Had to peek my head outside the void once more to note that the top-emailed story on the New York Times website is about the “demise of dating”–yet another shocker of an article that misconstrues, simplifies, and wags its finger at the state of teenage sexuality. Read it here if you must.

The great thing about this one is that while it profoundly sums up teenage dating, or the lack thereof, as “sad,” Charles Blow, the author, hasn’t appeared to have spoken with one teenager about this issue–instead relying on the latest research. Of course, he provides no context for this research. And he plays into gender stereotypes, claiming that cons of hooking up “center on the issues of gender inequity. Girls get tired of hooking up because they want it to lead to a relationship (the guys don’t), and, as they get older, they start to realize that it’s not a good way to find a spouse.” Clearly guys aren’t interested in ever finding a spouse themselves. It’s truly amazing the number of strict binaries set up in this article: hooking up vs. dating (and never the twain shall meet); girl perspectives vs. guy perspectives; sad vs. not sad.

I don’t mind research into this “phenomenon,” (scare quotes very much intended), but this research is too often used to bolster scolding lectures, and researchers, or those who use the research for polemics, need tell us where this data is coming from: what age group, geography, socioeconomic status, etc, and acknowledge, even analyze, how this may play into their results.

Ok, back into the void. See you all in a week.

–Kristen

Some of you may have noticed that I’ve been a bit MIA lately from the site (and profuse apologies — I feel completely out of the loop because of it all), but I have a bunch PhD apps due and a conference that I’m running coming up in the next couple of weeks.

What I am about to post requires much more thought and consideration than I can muster up right now, but everyone should go and check out the recent article in The Atlantic about transgender children, the question of the parents’ role, various theories by doctors, and of course the age old question of nurture vs. nature (response: a little bit of both, perhaps, but each appearing in different formations in different people so that it’s possible to predicate any assumptions/prejudices/stereotypes on this).

Go look at the article here. It’s worth a read.

Jill at Feministe has some excellent analysis on the matter, especially one doctor’s particular take on the role of the mother in “gender-identity disorders” as he so terms it.

Writes the Atlantic reporter of a family who took this doctor’s advice and theory:

When they reversed course, they dedicated themselves to the project with a thoroughness most parents would find exhausting and off-putting. They boxed up all of John’s girl-toys and videos and replaced them with neutral ones. Whenever John cried for his girl-toys, they would ask him, “Do you think playing with those would make you feel better about being a boy?” and then would distract him with an offer to ride bikes or take a walk. They turned their house into a 1950s kitchen-sink drama, intended to inculcate respect for patriarchy, in the crudest and simplest terms: “Boys don’t wear pink, they wear blue,” they would tell him, or “Daddy is smarter than Mommy—ask him.” If John called for Mommy in the middle of the night, Daddy went, every time.

Writes Jill:

Well that sounds helpful — just teach him that girls are stupid and weak and then he won’t want to be one.

Exactly, let’s just initiate a whole different kind of “disorder” as a result. The focus on the mother as the source of the “problem” is of course an old trope– in the Fifties, for example, it was though that Autism was caused by frigid mothers. I had hoped we had gotten beyond that.

Ok, that’s it for tonight. I’ve missed writing more frequently on this site and will be back soon!

–Kristen

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I’ve always been fascinated by the contradictions inherent to universities, which on the one hand work as bubble-like institutions concerned with their students’ futures and educations, and on the other act as vast corporations with a great deal of self-interest. Who they do or do not allow to remain on campus following a crime or incident has always seemed arbitrary and the ways they attempt to keep student or faculty conduct, which reflects poorly on the university, hush-hush suspect. This was something I wrote about regarding a hate crime that took place at Columbia University in spring 2006. But I’ve seen few things worse than gag orders imposed on rape victims at risk of punishment, as was the case with the University of Virginia. Happily the Department of Education has now ordered this gag order to be lifted ruling that it “violated federal law by threatening victims of sexual assault with punishment if they spoke about their cases.”

And on the larger implications:

The ruling has major implications for victims of sexual assault on college campuses across the country, according to the man who filed the complaint on behalf of then-UVA student Annie Hylton, now Annie Hylton McLaughlin.

“It means that victims can’t be silenced at UVA or anywhere else,” says S. Daniel Carter, director of public policy for Security on Campus.

So in the midst of worries about how the Obama administration will pan out, whether we’ll go deeper into recession, and whether we’ll ever make it through the wind tunnels of New York City, we can give a little “Huzzah!” for this.

One of the most exciting things coming off of election night was watching gangs of teenagers running through my neighborhood banging pots and cheering about Obama’s win. I’d never seen anything like it. Courtney’s here to talk concretely about the youth turnout in this election and what that may mean for the future of American politics. –Kristen

There was a lot of skepticism leading up to the election about young people. Many pundits talked about the usual pattern regarding youth enthusiasm about politics…it starts out with a bang and ends with a whimper. In other words, young people usually talk a big game, but then don’t actually show up to the polls in expected numbers.

Well this year was different. Plain and simple. Pew Research Center has just released a report titled, Young Voters in the 2008 Election and it’s chock-full of exciting news about the ways in which young people walked their talk this unprecedented election season. Some of the highlights:

• This year, 66% of those under age 30 voted for Barack Obama making the disparity between young voters and other age groups larger than in any presidential election since exit polling began in 1972.

• Among voters ages 18-29, a 19-point gap now separates Democratic party affiliation (45%) and Republican affiliation (26%).

• Just 62% of voters age 18-29 identify as white, while 18% are black and 14% Hispanic. Four years ago, this age group was 68% white. In 2000, nearly three-quarters (74%) of young voters were white.

There is all sorts of intriguing data coming out of the November 4th showing of young people, but perhaps most exciting is the inkling that a whole generation is shifting left like never before. There is real evidence that young people who have been galvanized by an Obama presidency are poised to concretize a real, solid progressive youth movement.

I’ve written about this before, but it bears saying again. In order to capitalize on the exciting youth movement that has been ignited by Obama’s presidency, progressives need to put some serious money behind a youth-directed, Democratic political machine. It’s as if we’ve all been given a golden opportunity—an inspiring leader who understood the importance of grassroots and netroots organizing. Now it’s time to run with our blessing.

Word on the street is that The American Prospect Online is working on a big story on how to transfer the Obama enthusiasm into a sustainable youth movement. Stay tuned for the link and analysis…

–Courtney Martin

The first gay marriages in Connecticut were performed yesterday. This and the abortion battlegrounds that came out pro-choice are the good news in the recent so-called culture wars. But extremely disheartening news came out of November 4th as California’s anti-gay-marriage and anti-gay-rights Proposition 8 and a law in Arkansas banning people cohabiting outside of marriage from adopting or acting as foster parents were passed.

As one of my favorites, Dan Savage, writes in the New York Times this week, these anti-gay laws are distinctly anti-family:

That state’s Proposed Initiative Act No. 1, approved by nearly 57 percent of voters last week, bans people who are “cohabitating outside a valid marriage” from serving as foster parents or adopting children. While the measure bans both gay and straight members of cohabitating couples as foster or adoptive parents, the Arkansas Family Council wrote it expressly to thwart “the gay agenda.” Right now, there are 3,700 other children across Arkansas in state custody; 1,000 of them are available for adoption. The overwhelming majority of these children have been abused, neglected or abandoned by their heterosexual parents.

Even before the law passed, the state estimated that it had only about a quarter of the foster parents it needed. Beginning on Jan. 1, a grandmother in Arkansas cohabitating with her opposite-sex partner because marrying might reduce their pension benefits is barred from taking in her own grandchild; a gay man living with his male partner cannot adopt his deceased sister’s children.

Activists for gay rights are now organizing protests at Mormon Churches, which provided much of the funding for Proposition 8’s campaign, and are boycotting those businesses and some individuals who financially supported Prop 8. Just recently, Scott Eckern, the artistic director of California Musical Theater, resigned from his position after coming under fire. Marc Shaiman, Tony-award winning composer for Hairspray, was one of those who said he would no longer allow his work to be performed at Eckern’s theater.

Eckern has expressed surprise and claims that he is “deeply saddened that my personal beliefs and convictions have offended others.” But why should he be surprised and why should he paint his convictions as merely “personal”? He contributed money to a political campaign whose aim it was to interfere in the personal lives of his fellow citizens and many colleagues. Why should he be surprised that some of these colleagues themselves took it personally that he helped mandate the ways in which they are, and are not, allowed to recognize their love for their partners?

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GWP’s resident Science Grrl, Veronica Arreola, is here with a fantastic column adding to her WMC commentary on Larry Summers. Reminding us all that a much-celebrated election victory doesn’t mean our work is over, Veronica asks whether Summers is really change we can believe in. –Kristen

There’s much more not to like about Larry Summers than just one line in one speech.

First that line…It was not just a simple line, but a complex argument that was summarized into one line and then reinforced during the question and answer session and in subsequent interviews. And that was not all he said; he also ranked in order of importance three reasons why women are not well represented in science and engineering. First, he noted women’s unwillingness to work 80 hour weeks, second, their innate handicap in math, and finally, discrimination.

The first reason is important, because I believe it will soon become obsolete—it will be the straw that breaks academia’s back…MEN will quickly move into this category too. I have seen signs of Gen X men scoffing at 80 hour weeks because they want to be more than just the breadwinner. They want to know their children and enjoy their lives. Once a critical mass of men do, we’ll have more support for work/life balance. But what is flabbergasting is that Summer ranked discrimination last, privileging the idea that women are innately unable to do math as reason for our lack of representation. But the data simply does not bear out this theory.

While women hold the largest edge in biological sciences, they lose that edge by graduate school and quickly fade by faculty time. Obviously the on average 60% of biological sciences degree holders have a firm grasp on math, so what happens to them? Do they lose their math skills as they age? Doubtful. The genetic difference argument holds no water, and other factors, such as family pressures and lack of role models, give more valid insight into why women are being “lost in the pipeline” in graduate school.

Second issue: is Summers such a strong believer in the theory of the free market that he wouldn’t initiate any pro-women policies for fear of hindering the free market? That’s a question I’d like to see a Senator ask if Summers is nominated. Does welfare to single moms throw off the free market? Does it do more damage than a government bailout of the banking system? While Summers has written Financial Times columns in the past few months that show a greater role for a government hand in the economy, is this an actual rebirth, or would he still fall back on the free market policies of the Clinton years?

And lastly, yes, his past stance on the developing world is important to this debate. As I wrote in my WMC article about Summers, I voted for change and that means a change from this country using developing countries as a dumping ground.

My opposition to Larry Summers as Treasury Secretary goes beyond one line in one speech. It is the mentality and thoughts behind that one line, behind that one speech. What type of person thinks it is ok to say that women and girls can’t do math, and that he would be safe from rebuke for it? Will a man who holds these views fight for equal pay, give benefits for child care, or demand that discrimination be stamped out of the workplace?

The question: Does he or does he not believe in regulation … and if yes for financial markets, why NOT for labor markets?

~Thanks to economist Susan F. Feiner for guidance on this issue and for the last line.

–Veronica Arreola

If you’ve been subway traveling in NYC in the past year, then you may have noticed the proliferation of ads for Crisis Pregnancy Centers (CPCs), which often feature the shadowy face of a young woman, and some text about “having more than one choice” or “if only I’d known.” We’ve heard from RH Reality Check about the misleading information spread by CPCs and their partner organizations, and Pandagon featured the story of a woman who called up a CPC, claimed that she had headaches but was not sexually active, but was still informed that she might be pregnant and should make an appointment.

Ms. Magazine adds to these damning exposes with an article in their latest issue featuring two college-aged women who went to check out the CPCs their college health centers directed them to. That bears repeating: their COLLEGE health centers. In fact, according to the article, 48% of college health centers that responded to a survey by the Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance directed college students to CPCs.

What do these young women get when they’re directed the CPC way? Well first, one gets a delay, which is the last thing a woman considering pregnancy options wants. Then, upon arrival, she is handed the typical post-abortion stress fact sheets:

“Even before I found out I wasn’t pregnant, the counselor said I should abstain from sex,” says Lopez. She was given a fact sheet on “post-abortion stress” and asked to fill out a form that sought nonmedical information about her family and her religious beliefs. And then, when her urine test revealed not a pregnancy but a possible urinary tract infection, the center did not offer her any medical treatment or refer her elsewhere.

Lacking medical personnel, the goal of these centers is not to provide a woman with an array of options, but to convince her that having an abortion will be ruinous to her mental, physical, and emotional well-being. Have a history of breast cancer in the family? If you have an abortion, you’ve signed your death warrant.

While there have been campaigns against these centers and their advertisements, including legislation from Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) seeking to hold CPCs to “truth in advertising” standards, CPCs receive millions in federal grants ($60 million according to a 2006 Washington Post report), coming from taxpayer dollars, to fund their operations.

But besides the Bush administration’s long affiliation with abstinence-only education and obsession with re-opening the culture wars (on a side note, an interesting article from Frank Rich: with the defeat of three key anti-choice votes in South Dakota, Colorado, and California, has the American populace finally proved that they’re moving beyond this particular culture war?), we shouldn’t be surprised by their funding for these programs. After all, the paternalistic “protection” of a woman’s psyche, treating her as a woman-child who can’t be trusted to make these decisions on her own, has been at the forefront of reproductive legislation, appointments, and Supreme Court debates throughout the Bush administration:

1. The appointment of Dr. W. David Hager to the Advisory Committee for Reproductive Health Drugs in 2004. As The Nation wrote, Dr. Hager was the author of “Stress and the Woman’s Body and As Jesus Cared for Women, self-help tomes that interweave syrupy Christian spirituality with paternalistic advice on women’s health and relationships.”

2. The appointment of Eric Keroack as chief of family-planning programs at the Department of Health and Human Services in 2006. As Susan Jacoby wrote in the Washington Post at the time, “In his view, anyone who has premarital sex is less likely to form a healthy relationship later in life because every orgasm somehow reduces a person’s capacity for deep emotional attachment. Dr. Keroack’s view of orgasm was approximately that of Gen. Jack D. Ripper in the movie Dr. Strangelove. Gen. Ripper, as you may recall, was concerned about the Russians stealing his ‘precious bodily fluids.'”

3. And finally, the most notorious and egregious example, was the ruling in Gonzales vs. Carhart, where the Supreme Court upheld the federal partial-birth abortion ban, primarily on the paternalistic claim of the Inconstant Female. As Dahlia Lithwick brilliantly argued at the time, “Justice Anthony Kennedy’s majority opinion is less about the scope of abortion regulation than an announcement of an astonishing new test: Hereinafter, on the morally and legally thorny question of abortion, the proposed rule should be weighed against the gauzy sensitivities of that iconic literary creature: the Inconstant Female.”

Ah yes, the fragile female psyche. Too weak to handle a few bad brushes with males, as the purity proponents argue, too fickle to be decisive on their own reproductive choices. We shouldn’t be surprised that CPCs have been federally funded under Bush, but we should hope that President-Elect Obama ushers in a new era where women are no longer treated as child-citizens.

–Kristen Loveland

I’m pleased to bring you Laura Mazer’s monthly column on publishing in the trade world, particularly if you’re an academic. This month she gives important tips on translating your style and structure for your popular audience. –Kristen

Hi all,

Good to be back up here on GWP! I’ve been getting a lot questions lately from academics who want to write for a trade audience but aren’t sure how to translate their scholarship into a style and format that’s suited for a wider audience. Here are few things you can expect to hear from your editor should you decide to publish your book project with a trade house:

— Be sure you’re writing in a plainspoken, accessible voice. That does not—repeat not—mean “dumb it down,” I promise! It means write conversationally, intimately. The academic world, understandably, pays a great deal of attention to precision in accuracy—in the trade world, you’ll need to find a way to be accurate but without using insider terminology or complicated concepts. Example: You may be writing an auto-ethnography, but you’ll need to call it a race memoir. And if you’re thinking of writing a book about longterm neurologic transformation, try saying that you’re writing a history of the brain.

— Show how your expertise is relevant to the life of today’s reader. How does your topic play out in the world of 2009? Find something current from which to launch your own findings. For example, if you have studied the rise of prostitution in 17th century France, start with an examination of
the sex trade today, and then connect the contemporary state of affairs with those in the 1600s in a way that reveals something fascinating.

— Convert your footnotes into endnotes. A trade book can’t be weighed down with long lists of small type at the bottom of each page, so you won’t be able to use footnotes to clarify and augment your narrative. If readers want to know your sources and read your comments, they’ll find them in the back.

— If you have credentials other than your academic degree, highlight them.
A well-rounded author is one who’s more likely to surface from the slush pile.

— Make your title catchy and clever, and your subtitle simple and clear.
It should be immediately obvious from reading your title and subtitle exactly what the book is about, without excessive gravitas.

That should get you started! If you have specific questions about translating the technical into the trade, send ’em to me and I’ll do my best to answer them. Looking forward to hearing from you!

Cheers,
Laura Mazer

After an unbelievable night last night, let’s keep the conversation going tonight. We want you to join us online here at Girl with Pen at 7PM TONIGHT to watch the first ever Feminist Town Forum.

The Center for New Words will be hosting a Feminist Town Forum of national leaders and feminists to discuss what happened on Election Day and where we go from here. We will broadcast the town forum here at Girl with Pen, starting at 7PM TONIGHT. In addition, I (Kristen Loveland), Deborah Siegel, and Glorida Feldt will be teaming up to give live commentary on the town hall, and we invite you to add your voices as well. Basically, we will create a post with the live broadcast and hold a discussion in the comments section. Looking forward to seeing you here tonight!

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political campaigns , politics

No matter what the outcome of tomorrow night, we are going to have a lot to talk about on Wednesday. The entire outlook for women’s issues in the next four (eight?) years will change drastically either way, and it will be time to start immediately thinking about how we go forward with gender equality, reproductive justice, and a whole host of other issues.

The Center for New Words will be hosting a Feminist Town Forum of national leaders and feminists to discuss what happened on Election Day and where we go from here. We will broadcast the town forum here at Girl with Pen, starting at 7PM on Wednesday. In addition, I (Kristen Loveland), Deborah Siegel, and Glorida Feldt will be teaming up to give live commentary on the town hall, and we invite you to add your voices as well. Basically, we will create a post with the live broadcast and hold a discussion in the comments section. Looking forward to seeing you on Wednesday!

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