I’m way excited to introduce GWP readers to a new regular blogger, Leslie Heywood. On a personal level, I’m thrilled to have Leslie on board because she was the one who first kicked my ass into gear when I expressed a desire during graduate school to write nonacademically. She made it ok. Better yet, she published me. (Leslie, with Jennifer Drake, edited one of the very first third wave feminist anthologies, Third Wave Agenda: Being Feminist, Doing Feminism, and I will be forever grateful to her for encouraging me down the road I am currently on!) So please join me in a warm welcome to prolific author, scholar extraordinaire, athlete,, mother of two, Leslie Heywood! Leslie’s monthly column, Gender Specs, will bring you the latest on gender analysis in evolutionary psychology and other sciences. Here’s her debut post – enjoy, and let us know what you think. -Deborah

After years of working on third wave feminism and women in sport, I got very interested in, even passionate about evolutionary approaches to language, culture, the body, and gender. From a gender perspective, however, the field is sometimes not a pretty place. It still tends to be dominated by a core set of assumptions based in a particular kind of Evolutionary Psychology (EP). It’s enough to send a good feminist screaming in the other direction away from any kind of evolutionary perspective–and in fact it often does.

But there are things about an evolutionary perspective I find very compelling, just not those things associated with this particular brand of EP. So I was very excited when a Newsweek article came out that voiced some of my concerns. On June 20, 2009, senior editor Sharon Begley wrote a feature article, “Why Do We Rape, Kill, and Sleep Around?”, that articulates some of the main issues and problems inEP. Although is not representative of all work done in evolutionary studies, EP has nonetheless received a disproportionate share of media attention, perhaps because of the number of hoary gender chestnuts it claims to support “scientifically”.

While many insiders will point out that Begley misrepresents the field of behavioral ecology, and some less reactionary forms of evolutionary psychology (see evolutionary biologist David Sloan Wilson), she questions some of the biggies that still stand in some circles, including these:

1.that rape is an adaptive strategy, because it allows men to spread their genes around more (an adaptation is anything that contributes to the evolutionary baseline of survival and reproduction)

2. that men will abuse their stepchildren because their stepchildren don’t have their genes

3. and, my personal favorite—in terms of mate choice, women prefer older men with resources, men prefer young, fertile women with no brains. Or whose brains are irrelevant to their aim, which is reproducing their genes.

It all comes down to the question of gender difference. Are there innate gender differences based in biology? Is there a “mothering instinct”? Do fathers want less to do with their children than mothers? Are there “male brains” and “female brains”? Do men only want much younger women whose looks signal fertility, the much-cited waist-to-hip ratio of 0.7? Do women only want older men with resources? All of these assumptions make me shudder. All of these assumptions are contradicted by my experience, and though I might be an “outlier,” I think those who don’t fall smack in the middle of the Bell Curve are still important to the overall analysis about “men” and “women.”

I have never wanted an older man with resources: I wanted to make the money myself, and I prefer someone younger, and hot. I never wanted to “mother” in the sense of being the primary caretaker (although I did want children, and have them), vastly preferring the provider role, and think many men make just as effective primary caretakers as women. It’s a personality thing, and like everything else about gender, I think where a given individual falls on the spectrum occurs on a continuum between the stereotypes of femininity and masculinity. Some women make better providers, some men make better caretakers, and if the statistical aggregate tends to clump around the stereotypes, does that make everyone on the spectrum who doesn’t clump there—a large amount of people overall—mere (in the language of statistics) outliers, “noise” that ignored by the data’s interpreters?

This is an important question, because according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, a third of working women in the United States earn more money than their husbands, and that number is increasing: 32.4 percent in 2003, up from 23.7 percent in 1987. Given that families are more and more reliant on two incomes, and that women now have more education, this upward trend should continue. According to the most recent U.S. census data, young women are more likely than men to have graduated from high school and have a college-level education, especially at the level of bachelor’s and master’s degrees. Men still get more PhDs, but the number of PhDs relative to the overall population is what a statistician would call “noise.” (In 2003, for instance, slightly more than 40,000 people in the U.S. earned a doctorate, far less than one percent of the population). But more than thirty percent of the population—women whom ostensibly chose men as life partners who make less than they do—is not statistically insignificant.

So what are some of the EP assumptions, more specifically, that I think are a problem given these statistics? These are the accounts that tend to explain all social phenomena through reference to particularly gendered aspects of physical morphology, the forms of living organisms. Perhaps the most widespread and influential is that expressed by Robert Trivers’ parental investment model (1972), which argues that there is a differential investment in parenting between sexes because of the relative reproductive investments or costs each sex makes or incurs. Human females, who face higher levels of parental investment because they have roughly 400 eggs/chances to ovulate/reproduce over the course of their lifetimes versus the virtually unlimited number of sperm and chances men have, incur much higher reproductive costs and are therefore much more “choosy” or “restrained” when making decisions about with whom they will mate. Stereotypes regarding female passivity and male activity, anyone?

Therefore, this theory claims, there is gender-differentiated mating behavior in terms of the kind of characteristics each sex seeks in long-term mates, which is where my hackles most rise. Given the asymmetry in parental investment of the two sexes, females prefer older men with economic resources for long-term mates, whereas men prefer younger women who exhibit the signs of maximum fertility and health, signs linked to things like youth, breast size, waist-to-hip ratio, neotonous features such as big eyes and full lips. As evolutionary consumption researcher Gad Saad puts it, “two universal and robust findings are that men place a greater premium on youth and beauty whereas women place greater importance on social status and ability to acquire, retain, and share resources. The reason for this pervasive sex difference is that mating preferences cater to sex-specific evolutionary problems” (The Evolutionary Bases of Consumption, 63).

Oh, those sex-specifics. They will get you into trouble every time. What do we do with gender difference if it leads us to this particular place? What different accounts of difference might we raise?

-Leslie Heywood

Image cred: Slate

Adina Nack, Ph.D is the author of Damaged Goods? Women Living with Sexually Incurable STDs (Temple University Press) and her articles have been reprinted in more than a dozen edited volumes. She is an Associate Professor of Sociology at California Lutheran University where she enjoys teaching courses on sexuality, medical sociology, deviance, and pop culture. We’re pleased to have her here again at GWP! – Deborah

I read Naomi’s Wolf’s book The Beauty Myth when it was first published in 1991. As an undergrad growing into my own version of a third-wave feminist identity in beauty-centric southern California, her words rang so true. If knowledge is power, then I and other feminists were certain that soon the tide would turn — girls and women would stop buying into this myth, stop buying magazines that promoted body-loathing, and we would rebel against unrealistic and unhealthy social norms.

Sadly, it’s 18 years later, and her message still resonates with undergrad women (and men) today. As a professor, I had the privilege of meeting Naomi when she came to speak at my campus, California Lutheran University, to talk about the “Beauty Myth” As you watch this clip of her new DVD, I encourage you to ask yourself (1) How many girls and women do I know who believe in this myth? (2) Which corporations are profiting from their misery, and (3) What am I doing to reject the myth and help others reject it?

Personally, I think make-up/hair products/push-up bras are okay as long as you don’t feel like you cannot leave the house without them — costumes can be fun as long as you love and accept yourself when you are ‘un-costumed.’ Eating healthy and moderate exercise are good goals, as long as your self-image and self-worth are not defined by your weight/size. For this post, I won’t weigh in on cosmetic surgery…that’s a whole post unto itself. But, as the mom of a 5-year-old daughter, I make sure to never criticize my appearance in front of her (though, I’m still working on not being critical in my own head), and I aim to de-emphasize physical beauty as a value in my interactions with her. Here’s wishing that Wolf’s The Beauty Myth will strike future generations of college students as truly mythical – outdated, outlandish, and out of touch with their generation…

LOL!

1. National Health Plan=Good for Small Businesses and Self Employment.
2. Small Businesses and Self Employment=Good for Women.
3. You do the math.

Allow me to explain:
Old news: The U.S. hasn’t been able to muster the will to get real health care reform, but we are leaders in entrepreneurship and small businesses. We have that going for us.

New news: Oops. The U.S. has one of the lowest rates of self-employment and small businesses of any comparable rich economy, per a report from the Center for Economic and Policy Research. Check out “An International Comparison of Small Business Employment.”

“Conservatives and liberals see small business as a way for women to get ahead in the economy. It offers flexible employment–and takes away the glass ceiling because you are your own boss,” comments the report’s lead author and CEPR Senior Economist John Schmitt. “But the numbers on U.S. small business and self employment suggest that the U.S. lags far behind European counterparts.”

Uh, health care issue? The CEPR report explains that one big obvious reason for this surprising weakness might be our lack of availability of health insurance. As Schmitt and co-author Nathan Lane explain, “The undersized U.S. small business sector is consistent with the view that high health care costs discourage small business formation, since start-ups in other countries can tap into government-funded health care systems.”

So, for example, those considering their own business, women with pre-existing conditions or women of childbearing age can have a lot of trouble getting health insurance. Though insurance companies can’t treat pregnancy as a pre-existing condition, the loopholes make the situation look like gruyere cheese. I’m sure GWP readers have a story or two to tell.

All roads lead to health care reform. This is #87 of the 46 million reasons why Americans really do want health care reform. By really do, I mean, 72% of Americans (polled by NYTimes/CBS) support a public option. It gets framed as like “Medicare for All”–and there’s a bill in Congress to support it. Want to do something? Tell your member of Congress about the CEPR’s small business research. And tell your member of Congress that Medicare for All (H.R. 676) is a no-brainer.

-Virginia Rutter

Here we go again, in the New York Times. And this time, they did it smartly, by asking a bunch of kick-ass female thinkers to talk about what the research shows about the differences between women and men as managers. Participants in the forum are:

Alice Eagly, Northwestern University
Leora Tanenbaum, author of “Catfight”
Joanna Barsh, McKinsey and Company
Susan Pinker, psychologist and columnist
Gary N. Powell, University of Connecticut
Sharon Meers, former managing director at Goldman Sachs

Do check it out. What do you think?

Check out the National Council for Research on Women’s latest forum. Writes Linda Basch in the introductory post:

Last Sunday marked the 15th annual observance of National Parents’ Day, a holiday established to “uplift ideal parental role models.” Originally introduced into Congress by Senator Trent Lott, in 1994, then-President Bill Clinton formally established the fourth Sunday of July as National Parents’ Day. Generally, this holiday is used to promote the image of two-parent, “traditional” families.

We at the Council, however, find this model to be limited and out-of-touch with reality and we want to reclaim National Parents’ Day by celebrating the diversity of families we have today in the United States and recognizing the urgency of building stronger safety nets for all families.

Contributions include:
Rebecca Spicuglia (of recent TODAY SHOW fame!) on non-custodial parents
Amanda Harris on LGBTQ families
Julie Zellinger (of the FBomb) on lessons from a Jewish feminist family
Amy Sueyoshi on receognizing caregivers
The Alternatives to Marriage Project on traditional families as a myth

And, yes, also moi, on my seemingly favorite topic these days, pregnant in a recession.

A new book has caught my eye, covering some of my favorite themes: Gender Equality: Transforming Family Divisions of Labor (The Real Utopias Project), by Janet Gornick and Marcia Meyers et al.

In a nutshell, the book proposes a set of policies-paid family leave provisions, working time regulations, and early childhood education and care-designed to foster more egalitarian family divisions of labor by strengthening men’s ties at home and women’s attachment to paid work. Its policy proposal is followed by a series of commentaries–both critical and supportive–from a group of distinguished scholars, and a concluding essay in which Gornick and Meyers respond to the debate over how best to promote egalitarian policies.

Contributors include heavy hitters like Barbara Bergmann, Johanna Brenner, Harry Brighouse & Erik Olin Wright, Scott Coltrane, Rosemary Crompton, Myra Marx Ferree, Nancy Folbre, Heidi Hartmann & Vicky Lovell, Shireen Hassim, Lane Kenworthy, Cameron Macdonald, Peter McDonald, Ruth Milkman, Kimberly Morgan, Ann Orloff, Michael Shalev, and Kathrin Zippel.

(Thanks to CCF for the heads up!)

The answers (or at least, the beginnings), right here.

SHE WRITES is offering our first webinar — on this very subject — on August 13, 1-2pm ET, which will also be available as a download after the live event. Details on how to register posted over there soon!

After six decades Jimmy Carter has left the Southern Baptist Convention in protest of the leadership’s continued insistence on the subservience of women. Carter explains his decision:

It was, however, an unavoidable decision when the convention’s leaders, quoting a few carefully selected Bible verses and claiming that Eve was created second to Adam and was responsible for original sin, ordained that women must be “subservient” to their husbands and prohibited from serving as deacons, pastors or chaplains in the military service.

Read his article. This good man of deep faith denotes that such discrimination also appears in many other faiths, and has consequences for women’s leadership opportunities, but also for women’s control over our own bodies.

He goes on, blessedly (!), to link (some people’s) Bible-culture of discrimination to the secular culture of discrimination:

The same discriminatory thinking lies behind the continuing gender gap in pay and why there are still so few women in office in the West. The root of this prejudice lies deep in our histories, but its impact is felt every day. It is not women and girls alone who suffer. It damages all of us. The evidence shows that investing in women and girls delivers major benefits for society. An educated woman has healthier children. She is more likely to send them to school. She earns more and invests what she earns in her family.

Amen. (And thanks Ann Austin!)

(For another principled examination of the role of religion in a different form of discrimination, make sure you check out For the Bible Tells Me So,  a documentary about gays, lesbians and Christianity; it includes the story of another southern gentleman, Episcopal Bishop V. Gene Robinson, and his faithful work for equality.)

-Virginia Rutter

Hello again, Girl w/Pen readers! I’ve been in hibernation finishing up my book Girls’ Studies, which will be published by Seal Press this fall. It’s been a long, intense project, and I look forward to being in more regular rotation here.

It’s not exactly an uplifting way to come back to the blog, but since I’ve spent so much time thinking about girls, I’ve been particularly haunted by this story that I read in the LA Times this past Friday. An 8-year-old girl in Phoenix, Arizona was lured into an empty shed by four boys and brutally raped. Her screams prompted someone to call the police, and all the boys were caught, with the oldest, 14, charged as an adult. The other three (ages 9, 10, and 13) will be charged with sexual assault, with the 10 and 13-year-old additionally charged with kidnapping. Sadly, my research this past year has confirmed how common sexual assault for girls still is, and I wish her case seemed the exception.

What caused this report to turn into international news, however, is the girl’s father’s reaction: the decision to shun his daughter and tell authorities that she was no longer welcome home. According to the LA Times, “The father told the case worker and an officer in her presence that he didn’t want her back,” Phoenix Police Sgt. Andy Hill said. “He said, ‘Take her, I don’t want her.’ ” All five children are cited as being “refugees from the West African nation of Liberia,” and further commentary in the article links the father’s reaction to cultural rejection of a girl or woman who has been raped or dishonored. Tony Weedor, a Liberian refugee from Littleton, Colo., and co-founder of the CenterPoint International Foundation, (which helps Liberians resettle in the U.S.) is cited as saying, “It’s a shame-based culture, so the crime is not as important as protecting the family name and the name of the community.”

The story is heartbreaking not only for the ordeal this girl endured but her position as a victim now blamed. Her path to recovery, at the age of 8, seems long. The story caused me to recall Eve Ensler’s incredible work with rape survivers in the Congo and how often the women she interviewed expressed amazement that their plight was worthy of attention, their bodies and souls deserving of aid. Ensler has spoken out about how often rape is a military assault implemented through the bodies of women and the devastation of women who are then considered devalued within their society.

While not the same, the idea that the family’s patriarch could cast this girl out is shocking – against the backdrop of America where girls and women clearly have rights, even if they aren’t always rigorously enforced. This girl seems caught at an interstice between two cultures – there has been an American outcry against her father’s comments, and yet murmurs in web reaction that pulling a young girl, recently emigrated, from her nuclear family and into the foster care system, could also be hazardous to her well being and recovery. As well, there has been outcry about the depiction of the Liberian family and the boys as crude or savage and in need of paternalistic American protection. There have also been subsequent reports in which the girl’s father has been portrayed as “confused” by American authority or his English simply not good enough to fully comprehend the situation. In this piece he is cited as recanting, although the girl’s sister reinforces the idea that the girl shouldn’t have followed the boys, and is stirring up trouble when they are all of the same nationality.

Liberian president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has responded urging the girl’s family to help her as well as suggesting the alleged attackers are also offered counseling by the US authorities. She acknowledges, “Let me say very clearly that rape is a problem in Liberia also. There is a strong law regarding that.” Tony Weedor is again cited as noting that “rape was not against the law in Liberia until 2006. Pamela Scully, a professor of women’s studies and African studies at Emory University in Atlanta is quoted in this report as saying, “When you’re dealing with children this young, they’re mimicking actions they’ve seen, they’ve heard about, they’ve grown up with.”

In my research this past year I’ve been heartened to see how many international organizations are working hard to turn around the perception, often in third-world countries, that girls are of lesser value than boys and to reinforce their often unrecognized centrality to family and village systems. But there is a long distance to go, often fraught with tensions between respecting tradition and upending injustice. This girl’s plight, caught in a crossroad of cultural concerns, highlights the multiple ways in which sexual assault for girls is still construed. I wish I could write that there aren’t also American families that would counsel keeping quiet about a girl’s rape for fear of bringing shame on their families as well, or advertising the “ruin” of a girl’s reputation. Despite however else this cultural clash plays out, sympathy for the girl seems widespread with, at the very least, recognition of the brutality of what she has been through, with the hope that she will receive help, however differently defined.