I should really stop reading the Globe and Mail...

...It always manages to make me mad, almost without fail. Here is today's infuriating piece:

Chivalry isn’t dead, a study has found. But according to the researchers, gallantry has become a front for "benevolent sexism."

Everyday acts that imply that women should be cherished and protected are a form of patriarchal control, they argue.

See, this is something I agree with, although I really wish it wasn't said in such a condescending way.

And also, gallantry hasn't "become a front" for anything. Chivalry has ALWAYS been based in patriarchal power.

Based on the report, published in Psychology of Women Quarterly, enlightened men should avoid the following:

1. Offering to help a woman carry shopping bags (implies she’s weak)
   
   
2. Insisting on driving her home (implies she can’t look after her own safety)
   
   
3. Assuming she wants help buying a laptop (implies she’s clueless with technology)
   
   
4. Complimenting a woman on her cooking (reinforces the idea that cooking is a woman’s job)

Okay, so I disagree with the last one, because when somebody has perfected a skill, or when someone does something for you, that should always be appreciated. Assuming that all women are good cooks is sexist, not complimenting an individual woman on her talent.

Insidious deeds like these are being overlooked by women as well as men, psychologists Julia C. Becker and Janet K. Swim report in the study.

To correct matters, women need to "see the unseen," the researchers note, while men need to be aware of their sexist behaviour and also feel empathy for the women targeted.

"Insidious deeds"? Now you're just making fun of this, Globe and Mail. At any rate, the problem is not so much with the actions themselves as with the assumptions behind them. If a person drives another person home for whatever reason--it's raining out, they live far away, they've had too much to drink, there's rioting in the streets, etc.--that is good. The problem is the assumption that women can't take care of themselves. Same with the laptop buying. Helping someone choose a laptop if they ask for your help is a good deed! Helping someone when they don't want/need your help is rude! Assuming that women need your help because they're women is sexist!

The question is, should men be on the lookout for benevolent sexism too? Based on our observations, women may be guilty of the following:

1. Expecting a man to take out the garbage (implies it’s a man’s job)
   
   
2. Leaving car maintenance, such as oil changes, for a man to do (see above)
   
   
3. Ridiculing how a man dresses a child (implies a woman’s colour coordination is superior)
   
   
4. Judging a man for being "cheap" when he wants to share the dinner bill (reinforces the idea that men should be earners)

The lists of offences cancel each other out, don’t they?

See, this is the problem with the patriarchy. It makes unfair assumptions about people of ALL genders. And feminism is about getting rid of that. Nobody ever argued that women can't be female chauvinist pigs. In fact, the reason the patriarchy is still around is that so many people buy into it, including women! Because, feminists? Yeah, they don't do the things on that list--well, maybe sometimes, but they recognize that as sexist behaviour rooted in a patriarchal social dynamic and try to avoid it as much as possible. The women who wrote that report would agree with the Globe and Mail that the patriarchal assumptions about men as well as those about women need to end.

For goodness sake, Globe and Mail! FEMINISM IS NOT PERSONALLY ATTACKING YOU. FEMINISM IS NOT ATTACKING MEN. FEMINISM IS JUST SAYING, "HEY PEEPS, THESE THINGS THAT PEOPLE DO, WE SHOULD PROBS STOP DOING THEM IN THE INTERESTS OF EQUALITY, BECAUSE THEY'RE ALL PATRIARCHAL AND SHIT."

As for the crusade against sexism, Sunday Telegraph columnist Jenny McCartney argues that feminists have bigger fish to fry (at least, they would if a woman’s place was in the kitchen).

Examples include female circumcision, child marriage, human trafficking, rape as a weapon of war and the proliferation of extreme sexual violence in films and on the Internet, she writes.

"I am inclined to think that when one finds a man who believes that women should be cherished and protected, it would be a good idea to send him forth to encourage the others."

Ooh, nice back-handed sexist joke there, Globe and Mail. You're not bitter and defensive at all about this subject matter.

And seriously??? Who the frack is this woman???? Has she ever been "cherished and protected"? Because I have and it SUCKS. I am an adult, not a child, not a porcelain doll. Please don't put me on a shelf behind a glass case because I will suffocate and DIE. To quote from an angry letter sent to an ex-boyfriend who was stalking me a few years ago, "You treated me alternately as precious china and as a property of yours (both equally annoying, worse when combined)."

Because that's the other problem here, that the kind of guy who treats women like precious china is also probably the kind of guy who treats them like property--another patriarchal sentiment. And a guy who thinks of his girlfriend as his property is likely to have trouble letting her go if she dumps his sorry, misogynistic ass.

And, you know? Neither china nor personal property is usually sentient. As I wrote my ex in that same angry letter, "I got the impression that you only cared about my feelings inasmuch as they affected my opinion of you, my behaviour towards you, or my actions." And, "I've probably heard more about your feelings since we broke up than when we were together. Selfishly, you haven't listened to mine much at all."

So, yeah. Doing things with underlying patriarchal assumptions is a problem. But the actions themselves are not the problem. The underlying patriarchal assumptions are the problem. As feminists have been trying to tell people for decades, patriarchy hurts men too. Now if only the Globe and Mail would realize that feminism is trying to fix this.

My Convocation Address was Given by a Misogynist

So my convocation was this week. It was all very good and I have letters after my name now and all that jazz, but that's not what I'm here to talk about.

My convocation address was given by a known misogynist.

And I'm torn.

Because as I sat there listening to him speak, laughing at his jokes, agreeing with his message (because it was a convocation of history and politics students he skipped the boring "Oh the places you'll go" crap and went directly to national unity and the dangers of centralizing too much power in one prime minister), I had to keep on reminding myself that he was sexist. I repeated the sexist comments he'd made about a strong female politician over and over in my head, and tried to make myself dislike him.

It was difficult.

I wondered if the other young women around me were similarly struggling, if they even knew or cared. Nothing he had ever said was extraordinarily offensive, and all his public misogynistic comments were made against the same woman (the strong politician). He made them years ago. Maybe nobody cares anymore. Maybe we're supposed to forgive him because he's 80. Or because he's flipping hilarious. Or because now we're his fellow alumni.

The school doesn't care. While I will always cherish an affection for my school--my alma mater now, I suppose--there has always been an undercurrent of bigotry here. In the years I have been here it has usually manifested itself in racism, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, but sexism ran rampant and unchecked here only twenty years ago and homophobia still rears its ugly head far too frequently for a supposedly "enlightened" campus.

And really, how much should I care? At the start of his speech, I cared very much. I could barely restrain myself from muttering "...and he's a misogynist" after every sentence when the principal introduced him. I clapped slowly, raising one eyebrow, prepared to be contemptuous.

By the end of his speech, I was clapping whole-heartedly. I was justifying. Well, I agreed with everything he'd said in the speech he'd just made, hadn't I? And anyway, his misogynistic comments were fuelled by his bitter enmity with the female politician in question...

And then I shook myself. It is NEVER okay to use sexism to tear down an opposing politician. Had I really just thought that?

I'm still confused. I think by now I have made my peace with the fact that I can agree with some things he says and disagree with others. But it makes me uncomfortable and unhappy to know I live in a world where compromising my own values is something that happens so regularly, even on a day meant to celebrate my achievement.

Things that came up in my morning internetting

So.... This makes me ill:



(source)

So I googled female mathematicians, and the results made me happier. Also, Ada Lovelace:



Look at those wonderul 1830s sleeves!



And the oh-so-1840s hair!

Yeah, you can tell I'm a historian and not a mathematician...

And, on a completely different note, this makes me happy:

The most pernicious of all lies about men is that because of our makeup, lust and empathy can’t coexist within us. If you want kind and compassionate men who will respect women’s boundaries, the myth suggests, those women will have to conceal the parts of themselves that will turn men bestial and irresponsible.

[...]

Too many of us still believe that “self-respect” for a woman means chastity and modesty. If she’s wearing revealing clothing, enjoys attention, and maybe even likes sex outside of a committed monogamous relationship, we call her a “slut”—and accuse her of not respecting herself. Perhaps she does respect herself, perhaps she doesn’t. (Promiscuity is not perfectly correlated with low self-esteem, despite what a lot of pop psychologists tell you.) But in the end, it doesn’t matter. Women aren’t commodities whose value is based on their own fluctuating sense of self-worth.

And these are my thoughts this morning. It's rainy and gross outside.

Ruth Ellen: All the Rage

And of the controversies of the late election, a single one stands out, shines brightest. And it has nothing to do with contempt of parliament, or hoax Elections Canada calls, or Stephen Harper breaking the law to campaign on election day itself, or how many ridings the Conservatives won by less than 50 votes.

No, the only controversy the Canadian electorate seems to care about at the moment is a young, blonde woman.

Yes, I’m talking Ruth Ellen Brosseau, and I’m not about to tear her down.

For those of you who somehow missed this, Ms. Brosseau is 27, a single mother, formerly manager of a pub on Carleton University campus, and newly elected NDP MP for the riding of Berthier-Maskinongé. Am I the only person to whom this all sounds quite impressive?

Okay, now for the roundup of the controversies: Ruth Ellen spent five days in Las Vegas during the election campaign. Ruth Ellen never set foot in her riding until two days ago. Ruth Ellen’s French is so terrible they couldn’t publish her interview in the newspaper. Ruth Ellen’s campaign picture is really unprofessional-looking. Ruth Ellen doesn’t have a college diploma even though her NDP profile says she does. Ruth Ellen admits she never expected to win. Ruth Ellen is so terrible they’re not letting her talk to the media. Ruth Ellen’s nomination papers may have forged signatures on them.

So… yeah. I will give you that her campaign picture was really unprofessional-looking (it kind of looked like it was taken with a webcam). Also the not setting foot in her riding thing. Even if she didn’t expect to win—and let’s face it, who had any idea that the NDP would sweep Quebec when candidates were being nominated?—I would think she could have at least gone up and met with the riding association, but I also think that the riding association should have insisted she come up to meet with them before they agreed to nominate her.



As for Vegas, Brosseau wasn’t the only candidate to vacation during the campaign, and as I mentioned before, she always knew her chances of winning were slim. Seriously. Why is everybody vilifying this woman for not expecting to win when nobody else saw the demise of the Bloc Québécois coming either? A month ago, if you had told me how many ridings the NDP were going to take in Quebec, especially rural Quebec, I would have laughed at you. And possibly raised an eyebrow superciliously.

As for the diploma incident: personally, I believe the NDP’s statement that it was their mistake, that Brosseau had told them she had studied at St. Lawrence and they extrapolated. According to the NDP, Brosseau was two credits away from getting her diploma when she was forced to quit school and move to Ottawa for family reasons. I mean, slow down and think for a second here. She’s 27, with a 10-year-old son. I’m sure there were a lot of family reasons to consider. Brosseau grew up and went to school near where I live, and the local papers have just been brimming full of interviews with friends, classmates, and teachers who knew her through both high school and college, and they all seem to think she’s competent and capable:

Known as Re when she lived in Kingston, Brosseau graduated from KC in 2002 and St. Law¬rence, with a diploma in Advertising and Integrated Marketing Communications, in 2006.

"She was an excellent student," said Mike Hector, a St. Lawrence classmate who has known Brosseau since she was in high school and described her as "a good friend."
"We worked on a lot of projects together. She's a good strategic thinker."

Danielle van Dreunen, who taught three courses in which Brosseau was enrolled, has fond memories of her former student, who has since changed her hair colour from brunette to blond.

"She was a lovely, bright woman," said van Dreunen, who taught Brosseau Internet Marketing Communications, Public Relations and Entrepreneurship.

"She liked to be engaged in the class, asked questions, posed conundrums about the things we were working through," said van Dreunen, who retired from the college in December.

"One remembers students like that. She was engaged, not just sitting on the sidelines. She was quite focused on learning."

And will do a good job:

Despite Brosseau's lack of political experience, Hector and van Dreunen believe she will do just fine in her new role, which pays $157,731 a year.

"She's intelligent enough to do the job," said Hector. "Maybe (the NDP) put her there not expecting to win, but to gain some experience and cut her political teeth.

"This is not the first time there's been a surprise winner (in an election). She brings a fresh mind to the House of Commons."

Van Dreunen sent Brosseau a message on Facebook on Wednesday — "Congratulations, this seems a very exciting time for you" — but hadn't received a reply as of Thursday.

(Brosseau has yet to give an interview, and an NDP spokesperson told QMI Agency Thursday that she is receiving training on the ins and outs of her new job and taking a crash course in French.)

"It'll be interesting to see what happens," said van Dreunen. "She's a neophyte, she needs an opportunity to find her sea legs. That's not to say she couldn't be an absolutely wonderful (MP)."

Experience, said van Dreunen, can be overrated.

"There's an expression: The ark was built by amateurs, the Titanic was built by professionals."

Perhaps more to the point, the inhabitants of Berthier-Maskinongé like Brosseau. When she visited the riding for the first time this week, she was described as ”composed and confident”, and her French was perfectly understandable. The article at that last link doesn’t really say very much—watch the video if you understand French at all. I have listened, over the course of the years, to a LOT of anglophones struggling through French conversations, and Brosseau’s French is pretty good and on its way to improving. I doubt she’ll ever be fully bilingual, but I think, being thrust into this milieu and forced to speak it regularly, she will become functionally bilingual. But the most important thing in that video is the interviews with the Berthier-Maskinongé electors. They like Brosseau. They find her competent, relatable, and they really feel that she will do well at looking out for their interests. Maybe that’s just optimism; but you have to remember that even though no one ever expected Brosseau to win, the NDP didn’t just pick her randomly out of all of their card-carriers. Parties often pick young candidates to run in ridings they think are unwinnable, just to give them the experience. Stephen Harper started out that way himself, running for the Reform Party when he was still a young’un known as Steve.

But I think also—and this is throughout Canada, but maybe particularly in Quebec—the average Joe—the Mme Paillé, if you will—is getting tired of being represented by lawyers like Paul Martin, academics like Stéphane Dion and Michael Ignatieff. The NDP candidates, by and large, just seem more real, more like everyday folk. I think this explained, in part, the appeal of the Bloc Québécois. Former leader Gilles Duceppe studied at the Université de Montréal, but never graduated, and before he entered politics, he worked as a hospital orderly. Brosseau effectively has a college education in marketing communications, which is probably a more practical thing for a politician to have than a fancypants history PhD like Ignatieff’s (who can easily tell you what policies have and haven’t worked throughout history, but rather fails at understanding people and generally being effective).

Long story short, I think that more than cutting Brosseau slack, we should be proud of her. She’s a young woman, a single mother, a hard worker, and an intelligent person, and she has gained the respect and trust of tens of thousands of people, who believe in her ability to understand their interests and needs and defend them at the federal level. Maybe she’s made some poor decisions over the course of this campaign, but by and large, I think we need more MPs like Ruth Ellen.

Women, the Vote, and Raising One's Voice

This post originally appeared here:

http://voteagainstapathy.blogspot.com/2011/04/women-vote-and-raising-ones-voice.html

Equal Voice, which is a non-profit organization dedicated to getting more women elected to all levels of government, has a new initiative called the iCommit Campaign, basically asking young women to commit to voting in the election, and staying engaged in politics beyond. If you're a woman between the ages of 18 and 24, you should go do just that.

I've already displayed the graphic that shows voting intentions by age. Here's another one, voting intentions by gender:

This isn't as drastic as the youth vs. senior because it cuts across all age groups, but there is still an important difference. And if you, like me, are both young and a woman, well, you've probably noticed that the composition of Parliament mostly reflects the votes of older men (who also make up most of the composition of Parliament). That's why it's important, not only to vote, but to be politically engaged. We do need more women in Parliament. We don't have nearly enough women running for election let alone winning. As Jack Layton points out, it's a historic first that even 40% of NDP candidates in this election are women.

All this has made me reflect on the history of women's votes. Well, no, actually that's a lie. I was already reflecting on the history of women's votes because I wrote a paper about it two weeks ago so it's all fresh in my mind. (I'm a nerd, so sue me.)

You may not know this, but up until the 1840s it was common practice for women in Montreal to vote. When we think about the history of women voting, we usually think of the suffragettes. But I kind of like these earlier women who weren't necessarily fighting for anything, who just went out and voted like it was no big deal.

The thing you have to understand is that before democracy became the big new thing in the late 1700s/early 1800s, position in the social hierarchy was a much better indicator of your power than gender. Anyone who's seen The Tudors or Marie Antoinette will know that women in court had a lot of power. And poor women were just as likely to riot in the streets as their male counterparts.

In order to be eligible to vote in most parts of the British Empire, you had to be a subject of the King/Queen, over the age of majority, and hold a certain amount of property in your name (this was to keep the voting to the more prosperous members of society, rather than the rabblerousers on the street). Traditionally, property was held by men, who passed it down to their oldest son. In the absence of sons, a daughter might inherit some property in the richest of families (think Anne de Bourgh in Pride and Prejudice), but not in families that were less well-off (think Mr. Collins and the Bennett sisters). Whoever did inherit would be expected to care for the widow (think Mrs. Dashwood from Sense and Sensibility). So women rarely held enough property to be eligible to vote, although they were not banned from doing so should they meet the requirements.

Quebec, however, maintained French Civil Law even under the British Empire. Under Quebec laws, property was jointly held by married couples, although the husband, as executor, was essentially considered to own the property. However, this meant that upon a man's death half of the marital property belonged to the widow, and the other half was generally split among all children who were of age. This meant that many widows of voters, especially those whose children were under the age of majority, were eligible to vote. It also meant that more daughters inherited property. And the "separation of goods"--a marital contract that stopped property from being held jointly by keeping it in the name of the person who brought it into the marriage--was common for upper middle class families like the Molsons (beer) and the Redpaths (sugar).

So in many parts of Quebec, and particularly Montreal, women were in the habit of voting. This was sometimes controversial, since polls were much more violent places in the early nineteenth century than they are now. And some people were afraid that married women who voted were being dragged to the polls by their husbands in order to provide an extra vote for the husband's chosen candidate. But all in all, women voters were accepted, especially the widows.

And then equality happened. The thing with equality is that it was all men who were born equal, not all people. It was liberté, égalité, fraternité. Women were kind of squeezed out of the political arena, firstly because most women who had power were aristocrats, and also because women were associated more and more with the private sphere: motherhood, domesticity, and being a good little wife. (Think the Victorian era, or maybe the 1950s.)

All of a sudden the idea of a poor little wife and mother being pushed onto the hustings and forced to say, "My name is x, I am a loyal subject of Queen Victoria, I have property worth x amount on x street, and I would like to vote for candidate x," in front of a jeering crowd of thugs, was unthinkable. (Yes, this was how people voted back in the day). Any woman who would do that willingly was clearly of questionable morality, and DUDE GUYS WE NEED TO SAVE THE WIMMENZ WHO ARE BEING FORCED TO PARTICIPATE IN DEMOCRACY!!!!! There was also a thing where they were afraid that if women could vote, women would try to run for seats, and then they would be pregnant all the time and never able to show up to Parliament, but that's just so ridiculous I'm not even going to try to unpack it.

In the Election Act passed in the Province of Canada (ie Ontario and Quebec) in 1849, buried in 30 pages of minutiae on determining county boundary lines and the legitimacy of returning officers, is this line:

Article 46: "And be it declared and enacted, That no woman is or shall be entitled to vote at any such election, whether for any County or Riding, City or Town."

Just one sentence! Just one sentence that in a stroke strips thousands of people of their voting privileges!

And it was such a non-issue that I haven't even been able to find a reference to it in any of the newspapers of the time.

So that's why I think it's important for women to vote. Because our government and our parliament were built in a time when people had that mindset. Most of the Fathers of Confederation were already in politics by the time that bill went through. Sir John A. Macdonald voted on it, probably without thinking about Article 46 because I'm pretty sure that's the shortest article in the entire Act. The only reason women got to vote again in the first place was a political ploy by Sir Robert Borden during the First World War, when he allowed the wives and mothers of soldiers to vote, knowing they would most likely vote for him and keep him in power.

Don't you think we should be reasserting our rights, reinserting our voices? I understand that a system created when the idea of women voting was counterintuitive, doesn't really speak to women. But that's exactly WHY we need to speak up for ourselves, why we need to get in there and MAKE things more accessible for women.

Because the old men that run our country right now? They sure ain't gonna do it.

When Your Guy Friends Say "I Hate Feminists"

I started to write about this, decided I would introduce the topic by giving an overview of the Insecure Nerd Boy, and then got distracted and ended up ranting. Sorry.

So: the point I was trying to make is that most of my friends are Insecure Nerd Boys, an identity that has a little bit of misogyny built in (on of the Insecure Nerd Boy's main points of definition is that he lusted after the unattainable hot cool girl in high school, couldn't get her, and now believes himself too uncool to get a girlfriend, even one who is just as nerdy as him. And also, although I didn't mention this in the previous post, Insecure Nerd Boys tend to comment negatively on the attractiveness of Nerd Girls even though they are hardly more attractive themselves).

How, I have a very analytical mind. I'm constantly assessing and deconstructing what's going on around me, and one of the main lenses I use is gender. So I'm pretty much always conscious of the workings of the patriarchy around me. That doesn't mean I always talk about it. It's just so intrinsic that I only mention things that really bother me.

This means that it is somehow possible for some of my friends (especially the Insecure Nerd Boys, who have difficulty recognizing and identifying emotions and opinions not explicitly stated) to not realize that I am a feminist.

In turn, this leads to awkward situations where someone goes, "God, I hate feminists."

I try not to be personally offended when one of my male friends says this. Instead of putting on my hardcore-feminist-cloak-of-anger, I usually say, calmly and reasonably, "Why do you hate feminists?"

This often surprises the dude in question. He thought his statement was self-evident. Often he will stumble through some response which you can neatly tear down ("Feminists are just whiny lesbians") or handily win a debate over ("Feminists want chivalry AND equality, that's just not fair").

Because these dudes are intelligent, generally well-read and somewhat politically aware beings, they don't usually engage in mindless feminist-hate. In fact some of them will have specific, if stupid, reasons for hating feminists. For example: "The sexual assault hotline is an all-female space, there's no place for male victims to turn. Also the women who run it are crazy misandrists." This is actually true in the city where I live. The local sexual assault hotline is run by a bunch of super-radical feminists who are seem to view all men as a potential source of sexual violence. Of course, these ladies do not represent all feminists everywhere of ever. If a dude said, "I hate the women who run the sexual assault hotline," or "I hate crazy radical feminists," or "I hate people who see all men as a potential source of sexual violence," I would not have nearly as much of a problem with that statement.

The problem is that a lot of the guys I know have a severe misunderstanding about what feminism is. They might have some idea of second-wave feminism, or radical feminism, which leads them to paint all feminists as "feminizes." Third-wave feminist ideology is completely foreign to them.

This is often accompanied by a severe lack of understanding about how the patriarchy operates, and how misogyny operates. These guys don't understand that sexism with good intentions is still sexism, and frequently engage in this "benevolent sexism." Sometimes they engage in sexism without good intentions as well, as when a friend's boyfriend, standing on the street corner with myself and two other women including his girlfriend, yelled out a slut-shamey comment to two girls walking by in short skirts, and then laughed when we stared at him like he was an alien.

Fortunately, a lot of guys are willing to listen. I actually had a surprisingly nuanced discussion about rape culture with some guy friends one evening. They had never heard or thought about any of that kind of thing before, and they were surprised and kind of horrified to hear about it. Later that same evening, I was harassed by some drunk guys in a cab while walking home. When I told my guy friends about the incident, they were suitably shaken and disgusted.

Anyway, this post seems to have gone on a bit of a tangent (a common theme today… possibly because I'm sick and on pseudoephedrine), but the main point I'm trying to make is this:

A lot of guys that I know are kind of benignly, benevolently sexist. This is largely because they don't understand feminism, and don't understand how privilege and oppression work. (Interestingly, I've found that the guys who are most receptive to conversations about feminism tend to be ones from ethnic minorities.) Most of these guys are relatively open to learning about feminism, and at least try to get rid of their sexism, especially when they see how sexism affects their female friends.

Until recently, I had very few guy friends, and one of the reasons is that I'm a little bit allergic to latent misogyny. Recently I've discovered that as long as a guy is open-minded enough to learn about the patriarchy and how it works, and as long as I can keep myself from being too offended by blanket statements like "I hate feminists", friendship with men who are not already identified as feminists or feminist allies can work.

And that gives me hope. If every woman can introduce a few of her male friends to misogyny and make them face their own privilege, maybe the patriarchal beast will be conquerable.

On Insecure Nerd Boys, and the Dating of Them

So I will fully admit that I don't have a lot of male friends, and the ones I do have sometimes tend to fall into the Nice Guy™ mode. Well, that's not completely accurate… it's more that most of the guys I know tend to be Insecure Nerd Boys.

You may not be acquainted with the species known as Insecure Nerd Boy, so allow me to give you a brief overview. Insecure Nerd Boys tend to obsess over their middle school/high school experiences, which follow a common narrative:
(1) Boy is really smart and into geeky things.
(2) Boy gets made fun of by the cool guys for not being cool.
(3) Boy feels bad about self.
(4) Boy lusts after hot popular girls who are dating the cool guys that make fun of them.
(5) Boy begins to define himself by uncoolness, nediness, and inability to get the hot girl.

Insecure Nerd Boys can sometimes be difficult to be friends with, because they are so convinced of their own uncoolness. And also they sometimes find it hard to acknowledge girl-nerdiness, because come on, you are a chick! Dudes want you! You cannot possibly have gone through the uncoolness, teasing, and alienation that smart boys go through in middle school and high school! You have boobs, which fix everything!

Most Insecure Nerd Boys would never believe you if you told them they were being misogynistic. Because they are such nice boys! It's the cool guys who do that shit! And anyway, you have boobs, which fix everything!

But the real problem comes when you try to date Insecure Nerd Boys. Firstly, they tend to be very oblivious to social cues like flirtation. Secondly, once you finally get them to realize you are into them, they immediately deny it. "But I am not cool!" they exclaim. "Only cool guys get girlfriends!"

This denial persists onto the first date. "I can't believe you're real! I never had any idea that girls as awesome and nerdy as you existed!" And beyond. "Wow you are so awesome and foxy-hot and smart, why would you ever be with someone like me who is nerdy?" And beyond. "Oh my God, I have a real live naked girl in my bed. I can't believe this is happening to me. Does this mean I am… cool? EXISTENTIAL CRISIS HAVING. SEXYTIMES CAN WAIT, SORRY NAKED GIRL." Sometimes you wonder if they're so flabbergasted by the idea of having a girlfriend they forget that said girlfriend is a person, who would like to be in a relationship and not on a pedestal, thank you.

Then comes the CLING. Insecure Nerd Boys are like, "Well, I have a girlfriend, which is clearly a rare and uncommon occurrence. I MUST NOT LET HER ESCAPE WHICH SHE SURELY WILL DO GIVEN THE OPPORTUNITY FOR I AM NOT COOL." And then it's all, "I know we only met a month ago, but I'm pretty sure I'm in love with you." And, "I was never suer if I wanted children, but I could see myself having them with you." And, "Let's make plans for two years from now!" And, "I know that as a female being you are not a huge fan of sexytimes so let's cuddle all night! Look how sensitive I am!"

And then you are like, "Hey buddy I think we might need to talk about our relationship," and their reaction is "OH MY GOD YOU ARE BREAKING UP WITH ME I KNEW THIS WAS GOING TO HAPPEN I AM SO UNWORTHY." And you are like… "No, communication in a relationship is just a really good thing." And he is like, "NO. IF WE DON'T ACKNOWLEDGE OUR PROBLEMS THEY WILL GO AWAY. TRUST ME I HAVE TRIED THIS." And then you say, "Dude, your clinginess is scaring me. Like you, I have had few relationships. I am uncomfortable with things getting too serious too fast. Can we slow down a bit?" And then they are like, "OH MY GOD YOU HATE ME I KNEW IT." And go sulk alone on a canoe in the middle of a lake for a few hours, and don't talk to you for a few days.

At this point you realize the relationship will never work. Because you need regular sexytimes, and a dude who appreciates but doesn't fetishize your nerviness, and a dude who is at least half as secure as you are. But you can't just break up with them because then they will get all upset, and they just told you about how they're on antidepressants, and you've met their family which is really nice.

Except then you can't take it anymore, because they keep interrupting you with cutesie baby talk while you're trying to have an intelligent conversation, and trying to cuddle all the time instead of sexytimes because they think that's what you want and nothing will convince them otherwise, and talking getting married one day. So finally you just cut them loose with some kind of, "I'm just really too busy for a relationship right now," or "I need to find myself," or "I'm moving to Guatemala." And then because they're upset, they make their Facebook profile a picture of the two of you with your face cropped out, or they ask out all of your best female friends, or they insult your mother. And then you are bitter and twisted and swear to never date another Insecure Nerd Boy.

Okay, so this post turned out differently from what I originally intended to write about, but I will post about that topic later. I think I needed to rant about Insecure Nerd Boy relationships. I haven't dated one in a while, but the way it ended still left scars, and a couple of my friends going through that right now and that brings it all back.

Gah. My advice to Insecure Nerd Boys: Get over yourselves. Nerdy girls like you because of your shared interests and values and personality compatibility. Also they like sexytimes. Communication is necessary to any good relationship, so don't take it as a criticism. Your girlfriend is a person too, and probably a very intelligent person, so have intelligent conversations with her. And try to remember that you are AWESOME--just don't get too arrogant about it.

Thoughts of Some Eastern Ontario Women in their Twenties and Thirties on Russ Williams and his Victims

When Jessica Lloyd went missing in January, her family was frantic. Within a couple days, radio stations throughout Southeastern Ontario were helping to spread the word--help find Jessica Lloyd, call if you have tips. There was even a Facebook group, run by Lloyd's brother.

The radio station I like to listen to while I work announced updates before and after every commercial break, with people calling in to show their support for the Lloyds. The Facebook group quickly ballooned to thousands of members. Lloyd was popular, but more than that, the mysterious disappearance of an adult woman from a tight-knit community in the dead of winter sent shock waves across the region.

And then, just over a week later, everything happened at once. The police followed a tip, found Lloyd's body, matched some tire tracks to Colonel Russell Williams, base commander at CFB Trenton, and before we knew it Williams was under investigation for over a hundred charges, including murder, sexual assault, break-and-enter, and theft.

If Lloyd's disappearance shocked the region, it was nothing compared to Williams's arrest. We froze in disbelief for a few days. Here was a well-respected military commander, who had passed all sorts of psychological testing to get to his position--and he was a deranged rapist and murderer? Even his wife had no idea. His neighbours in Ottawa were incredibly unsettled, especially when police searches turned up hundreds of stolen women's undergarments.

It was something of a triple-whammy, especially for military towns with their United Empire Loyalist heritage. This was no Robert Pickton, way out there on the west coast, slowly picking off street prostitutes, or Paul Barnardo (with whom WIlliams went to school) and Karla Homolka with their vaguely foreign-sounding names. Williams was a well-respected military officer, operating right here in our own backyard, targeting women who were themselves integrated into the community--popular Jessica Lloyd, Canadian Forces member Corporal Marie-France Comeau.

Now, as Williams stands trial and more information about his crimes is revealed, shock is reverberating once more across the area. "So this is what it's like to be in the presence of pure evil," the Whig-Standard comments, before summarizing the "shocking and grotesque display of evidence" of Williams's "lurid and freakish conduct." In emphasizing how lucky Ottawa residents are to have avoided the fate of Jessica Lloyd, the Citizen describes the images:

So there was this tall, lock-jawed figure, wearing a dainty orange bra, or a black bikini, or stuffed into “Tweety” bird underwear — all stolen, all photographed, all stored — hundreds and hundreds of items, in his computer or in caches at home.

Repeatedly, the court was shown photographs of his erect penis, or various angles of the decorated airman engaged in masturbation — all images he carefully recorded with dates, times, places.

Williams eventually began leaving notes to his young victims--after photographing one twelve-year-old Orleans girl's ID, he typed "merci" into her laptop.

***TRIGGER WARNING***

In the fall of 2009, Williams admits to breaking into two women's homes and tying them up, blindfolding them (he punched one in the head while she slept), and then terrorizing and sexually assaulting them.

In December 2010, Williams broke into the home of Comeau, a military flight attendant on CFB Trenton he had encountered professionally a few times. It was not the first time he had been in her house; on a previous occasion he had photographed her lingerie and sex toys. This time, however, Comeau was home, and preparing for bed. When she went downstairs to look for her cat, Williams hit her over the head with a flashlight and tied her to a post in the basement. He took pictures of her, naked and unconscious, before raping her repeatedly for two hours.

At one point, Comeau asked if Williams was going to kill her. "Have a heart, please," she begged. "I've been really good. I want to live."

Williams covered her mouth and nose with duct tape. After she suffocated to death, he washed her sheets and covered her body with a duvet before fleeing.

One evening in January 2010, Lloyd called a friend to let him know she'd arrived home safely. From outside her house, Williams watched as she prepared for bed. Eventually he broke in, physically subdued Lloyd, and repeatedly sexually assaulted her. Quick-witted, Lloyd faked an epileptic seizure, begging to be taken to hospital for treatment. Instead, Williams moved her to his house in Tweed.

When it became clear that Williams didn't plan on letting her live, Lloyd pleaded, "If I die, would you make sure my mom knows that I love her?" Shortly afterward, Williams strangled Lloyd, put her body in SUV and dumped it at the side of a road.

***END TRIGGER WARNING***

The details of Williams's crimes are disturbing and horrific, but I haven't been able to keep myself from following this story obsessively. Even as my stomach turns and my blood chills, I feel like I have to know every extent of his depravity.

A number of my friends and acquaintances feel the same way. When I posted on Facebook about my state of transfixed horror, several people, all single women in their twenties and thirties, many living alone--much like Lloyd and Comeau--in and around the Kingston area, commented that they felt the same way. A few others mentioned it to me personally later, as though they didn't want Facebook knowing that this was an issue that worried them.

Probably the most salient reason for our obsession is the question: why? Why did he do the things he did? Why did he find those things exciting? Why did he target the women he chose? This is tied both into a great fear on our part and a genuine, confused, morbid curiosity. By his own admission, Williams became attracted to the idea of stealing women's underwear when he was in his twenties, but it took him twenty years to act on it. But what did that have to do with his violence, his need for control? Why did he like to masturbate sitting among little girls' stuffed animals, and leave them notes afterwards? Why did he keep such an organized log of his activities, accompanied by so much photographic evidence? One friend thinks he knew what he was doing was fucked up, and secretly wanted to get caught. Another friend thinks he believed himself to be invincible, and kept the records and photos either for his own pride, or to leave behind as a legacy. Some people think that if we as a society treated deviant sexual desires like pedophilia or the desire to steal underwear as mental illnesses rather than lasting stigmas, maybe he would have gotten psychological help rather than letting his desires fester until they sought a violent release. Others think that he was simply abusing his position of power, his actions increasing in violence as he continued to avoid suspicion.

I don't know the answer, and I'm not entirely sure I want to know. The Whig-Standard claims that in court,

Every time there was a picture of himself on the courtroom screen wearing children's underwear, or lying naked on a child's bed, Williams would tilt his head and sneak a peak -- perhaps one last jolly before the twisted pilot and "shining, rising star" of the Canadian military goes off to spend the rest of his life in prison.

The Citizen, meanwhile, observes that he "seemed a broken figure, sunken into himself. He spent most of the day bent over, staring at the floor, giving away nothing."

Today,

Col. Russell Williams told a packed courthouse here he was "indescribably ashamed" by what he had done and deeply regretted his crimes.
"Your honour I stand before, your honour, indescribably ashamed," Williams told the courtroom after being handed two life sentences for the murders of Jessica Lloyd and Marie-France Comeau.

"I will spend the rest of my life regretting most of all that I have ended two vibrant, innocent and cherished lives," he said. "I know the crimes I have committed have traumatized many people, he said, noting rape victims Jane Doe and Laurie Massicotte have "suffered terribly" as well.

"My family, your honour, has been irreparably harmed," he added. "Most will find it impossible to accept but the fact is I very deeply regret what I have done."

Williams emphasizes the effect this is having upon his family. He admitted to police earlier that he only confessed so that his wife's life would be easier.

Lee Burgess, Crown attorney, suggested a different tack on which Williams can hang his shame, saying in his closing comments that "No doubt, your honour, he laughed at us as he lived the life of a community leader by day and the life of a serial criminal by night."

Stephen Harper comes from a similar perspective, claiming that Williams's actions were a betrayal of members of the Canadian Forces.

"This is just a horrific event," Harper said while in St. John's on Thursday. "Our thoughts go out to all the members of the Canadian Forces who knew the commander and who have been very badly wounded and betrayed by all of this. Obviously, this in no way reflects on the forces."

Harper said the Department of National Defence would attempt to strip Williams of benefits he would have received for serving in the military.

"Defence Minister Peter MacKay has made clear the forces will undertake all necessary actions to ensure that all sanctions possible and all benefits possible can be withdrawn from the former commander but this is a terrible and unique case," said Harper.

"The Canadian Forces are the victim here, as are the direct victims of these terrible events."

Certainly some members of the Canadian Forces feel betrayed. The Whig-Standard, main newspaper in the perpetual military town that is Kingston, put out today a small editorial defending their reasoning behind publishing some of the gruesome details of Williams's crimes (because people need to know, and also because "where bloggers …[add] static and confusion to the debate, it has never been more important for professional news organizations to carefully frame the public record," which is ironic because (a) I have never put much faith in the professionalism or integrity of the Whig-Standard, (b) "carefully framing the public record" is clearly euphemism for spin and/or privileged bias, and ( c) you can frame the public record just fine without actually mentioning the graphic details). It also contains this explanation, which suggests there have been complaints:

For example, we understand running pictures of Williams in his Air Force uniform on the front page has, and does, offend current and past members of the Canadian Forces. We continue to run them because his uniform is germane to the story.

Williams was not a new recruit, he was one of the Forces [sic] most trusted men. Trust, and the betrayal of that trust, is something the Forces will undoubtedly wrestle as they seek ways to improve psychological testing in their promotion protocols.

While all this is very true, it hasn't escaped my notice that it's men who are putting all of this emphasis on Williams violating the trust put in him by the community, the military--abusing his position of power. Being a man in power did give Williams an edge in his criminal activities--mainly by giving him resources like an SUV, a digital camera, and houses in three different cities and towns, by placing him completely above suspicion for more than two years of criminal activities, and by allowing him to learn classified information about Corporal Comeau.

But being sexually assaulted by a stranger or relative stranger is essentially the same no matter his standing in the community. Acquaintance rape has a lot more of those dynamics--"He's my boss, I can't turn him in"--"But I thought we were friends?"--etc. But when someone breaks into your house, hits you over the head, and starts raping you, you don't really care who the crap he is. You mostly care that YOU are being hurt and violated. A friend of mine was chased down the street the other night by a homeless man waving his penis at her. For her it would essentially have been the same experience even if it had been, say, the mayor chasing her (except the mayor would be unlikely to do such a thing in public).

My friends and I aren't obsessively reading about this case so we can think, "Oh, wow, look at him abusing his position of power. What a betrayal of the Canadian Forces." Of course this matters--how did he get by all the psychological testing, for instance--but it's not the most salient bit for us. We read about his crimes, and we imagine ourselves as Jessica Lloyd, as Marie-France Comeau. We look outside our windows wondering if there is someone there watching us, we curse the fact that a single 20- or 30-something woman living alone, even a popular, well-known one, can so easily become a target.

We fear, we curse the patriarchy, we fear some more.

Dear the drunk guys who harassed me last night from their cab

Dear the drunk guys who harassed me last night from their cab:

No, I haven't forgotten it yet, seven hours later, although you probably have. You probably forgot all about it seven minutes later. And no, I'm not overreacting. That was my initial reaction too, to tell myself I was overreacting--but you know what, I'm really not. I have a right to be upset.

You know my pigtails, the ones you asked if you could use as handlebars? They're pinned up on the back of my head now, in a demure 1840s hairstyle, required for my job at a historic site. Yeah, I do my hair like that for work, not so that you can make me feel like the shit on the bottom of your shoe.

But I forgot. The mere fact that I go into public represents my tacit agreement that you're allowed to comment on my appearance all you want. Why else would I be out in public? Especially standing at a corner across the street from my home waiting for the light to change so I could cross. You were practically required to objectify me at that moment. God, what kind of slut walks home at night anyway?

On the "End of Men," or Why More People Should Study History

Recently, The Atlantic--which I admit I don't read, but it sounds kind of like a sensationalized, Boston version of Maclean's--published a piece titled
"The End of Men."

Ha! Oh, hahaha! Ha! Haha! Hahahahahahahahahaha! Haha! Ha!

Fortunately, the article itself isn't quite as laughably implausible as the title. But it is pretty close, as I will demonstrate as I rip it to itty bitty shreds.

For some reason I can't for the life of me fathom, Hanna Rosin introduces her topic by talking about scientific sex selection for babies. Apparently the guy who invented/discovered it is a Manly Man who thought that the fact that Y-chromosome sperm go faster than X-chromosome sperm was awesome. I really don't understand why this is here, and why the editor didn't ruthlessly fill it with red-ink question marks. Is she trying to say, "Ooh, maybe boys come from more athletic sperm, but girls are still more awesome!"

Let's please not attach too much importance to this fact of nature. Because that's what it is--a fact of nature. Even without Dr. Manly Man's sex selection, the agility of the Y-chromosome sperm means that more male than female fetuses are conceived naturally. HOWSOMEVER, male fetuses are ALSO more likely to be miscarried. This is Mother Nature's little way of keeping things balanced. Also, this way, if a group of people is suffering hardship and becoming malnourished, even MORE male fetuses are miscarried, so a disproportionately large number of girls are born. This makes an ideal situation for repopulating the society. Actually, demographers sometimes determine the relative quality of life of a society by tracking the birth rate of males.

(This also explains why in those historical drama movies, there's always that one really dramatic scene where the queen/lady/important person's wife miscarries late in her pregnancy and you find out it would have been a boy and her husband gets super-upset and everybody cries. It's historically accurate, yo!)

So, to recap: boy-making sperm are faster than girl-making sperm. This isn't about boys being stronger than girls. This is about not letting your society die out. It's about evolutionary biology. I don't understand why historians know this but scientists apparently don't, but whatever.

Anyway, in a society such as ours, when our quality of life is such that miscarriages don't happen very often (as late as a hundred years ago, every childbearing woman could expect to have at least three miscarriages), we have a higher birthrate of boy babies than girl babies. NO WONDER people want sex selection to have daughters. Supply and demand. Economics. Geeze Louise, Dr. Manly Man, don't you read???

Apparently Rosin doesn't read either, or at least she doesn't really think about what she's reading. She starts talking about how for centuries women who gave birth to daughters instead of sons could be scorned or even beaten by their husbands; but it doesn't seem to occur to her that maybe that was WHY women wanted sons so badly then. Men wanted sons, sons to carry on their bloodline and carry on the family name, often sons they could raise to be a chip off the old block, as they say. Women wanted to not get beaten by their husbands; ergo, women wanted sons.

Now that babies of any sex are all good, because babies are adorbs, and hey we're all equals here right?, I think it might be more that women want a chip off the old block also. Or maybe they want a baby girl to dress in cute clothes, a daughter they can go shopping with, a vibrant young woman who can hate on the patriarchy with them, what have you. The point is: I highly doubt that people now want daughters because they think their daughters will be better equipped to succeed at life than sons. This:

American parents are beginning to choose to have girls over boys. As they imagine the pride of watching a child grow and develop and succeed as an adult, it is more often a girl that they see in their mind's eye.

Bullshit! I think that generally, dads-to-be are kind of hoping for a boy, and moms-to-be are wishing for a girl. This probably stems from the way that parents tend to encourage their kids to fulfill dreams that the parents themselves didn't have a chance to fulfill. Doesn't that sound great? Having someone who is essentially a mini-you doing all the stuff you always wanted to but couldn't? Yeah. Thought so. I feel like the increased demand for female babies comes from women having more of a voice when it comes to their family planning.

Well, that was long-winded, but so were Rosin's opening remarks. Seriously. This literally has nothing to do with the rest of the article, which is more like this little gem:

For a long time, evolutionary psychologists have claimed that we are all imprinted with adaptive imperatives from a distant past: men are faster and stronger and hardwired to fight for scarce resources, and that shows up now as a drive to win on Wall Street; women are programmed to find good providers and to care for their offspring, and that is manifested in more- nurturing and more-flexible behavior, ordaining them to domesticity. This kind of thinking frames our sense of the natural order. But what if men and women were fulfilling not biological imperatives but social roles, based on what was more efficient throughout a long era of human history?

NO. You think? I have ALSO had this thought! More than that, I'm sure I've read it in several Psych and Soc textbooks! Also several women's studies writings! What a crazy random happenstance!

And then she kills it. "What if that era has now come to an end? More to the point, what if the economics of the new era are better suited to women?"

BUT YOU JUST SAID THAT MEN AND WOMEN ARE NOT HARDWIRED TO BE DIFFERENT!! Make up your mind--are men and women hardwired to be different, and the new economy favours female characteristics? Or are men and women simply fulfilling social roles, meaning that ANYONE can be socialized into being nurturing and domestic, and ANYONE can be socialized into being ambitious and competitive?

Rosin never does make up her mind on this issue, which is probably one of my main problems about the article. She demonstrates handily that women are gaining economic power in the working class and political power in the middle class and who knows what the upper class are doing.

Basically, the recession mostly hit male-dominated industries like the auto industry, meaning that most of the people who were turned out of work are men (she's not the first person to write about this; I have heard the more or less ridiculous term "Mancession" bandied about a few times. Recessions ALWAYS hurt men more than women, because men are always a higher percentage of the labour force, at least at the beginning of the recession). So women are making most of the money in the working class, in retail and nannying and housekeeping and I dunno, whatever other lady-crap they do. Rosin describes the environment created by this phenomenon as a "matriarchy". And all the poor sad unemployed men who defaulted on their child support have to go to support groups where they talk about things like this:

'What are the four kinds of paternal authority? Moral emotional, social, and physical. But you ain't none of those in that house. All you are is a paycheck, and now you ain't even that. And if you try to exercise your authority, she'll call 911. How does that make you feel? You're supposed to be the authority, and she says, 'Get out of the house, bitch.' She's calling you 'bitch'!' […] 'Who's doing what?' he asks them. 'What is our role? Everyone's telling us we're supposed to be the head of a nuclear family, so you feel like you got robbed. It's toxic, and poisonous, and it's setting us up for failure.' He write on the board: $85, 000. 'This is her salary.' Then: $12,000. 'This is your salary. Who's the damn man? Who's the man now?' A murmur rises. 'That's right. She's the man.'

Holy jumping' Jehosaphat! What is this, How to Be a Massive Asshole Patriarchal Misogynist to Your Wife and Kids 101? (Or a humorous Amanda Bynes movie? Anyone? Anyone?) If I may speak directly to the men in the support group for a moment: You're not a fucking paycheck, you are a FATHER. You know what your role is? You're supposed to love your kids and teach them all about values and hard work and how to make good choices, and you're supposed to set a good example and make sure your kids eat healthy and get enough exercise. So excuse me while I crash your little pity party for your defeated breadwinner masculinity, which, for your information, is a construct of masculinity that was only formed about a hundred years ago, when the LAST major crisis of masculinity happened. Oh, boo-hoo, you don't make as much money as your wife/partner. Guess what? As long as you have a penis and identify as male, YOU ARE STILL A MAN. Grow up and get over it already.

So, yeah. As you might be able to tell, I think this situation isn't leading to "Awesome, look how much economic power working-class women now have!" as much as to "Massive Crisis of Masculinity Ahead!" As I mentioned, there was another massive crisis of masculinity about a hundred years ago, in response to the rise of maternal feminism, men losing their livelihood due to increased industrialization, and a few minor recessions. You know what they did then? They took it out on the loose young women, and in some places (including Ontario) legislation was even passed to the effect that young women could be locked up in a "reformatory" (prison) just for being "promiscuous". Also, Boy Scouts were invented to make boys into Real Manly Men and Not Girly Boys. Does that remind you of anything? Countless editorials about young women and hookup culture, perhaps? A new academic discipline called "Male Studies"? (Seriously, check that website. It's worth a few laughs at least. That's it, white boy, cry your heart out.)

So, yeah. The whole more-women-than-men-employed thing? Not exactly an unalloyed blessing, here. (Also, what's going on now? Nothing new. Literally.)

According to Rosin, women are also doing really well in white-collar job areas. Well, yes and no. She is correct in saying that women hold more than half of all managerial and professional jobs in the US. But "managerial and professional" is an enormous category, one that includes nurses, teachers, and mid-level retail and fast food managers. And that's why women hold more than half the positions in that category. She glosses over mentioning the glass ceiling, only commenting that female CEOs are very rare. Yeah, funny that. She tries to salvage it by pointing out that female CEOs make on average more than male CEOs, but really--when so few women make it that high up the ladder, the ones who do have got to be fricking formidable.

Here is another gem, this time on the subject of male vs. female leadership styles (which, I would like to remind everyone, are socialized and not innate):

A program at Columbia Business School, for example, teaches sensitive leadership and social intelligence, including better reading of facial expressions and body language. “We never explicitly say, ‘Develop your feminine side,’ but it’s clear that’s what we’re advocating,” says Jamie Ladge.

Hmm. This sounds suspiciously like Columbia Business School is lacking in students who already have a feminine side, i.e. female students. Either that or they want their male students to become proficient with both management styles. Do they also offer courses in ambition and aggression, or do they expect their female students to learn as they go along? Oh, dear. Women may, as Rosin suggests, be the future, but apparently not the immediate future, at least so far as the Columbia MBA classes of 2010 through 2012.

This is where Rosin gets distracted and goes, "LOOK AT ALL THE EDDYCATION THE WYMMINZ IS GETTING!" Okay, not quite, but I was surprised that the pulled up the stat that BAs are granted to three women for every two men. Which, unpacking the awkward phrasing, means that women earn 60% of BAs. I entirely believe this is true--thank you for reminding me of my minimal dating prospects--but, as my dad says, the BA is the new high school diploma. Rosin has apparently not talked to many BA students, or she would know that the number one question people ask us is, "Oh, you're studying (blank)? But what are you going to do with that?" And the answer is usually: something completely different! There are very few jobs you can get with just a BA--you could work for the public service. I guess. Of that's really what you want to do with your life. Or you could do like everyone else and go back to school! Grad school, business school, law school, teacher's college, library school, culinary school, beauty school--anything! You just have to get in! If your school is like mine, most programs (outside of the BA, nursing school, teacher's college, the gender studies department, and maybe a few others) are more or less male-dominated. And for all the female students, women aren't exactly ruling academia. In fact, the old guard of the history department at my school has begun to make noises that 40% is close enough to 50%, so we can probably stop hiring women now. (Granted, this might be because they're historians, and thus not particularly mathematically inclined.) Not exactly the most female-friendly environment in the world.

I'm also going to take a moment here to point out that the male-dominated trades--plumbing, carpentry, etc.--pay a lot more than the public service, or anything else you can do with a BA, as well as most things you can do with a BA and another degree.

Another odd quote from Rosin:

One afternoon, in the basement cafeteria of a nearly windowless brick building, several women were trying to keep their eyes on their biology textbook and ignore the text messages from their babysitters. Another crew was outside the ladies' room, braiding each other's hair.

Excuse me? What is going on here? How come all the female students are either mothers or preteens at a slumber party? Also, why are the mothers ignoring the babysitters? It takes ten seconds to check a text message. What if the house just burnt down, or the kid fell down the stairs and got a concussion? Or maybe the kid's sick and the babysitter's texting to say, "Yeah, cleaning up puke? So not in my contract." Seriously. CHECK YOUR TEXT MESSAGES FOR GOD'S SAKE. YOU GAVE YOUR BABYSITTER THE CELL NUMBER FOR A REASON. As for the ones braiding each other's hair--why are they doing it outside of the ladies' room, when they could just as easily be inside the ladies' room where there are mirrors? Why are they braiding each other's hair on campus at all? This is just too confusing for me.

Anyway, the upshot of all this, according to Rosin, is that women are becoming more like the dominant sex, i.e. being more violent and dating younger men (think Jihad Jane and Demi Moore), while men are apparently all turning into Judd Apatow characters. Apparently this is a bad thing? I personally find that a lot of the men in Apatow's movies are more likeable and sympathetic than those in movies by a lot of other male directors. Think Seth Rogen in Knocked Up, or Jason Segel in Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Totally adorkable, right?



Okay, so now that I've basically disagreed with Rosin on every point, and/or called her an idiot, I think it's time to return to her initial question. Are women more suited to the new postindustrial economy?

Maybe. Usually I stay away from generalizations based on sex, but this time I'll go with it. First of all, being on the wrong side of the hegemonic order kind of gives you a different perspective from "the man", with ideas that at least appear to be new and fresh. The different strategies women have developed to try to exert their agency lead to a different ways of organizing interpersonal relations, which could be especially useful in this information age. This has a lot to do with teamwork, cooperation, and communication. There is also the fact that women have been and continue to be very… versatile, for lack of a better word. I'm thinking here particularly of women like my mother, who has a degree in computer science as well as an MBA, but who can still make a bolt of fabric into a floor-length, bell-sleeved Mediaeval princess dress (don't ask), makes the best desserts in the world, and quite literally ALWAYS wins at Scrabble. I firmly believe that my mother could do literally anything; and if it didn't come easily, she would work at it tirelessly day and night until she achieved her goal. I think that this might be the legacy of that whole "second-shift" thing, that we have women like my mother, who can do everything. Still today, girls are more likely than boys to learn how to do complex, occasional household tasks like sewing. This collection of wide and varied abilities, combined with the "women must do twice as well to be thought half as good" mentality, just might make many women suited to the information economy.

That being said, I don't think it is "The End of Men," and I don't think men will "end" very soon. In fact, I don't want them to. I don't want women to become the dominant sex, I don't think anyone wants that. What I'm looking for is more like a decrease in the importance of gender roles, hopefully to the point that they no longer exist. I do think that the conditions described by Rosin might lead to a transition period to that kind of world. As more girls than ever grow up with mothers who are employed, and an increasing number have stay-at-home dads, hopefully careers will seem to them more like a certainty than a choice; and even though their mothers are more than likely working in the nurturing professions or other "female" fields, hopefully these girls will see possibilities that extend beyond that, into a future that is apparently really cheesy and sentimental.

Sorry about that. I started writing about my mom and it made me emotional, because my mom is awesome and I don't see her enough. I feel like a lot of this is about mothers and daughters, and so…


RUBBER DUCKIE TIME!!!!!

A Mommy Duckie and her baby duckies.


AWWWWWWW!!!!! Isn't that adorable?