Experiencing Difference and Inequality in Everyday Life

1
Experiencing Difference and Inequality in
Everyday Life

• Lived Experience

2
How We Convince Ourselves that We Dont have
Problem with Inequity Anymore

• 1) Deny
• 2) Blame the Victim
• 3) Call it Something Else
• 4) Its Better this Way
• 5) It Doesnt Count if you Dont Mean It
• 6) Im One of the Good Ones
• 7) Sick and Tired

3
The Concept of Lived Experience

• Lived experience refers to the experiences of
  individuals.
• Lived experience is shaped by structures of
  privilege and oppression.
• It is complicated, contradictory, and messy.

4
Understanding Lived Experience

• Ones experiences reflect privilege and
  oppression.
• Privilege structures opportunity.
• One cannot control whether or not he/she benefits
  from privilege.
• Whether or not one is privileged may depend on
  context.
• How others react to one, depends on expectations.

5
The Human Face of Inequality

• What is Anne Downey trying to impart with her
  piece, I Am Your Welfare Reform?
• What does her piece tell us about privilege and
  oppression?

6
How are Groups Ostracized?

• Using Sherri Muzhers example, how are Arab
  Americans depicted?
• How does that affect others images of her and her
  image of herself?

7
Fear and Inequity

• Jensen discusses his own inability to come to
  terms with privilege and oppression. What does
  Jensen finally conclude?
• What do you think?

8
The Body and Lived Experience

• The body is the three dimensional product of
  material conditions, social relations, and Lived
  Experience.

9
How are Privilege/Oppression Embodied

• What ones body prefers
• How ones body is read
• How/What ones body does
• What is valued for different bodies

10
The Most Privileged Bodies

• 1) Have the most valued ascribed forms
• 2) the ability to engage in activities and
  consume goods that will shaped bodies in specific
  ways,
• 3) are able to legitimate their
  tastes/propensities (Bourdieu)

11
Bodies Nature and Culture

• Generally people ask, is it nurture or nature
  that produces individuals.
• The need to separate the influences of each, to
  mark off areas of expertise, demonstrates the
  machinations of power.
• Bodies exist in the space between nature and
  culture.
• This approach provided valuable insights into the
  inherent contradictions which emerge as
  ideologies of naturalness mask the insidious
  embodiment of social inequality.

12
Bodies, Images and Inequality

• Bodily ideals reinforce structures of
  privilege/oppression.
• The idealized image of the body
• Raced
• Classed
• Gendered
• Sexualized
• Idealized images change across time and space.

13
The Example of Fat

• Once a sign of prosperity, fat has become a
  powerfully feared transgression.
• 95 of U.S. College women want to lose weight and
  85 have engaged in some form of disordered
  eating. About 25 experience episodes of
  anorexia or bulimia.
• 60 of girls age 13 are already on a diet and the
  majority of 8 year olds think they need to lose
  weight.
• 80 of women diet by age 18
• 50 of college male students desire to lose
  weight and 30 are on diets

14
Interrogating the Stigma

• What are the negative associations with weight?
• Of what is fat a sign?
• Does fat necessarily mean unhealthfulness?