IJFAB Blog | Official Blog of IJFAB: the International Journal of Feminist Approaches to Bioethics

Boob Jobs and Feminism

Posted on July 8, 2014 by Joy SchaeferJuly 7, 2014

In her article “I’m a Feminist and I Got Breast Implants” (full article here), beauty expert and journalist Grace Gold asks, “Why are women judged and even ostracized by both feminists and the greater public at large if they choose to have cosmetic surgery?”

Gold claims that she wanted a 34C cup because she “wanted in on the fun” of having boobs, and due to her personal aesthetic preferences (she loves Marilyn Monroe, for example). These are fine personal reasons, but I think the stigma should end for women that decide to get breast augmentation surgery for any reason, even for the ‘bad feminist’ reasons, e.g. in order to get more male sexual attention (Gold says she feared being deemed a “victim of patriarchy”), because we live in a patriarchal society. When a woman decides to conform to certain beauty standards within that patriarchal society, she is simply trying to gain access to power in a way that is available to her, when there exist many other routes that may seem – or may very well be – unavailable.

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Until the stigma surrounding breast implant and other cosmetic surgeries ends, there will be little advocacy for surgery patients, and we need advocacy in order to change the system. Many women will continue to get botched boob jobs until this happens. Gold is right: botched boob jobs, as well as the general and feminist stigmas surrounding breast implants, are problems for feminism. What are your thoughts?

“ASU professor encourages students to defy body hair norms”

Posted on July 7, 2014 by Patrick J. WelshJuly 7, 2014

Female student participants stop shaving their legs and underarms for ten weeks during the semester while keeping a journal to document their experiences. For male students, the assignment is to shave all body hair from the neck down.

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Find the story here.

PURO VALOR MEXICANO EN EL MUNDIAL DE FUTBOL

Posted on July 7, 2014 by Olivia Tena GuerreroJuly 7, 2014

En la copa mundial de de Brasil vimos algo más que futbol. Entre la emoción de ganar y la decepción de perder presenciamos la actuación de los mexicanos, no solo de los futbolistas, sino de nuestros compatriotas mostrando que en nuestro país los hombres son muy hombres. Hubo de todo, como extraído de un manual titulado “Cómo ser un hombre de verdad aunque puedas morir en el intento”.

El futbol se ha convertido, o tal vez siempre ha sido, una celebración de la masculinidad que exacerba expresiones como el machismo, el sexismo y la homofobia, pero en esta ocasión, los aficionados mexicanos, se llevaron la copa mundial. Una muestra de ello es que del total de personas detenidas a lo largo de la justa, la mayoría fueron hombres de nuestro país. A algunos les puede parecer gracioso, pero si atendemos a tres casos particulares, en realidad tendríamos que preocuparnos y mucho, por la forma que está tomando la masculinidad mexicana. Es motivo de alarma, si consideramos que el machismo, el sexismo y la homofobia constituyen un mismo fenómeno, que explica la mayor parte de los actos violentos de los hombres contra las mujeres, contra otros hombres y contra sí mismos. Tratemos de verlo como si se tratara de una pieza teatral en la que se está escenificando la masculinidad:

Primer acto, 13 de junio: México juega contra Camerún, y los hinchas mexicanos exhiben su tradicional grito de − ¡Puuuto!− dirigido al guardameta del equipo contrario, un acto que, aunque practicado en nuestro país desde 2003, es claramente homofóbico y misógino. Independientemente de que el grito no se dirija a un homosexual, la intención la entendemos y es ofender al contrario señalándolo como tal, con lo que se está asumiendo que un hombre de verdad es solo aquél que no se porte como mujer, que no sea gay.
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Segundo acto, 18 de junio: En una dramática actuación y a puro valor mexicano, un joven de 29 años, saltó de un crucero en el que viajaba con cientos de paisanos que seguían la ruta de juegos de su selección. Como parte del cortejo que dirigía a una chica, incluyó este acto machista para mostrarle que él era un hombre de verdad, muriendo en el intento. Su cuerpo no ha podido ser encontrado en el mar de Brasil.

Tercer acto, 29 de junio: En una perfecta actuación mexicana, un panista y servidor público de la Delegación Benito Juárez, se tomó la libertad de tocar los glúteos de una brasileña que caminaba por la calle al lado de su esposo. Ante el reclamo de éste, el acosador y tres amigos que lo acompañaban, le propinaron una paliza que lo dejó inconsciente. Hoy los cuatro están detenidos en una prisión brasileña con el riesgo de seguir encerrados durante 8 años. En esta actuación estelar, el acosador ejerció violencia contra una mujer, contra otro hombre y contra sí mismo; es un ejemplo de una masculinidad que combina sexismo, misoginia y machismo, y que cada vez es más frecuente en nuestro México, enfermo de una guerra entre hombres que a diario se la juegan a puro valor mexicano. ¿Hasta cuándo?

This July 4th, Here’s Hoping For More Freedom To Access American Healthcare Options

Posted on July 6, 2014 by Alison ReiheldJuly 7, 2014

International readers will, I hope, both forgive and find value in this Amerocentric reflection on health care and freedom as America celebrates its Independence Day this July 4th (and the day after, and the day after that). It bears reflecting on what freedom means: freedom to what, freedom from what? And also on what happens when freedoms conflict with each other.

A healthcare provider’s stethoscope, its flexible tubing colored a bright red, lays atop an American flag with its red and white stripes, and blue field covered in white stars.

In 2011, in celebration of America’s July 4th Independence Day holiday, Johns Hopkins University’s Berman Institute of Bioethics featured an op-ed about James Richard Verone, “the luckless North Carolina man who ‘robbed’ his local bank… just to get arrested so he could access health care in jail.” This LA Times article details the constraints in which he believed himself to be trapped as an uninsured, unemployed (after many years of steady work) 59-year old who was years away from qualifying for Social Security payments or Medicare coverage which he had earned through paycheck taxes. Verone got himself a criminal record to no avail: his actual sentence for larceny did not carry a long prison term that would hold him over until he might be eligible for his earned benefits, but a much shorter one. To paraphrase the final sentence of that piece, we have reached the breaking point when Americans are willing to trade in their freedom for healthcare.

Continue reading →

Minimally Conscious States

Posted on July 3, 2014 by Ruth MacklinJuly 3, 2014

One typically thinks of advances in medical science and technology as unalloyed benefits. The ability to cure illness, mitigate pain, and make more accurate diagnoses are some of the uncontroversial results of medical progress. Yet as a new study of vegetative states demonstrates, such advances can raise ethical quandaries for physicians and the families of patients diagnosed as vegetative. The study, conducted in Belgium and published in the British medical journal, Lancet, showed that using the brain-scanning technique known as positive emission tomography (PETs) provided a more accurate neurological assessment than other devices, such as MRIs. The assessment provides more information about “minimally conscious” states, originally thought not to exist in such patients. Evidence from recent research demonstrated the existence of minimal consciousness in vegetative patients, but without the details that emerged in the Belgian study. It revealed that not only do patients who are minimally conscious have some level of awareness or responsiveness, but they may have some chance of improving to regain higher levels of consciousness.

Why does this new research pose ethical quandaries? Aside from the acknowledgment by a researcher in the Belgian study that the diagnostic technique is not ready for routine use, a bigger problem is uncertainty in its ability to predict significant improvement or recovery. This can lead to “false positives”–diagnoses that show minimal consciousness and a prospect of improvement in brain function when that will not occur. This situation produces uncertainty among medical experts and families hopeful that their loved one will recover cognitive function. As the Belgian researcher stated, “We shouldn’t give these families false hope.” In such circumstances, both physicians and families may be unlikely to remove life supports even after a significant time has elapsed, creating anguish about whether and when to “pull the plug.” Until recently, the problem of uncertainty was that of “false negatives”: diagnoses that patients in a vegetative state had no consciousness at all when, in fact, they may have been minimally conscious. With the new study, uncertainty about eventual improvement looms as a barrier to timely decision making. It is often the case that lingering uncertainty is worse for people who have to make decisions than receiving a bad prognosis that is definitive. Continue reading →

“Why I Went To The Men’s Rights Conference”

Posted on July 2, 2014 by Patrick J. WelshJuly 2, 2014

From feminist journalist Kelsey Miller:

As a web writer and a feminist, I can’t avoid reading about the Men’s Rights Movement, nor the vitriolic and often violent discourse that’s risen up around it. In the years since it’s gained footing in mainstream consciousness, with representation in SNL sketches and parallels drawn to the Elliot Rodger shooting, the discussion around this movement has become even louder, angrier, and that much more confusing. What do these guys want exactly? Can they honestly believe men to be a trod-upon minority? Do they really think feminism is “an empire of evil?” The answers seemed both emphatic and convoluted, and I knew enough to know there must be more to the story. There was — but, if anything, it’s even sadder than we thought.

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This is a strange phenomenon. Find the whole article here.

The Pendulum Swings? Spain faces a return to an era of very restricted access to abortion

Posted on July 2, 2014 by Alison ReiheldJuly 2, 2014

This pen-and-ink image shows the trace of a pendulum swinging back and forth, the middle blurry and only the extremes of the swing clear. Image Credit: “Pendulum Swing”, by DK Osorio

In 1985, Spain passed laws restricting a woman’s right to abortion, the so-called “Organic Law” governing reproductive health and abortion. Under this law, abortion was legal in only three cases: serious risk to physical or mental health of the pregnant woman, in which case abortion was supposed to be therapeutic; rape; and the presence of malformations or defects in the fetus. No other reasons were allowed for legal abortions taking place in Spain. Those seeking abortions needed the wherewithal to leave the country. Both pregnant women who procured abortions, and medical personnel who performed them, could be imprisoned for doing so (this was apparently rare, but possible).

In 2010, after decades without a right to seek abortion for any reason other than health, rape, or fetal deformity, a revision to the Organic Law went into effect and Spanish women were finally given a right to so-called “abortion on demand.” Debate over the passage of the law heavily involved the notion that access to safe abortion was a matter of reproductive health. As of March 3, 2010, up to 14 weeks gestation, Spanish women can now choose to terminate the pregnancy for any reason. Within that time period, abortion is wholly decriminalized (for context, most U.S. states allow abortion for any reason up to anywhere from 20-24 weeks; some have proposed 14 week cutoffs but those are still in development because of the 1973 court case Roe v. Wade, which made it a matter of federal case law that states could not make abortion wholesale illegal until after the point of “viability”). Abortion can occur up to 22 weeks if there is a serious risk to the life or health of the pregnant woman or fetus, and thereafter only if fetal anomalies incompatible with life, or some other serious and incurable fetal disease, are detected. According to Spain’s own Ministry of Health, these abortions up to 14 weeks gestation constitute over 90 percent of all abortions carried out in Spain in 2012, the remainder of which involved medical grounds for termination later in pregnancy. The rights of women in Spain to access abortion without fear of prosecution were greatly expanded (though it should be noted that rates of abortion did not increase substantially for 2011, and went down in 2012; this is variously attributed to causes including women claiming health risks for any unwanted pregnancy prior to 2010, and to increased availability of the morning after pill at the same time the new law took effect).

The ire of Spain’s conservative religious and political forces was roused. Indeed, a large rally of several tens of thousands of people protested against the 2010 law in Madrid, prior to its passage. Other protests against the expansion of abortion access continue to take place, such as this one in Barcelona in 2012. Continue reading →

Ontological Confusion in the U.S. Courts

Posted on July 1, 2014 by Patrick J. WelshJuly 1, 2014

Serene J. Khader (Stony Brook University) sends this <span id=

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Health Reforms in Mexico

Posted on July 1, 2014 by Lynette ReidJuly 1, 2014

I’m winding down my time in Mexico City at the FAB conference and the International Association of Bioethics — my first ever on both counts. It was exciting to meet so many folks in person, especially at my first meeting of the IJFAB editorial board!

I also had the opportunity to catch up with an old friend who travelled from Morelia to spend the weekend after the conference with me. I went through a Feldenkrais Method training in Mexico with Adriana Delgado, a wonderful contemporary dancer, who at the time (12-16 years ago) was leading a dance troupe in Mexico City that integrated dancers with disabilities.

Catching up with her over the weekend was a delight in itself, and also gave me an interesting perspective on several themes of the conference. Two things we talked about stand out for me.

One was her personal experience of Mexican health reform. At the Congress, we saw no fewer than three current or former ministers of health on the main stage. Julio Frenk was part of a riveting panel with Norm Daniels and Thomas Beauchamp, speaking about Mexico’s on-going process of health system reform, with a focus on progressive realization of a human right to health (Daniels) and the role of data (bridging Beauchamp on the need for new models of research ethics) for accountability to the public, to using ethical guidance in health systems reform (Frenk’s theme). Frenk spoke of social inclusion, equal opportunity, respect for autonomy, social responsibility, and financial justice as the key ethical principles [another unofficial link to the full pdf] that guided the progress the Mexican government has made, starting with his tenure as Minister of Health, on achieving universal health care, as they claim now to have done.

Continue reading →

The Commercialization of Feminism?

Posted on June 30, 2014 by Patrick J. WelshJune 23, 2017

This advertisement for Always feminine hygiene products has been getting lots of positive attention on social media the past few days:

A major company is investing its advertising dollars into empowering girls. Fantastic! (Even if, as one Facebook commenter noted, any mention of bleeding like a girl is carefully avoided.)

This also recalls another pro-feminist advertisement that went viral last April, Dove Real Beauty Sketches.

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The Supreme Court Speaks: What Now?

Posted on June 30, 2014 by Anna GotlibJune 30, 2014

The Hobby Lobby Decision

The Public-Sector Unions Decision
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Male Models of Misogyny: Examining Sexist Representations of Women in the Media

Posted on June 30, 2014 by Ula KleinJune 30, 2014

Whenever I teach a unit on the representation of women in the media in an undergraduate course, I inevitably have students read John Berger’s chapter on the nude in Western art in Ways of Seeing in conjunction an online essay on the male gaze in fashion advertising. Berger’s discussion of nude vs. naked translates well into a discussion of the representation of women in modern advertising. The vacant yet alluring stare, the manipulation of the male gaze, the access of (male) power through (female) sexuality—they are all there, whether we are looking at Peter Lely’s portrait of Nell Gwyn as Venus, or a contemporary perfume advertisement.

“This is Not Sex: A Web Essay on the Male Gaze, Fashion Advertising, and the Pose,” starts by comparing images of young men striking the same poses and expressions as ones found in various advertisements directed towards women. They look silly and ludicrous, and the essay then reveals the original advertisements, asking the reader to consider why these poses seem so strange, stilted and silly when men strike them, while they seem “natural” and even attractive when women assume them. Continue reading →