“Not Your Incubator” illustrates conflict theory by showing how the macroaggression of systemic misogyny relates to the governments regulation of a women’s sexual and reproductive health, as well as the objectifying nature of debating the legality of a woman’s physical autonomy. “Not Your Incubator” is a political illustration that uses contrasting themes of objectification and ownership. It is inspired by “Riot Grrrl” feminism, a subset of third wave feminism. It invites the audience to use sociological imagination to evaluate how misogyny affects a woman’s relationship with her body. While limited by its narrow scope, “Not Your Incubator” provides context for Conflict Theory by relating a large societal conflict to the lives of everyday citizens.
“Not Your Incubator” shows a photo of actress Rita Hayworth with the words “I Am Not Your Incubator to Regulate” pasted over her eyes, chest, and hips. I created this piece in January of 2012 to protest the way emotional and religious rhetoric distracted from the core issue of physical autonomy during discourse about abortion. Third-wave feminist icon Kathleen Hanna stated in a 2015 interview for The Daily Beast, “It’s about women not dying in back-alley abortions, but it’s also about women saying: 'My life is worth it, too. I deserve to have control over my life and my health care. ' Imagine
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Conflict theory states that society works by upholding oppressive power structures. It is useful when studying the that way class and identity affects access to resources. Karl Marx founded the theory in the 1800s to describe the conflicts of classes within capitalism. “Not Your Incubator” can be used to illustrate feminism in the context of conflict theory. It relates how gender effects access to medical care and physical autonomy. Conflicts in society force people within that society to engage in or resist the resulting oppressive structures. Media showing resistance against such structures gives conflict theory real-world
Rather than stating the argument, Willis poses it as a question, “Are the fetuses the moral equivalent of born human beings?” (Abortion Debate 76), thus showing how modern feminists can only support one side of the argument in their chosen stance, and cause limitations by doing so. In doing so, Willis shows how to some “extent… we objectify our enemy and define the terms of our struggle as might makes right, the struggle misses its point” (Ministries of Fear 210), which implies that feminists have completely missed the point of the argument by getting caught up in an answer. Rather than looking for a compromise or gray area, they exert their stance as the only solution that woman can have. Willis also shows how feminists fundamentally “see the primary goal of feminism as freeing omen from the imposition of so called ‘male values’, and creating an alternative culture based on ‘female values’”
Through Cross’s article “Abortion in Canada: Legal but Not Accessible”, I will discuss the conflicts of abortion that range across Canada and how it can lead to the reduction of women’s rights and consequently cause harm to a woman’s mental health. I also follow Cross’s example of self-proclamation of pro-choice movements in YWCA and women’s empowerment to ensure a positive attitude towards women’s health. Canada is currently one of very few countries where no legal restrictions on abortions exist today. Since the first criminal law against abortion was enacted within Canada in 1869, regulations and accessibility to abortion have undergone serious changes (Cross 3). Today, the rights and morality of a woman who access abortions are brought into question in both educational and political thought in our nation, since the topic is complex in the nature of a woman’s body, it is in deep importance of Canadian history and current politics relating to sexuality.
Both texts ‘The Handmaids Tale’ and ‘The Bloody Chamber’ were written during the second wave of feminism which centralised the issue of ownership over women’s sexuality and reproductive rights and as a result, the oral contraceptive was created. As powerfully stated by Ariel Levy, ‘If we are really going to be sexually liberated, we need to make room for a range of options as wide as the variety of human desire.’ Margaret Atwood and Angela Carter both celebrate female sexuality as empowering to challenge the constraints of social pressure on attitudes of women. Both writers aim to expose the impact of patriarchy as it represses female sexual desire and aim to control it thus challenge contemporary perspectives of women by revealing the oppression
The conflict standpoint is based on the idea that the society is comprised of various different groups who are in constant friction with one another for the access of scarce and valuable resources; these may include wealth, fame, power, or the authority to apply one’s own value system onto the general society. The conflict theorists argue that a conflict exists in the society when a group of people who believe that their interests are not being met, or that they are not getting a fair share of the society’s resources, work to counter what they perceive as a handicap or a
The argument over a woman’s right to choose over the life of an unborn baby has been a prevalent issue in America for many years. As a birth control activist, Margaret Sanger is recognized for her devotion to the pro-choice side of the debate as she has worked to provide sex education and legalize birth control. As part of her pro-choice movement, Sanger delivered a speech at the Sixth International Neo-Malthusian and Birth Control Conference in March of 1925. This speech is called “The Children’s Era,” in which she explains how she wants the twentieth century to become the “century of the child.” Margaret Sanger uses pathos throughout her speech as she brings up many of the negative possibilities that unplanned parenthood can bring for both children and parents.
In today’s society, abortion is a controversial topic. Many people dispute if it is moral to eliminate the potential of the unborn fetus or if it is fair to force the parent to keep and raise the baby if the parent isn’t ready. In Sallie Tisdale’s We Do Abortions Here: A Nurse’s Story, the author uses imagery and internal conflict to recreate her experiences as a nurse employed at an abortion hospital. She does this to make her audience understand her and the people who work in abortion hospitals’ perspective.
“That Don’t Sound Like You” is written by Rhett Akins, Ashley Gorley and Lee Brice, who is also the performer. This song was written and recorded in 2014 and released in 2015. Throughout grade school, Lee Brice was very close friends with a female classmate. After graduating they parted ways. Brice and his friend ended up meeting again one day and everything was different.
To further women’s rights activists’ demands, Sanger explains the relationship between birth control and freedom. Sanger does this by writing, “She gains food and clothing and shelter, at least, without submitting to the charity of her companion, but the earning of her own living does not give her the development of her inner sex
Barbara’s father had a job as a chemical technician and her mother worked as a legal secretary. When Barbara was born her family and she were in the lower middle class. In 1989 there was a march for women who supported abortion, and Barbara made a poster of a woman saying “Your Body Is a Battleground”. After putting up the poster a group, who did support abortion, placed posters of an eight week old fetus across her billboard.
The dystopian world of Gilead, as depicted in Margaret Atwood's novel, The Handmaids Tale is a frightening and oppressive society where women are treated as subordinate creatures whose only purpose is to bear children. The Gileadean regime has a unique approach to reproduction, where women who are capable of procreating are called "Handmaids." The title itself reveals a great deal about the status of women in society and is just one of the many ways in which the regime seeks to control and subjugate women. Through their experiences, we gain insight into the ways in which women are stripped of their rights and freedoms, reduced to their reproductive functions, and brainwashed with a patriarchal ideology that justifies their oppression. Their
There are many parallels between contracted motherhood and the dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale. In the novel, women are treated purely as fertility objects devoid of any rights in a patriarchal society. For some women entering contracted motherhood, they will be controlled by the fathers. For instance, in a particular pre-birth contract a woman had to agree to not taking medication without a doctor’s order, and to follow all of the doctor’s orders (Ketchum 626). The author also connects contracted motherhood with prostitution, each activity ‘rents’ a woman’s body.
Sengupta 1 Ipshita Sengupta Mr. Yogesh Dubey Term Paper (Semester II) 5th March, 2016 Feminism and Sex Work Marxist school of thought has often claimed that women are the proletariat of the Proletariats. Although Marxism has been accused of sidelining the women question, tracing the root of all oppression to class differences and subjugations, modern day Marxist critics have branched into a new school of thought called the Socialist Feminism. Socialist Feminism claims to broaden Marxist feminism's argument for the role of capitalism in the oppression of women and radical feminism's theory of the role of gender and the patriarchy. Popular imagination has recently given way to the discourses on sexually marginalized population of our society.
Reality TV has proven to be popular and influential amongst the populations of several nations but the reasoning behind it has yet to be concurred by sociologists. By utilizing symbolic interactionist perspective, functional analysis and conflict theory individuals can create reasoning behind why reality TV receives such positive response despite the deplorable deeds being presented. Symbolic interactionist perspective is the social process where people create symbols amongst each other. Reality TV gives a false image of typical social life for the majority of societies by taking select groups of individuals and recording their interactions.
Menstruation was and still is in most cultures associated with vulgar or disgusting abject qualities in which women are not to expose or express any slight inkling of it occurring in society. “Red Flag” expresses Kristeva’s theory of the abject as menstrual blood itself is a repulsive object, which represents a state situated outside the cultural world, in which we try to cast away. In Kristeva’s terms by being faced with this repulsion, blood and menstruation, the boundaries we sustain between nature and civilised society are blurred (p of h). This lithograph exposes this reality for open consideration, necessarily flouting ideals of good taste and feminine respectability in order to reclaim women’s own sexual and cultural power. Such a feminist intervention is necessary in its overt nature in order for public perception to grasp its true meaning and to explore the internalized taboos presented.
The first wave of feminism has been a revolutionary social movement in terms of that it could lead to an overcoming of the previous social order (Newman, 2012 p. 487) through its social agents and create, through this, a new social ordering of time and space. Moreover, through reaching their previously described aims, the first wave of feminism has been able to literally “overthrow the entire system itself, (…) in order to replace it with another one.” (Skocpol, 1979, as cited in Newman 2012, p. 487). Thereby, one can even state that a new ordering of time and space by which routines and routinised behaviour has been challenged as well as changed took place. The interactions influenced the way how societies work today.