. babies. That’s not big for a single baby, but it’s pretty big for twins–I just keeping thinking, “My body will likely be carrying 14lbs. of baby.” The seem to be dropping, and right now they have their heads down, so I may be able to push both of them out without a C-section.
Unless they want to come sooner, I’ll probably be delivering them at 38 weeks.
While I finish up grading my 1000 papers (I’m exaggerating a little), I figured I’d open up the discussion about the election. We have two big primaries today in Indiana and North Carolina. What are your thoughts? Any pressing issues you want to bring up. Anybody in Indiana or North Carolina, feel free to let us know what’s going on in you’re voting district.
I don’t really know what people mean when they say “playing the race card.” To me, 9 times out of 10 it’s really means “stop talking about race because I’m uncomfortable” or it means “don’t accuse me of racism.” But you have to laugh at some of our white American politicians like Bill “My Office is in Harlem” Clinton.
Clinton is at it again complaining that the Obama camp “played the race card” on him. It all started with an interview with a Philadelphia radio station where Clinton made the race card comment. The next day when asked about the comment Clinton denied it. Check out the video and the text summary on this New York Time blog (Clinton has his finger up in the air, which is usually a sign that he’s lying or angry.). Here is the text of the exchange where Clinton tells his lie:
Mr. Memoli: “Sir, what did you mean yesterday when you said that the Obama campaign was playing the race card on you?”
Mr. Clinton: “When did I say that, and to whom did I say that?”
Mr. Memoli: “On WHYY radio yesterday.”
Mr. Clinton: “No, no, no. That’s not what I said. You always follow me around and play these little games, and I’m not going to play your games today. This is a day about election day. Go back and see what the question was, and what my answer was. You have mischaracterized it to get another cheap story to divert the American people from the real urgent issues before us, and I choose not to play your game today. Have a nice day.”
Mr. Memoli: “Respectfully sir, though, you did say …”Mr. Clinton: “Have a nice day. I said what I said, you can go and look at the interview. And if you’ll be real honest, you’ll also report what the question was and what the answer was.”
Then in a subsequent interview he followed up with this gem of a comment:
In the same interview, he offered a full-throated defense of his record with African-Americans, adding: “You gotta really go some to play the race card with me. My office is in Harlem, and Harlem voted for Hillary by the way.”
Nice variation of the some of my best friends are black line isn’t it? I guess we should also note that there were several irregularities in the voting in NYC, so some have questioned Clinton’s “lock” on Harlem. In spite of past black support for Clinton, Clinton has never been the pro-black politician people make him out to be. His policies were not particularly helpful to African Americans, and he was more than willing to play on white fears of blacks when he went out of his way to attack a rapper in one of his campaigns.
I get a chuckle out of people like Clinton and Ferraro making racist comments, and then attempting to use the condemn the condemners strategy to make themselves look like victims. I think I need to file this under “whiny white people.” What I’d say to Clinton is–if you can’t take the heat get out of the kitchen.
