Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Graduate Theses and Dissertations Dissertations 2010 Pay attention to what they tell you to forget: What we know, what we want, and how it affects our health Michael Addison Stanfield Iowa State University Follow this and additional works at: https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/etd Recommended Citation Stanfield, Michael Addison, "Pay attention to what they tell you to forget: What we know, what we want, and how it affects our health" (2010). Graduate Theses and Dissertations. 11372. https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/etd/11372 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Dissertations at Iowa State University Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Iowa State University Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Pay attention to what they tell you to forget: What we know, what we want, and how it affects our health by Michael A. Stanfield A thesis submitted to the graduate faculty in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS Major: Interdisciplinary Graduate Studies (Arts and Humanities) Program of Study Committee: Clark Wolf, Major Professor Kevin de Laplante Anastasia Prokos Iowa State University Ames, Iowa 2010 Copyright © Michael A. Stanfield, 2010. All rights reserved. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iv ABSTRACT v PREFACE vii A GENERAL INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER 1: PREFERENCE AND IGNORANCE 4 What are preferences? 5 Do we really want to live in a world without frustrated preferences? 10 Autonomy and preference 14 Degrees of autonomous preference 16 CHAPTER 2: IGNORANCE 20 Knowing that we do not know, but not caring to know 23 We do not even know that we do not know 25 They do not want us to know 29 Willful ignorance 32 Ignorance produced by the construction of epistemically disadvantaged identities 34 CHAPTER 3: CUTTING BACK ON PREFERENCES? 36 On questions of relativism and discursive colonization 36 So what is female circumcision? 41 Factors influencing the decision to cut 42 Arguments for and against female circumcision 45 Circumcision and the law 47 Evaluation of the Capabilities Approach 50 Final Remarks 59 CHAPTER 4: BEAUTY AND PORNOGRAPHY: A LOVE STORY 61 Terms 64 The plastic cultural climate 66 But wasn’t it always so? 74 Beauty pornography and the violence we do to ourselves 76 Beauty sadomasochism and the violence perpetrated against us 79 So how can we stop the violence? 83 Concluding remarks 87 iii CHAPTER 5: GENERALLY RECOGNIZED AS SAFE: CORPORATIONS, CONSUMERS, AND COSMETICS SAFETY 90 Background 93 Cosmetics safety information and regulations 95 The repeat offenders 98 Activism and awareness campaigns 102 Case study 104 Cosmetic preferences 110 Recommendations and concluding remarks 116 CONCLUSION 120 WORKS CITED 124 VITA 136 APPENDIX A: COSMETICS COMPARISONS BY HAZARD LEVEL/PRICE 137 APPENDIX B: FEMALE CIRCUMCISION AND KENYAN LAW: A CASE STUDY 139 iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Of journeying the benefits are many: the freshness it bringeth to the heart, the seeing and hearing of marvelous things, the delight of beholding new cities, the meeting of unknown friends, and the learning of high manners. —Muslih-uddin Sadi I would like to recognize and thank the people that have been on the journey with me: Clark Wolf, my major professor, who has been my instructor, my adviser, my encyclopedia, and my library; Kevin de Laplante, who enthusiastically stepped in to serve on my Program of Study committee and contribute his ideas and expertise; Anastasia Prokos, who, beside serving on my Program of Study committee, has been my teacher and my role model; Carla Fehr, who, although she could not participate in my final thesis defense, was there along the way as a wellspring of encouragement and information; Janet Krengel, my officemate and friend, who saw me through the day-to-day trials of work, adulthood, and graduate student life; my parents and siblings, who have been both the wind in my sails and my safe harbor for more than twenty-four years now; and especially my sister Callyn, who, although she could have spent her weekend doing exciting things, donated her time to sort through my pages and pages of obscure references (such as, “Stoltenberg – can’t remember which book, but this is the quote… It might have been the Russell book, or…no, wait, the Disch book? I’m not sure”) to finding the necessary information to transform my chicken scratch into a bibliography that could actually be used. Thank you. v ABSTRACT Feminism is an entire world view or gestalt, not just a laundry list of women’s issues. —Charlotte Bunch The purpose of this thesis project is to evaluate the roles of preferences and ignorance in a number of women’s health and wellbeing issues. In a number of cases, I will use brief, hands-on case studies to illustrate my points. I will also frequently use current examples from the news, the entertainment industry, and other media to show how my work addresses practical issues of relevance. In the first chapter, I will discuss the nature of preferences and the degree to which preferences can be said to be autonomous to an individual. In the second chapter, I will discuss Nancy Tuana’s “Taxonomy of Ignorance” from her work, “The Speculum of Ignorance: The Women’s Health Movement and Epistemologies of Ignorance” (2006), and show how each of the forms of ignorance Tuana identifies can be related to my topics. In the third chapter, I will discuss the topic of female circumcision, especially in light of Martha Nussbaum’s “Capabilities Approach.” I will argue that her approach can be seen as enumerating a set of capabilities that ensure freedom of desires and preferences in a way that Nussbaum claims addresses the needs of every individual without arbitrarily valuing some preferences over others. I will then examine how Nussbaum uses her approach to criticize the practice of female circumcision, and how, alternatively, her list of central capabilities (preferences) could actually be used to defend the freedom of individuals to choose this practice. vi In the fourth chapter, I will explore the variety of ways cultural conceptions of beauty and sexuality have come to influence individuals, especially women and young girls. Some of the effects of cultural ideals have been an increase in women’s dissatisfaction with their bodies, an increase in cosmetic and surgical treatments, and an alarming trend of pairing superficial notions of femininity and beauty with androcentric conceptions of women’s sexuality. In the fifth chapter, I will show how one aspect of beauty culture, the cosmetics industry, uses ignorance to hide possible dangers related to use of their products. I will explore some of the reasons women prefer to use makeup and why, and explain the results of a case study I conducted on my own cosmetics usage. In the final section, I will conclude with a reprise, closing remarks and recommendations. vii PREFACE Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives. —James Madison, Letter to W.T. Barry, 1822 I have been told that the space underneath the front stairs of the building in which I work is called Alcove and is part of an artwork by Harriet Bart. The author’s intention, according to the brochure published by the University Museums office, is for the space to be “a place for quiet contemplation, for reading a book, or a place to meet and visit with a friend. The materials used…[were chosen to] convey a sense of solidity and permanency” (Iowa State University, Art on Campus brochure). Included in Bart’s design were a limestone bench and three bronze pillars, modeled from stacks of books, under which an inscription in bronze lettering was set into the concrete floor. It read: “Pay Attention to What They Tell You to Forget,” taken from the poem “Double Ode” by Muriel Rukeyser. Ironically, Alcove failed to achieve the permanency the artist intended. Shortly after it was installed, building traffic, weather, and snow plows began to wear away at the bronze work. One by one, the raised letters of Rukeyser’s poem were swept away until only a shallow impression remained. Without the artist’s inscription, the work became first ignored, and then largely forgotten. Eventually the bronze book pillars were removed from Alcove for conservation, and by the time I became a student at Iowa State University, only the limestone viii bench remained. The complete work1 now only exists in the minds of those few that heeded the artist’s advice—the ones who did pay attention, the ones who did not forget. I find it revealing that, after two years of walking past that bench under the stairs, I only became aware of it as I prepared to graduate and move on. For two years I had seen that bench and never noticed it. When I discovered it was part of a set, a piece of art work meant to endure, to capture people’s attention, I began to understand just how relevant Bart’s work was to my own. When I conceived this thesis, my goal was to talk about ignorance. Primarily, I wanted to show how ignorance is created and wielded by the powerful and then used against the less powerful for the purposes of profit, control, authority, and special interests. When I stumbled upon Bart’s work in the Alcove, I found myself wondering what I have failed to pay attention to and what more I may have forgotten.