Course:CSIS200/2024/Reclaiming Sexuality Through Wigs
Author’s Bio
Isabela Moraes grew up in an environment where conversations about sex were gendered—girls were expected to mature quickly but could not talk about sexuality, while boys talked about it openly. Frustrated by the gender biases that girls faced in her community, Isabela turned to the internet for answers, where she felt in love with reproductive health, female pleasure, romantic relationships, and sexual identity.
Isabela is now a Psychology undergraduate at the University of British Columbia with a minor in Critical Studies in Sexuality. Her coursework includes Psychology of Sexuality and Psychology of Sex Differences, and, of course, Critical Engagements in Sexuality Studies, which has deepened their knowledge of sexuality. Isabela aspires to pursue a career in sex therapy and use social media to advocate for women in her home culture and beyond.
In the following essay, Isabela challenges societal norms around women undergoing treatment for cancer, while discussing real stories about disability and sexuality. She analyzes how artifacts like wigs can both reinforce and challenge cultural narratives.
How and why the chosen artifact represents and/or challenges and/or reinforces and/or
encapsulates the concept/topic/theory related to the topic in Critical Engagements in Sexuality
Studies you are exploring in your project?
Your page MUST include:
- A 2000-2500-word text introducing, contextualizing, and analyzing your artifact.
- Short Bio (not included in word count): *A short bio of the page's author: you!
- At least 5 images
- 1 Audio-visual component (video and/or audio clip)
- A source list containing at least 10 primary and/or secondary sources. **Use the formatting style you are most familiar with (MLA, APA, Chicago, etc.), as long as your references are complete and properly formatted. See: https://guides.library.ubc.ca/citation
Side effects of cancer treatment
- how chemotherapy affects women’s sexuality, identity and sense of self
- feminist disability studies: cancer remove women from patriarchal beauty standards and desexualize them.
- Schalk: disability operates as a social category alongside gender and sexuality
- goal: analyze how cancer changes position women as disabled/desexualized/infantilized
- transition: need for tools like wigs to help women reclaim their sexuality and resist ableism stereotypes.
The wig as an empowering tool
- how wigs can serve as tools to reinforce femininity and sexuality
- personal stories on how wigs help cancer women reclaim sense of beauty, etc (Hansen, Zannini, Kumar)
- finish with discussion on while wigs can liberate women from stigma of disability, they may also reinforce patriarchal beauty standards of normal and health
- include women with alopecia to see whether they find wigs empowering or oppressive.
- transition: dual role of wigs (resistance or reinforcement of oppressive ideals?)