Tuskegee, Guatemala, Nuremburg and Disposable Men

Submitted by el cid on Thu, 2010-10-07 23:35

This column discusses the syphilis experiments conducted on the Tuskegee Airmen and on Guatemalan prisoners. In Tuskegee, researchers deliberately withheld treatment from black airmen known to have syphilis. In Guatemala, researchers deliberately infected male prisoners with syphilis and then treated it in hopes of determining the effectiveness of the cure.

In both experiments, the subjects were men. As Warren Farrell points out, it's easy to recognize the racism of conducting illicit medical experiments on black airmen--but it's easy to miss the sexism.

Feminists have often complained women were left out of medical experiments, citing this as proof we don't care enough about women. The truth is just the opposite: we leave women out because we care more about women than men. The columnist who wrote this piece is, I believe, a feminist--but she voices no complaints about the lack of women as test subjects.

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Comments

Amy Goodman probably is a feminist, but her show doesn't concentrate on gender, at least it didn't when I used to watch. She is mostly concerned with international relations and the injustices arising from real politik.

Gratefully, there is a comment section beneath the column (as well as the e-mail address), and if she were made aware of the gendered inconsistencies of reporting—the invisibility of male victims—it is possible she might do a show on it. Unless, of course, she is one of those type of feminist.

She's a crusader, arguably with a blind spot on gender. It might be worth a shot.

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Submitted by Hunchback on Fri, 2010-10-08 14:13

Thanks for your comment because I'm not familiar enough with Amy Goodman to be sure if she is a feminist. I thought she wrote a column on Eve Ensler and V-day in the not too distant past that convinced me she was, but I could be mistaken. I thought the column was a fair presentation of the topic.

Of course, the problem is not just that feminists don't notice the sexism--the problem is, no one does. Men are invisible and disposable. Most men don't even notice it because they're used to being invisible and disposable. We're like fish in water--we take water for granted until some fisherman introduces us to air.

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Submitted by el cid on Fri, 2010-10-08 14:39