In today’s weekly podcast post, I present Jay Frosting’s podcast “Miss Gender,” and specifically his episode entitled “Are things getting better?” in which he discusses a woman named Ashley’s difficult transition into becoming a woman. Ashley begins by explaining how tedious and frustrating the process of waiting for gender-confirmation surgery (GCS) can be due to the fact that there is a large demand for it and additionally because there are only a handful of surgeons in the world that can reliably perform the operation. Though Ashley has already successfully gotten through reassignment surgery, she brings up the point that she cannot properly orgasm, and as such she wishes to undergo an additional operation; unfortunately for her, though, this may not happen until as late as 2017 due to popular demand. Still, Ashley’s biggest problem continues to be her failure to gain the support of her parents, who are not exactly pleased with her decision to become a transwoman. She describes the immense pain she experiences when her parents refuse to call her by her preferred name, and preferred pronoun. She even goes on to explain how her parent’s continual misuse of proper pronouns may in fact pose a threat to her safety if individuals in public who are not transgender friendly overhear the fact that she used to be a man. Similarly to other individuals who experience such complications when transitioning, this is a heartbreaking story. In a way, society is still warming up to the notion that gender reassignment surgery is a fairly regular operation these days, so it is at least somewhat understandable why not everyone would necessary be comfortable around transgendered folks. I am sure Ashley is fully aware of this reality and has accepted the unfortunate consequences of her choices; still, it is baffling that her own parents are so against her decision and I can only image how it must feel not being able to revel in the comfort and security of one’s own parents, who should be there for their children no matter what. I truly envy people like Ashley who have the confidence and self- respect to follow their hearts and live the lives they know will make them happy and best suited to take on the world.

http://www.missgender.com/

In today’s podcast, entitled “Women are not men,” Stephen Dubner discusses unexpected statistical differences in activities shared among both men and women. Particularly intriguing, he explains, is the discrepancy between men and women in terms of their presence on Wikipedia; in addition to the fact that (according to a study conducted in 2013) only one in every six women is an editor on Wikipedia, women also account for only about 9% of the website’s total edits. This gendered imbalance has been problematic on the website since its inception; one such woman Dubner interviews recounts the tale of her first days at Wikipedia wherein several of her articles were outright denied for seemingly no apparent reason. Whether this was in practice an act of sexism or not, it is still questionable that her article would be shot down so quickly while men’s articles at the time were accepted with open arms and were not highly criticized. Perhaps, at the end of the day, a continually strong male presence online is merely a function of the social construction of gender more than anything else. Society has historically valued the opinions and morals of men to a much greater extent than women, and even though one’s identity is masked considerably behind a computer, this standard has unfortunately continued to be the case online. To that end, I find it especially interesting to ponder the concept that men continue to be the dominant gender even on the internet; if we cannot physically see that it is a man who is posting content behind a computer, how is it that we sense a man is indeed the one posting it? Is it the way the content is written, or even the “voice” that the content gives off? If so, the perhaps the ultimate question is why what men write, even in the privacy of their own homes and sheltered from the outside world, is more valued and is taken more seriously than what women write? 

Today’s podcast discussion deals with Dr. Anita Biressi’s podcast entitled “The importance of hearing the voices of ordinary women.” Dr. Biressi is a professor at the University of Roehampton which is located in London, England. The focus of the Dr.’s conversation relates to the importance of voicing the opinions and values of ordinary women who do not necessarily have the power to do so on their own. Unlike women who may be celebrities or politicians, ordinary women do not have tremendous power over influencing gendered associations and norms. This is rather problematic considering that your average day woman can be just as prolific in promoting gendered connotations in the public sphere as famous women yet more often than not simply lacks the resources to do so. If we think about the way society has defined gender, and everything that gender represents for being a woman, 99% of everything that women are pressured to think, feel, and experience are a product of what the influential women of our time have ingrained into the fabric of society. Not only is it unreasonable for all women to be expected to meet the standards of what women with authority have provided them in the realm of gendered expectations, it is also outright unfair. If the majority of women were allotted the ability to voice their opinions as common people, then society would function on a much more functional and sensible plane; furthermore, women would likely gain the confidence to act in ways they desire to rather than follow rigid gendered associations.