Gender and Geography – Digital Video Essays: Spring 2014

Reproductive Rights

by Catharine Cipolla

Video Abstract:

It is one of the ugliest and most controversial topics to discuss, but a woman’s right to obtain an abortion will always be a prevalent issue. This subject is at the heart of the war on women, especially in the United States. In the most general sense still remains legal in the US after the Supreme Court ruled for the legalization of clinical abortion services in 1973. This law verifies that it is the woman’s constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy and have an abortion. However, 40 years have passed since the Supreme Court’s ruling of Roe v. Wade and we must ask ourselves a few questions: Do women have safe and legal access to these services in which they are legally entitled? What barriers impede women’s safe and effective access? What are the consequences of denying women their constitutional rights?

Even though abortion stays constitutionally legal, state restrictions and community stigma from anti-abortion politicians and protestors are making it increasingly difficult to access these services by way of supporting and encouraging additionally regulations and restrictions. These limitations to abortion access affect certain female populations more than others. The poor, the young and the geographically remote are experiencing these policy regulations very differently than middle-class urban white women (Rose, 2007). Decreased availability to abortion services is considered a geographical issue because different communities of women are affected by their social statuses – regarding income and available funding – as well as the area in which they live. Not only are state laws being passed that limit funding for those women desperate for financial support to obtain an abortion, but also these laws are affecting the accessibility of abortion providers and clinics. These clinics are being forced to close due to the restrictive state laws that require clinics to be as well supplied as emergency hospital rooms. When these clinics do not have the means to uphold these regulations, they must close their practice. However, the most direct method of closing abortion clinics and preventing abortions has been through community violence and harassment to providers and women. Clinical employees and providers are being harassed and even murdered for their decisions to help women exercise her right to choose. If these clinics choose to discontinue their practices, women must find alternative locations to obtain an abortion. A large percentage of women are therefore forced to travel miles on end to find any open clinics with able doctors. Many Americans, such as doctors and medical students, recognize that a woman’s right to choose what’s best for her own health is being taken away. Medical personnel are doing everything in their power to learn safe abortion techniques and bring these services to women.

The geographical barriers to access through declining abortion providers, limited state funding for these services as well as additional legislation show that politicians are interfering with women’s constitutional right to choose what’s best for her health. They need to remember that laws are not meant to regulate the human body, but even today laws are being proposed and passed that treat women’s bodies as a “site to control” based on certain political and religious beliefs. Every woman’s reproductive experience is different and the reasons for obtaining an abortion differ drastically. Only women have the power and responsibility over their own bodies. Politicians and threatening anti-abortion protestors must stay out of a woman’s decision. It all boils down to the fact that it is the woman’s constitutional right to have access to abortion services if she so requires. With limitations to the accessibility abortion services, women’s right to make their own personal, medical decisions is being robbed from them.

Women in Prison

by Connor Hayes

Video Abstract:

In this video essay, I mold the ideas of Debbie Kilroy’s Sisters Inside with my own viewpoints to create a short film. Sisters Inside sheds the light on how unfair, biased, and racist the female prison culture is in the United States. I was very interested in this topic after watching the Netflix series Orange is the New Black. Shortly after starting my research, I found that the women ending up in prisons are going at an unparalleled level. The rate at which African Americans and Latina’s are being sent to prisons is completely different than the rates for white female prisoners. I needed to find what links these women in orange jumpsuits together, something that is concrete enough to make a generalization about female inmates. I took different perspectives, from correctional officers to inmates, and molded them together to create an objective scope with multiple angles. Violence, drug and sexual abuse, race: are all intertwined in this video essay that deepens the horizon on female prisoners. Kilroy’s book gives first hand testimonies to stories and events that happened in female correctional facilities. Most stories go unheard by, not even making a ripple in the sea of society. After watching this video you have heard these stories, these realities of female human beings behind bars.

There is a clear delineation of how the prison culture is set up and run. Most people would think that the prison guards run the entire facility, but that would be a wrong assumption. In this video essay you will learn how the prison culture is an intricate web of social interactions and reactions. The inmates run the prison, as they are constantly there while correctional officers come and go. Those who oppose this fortified culture that has stood and thrived for decades, often find themselves isolated and ostracized on the inside. “Hardest Prisons” offers a first hand view into the female prison system. In the film, it’s easy to translate the reading materials from Sisters Inside to Women Behind Bars into a tangible text that can be explained and resonated with music and pictures.

The goal and aim of this short documentary was that female inmates need a voice. They are unrepresented due to the comparatively small amount of women in the current US prison population. Sisters Inside offers this voice, but there needs to be a larger audience so that these prisoner’s stories and experiences don’t fall upon deaf ears. The US war on drugs, profiling minorities, and sexual abuse are all the key factors that contribute to the increasing number of female inmates. Without a change in legislation with more adept police procedures to stop sexual abuse and minority profiling, this rising number of female inmates will continue to grow at an unprecedented rate.

Women in the Military

by David Fraser

Video Abstract:

In this video essay I analyze the transforming gender dimensions through the lens of the United States military. In an institution that is rich with gender division and traditional values, the United States military finds itself on the forefront of this transforming society. The traditional culture of the male dominated military is changing drastically and has been since the Vietnam War. Customs, values, and beliefs are being influenced by gender integration that is reflective of an overarching societal change. Although gender integration has been on the rise, the personnel statistics still do not reflect a changed culture. Women only occupy 15% of the total military, and the top of the military hierarchy has an even a smaller presence. According to the 2011 Military Demographics report, the top three ranks across the military had 282 officers of which only 26 were women. Furthermore, the top rank had 40 members and only one of which was a female.

It is not just the population discrepancy that infiltrates the service, but these numbers are reflective of a masculine dominated community. Certain feminine qualities and characteristics are frowned upon and are viewed as weak. According to Regina Titunik article ‘The Myth of the Macho Military’, military effectiveness is argued to be found through other prevailing characteristics such as camaraderie, discipline, and service, instead of the traditional view of ‘unhindered aggressiveness.’

In this analysis, I take a historical approach to shed light on this marginalized presence of women in the military. By looking at the military service policy decisions over the past few decades, the political struggle that women have faced is illuminated. An institution has been created that downgrades the benefits of women inclusion and even has marginalized their presence. In this analysis I aim to show that while some change has been made in recent years, the United States military is operating from a skewed lens that is not representative of the United States as a whole. There is disconnect between the primary functions of the military and the culture that ultimately exists.

As stated in the United States Military Doctrine, the Armed Services are responsible for ‘embodying the highest values and standards of American society and the profession of arms.’ The lack of a female presence in the military, however, directly negates their ability to determine the ‘highest values’. In the essence of feminist geography, the marginalization of women from knowledge production and decision making creates a non-holistic view of society. According to Monk and Hanson, ‘the purpose of geographic research has been to provide a basis for informed policy and decision making…yet policy-oriented research that ignores women cannot help to form or guide policy that will improve women’s conditions.’ The male dominated hierarchy is operating from a lens that does not account for the female perspective. In the current situation it is therefore concluded that the United States Military is not operating from a holistic view. The recent policy reforms such as the Women’s Armed Services Integration Act of 1967 and more recently removing the ban on allowing women to enter into certain combat oriented units, has begun the implementation of women into this male dominated culture, but this trend has the ability to largely continue. This trend will not only gain a more holistic view of military operations, but it will benefit from the qualities women can bring such as passion and care. It is at this point that the military will have access to a different lens and provide an insight into the existing gender differences in the service.

The Disney Influence

by Nicole Graham

Video Abstract:

In this video essay I explore the ways in which children are consumers of Disney’s films and merchandise and, therefore, are also consumers of Disney’s portrayal of gender roles and stereotypes. Disney’s animated films and particularly their line of princess films, can mold the ways in which children see gender. The research that I have drawn from has demonstrated that the portrayals of gender in these films generally conforms to traditional roles and depictions of men and women. I specifically focus on two indepth studies — Towbin et al. (2004) and England, Descartes, and CollierMeek (2011) — which come to the same general conclusions about gender in Disney’s animated films. Women are most often portrayed as subordinate, domestic, helpless, and concerned with their physical appearance. Men, in contrast, are most often portrayed as dominant, nondomestic, heroic, and physically strong. Additionally, women’s bodies in most of the films are sexualized and do not align with the biological reality of women.

Both studies also investigated how, if at all, portrayals of gender roles and stereotypes in Disney’s animated films changed over time. Both noted general increases towards more egalitarian portrayals, but with portrayals of women, more often than not, conforming to traditional roles and physical depictions. I analyzed the findings from these two studies by comparing them with the research by Cotter, Hermsen, and Vannemen (2011). These researchers found that over time there was a shift towards increasingly egalitarian gender views, but that a stagnation or even reversal occurred around 1994. Taking all three studies together, then, I argue that the slight shift in gender portrayals is reflective of society’s view of women. Of note, I left out a deep analysis of Disney’s more recent animated films — Tangled, Brave, and Frozen — because academic literature is not yet available on them. Importantly, though, all princesses since the first in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs through the most recent in Frozen, were created to have similarly sexualized body types. Elizabeth Bell, in her chapter in From Mouse to Mermaid, suggests that this unrealistic depiction of women, at least initially, was a creation by Disney artists that were dominantly male. I included this in my video essay analysis and furthered this idea by suggesting that Disney’s most recent princesses are conforming to the typical appearance of princesses that was initiated decades ago.

Of course, it is not just Disney films that are inundated with portrayals of gender stereotypes, but also the related merchandise and consumer spaces. I used several books and articles as background support for the history and continuation of Disney’s influence on child consumerism. Through its products and spaces, Disney has created ways for children to act out the gendered roles and stereotypes that they watch in the animated films. This is especially true when travelling into the fantasy land of Disney’s several theme parks around the world. Upon analysis, I realize that the consumption of Disney by children is a twoway street. Consumption of films leads to consumption of merchandise. Consumption of merchandise leads to consumption of films. And, importantly, both ways down this road lead to consumption of the gendered messages put out by Disney. I filled in the pieces of my research with a selfexploration of Disney’s animated films, with a special focus of those mentioned in the two cited studies. By providing my viewers with actual clips from the films that children are consuming, I was able to clearly demonstrate how characters are portrayed as stereotypically feminine or masculine and how this may alter children’s perceptions of gender.

Changing Landscapes of Chester, PA

by Elizabeth Semeraro

Video Abstract:

In the 1930’s my grandfather started a construction company in Chester that my family successfully ran until the city’s economic downturn in the 1950’s. My family represents just one of many middle and upper class homes that moved out of Chester when businesses in the area began to close. Chester is situated in a county that has high levels of income, is well educated, and does not experience extreme levels of poverty or violence. And yet, the city has incredibly low levels of income and education, and has high occurrences of poverty and violence. Systematically, this city has been isolated and shut out by the rest of the county; there have even been instances, driven by racism and classism, to disallow low income families of color from moving out the city and into the surrounding affluent neighborhoods. This isolation exacerbates the poverty driven violence and has enabled violence to become self-perpetuating within the city.

Chester lacks the economic and political advantages to enforce public safety and maintain the needed social and welfare programs to assist its many residents living below the poverty line. The contributes to a community-wide sense of fear, which in turn affects the residents’ sense of safety when traveling through public spaces in the city.

Without the external aid of the surrounding communities, there is little hope for Chester to turn its conditions around. For over a decade, Chester has gone without a grocery store within the city limits. This changed very recently when Philabundance, a community outreach program serving the greater Philadelphia area, established a nonprofit grocery store entirely dedicated to assisting the community and improving their quality of life.

The Uneven Development of Women’s Rights in The Middle East

by Emily Connors

My digital video essay focuses on the complex role that gender plays in the culture of the Middle East. I highlight how it is important to place Middle Eastern women’s rights within certain social, economic, and political contexts. Women’s rights in the Middle East has had a staggered an uneven development because of the variety of contexts that occur within the region. Some areas of the Middle East have seen successful women’s rights movements drastically transform their cultural, political, social, and economic landscapes. However, other area’s have had stagnated success in achieving women’s rights and other area’s have seen little to no success women’s rights movement. In my digital video essay, I compare and contrast the women’s rights movements of Iran versus the women’s rights movements of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

I aim to show how certain areas have had women’s rights movements suppressed or success has stagnated for various reasons. When gender issues in the Middle East occur, they derive from cultural practices and legal doctrine. This places women at a disadvantage within the social hierarchy of the andocentric society. Women’s rights movements in the Middle East have not been equally successful or linear in progress. Some Middle Eastern countries have been slower to transition their society to one of equality than many other regions of the world. It has been found that the weaker and more unstable the political structure of a country, the more likely it is to have strong patriarchal systems, too. I use the aggression of the Taliban as an example of a hindrance to the movements. Outsiders stereotype the Arab woman as secluded, veiled, and kept within the domain of the home in the private sphere. However, this digital video essay aims to show how Arab women are much more than that and their each of their lives are different in social, economic, educational, religious, and sexual contexts. The Western world must dismantle the motion that women in the Middle East are passive and powerless even though they are in a marginalized position within the social hierarchy.

The digital video essay also shows the differences between the public versus private spheres within some Middle Eastern societies and how they reflect gender roles within societies. Gender segregation restricts the daily behaviors and lives of Middle Eastern women and how they move through space. Women in the Middle East have begun to create strategies to counter the male authority structure. Since the 1980s, women in some Middle Eastern countries have started to challenge the authorities and rethink gender. Such movements originated in Egypt, Iran, and Turkey. Iran has had a particularly successful women’s rights movement, beginning in the nineteenth century. When women became involved in the Constitutional Revolution, it sparked a new movement for women’s rights within a quickly changing society. The combination of the spread of the Baha’i religion (which emphasized gender equality), the emersion of Western liberal thought, increased relations with Europe, the emerging success of the neighboring Egyptian and Turkish women’s rights movement, created an ideal circumstance for Iran to form a successful movement, themselves. In this digital video essay I aim to show how women’s rights movements in the Middle East have a long history and are not a new phenomenon. However, the movements are often critiqued by their opponents that they are products of the infiltration of Western capitalism and are not borne from Middle Eastern culture itself.

Middle Eastern states have had various degrees of impact on women and women’s rights depending on many contexts and places. Globalization has confronted Middle Eastern countries with how to view women within their societies. Middle Eastern women in many areas have created their own strategies to counter the presence of the male authority structure. They have begun to form their own niches of power even within the patriarchal system and in this way they are countering their marginalization by creating their own meaning. The Middle East is not a homogenous region, but rather a diverse area of the world consisting of a multitude of social, historical, political, and economic contexts. It is because of this that the development of women’s rights has been uneven between the many countries of the region. My digital video essay will highlight the uneven development of women’s rights movements in the Middle East.