User:Dtiegs/sandbox

I am a third year student at Boise State. I am studying Ethnic Studies because I am interested in going to law school. I hope to learn about systemic violence across different marginalized populations to practice law in a way that respects the agency and struggles of my clients.

Article Evaluation
Female Body Shape:

The article is hyper focused on the physical characteristics of womxn, and the biological make up of womxn. It specifically talks about how the female body is affected by estrogen, pregnancy, health, and puberty—all biological definitions of the female body. Though it does not specifically defined womxn as people with functioning vulvas and ovaries, it definitely hints at that as it is not transgender or intersex inclusive. From the first sentence it defines the female body as “the cumulative product of a woman’s skeletal structure and quantity and distribution of muscle and fat on the body” (Wikipedia). It does not mention the cultural ties that we have to tangible and measure-able things that are interpreted by our cultural views.

The very definition of womxn hood, and the images shown of the historical accounts of an ideal womxn’s body are all limited to white, assigned female at birth womxn. As mentioned, womxnhood does not include trans, agender, non-binary, or intersex people. I personally thought it was shocking to find no womxn of color in the images and depictions. A lot of the examples of womxn’s bodies were derived from the Greek/Roman eras of famous religious pictures.

There’s a huge section on the Talk Page pertaining to the depiction of womxn without clothing. A concerned father deleted an image of an actual nude photo and not a painting of a womxn without clothes on. Wikipedia mediators finally intervened and made it clear that Wikipedia makes a clear distinction of nude photos, which are intended for academic purposes, and pornography. Like I said earlier, the womxn’s body is not without cultural or political gain: it is as much culturally shaped, and perceived as much as it is tangible and measurable “objectivity”. Another iteration of the politicized nature of the womxn’s body is brought up by another user asking why there aren’t depictions of womxn with body hair. It makes it obvious that the depiction of the perceived female body is controlled and created by men who desire womxn without hair on their bodies.

Self Concealment:
I want contribute to the Wiki page on Self Concealment. I want to specifically contribute to the gendered dynamics of self concealment in context of patriarchy and rape culture. I think the best place I can contribute is on the historical narrative on the discovery of self concealment. It will probably be lest political, and at the end of my contribution I can so map out the different kinds of research about self concealment are going.

Articles for Exploration (Late)
Johnson, S., Mitchell, M., Bean, M., Richeson, J., & Shelton, J. (January 01, 2010). Gender moderates the self-regulatory consequences of suppressing emotional reactions to sexism. Group Processes and Intergroup Relations, 13, 2, 215-226.

Plante, C. N., Roberts, S., Reysen, S., & Gerbasi, K. (March 01, 2014). Interaction of Socio-structural Characteristics Predicts Identity Concealment and Self- Esteem in Stigmatized Minority Group Members. Current Psychology : a Journal for Diverse Perspectives on Diverse Psychological Issues, 33, 1, 3-19.

Edits to make on the Self Concealment Page:
Currently, as it exists, the self concealment page's definition is a rudimentary definition that is centered around the psychological applications and diagnosis. I want to contribute to a more holistic approach that provides a definition of how historically marginalized populations are utilizing self concealment as a means to mitigate the affects of oppression. Specifically, I will contribute how sexual minorities as well as racially oppressed peoples utilize self concealment as a means of survival. I think this will give the page more context of the applications of self concealment.

Additionally, I would like to contribute a whole new section on the psychological and physical consequences of self concealment. While it is an effective tool that historically marginalized communities have employed, there are consequences to self concealment. Self concealment has been linked with low self esteem, anxiety, and depression. This can give the page more context to self concealment beyond a psychological definition.

Sociological Implications of Self Concealment:
Allen Johnson describes the patriarchy as not a singular actor, person, or individual (Johnson 1997). This theoretical approach suggests that societal and individual actions have a net directional structure that advantages and disadvantages people based on their identity and access to structural power (Johnson 1997). No individual can grant structural access or deny structural access because social structures require societal participation.

According to the research conducted on furries, a stigmatized minority, found that they are more likely to disclose their self concealed identity as an anthropomorphic cosplayer if there’s little power difference between them and the person they are disclosing to (Plante et al. 2014). They were especially attuned to power differences when disclosing their stigmatized identities for fear of shame and rejection (Plante et al. 2014).

This power difference can also lead to different outcomes when it comes to cognitive functions due to self concealment. When exposed to sexism, women and men self conceal their emotions, but because women are exposed to sexism on a daily basis their ability to cognitively bounce back in instances of blatant sexism was significantly higher than men. Because the system of patriarchy privileges men as Johnson claimed, it would coincide with this finding. Women have to employ self concealment strategies to navigate the world around them, and have gained better self concealment management.

Another sociological application is understanding why Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual (LGB) people employ self concealment strategies (Johnson et al. 2010). LGB communities are disproportionately impacted by structural violence like gender based violence, and sexual assault (Johnson et al. 2010). Self concealment is a survival strategy in which they manage the risk of violence around them them to be able to perform daily tasks (Johnson et al. 2010). Historically marginalized communities will employ these tactics because of the fear of retribution for the identities they have. People with multiple disadvantaged identities, are more likely than people who are not disadvantaged to employ self concealment strategies (Johnson et al. 2010).

Johnson, A. (1997). The Gender Knot: Unraveling Our Patriarchal Legacy. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University

Press.