User:Delgado kv16/sandbox

Women Studies Class
This class has been very informative and it has helped me understand many things about feminism and gender discrimination and about the role of women in society. I find this extremely interesting. I am learning something new and helpful every time.

Final Project
For the final project, I really wanted to look at the use and creation of contraceptives either over history, or currently, and how these promote an idea of women as tools or experiment subjects for science. Also, I am interested in looking at the idea of biological determinism in the workplace today and how this leads to women being underestimated and minimized, and to sexism in the work place.

The Dangers of Norplant
 These articles list some of the dangers of Norplant.

  These sites list some of the dangerous side effects as "rare" when in actuality, they are a lot more common.

  Articles on discrimination and abuse.

November 22, 2013
Added the Section for Social Cunstruction on the Biological determinism page. - "Social construction" "Richard Lewontin, Steven Rose, and Leon Kamin were all interested in the way that biological determinism was present in science. They wanted to figure out how much of it was true, and how much of it was socially constructed according to certain beliefs and societal norms and determined gender roles within society. In their book Not in Our Genes they explore the possibilities of biological determinism. In their studies, they found some very interesting evidence that points to the fact that biological determinism in science is actually greatly affected by certain norms and tendencies within society. One of the big issues with this is that biological determinists tend to look for support for their own claims within science and nature itself. According to them, biological determinism is more constructed by society that by anything else. In a study that was performed on girls who were more “masculinized” than others, biological determinists John Money and Anke Ehrhardt looked for ways to describe femininity that fit into the common definition of it, such as clothing preference, using makeup, etc. Although these scientists believed that they were providing evidence to support their definitions of femininity within nature, they fell into the trap of labeling these girls according to Western social standards. As Lewontin points out, this experiment not only embraces the stereotypes that already existed, but it also “ignores the existence of societies in which women wear pants, or in which men wear skirts, or in which men enjoy and appropriate jewelry to themselves.” Lewontin, Rose, and Kamin realize that biological determinism is clouded and, can in fact, be shaped according to the standards and norms of the society one lives in. Therefore, they choose to take a different approach. They decide to look at numbers and statistics instead of simple social experiments which can be easily misinterpreted. When they look at the numbers and statistics of men and women over the years, they discover that the differences between men and women are no longer as pronounced as they had been in the past. All of a sudden, there are more women in the work place holding higher ranking jobs. More women are excelling in areas that used to be male dominant, such as sports. And even biologically, women are beginning to catch up to men in height and life expectancy. However, these changes are mostly visible in numbers and statistics. In reality, social differences between men and women are still easily observed. Lewontin, Rose, and Kamin argue, however, that these differences are actually imposed by society itself."

Added reference - Lewontin, Richard, Steven Rose, and Leon Kamin. Not in Our Genes: Biology, Ideology and Human Nature. New York: Pantheon Books, 1984. “The Determined Patriarchy,” Chapter 6, pp. 131–163

November 23, 2013
Added to the Norplant page under Removal - "Removal should never be attempted by someone without the appropriate training. If not done correctly, it can lead to all the complications listed above as well as deep scaring or keloids forming around the capsules and severe nerve damage."

November 24, 2013
Added to the Norplant page under Controversy - "Although Norplant's creator, Dr. Sheldon J. Segal immediately opposed "the use of Norplant for any coercive purpose," the idea became popular all around the United States."

Added the section "Targeting the poor" - "Targeting the poor" All around the United States, programs and laws were implemented to make Norplant more available to poor women and poor teenage girls as a form of birth control. Every state made Norplant available to women for free through Medicaid or other forms of public assistance and to teenage girls through school programs that presented Norplant as the most reasonable option. In many states, judges even gave women who ere convicted with child abuse or drug use while pregnant the choice between getting Norplant implanted or serving jail time. "Within two years, thirteen state legislatures had proposed some twenty measures to implant poor women with Norplant." Because of this availability, at least half the women that used Norplant were Medicaid recipients. Louisiana state representative David Duke went as far as to propose paying women to use Norplant, and a bill in North Carolina would have required all women who got a state-funded abortion to get Norplant as well. Likewise, some states considered making Norplant mandatory for women on welfare in order to keep receiving benefits. On top of marketing mainly to poor women, it was also proposed that women be asked to apply for a license in order to get it removed. Thankfully, however, none of the proposed measures were passed or applied."

Added references - Roberts, Dorothy. Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty. New York: Pantheon Books, 1997. Chapter 3

"Norplant: A New Contraceptive with the Potential for Abuse" https://www.aclu.org/reproductive-freedom/norplant-new-contraceptive-potential-abuse. American Civil Liberties Union. January 31, 1994. Retrieved November 21, 2013

Summary
A lot of my contributions on the Norplant page are still up. Some links were added though and there were some grammatical corrections made also. The last few sentences of the section I added for "Targeting the poor" got added to a new section right after it "Targeting Teenagers". Also, I got asked to provide more links and evidence for the section I added on "Targeting the poor". In the biological determinism page, my post got a bit edited, but it is still up. All together, I really enjoyed working on this project. I am very proud that my contributions have been so successful, especially because i didn't expect them to be.