At the end of Monday's class, I ended by getting a word in about Presidents of the United States and their increasing heights. I have located an article that expresses this trend and calls height a "heuristic for dominance." It's interesting that a journal article, something of academic value, directly relates height and dominance. Does this mean that it is not possible to be short and be dominant? Is being short a disability? While I don't think so, it seems like the general population has progressively voted for taller and taller presidents (see the source from our good friend Wikipedia...I verified random heights with other sources to check for accuracy). I don't want to assert that presidents are elected on the basis of their height because I most definitely don't believe that they are. However, the general trend in increasing heights is interesting.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/79/Potus-heights.png
In the article we discussed on Monday, Susan Wendell brought up an interesting point about the cultural construction of disability. She stated, "physical 'imperfection' is more likely to be thought to 'spoil' a woman than a man." I've had a personal run in with this scenario. When I was in junior high, I performed a feat that resulted in 21 surgical stitches on one of my feet. I now have a scar that spans across the width of my foot. After reading this phrase in Wendell's chapter, I was reminded of what my doctor and the nurse were discussing as I sat on the patient table. The doctor (male) and the nurse (female) literally said that my scar didn't matter much cosmetically because I am a guy. A couple of things interested me about these notions. First off, the scar is on my foot, and I doubt that it really would have mattered even if I was a girl, cosmetically. I don't stare at people's feet, even when they are wearing flip-flops, and I'm willing to assert that most people also don't stare at feet. Therefore, why does it matter whether or not I am a girl and whether or not I need plastic surgery. More importantly, I am taken aback when I think of people held in such high authority, reaffirming stereotypes that "'imperfection[s]'...'spoil'...women," but not men. I don't think anything was 'spoil[ed]' at all, nor would anything have been 'spoil[ed]' had the scar been on a girl. The 'imperfection' is barely noticeable and would lack just as much attention on a women as it does on me. I personally don't see how a scar can be disabling to anyone (no matter where it's located, including as mentioned in the article, a facial scar).
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Your personal story was really interesting. I had a similar experience in which my brother and I both had to have stitches with in the same month, mine on my hand and my brother on his elbow. After healing, my father asked me if I would like to have my scare "corrected" so no one could see it. Now that I think of it, my dad never asked my brother, who had a much larger and more visiable scare, if he would like it to be "corrected." I immediately refused, not wanting anymore surgery, and because the scare was hardly noticable. It's also interesting that men of all ages are often applauded for their "battle wounds" while women try to hide their scares. In addition, as a fan of the TV series "Nip/Tuck" I just noticed that about 98% of the episodes entail women, not men, requesting surgery to "fix" a problem area. Often times the women remark that their husbands do not find them attractive anymore. I have yet to see an episode where a husband wanted surgery to please his wife.
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