Exam 1 Flashcards
naturalistic body - def
- rooted in the biological
- justifies social positions based ont he biological construction of the body
- states the gender inequalities are the direct results of women’s weak and unstable bodies and a man’s strong body
- ex: evolving batman, james bond, ideal in toys, cause muscle dysmorphia
sociobiology - def
- explained social inequalities as inevitable based on genetics - emerged in 1970
- genes were stable and thus the patriarchal order which arose was unchangeable
- justified the status quo
- adapted from Darwin’s survival theory (evolution)
- divisions between the sexes are determined by biology
what is the main assumption of the theory of sociobiology?
- the biological body in the naturalistic approach constitutes the basis of society and social inequalities
- limitation is that this theory implies that social inequalities don’t exist
- idea that if someone is of low socio-economic status it affects your ability to obtain proper health care - doesn’t exist in this theory
what are the limitations of sociobiology?
- this theory implies that emergent social structures do not exist
- interpret current social life
- partial view of humans by reducing us to our genes
- does not explain the collective structure of human life or social change
- divides humans into two categories - binary
how does anatomy within university and kinesiology curricula affect the way we view our bodies?
Body is seen as
1) an object - attitude of de-attachment, looking at the body as a structure
2) a machine - body does what it is made to do
3) completely accessible tot he scientific gaze and therefore the needs of technology - object used for learning
4) something separate and useful to disembodied mind or spirit - dualism - body is only something that is used until death
who fostered the dynamics system’s approach?
Dr. Anne Fausto-Sterling
what is the dynamics system’s approach?
- cultural differences become bodily differences
- nature vs nurture are inseparable
- 100% nature, 100% nurture (physiological and cultural being are both as important in the way that we exist within our bodies)
- body is not a fixed trait but a process
how did “the wheel, the woman, and the human body” change society?
- changed individual mobility (girls could not ride bikes)
- larger spectrum within social class could afford it
- changed recreation
- advance in female equality
- reshaped American history
what was the reason for the transformation in the early 1890’s oft he highwheel bicycle to the safety bicycle?
-wanted to meet a larger market of people who could rie a bicycle that wasn’t as strenuous as a high wheel bicycle (aging men)
how did the transformation of the highwheel bicycle shape history?
- the “freedom machine”
- women could ride without being accompanied by men
what was Angeline Allen’s influence on women’s rights?
- made the cover of the National Police Gazette in 1893
- wore bloomers through town instead of a skirt
- provocative cover at the time because women wore nothing but skirts and dresses
- negative and controversial attention
- couldn’t ride a bike comfortably with a skirt/dress
what role did the bicycle play in the advancement of female equality?
- changed fashion - from skirts/dresses/corsets to bloomers/pants because it was impossible to take deep breathes with such tight clothing
- travelling became unchaperoned
“what made the bicycle truly liberating was its fundamental incompatibility with many of the limits placed on women”
“I’ll tell you what I think of bicycling. I think it has done more to emancipate woman than any one thing in the world” - Susan B. Anthony
did the bicycle grant freedom to all women?
no, need to think about people in that specific era
- first wave of feminism did not take into account every type of woman (women of colour, LGBTQ women, etc.)
- freedom was directed to the priviledged
what was the role of the bicycle in the transformation for sport, fitness, and medicine?
- controversies over the safety issues of the bicycle and benefits of cardiovascular fitness
- more Americans took to cycling and it seemed less dangerous - doctors began to cautiously endorse biking
- end of 19th century - medical schools proved with science that biking was not bad for you (biking was then used as prescription)
- bicycling was the most important sport of it’s time
- football and baseball were just beginning
how did Marshall Walter “Major” Taylor fight for black men’s rights?
- article 111 of league of american wheelmen (L.A.W.) effectively and blatantly excluded blacks from memberships
- despite all of the prejudice in 1899, Taylor won the world championship in the 1-mile sprint in Montreal
- set numerous records
- was one of the dominant athletes of his era
how did the advancement of the bicycle lessen the divide between social classes?
“it puts the poor man on a level with the rich, enabling him to sing he song of the open road as freely as the millionaire and to widen his knowledge by visiting regions near to or far from his home, observing how other men live.”
-access to transportation that was previously solely available to the rich
what do we mean by “construction of normalcy” in society?
- focus is places from the construction of disability, to the construction of normalcy instead
- the “problem” is not with the person with disabilities, but the problem is the way that normalcy is constructed to create the problem of the disabled person
“the idea of a norm is less a condition of human nature than it is a feature of a certain kind of society”
in what ways does the norm operate today?
1) financially - what does the average person make
2) intelligence - GPA
3) cholesterol level
4) weight, height - BMI
5) sex drive
6) consumption of dietary needs - vitamins and nutrients
7) normal curve of learning - ranked and tested in schools
where did the idea of “the ideal” begin?
- ancient greek, pre-industrial europe - tribal people
- prior to the norm, the body was understanding in relation to an unobtainable ideal - everyone was below this ideal (it was not achievable)
- the ideal body was only found in the form of mythopoetic body - mythology (ex: Venus and Helen of Troy - the embodiement of female physical beauty)
- the concept that then all bodies are in some sense disabled, the ideal can never be found in the world
when did “the shift” from “ideal” to “normal” body occur? what did this consist of?
- industrial revolution around 1840 is where we see the emergence of the normal body
- normal - “constituting, conforming to, not deviating or different from, the common type of standard, regular, usual”
- this word only enters the English language around 1840
-this was due to the emergence of statistics
how did statistics change our perceptions of “the norm” and therefore affect our view in society?
- Adolphe Quetelet, French Statistician (1796-1847)
- created the “Law of Errors” - could be equally applied to the distribution of human features such as height and weight
- “the Average Man” - a combination of physical average and moral average construct (astronomer’s concept applied to humans)
- the average then becomes the kind of “ideal”
- the concept of the norm now implies that the majority of the population must or should somehow be part of the norm (no longer un-obtainable)
what were the consequences of the creation of “the average man”?
- the concept of the norm, comes with the concept of having deviations or extremes - people with disabilities are than thought of as deviants
- once “the normal” was determined, the goal was to minimize deviations from the norm, to intervene in life itself and to maximize bodily features and functions through eradicating difference or deviance from the norm
eugenics - def
the science of improving the human population by controlled breeding to increase the inheritance of desired traits
how is statistics related to eugenics?
“statistics was bound up with eugenics because the central insight of statistics is the idea that the population can be normed”
-divided the total population into two groupings - standard and non-standard
who said it?: “I wish very much that the wrong people could be prevented entirely from breeding; and when the evil nature of these people is sufficiently flagrant, this should be done. Criminals should be sterilized and feebleminded persons forbidden to leave offspring behind them… The emphasis should be laid on getting desirable people to breed.”
Theodore Rosevelt
Who said it?: “with savages, teh weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilized men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination; we build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed, and the sick; we institute poor laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of everyone to the last moment. There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands, who from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to smallpox. Thus the weak members of civilized society propagate their kind.”
charles darwin
who was the cousin of Charles Darwin that coined survival of the fittest, and the concept of natural selection?
Francis Galton
who created the system of finger printing for personal identification?
Francis Galton
how did Francis Galton contribute to statistics?
- by changing the name and revamping the concept of “law of error” (where deviations are errors) used by Quetelet to “normal distribution curve” (where deviations can represent the above normal and the exceptional)
- from probable error (law of error) to standard deviation (normal distribution)
what resulted from the normative ideal? (normal distribution curve) (in terms of societal thinking)
the concept of the ideal is redefined in relation to the general population
1) the idea of a norm to the human body creates the idea of deviance or a deviant body
2) the idea of a norm pushes the normal variation of the body through stricter template guiding the way the body should be
3) the revision of the “normal distribution” into quartiles, ranked in order and so on created a new kind of “ideal”
this results in the creation of a dominant, hegemonic vision of what the human body should be
does “the norm” operate today? if so, how?
yes, examples:
- body size and shape
- intelligence
- physical literacy
- notions of beauty
- gender ideals
- psychology
- ability/disability
discourse of normalcy - def
“a system of thought compromised of ideas, attitudes, and courses of actions, beliefs, and practices that systematically construct the subjects and the world of which they speak” - Foucault
- relates back to power, politics, and the body (discourse for power relations to be produced but also operates by the rules of exclusion)
- produces rather than describes, the bodies that it names, knows, and controls - system in which normalcy is constructed
explain how the discourse of normalcy names both normative ideal and abnormal deviation (from the diversity of human bodies)
1) Imposition of scarcity
- the human body that possesses desirable traits is a “resources: that is in demand
- people have the most power when the resource they possess are hard to come by, or in high demand
- reinforced the construction of the image of the ab/normal body
- valued within a relationship
2) Affirmation
- rewarding, valuing, and privileging those bodies that meet this normative ideal (affirmation given to those who fall in the norm by privileging them)
in what ways does the discourse of normalcy connect to social construction?
- with the discourse of normalcy, there is the notion that people must conform to certain things
- “those who value different tasks or who do not meet the standards of mainstream tasks are disabled by these social structures”
- if some are at a disadvantage as a result of how a social context is organized, it then becomes possible to claim that disability is just an effect of the social context
what is Martha’s Vinyard?
- home to one of the earliest known deaf communities in the US
- striking example of how the absence of disability exists in a community even though a number of people were physically disabled in our sense today
- people in the community could not remember who was actually deaf because everyone used sign language
“when some are at a disadvantage as a result of how a social context is organised, it is possible to claim that disability is in effect of the social context or, in other words that disability is socially constructed”
impairment - United Nations def (1983)
any loss or abnormality of psychological, physiological, or anatomical structure or function
disability - United Nations def (1983)
any restriction or lack (resulting from impairment) of ability to perform an activity in the manner or within the range considered normal for a human being
how has the definition of disability/impairment changed?
“the outcome or result of a complex relationship between an individual’s health condition and personal factors, and of the external factors that represent the circumstances in which the individual lives” - World Health Organization
-result of our environment
what are some examples of how physical, social, and intellectual environments construct disability?
- purpose-built places - stairs, stadium seating, curbs
- media representations of dis/abled individuals
- testing structures - time limits, reading protocols
people with disabilities are twice as likely to be unemployed and twice as likely to live in poverty as able-bodied population
true or false?
true
how many Canadians are currently living with a disability?
4.4 million Canadians (14.3%) as of right now, this is a growing percentage
how are sport and disability related?
- sporting body has traditionally excluded athletes with disabilities
- they are becoming more visible
- paralympics
- debate over how much “human” an athlete must be (prosthetics)
what is adapted PA?
- programming and policy to be more inclusive of those with varying physical abilities
- interventions that are intended to make it possible for everyone to engage in a range of similar tasks
- it is not designed to make everyone equally skillful
- not focused on eliminating difference - looks to intervene to make it possible for everyone to be included in a similar task
how is normalization manifested within adapted PA?
- by attempting to include people in the same activity, this is just a type of normalization
- trying to bring everyone as close as possible to the norm
what is the goal of normalization in adapted PA?
-to make available to different abled individuals conditions as close as possible to that of the group norm (average)
normalization theory
-used in adapted PA in relation to disabilities in which persons are perceived as looking or behaving differently
what are the three principles of the normalization theory?
1) behavioural and appearance deviancy can be reduced by minimizing the degree to which persons with disabilities are treated different from able-bodied persons
2) deviancy is enhanced by treating persons as if they were deviant
3) to the degree that they are grouped together and segregated from the mainstream of society, individuals will be perceived as different from other and will tend to behave differently (both those with disabilities and those who act towards those with disabilities)
“the goal is to make disability or difference less noticeable by having everyone participate in “normal” activities or tasks”
what is a critique of the normalization theory?
“normalization is not intended to make a person like everyone else, but that it means is that everyone is expected to adapt so that games resemble those played by the able-bodies as much as possible”
“whether segregated from or included in regular classrooms, the goal is to have everyone engage in the same tasks, and share the same values about what tasks should be”
still a notion that the abled-body is desirable
how can adapted PA resist or disrupt the impulse to normalize while making it possible for a range of people to participate in a range of PAs?
Start by:
1) recognizing that not all people who are different, including those with impairments, require adapted PA
2) be aware of one’s actions and behaviours that are shaped by the standard
what is the goal of social justice?
- full and equal participation of all groups in a society that is mutually shaped to meet their needs
- envisions a society in which the distribution of resources is equitable and all members are physically and psychologically safe and secure
- individuals as both self determining and interdependent
- self determining = develop to their full capacities
- interdependent = capable of interacting democratically with others
- views individuals as social actors, people who have their own sense of agency (the ability), as well as a sense of social responsibility toward and with others, in our society and even to the broad world in which we live
equality - def
everyone benefits from the same support
equity - def
understanding that individuals are given different support - make it possible for equal access to be prevalent
what is the difference between equality and equity vs justice?
justice: removing barriers so that everyone can participate without support or accommodations
how do we attain the goal of social justice?
The process
- democratic and participatory
- inclusive and affirming of human agency and human capacities
- working collaboratively to create change
“power with versus power over”
social justice initiatives/organizations: Inclusion Winnipeg
About; a registered charity, which is dedicated to making life better for children and adults living with intellectual disabilities
Programs:
- circle of friends (networking program)
- around town (tickets to events around the city)
- exploring the arts and art classes
social justice initiatives/organizations: Rec and Read mentorship
about: mentor program that builds on the strengths, talents, and energy of Aboriginal Youth, using a holistic approach to children and youth physical activity, nutrition, and education programming
Program: after school program where high school mentors, meet with university mentors and with elementary school children weekly
-they provide a healthy snack, and 45 minutes of PA and an education game or activity
social justice initiatives/organizations: Girl Forward
About: a community of support dedicated to creating and enhancing opportunities for girls who have been displaced by conflict and persecution
Programs:
- mentoring program
- camp Girl Forward (building literacy needs, social justice)
- safe spaces (explore identity, connect with other girls)
what is the purpose of the theory of oppression
provides a framework to help us make sense of oppressive circumstances
- to more effectively overcome those oppressive circumstances
- understand how oppression operates: individuals, cultural, institutions, and historical
what are the 6 defining features of oppression?
1) pervasive
2) restrictive
3) hierarchical
4) complex, multiple, cross cutting relationships
5) internalized
6) shared and distinctive characteristics of “isms”
defining features of oppression: pervasive
- the pervasive nature of social inequality is woven through social institutions just as much as it’s embedded within individuals consciousness (pervasive = to be everywhere or to spread root)
- fusion of institutional and systemic discrimination, personal bias, bigotry, and social prejudice
ex: the way immigrants of colour are racialized and subordinated - the privilege of national identity (Canadian born people)
how is oppression pervasive within the sporting context?
- not allowing any “non-whites” to be members of clubs
- women weren’t allowed to compete in Olympics until 1900 (Charlotte Cooper - first female Olympic champion)
defining features of oppression: restrictive
- denotes to the structural and material constraints that significantly shape a person’s life, chance, and sense of possibility
- restricts: self development and self determination (two parts of the goal of social justice)
- effects the way people see themselves in power, and in those positions
- delimits who can imagine becoming and one’s rights and aspirations
ex: a girl in the US, especially if she is poor or of colour, is unlikely to imagine herself as a president, since a woman has yet to be elected to high office
what is the medias representation of female sports fans and how does this relate to the restrictive characteristic of oppression?
- female sports fans are often depicted as not having any knowledge about the sport they’re watching - stereotypical
- restrictive in the way that this could affect the way a young girl may see herself in the sporting world - what she thinks she is capable of or even the way she sees herself as an athlete
defining features of oppression: hierarchical
- a dominant or privileged group reaps the advantage, often in unconscious ways from the dis-empowerment of targeted groups
- not everyone who is in a power position is walking around trying to get the benefits from the hierarchy
where do we see a hierarchical relationship within the sporting context?
Female athlete vs male athlete
- the way female athletes are portrayed in the media vs male athletes
- the pay inequality that exists across sports
- the broadcasting attention that is given to female sports vs male
- internalized sexism - females aren’t as good of athletes as men (“that ‘s why they aren’t getting as much attention or pay as men”)
