Name: Missi Wooldridge Age: 22 Major : Community Health,

1. From the Bottom Up“Approaches to the Anthropology of Sex: Dictionaries of Sex, Encyclopedias of Sex, and Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Women’s sexual cutting.” Name: Missi WooldridgeAge: 22Major: Community Health, Concentration in Sexual HealthCareer Goal: PhD and teach community health at the college level. The purpose of my research is to assist Dr. Whelehan and her colleagues with a portion of their literature review for their publication of an Anthropological Encyclopedia of Sex. My task has been to research different Dictionaries of Anthropology and Anthropological Dictionaries of Sex to establish what is already out there and what their strengths and weaknesses are. I am looking for origins of words, the context in which they are written, new words, and if and how globalization has affected them. More specifically, we are focusing on four areas including gender, sexual orientation, medical terminology, and slang. Upon completion of the research, I will be providing Dr. Whelehan with an annotated bibliography of my findings. One might ask, how does this apply to me as a woman? Having the opportunity to attend college and make my own decisions about my academic studies and life has impacted me. All three of us (interns) are women with different concentrations here at S.U.N.Y Potsdam, but we are all given the opportunity to take a proactive role. Through my studies with Dr. Whelehan I have learned the cross-cultural perspectives in issues related to sex, enhancing my cultural competency. Having cultural competency in the field of community health is essential, because we must be able to interact and work with diverse groups of people and develop, implement, and evaluate effective health programs. With my concentration in sexual health, I will be able to apply all of the knowledge I have gained through this research and the courses I have taken with Dr. Whelehan. I now will be able to disseminate information more effectively. Considering I want to take a leadership role when I graduate form S.U.N.Y Potsdam, this experience will set me aside from other individuals in the field. Hopefully this internship will allow me to be more successful in my future endeavors. Name: Jackie Best Age: 21 Major: Archaeological Studies, Women’s and Gender Studies Career Goal: Work in Women’s Issues on Domestic Violence or Reproductive Rights The purpose of my internship is to do a literature review of body modification across time and cultures, with an emphasis on female modification. This is research on a project comparing Female Genital Cutting (Female Genital Mutilation, or Female Genital Circumcisions) with plastic surgeries that females have. Related to these surgeries I am looking at issues of adulthood in terms of adult, gender identity, gender role, sexuality and fertility in cultures. Some of the previous research done in these areas gave a very open minded view about what women were doing or had done to their bodies, with the only explanation as having negative health implications. Some people believe that FGM was a horrible institution and must be stopped by any means, because FGM was abuse and torture. There are health complications, but when trained doctors use sterile tools to do the operations, health complications decline. In Western cultures it is a problem because women will not go for help if they have health problems. Some articles speak about how it is no different to circumcise a man than it is a woman, some take a negative and some a positive outlook. When male genital surgery is researched there is less outrage for such things as subincision or the palang, though I am not sure these are any worse or better than FGM (Rownachilde 1996). Yet some articles contradict others and believe that FGM is mainly a Muslim activity, although it has been around far longer than the religion, and FGM is not a uniform part of the Muslim religion or Koran. One study found that Catholicism was the religion most commonly related to FGM (Klouman, Manongi and Klepp 2005). One study that I was excited to read spoke about labia elongation, this article was exciting to me because it was so different than the other research. The researchers look at Rwanda women who elongate their labia to be attractive to a mate later in life, very different from female genital circumcision (Koster and Price 2008). In western countries, women were circumcised to stop them from masturbating to prevent hysteria (Studd 2007). It is a great honor for me to be working at the start of a very interesting research project, I am excited to see the final result in the future. It is hard yet easy for me to do FGM research. As a woman it is hard sometimes for me to read the representation of FGM, as I could never want that happening to me or someone I love. Yet I have pierced ears and pay some attention to how I look in the morning. I understand that having these surgeries is the same to them as that is to me. I am really glad I did this internship: I took it to fulfill my Senior Seminar Requirement for Women’s and Gender Studies. Now I could really see me doing research like this later in life; sometimes I find myself wishing I had more time to work on my literature review. I have never had any fears of accomplishing my goals because I am a woman. I have never been one who really understood the problems and hardships that were holding back women until I began my S.U.N.Y Potsdam education. I grew up in a household of six, and my sisters and I did everything, including typical boy tasks. My four sisters and I were never discouraged and were always told we could do anything we wanted, and I grew up believing that. I never knew that is was different for women in the past or elsewhere in the world. It is an honor to do such advanced research in my undergraduate career, as a woman I know I would not have had these opportunities in the past, and I hope to keep them available for the women of the future. Name: Noele Brabon Age: 19 Major: Psychology Career Goals: Clinical Psychologist Through out the Spring 2008 semester I have been doing a literature review of encyclopedias. This literature review is for Dr. Whelehan’s future encyclopedia of sex. Throughout this internship I have been reading encyclopedias and writing annotated bibliographies to see what types of encyclopedias exist. I am trying to find the strengths and weaknesses of each encyclopedia so Dr. Whelehan’s future encyclopedia is not the same as every other one. Her goal is to cover different topics that are not seen in a majority of current encyclopedias. This internship is unique in the sense that I am starting at the very beginning of a research project that will take up to five years. I started my literature review by looking at general anthropology encyclopedias and as time progressed, I turned to more specific encyclopedias pertaining to sex. As I look through these encyclopedias I try to look at specific words and see if the definitions of these words cover gender, sexual orientation, medical terminology, slang, age, ethnicity, origins of words, and globalization. To be a female and doing undergraduate research as a sophomore would be unheard of in the past. The encyclopedias that I have researched reflect the society we live in. As a psychology major I can see that prejudices and bias have come out even when they do not mean to in the definitions. The reason I want to do this internship is to have a finished product that is not from just one point of view, but from many. This internship has shown me that I can start at a beginning of a research project and work independently and still be successful. My internship is a unique experience to work with three other women to achieve a similar goal, and it will give me the skills I need for my future graduate school work. Throughout my classes at S.U.N.Y Potsdam and especially Dr. Whelehan’s classes, I have been given cross-cultural education. Throughout my time here I have realized that women in the past did not have the same advantages as I do now. I am blessed to have choices, and this internship is showing my future options. Throughout my research and college experience I can now identity with what Jacqueline Kennedy once said , “I am a woman above everything else” (Lewis 2006: 1). References: Klouman, Elsie, Rachel Manongi and Knut-Inge Klepp 2005 Self-Reported and Observed Female Genital Cutting in Rural Tanzania: Associated Demographic Factors, HIV and Sexually Transmitted Infections. Tropical Medicine and International Health 10(1):105-115. Koster, Marian and Lisa Leimar Price 2008 Rwandan Female Genital Modification: Elongation of the Labia Minora and the use of Local Botanical Species. Culture, Health and Sexuality 10(2):191-204. Lewis, John Johnson 2006 Wisdom Quotes. Electronic Copy.http://www.wisdomquotes.com/000786.html Rowanchilde, Raven 1996 Male Genital Modification: A Sexual Selection Interpretation. Human Nature 7(2):189-215. Studd, John 2007 A Comparison of 19th Century and Current Attitudes to Female Sexuality. Gynecological Endocrinology 23(12): 673-681.