https://padlet.com/gabguzman1205/mgg24dyohg2gfozl Week 14: December 7-13 en-us 2020-12-09 18:02:57 UTC 2025-10-19 00:11:20 UTC hello@padlet.com gabguzman1205 https://padlet.com/gabguzman1205/mgg24dyohg2gfozl/wish/1003348956 I am thoroughly glad I chose this week's reading for my discussion facilitation padlet. It is very relevant in 2020 as we are currently undergoing the effects of a pandemic where the masses are suffering and dying at the hands of government policies. After reading this, I understand how health in all its forms, mental, physical, etc. are politicized and exploited. One's ability to achieve maximum health and live a long life is based upon social and racial hierarchies formed and reaffirmed by the government through systematic oppression. These are not always intentional; they are based on dominant ideologies replicated from historical beliefs and introduced to us as normative culture. They become our unconscious programming. I can really relate to Johanna, because while I do not suffer from chronic illness, I have dealt with past emotional trauma from heartbreak that has dramatically damaged my mental health. I have experienced the repercussions of losing a family member due to COVID-19. I have revealed my vulnerability as a biological female when I had abnormally painful menstrual cycles as a teenager and my family contemplated rushing me to the hospital, leading me to take birth control to regulate my body. I have had my fair share of mental and physical illness, so this reading resonated with me tremendously. 

]]> 2020-12-09 18:03:07 UTC https://padlet.com/gabguzman1205/mgg24dyohg2gfozl/wish/1003348956 gabguzman1205 https://padlet.com/gabguzman1205/mgg24dyohg2gfozl/wish/1003350868 The main thesis in this reading is Hedva's Sick Woman Theory, how she defines it, and who it encompasses. While she uses the word "woman" in her theory, she states that the theory is an "identity and body that can belong to anyone denied the privilege existence" to widen the spectrum of individuals she is advocating for and speaking to. She defines the characteristics of the individuals who encompass this privileged life: "white, straight, healthy, neurotypical, upper- and middle- class, cis and able-bodied man who makes his home in a wealthy country" as they have the most freedom and opportunity to succeed in all aspects of life. Her theory is inclusive, including both men and women, on the basis of their oppression. In the beginning of her lecture, she spoke about how acts done in private are not considered political. Therefore, if you are unable to attend protests, go to work, or do everyday activities that healthy individuals can do because of chronic illness, you do not matter politically. Your identity does not matter in the making of real-world decisions. She states that the "Sick Woman" is told by society that her "care and survival" do not matter. Anyone who has faced discrimination in any kind, on the basis of gender, race, sex, and their bodies and identities as a result are considered "Sick Women."

]]> 2020-12-09 18:03:31 UTC https://padlet.com/gabguzman1205/mgg24dyohg2gfozl/wish/1003350868 gabguzman1205 https://padlet.com/gabguzman1205/mgg24dyohg2gfozl/wish/1003352028 These are the two passages I deemed very important to include, as she is defining her theory, explaining why she chose to create it, and its purpose:

"Sick Woman Theory is a mode of political protest that is internalized, lived, embodied, and no doubt suffering. It is an existence that endures in the face of certain and inevitable obliteration, but also redefines existence itself as something that is primarily and always vulnerable. It insists that a body is defined by its vulnerability, not temporarily affected by it. And so we need to reshape the world around this fact. Sick Woman Theory insists that the body and mind are sensitive and reactive to regimes of oppression, particularly our current regime of neoliberal, white supremacist, imperial-capitalist, cisheteropatriarchy. It is that of our bodies and minds carry the historical trauma of this. That it is the world itself that is making and keeping us sick."
Question: As the Sick Woman Theory adapts to how our bodies are measured by our vulnerability in all of our social circumstances, would you consider the Sick Woman Theory as a movement, a new way of thinking, or both? How does it connect to movements such as Black Lives Matter, and the Me Too movement?

"To take the term “woman” as the subject-position of this work is a strategic, all-encompassing embrace. Though the identity of “woman” has erased and excluded many, especially women of color and trans and genderfluid people, I choose to use it because it still represents the uncared for, the secondary, the oppressed, the non-, the un-, the less-than, the not yet, the particular rather than the universal. The problematics of this term will always require critique, and I hope that Sick Woman Theory can help undo those in its own way."

Question: How do you think that the Sick Woman Theory can help undo the problematics of the term and identity "woman" as Hedva wants to achieve? How can we critique these problems and provide more of an accurate representation of "woman?"

]]> 2020-12-09 18:03:45 UTC https://padlet.com/gabguzman1205/mgg24dyohg2gfozl/wish/1003352028 gabguzman1205 https://padlet.com/gabguzman1205/mgg24dyohg2gfozl/wish/1003353503 The cultural artifact I used to connect to Hedva's lecture was an excerpt of Rupi Kaur's Milk and Honey, a collection of poems split into four sections: "The Hurting," "The Loving," The Breaking," and "The Healing." I chose an excerpt from the section "The Healing" as one of the main purposes of Hedva's theory is to find ways to heal the oppressed and disabled collective. The poems are from the perspective of the author, a woman in society who dealt with emotional trauma from her past, who addresses the fragility and vulnerability of being a woman physically and mentally in a male dominated world. Here is the excerpt:

"apparently it is ungraceful of me
to mention my period in public
cause the actual biology of my body is too real

it is okay to sell what's
between a woman's legs
more than it is okay to
mention its inner workings

the recreational use of
this body is seen as
beautiful while
its nature is
seen as ugly"

I think this excerpt is very relevant to Hedva's mission. While women's bodies are objectified and consumed for men's pleasure, the "inner workings" that Kaur references are not considered, and when they are, they are regulated and controlled by the decisions of men. Hedva states that in society, what is not seen does not matter in terms of politics. What does not matter in politics does not matter in decisions in which people are impacted by. In this case, a woman's internal body is private, and therefore, not important. Hedva wants to shed light on what happens "behind closed doors" as it too, matters. 

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