ABOUT this blog

Inspired

I learned about the very concept of “social construction” during my medical sociology summer program in the summer of 2022 (thank you Professor Feng). Once a science student trying to perceive the world through the lenses of reason and scientific evidence, I was amazed when I found out about how malleable things when they are shaped by society and public perceptions.

I started zooming into diseases outside laboratories and research papers and realized that I’ve always neglected what I was looking for. I heard about how my friend’s bipolar led to exclusion and alienation, I’ve seen how eating disorders harmed physical and mental health, I’ve been through my fair share of body dissatisfaction and body shaming, I’ve witness the pain, stigmatization, and mental toll of COVID-19, I’ve studied how homosexuality is discriminated, excluded, and even criminalized from HIV/AIDS to today’s Mpox epidemic. Disease is never a perfect concept that lives in my biomedical world. Diseases and medicine are heavily socially constructed and subjected to moral, religious, scientific, and epistemological limitations. So I am here to talk about them.

When I read Susan Sontag’s Illness as Metaphor and later The Consumptive Chic, I found how illness narratives, beauty ideals, and gender norms are closely linked. I decided to also touch on historical beauty trends that harmed women’s health.

I enjoy writing and hope that I can write more mature, sophisticated, and inspirational articles for more people in the future. I love the moments when I feel that my own perception of the world is challenged. And the process of reading, learning, and writing this blog keeps giving me that feeling. So you’re very welcomed here and share what I’ve learned.

Special thanks to those who encouraged me to write things down (Shane, Tianfang), and those who inspired me significantly (Professor Qiushi Feng, Michel Foucault, Susan Sontag, Caroline Day, Giorgio Bordin, Laura Polo D’Ambrosio, The MET, The National Library of China).