Can We Talk? I Don't Know.

This week's My Turn in Newsweek is a piece called "Less Shouting, More Talking", a sentiment that I am at most ambivalent about because while I love talking, shouting has its place as well. What makes me more ambivalent about the idea is what its author, Richard Mouw, wants to talk about. He wants to talk about sexuality; he wants to bring the different sides of the gay marriage debate to the table, and converse about it. The issue for me, though, is that it seems like it is going to be a disingenuous argument from the start - potentially from both sides. Talking it over would signify hope for the potential of a greater understanding, possibly some common ground in regard to the issue. I doubt for many of the people Mouw walked by on the way to the polls "carrying signs" that "mostly say 'Hooray for our side" the potential would ever be even there, let alone brought to fruition. And that stems from something rather simple, something Mouw erroneously - possibly ignorantly - states in the very beginning:

"I voted for the ban. As an evangelical, I subscribe to the "traditional" definition of marriage, and I do not want to see the definition changed. Does that mean I want to impose my personal convictions on the broader population? No."

But, in reality, that is exactly what a vote for Prop. 8 meant. It meant that not only did Mouw decide that gay marriage was wrong for him, but that it was wrong for everyone else in the state of California as well. And in reality, this imposition of personal convictions on the broader population is what a no vote meant as well - that the voter not only decided that s/he personally thought that gay marriage was a pretty okay thing, but that the entire population of California should have to recognize it as a legal reality. Hell, when I voted for Barack Obama, I was voting to impose my personal conviction on the broader population as well; I was voting for Obama because I believed in him and his ideas, and also because I didn't want to be imposed upon by the other guy (or more accurately, the other guy's VP... ...who won't go away!). The only way Mouw would not have been imposing his personal convictions on the broader population is if he chose not to vote at all on the proposition. Going to the table with that disingenuous reality married with the possibly authentic belief that false reality was in fact true is no way to start any kind of true discussion. Because there is no way to argue against such a falsehood.

One of the problems for me in the arguments presented by the religious right for the fear that they are being or will be marginalized is that this concern seems to ignore what has been fostered upon those who have been oppressed in the past and those who still make up a marginalized group. I don't know if their fear of marginalization stems from the lurking idea that they have done something wrong, that the privilege they exhibit in their interactions with the world - or rather, certain segments of the world - could very well become inverted with themselves on the bottom of a new hierarchy they recognize as profoundly unjust and shaming. I don't know if they don't recognize the similarities between what they fear and what they perpetuate, and their worries stem from a different source of martyrdom entirely. What I do know is this: the whole thing makes me see red. Like this sentiment:

"For many of us, 'normalizing' same-sex marriage comes down to deep concerns about the raising of our children and grandchildren. What will they be taught about sexual and family values in our schools? How will they be affected by the ways the entertainment media portray people with our kinds of views?"

Does Mouw not recognize that the gay community is living and has lived with the reality of those fears for decades? Does Mouw not recognize that gay youths and children of homosexual parents are being affected - and have been affected - by what they are taught regarding sexual and family values in our schools? Does Mouw not recognize that gays and children of homosexual parents are being affected by the ways the entertainment media portray them and their loved ones? If he doesn't, he is being willfully blind.

The thing about Richard Mouw's article that makes me see red more than any of the lunatic rantings found on my newspaper's opinion page is this: Mouw seems authentically calm, and hurt and interested in a discussion. But that doesn't make him any less immobile than someone like Michelle Malkin or Rush Limbough. He just puts a kinder, sweeter, more literate grandfatherly face on the debate. When he asks, "What is it about people like me that frightens you so much?", I want to ask him why I shouldn't be. Why my gay friends shouldn't be. The fact is that gays are a marginalized group, and people like Mouw - and heck, Mouw himself - are part of why they are marginalized. Why shouldn't a marginalized group, when faced with someone who supports their continued marginalization, be frightened? Why shouldn't they be angry? It doesn't matter that Richard Mouw is an evangelical Christian who believes in racial justice and gender equality and peacemaking and caring for the environment. Well, it does, but not here. Here and now, there's this. In terms of rights for gays, Mouw is still in a position of power and he is working to maintain that position. He is working for his religious belief to be the rule governing all. That is why I fear people like him. Because he can be sweet and kindly and he can fight for gender equality and the environment, but at the end of the day he is still a man who sees nothing wrong with continuing an inequality that - even if he does not condone it, even if he does not consider it, even if he has never even thought it - contributes to not only the marginalization a group of people but systemic violence toward that group of people.

Mouw "refuse[s] to go to the margins". What he doesn't recognize is that he and those who take the same sort of position he has taken have relegated a whole host of others to those margins. And I have very little tolerance for that. What he doesn't recognize is that positioning himself as someone who could one day become potentially marginalized is actually rather insulting - at least to me, as someone who has been marginalized and ostracized by those with his religious beliefs. It is insulting to be presented this potential world where his children and grandchildren may not be portrayed in a flattering light, where the beliefs he considers essential to family values are not included in the school curriculum, when I live in the real world where my loved ones and people of my belief (or lack of it) are not portrayed in a flattering light, and where a book about two daddy penguins starts an uproar. I don't know if it is possible for Mouw to recognize that, to recognize how what he fears is reality for too many. What I do believe is this: until that is recognized, any national conversation with any hope of succeeding is probably an unrealistic expectation.

Why We Believe What We Believe (And How)

Over the summer, I saw Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull because I love Indiana Jones, I love Harrison Ford, I love Shia LaBeouf, and I had faith that Steven Spielberg would be able to stop George Lucas from doing anything that would destroy the Indiana franchise. And I enjoyed it. I mean, I wasn't enamored; but at the same time I didn't have as adverse a reaction to it as I did to Episode II, where I sat in the theatre with the silently horrified thought of, "I don't like this. Tell me I don't like this. Are the other ones like this? The other ones can't be like this" racing on repeat through my head. This may not sound like a ringing endorsement of The Crystal Skull, and it isn't. On my personal list of Indy films, it comes in before Temple of Doom sheerly because Temple of Doom was gross, boring, and had a heroine whose main purpose seemed to be to perforate my eardrums. There are iconic moments to Temple of Doom, but those aren't enough to make me ever want to see the movie again.

But I started really thinking about why Crystal Skull didn't match up to Raiders or Last Crusade. And although there are many reasons for it to not measure up, the major one, for me, is the suspension of disbelief. It was harder for me to believe that there were supreme alien life forms who came down to earth and left their crystal skulls that hummed and could impart knowledge to humans than it was for me to believe that there was a chest that could kill anyone who did not avert their eyes or a wooden chalice that could take ordinary water and make it the elixir of everlasting life that could also heal a bullet wound. Those two ideas have a weight, a gravitas, a solemn power, to them - whereas alien life forms just seem silly. And this differentiation would make sense, if I weren't an atheist. I'm an atheist born to atheist parents, who did their best to allow me to pick my own path. That meant doing things like sending me to Catholic kindergarden, which profoundly messed with my ability to tell my right from my left (because everyone writes with their right hand, even if they happened to be, as I am, left handed). But the religion thing didn't stick; and I didn't become an anti-theist. For the most part, I'm not even straight up atheist; that's not to say I'm agnostic. The closest thing that really defines what I am is an apatheist, because I don't believe in anything, and more importantly I don't care. I don't want to infringe on anyone else's beliefs, but I don't want to be inundated with them either. Whether or not there is a God or alien life doesn't really impact my every day life, and I go days without the thought of God or there not being a God, and weeks without contemplating the alien question.

So the idea that certain forms of belief in the supernatural deserve more weight and respect than others is a little strange to me, and yet I find myself subconsciously doing just that. Those culturally appropriate beliefs in the supernatural garner more respect than others. How often do we react with sympathy or respect to someone who claims they've been 'visited' by the spirit of a loved one who has passed on? How often do we offer that same sympathy or respect to someone who claims to 'know' that the truth is out there, Mulder-style? The same sort of thing goes down when we are discussing different religions. One of the recent community posts at Feministing is by a Mormon feminist, who discusses her feelings of duality and also her reaction to the protests of her church by gay rights activists. It is an interesting post, but what is also interesting are many of the comments left there. Some comments question the ability to be part of a patriarchal religion that oppresses the rights of women and homosexuals and be a feminist at the same time. Others outright state the inability to marry both. But what is interesting are the comments that mirror OhMissJulie's struggle to be both Mormon and feminist and Muslim feminists who undergo the same sort of balancing act. And while there are those who were calling for OhMissJulie to renounce Mormonism, calling for someone to renounce their Islamic faith would not be so readily acceptable. And I think part of that stems from how we see Mormonism in this country; for the most part, Mormonism is still seen as something of a crack religion. We can still make jokes about Mormons like we do about Scientologists. We don't grant them access to the same tier as "respectable" religions, just as we don't grant the same respect to the theory that aliens could exist and sustain human contact as we do the idea that a man who had been dead for three days could rise again.

Why I find this interesting, aside from being on the outside looking in at this phenomena than holding allegiance to any one religion or alien theory, is that new scientific research suggests that all of these impulses stem from the same place, brain activity-wise. In a Newsweek article, "Why We Believe", scientists examine why we not only place our faith in the supernatural, but also often actually and actively see and feel the paranormal - things like the hairs raising on the back of your neck when you're out for a walk or seeing the Virgin Mary's face on a slice of toast. According to scientists, one answer lays in the evolutionary function of the "hypersensitive agency-detection device"; the theory being that the presence of a living being is "something we default to when what we perceive could be alive or inanimate." Or, "Whether it's a rock formation or a hungry bear, it's better to assume it's a hungry bear". We believe in the feeling of being watched because it was safer to do so than to assume we were being paranoid. We see faces on toast because our brain instinctively seeks out faces, and also habitually "takes messy, incomplete input and turns it into a meaningful, complete picture".

All of this suggests that those who believe that aliens are real, do abduct people, and did help build Stonehenge and were the inspiration for the sculptures on Easter Island are not crazy; their belief stems from the same place as someone who believes angels are among us. It is our cultural reaction to those different beliefs that place them in the "acceptable" or "not acceptable" columns. And that suggests that crystal skulls should be just as plausible to an atheist as chalices that can heal and arks that can destroy. And yet, I imagine that it will be quite a while before that is true, even with articles like Newsweek explaining the phenomena of false positives and how the brain is to blame for our belief in the irrational.

George Orwell's Diaries

George Orwell's diaries have been turned into a blog, 70 years after they had been written. Awesomeness. It's going into the blogroll along the side, but I wanted to highlight it here because it is both an innovative use of blogging and because Orwell has become such a looming figure in our own perceptions of the way our world has been formed and the way politics works. It is extremely cool to see a man who cared so much about words having his words come alive, in a way, again.

I would also recommend reading the Newsweek article about him. It was both interesting and informative, and where I found out about the blog.

Exteme Close Ups and Photoshopping

This week's Newsweek features Sarah Palin. Again. She has been on the cover of one of my favorite magazines too many times now, with her shotgun and McCain, separately. She was obliquely referenced on one cover, with "What Women Want" written in lipstick, calling up her comments about the differences between a hockey mom and a pit bull. I'm done. I don't want this woman on the cover of my magazine any more.  And I'm not the only one who is angry! Fox News is angry too!

Oh, wait. They weren't angry about what I'm angry about. I'm angry that she's on the cover at all (though I did like that article). They're angry Sarah Palin didn't get the photoshopping she deserved. Apparently, it is "ridiculously unfair" to her that she was shown as she is. Supermodels get photoshopped, so Sarah Palin should be photoshopped as well. I've already read the issue. I've already handed it off to other members of my family. And without Fox News' astute grappling of the issue, I would have never actually noticed there was no photoshopping going down. Because she is an attractive woman, and because I was not shocked by the 'flaws' shown in the photograph:

Because there aren't any. This is a beautiful woman. With cool glasses and awesome earrings and straight, white teeth. She has some wrinkles. She has some visible pores. She has some (barely visible) hair on her upper lip. In short, she is 44 years old and could probably still enter a beauty contest. Even in a close up (taken from PDN Pulse):

one almost has to strain to see something amiss. I can understand reacting with ire at the idea that Sarah Palin is one of the folks (and that's a problem). I personally find that ridiculous, and I think calling Newsweek an elitist, liberal magazine because they want someone who is above average to be vice-president to be preposterous. And I find the argument that any "respectable" magazine should do some touch ups on close ups to be strange at best. Any respectable magazine should be doing their best to present the truth, as much of it as they can. To suggest that a news magazine should touch up photos as a show of respectability is utterly ridiculous. 

What I also find ridiculous is that what Fox News is attacking is not the fact that we shy away from the flaws everyone have, but that this magazine decided not to play into that idea that we as human beings are less than acceptable without having our skin smoothed out and polished - that there is something fundamentally wrong with who we are on the outside, and that needs to be fixed in order for us to be palatable. As for Andrea Tantaros saying "it ain't pretty" if the camera pulled in for a close up of her, I am frankly appalled. Andrea Tantaros is in no way an unattractive person; for her to feel that the normal imperfections that make people unique and interesting and human aren't pretty or that she somehow would be less if things like blemishes and pores were able to be seen is a travesty. There is something wrong with that belief, and I sincerely hope that Tantaros was merely posturing instead of actually thinking that there is something bad about being and looking like a human being instead of a Barbie doll.

Parenting, Experts, and Advice

Let me make it clear: I don't really believe in parenting books. In baby books. In DVDs, CDs, consultants, or coaches. Children are different creatures. I was different from my sisters, who are in turn -even though they are twins- incredibly different from each other. My parents give every new parent "the instructions", or Dr. Spock's baby book, but that is more in reference to the Cohen Bros' Raising Arizona than the belief that those instructions are sacrosanct. My problem with the baby expert culture is that it is one in which there are vastly conflicting data over things as simple as picking up a crying baby; and people who have no problem dismissing expert opinions on things like global warming place all of their faith in this set of instructions and are made to feel as if they've failed if the baby doesn't respond accordingly -or if they come across someone who scoffs at that advice.

Some advice is good: the newest studies about how to prevent SIDS by placing babies to sleep on their backs is definitely a necessary. The research that has come afterward about making sure your baby gets "tummy time" in order to build up neck and arm muscles that have been neglected due to Baby sleeping on his or her back are also a good. But it doesn't surprise me in the least that even by doing everything ostensibly "right", children don't always react in the ways we have been conditioned to believe they would. That there are "outlier" children who won't learn by falling down and failing. That the gentle touch that works so well with one child doesn't begin to influence the other.

What I find especially interesting is that in a culture that tends to frown on specialized knowledge bases, in a culture that tends to disregard expert advice as relating to their field as being just another opinion on par with everyone else's, we are so quick to hand over the keys to our most individual and personalized of arenas -childcare. "American parents are desperate for direction", and they are going to the experts in greater and greater numbers. Which is confusing to me. Obviously, there are going to be people who need more help than others, but parenting seems to be an amalgam of different factors -the child's personality, the beliefs and ideals of the parents, the surrounding influencers- than most other things, and that amalgam would almost have to dictate a more personalized attempt than just a cookie-cutter fix-it. On Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Joyce Summers outs herself as being hopelessly over her head and out of touch when she first says, "I've read all about the dangers of overnurturing" and later comments, "The tapes all say I should get used to saying [no]". Willow's mother is held up for derision when she tells her daughter, "I have consulted with some of my colleagues, and they agree that this is a cry for disipline". At a certain point in time, parenting has to stem from what feels natural for the individual (or partners) and the child in question.

As strange as it seems, I think that the parenting book phenomenon is due in part to a passive parenting style. In a time when televisions are being used as babysitters and parents are reportedly more into being their child's friends than disciplinarians, it makes sense that parents would want to look to someone else to be the bad guy and to take some of the pressure off of developing an individualized style of parenting. "If it works for X-amount of parents, it should work for us", I suspect the thinking goes. And on the other side of the spectrum are people like Sheila Rosenberg -Willow's mom- in that they over think it. And that's alright. But I strongly believe that parenting shouldn't be something we look to in books but on our own decisions about what is important and what isn't.

My parents decided that it was important I not be dressed in pink or be given Barbie dolls on every holiday. They decided that it was more important to have a family dinner than a set time to eat. They decided to limit the amount of time I spent in front of the television and they decided what kind of television they would permit me to watch. And they were proactive in my life. We played together. They read to me. And they focused on what they could do to make me into the best person I could be. And they screwed me up too, as all parents do. Our parents screw up; they aren't perfect. And the sooner parents (and their kids) can accept that parents are people, that there is no such thing as the perfect parenting style, and that everyone's family is dysfunctional in some way or another, I think the sooner it will be that we can stop relying so heavily on parenting books as being the ultimate instructions on how to raise a happy, healthy,well-adjusted kid.

An Example Of A Bad Poster Child

Dahlia Lithwick's article in last week's Newsweek pointed out the ridiculous nature of picking someone like Clark Rockefeller as the poster child for the beleaguered Father's Rights groups. As a general rule of thumb, it is important to not pick someone who is a possible murder suspect. But what is most of note for me is this: I find it amusing that the saner father's rights advocates and men's rights advocates actually have more in common with the feminists they disparage than they acknowledge -or even very probably know.

Father's rights groups want for good fathers to not be downgraded "from full-time dads to alternating-weekend carpool dads" who pay about 1/3 of their income for that privilege. And feminists -the sane ones (which is to say a great deal of us)- generally want the same thing; the old stereotype that Mom is the best and primary caregiver just reinforces the notions that women are 'naturally' caregivers and men are 'naturally' the wage-earners instead of acknowledging that families are different and follow different paths and we can't as a society fall back on old tropes if we truly want what is best for the children. And as anyone who has watched That 70s Show knows (1:46 seconds into the clip):

dividing up parenting time equally and well is beyond difficult. Under the traditional system, the parent who "gets" the child the most -during the week- doesn't actually normally interact with the child in any great amount due to the constraints of school and work and homework. The parent who "gets" the child the least -during the weekend- generally isn't the one who has to reinforce rules and regulations, who has to make a bedtime and deal with projects and missed deadlines. Both of those factors breed resentment -and rightfully so. Which is why it is so important for groups like those who advocate father's rights to work more closely with other groups -like feminists- who seek to reverse the generalized stereotype that so disable single men who are also fathers from getting as much 'dad time' as they and their children deserve.

But instead of recognizing that fact, these groups tend to go after feminists for the ills of what the less sane members purport to be the nature of "all" or "most" women -"most" women are gold diggers; most women will vindictively keep her ex from his child; most women, most women, most women. What they seemingly don't understand is that it is the patriarchal system -as it is set up right now- that enable some women (not all or even most or even a sizable minority, but some) to do things like trade on old ideas about masculinity and violence. If men were allowed and even encouraged to be equal caregivers as their children's mothers and if this became the norm, then the very nature of the family court system would change because that old nonsense about what women are and what men are would be irrelevant. As they should be now. But when people like Clark Rockefeller become the face of a group and symbolic of a man driven to the edge, all that ends up encouraging is the same old ideas about men and fatherhood and parental rights that has plagued the family-law system and our society for so long.

What Bush Got Right

Fareed Zakaria wrote an article entitled, "What Bush Got Right"; and when Fareed Zakaria writes, I read. And so should you. The basic premise is that after his first term, Bush and his team seemed to realize that their policies weren't really working out too well, and so dialed back from an extreme conservative response to a more moderate take on issues like intergovernmental conversations and war. I still contend that the man was potentially the worst president we've ever had in American history bar none, because at least Nixon got us panda bears. But it is good to see some signs that the man is not completely devoid of working brain cells. I also like Zakaria's point that whoever wins the presidential election in November will have to avoid the mistake Bush made coming in by throwing out all of his predecessor's policies through enormous hubris. Even if we all despise Bush, we do need to take a serious look at what he's done that worked -and luckily for the next guy, that is an incredibly short list.

I do wonder at those %32 of the population that still approve of the job Bush has done though. Who are they? What world are they living in? I suppose they could have looked at the same facts Zakaria did and decided that it washed in the end, but seriously. I am still incredibly surprised that anyone would ever publicly support this man any more. I bet it is all those people who were in Jesus Camp.

In a complete non sequitur, I'm also incredibly excited for Nick And Nora's Infinite Playlist. I think I may be developing a slight crush on Michael Cera, but it is hard to tell for sure. I'm also pretty psyched about Eagle Eye, because I definitely have a crush on Shia LaBeouf.

Politics And Infidelities

It seems like the two go hand in hand; where there is politics, there are infidelities. FDR; John Kennedy; Bill Clinton; Jimmy Carter lusted in his heart (he was too much of a fuddy duddy to act on it); hell, even Grover Cleveland purportedly fathered an illegitimate child -though he was a bachelor at the time; and John Edwards. And all democrats too. Not that republicans don't have their scandals. Theirs just happen -ironically enough- with other men. Larry Craig, anyone?

The real question invariably becomes, though, who is at fault? In this situation, Rush Limbough -that paradigm of good sense and sensibility- apparently blames Elizabeth Edwards. After all, if she wasn't so darn smart, maybe she could have shut up and "serviced" her husband every once in a while. Keith Olbermann effectively smacked down that lovely take:

But the question still remains: is Rielle Hunter a whore, slut, temptress? Is John Edwards a hapless man controlled primarily by his dick? Or is it the other way around? Is Rielle Hunter a nonissue because she was not the one violating marital promises, and John Edwards the true sleazeball? It turns out that no one goes for that whole "middle ground" thing.

Truth is, I don't think Rielle Hunter is anything other than a woman who made a bad, immoral, and hurtful choice. She is less responsible for the hurt Elizabeth Edwards has more than likely been subject to given that she did not, in point of fact, promise to be faithful to Elizabeth. As much as I hate to rely on pop culture for frame of reference, it is kind of like the Rory-Dean affair at the end of season 4 and into season 5 of Gilmore Girls. Dean was the more irresponsible party. Dean was the one who was married. Dean was the one who violated his vows to love and honor his wife. But Rory was in the wrong as well. She knew Dean was off-limits, knew he was married, and chose to sleep with him anyway.

And I think that there is a more insidious side to all of this; and it is how women interact with one another. Both Rory and Rielle Hunter seemingly convinced themselves that Lindsay and Elizabeth Edwards didn't matter; that they were at fault for whatever ills their respective lovers were subject to. Rielle Hunter said to Jonathan Darman (a writer for Newsweek) of Elizabeth Edwards, "She does not give off good energy. She didn't make eye contact with me". She also, according to Darman, had been working on an "idea for a television show about women who help men get out of failing marriages by having affairs with them". We as a society have taught women to view other women as competition, as less deserving, and more often than not as the problem rather than as another human being -and a human being whom we can hurt and cut and diminish through our actions. Men are the primary, are the subject, and the other woman in their lives are often only seen as the object. There is a reason why, on those horrid talk shows, a man's two girlfriends who didn't know about each other until the dick dragged them both on Maury attack one another with an alarming frequency -instead of going after the guy who was two timing them both.

This latest political scandal is an example of many things: egotism, slut-shaming, a propensity to judge women by their looks and sexual history, an alarming trend of making the adulterer the victim; but I think the continued animosity women show one another is perhaps the most important aspect. Rielle Hunter didn't see Elizabeth Edwards as a person worthy of respect; Rielle Hunter diminished Elizabeth Edwards in terms of being a person of worth, of good qualities, and most importantly of emotion. Elizabeth Edwards didn't factor into Rielle Hunter's thinking at all, other than that she had apparently trapped John Edwards in a failing marriage that she, Rielle Hunter, could rescue him from. John Edwards is an adulterer, and the lack of respect he has shown his wife has been very large indeed. He should be seen as wholly responsible for the actions he chose to take, for the disregard he showed to his wife and family. 

But I think what we need to work on most is the way women see each other. We need to stop seeing each other as competitors for husbands, as being less worthy, as just being "less". We -all of us- need to stop the implicit "she's not so great" when we are jealous, when we want what they have, when we don't understand why they have it. The Rielle Hunters of the world, the Monica Lewinskys, the girl who slept with Christie Brinkley's husband, need to recognize that there is a fully viable, worthwhile human also in the picture. That she is not less of a human because they covet or are sleeping with her husband.

"Girlie" Math

Danica McKellar, she of Wonder Years fame, has grown all up and become a mathematician. Everyone who has ever watched VH1's "Where Are They Now" probably knows that (and what happened to that show?). And after growing up, writing a physics theorem that has been named after her, becoming a yoga instructor (seriously, she and her mom have a line of videos), and continuing on as an actress, Danica McKellar decided to do something to help minimize the gap between girls and boys in math classes and possibly mathematical fields. On a visit to Good Morning America -and if you watch the clip, look for the little girl by the back window- she said, "Boys and girls are afraid of math in junior high, make no mistake about it." But boys are encouraged to go into math and sciences whereas "girls don't end up going into math and science as much as young women because they're not encouraged to. They're told in every message conceivable, every form conceivable -billboards, magazines, tv shows, movies- that people who do math and science are nerdy, and they're guys, and they're told that math is not for them."

So she wrote a book, Math Doesn't Suck, which I'm sure many people have heard about. Math Doesn't Suck is an interesting book with an interesting premise -that if you teach "girlie" math, math with feminized examples in a "fun" way, then girls will learn math and like math and be more likely to go into math. Making it look like the cover of a teen magazine (and Kiss My Math goes further with this theme), Danica McKellar tries to take the fear out of math by making it safe for girls. By integrating lessons on fractions, decimals, and percents with quizzes on being a "math-o-phobe" and questions about teenage (or preteen) crushes and horoscopes. Kiss My Math has the same premise and the same cover, with tips on how to beat stress and ways of finding out if the girl in question has supportive friends. 

It is kind of like guerilla warfare, education style. The books Danica McKellar writes are about things like being cool and feminine and having boyfriends. She says, "In Kiss My Math, I teach averages and I say, 'Okay, if your boyfriend texted you this many times today and this many times tomorrow and here's the whole week, how many times on average did he text you?'; that may be something a 13, 14 year old girl would be interested in knowing." And she may be right. Maybe the way to teach girls math is to segregate the examples we give to boys (bullet speed, trains meeting, traditional stuff), and examples we give to girls (lipstick color, texts received, feminine stuff), but I'm not convinced. As much as I like Danica McKellar and as much as I think she is doing a wonderful thing by trying to get girls interested in math -and as much as I agree with her that knowing math "just empowers them"- I can't help but feel that books like this and examples like this just reinforce certain gender stereotypes. 

And it leaves no place for the girl who either doesn't have a boyfriend or doesn't care how many times her boyfriend texted her, the girl who is turned off by girlie script and the idea that girls are going to intrinsically care about hair styles and boys and being popular and cool. And -perhaps more insidiously- it makes it seem like in order to succeed in math, girls have to be pretty and fashion-savvy. The girl with bad hair and no fashion sense still has no place in math. It reinforces the notion of what traditionally makes up proper girl behavior, and it adds math to the mix. Danica McKellar and her books aren't the only guilty parties here; Newsweek had an article about the Nerdette, and every girl highlighted was a fashionista and tech-and-math friendly. Maybe this is the way it has to be done; maybe in order to make girls in math palatable to both girls and the greater society at large, girls in those fields need to be girlied up and made to be not only smart but also sexy -not only tech savvy but also pretty. Maybe girls will be more interested in math if they know boys will still be interested in them, and maybe boys will be less threatened by girls in math if those girls would be equally at home on the cover of Vogue. 

But I wouldn't count on it. And it hurts girls who look more like Sara Gilbert (who I mention because she guest-starred on The Big Bang Theory) than they do Danica McKellar. McKellar mentions that being good at math is seen by girls as nerdy, and nerdy implicitly equals bad. But nerdy is no longer a groin to the flagpole offense for guys ever since the tech revolution, so we need to work more as a society for making it less of a crime for girls as well. That would mean turning the focus away from looks as being one of the most important things about a girl, and that would be good for girls interested in math and in general.

I think the thing that breaks down the real problem of math and girls -the problem Danica McKellar highlights in the beginning of girls being not only not encouraged but even discouraged from entering math fields- is being solved more by McKellar's own exposure than even by her books. Here is a girl who has succeeded in math and science and is being celebrated for it on news programs and on book lists. She highlights that it can be done, that girls can be afraid of math in junior high and still succeed. She is the ambassador, the woman girls can point to when they're in their guidance counselor's office; one of the people who can counteract the billboards and movies and tv series. We just need more of her out there, spreading that message.

Quiz Time!

Courtesy of Newsweek:

Take your Brain For A Spin (Don't Cheat!)

1) How many presidents achieved the rank of general or higher?

A. 2                                                                C. 5

B. 3                                                                D. 7

2) Cindy McCain is heiress to a beer distributor best known for which product?

A. Budweiser                                                C. Miller

B. Coors                                                        D. Pabst Blue Ribbon

3) Which country has the cheapest gas in the world?

A. Iran                                                           C. The United States

B. Russia                                                       D. Venezuela

4) Out of every 10 people surveyed by Journalism.org, how many said the Internet is a critical source of information?

A. 3                                                                C. 8

B. 6                                                                D. 9

5) Which of the following contains the most calories?

A. Alcohol                                                      C. Protein

B. Carbohydrates                                           D. Fat

6) Approximately how many Americans live within one mile of an official Environmental Protection Agency Superfund site?

A. 500,000                                                    C. 5 million

B. 1 million                                                    D. 11 million

7) Between 1980 and 2006, how many weather-related disasters caused more than $1 billion in damage at the time of the event?

A. 9                                                                 C. 47

B. 15                                                               D. 70

8) Which was the first national park in the United States?

A. Grand Canyon                                          C. Yellowstone

B. Mount Rainier                                           D. Yosemite

9) Which is the top-grossing documentary ever?

A. Fahrenheit 9/11                                        C. Madonna: Truth or Dare

B. An Inconvenient Truth                             D. March of the Penguins

10) Franchise movies dominate the box office; the highest grossing films for each of the past 10 years have all been a part of one. Which series has the highest world-wide gross?

A. Harry Potter                                             C. The Lord of the Rings

B. Indiana Jones                                           D. Star Wars

Answers in comments section!

Stop Picking On McCain (And Obama Too)

What has really begun to frustrate me this campaign season is how often remarks made by people close to, associated with, or even only loosely associated with the candidates is somehow taken to be an indication of the candidate's own feelings and beliefs. McCain has been hit hard over the last couple of weeks, and Obama hit hard in the months before that -and that isn't even touching Hillary. 

Obama's gotten more than his fair share of hits with the nitpicks. Months ago, it was Reverend Wright. Weeks ago it was Jim Johnson. Newsweek ran a cover story about Obama's arugula incident. And this week, it is Wesley Clarke's remarks about how McCain's military service does not qualify him for the White House (and really, did anyone ever think that military service alone did?). McCain disappointed me by saying that Obama should "cut him loose". And Orson Swindle has said, "This is now about Obama, not Wesley Clarke". Why should it be about Obama? This is Clarke's opinion and Clarke's statement. It should remain wholly about Clarke and what he personally feels is necessary to run for the office of the president. But that doesn't seem to be sensationalist enough.

The newest one on the McCain front seems to be a statement made by his chief advisor, Charlie Black. In case someone lives under a rock and did not hear about it, Black said during an interview that another terrorist attack on U.S. soil "would be a big advantage to him". The media took to this like my dog takes to cheese. But there are two questions here: 1, is he wrong? Traditionally, war and defense has been seen as a Republican strong suit. Attacks or threats of attacks have oftentimes played to a Republican advantage. Maybe not so much anymore with Bush's fear mongering, especially in the last election for Senate. But if we are attacked, I can see people going with the guy who seems tougher; tougher physically, tougher mentally, and tougher on terror. But more importantly is 2: Does this really reflect on John McCain as much as the media makes out? I don't think so. I don't think anyone who has listened to the man could honestly think he would want to win due to an attack on American soil. Even among the closest of friends, there are diverging viewpoints and ideas. So why hold McCain responsible for something his aid has said?

Then there was the uproar a while ago about a McCain fundraiser being hosted by Clayton Williams after it came to light that Williams had compared rape to the weather in his unsuccessful 1990 bid for governor. Reading some of the allusions in blog posts made it sound like McCain himself had uttered the unfortunate simile. Now, it isn't as if McCain is incredible on women's rights, but the outrage that McCain would accept money from this man was a bit ridiculous given the very nature of the political process. We should be more offended that this guy can raise money. And the McCain camp did the right thing by denouncing those remarks, made nearly two decades ago, saying, "These were obviously incredibly offensive remarks that the campaign was unaware of at the time".

There have been attacks on his military service, especially in the blogosphere, with criticisms coming about McCain having signed a piece of anti-American propaganda while a POW in Vietnam. Forget that this sort of response to his torture is what has made him a vocal opponent of torture in any circumstances and has led him to say that information gained under torture cannot be trusted because "every man has his breaking point".

And there was the latest kerfuffle over McCain's remarks that he didn't know how much he last paid at the pump, because he was no longer allowed to pump his own gas. That seems like a fairly safe statement. Question: "When was the last time you pumped your own gas and how much did it cost?" Answer: "I don't remember". Seems simple enough. Answers the question effectively, and even gives a reasonable answer as to why he wouldn't remember. But everyone from liberal bloggers to Keith Olbermann took issue with it. And let me just tell you that when the Washington editor of The Nation Magazine, one of the last truly independent magazines out there and unapologetically as well as uber liberal, tells you that your focus is on the wrong issue, you've got problems.

That editor, Chris Hayes (who, by the way, is pretty darn cute), brings up where the real focus should be: on the issues. While on The Countdown, Hayes said, "I actually think that at a certain level, he's right. It doesn't matter. I mean, this authenticity competition we have every four years about which president... is the most ordinary, who you want to have a beer with, is transparently ludicrous... ...I don't care if he hasn't pumped gas in a year or 2 years or 5 years. What I care about is that he has some vision for an energy policy that isn't going to be so beholden to energy companies, that isn't going to be so beholden to fossil fuels".

And that is it, then, isn't it? The media should be focusing on that sort of substantial reporting: Does McCain (or Obama) have a comprehensive, workable, and positive policy on energy? Does he have one on health care? On women's rights? On taxation? On what to do about the war in Iraq? These organizations need to stop nitpicking the issues and incidents that, in the grand scheme of a political election, mean nothing and start focusing on the things that do. Because all it does is make them look foolish, and doesn't really say anything about either politician, or what good or ill they will do the nation as a whole.

Obama & Women

I plan to discuss this more fully in the coming weeks, but Anna Quindlen covers why Obama needs to reach out to women too well for me not to highlight it, especially in her final lines of the piece when she says, "For many American women, Hillary was their surrogate".

And I think that is profoundly true. Even women who supported Obama from the start had to be appalled at the treatment Hillary Clinton suffered from the media; and women who were voting for Hillary are probably filled with bitter disappointment that once again that the focus was often not purely on her politics but the fact that she was a woman. Hillary was more than our political surrogate, a sort of "look how far we've come that a woman could have a viable chance at being president of the United States", but a personal surrogate; because even as she highlighted the distance we've traveled in gender discrimination, her journey also detailed how far we've left to go. And I know I'm pissed about the distance left to travel, and would like someone to acknowledge (other than The Daily Show and feminist websites) how much that just sucks. Even better if the person doing the acknowledging is the Democratic frontrunner.

Earth First

Gas prices have finally hit and surpassed four dollars on national average, and our president is going on his final European tour to remind everyone that we "are all too dependent on hydrocarbons" (and seriously, who would blame a European leader -any of them- for responding to that gem with a solid punch to Bush's nose?). So let's talk about energy, the crisis, and the affect the whole deal will have on our economy. First, I must say that I am incredibly angry that we Americans had to wait until gas prices became unbearable economically to have a majority of us -and our government- seriously consider alternative fuel sources. Prior to this, it was Willie Nelson riding around in an ethanol powered bus and Prius owners who seemed to actually be taking steps forward -and the Prius people were doing so partially because the car became synonymous with "cool". The rest of us? Well, we killed the electric car early on in that model's lifetime; and although many companies were paying lipservice to finding alternate fuel sources (I can't open my Newsweek without seeing bp advertising that "There's energy security in energy diversity"), it seemed more like a PR campaign than a real attempt at change. Kind of like Phillip Morris sponsoring anti-smoking campaigns. There just seemed to be something incredibly disingenuous about the whole thing.

We have been told for quite a while "we have reached our peak oil production and some oil geologists [believe] that 90 percent of the world's oilfields have been tapped". But America kept on gobbling up energy resources, kept on buying SUVs, and kept our collective head under a rock. Because as long as it wasn't affecting us economically right that second, then we could deny any validity to claims that it would adversely affect us in the future. We could believe that some solution would magically appear at the right moment without us having put money, time, or energy into finding it. And we are paying for our short-sighted idiocy: "When gasoline was selling closer to $1 at the start of the decade, American households were spending some $300 billion each year to drive their cars and heat and cool their homes. They are now spending some $700 billion a year on energy. Household gasoline bills in the coming year will rise about $100 billion -even if the national gas prices stay near $4 a gallon through 2008". And gas prices staying at $4 a gallon now seems unlikely.

Meanwhile, the gas prices "are threatening everything from summer vacations to Meals on Wheels deliveries" and are also responsible for the ingredients that make those meals becoming more and more expensive as well. What Americans forgot, or never learned, or didn't find relevant, is that "oil goes into making virtually everything, including steel, aluminum, plastics, rubber, fabrics, transportation ...and food. People don't generally associate food and petroleum, but petroleum is used to make fertilizers and in vehicles used for planting and harvesting, storage and processing, and the trip to the market for the final sale from the freezer in store to the freezer in a home". Great.

I can't blame everything on ordinary Americans' spending habits though; I can blame some of it on their voting habits. Republicans blocked even discussion of a tax bill aimed for oil companies who were making "unreasonable profits". By the way, Exxon made $10.89 billion profit in the first three months of this year. I can definitely see where taxing them -or even talking about taxing them- is a bad thing. And in the past, our government has apparently "created a disincentive for new technologies and new ideas" by doing things like "mandating that so much ethanol is made and that it has to come from corn sugar" thus diminishing the exploration of creative solutions. Doesn't that just take the biscuit?

Now Americans are finally getting into the swing of things, doing things like trading in their SUVs and carpooling to work, and possibly even thinking about buying a hybrid. We drove 11 billion less miles in March 2008 than in March 2007. And maybe -maybe- we've learned our lesson. Because if we had been investing in and investigating alternative fuel and energy options seriously, we probably would not have gotten to the point where food and gas prices are rising to the further detriment of our economy. If we had been serious about voting people into office who would have fought to have the automobile makers actually work toward more fuel efficient vehicles; who wouldn't have made "light trucks" exempt from such laws; or went after automobile companies who began designing other vehicles to fit the "light truck" definition in order to circumvent the regulations for higher fuel efficiency, we would be farther away from this position today. If we begin to cultivate a mindset recognizing how potential negative effects of our actions that may accumulate in our future are important to consider and work to prevent, maybe our current situation will not have been for naught. Unfortunately, I don't believe it has. I think we will do our best to get ourselves out of this situation in the short term, and then continue along with the mindset we have always embraced and has best been summed up by a bumper sticker my father had three cars ago: "Earth First: We'll Strip Mine The Other Planets Later".

Random Thoughts

In Newsweek's article Joining the 'Out' Club, Lisa Miller writes,

"America's Christian colleges may be the last bastion of traditional values -places where parents can continue, in absentia, to protect their children from the corrupting influences of the world and where the kids themselves often promise... ...to abstain from premarital sex, adultery, and inappropriate fondling."

What would fall under the category of "appropriate" fondling for a Christian college?