Attraction and Beauty in Women who are Visually Impaired: Project Summary

In my gender identity video, I introduced my gender identity as: a female x a student x middle class x white x not religious x heterosexual x a traveler x an employee x a twin x a Nebraskan x an American x a reader x a daughter x a friend x reserved x 5'7" tall x giving x dislikes dresses x dislikes makeup x favorite color is blue x a cat lover x trustworthy x a hard worker x a TOMS wearer x believe in equal rights x self-conscious x a questioner x wears glasses x wants to make  a difference me.

I then chose a gender identity different from my own to research, to help me not only understand both identities better, but also gender and communication as a whole. I have spent the past semester looking at ideas of beauty and attraction in women who are visually impaired, through the lens of Butler's ideas of gender as performance. Since beauty and attraction seem like such visual things to me, propelled by the media, I wanted to know how women who are visually impaired embody these concepts. I found (in a nutshell) that it is much the same way that people who are sighted embody beauty and attraction, shaped somewhat by the media. Even though they may have limited vision, these women still know the 'ideals' set forth by the media, combined with aspects such as a person's smell, the way in which they speak, and a person's inner qualities. According to Spurgas (2005), "Differences in reception to media messages exist across races and within sexes. However, even though images may be understood as unobtainable and hence are less powerful, they still influence self-perception" (DeFrancisco & Palczewski, 2007, p. 242).

Researching further, I was not able to collect any more in-person interviews, but I did get the chance to look at the book Nicole suggested, called Crashing Through. The book is about a man who had lost his sight at a young age, but was able to have it restored as an adult. After his vision was restored, he saw his wife's face for the first time, and his own reflection in a mirror. '"That's me," he thought. "But I'm too close to him. I'm invading his space. I'm right up in his face. This is too personal. I shouldn't do this in public." "Oh, what an ugly cuss!" he joked aloud, still gazing at his reflection' (Kurson, 2007, p. 131). Our perception of both our self and others can change drastically when we have a new frame in which to see the world.

From this experience, I think there are three main takeaways.
1) It is important to explore gender identities that differ from your own  because it allows you to further examine your own gender identity and beliefs, and helps you to understand other people better- it helps to remove stereotypes you may have about people, because you get to know them.
2) Studying about women who are visually impaired has allowed me to see beauty and attraction from a lens I had never thought about consciously - that verbal cues play such a large role in their identity. Also, it allowed me to see how much commonality there is between myself and women who are visually impaired, shaped by society and the media.
3) In the field of communication, studying about different gender identities allows us to apply textbook concepts to real life and learn how to become better, more understanding communicators.

I feel like I have learned a lot from spending this semester studying women who are visually impaired, although I know there is still a lot out there to be discovered: looking at women of different levels of visual impairment, looking at men, looking at couples who are visually impaired or disabled... the list could go on. While it was a little uncomfortable reaching out to people I didn't know to interview them about something that I thought may be sensitive, I was surprised by the positive reaction and willingness to talk that I received.

I would like to conclude with a video about visual impairment, and the way other people see people who are visually impaired. While not specifically about beauty or attraction, I hope you keep this in mind the next time you see someone who is visually impaired on the street.

How Does It Feel to be Blind?

(artbeyondsight, 2009)

DeFrancisco, V. P., & Palczewski, C. H. (2007). Communicating gender diversity: A critical 

      approach. Los Angeles, CA: SAGE Publications.
Kurson, Robert. (2007). Crashing through. New York: Random House. 

Attraction and Beauty in Women who are Visually Impaired: Concept Application Blog

Throughout school and through my mom's work in a group home, I've had a lot of different experiences interacting with people with varying disabilities. For this project, I spent my first blog examining my own gender identity. I then selected to look at beauty and attraction in women who are visually impaired, a gender identity different from my own, in order to both understand my and that gender identity better. Since in the media and many people's minds beauty is such a physical thing, I wanted to know how perceptions of beauty and attraction differ in people who are visually impaired. In the past month I have interviewed women who are visually impaired, as well as tried to place myself in the shoes of members of this community and find additional background information. I wanted to answer the questions: "How would you describe your gender identity?," "How do you define attraction?," "What makes you attracted to someone?." "How do you define beauty?," "What does it mean for there to be beauty in another person?," and "How do you define beauty within yourself?"

The concept of gender as performance fits will with the information I am trying to find. As stated by DeFrancisco and Palczewski (2007), ". . . Individuals participate in the construction of their personal and group identities through daily enactments, or citations, of gender/sex" (p. 53). 'Butler (2004) explains that even though "gender is a kind of doing, an incessant activity performed, in part, without one's knowing and without one's willing," that does not mean it is "automatic or mechanical" (p. 1). Gender is a command performance in which actors maintain minimal control over the content of the scene' (DeFrancisco & Palczewski, 2007, p. 84). Societal expectations play a large role in the development of our gender performance, as well as individual factors.

The information I have found supports Butler's ideas of gender as performance. I had the opportunity to interview Kelly, a sophomore at UNL, and Nicole, a PhD. graduate student at UNL who was a student teacher in my British Literature class my sophomore year of high school. Kelly described attraction as someone who makes you feel good about yourself. She described what makes her attracted to someone as their personality, the pitch of their voice, how they smell, and also that she likes people who are taller. 

 
Nicole, who has a broader range of vision and said she can see facial details of the people sitting next to her, described attraction in terms of someone with good moral character, a good personality, and their voice as being important. She stressed voice as an important characteristic to her, and said that she is often more forgiving of someone's appearance if she hears and likes their voice first before she sees their face. However, she also can look at a person and know whether she thinks they are physically attractive. She and I talked about how the idea of attractiveness is so engrained in our culture, that there are many parallels between sighted and blind people. She said she sees some men who are stereotypically attractive as unattractive because of the associations with the stereotypical personalities and the fact that she feels these people to be unobtainable.

When I spoke to Kelly about the concept of beauty, she defined beauty within herself from her confidence, but also said that she doesn't have much to compare the standard of beauty to when looking at other people.

Nicole described beauty in people by how they sound, what they say, and how they say it. She talked about several people from when she went to guide dog training, and how they internalized beauty. One woman, who was totally blind, still put on makeup every day and would ask other people to make sure she hadn't gotten mascara, etc. on her face. Another woman didn't wear any makeup, but still cared about how her clothes looked, and would ask others to make sure that they matched and she'd put them on correctly. There were also two people, both blind, who came into a relationship during the training. They commented on each others' voices, and associated certain personalities with certain voices. Through their daily interactions and expectations of society, Kelly and Nicole have both developed their sense of gender performance.  

Going forward to the third blog, I want to continue to learn more about this gender identity. Kelly has offered to email  a group of people who are blind across Nebraska, to see if they can offer additional responses to some of the questions I've posed. I also plan to get in contact with the people from the Nebraska Commission for the Blind and Visually Impaired who have offered their help. It has been suggested to me by Nicole that I may not want to look only at females' perspectives, but the perspectives of males and couples who are both blind as well. She also suggested a book called Crashing Through, which she said is a memoir about a man who lost his vision when he was young, and the process of meeting his wife, and how he reacted to seeing her for the first time when he regained his vision. I look forward to continuing to build my knowledge and seeing what other information I can come across!  
 

DeFrancisco, V. P., & Palczewski, C. H. (2007). Communicating gender diversity: A critical 

      approach. Los Angeles, CA: SAGE Publications.

Attraction and Beauty in Women who are Visually Impaired: An Introductory Blog

One's identity is a very complex, intertwined concept made up of multiple facets. While only one component, Gender and our gender identity have a strong impact on our everyday lives, helping shape who we are, how others perceive us, and who we will become. Gender, as defined by DeFrancisco and Palczewski (2007), refers to "one's self-identity--that is, how much a person associates herself or himself with the masculine or feminine or both, as prescribed by society" (p. 10). In my first blog, I described my gender identity and the intersectionality of its various components. Now, I will examine a gender identity that is different from my own, in order to better understand both that gender identity and my own. First, I will describe my gender identity of interest, connect it to some course concepts, and describe what I hope to learn from my studies. Then, I will talk about how I plan to gain access to this identity.

As humans, we rely heavily on our sense of sight to help us determine what we deem as attractive or not attractive, and what we deem as beauty.  Which of the people on the right do you see as being physically attractive? Being physically attracted to a person undoubtedly plays a role in our overall attraction to a person. And beauty, society's definition of which has become almost unobtainable, are as noted by Gerschick & Miller (2004) and Kramer (2005),  "... even more difficult to obtain for persons with disabilities, ... " (DeFrancisco & Palczewski, 2007, p. 97). I wonder what it would be like to become attracted to someone or to recognize beauty if you couldn't visually see the world? That is why I want to study the idea of attraction and beauty in women who are visually impaired. How do women who are visually impaired enact the roles of femininity and masculinity in relationships? And how do they become attracted to and show attraction for another person? How does someone who is visually impaired define beauty in relation to their gender identity? These are all questions I hope to answer through my research. The following video talks about a woman who became blind at the age of three, and how she was able to find her beauty again:

(bfaithmovement, 2009)

To learn more about this part of these women's identities, I plan to perform background research and use other secondary sources such as videos to find information. There are also many ways in which I can gain access to speaking with females who are visually impaired. I have been unable to find a student organization for members of this population, however, Services for Students with Disabilities may be a place I can go for information. Additionally, I can ask for help from the Nebraska Center for the Blind, which helps people who are visually impaired to learn skills to be able to live life to their fullest ability. They have both a Facebook and Youtube page I could post on to help garner interest in this project. the National Federation of the Blind of Nebraska is another resource I could utilize. 


Through examining the ideas of attraction and beauty in women who are visually impaired, I hope to learn more about both these people's gender identities and my own. With how superficial our society has become in terms of "looks" and beauty, do these women hold a key to helping us see another side of beauty?

bfaithmovement. (2009, June 3). Ginny Owens: Blind to beauty. [Video file]. Retrieved from:
   
     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXnE-rKbdK0&feature=player_embedded

DeFrancisco, V. P., & Palczewski, C. H. (2007). Communicating gender diversity: A critical 

      approach. Los Angeles, CA: SAGE Publications.

Hachiko. (2011, April 26). 'Feminine-faced males' more attractive. Retrieved from http://http:

     //news.asiantown.net/news.aspx?id=18996