This is the last posting you can comment on for the first half of May.
Would you dare try something like this – let’s say as original research for your extended essay? How are teen mothers viewed in Slovakia? How much do you think the gossip and stereotyping this girl experienced was because of her ethnic background? What do you think her classmates' reaction was when they were told it was all a sham? Do you think they learned something from this? Finally, given what you know about social science research, what can the results of this experiment tell us and how reliable is it?
I really admire Gaby for doing this and for the fact that she was able to keep the secret for sixth months. The only thought that crossed my mind while reading the article was that it must have been incredibly difficult to deal with all the gossips and rumors that got to her. Although her pregnancy was fake, all the assaults on her person were real and somehow she must have dealt with it.
ReplyDeleteIn addition, she is a Latino girl and I know that there is a stereotype about Latin girls – that they have sexual experiences at a very early age and often get pregnant. However, I think that it is true – when I studied in England, I had a Spanish classmate in the Business Studies class. She was seventeen years old and had a Spanish boyfriend who was 26. There were five girls around our table and so we always chatted about our lives. Once she told us that her boyfriend told her that he wanted a baby but she didn’t . However, and I think this was totally cruel of him, he made her pregnant on purpose! Fortunately (for her, because she had really strict parents who, as she said to us, would kick her out of the house), she had a miscarriage (I won’t go into details), but once she also brought us photographs from sonography with the embryo on it. Although it sounds controversial, I was actually happy for her that it ended this way because I knew that her parents would not help her at all and she was very young to be a mother.
But back to the article, I think I wouldn’t be able to fake pregnancy for my school project because either I would not be able to cope with the gossips or my secret would be somehow revealed. I didn’t like the last part of article as I was expecting more information rather than an opinion of the writer of the article. I don’t care that the experiment was imperfect, all in all, all experiments for graduation are imperfect. It was not even focused on what it takes to be a teen mom but only on the stereotypes about them. And I would also welcome some more information about how Gaby felt about the whole experiment.
May blog entry
ReplyDeleteThe first thing that I considered when reading the article was whether this is only a prank or a social experiment. I do not want to start some definition fight over what social experiment is, but in my opinion this cannot be taken as a social experiment. I personally consider a social experiment a study with hypothesis, and an observation or an experiment is made on a relatively large group of subjects, so that conclusion can be made. Basically, I can mention some famous examples such as Sapir-Whorf experiment or Stanley Milgram experiment. These both are according my understanding of a social experiment fitting the definition. They both have done the study on a large number of subjects and based on the data they collected the conclusion was produced. Conversely, the experiment that Gaby Rodriguz did is in my opinion not “fake-pregnancy-as-social-experiment” as Gaby claims but rather a social prank. I have few friends who like to do these kinds of pranks on people. For example, one day they are nice to people and the other they are very unpleased, and then they look on the strange faces and surprised looks.
Furthermore, this is also reason why I do not consider this to be appropriate senior project. I am also shocked that the principal of this high school approved it. Considering the final project you must do on IB program, this is not even comparable. IB learners have to produce a serious paper or at least it has to look serious, and it has to be made on some scientific assumptions. Although on the other hand, her endurance that lasted six months should be appreciated. However, if she had done some adjustments and had better thought over the matter she could have gained a better response on her project.
I would like to present some improvements to this senior project, and I am stressing out that I do not want to sound rude or impolite. First thing that I would like to suggest is the introduction of a dairy for every subject that would be involved in the study. In addition, every evening the subject would have to fill the form with various predefined questions. Last and the most important adjustment would be to enlarge the number of subject involved. A study with only one person cannot produce relevant data, since the person can be different or special, and we do not want to see the result in the form that would apply only to Gaby Rodriguz but to a general teen mother. Of course, it is not very intelligent to make all friends to fake a pregnancy for the final project, but the mentioned program on MTV “16 & Pregnant” can be used as a source of data or observations, and the stereotypes about teen pregnancies can be concluded from this.
Mojmir
It was only after the initial wave of amazement from reading this article had left me that I started thinking coherently about it and came to a few conclusions about why I am dazzled by Gaby for doing this so much. To start with, it requires a very strong person to take this much of pressure, prejudice and gossip, just for the sake of an ordinary senior project. Gaby could easily have chosen a usual topic for it, get a good mark and be happy. But, obviously, she is one of those people that have the courage it takes to undergo this much of stress to get results of their research.
ReplyDeleteAs stated in the article, it is essential to realize that even though Gaby was not pregnant, all reactions of her classmates, friends and relatives were. Gaby had to watch many people judging her and changing their opinions on her behaviour without being able to defend herself. She handled it, and I truly deeply admire her for it. When I imagine myself for instance fighting with my sister and her accusing me of something as trivial as losing her earrings that is not true, I cannot even picture the limitation of not being able to tell her the truth and defend my character. Gaby, on the other hand, deliberately made herself into a boxing sack, which everyone, including her own family kept hitting with their judgements.
Moreover, the judgement of some people might never even wear away, as now they have another excuse to judge her, and that is lying to them. However, I find lying about something as serious as teenage pregnancy is understandable and justified when it was done because of a psychological experiment. I think that this is the only way to get adequate results and thus be successful in the research. I doubt that there was any successful psychological experiment during which its participants knew about its nature, as there is no way to observe ordinary human psyche when they know that they are being observed. If it were not for people with this kind of craziness in them, the psychology would not stand where it does right now. Thus, hats off to Gaby for plucking up the courage in her to do the project, as I am sure she and the people involved learned a lot thanks to it.
Zuzka:
ReplyDeleteI agree with your opinion. It is, indeed, mentally difficult to deal with all the gossips and ignominious insults that are being made on a personal account. However, I am not really sure Gaby was that concerned about being the center of the scandalous high school rumors because not only did she know what she was going into, she also let her best friends to know. Thus her friendship would not affect by the fake pregnancy at all and the opinions of the others would not bother her at all. I would say that she on the contrary only smile at the remarks without being concerned.
Now what you said about stereorypes is true, but does it imply to Latin girls only? In my opinion, she wanted to point out especially how teenage pregnancy, the teenage pregnant girls sterorype, is perceived by peers. As for the fact being, teenage pregnancy is more and more common nowadays, which is sad probably.
Interestingly, I also encountered a girl whose friend in England made his girlfriend pregnant by stealing her pills just because he wanted to be a father. Personally, I have no clue what ideas come through the boy’s mind. Irresponsibility, probably?
But overall, I also admire Gaby for her idea but mainly courage.
@ Mojmir
ReplyDeleteI do not remember whether this girl lives in UK or USA, but my main point is that I think that what she had done actually could be accepted for a social project and is fully legitimate. This is because in UK, let’s say, the senior project is not that narrowly limited. Students may choose to do whatever interests them as long as it is not something completely insane. There aren’t so strict criteria on these projects. I know this because I’ve done an Extended Study Project about recession and basically, if I had to compare it with the IB standards, I am pretty sure that I wouldn’t get a better grade then a 3 or 4. In these projects it is more important to show what you have learnt and you don’t need to have any hypothesis or so. That’s all from me.
Zuzana
At first, I have to say that being a teenage parent is something unimaginable for me. There are so many problems one must deal with when having a child and doing so why studying at high school is a test of body and mind of the future parent. Many kids are then in hands of teenagers who can barely take care of themselves, let alone children of their own.
ReplyDeleteI understand why Latino teenage moms are a stereotype. There is simply too many of them and they are mostly incapable to properly raise their kids while at high school. It is however uncertain how would the public act if she weren’t Latino.
Hard to say whether faking pregnancy is easier than actually being pregnant. Sacrificing six months for a school project as Gaby Rodriguez did must have been very difficult and acting like pregnant for this whole time is a challenging task. But of course, the most difficult part of her fake pregnancy must have been realizing that people around her change their behavior, only because they though she was pregnant.
I wonder how people reacted when they were told that she faked the whole six months of pregnancy. I suspect that people who told mendacities that she changed because of her pregnancy or changed their attitude towards her while she was “pregnant” are ashamed of their behavior. I think they never really thought of the possibility that it was a scam and there is a high chance they’ve learned something from this experiment. This might be good news for future real pregnant teenage girls in high school. After this experiment, people can see that simply the fact that someone is pregnant doesn’t mean the person is different than before. However, this experiment doesn’t refute that teenage parents are in most cases incapable of raising kids of their own in a proper way. I think this is why such a stereotype exists in the first place.
As the article mentions, this experiment can only show us how people react at pregnant teenage classmate. Gaby didn’t have to worry about any parental problems and she could easily ignore all the gossips, because she knew she wasn’t changing and the only thing that changed was the attitude of her friends and public – experiment mice.
RE: Petra
ReplyDeleteI completely understand your amazement about Gaby’s experiment and I agree with you that she is very strong-minded. Of course it would have been a lot more difficult if she hadn’t told anyone. However this would be almost unbearable and she would at least have to tell her parents and boyfriend. But only then would she understand how stressful and difficult is to be a teenage pregnant girl.
I agree with you that it must be difficult to handle all the judgments from people around you. However, Gaby didn’t have to worry about that, because she wasn’t really pregnant and she didn’t change at all. The only thing that must have been difficult for her was realizing that her friends and classmates aren’t really much of support to her. It revealed how people easily fall into the trap of stereotyping.
I never thought of the possibility that people won’t treat her the way they did before she was “pregnant”. I agree that the fact she lied to them and included them in her experiment might cause them to judge her again. But these are the consequences of her experiment and as you mentioned, social experiments like this have to be undergone with test subjects who don’t know that they are being tested and observed.
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ReplyDeleteHere is Alex's comment:
ReplyDeleteThe idea of Gaby stunned me. I have to admire her courage that she gave up all the fun during her senior year of high school just to pretend pregnancy in order to perform an experiment. I wonder where she got the inspiration for it in the first place, as in the article it only says that she got the idea in spring. I would love to have the guts for performing something like this as I am certain that it has to be enriching and the obtained knowledge and experience would be my very own and not interchangeable. Gaby has to be a strong individual when the rumors did not get to her and she could keep her sanity.
Gaby had to experience what alienation from others feels like and I am certain that people around her were giving her some hard time. I do not think it would be any different in Slovakia. She would be automatically considered to come from a lower social class with poor standard of living and to have minimal education. The stereotype which is believed in the US about Latino girls could be compared to the one about girls from Roma community in Slovakia. People think that pregnant teenage Roma girls are so common, that no one actually ruminates about whether it is okay or not anymore; meaning that it is almost expected that they will be having children so soon, therefore not surprising them. I assume the same thing happens in America with Latino girls.
I can just guess how the other students felt when they discovered the truth according to what my reaction would be. I assume they had to be taken aback and ashamed of showing the common prejudice towards Gaby. If we exaggerated it, it could be even considered a big test which they all failed. A test of their open-mindedness, friendship and sincerity. I just hope that they learned that jumping into quick conclusions is not always right and that they should not base their actions primarily on prejudice and stereotypes.
I do not think the experiment was very reliable, but I think it wasn’t even meant to be 100 per cent exact, as Gaby’s intentions were not to find out what it takes to be a teenage mother, but just to see what the reactions would be. In that case I think she successfully completed her task and she can be satisfied with herself.
Here is Alex's response to Enrik's comment:
ReplyDeleteI agree with you on many points. First, the article also made me think about how it would be having a child at this age and the thought was almost unbearable. As you said, we can barely handle our own lives, not yet take care of a baby who would deserve our full attention. Moreover, it’s even less imaginable to have a child when a person comes from relatively good “social class” and has certain ambitions.
However, I don’t think that the stereotype of Latino girls who are pregnant in their teen years has its roots in the fact that they can’t properly raise their children. I suspect that teen mothers in general are not prepared for raising a child as they are still children themselves. I would say the reason why mainly Latino girls suffer from the prejudice is because of the poor environment they live in and often connected with that is a low level of education. Although you are right, there are probably more Latino girls pregnant and therefore it falls mainly on their heads.
You’re making a good point that even faking a pregnancy is probably a hard thing to do and the person has to have very similar mental readiness to be able to cope with both cases.
I also think that you well estimated their reaction after finding out about the fraud. However, I’m not sure whether the person stays the same when pregnant. The psyche of the person undergoes many changes and the woman also becomes moody and starts liking different things due to the hormonal changes in the body. I’ve heard of some women who were almost unbearable during their state of pregnancy and their husbands and families just had to be extremely patient with the stranger with a giant belly that replaced their wives or daughters. Yet again, you’re right. Girls do not change essentially just because of a baby growing in their tummy, therefore there is no reason for all the rumors and dislike.
Alexandra Lačoková