Technologies of the Family

Choosing beauty over comfort is something I’m sure we’re all guilty of.  As we discussed in class, many individuals of the upper class purchase couches that are expensive and yet pretty uncomfortable.  We can discuss why people of high culture spend so much money on uncomfortable couches and the only answer we can ultimately come up with is because it’s pretty and they would rather have an uncomfortable couch that was expensive instead of a decent looking couch at reasonable decent price all because their furniture is not actually meant to be used but to show off and look at.

The same rules apply for women who try to look nice for their husbands and for everyone in general when they step out the door.  Tim Gunn, American fashion consultant and cohost of Project Runway, explains this idea perfectly in his article.  He begins with saying that yes and “oversized t-shirts feel soft on your body, but you know what’s genuinely comfortable? Being dressed appropriatekly for your surroundings.”  As a society, the women back then were focused on choosing the white or yellow frige, now we’re all worrying about what to wear and where and impressing passerbys all day.  The idea he uses to back up his argument is that ‘when we look, we feel good.’

He even mentioned how he read an articel abnout a woman who even after being married to her husband for years, she made it her responsibility to get ready and make herself beautiful before he came home.  He prasied the idea, I for one thought it was a bit much.

Is this what not just women with their fridges or their husbands, but society as a whole is oming down to?!

I have out from this class what PGD is and what it is used for. In this article, they present a unique reason for using it. In this news article: Embryo genetic screening controversial- and successful from USA Today, Molly Nash’s parents turned to using PGD (preimplantation genetic diagnosis) to pick out an embryo implanted to give birth to her brother Adam, in an attempt to save Molly’s life.

The procedure with PGD involved the cord blood cells of Adam which were transplanted into Molly. Adam was picked for this because his immune system characteristics made him the perfect transplant candidate for his sister.

This definitley can give rise to some controversy on the side of the professionals regarding PGD. In the USA Today article, it says that Leon Kass, a former bioethics council chief of the American Enterprise Institute, brought up the issue of these newborns feeling unloved because of undergoing this procedure.

Other professionals worried PGD would be used on a widespread level for sex selection procedures at fertility clinics. This was stated in the article about the 2002 President’s Council on Bioethics. They were concerned about this issue.

In my opinion, this is actually a terrific procedure, (PGD and the transplant) which I think the professionals are over-reacting to. Molly Nash’s parents are not using PGD to create a designer baby. Nor are they being selfish in this situation. Their daughter, Molly was dying and she prevailed because of this great procedure. This procedure didn’t harm Adam either.

In the article we read for class: Born and Made by Sarah Franklin and Celia Roberts it says, on page 10, “At one level PGD is a technique, but it is also a choice, an experience, a threshold, a clinical specialism, a scientific achievement, and as we shall see, a place from which a particular kind of uncertainty and ambivalence is generated alongside confidence in its refinement, expansion and success”. This is true in this case, especially, with the Nash’s because success was achieved with the use of PGD and the transplant. In this way using PGD for the right reasons is necessary and in my opinion the transplant was truly a miracle.

This article in CiteMan talks about social class is closely associated with people’s buying behaviors.  According to the author, social class segmentation involves two basic issues.  The fundamental one is which approach better explains consumer behavior by using social class and income in segmenting markets.   He suggests that many lifestyle items show the significant correlations with the index of social class.   Moreover, social class is the better predictor of consumers’ living patterns in compare to income.   He claims that income is often irrelevant in analyzing markets and explaining consumers’ shopping habits, store preference, and media usage.  In fact, he describes that the radical differences in the spending patterns of three families belonging to different social classes with the same among earning per year.  An upper middle-class family likes to buy houses in a prestige neighborhood, expensive furniture, and clothing from quality stores.  A middle-class family has a better house but not in a fancy neighborhood and buy furniture that is not done by name designers.  A working class family has a small house, but has a larger newer car, more expensive kitchen appliances.  This family usually spends less on clothing and furniture.

This article is relevant to our class because it also illustrates the social class makes impact people’s buying behavior.  In our class, we talk about that the working class often retain their distinctive class values, lifestyles, and tastes even though they have the same buying power as the middle-class.   The working-class women think their primary role as house workers, while middle-class women define themselves as wives.  For example, the working-class women buy a lot of top-of -the- line appliances because they contribute a more cheerful kitchen environment and make their work easier.  They pay more attention to the useful function of  applicances.  In contrast, the middle-class women want the latest appliances to make their escape from the kitchen easily.  They are more concern about the designs of applicances.

After discussing the controversial issue of eugenics in class and going over how it was used for negative things such as forced sterilization and genocide I was curious if there was anything happening today in regards to it. I did a quick search and found this article about sterilization being used today in an organization called “Project Prevention” in California. This organization offers drug addicts the incentive of $300 if they agree to become sterilized. The goal of this is to prevent babies from being exposed to drugs while still in the womb and to prevent the pain and hardships of having to grow up with drug addicted parents. They use advertising campaigns featuring crying babies with the slogan “Get birth control or get sterilized and we’ll pay you $300!” This project has faced a plethora of backlash for several reasons. First, many feel this is a violation of civil rights by promoting a “vicious image of the external drug addict” with no focus on the internal human being. Secondly, this organization is preying on a vulnerable and desperate population of drug addicts, who are going to be willing to do almost anything for $300. I wonder if anyone who has gotten sterilized now regrets the decision. Perhaps these drug addicts will be able to clean up their lives and in the future want children. While it’s not technically “forced” sterilization, this entire process is very reminiscent of the history of eugenics in the US and shows how this entire ideology still has support for population control.