Feminist Theory & "Women's Issues" Discussion Thread: All Gender Identities Are Encouraged To Participate

fwiw this actually seems pretty straightforward but (capricious bolding to follow)

METHODS:
Sixty mature Leghorn* type chickens were chosen and divided into three groups. The 25 chickens in group A were given a weekly dose of 3 mg/kg/week methylprednisolone acetate(1) intramuscularly(2). Four chickens in group B died after the first drug injection and were excluded from the study(3). Therefore, the remaining 21 chickens in group B were additionally given 25 mg/kg/day pentoxifylline(4) intramuscularly(5), along with the steroid medication(6) as given in group A. The ten chickens in group C were not given any injections, as they were accepted as the control group(7). After the sacrifice(8) of the animals at week 14, both femoral heads(9) were taken from each animal. The animals which died along the course of the study also underwent pathological examination(10) but were not a part of the statistical analysis.
RESULTS:
In this study, steroid induced femoral head osteonecrosis(11) has been experimentally observed in chickens after high doses of corticosteroid therapy(12). The chickens were given pentoxifylline in order to prevent the effects of steroid on bones and bone marrow. The results showed that chickens are suitable osteonecrosis models(13), and that steroid causes adipogenesis(14) and necrosis(15) in the bone marrow and the death of the subchondral bone(16).

* lol
1) what the hell is this and why didn't you say what it is and not what it's named
2) this should seem obvious, "intra," "muscularly," but it's still not layperson
3) "excluded from the study" is a meaningful statistical concept, that MIGHT have implications, but this isn't clarified
4) ok waht is it
5) there's that word again
6) so the first one is a steroid medication?
7) is this like being popular
8) my god
9) this is a kind of fish, right
10) staring contest
11) wait is this what you're suggesting is happened? is everything that you described above...this?
12) didn't realize that was especially high
13) osteonecrosis is not for sale!!!!
14) chill wave
15) death metal
16) decemberists album

omg plax if you make me reread butler by posting super-awesomely i will never forgive you >:[

Lol I have never enjoyed footnotes this much, ty gbx (also: shudder)

I'm not sure what point you're trying to prove, gbx, but apart from the names of the actual chemicals in the treatments, i understood every word of that medical quote? I do have a background in medical data analysis, but most of the jargon is from Latin and Greek enough to work out what it means. It's not even rocket science.

i also find you intimidatingly smart, harbl

xp - you should totally do this as a powerpoint presentation!

lol, gbx, but i had no trouble reading and understanding the general gist of that chicken study. i think the density of crit/philosophical writing is more a product of what ryan described a few posts back:

"...what's generally called "post-structuralist" writing is ABOUT linguistic (or generally semiotic) obfuscation--using language against language. it's a rebellion against the falsely objective idea of "clear" language.

by which i mean it's complete nonsense. no offense, ryan. if you're trying to smash the language-state, it makes much more sense to describe the "the falsely objective idea of 'clear' language" (hey, that was very clear and direct!) than to publish arcane gibberish for yr academic peers.

dude stop posting for a minute maybe

omg gbx <3

man, this thread

― Little GTFO (contenderizer), Thursday, February 16, 2012 1:32 AM (55 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^ i feel like that post means something

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Thursday, February 16, 2012 1:32 AM (54 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

different people have different difficulties and aptitudes. it's kinda funny(?) how on this thread about feminism and gender, we're seeing classic stereotypical male "i can understand the science stuff, therefore it is more understandable than the stuff about words"

i am flattered but idk where you got that idea xps
i started reading dialectic of sex again! so beautiful imo

I am not a man, and I found the science stuff more understandable than the stuff about stuff about words about words.

it makes much more sense to describe the "the falsely objective idea of 'clear' language" (hey, that was very clear and direct!) than to publish arcane gibberish for yr academic peers.

actually try to do this while being as true as possible to the phenomenon you are discussing and avoiding re-telling the history of philosophy on every page, and you'll be surprised how fast your language starts to look like, say, Derrida's. it seems to happen on its own! i personally strive for clarity with precision, and sometimes that results in some scary looking stuff.

xp - you are behaving like a stereotypical dude though!

i have never read that book. maybe i will get it tomorrow.

xxp

ha guys you ~fell into my trap~

of course you were able to make sense of that, you're people that have trafficked in that language professionally or just out of interest. and, as i said, it's actually a pretty straightforward account (which duh it's the abstract). but, if you weren't in the business of knowing what those words (or the roots of those words) meant, it might be a little obtuse. moreover, there's the question of why exactly it's even interesting, as a study or observation?

corticosteroids can induce osteonecrosis in chickens. when is this an issue? i can think of a bunch of cases, but i doubt it would be immediately, readily apparent to a person that found these words written on a scrap of paper on the floor.

the first chapter is here: http://www.marxists.org/subject/women/authors/firestone-shulamith/dialectic-sex.htm
xp

Posting once only here to mention that, as a reasonably smart guy who nonetheless doesn't try very hard and Peter Principled his way into a BA in only six years, the first book I ever read that taught me anything at all about feminism was not an academic or theoretical text at all, but Susan Faludi's "Backlash"; and frankly that book should be required reading in US high schools, because if anything things have gotten worse.

(also apologies for display name/thread topic collision)

academic language is often purposely obfuscated

yeah the biggest question of the chickens text is why would you do that to chickens??

lol i talk about women as "the sex class" all the time and have never read shulamith firestone :/

thanks, rrrobyn!

and i think that's why i didn't find it any easier to parse (maybe a bit more difficult) than the gender/language theory examples. Like, scientists gave drugs to some of the chickens and some of the chickens died. Other than that ... eyes kinda glazed because it didn't seem relevant.

but when you understand the text because you are immersed in its science world, you just probably inherently know why they would do that to chickens, is what i'm saying

exactly, rrobyn!

Whereas gender and language are things that we all deal with

you are behaving like a stereotypical dude though!

Fuck gender roles. I'm not behaving like a stereotypical dude, I'm behaving like a systems thinker with a strong background in both sciences and classical languages. This is the point, these things aren't attached to gender, but to personalities/bents/occupations.

And, as someone who has a huge interest in linguistics and languages, and in fact, studies dead or revived languages ~for fun~ seriously, it's not the "OMG words!" aspect of Butler that troubles me.

they are often attached to gender, as certain personality traits and bents and occupations are encouraged more if you're male vs. female!

but when you understand the text because you are immersed in its science world, you just probably inherently know why they would do that to chickens, is what i'm saying

― obliquity of the ecliptic (rrrobyn), Wednesday, February 15, 2012 8:36 PM (12 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: THIS THREAD

i mean basically

they are often attached to gender, as certain personality traits and bents and occupations are encouraged more if you're male vs. female!

*beats head against fucking wall*

Susan Faludi, yes!
xps

yeah i love Backlash a lot

so what is this thread supposed to be about, anyway? Science and math and related topics up until very recently (like the past 20 yrs or so) have been ridiculously male-dominant. And it goes back to stereotypes of female brain vs. male brain that that Harvard dolt bought into! Aren't we supposed to be discussing stuff like this?

Whereas gender and language are things that we all deal with
true, but we all don't engage with gender and language in the same ways
just like we all don't engage with chickens and corticosteroid therapy in the same ways

lol

some of us don't deal with chickens and corticosteroid therapy at all though!

Sarahel, it's 3 in the morning and I don't even know.

I've just spent the entire thread arguing, as a gender non conforming woman, that gender roles are contrived and how harmful it is that non-gendered interests are so actively gendered, and then you come in and tell me I'm ~being a dude~ for having an interest and a job in science.

like how many people don't even bat an eyelid at gender stereotypes? a lot of people.
and chickens are for eating and corticosteroids are something on a medication label or something "doctors know about"

i'm just saying that everyone engages with information on some level or another

all i'm saying is that your reactions to Butler and the theory and then the science stuff codes as "dudely" -- I don't mean it pejoratively, just that it is funny, because it shows the intersecting types of privilege interacting, and how it is complex.

for example, because you do have that aptitude/experience w/science, you have a certain privilege in terms of the science vs. non-science power dynamic.

I think it would improve my understand of the thread if everybody, ~ including me ~ would stop using these stupid ~ tildes ~ all the time because it is weird and ~ distracting ~

they're not tildes they're snakes!

~ swinton

The tilde is p much my way of saying I am being ~facetious~ or snotty or air-quotey or some other sarcasm family of emoticon WRT the text so highlighted. It's kind of a useful shorthand and I was hoping it would lead to people having a more natural and less negative interpretation of my posts where I'm not being 100% ~serious~ but I guess that didn't work, huh.

I think it is funny! I have totally adopted it.

it would also be funny if you did it like this:

<swinton>omg Thom Yorke's hair</swinton>

Just for that, I'm gonna post one of those ~Thom Yorke Looking Like Lost Son Of Tilda Swinton~ photos from like 1994 or so.

Anyway, ~FEMINISM~, huh? What's that about?

he totally looks like her lost son!

I'm just gonna mention some books I have liked that deal w/some gender stuff:

Susan Faludi's Backlash yeah this is like gender wars 101, also a great study in how fake media stories get perpetuated

Dorothy Allison's Skin is a collection of really great essays, I like it a lot more than her fiction

Pat Califia's Public Sex was kind of a big deal for me as well when I started reading abt this stuff

Doris Lessing's Prisons We Choose To Live Inside is maybe off topic but idk

Carol J. Adams' The Sexual Politics Of Meat is super interesting, just what it says

would be interested in hearing about what people in this thread think about Faludi's Stiffed, I thought it was really sad and fascinating but maybe skirting a little too close to excusing male privilege?