Alas, it was snowed out last month… but it has been rescheduled for this Wednesday, March 31 at the CUNY Graduate Center. This time around, I’ll be talking about mothering across borders in a couple of recent films in addition to interviewing writer Amy Sohn. Other participants include Meena Alexander, Leah Souffrant, Stephanie Cleveland and others, in addition to organizers Pamela Stone and Nicole Cooley, who edited the Mother issue of Women’s Studies Quarterly.
Check out the program here.
We’ve got a diversity initiative on campus currently, and so I’ve been thinking a lot about “affirmative action for white guys.” You start to notice it when bits of bad behavior that come from some people are tolerated more than bits of bad behavior that come from others. A colleague has coined the phrase “gentle sexism.” But some of the bad behavior isn’t as gentle as shirking your duties or exerting a kind of “oopsie, look what I did” male privilege. Yet a look at some darker forms of it can put our irritation about lighter forms of it into perspective.
The Milwaukee/Vatican case is the most recent of escalating revelations of what affirmative action for white guys looks like. We learned this week that the Vatican and Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) suppressed prosecution of a priest, Lawrence Murphy, in a case where “as many as 200 deaf students had accused him of molesting them, including in the confessional, while he ran” a school for deaf children (as described by the Associated Press). Oi vey.
The news coverage explains how, despite efforts to prosecute Murphy, the Vatican office in charge of this mess–headed at the time by Ratzinger–“axed” it. By the time the investigation finally came around, the Vatican was convinced, Murphy was old, ailing, and only wanted to live out the rest of his life in the “dignity of the priesthood.” Christian compassion prevailed—by which I mean compassion for Murphy.
Though the actions of the “victimizers” in the church cases are heinous, and appear with the accumulation of evidence to be endemic (see the documentary Holy Watergate [2005] for one of many accounts; and see Andrew Sullivan on the distinction between “sin” and “crime”), I wonder what makes the tolerance of this possible?
But here’s the deal: I don’t think it is exceptional. I think tolerance of these outrageous sex abuse cases is on a continuum of a practice of affirmative action for white guys. The Vatican’s forgiveness in case after case, in the interest of “human dignity,” doesn’t extend to a whole host of people, like women or gays or people who are pro-choice or whatever. Church leaders find that it feels okay, passes muster within their community of other white guys, to engage in affirmative action for white guys. It feels comfortable. It makes sense.
There are lots more examples, small and large. The Vatican’s actions remind me of the wild tolerance we have had for the current financial meltdown, really our financial “scandal.” It feels okay to give the boys on Wall Street a pass (there are girls on Wall Street too! I know!)–they are “elite for a reason”—and other elites understand this. Even though they got it wrong, they have something special, and they couldn’t be dishonest because they are one of us.
So the thing that unites the sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church and the financial scandal in Wall Street is the way that bad behavior from some is tolerated. There is continuity between the logic of the “dignity†that Joseph Ratzinger wanted to grant Murphy, and the logic used by Tim Geithner when he made decisions and promoted policies as if bankers would never be “too greedy†or unlawful. Here’s the thing that blows my mind: the hallmark of affirmative action for white guys isn’t just giving extra consideration for a protected class for the same behavior as others. It is about giving them the benefit of the doubt and assuming the best even with clear and convincing evidence of the worst.
Lighter forms of this–every day gentle sexism, for example–are worth being more wary of than we typically are. That irritation is for good cause.
Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards’ ManifestA turns 10, and an anniversary edition has just been released from Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. For a great retrospective, see Courtney Martin’s piece this week at The American Prospect, “A Manifesta Revisited.” And Happy 10th, Amy and Jen!
A dear friend and colleague is currently seeking an intern for a project that is very up Girl w/Pen’s alley.  The position would be great for a young woman (a student or recent grad) with amazing research, writing and tech skills who is looking for some cool work experience. The person should be NY based and the job starts asap. Here are the deets, with a contact email at the end. Thanks for passing it on!
The Silverleaf Foundation
The Silverleaf Foundation (the “Foundationâ€) is a private grantmaker focused on women’s issues, education, local communities in New York and Connecticut, and health issues.
Research Associate Position
Location: New York, NY
This position with the Silverleaf Foundation is a full-time paid Research Associate role. Work will involve developing a “map†of the women’s movement by tracking the issues, organizations, and money targeted to women and girls. In addition, the Research Associate will research information associated with building a “business case for womenâ€. The Research Associate will regularly accompany the President and other associated members of the Foundation to various meetings and participate in conference calls with researchers and leaders of the women’s movement to discuss the work and articulate findings. After each meeting, the Research Associate will be responsible for incorporating changes into the main document and addressing any necessary follow-up items and research. Compensation will be negotiated based on the Research Associate’s experience and the length of the engagement.
Required Skills
Strong fluency in Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint essential)
Strong Internet research and organizational skills and willingness to independently follow leads an
explore issues in greater depth
Excellent attention to detail
Interpersonal skills
Superior writing skills
General knowledge of and interest in the women’s movement
Reliable and organized
Strong work ethic and ability to initiate/self-starter
Application
Research Associates are selected on a rolling basis.
Applicants should email a resume to WomensFundingMovement@gmail.com, and thereafter an interview will be scheduled.
Three cheers for health care reform. It isn’t enough, but it is more than we’ve had. And in case you were wondering just how bad we’ve had it lately, I submit to you this graphic reminder. The Center for Economic and Policy Research’s Hye-Jin Rho and John Schmitt analyzed national data for Health Insurance Coverage Rates for US Workers, 1979-2008.
Their report shows that US workers’ rate of health insurance coverage declined by 10 percent over the past 30 years (ahem, just as women’s share of the workforce has been increasing) and low wage workers (with higher concentrations of women workers) have been losing more than anyone else: The rate of low wage workers with no health insurance has more than doubled to 37 percent in 2008.
And that’s a pretty graphic reminder.
For my (new!) regular column over at She Writes, called She Writes on Fridays (because “she’s” trying, really really trying), I wrote a very Mama w/Pen-ish post, which I wanted to share here. In “Through the Maternal Looking Glass,” I struggle with the inevitable question: is “mommy blogging” narcissistic? Of wider interest? Neither? Both?
Sayeth fellow GwP blogger Natalie Wilson in comments over there: “The “new momism” documented by Susan Douglas is alive and well. We are supposed to be do-it-all supermoms consumed with our children. Yet, dare we blog/write about this and we are narcissists. Post-feminist society my foot. Adrienne Rich is rolling in her grave..”
And sayeth my partner in crime over at She Writes Kamy Wicoff: Bad writing is narcissistic. The narcissist fails to observe the telling details; fails to achieve the clarity and compassionate attention which characterize the writing that moves us and changes us. Are male coming-of-age stories, so ubiquitous in our literature, narcissistic by definition, simply because of the perspective from which they are told? Diminishing women who write simply because they write about motherhood is indefensible — the deeper question, I think, is whether writing that takes place in nearly real time, a kind of continuous unedited “feed” from a person’s latest experience to a written form shared with the world, can be GOOD or not. If it’s good, I’m in. If it’s not, I’m out.
What sayeth YOU?
(Photo cred: We Picture This)
Coco Chanel has often been quoted as saying, “A woman who doesn’t wear perfume has no future.” If perfume staves off doom, then perhaps that’s what inspired this otherwise-inexplicable new ad by GlaxoSmithKline for its HPV vaccine:
As you can see, it leads with a blue-eyed, fair-skinned, made-up (and apparently affluent) young woman lounging on an antique sofa on the first floor of a mansion. But softly shimmering lights and fairy-like chimes distract the waif from her book. She dreamily follows the golden twinkling lights up an impressive staircase, where she gazes with a beatific smile upon a champagne-colored perfume bottle magically floating in mid-air. As the bottle rotates to reveal the words “CERVICAL CANCER“, the young woman’s expression switches from bliss to frowning concern. Enter the narrator’s voice:
Maybe it’s unfair to get your attention this way, but nothing’s fair about cervical cancer. Every 47 minutes, another woman in the U.S. is diagnosed. But, there are ways to prevent it. Talk to your doctor.
Unfair? I would have said “insulting.” As in, maybe it’s insulting to assume that the best way to attract a young woman’s attention to a serious health issue is to dupe her into thinking she’s watching a perfume commercial? But, if you want to talk ‘unfair’…Maybe it’s unfair that there hasn’t been a public health campaign to educate teens, women and men about sexually-transmitted HPV (human papillomavirus), which can cause not only cervical cancer but also other serious cancers in men and women? Maybe it’s unfair that the only public “education” about the HPV epidemic has come in the form of pharmaceutical ads that continue to narrowly brand and market HPV vaccines as “cervical cancer” vaccines?
The ad finishes by presenting a GlaxoSmithKline website — which troubles me, as a sexual health researcher, because it does not offer visitors a comprehensive HPV education. But that may have been too much to hope for, given that their HPV vaccine (Cervarix) received FDA approval for use in girls and women (ages 9 to 26) just this past October.
So, skip this ad and website if you’re looking for a more neutral source of information about HPV vaccine options, and visit the CDC instead. And those who’d like a more thorough STD/STI education should check out the American Social Health Association and other website resources which are not funding by pharmaceutical companies.
Note: while GSK has disabled adding comments to their series of new ads, you may rate not only this ‘perfume’ ad but also their ‘front porch‘ and ‘night out‘ ads with the start-ratings you feel they deserve. And, for more on the mis-marketing of HPV vaccines, read my article, “Why Men’s Health is a Feminist Issue,” in the Winter issue of Ms., on newsstands now.
(Originally posted on Ms. blog, cross-posted at Sociological Images and AdinaNack.com)
This is Alison Piepmeier, recovering well from brain surgery, and planning to be back on Girl with Pen really soon. In the meantime, I’m delighted to introduce you to this month’s guest columnist, Eliza McGraw, writer, mother, and great friend of mine.
Earache
I’m here in Charleston, South Carolina visiting my pal Alison Piepmeier, whom you all know from her blog here on Girl with Pen. Theoretically, I am helping her, Walter, and Maybelle out, given Alison’s recent brain surgery. And I am bunking with the baby and did just now make some pumpkin muffins, but I am not sure that I am helping as much as I am just, as always–we have been friends since 1994, when we met in graduate school, I just have avoided putting my education to the same kind of productive use that Alison has–enjoying being with Team Biffle-Piepmeier.
To be here for the week did, however, entail a thorough job of organization on my part. I live in Washington, D.C., and am a freelance writer. I also am the primary caregiver, driver, cupcake-maker, room parent, tutor and hockey mom to my 6 and 8-year-old children. My days are happily complex so the list on instructions I left behind–also known as “the matrix”–included such entries such as “Wednesday–bring in a green food for St Patrick’s day,” “Thursday: put Simon’s lacrosse shorts in backpack,” “Friday is P.E. day–Macie
in sneakers.” It had a long list of contact information for the many family members, friends, and neighbors who knew I’d be away, permission slips for various pickups, and a refrigerator roll call so my husband Adam would know what I had made to eat.
On Monday, I received an email from Adam inquiring when the pediatrician’s office opened, since Macie (my 6-year-old) had an earache. We’re not an earachey kind of family, as a rule–no tubes, no audiologists–so I was concerned. Macie has also wound up in the hospital more than once, so any time she develops the slightest sniffle, I get a little anxious. Also, it was only day two. Things were already falling apart already?
Adam is an architect, and while it’s not as if he were expected in the OR momently, he was supposed to be at work with roll of drawings spread out on the desk (my mental image of architectural design), not heading out to the pediatrician’s. If you looked at the matrix, there was no mention of “Take Macie to pediatrician.” (If there had been, I would have written, “Remember insurance card and to stop for bagel on the way
home at bagel shop on Connecticut Avenue.”)
Even knowing that Adam, eminently competent and adaptable, had Earache 2010 covered, I felt like something was a little off all day as I played with Maybelle, went to the grocery store with Alison, and generally existed here in Charleston, 539 miles from the situation room at home. When I called and heard Macie crying in the background (over Adam’s shouting from the front seat “She’s fine! We’re going to get medicine now!”) I experienced that sensation that makes you realize why people say hearts “sink.” Even once I received the update that Macie was at my mom’s and tucked under the same animal-themed blanket I used to curl up with when I felt sick (nosebleed stains, 1970s brown and orange zebras) while watching Mulan, I felt like I should have been with her.
But as the day wore on–hearing Macie’s voice be a tad bossy about which of the previews she deigned amusing enough to watch reassured me that her health was stabilizing–I realized I only sort of felt that way. I missed her, and hated to think of her in any kind of pain. But I was glad to be here, with Alison, Walter, and Maybelle. I learned that is possible to be in the right place, even if that place is not with my own children for a certain painful moment, the one thing even I never planned for.
See this beautiful woman. Like many remarkable women—including GWP readers—she is smart, competent, skillful, empowered, full of grace. But things happen, and our energies get focused in ways that we can’t always control, and they did for her. Helene Jorgensen is a labor economist formerly at the AFL-CIO. In 2003 she caught Lyme Disease–an infectious disease spread by a tick bite–while hiking in Montana after an academic conference.
Even though Lyme Disease’s symptoms include (among many others) exhaustion and difficulty focusing, Helene has written a riveting book, Sick and Tired, about dealing with her illness while navigating our irrational health care system. She’s a PhD in economics and has written a page-turner that got a starred review in Publisher’s Weekly.
Along the way, Helene’s book highlights the ways that women in particular can be bullied and jerked around (and not believed, especially with hard-to-diagnose illnesses). At one point, for example, Helene’s doctor was convinced that she had syphilis (after 10 years of very stable marriage). While we are all hassled by “not being listened to” in the health care system, there is the additional experience of having her voice discounted as a woman. Helene’s book is just out this month, and I asked her what is on people’s minds at her recent book events. Here’s what she told me:
1. We often don’t know how to do it, but sick patients must become consumers and shoppers. Helene explains, “If you are really sick and need medical care, the last thing you want to do is to call a bunch of doctors and haggle over price, as if you are a tourist souvenir shopping in Cancun. Even so, if you don’t have health coverage or your plan does not cover certain services/drugs, it pays to price shop. Pharmacies charge very different prices, and discount pharmacies such as Costco and Sam’s Club are significantly cheaper (and you don’t even have to be a member to fill prescriptions).
“Many health care providers are willing to negotiate lower prices. A 2008 study found that 66 percent of patients who negotiated with their doctor lowered their costs; and 70 percent who negotiated with hospitals got a better deal. With the rise of high-deductible health plans, patients are increasingly expected to act like consumers. As I discuss in the book [pp. 42-43], it is envisioned that high-deductible plans will lower health care costs as patients-as-consumers will shop for the highest quality of services for the lowest price, and providers compete for patients by increasing efficiency. But patients do not make good consumer decisions. After all who wants to go to a discount surgeon? (Patients use price as an indicator of quality.) Secondly, patients don’t have the medical expertise to make good decisions.â€
2. Doctors can have mysterious conflicts of interest. According to Helene, “There is a huge controversy over the treatment of Lyme Disease, and two standards of care have been developed. When I was first diagnosed, I was referred to an infectious disease doctor at a leading research hospital. I assumed that I was going to get the best of care. I was terribly wrong. Patients often don’t get the best of care because of doctors’ conflicts of interest, such as consulting and investment arrangements with drug companies, health insurance companies, medical device companies, laboratories. In the book [p. 45] you can read the story of spinal surgeons who invested in a spinal device company, and the return on their investment was dependent on how many devices they implanted in patients. Here’s the catch: As a patient, it is almost impossible to find out what conflict of interests your doctor has.”
3. Health care reform is crucial. Helene explains that “private health insurance companies do not make money off sick people like myself. Republicans want to increase competition in the insurance market, but no amount of competition will make patients like me profitable. The Democrats’ plan calls for setting up insurance exchanges and banning discrimination against pre-existing conditions. But that is not going to make insurance companies want to insure sick people. Insurance companies will continue to engage in all the same tactics they use today to get out of their responsibilities to pay for medical services for sick patients. Health insurance companies regularly deny coverage for covered services, in the hope that patients are too sick to contest the denial. Since patients who are the sickest also have the highest medical bills, this is a very effective way for insurance companies to shift costs onto patients.“
4. Empowerment is key. Helene is a “sick and tired” (literally) heroine of empowerment, and while she’s interested in changing our health care system, she also has advice about how individuals can help themselves. She explains, “You have to educate yourself about your medical condition. You have to demand the best care from your doctor, and if you are not getting it, find a new doctor; and you have to fight your insurance company to pay for your care. This is very hard to do when you are sick, and having a support system is important. A woman at my talk yesterday suggested that if you don’t have family or friends who can help you, your local church (if you have one) may provide such support.”
To Helene: Thanks for telling this story. To readers: Tell me what you think of Sick and Tired.
Happy Women’s History Month Girl w/Pen Family!!
The best and worst part of being a science grrl is that most people in my life know that I’m all “Women can do math and science!” I’m such a big cheerleader for math and science that some people are fearful to admit to me that they think science is boring or they hate math. When I go into mini-lectures diagnosing why someone thinks they are bad at math or is in fact bad at math, I usually discover that there was a bad teacher who specifically told my friend that they couldn’t do math, sometimes because my friend was a girl. There are times when we chat and realize that science and engineering was never fully explained or explored.
That’s why I love science documentaries! How else is a kid in the middle of Kansas going to know the amazement of marine biology? How else was math going to reel me in if it weren’t for Donald Duck and his magic billiard shots in Mathmagic Land? We, grown-ups/parents/mentors/awesome aunties, need to find ways to show how awesome science, math, technology and engineering can be for the young people in our lives.
In that spirit, the Smithsonian Channel launched a new series of shows on Sunday focused on women in science with “A Woman Among Wolves.” The show is exciting, highlights women and did I mention exciting? Toss out the old image of scientists stuck inside with shiny white lab coats! They are outside with wolves and bats.
So what if these shows don’t spark an interest in science? Use it as a springboard to talk about other fields. Are the bats too gross? What other animals would the kid in your life want to follow around and watch? Maybe animals aren’t their thing? Plants? Stars? Their MP3 player?
Science is everywhere and with the proper prompt a great conversation can help you introduce a kid to science or engineering. Need some help? Catch the 6th Annual 24 hour Global Marathon For, By and About Women in Engineering. Find a website like SciGirls.
Most of us were raised to think of math and science as intimidating. Something for the chosen few. As a chemistry professor I work with likes to say, “If I can do it, so can you.”
And to start you off in the wonderful world of science and fun, I am giving away a gift pack from the Smithsonian! Leave a comment with your email address and that’s your entry. That’s it.
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Do you live in the Cleveland area? Come meet me at the Flora Stone Mather Center for Women at Case Western Reserve University on Thursday, March 18th at 7 pm for “Translating the F-Word: Defining Feminism in a Multicultural Society” with Siobhan Brooks and Courtney Martin.
