I forgot to put up some of my earlier posts (had them in a word document after I fell behind), so now some of my posts are out of chronological order. After Week 12 posts, I put up Week 1-3 and the responses. Sorry!

I definitely understand and share your concerns about the Komen website. I found that Kushner’s work and the Breast Cancer Action website are informative and allow women to have the ability to make educated decisions about their bodies and their treatment. Knowledge is power, and the extensive knowledge and education provided put more power into women’s hands when it comes to managing their illness. The Komen foundation, while doing something great in raising money and “awareness”, I think they should definitely focus a little more on providing women with knowledge, instead of being very ‘corporate’ and all about funding. I mean, where does this money actually go?

Rose Kushner is an incredible and intriguing person. I’m glad we got the chance to have a look at some of her extremely important literature on breast cancer. I took the chance to look up Rose Kushner and read about her life online and I was amazed. Upon learning about the fact that she had breast cancer, Kushner took it upon herself to learn more about the disease attacking her body, and the best ways to treat it. She rejected traditional treatment and looked for alternative and less invasive treatment options. She wrote Breast Cancer as a way to make available to other women the information she learned about the disease and its treatment. She advocated for women to educate and choose for themselves the way their bodies should be treated instead of a male-led government and medical field having the final say over women’s bodies. She brought wide spread attention to the disease and options and influenced change. I think Kushner’s work is critical to the breast cancer awareness movement because it allows women to have more control and power over their bodies as a result of the knowledge brought forth.

I agree that the stigma surrounding disease and illness is quite concerning and really depressing to see. People with illness and disease may already have self-esteem issues as a result of their illnesses altering the way they can live their lives. It’s discouraging for them to have to deal with the society around them devaluing them or tossing them aside due to something that is (for the most part) out of their control. I do believe that the world has definitely come a long way from how it used to treat people with illness and disease, but there’s still a lot of change that needs to occur. People still need to be educated on how illness is not a defining factor, and that starts from teaching children to be compassionate and understanding towards their peers.

When you are ill, what your illness means depends on where you live and the cultural connotations associated with whatever you have been diagnosed with. If you have lung cancer, people will assume that you are probably, or were probably a smoker, and that there should be minimal sympathy towards your illness. Obesity? You should have been watching your diet, and you should have taken control over your lifestyle. You have a stigmatized sexually transmitted infection, and you are afraid to meet potential new sexual partners, as you are afraid of the rejection you may face when you disclose your illness to them.
The social stigma that comes with many illnesses is quite interesting, because as Conrad and Barker mention, “from a constructionist standpoint, there is nothing inherent about a condition that makes it stigmatizing, rather it is the social response to the condition and some of its manifestations, or the type of individuals who suffer from it, that make a condition stigmatized” (Conrad & Barker, S69). This makes me think about diseases such as HIV/AIDS, which carry a heavy amount of social stigma with them. Though HIV/AIDS is not as deadly today as it used to be when it first was identified as a pandemic, it is still heavily stigmatized. The stigma comes from the way the disease is spread and the people identified with those modes of transmission: needle sharing (drug users), unprotected sex (homosexual men), mother-to-child (poor, diseased Africans). Admitting you have the disease is akin to admitting that you are taking part in what is/was considered a “deviant” act or lifestyle that goes against the values of the majority, disease free population.

Whenever I am unfortunate enough to fall ill, I think about how lucky I am that I do not have a chronic illness that could greatly alter impact the way I live my life, and the way I want to keep living my life. I think about how as humans, we are not very well prepared for the possibility of a life altering illness or disability. We live our lives thinking ahead but in terms of assuming that we will have our health and mobility. When things such as illness and disability do happen, our lives come to an abrupt halt for the time being. I’ve never (knock on wood) had a debilitating illness or injury, but the worst injury I’ve had was a broken wrist when I was in high school. On one level, it did greatly impact me as I was at the time on the fence about whether or not I wanted to continue high school athletics, and my decision was made for me. Looking back, my experiences and my identity were shaped in a very different way as a result of the injury and my inability to participate in athletics. But still, I was lucky, as it was my left wrist that I broke. Being right-handed I was still able to go to school and stay on top of my work. If it had been my other wrist, it would have been a completely different story, and being in high school, I would not have enjoyed spending all that time basically in solitude, away from socializing, and away from learning.

After reading the Dracula novel and watching the 1992 adaptation of the same name, I realized that the movie has quite a few differences from the book. The main difference that stands out to me is the storyline about the growing romantic relationship between Mina and Dracula. In the book, Dracula is a character that shows no romantic feelings toward any of the women in the book, nor do we have any indication about past romantic relationships. In the movie, Dracula falls in love with Jonathan Harker’s fiancée Mina, as she reminds him of his wife who we learn has committed suicide. Mina shares the same romantic feelings toward Dracula, while in the book, Mina actually despises Dracula for hurting the people that she loved. The relationship between Mina and Dracula is made to be a main story line in the movie, when this was a non-existent relationship in the original book.

Dracula in the movie shows more emotion than the Dracula in the book, and this makes him seem like more of a tragic hero in the movie, while he comes across as a villain in the book. He’s more ‘humanized’ in the movie, as a result of his emotions and relationship, where as in the book, he is a complete monster who kills to satisfy his primal urges to feed on human blood.

I wouldn’t quite say that I prefer one version of the story over the other, as they are both interesting, and they are both very different. I definitely enjoyed the story, as believe it or not, this is the first time I’ve read or watched anything Dracula!

A Miracle for the Ages

The people of the town of Drimaleague are stunned tonight, after what can only be called an extremely strange sequence of events. Three brothers were thought to be dead this morning, as their parents found their lifeless and unresponsive bodies in bed. The town doctor paid a visit to the home and declared the children dead. Later that day, the townspeople had gathered at a wake for the boys, when the unthinkable occurred. A young Drimleague woman named Kate claimed she could bring the brothers back to life, a claim that was met with much skepticism, as one resident tells us. Kate went into the room and when she came back out, the three brothers were very much alive. “I couldn’t believe it. I did not question what had just occurred, I was just so relieved to have my children alive,” the boy’s mother tells us. Police tell us they are still investigating the incident to gather all the facts and make some arrests.

This event occurred just one day after the death of the former richest man in Drimaleague, Michael Derrihy. Derrihy was known for his wealth and generosity, but kept mainly to himself throughout his life. Little else was known about him, but that did not stop the majority of Drimaleague from attending his funeral.

Update: We have learned that the young woman, Kate, who supposedly brought back the boys to life has been married to the eldest brother. We have also learned that they have come into significant riches since we last broke the news of the ‘Miracle for the Ages’. Details are sparse right now, but we have learned that their riches are a result of a significant amount of gold.

I definitely agree with your observations. When I saw the trailer for “A Red Girl’s Reasoning”, I immediately decided that I was going to watch the movie. I love the powerful Aboriginal lead and the fact that an Aboriginal woman plays a role in which she gains power and gains a voice through her own means. I agree that the main objective of the movie is to bring awareness to the sadly commonly occurring plights of Aboriginal women in Canada. Elle Maija Tailfeathers is creating a voice for not only herself but for fellow Aboriginal women, and aiming to give a voice to those who are not being heard. I think that that is the objective of many of her works, and I commend her for it!

I’m comparing similar spaces in Leslie Robertson’s article and in  Evelyn Peters’ article. In Robertson’s article, she examines the multiple meaning of ‘home’ for the women she interviews. Space in this regard is the home that these women share, and also the spaces in which they experience exclusion and alienation. All of the women in Robertson’s study were from the DTES, a space stigmatized and usually perceived negatively as a space where one ends up when many things go wrong in one’s life. Many of the women were Aboriginal and described experiencing exclusion from spaces due to their race, and due to stereotypes. The women in her study stated that the DTES was their chosen home, as opposed to a space they were forced into. Another concept she discussed was “homelessness at home”, where many women growing up were abused and mistreated at their homes, meaning that the took on “forced journeys” (running away) to get out of difficult situations and to move on to a space which feels like a home to them. The DTES is the space they constructed as a home with people who share their experiences and hardships.

In Evelyn Peters’ article, she discusses the exclusion of Indigenous people in the definition of the city.  She talks about how colonialism lead to this exclusion by “[defining] First Nations cultures as incompatible with urban life” (665). Spaces are excluding and homogenous, with those who are different being excluded as their differences are considered “deviant” and this leads to a segregation in space. She also talks about the intersection of race and gender in the creation of these exclusionary spaces in the city.  She also discusses the boundaries put on the minority cultures, which allow people to keep their ethnic values as long as they don’t overstep boundaries of space and interfere with the dominant culture. This reminds me of spaces such as Chinatown, where the cultural expression is kept within boundaries.