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Gender and Sexuality Portfolio Post Three: Connection to Pop Culture

Amber H.

Gender & Sexuality

Nodulman

16 October 2018

                                       Women in Prison Post Three

           Within our culture we can see how the media plays a huge part in portraying various subjects. For my topic I decided to look into how the media, more specifically documentaries, portrayed women in prison and if it retold, revised, or rewrote the binary. I have always been interested in how people are being treated in our prison systems because our prison system in our society is very messed up. The documentaries that I have watch in the past that caused me to become more interested in prisons and pick my topics of women in prisons and their reproductive and health care in the systems, were the two documentaries, Babies Behind Bars and 13th. So, in addition to those documentaries I decided to look further to how women in prison were portrayed in prison. I was looking at the TV shows Girls Incarcerated, and Orange is the New Black. For this portfolio post, I am going to focus on the TV show, Orange is the New Black. Orange is the New Black is about a woman named Piper Chapman who goes to jail due to an association with drugs in her past. It surrounds her story as well as various women and men as well. I am going to rewatch the show and look for specifics of how the binary is retold, revised, or rewritten. My whole goal is to see how this show portrays the gender binary. The gender binary is everywhere within our society, even in our pop culture. The gender binary can end up being really hurtful to people when they fall outside of what people in our society expect of us. It is important to notice instances where the gender binary is retold, revised, or rewritten. So, by looking at one of the TV shows I like, and watch will allow me to use the knowledge I have gained from this class to rewatch this show with a different lens. To me it is important to look at various aspects, especially gender binary, of our prison system so that we may fix them, so they are improving people and not further hurting them. Orange is the New Black shows instances of the gender binary being retold and rewritten.

            Within season three of Orange is the New Black, we were introduced to the character Stella Carlin played by Ruby Rose. This character is an example of the gender binary being rewritten, more specifically synthesis. Chapter five of Gender Stories, states that the gender binary being rewritten is, “…disrupt any connection between bodies and gender expectations, suggesting that any behavior, any quality, and any kind of appearance is appropriate for anybody “(128). So overall, the rewritten means that it defies the certain expectations or ideas of gender in our society. There are two ways the book describes how the gender binary can be rewritten, synthesis and innovation. For this post I will be focusing how Orange is the New Black focuses on how the show rewrites gender through synthesis. The book describes synthesis as, “…includes elements of both the conventionally feminine and the conventionally masculine” (128). The character Stella Carlin would be an example of synthesis because she would be considered androgynous, both female and male conventionally, as well as ambiguous genders. This is just one example of how Orange is the New Black rewrites the gender binary.

           The very first episode of Orange is the New Black, and throughout the rest of multiple seasons, we can see how the gender binary is being retold. Gender Stories describes the retelling of gender as, “…their messages about gender align with the prescription of the master narrative of the binary” (106). When Piper Chapman enters prison is sent to the women’s prison. Right here we can see the gender binary being retold by separating people into the male or female prison, people are being separated. This enforces that there is only males and females, and we know that this is not true. We know that there are more than two and that gender is also fluid. However, our society and culture always enforces two genders. We can see this exactly through Orange is the New Black with people being separated. We can also tie this back into real life, our society has always separated people into male or female wings. More specifically within the retelling, this example within this TV show could possibly be an example of prescription. Gender Stories, describes prescription as, “…marketed towards adults and explicitly prescribe how men and women should be” (109). This TV show is marketed towards adults and the separating of people into male or female could possibly show adults that there are only two genders and that you have to fit into one or another? However, we know that characters within the series defy or challenge the binary whether through looks, attitudes, or actions, the prison system itself is a binary system and that is what people are seeing.

           A reoccurring character within the seasons of Orange is the New Black, is Lorna Morello. She is a heavily feminine character who is really into beauty. She wears lipstick and has her hair curled. In prison she also had her own beauty column. In addition to this is obsessed with getting married and planning her wedding. She wants the cliché life our society has constructed. We can link this example to retelling the binary. Morello would be an example of retelling the binary because she is a hyper feminine character that has all the traits, looks, etc. that our society expects from women. We could also possibly say that this could also be an example of prescription as well. Due to the fact that Orange is the New Black is marketed towards adults. As well as having Morello portray an extremely feminine character. It may show the ideal picture of how women are “supposed” to be according to our society. Therefore, retelling the binary.

           In conclusion, Orange is the New Black rewrites the binary with synthesis regarding the character Stella and retells the binary through prescription with the character Morello and the prison system separating people. Using the knowledge, I have learned regarding retelling, revising, and rewriting the gender binary class has allowed me to look at this TV show in a new light and think about the various ways with gender. It was really interesting to think about how the gender binary is within our pop culture especially since we encounter this culture every day. It is important to see how the gender binary is either being enforced or challenged in some way because it allows us to see how enforced over and over it is through ways we may not even know. It is important to help break out gender binary world because the gender binary can be really hurtful. Especially in prisons where they place transgendered people on in the section of their born sex, so what is opposite from them and this is very damaging and hurtful to people, as well as uncomfortable and dangerous with other inmates using violence against them. We have to break the binary and help improve the prison system, so it is helping people and not hurting them.

Work Cited (It was correct until I posted it here)

Foss, Sonja K., et al. Gender Stories: Negotiating Identity in a Binary World. Waveland Press, Inc., 2013.

Morelli, Lauren, et al. Orange Is the New Black, Netflix, 11 July 2013.

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Gender and Sexuality Portfolio Post Two: Connection to Foundational Course Concepts

Amber Hanke

Gender & Sexuality

Nodulman

20 September 2018

                                       Women in Prison Post Two

             Within our class readings of Gender Stories and Threshold Concepts in Women’s Studies, we learned the important terms and concepts of the social construction of gender, agency, privilege, oppression, and intersexuality.These terms allow us to analyze and interpret various events within our everyday life throughout society. Regarding my topic, these terms help me explain why women in prison experience certain events the way they do as well as allowing me to study further in depth into my topic of the inequalities that women face being incarcerated within our society. Using these terms to explain women in prison and our prison system over all in general, has allowed me to see how much injustice there is towards people trapped in prison system and just how problematic our system is.  

             There are various social constructions that we have read and discussed in class. One construct that society has created within our society is gender. Gender Stories by Sonja K. Foss, Mary E. Domencio, and Karen A. Foss, describes how sex is biological while gender is your personal traits and behaviors that develop and change throughout various social interaction. Along with gender comes the gender binary creation within our social order, the gender binary being man and woman. The construction of gender and gender binary by society leads to many problematic issues such as stereotypes, roles, and certain norms that society believes someone should do. Within the prison system we can see that people are separated based on their sex. In regards to someone who is transgender, this can be really damaging and problematic for them.

          For example, if someone was transgender and they went to prison, they would be put based on what sex they were assigned at birth. This is very problematic and damaging to a person when they are not housed by gender identity. It is problematic due to the fact that their identity is being ignored and they are being forced to go to an area that they do not identify with. A repercussion that can arise upon a transgender individual due to being in an area where they do not identify with is harassment from other inmates.  According to Lambda Legal, a legal organization specializing in LGBTQ+ rights, “This policy makes transgender people more vulnerable to harassment or attack by staff or fellow incarcerated people: A California study found that transgender people were 13 times more likely to be sexually assaulted than non-transgender people in prison” (“Transgender Incarcerated People in Crisis”, 2018). In addition to being more likely to be assaulted, prison system officials will frequently block an incarcerated transgender person to their transition-related health care. They may block hormones or various treatment, even if it is prescribed by a doctor (“Transgender Incarcerated People in Crisis”, 2018). This example of what transgender individuals go through within our current prison structure shows how problematic it is, especially when people are being rejected the health care that they deserve and need. People are being dehumanized and put under extremely control by cruel individuals. They cannot control their life or make any decisions that they would like to make in their own life. All of these are being denied to them.

          Agency are our own choices that we make throughout our life every single day. Gender Stories describes agency as the actions you take throughout your life and these decisions can impact your whole world whether it little or big or whether it would impact just you or others. However, some may have an easier time making decisions than others. Women in prison have limited amount of agency and do not have as much agency as women who are not incarcerated would have. There are barriers that keep incarcerated women from making decisions whether is be the rules in the current facility that they are in or the rules that the officers enforce. Women not being able to make certain decisions is hurtful and leaving them with little power in situations. Women need to be able to have more agency when it comes to their life in prison, luckily at least one prison, Bedford Hills, is allowing women to have more agency in their lives regarding their newly born children.

          In the documentary, Babies Behind Bars, describes one prison that has opened up a separate wing that is specifically for mothers and their newborn baby. Usually what happens when a pregnant inmate gives birth, the baby is taken away “…48 to 72 is taken away and either given to a family member or sent to foster care” (Chuck, 2018). The ripping away of the child from the mother can potentially be very traumatic to the mother. In order to fight this traumatic experience, Bedford Hills prison has created a separate wing for mothers to keep and stay with their child ranging from 12 months to 18 months. The women within this program are using agency to decide what they do with their baby on a daily basis whether is be time to feed them, go to the play room, going to night classes, etc. These women are bettering themselves throughout the program and improving the future of their life when they get released. Another way that the women in the program use agency is exchanging parenting tips with other mothers in the program. Agency was also described within Gender Stories as influencing other peers around you, therefore the women are using agency when they are exchanging parenting tips such as how to help babies get to sleep at night. Programs such as these that allow pregnant women to keep their child with them, are extremely beneficial to the mother. This helps improve the mother physically, mentally, and emotionally. As well as cause her to continue to push herself to improve her life for the better until they get released.

             Within class we have discussed various types of privilege like heterosexual privilege, white privilege, male privilege, cisgender privilege, etc. Privileges are automatically given to some people in our society just because of how someone may look or how they are. Our society upholds privileges towards certain people and oppresses others. Threshold Concepts in Women’s and Gender Studies gives us an example of the mythical norm that contains all the privileges within our society which happens to be a “…white, straight, thin, young, Christian, financially stable, male” (Launius and Hassel, 2015). It is important to recognize privileges so that we may use that privilege to help people who do not have the same privileges as us, which can help fight towards equality. Especially fight towards equality for women who are incarcerated.

              Some males in prison have more privileges than females do in prison. Within the article,  “Nothing Less Than the Dignity of Man”: Women Prisoners, Reproductive Health, and Unequal Access to Justice Under the Eighth Amendment, describes the story of how a female inmate named Michelle Lea Martinez was denied medical care even though she was vaginally bleeding. In order to get seen by the doctor, she had to slam her thumb in the door. She had to do this because “…Martinez knew instinctively what was required to receive adequate healthcare as a female prisoner—an injury that looked like one a man could sustain” (Marquis 2018). The article later goes on to discuss than men’s health care in the prison system has overshadowed women’s health care within the system. Leaving women’s health care to be extremely lacking. This example shows male privilege within our society. Women’s health care is very lacking compared to men, especially when it comes to prison. The fact that a women had to go through and give her self an injury that a man would be able to get, shows how much male privilege there is. We need to acknowledge the fact that women’s health care is extremely lacking and needs to be improved drastically. Everyone needs to be able to get the health care they deserve.

              Anyone who does not fit society’s mythical norm experiences oppression in some shape or form. Oppression leads to some many inequalities and people who are oppressed experience various inequalities on a daily basis whether it be through an individual or through a whole entire institution within society. Threshold Concepts in Women and Gender Studies describes how oppression is directed at specific groups of people through the use of ideologies and social institutions. It is important to see oppression within our society so that we may help try and change it so that people will no longer be oppressed. In this project’s case, we can see how black women are heavily oppressed in our society and within our prison and “justice” system.

             According to the NAACP, “African Americans are incarcerated at more than 5 times the rate of whites…The imprisonment rate for African American women is twice that of white women” (Criminal Justice Fact Sheet, 2015). This statistics show how our society targets African Americans are targeted by our society. They are being oppressed from society and being targeted more often. Prisons more so serve as a controlling people and the practices that it enforces onto its people currently in it is really damaging mentally, emotionally, and physically. A black women is pretty much the opposite of the mythical norm and facing a lot of oppression from others and society’s institutions, especially from prisons. The documentary 13th, shows how our prison systems came to be in our country. It shows how our country targets African Americans and how prisoners are exploited and used for work and to do various jobs that they make to do. These jobs can be damaging towards the person, but some people do not care about them as much because they are prisoners. Which is extremely wrong. They should care about every person and focus on improving their life and not making it worse or forcing them to do hard labored work that exploits them.

             Intersectionality is all about how multiple factors play into effect when it comes to a person’s life. Threshold Concepts in Women’s and Gender Studies explains intersectionality as how various forms of oppression and identity intermix with each other determining someone’s personal experience within society and their access to institutions and power. Using intersectional feminism is very important regarding this, due to the fact that two women of different races are not going to experience the same thing. Women with different identities will experience different things. Therefore showing how it is important to be using an intersectional feminist view.

           Thinking back to two previous examples, transgender women and women of color, we can see how important a intersectional feminist view is. A transgender women of color will experience different events than other women. For one, transgender women are not able to get the proper treatment that they require. They are sometimes blocked from getting their hormones. In addition to this, as stated previously, they are also most likely to be assigned to the group to which they were assigned at birth. An intersectional view is important in this situation because it shows the various over lapping of different oppression and identities at work here regarding gender, race, etc. As well as showing how everyone has their own unique experiences.

             The terms that we have discussed in class: social construction of gender, agency, privilege, oppression, and intersexuality all are very important to understand so that we may evaluate our daily lives and society. These words all lead us to see how people, more specifically women in prison, are affected due to various oppressions and inequalities within our society. It is important to understand that each women’s experience is different and that they all deserve the health care that they need. Transgender women should not be stopped from treatments and they should be assigned to the women section of the prison. They should not get assigned to the men’s section. Being in the wrong section is really harmfully to the person. It is ignoring their identity and who they are as a person. It is also important to see the various privileges and oppressions. So, we may keep fighting towards better prison systems and equality.

                   Work Cited (Was APA but formatting got messed up in pasting)

DuVernay, A. (Director). (2016, October 7). 13th [Video file].

Richardson, A. (Director). (2011, February 24). Babies Behind Bars [Video file].

Chuck, E. (2018, August 4). Prison nurseries give incarcerated mothers a     chance to raise their babies - behind bars. Retrieved from https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/prison-nurseries-give-incarcerated-mothers-chance-raise-their-babies-behind-n894171

N. (n.d.). Criminal Justice Fact Sheet. Retrieved from https://www.naacp.org/criminal-justice-fact-sheet/

Foss, S. K., Foss, K. A., & Domenico, M. E. (2013). Gender stories: Negotiating   Identity in a binary world. Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press.

Launius, C., & Hassel, H. (2015). Threshold concepts in womens and gender studies: Ways of seeing, thinking, and knowing. New York, NY: Routledge.

Marquis, E. (2018). “Nothing Less Than the Dignity of Man”: Women Prisoners, Reproductive Health, and Unequal Access to Justice Under the Eighth Amendment. 203-230. Retrieved September 5, 2018.

Transgender Incarcerated People in Crisis. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.lambdalegal.org/know-your-rights/article/trans-incarcerated-people

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Gender and Sexuality Portfolio Post One: Introduction to Special Interest Topic

Amber H.

Nodulman

Gender and Sexuality 330

6 September 2018

Gender and Sexuality Portfolio Post One: Introduction to Special Interest Topic

             “The United States is home to 5% of the world’s population but houses 25% of all imprisoned people in the world” (Lawson, 2016, p. 273). This quote demonstrates just how many people the United States incarcerates. The amount of people that are incarcerated is a big problem because it has led us to overcrowding. The overcrowding of prison leads us to even more issues that heavily impacts the prisoners well being and health. But how exactly does being incarcerated effect women?

The topic I have selected is Women in Prisons. I am going to be narrowing down my research to study their reproductive healthcare and pregnancy experience throughout the course of their time in prison. I selected this topic because I have always been interested in prisons and the treatment of people within the prison system. In my opinion there is a lot that needs to be changed within our prison system to improve it and help people for the better, instead of negatively impacting and hurting them. I have watched many documentaries about prisons such as 13th, and Babies Behind Bars. Babies Behind Bars was an interesting documentary about pregnant women in prison. From what I’ve seen what usually happens when women are pregnant while prison, is that after they have their babies at the hospital they either give the child to a family member/another guardian or it gets put up for adoption. However, in Babies Behind Bars, it was about letting pregnant women keep their babies and spend time and take care of it in a special maternity wing in the prison, which I though was very interesting. So, my interests regarding prisons is what lead me to narrow my topic down to take look into specifically how a pregnant woman’s life is in prison and the different issues that arise from being in prison.

The topics of all my ten articles that I found were either related to pregnancy in prison or reproductive healthcare for women who were incarcerated. Almost all of the articles that I found were written by women. Maybe one or two of the ten had a male author or co-writer. Regarding author affiliation, majority of the authors had written the articles I had found were professors from various professors. Usually the professors were specialized and involved in law school, healthcare, or criminal justice. The one that was not a professor was from the American Correction Association.  As I looked at my ten articles I found a common theme of reproductive health care within all the research questions. To be more specific, the research questions had mentioned a lot about how hard it was to receive proper healthcare while in jail. Another specific that was discussed was the separation of the child from its mother after it was born and also alternatives to the separation to try and help the mothers. The methodology from majority of the articles was interviews. Interviews allowed the authors to get first hand perspectives from the women that were incarcerated. Some of the answers that the women gave in the interviews were that it was hard to get proper medical attention, for example in one of the articles a women who was experiencing vaginal bleeding, but the officers had refused her to go and get attention because she did not put her name on the list to get seen by the nurse who treats the pregnant women at that jail. So, she had to end up slamming her thumb in a door in order to get seen so both her thumb and vaginal bleed could get taken care of.  Future research indicated more interviews to help improve the health care of women in jail and to do studies to see how the maternity wings in prisons effect the women when they are able to keep their child, so then that research may be able to help improve the lives of more women.

The search terms that I used with my studies included women, prisoners, pregnant and reproductive health. I narrowed it down to scholarly articles between the years of 2012 and 2018. As well as full text. The number of results I received for my women, pregnant, and prisoners search gave me exactly 40 results. My search with women, prisoners, and reproductive health gave me 15 results. The absolute most important term for me to be using during my research was pregnant and reproductive health since that is what I picked to focus on regarding women in prisons. To summarize everything that I found within my ten articles, a lot of it had to deal with how they could not receive proper care that they needed. Women were not taken seriously, or their concerns were not really listened to. Another main point was that about half of my articles were taking about the separation of the mother and child after it was born. They showed that if mothers were able to keep their baby, then they would improve overall. However, if their baby was taken away, then they would relapse into preview behaviors and get worse. Majority of the authors were women from universities that either dealt with law, criminal justice, or health care. A common theme between these authors was that a lot of them conducted interviews to get a first-hand look to what it was really like for women to be in prisons while pregnant.

Women in prisons have a hard time receiving the proper medical care that they need, especially when pregnant. Women’s health and concerns need to be taken seriously by the staff at the prison. Regarding pregnant women and their children, studies showed that it was beneficial to the women to keep their child and not be separated. Our prison systems have a lot to change in order to meet the needs of the women. Health care is very important and there should be no struggle in getting it. Good and proper health care is a right to all people and everyone should be able to get it. I learned how difficult it really was for women to receive the health care that they needed. Reading some of the stories, it was horrible reading what some had to do in order to get health care. Like the one mother that I previously mentioned that had to slam her thumb in order to get seen. The author even said, “After experiencing vaginal bleeding, which can be a sign of miscarriage, she requested to visit the medical unit. The jail staff refused because Martinez had not put her name on a list to see the nurse who treated pregnant prisoners. “I was scared,” said Martinez in a later newspaper interview.1 “So I just grabbed the door and I slammed my thumb. I didn’t know what was wrong with me or my baby.” Within ten minutes Martinez received care for her thumb and vaginal bleeding. Martinez knew instinctively what was required to receive adequate healthcare as a female prisoner—an injury that looked like one a man could sustain” (Marquis 2018). 

Works Cited (Everything was in APA but it got messed up when I pasted it into here)

Bard, E., Knight, M., & Plugge, E. (2016). Perinatal health care services for imprisoned pregnant women and associated outcomes: A systematic review. 1-19. doi:10.1186/s12884-016-1080-z

Byrne, M. W., Goshin, L., & Blanchard-Lewis, B. (2012). Maternal Separations During The Reentry Years For 100 Infants Raised In A Prison Nursery. Family Court Review, 50(1), 77-90. doi:10.1111/j.1744-1617.2011.01430.x

Elmalak, S. (2015). Babies Behind Bars: An Evaluation of Prison Nurseries in American Female Prisons and Their Potential Constitutional Challenges. 1080-1106. Retrieved September 5, 2018.

Fritz, S., & Whiteacre, K. (2015). Prison nurseries: Experiences of incarcerated women during pregnancy. Journal of Offender Rehabilitation, 55(1), 1-20. doi:10.1080/10509674.2015.1107001

Kotlar, B., Kornrich, R., Deneen, M., Kenner, C., Theis, L., Esenwein, S. V., & Webb-Girard, A. (2015). Meeting Incarcerated Womens Needs For Pregnancy-Related and Postpartum Services: Challenges and Opportunities. Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, 47(4), 221-225. doi:10.1363/47e3315

Kuhlik, L. (2017). Pregnancy Behind Bars: The Constitutional Argument for Reproductive Healthcare Access in Prison. 501-535.

Marquis, E. (2018). “Nothing Less Than the Dignity of Man”: Women Prisoners, Reproductive Health, and Unequal Access to Justice Under the Eighth Amendment. 203-230. Retrieved September 5, 2018.

Powell, C., Marzano, L., & Ciclitira, K. (2016). Mother–infant separations in prison. A systematic attachment-focused policy review. The Journal of Forensic Psychiatry & Psychology, 28(2), 274-289. doi:10.1080/14789949.2016.1204465

A. (2012). Reproductive Health Care for Incarcerated Women and Adolescent Females. 425-429. Retrieved September 4, 2018.

Sufrin, C. (2015). “Doctor, Why Didn’t You Adopt My Baby?” Observant Participation, Care, and the Simultaneous Practice of Medicine and Anthropology. Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry, 39(4), 614-633. doi:10.1007/s11013-015-9435-x