As a 4th-year BMS student, Amanda Thacker has reflected upon social injustices in society through writing blog posts on her own website and creating digital visualizations in the BMS course INFO 419: Information Visualization. Below are a few of Amanda’s works.
It’s Not Me, It’s Policy: Climate Change from a Place of Privilege
From the author: “The expression of an internal struggle between devastation and complacency inherent in understanding climate change as largely an issue of politics. As my awareness of the science and severity expands, so too does that of my privilege in this realm. In this piece, I explore how my position of privilege has shaped and shifted my perceptions, understandings, and calls-to-action during the current state of climate emergency.”
Abort the Patriarchy
From the author: “An angry female response to the US abortion legislations being heatedly deliberated throughout the spring of 2019. It urges conversations within this discourse to consider logics of domination, patriarchy, and naturalization as intrinsic to the politics of restricting women’s rights to bodily autonomy.”
What Does it Mean to Be a ‘Man’?
Made in collaboration with BMS students Reed Kraemer and Alex Smyth.
From the author: “A dissection of masculinity and its associated social behaviors and attitudes in the wake of #MeToo. A 2018 survey conducted by SurveyMonkey in partnership with FiveThirtyEight of 1,615 US adult men is analyzed and compared with the ideas of contemporary gender theorists, scholars, and sociologists. This piece explores why mens’ increasing awareness and understandings of those aspects of masculinity proliferating damaging behaviours and attitudes has thus far not translated to significant changes in behavior.”
