Push Girls

I just watched the first episode of "Push Girls," a documentary about four women who happen use wheelchairs to get around. It's so rare that anyone on television is in a wheelchair, nevermind a whole show!  These are some truly inspiring women.


Here's where you can watch it online http://www.sundancechannel.com/push-girls/

Having just finished reading the section of my qualifying exam material that deals with stigma, I definitely noticed the lack of research that has been done on physical disability.  Nearly all of it centers on mental illness.  Here's a few takeaway points I think are important when it comes to stigma:

1. People with a disability or illness do not immediately consider themselves "a disabled person" as their primary identity.  If it's a new issue for them, their whole existence prior to the diagnosis does not suddenly erase everything about them.  And even if the person was born with the stigmatizing condition, it still is not how they define themselves.  This is why it's better to say "a person with a disability" rather than "a disabled person," to emphasize the importance of the person over their physical (or mental) condition.
2. People with a stigmatizing condition know they have the condition, and know that other people notice it.  Sometimes this makes them nervous that the other people will treat them badly if there are negative stereotypes about their condition (this is called stereotype threat), and this can make them act in ways that actually confirm the negative stereotype they are trying to avoid.
3. Problems that people see as character flaws, like substance abuse, are stigmatizing and make people want to avoid those people.  But problems that are blameless, like being paralyzed from an accident, are still stigmatized, albeit to a lesser extent. 
4. Discrimination can be supported as a cultural institution.  For example, in the show, one of the women is looking to get back into modeling and finds that all of the modeling agencies she tries to work with have never represented someone in a wheelchair before.  One even told her that their building was handicap accessible with a staircase.  Thus the culture of the modeling industry systematically excludes people who use wheelchairs to get around.
5. Not all people who have a stigmatizing condition are upset about it.  The main thrust of the "disability rights movement" is to enable people with disabilities to be self-sufficient (see related article here) and not dependent on medical professionals or caregivers.

Anyway, check out the show!  It addresses so many sociological issues besides just stigma.

Done with Classes FOREVER! What now?

This semester is my first semester as a PhD student with no more classes to take. When I tell people that, they ask a seemingly straightforward question - "so now you just have your dissertation and that's it, right?" Nope. This is academia, so things that should be straightforward need to go through nine levels of hell more hurdles before starting the dissertation.  I'm fortunate to have funding as a Research Assistant this semester so I don't have to teach a class to have funding.

Here's what I have left:

1. Qualifying Exam.  This is an essay assignment where you are given a list of questions and have 72 hours to write up to 30 pages answering those questions using a personalized list of academic research material.  The reading list consists of roughly 100 journal articles and 30 books that are the basis for your specialty in Sociology.  Since I'm specializing in medical sociology, it tends to tip towards more articles and fewer books, so my list is about 120 articles and 20 books. 

PhD students usually take about a semester to make the list (it involves multiple iterations with two advisors) and 3-6 months to do the reading, depending on their other workload (teaching, research, taking classes).

One would think that after roughly 6 semesters of graduate-level coursework and obtaining a master's degree in the process that there wouldn't be much reading left to do.  Not true.  This exam is supposed to show that you understand your area of expertise broadly and in depth, so you can't just focus on the few topics you find most interesting. For example, I think that structural changes in the social organization of medicine in the past 100 years is fascinating.  I'm less interested in figuring out one more way you can show how life is unfair and that there are systematic patterns in who gets sick (also known as epidemiology).  But I have to know all that literature because it is important in my field.


After passing the Qualifying Exam, and it is possible to get an "honors" distinction in this, the student is officially a "doctoral candidate" AKA "all but dissertation" or ABD.  It also means you have to finish the dissertation within 7 years of that date, which is a challenge for some people.

The handbook says "The Qualifying Exam is designed to serve as a bridge between graduate course work and preparation of a dissertation proposal," which brings us to the next obstacle before the dissertation. 


2. Dissertation Proposal.  This is an oral "defense" of your research proposal for your dissertation.  I'm still not sure exactly what the parameters are for this, but it takes some people a year or longer to put it together. In the "Real world" something like this should probably take about a month.

3. Dissertation research.   Actually doing the work for the dissertation.  Data cleaning, statistical analysis, text analysis or whatever else was proposed.  All of this analysis needs to get done before you can write much of anything up.  This could take anywhere from a week to several years if you are collecting your own data.

4. Writing the dissertation. 'nuff said.

5. Oral defense of dissertation.  This is done in front of your committee, who you hope will ask nice easy questions!

So I just have 5 things left, I guess!  Of course, this doesn't include any of the other research I'm working on nor publications I'm trying to put out nor grant proposals, fellowship applications, etc, all of which require lots of time-consuming writing and data analysis.

Medicalization and highway births

So I rarely blog about anything related to my "work" since most of what I do is write anyway, and it is nice to take a break and write about something fun that I did or saw. But seeing this article in the news today, about a woman giving birth in the car on the way to the hospital, gives me an opportunity to relate what I study (broadly) to what goes on in the world.

It is pretty amazing for any woman to give birth to a child in a moving vehicle on a highway. I can't imagine how stressful that would be, for both mom and driver dad!  The couple had clearly been planning for the birth, but not so quickly nor in such an awkward place. And like most births, this one was not complicated and the baby was totally fine.

But here's where the sociology comes in - the assumption, and even requirement, that a "physician" must "attend" a birth:

"It happened so fast, they couldn't even pull over. Dad was still the driver.

But mom suddenly became 'doctor'.

"I just kind of reacted because I knew I couldn't let anything happen to him," Shawna said.

Shawna says it was maternal instinct that brought a healthy seven-pound, one-ounce baby boy into their world.  She's listed as attending physician on Jackson James Clark's birth certificate.  Next to his footprints, it says "delivered by mommy".

 The history of having an "attending physician" is actually pretty interesting, and is a recent phenomenon.  It wasn't until the 18th century that physicians began to take over the childbirth (or "catching") task from the ancient role of midwife (we're talking pre-biblical ancient), under the new assumption that women (midwives have been and still are primarily women) were too weak to handle this difficult job of assisting childbirth, and such work was cast as being more fit for men trained in allopathic (Western) medicine.  In some places, like Iowa, it is actually illegal to practice midwifery today.

Medicalization is the process whereby an otherwise normal bodily function or human condition becomes redefined as something that can (or should) be diagnosed and treated, often only by a medical professional with specialized training. A good example of how a "medicalized" condition can change from being under the jurisdiction of medicine to being a normal social or biological function is that of homosexuality, which used to be officially diagnosable and considered treatable by a physician. In childbirth, planned c-sections are often thought of as medicalizing childbirth.

So while I understand on the one hand the involvement of modern medicine in childbirth as something that has the potential to prevent harm or death to infants or mothers, on the other hand as a modern woman I find it appalling that there is not more choice about one of the most fundamental things about being a woman.  Even more irking is the amazement that a woman even has the capacity to give birth without a "professional" present.  As though she "became" a doctor, rather than a mother, by giving birth.

Also interesting to note is that an uncomplicated delivery in a hospital costs on average $10,000, while on the extreme, a complicated C-section costs an average of $22,000 in the US (not including anesthesia charges).  So at least for this couple, a bundle of cash was saved (though the insurance company is really the one who "wins" - but that's another story).

Well, there you have a bit of insight into what a PhD program in sociology does to one's mind when reading the news.

Yet Another Master's Degree

On the advice of an unnamed professor, I decided to participate in the graduate student graduation program this spring since I finished all of the requirements for the Master's Degree in Sociology this winter - supposedly "everyone" would be there. Well, I was the only one from my department who showed up for the Master's portion, but it was still interesting despite coughing up $75 for the gown rental.

Most memorable was what I observed during the PhD "hoodings", where each PhD graduate has their name read, then their advisor places a velvet/satin sash thing (for some reason called a hood) over their heads. My outfit actually had a "hood" too, but at the MA level you put it on yourself before the ceremony. Weird stuff. Anyway, the really interesting thing was the way advisors and graduates interacted immediately after the hooding. There was a very clear gender difference. If it was a female student, the advisor would hug her just after putting on the hood. If it was a female advisor, she would hug the graduate (whether male or female). BUT, if it was a male student with a male advisor, they would shake hands like adults who respected each other professionally. So you can guess which one I will insist on!

Here's me and Paul right after the ceremony.

Pronunciation

A funny thing in Social Science theory, or at least I think it's funny, is that people who are normally speaking English suddenly develop a German accent when referencing Max Weber. Apprently, saying Maaahx Vay-baar must sound much more sophiticated or intellectual than saying his name like you'd read it out of a US phone book - Macks Web-ber. I don't know, I just think it's kind of pretentious, but then again I'm the odd one out on this. For now, I'm holding out as long as I can with my American accent. Maybe I'll sound just as abrasive as the Germanophiles sound to me, but I can deal with that better than pretending to have an accent.

Might I also add that Hoosiers doesn't mess with foreign pronunciation, as in Peru, Indiana, pronounced "pay-roo". Our neighbors in Illinois do likewise with Des Plaines (dehs playnes). Even Kentucky gets it, pronouncing Versailles, KY as "ver-sails". I'm definitely not the only one to Americanize pronunciation.

So let's see how long I get away with my little rebellion.

Grad School E-mails

It looks like I've been officially added to the IU Sociology grad student e-mail list, since I've started receiving e-mails from people I don't know with "SOCGRAD" as the TO e-mail address. To some extent, that makes me feel pretty important, but on the other hand, I wish I could start using my IU e-mail rather than g-mail (I probably won't have access to my IU e-mail until I start classes in August). I think a lot of us feel that way about "work" e-mail and "personal" e-mail - keep them separate! I guess I should be happy that my g-mail address is just my name and not something like "HotBabeXOXO".

It will be interesting over the next couple of months before I start my program to see what kinds of things people think are appropriate to send to all of the grad students. So far there's been a YouTube video and a couple of guest lecturer announcements. The Social Sciences tend to attract a colorful crowd, so I expect to get a lot of things in my inbox that I might not find as funny as the sender intended. But that's why there's a delete button!

Now I just need to get back on track reading Sociology related books rather than puppy training books!