See Emily Blog

One for Bipartisanship!

noreply@blogger.com (Emily) — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 00:40:00 +0000

Your government can't agree on much these days, but they sure do hate those loud TV commercials.

Parents Push Surrogate to Terminate Pregnancy

noreply@blogger.com (Emily) — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 23:47:00 +0000

When a Canadian couple found out that the child their surrogate was carrying had Down syndrome, they wanted her to abort. The surrogate was determined to carry the pregnancy to term. Under the agreement they signed, if the surrogate wanted to continue with the pregnancy, she would have to raise the child herself.

This is really...complicated. Jezebel:

Abortion in cases of assisted reproduction is always controversial, in part because at some point, the parents involved did want a child — passionately enough to pay a lot of money, go through invasive treatments, and potentially contract with a third party. We tend to be especially hard on parents who change their minds after going through so much. But this case is even more complex than, say, selectively aborting fetuses conceived through IVF, because it involves another adult, who some would argue should also get a say in what she does with her body.

My first inclination would be to say that since the fetus is the genetic offspring of the couple, it is their decision on what happens to it. Then again, since I'm pro-choice, I also believe that a woman should have complete control over what happens to her body- which of course includes not having an abortion if she is anti-abortion. Legally, it seems there is some work to be done regarding these situations:

Prof. Guichon speculated that courts likely would not honour a surrogacy contract, drawing instead on family law that would require the biological parents to support the child.

It appears no surrogacy contract has actually been contested in a Canadian court, however, leaving the transactions in some legal limbo.

In the end, the woman had an abortion, partly because of her own family obligations (she had two children of her own). It's unfortunate that she had to go through with something she was against, but it seems hard to think of another option. Maybe she could have carried the pregnancy to term, paying for the costs of carrying the baby herself, and tried to give it up for adoption.

It would probably be in the best interest of all parties involved to discuss what action, if any, would be taken if a fetus is found to have birth defects and to make sure they are all on the same page. But I'm curious what the rest of you think: for those of you who are pro-choice, does the woman's right to choose get taken out of her hands when the fetus in question isn't hers?

Fallon and Timberlake do the History of Rap

noreply@blogger.com (Emily) — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 21:56:00 +0000

This was entertaining. Happy Friday!

1 in 5 Americans Believe Obama is a Cactus

noreply@blogger.com (Emily) — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 22:57:00 +0000

According to the poll, Obama has lost favor among many voters who supported his candidacy in 2008 but have since come to doubt he is a mammal. While these Americans concede Obama may not specifically be a cactus, most believe he is a plant of some kind, with 18 percent saying the president is a ficus, 37 percent believing him to be a grain such as wheat or millet, and 12 percent convinced he is an old-growth forest in Northern California.

When asked why they agreed with the statement "President Obama is a large succulent plant composed of specialized cells designed for water retention in arid climates," many responded that they "just know," claiming the president only acts like a human being for political purposes and is truly a cactus at heart.

White House officials have asserted that the nation's 44th president is a person.

This. Is. Perfect.

"The Jon Stewart Decade"

noreply@blogger.com (Emily) — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 23:46:00 +0000

The feature story of the most recent New York magazine is on Jon Stewart and The Daily Show. I love The Daily Show, and the timing of the article is perfect because Stewart has really been on fire lately, especially with his coverage of the "Ground Zero mosque" insanity. The article gives a peek into what it's like to work behind the scenes (hint: awesome), briefly covers the history of the shows history and what makes The Daily Show such a success. Stewart's frustration (and ours, as well) lies not just with one political party, but both, and with the news media.

The road trips to Philly and to the 2000 Democratic convention in Los Angeles reshaped The Daily Show, but not in the way Stewart had anticipated. “We were at that point merry pranksters—guys on a bus going, ‘That guy looks like Richard Gephardt!’ ” he says. “The more we got to meet people [in the media], it was—‘Oh! You’re fucking retarded! You don’t care!’ The pettiness of it, the strange lack of passion for any kind of moral or editorial authority, always struck me as weird. We felt like, we’re serious people doing an unserious thing, and they’re unserious people doing a very serious thing.”
...

Yet as appalled as Stewart was by the politicians, his greater scorn was increasingly aimed at the acquiescent and co-opted news media. “I assume there are bad actors in society,” Stewart says. “It’s inherent in politicians to be disingenuous. And a mining company wants to own the company store—as it is in SpongeBob. Mr. Krabs just wants to make more money. He’s not concerned with SpongeBob’s working conditions—although SpongeBob is putting in hours that are not humane, even for an invertebrate. I assume monkeys are gonna throw shit. I get angrier at the people who don’t go ‘Bad monkey!’ or who create distraction that allows it to continue unabated. The thing that shocked me the most when I first met reporters was the people who would step aside and say, ‘Boy, I wish I could say what you’re saying.’ You have a show! You are a network anchor! Whaddya mean you can’t say it?” Stewart says.

The profile is a bit quote-heavy, but I didn't mind because I like what Stewart has to say. The catharsis people get from watching the show makes it a bit easier to get through the news the next day.

“Even if you’re eating delicious chocolate cake, there are moments you feel like, ‘I’ve had too much,’ ” Stewart says. “Now replace ‘chocolate cake’ with ‘shit taco’ and you know what our day is like every day. But this is not a fragile country. I’m not suggesting we couldn’t find ourselves in deep conflict. But we had slaves, and we fought a civil war; now we’re down to Glenn Beck being hyperbolic with his audience about nostalgia. This too shall pass.”

Ines Sainz and the NY Jets

noreply@blogger.com (Emily) — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 01:34:00 +0000

Ines Sainz is a Mexican sports reporter who attended a Jets training session on Saturday and is claiming she was harassed by members of the team. According to her and a witness, the coaches deliberately threw passes in her direction, which set up "potential collisions with the defensive backs in the drill" and was greeted with "hooting and hollering" (also described by a witness) when she entered the locker room. Public relations staff did not intervene.

I know very little about sports. What I do know is that after games or practices reporters enter the locker room in order to interview the players, making it a mutual workspace for the journalists and the players. So, being a work environment, the same rules prohibiting sexual harassment should still apply, and the players and reporters should be treating each other with a mutual professional respect.

According to Sainz and a witness, this isn't what happened. Although the harassment is a viable story on its own, what I was the most interested in was how the media portrayed the story. Let's start with how I first heard it, on the radio this morning.

I've talked about my morning radio habits before, criticizing z100 for their not always politically correct commentary. However, in the battle of the morning shows this morning, z100 proved itself to be on the (mostly) right side of this story. Scott and Todd in the Morning on PLJ, however, was not.

Here's what they both got wrong: immediately describing what she was wearing and that she is totally hot. They describe this because they think it's important to the story, because with many sexual harassment/assault stories, one of the first questions people think of is "well, what was she wearing?" This is common victim blaming behavior, even though what she was wearing is irrelevant.

Carla Quinn on PLJ did not think that it was, calling her out on her tight pants. Even though Quinn "defends women 99% of the time," she dismissed this as a "story about nothing," and the men on the show agreed with her. As long as nothing sexually explicit was said, or none of them were "taking their/her clothes off," it's not that big of a deal, according to them. On z100, as well, they spoke of her outfit, and that she's really pretty, as if excusing the hooting and hollering. Skeery Jones on that show said she deserved it, walking in with an outfit like that, to which Carolina yelled at him for "sounding like a caveman." He said men just can't help it when they see a woman dressed provocatively, so what did she suspect would happen? Danielle suggested that maybe she dressed like that because she was interested in getting a date with one of the players.

Elvis Duran, the host of the z100 morning show, finally came in as the voice of reason, saying, maybe what she wearing wasn't work appropriate, but that still doesn't excuse the behavior. We are all human beings and deserve respect. Yes! How sensible.

Elvis and Carolina handled the issue well, but the same can't be said for some of the other members of the morning show. And comparing them to how it was discussed on PLJ, I'd give them the upper hand here. But there is so much wrong with these discussions! First, the clothing issue. Stop asking "what was she wearing?", and as part of the media, please stop including this information in your sexual harassment discussion because it perpetuates the idea that is an important and relevant part of the story. Secondly, I am tired of the "men can't help it" excuse. Men are not animals, they are people, and they can control what comes out of their mouths. Why do we set such low expectations for them? It's insulting to assume they all must lose control when a pretty lady walks by, and by giving them the "men can't help it" excuse, it feeds the cycle of some men doing and saying inappropriate things towards women. We should be able to expect more from them.

I understand that as morning shows, they are supposed to be full of commentary, which usually skews controversial- the more controversial they are, the more listeners they will probably get. So they aren't considered to be a primary news source. The NY Post, more of a tabloid than a credible news source, didn't really help this situation with their story (the last line is "A bikini-clad Sainz has been featured in numerous photo spreads." Seriously?). The Bergen Record, covering the North Jersey area, had two pieces in their paper today. One was a female sports columnist who called the Jets out, saying that the locker room is her workspace, too. They also included a short blurb that did not make an mention of what she was wearing, but instead listed the facts: the NFL is looking into the Jets treatment of a female reporter, what she reported happened to her, and a brief statement from the NFL spokesman. Which is how the reporting of this incident should look like.

Vanity Sizing: It's for Men, Too!

noreply@blogger.com (Emily) — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 23:35:00 +0000

A long time ago I wrote about vanity sizing, which is when designers lower the size on their clothes to make consumers feel better about themselves, even though measurement-wise they are a much larger size (this explains the "Marilyn Monroe was a size 14!" myth- she wasn't TODAY'S size 14). I thought this was a female-only practice, but it turns out men get it just as bad. Check out this chart:

I always suspected Old Navy was the worst offender! No, I don't wear men's clothes, but the women's clothes from there run really big. Same for the Gap. I routinely have to buy a size or two down from what I buy at other retailers.

This is messed up. This is actual incorrect math we're talking about here- not something that can be subjective like "small" or "medium."

Image from Esquire.

Gardasil Deemed Business Failure

noreply@blogger.com (Emily) — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 23:49:00 +0000

Well here's a topic I haven't written about in awhile: Gardasil.

As longtime readers may remember, I've covered the scare tactics used to sell the "cervical cancer vaccine" (it isn't one- even if you have enough money and time to get the three separate shots, you can still get cervical cancer), and the reports that the vaccine isn't as effective as Merck led us to believe.

The latest news is that Fortune has declared the vaccine a business failure:

But four years after Merck (MRK, Fortune 500) released this would-be top-seller, called Gardasil, it has proven to be a marketplace dud. In Merck's second quarter, the company reported an 18% year-over-year drop in sales to $219 million and its stock is down nearly 3% to date. Analysts are pointing to Gardasil not as a savior, but as a risk for investors.

So how come? The three shot requirement is partly to blame. Most women don't get all three shots, even though they are reminded via emails and text messages. Fortune lists other reasons at the link, which you can read, but this one popped out at me:

2) Some parents aren't comfortable vaccinating young children against a virus they can only get from having sex.

In 2007, when Texas governor Rick Perry issued an executive order that all girls entering the 6th grade would receive Gardasil, parents were furious. Some argued that the vaccine would promote promiscuity. The order was eventually overturned.

Ah, yes. I knew this one was coming.

Because the vaccine prevents some strains of the human papillomavirus, which is sexually transmitted, parents worry that giving their daughters these shots would make them "promiscuous." Adults are always wringing their hands over the sexual lives of young people, and this hand-wringing is usually what keeps young people from getting access to the types of tools that can keep them safe when they do decide to have sex, like condoms in schools, allowing teens younger than 17 to buy Plan B without a perscription, and deciding to give them the only vaccinne that can prevent a very common STD. Vaccines, condoms and Plan B don't make teens have sex, hormones do.

And, notably, once Merck decided to seek FDA approval for the vaccine in boys, the conversation switched from slutiness to health benefits. It was approved for preventing genital warts in boys last year.

Ladies Night

noreply@blogger.com (Emily) — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 23:56:00 +0000

Last week, the Second Circuit of Appeals in NYC rejected a New York lawyer's claims that "Ladies Nights" at bars are unconstitutional because they force men to pay more than women. The interwebs went ablaze about it here, here, here, and it sparked an interesting (as usual) thread on The Daily Dish.

Although I don't think I've ever been to a bar on "Ladies Night," I'm against the practice, and I do see it as sexist and discriminatory. As Clark-Flory writes at Broadsheet, it is another "sex sells" tactic, with the end point being that more women will come if the drinks are cheap, which will in turn bring more men, which will lead them to pay for more full price drinks for the ladies. I also agree that although feminists do have "bigger fish to fry," this would be completely outrageous to women if the tide was turned and the men got the cheap drinks.

I'm surprised there haven't been more feminists arguing against ladies nights in the wake of this ruling. Roy Den Hollander, the man who brought the suit, is not the most sympathetic character [...] but there is so much about ladies nights that runs counter to feminist philosophy. Gender-based pricing, really?

Gender-based pricing is the least of the sexism that I've seen at some bars. I've seen a stage where only women can dance with a bartender who walks by pouring shots down their throats, and stages with poles on them where a woman will dance and an employee shines a light up their skirt. I'm sure you've seen others.

However, cheap drinks for women is not the only form of discrimination that goes on in bars and clubs, as a reader to the Dish wrote in recently:

Many establishments enforce policies against certain racial groups through use of a selective dress code. I once tended bar at an upscale nightclub in the South that had a dress code that stated: "No sports jerseys, Timberland boots, baggy jeans, do rags, baseball hats, gym shoes, or sleeveless shirts." Now, this was clearly a racial dress code. Every weekend I would see plenty of white and Asian men in the bar wearing fashionable Nikes and occasionally sleeveless shirts or undershirts on really hot nights. Any black man who came to the club had to be on his best behavior and wear his most conservative and expensive outfit. This double standard basically told black people that as long as they could "act white" they were welcome in the club. White men who "dressed black" were also welcome as long as they could afford the cover charge.

I'm reminded of the part in Knocked Up where Leslie Mann and Katherine Heigl (very, very pregnant) try to get into a nightclub. The black bouncer rejects them because Mann is "old" and Heigl is pregnant. After Mann reams him out, he pulls her aside and confesses that he hates his job, and that he can only allow a certain small percentage of black people in. He makes a joke about hoping for a black dwarf in order to meet his quota.

Bouncers seem to reject people for all sorts of reasons- inappropriate clothing, already being drunk, not being good looking enough, and, sometimes, just for being a guy, as I've heard guys only have a chance of getting in to the hottest nightclubs if they are already with girls. And the reasons people go to these clubs are specifically because of the types of people that will be there, which are the types of people that the bouncers already allow in. It becomes a cycle, although it still is discriminatory.

Now, going to the more exclusive clubs that make you wait behind a velvet rope are, of course, optional. You can go to a club that doesn't have a bouncer for screening purposes, go to a local bar that employs a DJ, or have a dance party in your house with an Ipod and some liquor. Plenty of people stay away from the velvet-rope type places because they don't want to wait around to be judged to get an overpriced drink.

Anyway, back to Ladies Night. It may not be the only form of discrimination at bars, but it is definitely the most overt since it is the one most explicitly advertised- and the one that seems to be the most widely acceptable. As Chris Bodenner uses as an example, discounts on drinks for white people would never happen.

I'm surprised at the courts ruling that this isn't discriminatory, but apparently there have been several of these cases across the country.

A Progressive Palin

noreply@blogger.com (Emily) — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 22:54:00 +0000

Anna Holmes (one of the founding editors of Jezebel) and Rebecca Traister from Salon wrote an Op-Ed for the New York Times on how the progressive movement needs their own "Sarah Palin:"

Since the 2008 election, progressive leaders have done little to address the obvious national appetite for female leadership. And despite (or because of) their continuing obsession with Ms. Palin, they have done nothing to stop an anti-choice, pro-abstinence, socialist-bashing Tea Party enthusiast from becoming the 21st century symbol of American women in politics.
What makes this all the more frustrating, of course, is that progressives helped to give Ms. Palin her start; her political career was a natural outgrowth of feminist successes. As a teen, she played basketball thanks to Title IX; as an adult, she enjoyed a professional life made possible by the involvement of her load-bearing husband Todd, entering Alaska’s governor’s mansion at 42 with four children in tow and giving birth to a fifth while there.

Ms. Palin, in turn, has been making a greedy grab at claiming feminism as her own. She recently marked the 90th anniversary of the 19th Amendment by expressing her gratitude “to those brave feminist foremothers who struggled and sacrificed, endured imprisonment and ridicule ... to grant future generations of American women a voice.” On the same day, she sent out this Twitter message: “Who hijacked the term ‘feminist’? A cackle of rads who want 2 crucify other women w/ whom they disagree on a singular issue.”

I have a lot of problems with Sarah Palin, and after the 2008 election I thought she'd just go away, but obviously she hasn't, and it doesn't seem like she will anytime soon. I don't think she has any chance at winning the presidency- although I think she may try.

But Holmes and Traister are right- progressives need someone who will actually work for women's rights instead of just paying women lip service.

Imagine a Democrat willing to brag about breaking the glass ceiling at the explosive beginning, not the safe end, of her campaign. A liberal politician taking to Twitter to argue that big broods and a “culture of life” are completely compatible with reproductive freedom. A female candidate on the left who speaks as angrily and forcefully about her rivals’ shortcomings as Sarah Barracuda does about the Pelosis and Obamas of the world. A smart, unrelenting female, who, unlike Ms. Palin, wants to tear down, not reinforce, traditional ways of looking at women. But that will require a party that is eager to discover, groom, promote and then cheer on such a progressive Palin.

Well, there's still time before 2012.

Lady Gaga Remakes

noreply@blogger.com (Emily) — Tue, 04 May 2010 23:06:00 +0000

I can't decide which is better. It's definitely a tough call.

Daily Sexism

noreply@blogger.com (Emily) — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 23:28:00 +0000

Sometimes in the morning on my way to work I listen to Z100, a radio station that during the day plays mostly Top 40 but in the mornings has a show called Elvis Duran and the Z Morning Zoo. It’s played in a few markets up and down the east coast, I believe. The show is not exactly a bastion for political correctness- most of their topics are about men and women and how they are so gosh darn different and all men want is sex and all women want is emotional connection and that’s how It Always Will Be Forever and Ever. Then every once in awhile a woman will call in to say how she enjoys one-night stands and a dude will call to say he enjoys the emotions and all the hosts will seem to re-think their position but the next day it will just be the same conversation.

Anyway. I listen to it because the Big Show on PLJ has a lot of commercials these days, and my drive to work is ridiculously short anyway. But not today. Today there was traffic. And I believe it must have been fate that some car broke down on the side of the road and extended my commute by 20 minutes, just so that I could hear the latest gem on the Morning Zoo.

They had a segment called What’s on Your Mind Today. TJ, a host, mentioned that the other day he was waiting for an elevator with this old man, and the old man was complaining about how long it was taking. Then a woman walked up to wait with them, and the elevator arrived. The old man said, “All we needed was a beautiful woman to get the elevator down here!” But, TJ was shocked to report, the woman DID NOT SMILE. She DID NOT SAY THANK YOU nor did she even GIGGLE. In fact! She gave him a Cold Stare. Yes! Can you believe the nerve?!

Then, once they got on the elevator, the old man said something along the lines about how his jokes are free, and the woman STILL DIDN’T SMILE. This pissed TJ off. Do you know why? Because, he said, “This woman was not very attractive. She should have been happy just to get a compliment.”

Of course! How dare this ugly girl not be so appreciative that someone was nice enough to throw a compliment her way. Since she’s ugly, she obviously has spent her whole day- maybe her whole week! existence!- just waiting for some old guy to tell her she’s pretty. And when ugly chicks are called pretty, they better be grateful, am I right?

Odds are she wasn’t pissed at this man directly, and who knows what kind of day she had before getting to that elevator? Maybe she just walked by a bunch of guys who catcalled her and made her feel uncomfortable- although TJ probably would have said she should have been grateful for that attention, too. Maybe her car broke down. Maybe she just had a bad day. Or, even more shocking, maybe she doesn’t want to be complimented on her looks by a complete stranger, in a closed spaced with another stranger, because sometimes that can be really awkward, and woman are always on the lookout for their safety, even in what can be the most non-threatening of spaces.

Women aren't always going to be appreciative when someone makes a comment about our looks. As if that’s all we wait for in our lives- someone to validate our existence by hitting on us or telling us we’re pretty.

This type of attitude ties into so many things. The Nice Guy treatment, first of all. It also reminded me of these Tucker Max fans who think that ugly girls shouldn’t mind getting raped because at least someone is having sex with them!

Look, the old guy was probably just being nice. I’m sure he had only good intentions. But when strangers compliment women on their looks, it can be a very awkward moment. One time when I was in an elevator, a man told me I had the most beautiful eyes and I must get all the guys. I gave an uncomfortable laugh, and he continued just staring at me. This did not make me feel good! Sure, maybe some women would enjoy this type of attention, but I did not, and men assuming that all women must just be dying for compliments from them is just plain incorrect. And if men assume that ugly women, especially, should always be appreciative of any compliment based on their looks, it’s sexist and ignorant.

"You still give dudes a closer look if they wear cool glasses"

noreply@blogger.com (Emily) — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 23:51:00 +0000

This is one of the best things I've ever read, and I'm not even a huge Weezer fan nor do I know any intimate details of his life. But that's how you know when writing is good- even if you don't know anything about the topic, you just get it:

I am not the world's leading expert on emotional maturity. I find that PJ Harvey song about mutilating dudes to be emotionally useful, on a more or less continual basis. But I will tell you this: The moment you, the female listener, break up with your internal Rivers Cuomo, the moment you renounce this particular mode of male expression and declare it no longer desirable or cute, the moment you no longer confuse the feeling of wanting to take a boy home and make him soup and somehow fix all his problems via blow job with love, is the moment that you're free. Because, at that point, you no longer care so much about his feelings. You still care, of course, about those. But never more than you care about your own.

If you like Weezer, like to laugh, like to read really good fucking writing, or have ever had a boyfriend and/or girlfriend, you should check it out. It was written by none other than the awesome, hilarious, Sady fucking Doyle.

Health Care Reform

noreply@blogger.com (Emily) — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 23:51:00 +0000

When Obama campaigned for president, he promised health care reform. Well, last night, after a year of struggling through Congress, the reform bill finally passed. So, what does this mean for you? The New York Times has an article and a interactive guide, The Los Angeles Times has this guide, and the Washington Post has this timeline. Basically, the uninsured are the people who will see benefits from this legislation almost immediately.

There are a lot of good things in this bill. And many are saying that this is just the beginning of reform- we still have a long way to go. It's not perfect, and I didn't expect it to be. But I can't help but feeling a bit disappointed. The Stupak amendment has a lot to do with it. Some say it's just upholding the Hyde Amendment, which I think should be repealed anyway (and so did Obama when he was campaigning), but it's more than that. If a woman buys insurance on the exchange, she has to write two checks, one for regular insurance, and one for "abortion" insurance. Even though abortion is a legal medical procedure. The Daily Beast:

Because only about 13 percent of abortions are billed directly to insurers, it is sometimes assumed that abortion is a relatively inelastic good—that women who really want one will get one, come hell or high water. But that assumption is false. A 1999 study of poor women in North Carolina found that about one-third of them had carried pregnancies to term only because Medicaid funding for abortions was unavailable during certain parts of the year. An abortion can cost between $350 and $1,000—equal to several months of rent or groceries—so the price can be prohibitive. The result of unaffordable abortion is another mouth a working-class mother cannot afford to feed, house, or educate during a time of record unemployment.

So, women's reproductive rights were used as the bargaining chip to get this bill passed. And it's not just poor women that will be affected. It could lead to the elimination of all insurance coverage for abortion services.

Besides that, the bill has a few other shortcomings:

A year ago, Pelosi swore there would be a public option. There is none. There is no cap on what insurance companies can charge people with so-called pre-existing conditions, including being a victim of domestic violence or sexual assault — insurance companies just can't refuse to cover you, but they can charge what they like and, worse yet, you'll be required to buy it or pay a fine. Obama's mandates that employers provide their workers with insurance turned into a mandate that individuals buy their own insurance if employers don't. Conservative Ben Nelson's abortion-related provisions - which require companies participating in the health insurance exchange to send patients two bills (one for regular insurance and one for "abortion" insurance) in order to highlight for Americans that women sometimes have abortions, and they hope, reduce Americans' support for it — remain part of the legislation despite the outcry from the pro-choice community.

Although the new 31 million people that will be covered by insurance is an impressive number, there is still a lot of room for improvement. Let's hope that this is the first step toward a more comprehensive and inclusive health care reform.

UPDATE: Here is a more comprehensive explanation of what Obama's executive order means.

"The Femivore's Dilemma," Ctd

noreply@blogger.com (Emily) — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 22:41:00 +0000

Elizabeth Nolan Brown makes a good point:

Why does everything women do – and I was going to say outside the realm of paid work, but really, it’s everything: working, not-working, part-time work, hobbies, etc. – have to be considered as a reaction to or against “feminism?” Why can’t we accept that there have, are and always will be myriad ways for arranging domestic, social and professional life, and the periodic, cyclical “discovery” of them by magazine or style section reporters says close to nothing about the state of gender relations, the nature of egalitarianism, feminism or the rejection thereof?

And, unsurprisingly, The Onion got there first. Seven years ago:

"From what she eats for breakfast to the way she cleans her home, today's woman lives in a state of near-constant empowerment," said Barbara Klein, professor of women's studies at Oberlin College and director of the study. "As recently as 15 years ago, a woman could only feel empowered by advancing in a male-dominated work world, asserting her own sexual wants and needs, or pushing for a stronger voice in politics. Today, a woman can empower herself through actions as seemingly inconsequential as driving her children to soccer practice or watching the Oxygen network."

"The Femivore's Dilemma"

noreply@blogger.com (Emily) — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 23:01:00 +0000

Last week, the New York Times published an article titled "The Femivore's Dilemma," combining two of my favorite topics: food and feminism.

The writer, Peggy Orenstein, argues that there is a new branch of feminism sprouting from our nations growing obsession with local and organic food. Femivore's are women who have focused their energies on growing and providing organic, healthy and flavorful food for their families. They've gone past just maintaining a small vegetable garden. They now jar their own jams and buy chickens to provide them with eggs.

Femivorism is grounded in the very principles of self-sufficiency, autonomy and personal fulfillment that drove women into the work force in the first place. Given how conscious (not to say obsessive) everyone has become about the source of their food — who these days can’t wax poetic about compost? — it also confers instant legitimacy. Rather than embodying the limits of one movement, femivores expand those of another: feeding their families clean, flavorful food; reducing their carbon footprints; producing sustainably instead of consuming rampantly. What could be more vital, more gratifying, more morally defensible?

Then there's the economic argument for women going to the coop instead of the boardroom:

Conventional feminist wisdom held that two incomes were necessary to provide a family’s basic needs — not to mention to guard against job loss, catastrophic illness, divorce or the death of a spouse. Femivores suggest that knowing how to feed and clothe yourself regardless of circumstance, to turn paucity into plenty, is an equal — possibly greater — safety net. After all, who is better equipped to weather this economy, the high-earning woman who loses her job or the frugal homemaker who can count her chickens?

I can understand a parents need to explore avenues where their children can get the best possible nourishment, and I think people deciding to grow their own food, if they can, is great. I also really like the idea that feminism can mean a lot of different things, and that it can be expressed different ways.

However.

My worry here is that encouraging women to go back to the land is just another way to keep them from heading to the boardroom. And of course, it's not every woman's desire to be a CEO or chief legal council, but the business and academic world will never be made more female friendly if more and more women flee it. This, then, brings up how much each woman is responsible for furthering opportunities for other women. If a woman quits a high paying job to start growing tomatoes and canning pickles, does it become a detriment for all women trying to make their way up the corporate ladder?

It's possible I may be getting ahead of myself here, in regards to this piece. The NYT declaring Femivores a new trend might be like the way they declared the "opt out revolution" a trend years ago: it focuses on a small group of upper class women. Because the ability to not have to work is a luxury in and of itself, and really is only an option for Americans whose spouse makes a lot of money.

In any case, it's an interesting read, and writer and self-declared femivore Jessica Knadler writes about her difficulties combing feminism and farming in this post at her blog, Rurally Screwed:

The irony is that while there’s no question I’m more resourceful and frugal and self-sufficient in my new life, I actually fell like less of a feminist than ever.

There are a couple of reasons for this. Number one, DIY living, as far as I’ve experienced it, is still pretty much a man’s game. Much of the local economy revolves around construction and, to a lesser degree, farming, whereas satisfying, reasonably well-paying jobs for women are few and far between. So a lot of my peers end up staying home to raise the kids. For some, this is a wonderful opportunity. For others, I get the feeling it’s for lack of anything better to do. The result is that a masculine blue collar ethos holds sway. I’ve been to more than a few dinner parties where the men end up dominating the conversation discussing chain saws and diesel engines while the wives try to get a word in edgewise (or maybe that’s just me?), or else drift off to the kitchen to hang out with the children. Maybe there’s similar segregation at Brooklyn dinner parties, I don’t know – I left NYC before my peers started having kids — but I always find myself thinking, how very The Waltons. And not in a groovy, DIY homesteading kind of way but in a weird, retro 1950s kind of way.

It seems that even when women flee to the coop, the roosters are still in charge.

Kathryn Bigelow Wins Best Director

noreply@blogger.com (Emily) — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 00:59:00 +0000

Last night, Kathryn Bigelow, director of The Hurt Locker, became the first woman to win the Academy Award for Best Director. The Hurt Locker also won for Best Picture, defeating Avatar, the most successful film of all time.

"She was the fourth woman to be nominated in the directing category, after Lina Wertmüller, Jane Campion, and Sofia Coppola. This is in an industry where 83% of all directors, writers, and producers on the top 100 grossing films last year were male, where, of the 600 movies reviewed in The New York Times last year, only ten percent were directed by women. So it matters."

Personally, I liked The Hurt Locker better than Avatar, but I really did think Avatar would win for Best Picture, just for the sheer amount of money it grossed and all the hype about it changing the way films will be made.

In any case, Bigelow definitely earned her awards, and let's hope this helps pave the way for more women to get behind the camera.

Click here to watch her acceptance speech. Also, I kind of love this photo (sorry I couldn't embed).

Weekend Videos

noreply@blogger.com (Emily) — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 22:47:00 +0000

These two have been making their way around the blogosphere. First up, Disney Mean Girls:

And Ok Go: This Too Shall Pass. It's kind of like a real life, more awesome version of Mouse Trap.

Have a good weekend, friends.

"Anchor Management"

noreply@blogger.com (Emily) — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 00:11:00 +0000

Oh, Fox News. Somehow, you always manage to raise my blood pressure.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Anchor Management

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show
Full Episodes

Political Humor

Health Care Reform

Hating on Women Bloggers, Ctd

noreply@blogger.com (Emily) — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 22:45:00 +0000

Lena Chen at The Chicktionary wrote about my Hating on Women Bloggers post here, and she has now listed the five types of hate comments women bloggers may receive. Check it out here. Money quote:

Women, especially those with their own forums, must insist on the same respect given so easily to men. These small yet ubiquitous acts of shaming only become more effective if we try to swallow and ignore them. Since I’ve started posting some particularly atrocious offenses, I’ve seen more and more of my readers fight back against the misogyny they witness. Conversations, which might have never otherwise occurred, are sparked by a single troll’s comment. If women’s opinions and viewpoints are to be taken seriously, then they have to be considered on their own merit and not tainted by sexist expectations of how we ought to act. When we put our names to our writing, we must be able to trust that judgment of our work will be based on the quality of our arguments, not on our socially acceptable dress size or our agreeable nature or our willingness to go out with a stranger from the Internet. I will probably always encounter the occasional sexist remark and so will many of you, but rather than viewing it as disheartening, use it as an opportunity to emphasize that the struggle for gender equality is far from over.

The Difficult Lives of Teenage Girls

noreply@blogger.com (Emily) — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 01:01:00 +0000

A friend pointed out this article “After feminism: what are girls supposed to do?” and asked me what I thought about it. So here goes.

Jezebel posted about this article over the weekend:

Hill's piece, titled "After Feminism: What Are Girls Supposed To Do?" focuses on the increasingly difficult lives of teenage girls, and how hard it's become to navigate those tricky years thanks to societal pressures regarding success, sexuality, and intelligence. The consistently mixed messages being sent to young girls, Hill notes, have lead to an increase in eating disorders, behavioral problems, and "risky behaviors" amongst the already vulnerable population: "Who, after all, wouldn't feel confused and unhappy being raised in this brave new world that demands super-skinny, super-sexy and super-brainy all at the same time?"

As Jezebel notes, every generation gets their own “isn’t anyone thinking about the children?!” stories, and there is always something new to panic about. I like to give teenage girls the benefit of the doubt when it comes to navigating the difficult terrain of growing up, since myself, my sisters, and all of my friends seemed to turn out just fine. But girls today are definitely facing a different world than I did when I was younger.

However, there are a few things that bother me about this article. First is the title. It insinuates that feminism is somehow to blame for teenage girls getting into trouble with police and flunking out of school because they have “too many choices.” Please. This is not why they are doing these things, and I’m so tired of hearing the argument that too many choices are the root of women’s problems. Choice is a good thing.

Another issue I have is with the murky statistics, for example this:

A number of other studies, both in the UK and elsewhere, have indeed come to similar conclusions. Last week government research into 42,073 children between the ages of 10 and 15 concluded that teenage girls were a vulnerable demographic, urgently in need of help.

This sounds quite alarmist, but what exactly does “vulnerable” mean, and what kind of help do they need? How urgent is this need for help? And what kind of help are we talking about here?

I will agree with a few points here. First of all, if girls are indeed facing more instances of depression, eating disorders, and other illnesses, they should be treated appropriately. This shouldn't be taken lightly.

Next, girls are definitely facing more pressure to fit in in a highly sexualized culture, where sexuality, rather than intelligence and competence, is seen as a source of empowerment:

The sex industry has moved from the margin to the mainstream. Girls are besieged by images that glorify a pornographic view of women. There is a lap-dancing club in every town centre, six-year-old girls are bought fashion accessories adorned with the Playboy logo, Shakira writhes on all fours in a cage on MTV.

Ariel Levy chronicled this phenomenon in her book Female Chauvinist Pigs, which explored how women use their sexuality as power, a trend she traces back to conflicts between the women's movement and the sexual revolution long left unresolved. You see examples of this with women lifting their shirts for Girls Gone Wild, stripping being considered empowering, and the fact that a woman runs Playboy. Now these ideologies are being placed on younger and younger women. Feminists today are working to make girls see that their self worth does not reside in their sexuality, and Jessica Valenti makes this point with her book The Purity Myth, which is about the abstinence movement and the “cult” of virginity. Girls being encouraged to hold on to their virginity to be “pure” and girls who are told to give it up to “popular” are facing the exact same message: your self worth is dependent on your sexuality.

This needs to change, but I’m not sure what the answers are to solve this problem. Hill doesn’t provide any answers either (another problem I had with this piece). We can’t stop advertising companies from sexualizing women or women like Paris Hilton from becoming a celebrity because of a sex tape, so maybe the answer lies with reaching the girls first- before the media gets to them.

Getting girls into programs, sports, and other activities that bring out and celebrate their talents, and encouraging them to work hard at what they are good at, and find power through those attributes rather than their looks can help. This is a daunting task, as the amount of influence the media has on them is great. But media literacy should be a part of everyone’s education- boys and girls- from a young age.

I also think that there should be initiatives to support both sexes as they grow up. Teaching girls that their self worth doesn't reside with their sexuality will be much more effective if boys are taught that, too. Boys are also facing similar pressures as these girls that are different than the pressure their fathers faced, and even if they aren't "suffering" in the way girls are, the issue should be addressed as well.

For more thoughts, check out the comments on this post.

Why Does Relationship Advice Always Suck? A Spotlight on Lori Gottlieb

noreply@blogger.com (Emily) — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 04:27:00 +0000

There are many, many people out their shilling their services as dating gurus and self help specialists who can get you a date and even land you an engagement ring, if you so desire. So many books (you can't miss them- they are usually pink)! So many speaking engagements! So many websites, magazine articles, newspaper articles, and even some TV shows! And all their advice has a common thread: it sucks.

In their favor, relationship advice is really hard to give out, because the person giving it has no emotional connection to the people in the relationship. You might tell your friend over and over again to dump some loser, but he/she isn't going to listen to you. What seems so black and white to those of us outside of it is gray all over for the people inside it. But for those people giving out advice to the masses, it's particularly difficult because they have to be so general, since everyone is different and they are trying to appeal to all problems and situations.

The most recent of these dating experts to come forward with some advice is Lori Gottlieb. She's not new, exactly, as I wrote about her Atlantic article "Marry Him! The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough," way back here. But that wasn't the end of her, as now she has written a whole book chiding single women everywhere to settle for some dude just so they don't end up an old maid.

As I wrote back then, I think the problem with Gottleib and the women she writes about (those who won't go on a second date with a guy who orders tap water, for instance, because that means they are "cheap,") is that they have a warped view of what dating and love actually is. Maybe it was all the Disney fairytales or Julia Roberts movies, but they don't seem to get that no one is perfect, and no one is going to come save them from the mundane lives they may lead. But just because they shouldn't be so picky doesn't mean they have to settle.

I'm not even going to go into her insinuation that it's better to be coupled and unhappy than single, or the uneven societal pressure on women to get married versus men (spinsters versus bachelors), or even that she assumes that marriage, any marriage, equals happiness in a land with a 50% divorce rate.

Instead, I'm going to point out the biggest flaw in Gottlieb's theory, which is that she never took her own advice. She never settled for Mr. Good Enough.

And this is another reason why relationship advice sucks: because people almost never take their own advice. You may be telling your friend to dump that shmuck, but you probably dated a shmuck too once (and if you haven't, you will), and you probably didn't listen to your friends then either.

She also doesn't consider the males in these scenarios- if a guy was in love with someone who had Gottlieb's book on her shelf, he'd probably feel pretty shitty. Something else she doesn't consider is how miserable people can be in "good enough" relationships, and how just because you're with someone doesn' t mean you won't ever be lonely again.

What would have made for better reading would be a book about Gottlieb's life after settling. Imagine that one- an entire book about how she never truly loved her husband, but wanted to get some help around the house for a couple of decades. But she won't write it, because she won't settle. She says that we should settle for whatever is "good enough?" Well, you first, Lori. You first.

A Couple Kinds of Awesome

noreply@blogger.com (Emily) — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 02:39:00 +0000

This is kind of awesome.

As are Hipster Puppies.

What Makes a Good Teacher? Education Reform and Race to the Top

noreply@blogger.com (Emily) — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 01:18:00 +0000

I came across two articles in the past few days discussing education and the Obama Administration’s Race to the Top program. When the administration passed the stimulus package last year, $4.3 billion was allocated to the Department of Education budget for the Race to the Top fund. States across America can get a piece of this money if they can prove they are “leading the way with ambitious yet achievable plans for implementing coherent, compelling, and comprehensive education reform.” This often includes tying test scores with teacher performance, which many unions are unhappy about.

Joe Klein in this week’s Time laments that New York State, although facing a huge budget gap, refused $700 million of this federal money, which is only granted if states give parents more school choice and competition with an added emphasis on teacher evaluation and accountability. It was New York’s United Federation of Teachers who “thwarted the state’s attempt” at receiving this money.

I’ve discussed teachers unions on this blog before, and I still believe that they are keeping a lot of bad teachers in classrooms. Obama and his Education Secretary, Arne Duncan, have taken on an important yet daunting task: requiring the schools to make more teachers accountable, and to improve the education of millions of children. The improvement of our nation’s education is a big priority, as Klein notes, American students are now “32^nd internationally in math scores, 10^th in science, 12^th in reading. It will be impossible to rebuild our economy- to create the sophisticated, high-paying jobs we need- as long as we have an archaic, industrial-age school system.”

Most of us can agree that a big priority here is to get-and keep- good teachers in the classroom. But what, exactly, makes a good teacher? Amanda Ripley takes on that question in last month’s Atlantic:

But we have never identified excellent teachers in any reliable, objective way. Instead, we tend to ascribe their gifts to some mystical quality that we can recognize and revere—but not replicate. The great teacher serves as a hero but never, ironically, as a lesson.

She turns to the years of research that Teach for America has compiled about their greatest teachers, the ones who can get their students ahead by one to one and a half levels in a single year, a complicated task when all the teachers are placed in low income neighborhoods. What they have found is that the income of the student’s families doesn’t become much of a detriment to their education if there is an excellent teacher in their classroom. So Teach for America tried to figure out what made those teachers so excellent, and how to find those qualities in their new recruits.

Superstar teachers had four other tendencies in common: they avidly recruited students and their families into the process; they maintained focus, ensuring that everything they did contributed to student learning; they planned exhaustively and purposefully—for the next day or the year ahead—by working backward from the desired outcome; and they worked relentlessly, refusing to surrender to the combined menaces of poverty, bureaucracy, and budgetary shortfalls.

When Ripley interviewed excellent teachers, those whose students were able to improve their skills by one to one and half levels by the end of the year, she noticed they spoke very differently than teachers who were not able to get their kids to those same levels.

Like all the teachers I talked to in Washington, Mr. Taylor [the excellent teacher] laments the lack of parental involvement…But when I ask him how that affects his teaching, he says, “Actually, it doesn’t. I make it my business to call the parents—and not just for bad things.” …

Other teachers I interviewed spent most of our time complaining. “With the testing and the responsibility and keeping up with the behavior reports and the data, it has gotten so much harder over the years,” said one fourth-grade teacher at Kimball, the same school where Mr. Taylor teaches. “It’s more work than it should be. They don’t give us the time to be creative.”

A 23-year veteran who earns more than $80,000 a year, this teacher has a warm manner, and her classroom is bright and neat…But she seems to have given up on the kids’ prospects in a way that Mr. Taylor has not. “The kids in Northwest [D.C.] go on trips to France, on cruises. They go places and their parents talk to them and take them to the library,” she says one fall afternoon between classes. “Our parents on this side don’t have the know-how to raise their children. They’re not sure what it takes for their child to make it.

The teachers who can make a big difference are absolutely relentless in their pursuit to get their students to learn, regardless of poverty or parental involvement- traits that teachers unions say is why we should keep students test scores untied to teacher pay and performance. So how does the second teacher that Ripley interviewed perform?

When her fourth-grade students entered her class last school year, 66 percent were scoring at or above grade level in reading. After a year in her class, only 44 percent scored at grade level, and none scored above. Her students performed worse than fourth-graders with similar incoming scores in other low-income D.C. schools. For decades, education researchers blamed kids and their home life for their failure to learn. Now, given the data coming out of classrooms like Mr. Taylor’s, those arguments are harder to take. Poverty matters enormously. But teachers all over the country are moving poor kids forward anyway, even as the class next door stagnates.

Even if the teachers are failing, their principals are likely to review them positively, and very few are fired.

Now, Teach for America searches for candidates who can show they have perseverance, relentlessness, and have made and reached big goals for themselves. These are the candidates most likely to make the biggest difference. Schools in D.C., led by Chancellor Michelle Rhee, are starting to use a process similar to Teach for America’s to recruit and retain the best teachers. As part of the process, half of the teachers score will be based on how their students perform on standardized tests, and the other half will depend on “five observation sessions conducted throughout the year by their principal, assistant principal, and a group of master educators. Throughout the year, teachers will receive customized training. At year’s end, teachers who score below a certain threshold could be fired.” D.C. will be applying for Race to the Top money, and I hope that what they are doing will get kids to perform better and lead as an example for schools around the country to change the way we do things and improve education for our kids.

Weekend Videos

noreply@blogger.com (Emily) — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 17:12:00 +0000

Top 100 Cheesiest Movie Quotes of All Time

It's mostly Arnold. I totally disagree with including Braveheart in this, and where is "I'll never let go, Jack!"

40 Inspirational Speeches in 2 Minutes

For those times when you're about to fight an army that just came out of a Trojan horse, or the Iceland ice hockey team in the Olympics.