Francisco pointed us to a spoken word poem by Andrea Gibson in which she talks about what it’s like to be ambiguously gendered:

Transcript (borrowed from Francisco):

So, I teach in a preschool. Hehe… I make a goddamn difference, now what about you. That’s one point I had to make before I read this poem. The second point is, I usually have hair that is much much shorter than this. That’s all you need to know.

“Are you a boy or a girl?” he asks, staring up at me in all three feet of his pudding face grandeur, and I say “Dylan, you’ve been in this class for three years and you still don’t know if I’m a boy or a girl?” And he says “Uh-uh.” And I say “Well, at this point, I don’t really think it matters, do you?” And he says “Uhhhm, no. Can I have a push on the swing?” And this happens every day. It’s a tidal wave of kindergarten curiosity rushing straight for the rocks of me, whatever I am.

And the class, when we discuss the Milky Way galaxy, the orbit of the Sun around the Earth… or whatever. Jupiter, Saturn, Mars, and kids, do you know that some of the stars we see when we look up in the sky are so far away, they’ve already burned out? What do you think of that? Timmy? “Umm… my mom says that even though you got hairs that grow from your legs, and the hairs on your head grow short and poky, and that you smell really bad, like my dad, that you’re a girl.” “Thank you, Timmy.”

And so it goes. On the playground, she peers up at me from behind her pink power puff sunglasses and then asks, “Do you have a boyfriend?” And I say no, and she says “Oh, do you have a girlfriend?” And I say “No, but if by some miracle, twenty years from now, I ever finally do, then I’ll definitely bring her by to meet you. How’s that?” “Okay. Can I have a push on the swing?”

And that’s the thing. They don’t care. They don’t care. Us, on the other hand… My father sitting across the table at Christmas dinner, gritting his teeth over his still-full plate, his appetite raped away by the intrusion of my haircut, “What were you thinking? You used to be such a pretty girl!” Frat boys, drunken, screaming, leaning out of the windows of their daddys’ SUVs, “Hey! Are you a faggot or a dyke?” And I wonder what would happen if I met up with them in the middle of the night.

Then of course there’s always the somehow not-quite-bright enough fluorescent light of the public restroom, “Sir! Sir, do you realize this is the ladies’ room?” “Yes, ma’am, I do, it’s just that I didn’t feel comfortable sticking this tampon up my penis in the men’s room.”

But the best, the best is always the mother at the market, sticking up her nose while pushing aside her daughter’s wide eyes, whispering “Don’t stare, it’s rude.” And I want to say, “Listen, lady, the only rude thing I see is your paranoid parental hand pushing aside the best education on self that little girl’s ever gonna get, living with your Maybelline lipstick after hips and pedi kiwi, vanilla-smelling beauty; so why don’t you take your pinks and blues, your boy-girl rules and shove them in that car with your fucking issue of Cosmo, because tomorrow, I stop my day with twenty-eight miles and I know a hell of a lot more than you. And if I show up in a pink frilly dress, those kids won’t love me any more, or less.”

“Hey, are you a boy or a — never mind, can I have a push on the swing?” And some day, y’all, when we grow up, it’s all gonna be that simple.

Thanks to Captain Crab for letting me know about this fun 20-minute video by Annie Leonard called The Story of Stuff.  It it, using animation, she explains how “[f]rom its extraction through sale, use and disposal, all the stuff in our lives affects communities at home and abroad.”  Basically it’s about the externalized costs that allow us to get things for $1.99 at our local big-box store:

Found at The Story of Stuff.

NOTE: As several commenters have pointed out, this video is definitely a simplification–it is, after all, a very brief overview of an extremely complex process. The video still provides a fairly accurate portrayal of some concerns expressed by critics of globalization, despite the simplifications.

One commenter in particular argues that the statistics used in the video are flawed or even entirely made up. I really have no way to judge that one way or the other, not being an expert on this. At the website for The Story of Stuff, there are citations for all of the numbers used, so if you’re really interested in that, you might want to look more fully into where the data came from. Again, I can’t take a real stance here one way or the other because this isn’t my area of expertise; the data might be flawed, but the commenter doesn’t provide other data to contradict it. It might make for an interesting discussion on the use of data and why people with different views on globalization might use different numbers. You take students through it and ask “What’s useful here? What statistics might be inaccurate? Why might they be presented that way? Why is it possible to come up with statistics that say completely different things about the same issue?”

Click here for a discussion of how one Professor uses it in a Rhetoric and Writing class.

Via Alas a Blog.

My student, Jacob G., just returned from a semester abroad in Australia. He reports that Foster’s beer is nearly nowhere to be found in Australia and, when it is, it is not considered centrally Australian, but instead, cheap and nasty. This is in dramatic contrast to Foster’s beer commercials. For example:

So, Foster’s beer is being marketing to the U.S. with the notion that it is essentially Australian. Australian-ness, if you watch many Foster’s beer commercials, includes hypermasculinity. This is troubling for Australians–many of whom, I suspect, are not particularly hypermasculine–but it also interesting in that it illustrates how a product can be marketed by branding it with a nation.

We used to have a post up about Milgram’s famous obedience study, in which he led people to think they were giving other participants electric shocks, including some that were supposedly at a fatal level. It’s often used as an example of unethical research, since some participants suffered mental distress because they thought they had seriously hurt or even killed someone. We took the original post down when the videos we linked to disappeared, but I just found another video of some footage. For some reason it won’t embed, but here’s a link.

UPDATE: The original footage has been taken down, but the BBC did a replication:

Fascinating:

Bush’s comment is offensive (yes, all pro-choice women are ugly, angry, and undesirable). Clinton’s complicity is unfortunate.

In the comments, Sabriel asks what my “sociological angle” is.  Sabriel, I think Bush’s comment and Clinton’s complicity reveals that it’s still essentially fine to be hateful towards women, especially those who refuse to play by the rules of patriarchy (whether that be measured by attention to their attractiveness to men or accepting that their role of mother should take precedence over any and all other needs and desires). Regarding Clinton’s complicity: Imagine the flak he would have taken had he defended the woman that Bush castigates. By and large, at least in politics, it is easier to be sexist than it is to be feminist.

Via Feministe.

Apparently Porn for Women, the book that suggested that what women really fantasized about was a man who would do housework, was so popular that they decided to publish a Porn for New Moms.  These pictures from the book (found here, here, and here), brought to our attention by Anna R., are a sad testament to what we actually think is realistic to expect from a father:

Text: “I told my boss I have to leave at 3:00 every afternoon so I can come home and give you a break.”

Text: “…and in just eight more hours, we can wake up mommy!”

Text: “Every time I see a cute, young coed these days, all I can think is, ‘potential babysitter.'”

So apparently fathers who take care of the child so moms can get some sleep, deprioritize their work, give moms a “break,” or stay faithful are unrealistic… even a “fantasy.”  Confirming this, a quote on the back cover reads:  “Finally, there’s erotica that’s guaranteed to fulfill every woman’s fantasy.”

Captain Crab sent in a link to this story in the Mail Online about two girls who were kicked out of school for being “two blonde.” Here are the girls:

The girls claim the headmaster said they would be expelled “unless they dyed their hair brown.” He says he simply sent them home until they had it dyed, and that this is in accordance with the school’s dress code, which does not allow “unnatural” hair colors.

It brings up some interesting questions about “naturalness” and how we alter our bodies. Is an “unnatural” hair color any color that a human has never had without help from some type of chemical or other coloring agent? Or is “unnatural” a color other than what your hair would be if you didn’t dye it? Both of these girls dyed their hair colors that many women dye their hair and that some people do have “naturally,” that is, without bleaching it. Does the fact that they chose blonde have anything to do with the reaction? If they had dyed their hair black or auburn, would they have been sent home? I have no idea, I’m just wondering.

You could also use this story to discuss attempts to control kids at school through the use of uniforms, dress/appearance codes, etc., and the way kids always try to get around them, leading to constant renegotiations of what is acceptable and unacceptable between students and school authorities.

Thanks, Captain!