Aspergers is an Autism Spectrum Disorder. It is generally thought to affect far more boys than girls. However, a leading expert on such disorders, Dr. Judith Gould, argues that many girls with Aspergers are not diagnosed. According to Gould, this is because the criteria for diagnosis are based on the ways in which boys manifest the disease, and girls’ symptoms are different. Undiagnosed Aspergers can make life miserable, leading to extremely low self-esteem. It may play a role in anorexia and self-harm in some cases. Here is the Guardian article.
Dawn Johnsen nomination April 14, 2009
From People For the American Way:
Dawn Johnsen has been tapped by President Obama to head the incredibly important Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) at the Justice Department. It’s the same office which under the last president offered the legal rationale for the administration’s torture policies and approved other policies that undermined privacy and due process rights. Dawn Johnsen is the perfect pick to clean it up and restore justice.
Staying true to their commitment to extreme government secrecy, some Republican senators are threatening to filibuster Johnsen’s nomination if certain documents from the Bush administration OLC are made public. They are also distorting her record and attacking her qualifications because she was such an outspoken critic of the Bush administration’s legal policies. On top of that, the Religious Right has made it a priority to sink her nomination because she is an experienced advocate for reproductive freedom.
In reality, Dawn Johnsen is eminently qualified for this job, having already served as acting head of the OLC in 1997 and 1998 while Republicans held up then President Clinton’s nominee to fill the slot, Beth Nolan. The Right fears Dawn Johnsen for the same reason that we must fight for her confirmation: her steadfast commitment to constitutional values and civil liberties.
There’s a petition, which you can sign here. (Thanks, Jender-Parents!)
Stanley Fish and a cautionary story about academic freedom. April 14, 2009
This news is slightly stale, but it is worth our while to think about whether we could be drummed out of a university on trumped up charges. Since I can’t argue for each of the points, I’ll refer you to Fish’s article about an evidential assessment of them.
First, then, the initiating event; Ward Churchill, at the University of Colorado, Bolder, made a statement which held many of those in the towers on 9/11 as causing and deserving their fate.** When the statement came to public attention 4 years later, there was a huge outcry. According to Fish, the following happened:
- The governor and state legislatures express extreme outrage to the president of the university.
- A committee of academics reviewed his work and found the sort of discrepancies just about every variety of academic is guilty of.
- Churchill was fired for violating the necessary standard of scholarship.
Just a few weeks ago, a jury found Churchland was fired unjustly. Fish remarks:
The verdict did not surprise me because I had read the committee’s report and found it less an indictment of Churchill than an example of a perfectly ordinary squabble about research methods and the handling of evidence. The accusations that fill its pages are the kind scholars regularly hurl at their polemical opponents. It’s part of the game. But in most cases, after you’ve trashed the guy’s work in a book or a review, you don’t get to fire him. Which is good, because if the standards for dismissal adopted by the Churchill committee were generally in force, hardly any of us professors would have jobs.
Of course, it gets worse. One juror decided that even though he shouldn’t have been fired, she could not bear to see him get lost pay. And so he didn’t. Presumably her logic will be examined in appeals.
Of course, we don’t know what was going on at every point, but the University of Colorado looks pretty bad, and I’m afraid this carries a cautionary tale for all sorts of possible faculty actions, including filing sexual harassment charges against a faculty member. What is too likely is that one will come up against the factors that may well have gotten Churchill fired; namely, a set of administrators who think they merely need to seem to follow and law and a group of faculty who will go along with them.
I have seen faculty perjure themselves in order to avoid being the next target. Still more may go along with what the upper administation wants to promote their own careers, or because they value the hierarchy, or because they want an easy life.
**The terms he used were completely outrageous. But protected by academic freedom.
Another take on why babies and careers don’t go together for women April 14, 2009
It’s simple, really. Stress causes one to become androgyous, simultaneously reducing one’s ability to reproduce and others’ motives to impregnate one.
Professor Elizabeth Cashdan of the University of Utah found that the stress of high-powered jobs causes a hormonal shift in women, resulting in the female hormone oestrogen to be replaced by androgens – a group of hormones that includes the male hormone testosterone linked with strength and competitiveness. …
Her study, which was published in the journal Current Anthroplogy, found that a woman’s waist-to-hip ratio was related to the balance of hormones, thus affecting their fertility.
The presence of androgens resulted in a smaller waist-to-hip ratio, which, Professor Cashdan says, is less conducive to childbearing, and could even affect appeal to the opposite sex.
‘Although the hormonal profile associated with a high waist-to-hip ratio may favour success in some stressful and difficult circumstances where women must work hard, there are well-known costs,’ she said.
‘Women may suffer lower fertility and possibly lower attractiveness to men who may have an innate preference for curviness.’
It isn’t clear that the article is particularly consistent in its us of “high” and “low” ratios, but there’s more to be added into the mix:
Dr Martin Tovee of the University of Newcastle believes the Utah study backs up earlier findings. ‘We know that if women over-exercise or diet obsessively, then their oestrogen levels drop and they become less fertile,’ he said. ‘So, potentially, working hard could affect fertility too.’Dr Martin Tovee of the University of Newcastle believes the Utah study backs up earlier findings. ‘We know that if women over-exercise or diet obsessively, then their oestrogen levels drop and they become less fertile,’ he said. ‘So, potentially, working hard could affect fertility too.’
Having a career is like being an annorexic. And why would anyone choose that over the stress free life of having a lot of children? Go figure!
The ‘Amazon-Fail’ April 13, 2009
Anyone with their fingers on the pulse of the blogosphere will already know about the event that has become known as the ‘Amazon-Fail’. For those of us who have spent the Easter Bank Holiday camping/sleeping/gardening/or otherwise not plugged into the internet, here’s what happened. Amazon has accidentally re-classified all gay and lesbian as ‘adult’. This means it no longer shows up in certain searches. It also means that any books falling into this category no longer receive sales rankings, and so no longer appear in the site’s best sellers lists – one way that books sold by Amazon are advertised. In case you’re wondering, this affects ALL books containing gay and lesbian material – discussions of queer politics, romance, and everything else. Hetero literature appears to be unaffected. The Playboy Complete Centrefolds, e.g., has not been classified as ‘adult’ and still has a sales ranking. As do Jackie Collins’ racy, romantic novels. This author has more on the story here.
Edited to add: apparently, it’s not just queer material that has been stripped of its sales rankings. Amazon has also re-classified some feminist books, and saucy old literary classics like Lady Chatterley’s Lover as ‘adult’. Jezebel has more info, including a list of books affected so far.
Edited again to add: Amazon is in the process of fixing this. They’re blaming it on an employee inputting the wrong data in a form. Here’s an article.
The Sunday Cat does Twitter April 12, 2009
This is a bit hard, and it might be less jolly than past Sunday cats. BUT IT IS EDUCATIONAL.
Here’s Gus
And here’s Penny
And their clever owner has connected their collars, their cat door and a camera with Twitter. So their entrances and exits are tracked, along with conjectures about their intentions.
And hey! It’s got to beat keeping track of John McCain on Twitter. And no, we’re not broadcasting how to link to his tweets. Do you really think they’d be more interesting than Penny’s and Gus’s?
Vagina-wear April 11, 2009
Every now and again, it’s good to have a frivolous celebration of lady bits. And what better way to celebrate than dressing up as a vagina? In this, the first of many FP fashion features, Monkey brings you a selection of the finest vaginal outfits. First up, is this cosy little number from the Vagina Lady.
Vagina Lady can be seen out and about in the San Francisco area. She also makes vaginal art, which can be seen on her site.
Second, is the following lovely prom dress, recently offered for sale by internet retailers, Light in the Box. Perfect for getting yourself noticed at the High School dance. Or indeed, on any formal occasion.
(Via Craftastrophe.)
Finally, I’m sad to report that one student’s sterling efforts on the vagina-wear front ended in disaster. Christian Silbereis wore what he described as an anatomically correct vaginal costume, complete with hidden foetus t-shirt, to a school Halloween party. The costume was created by his mother, a midwife, who warned him that some people might be offended. Fellow students awarded him the prize for best costume. But staff were not amused and suspended him for two days. Sadly, there are no photos. But you can read more here.
Elderly and disabled pornographers April 10, 2009
Massachussetts is considering making ‘elder’ porn illegal. The definition of ‘elder’ is anyone over the age of sixty. Under the proposed legislation, porn showing sixty-year olds will be treated in the same way as child pornography. The law is not limited to hardcore porn, nor is it restricted to commercial porn. Elderly lovers who take rude pictures of each other will be liable for prosecution. The Bill will also make porn featuring mentally or physically disabled people illegal. The purpose of the Bill is obviously to prevent the exploitation of vulnerable people. But as one civil rights attorney has pointed out, there are already laws that can be used to deal with such cases. Moreover, the Bill presupposes that all disabled people and those over the age of sixty are incapable of consenting to being in pornographic material. This clearly isn’t the case. And I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to see this as reflecting attitudes to sexuality: older people and the disabled are not sexual beings. Clearly no such person ‘in their right mind’ would consent to taking part in porn. These attitudes need to be challenged. Here’s the Bill. The provisions it seeks to amend are here, and here. Here’s the definition of ‘elder’ and ‘disabled’. Finally, here are two different takes on the issue from The Volokh Conspiracy and the Boston Herald.
Rational Agency and the “End of Philosophy.” April 9, 2009
(With thanks to BH for drawing the Brooks’ to my notice.)
At the American Philosophical Association the idea of rational agency can seem firmly in place. “Our rational agency” can seem to apply unproblematically to us and our actions, or at least to the ones we want to focus on and analyze.
But it isn’t clear it should occupy such a place. And David Brooks’ op-ed yesterday gives a reasonably accurate picture of a very different view emerging from a great deal of recent work in empirical psychology and cognitive neuroscience.
Moral judgments … are rapid intuitive decisions and involve the emotion-processing parts of the brain. …
The question then becomes: What shapes moral emotions in the first place? The answer has long been evolution, but in recent years there’s an increasing appreciation that evolution isn’t just about competition. It’s also about cooperation within groups. Like bees, humans have long lived or died based on their ability to divide labor, help each other and stand together in the face of common threats. Many of our moral emotions and intuitions reflect that history. We don’t just care about our individual rights, or even the rights of other individuals. We also care about loyalty, respect, traditions, religions. We are all the descendents of successful cooperators.
The first nice thing about this evolutionary approach to morality is that it emphasizes the social nature of moral intuition. People are not discrete units coolly formulating moral arguments. They link themselves together into communities and networks of mutual influence….
The rise and now dominance of this emotional approach to morality is an epochal change. It challenges all sorts of traditions.
There are plenty of details to object to in the article. But the overall picture of human normative functioning, which is now coming into philosophy largely through kinds of experimental philosophy, is exceptionally important. And, of course, very Humean. And in a number of ways very feminist.
Of course, there is no sign in Brooks’ article of the history, nor are the recent feminist discussions typically recognized in the relevant literature. Perhaps we should try to change that.
Daughters, listen to your mothers! April 9, 2009
How low can they go? How manipulative can one’s run of the mill colleagues or acquaintances be?
So suppose you are dealing with a problematic situation, and people are not happy, but you think you at least understand the agenda. Maybe it’s trying to decide the fate of an important but faltering program. Or perhaps it’s a non-academic situation; your neighborhood has to decide about some problematic ordinance.
But then your perception suddenly shifts and you realize that the agenda might have been quite different. In fact, you might have been set up to look really bad in one way or another. You were throwing out some ideas to encourage people to brainstorm for a conclusion, but the intent on the very people encouraging you was to show you didn’t understand the problem.
It was thinking about such a situation, and thinking of the possibility that I was in one, that I also wondered whether something similar might be going on in some of those cases where a woman, seemingly out of the blue, says someone is or was trying to rape her. Perhaps she was quite aware that he was pressuring her, but she thought it was about negotiating the boundaries of a relationship. Of course, he was trying to move too fast, but it just never crossed her mind that she really did not count at all, except perhaps as providing material for boasting later on. And then she saw just what was going on.
I hope I’m not alone in finding these cases hard to understand. I’ve insisted that whenever she says “no,” her decision must be followed. But I haven’t gotten a very good idea of what’s gone on.
Oddly today in the nether parts of the Sea-Tac airport on the way to the APA meeting, I witnessed an exchange between a young couple with a very young daughter and a grandmotherly woman. The young daughter was fully of lovely smiles. The older woman remarked, “She is going to be very lovely. You will have to teach her to be very careful.”
There may be people one deals with who have malevolent intentions that are outside one’s normal ken. And perhaps that is going on in some cases of rape that are otherwise opaque to understanding. In my case, Mr jj raised the question of my being set up. I can well remember similar warnings from my mother about “boys”.
Treating people as objects of fun or pleasure is not, of course, confined to one gender. The various forms of its manifestations may be quite surprising.
Protest Proposed Afghan Law on Women April 9, 2009
The Feminist Majority Foundation writes:
We just heard that President Hamid Karzai has announced he will review the draft of Shia family law that would strip Afghan women and girls of their basic rights. Karzai is responding to the worldwide outrage over the draft law including President Obama who called the law “abhorrent”.
Afghan women leaders in Parliament in the Afghanistan Human Rights Commission, and in non-profit organizations have been fighting the proposed law. We must lend our voices in support of our Afghan sisters.
While Karzai is reconsidering, let him hear from you and as many people you can reach. Urge him to withdraw the draconian law that would restrict women from leaving their homes, working, going to school and obtaining medical care without their husbands’ permission. The law also includes provisions that grants child custody only to men and revokes women’s rights to refuse sex with their husband.
And please join our Campaign for Afghan Women and Girls. As the Taliban have gained strength in Afghanistan over 1000 girls’ schools have been destroyed. Teachers have been murdered – some right in front of their students. Acid is being thrown on girls’ faces on their way to or from school. As US shifts it attention to Afghanistan, we must do all we can to make sure Afghan women and girls are not forgotten!
To send letters to Pres. Karzai and the afghan Embassy, click here. Thanks, Jender-Mom!
Girls Like Robots Too April 8, 2009
from the 'Girls Like Robots Too' shop on ebay.co.uk
This (pictured; and more here) is the second example I’ve found lately of a genre of children’s things that one might call ‘girlie boy toys’. They also have robots, rockets, castles, volcanoes, and aliens. The other girlie boy toy I came across recently (and so loved) was the excellent Automoblox C9P toy car construction set. I was so pleased when I found it: a toy car company that puts pictures of GIRLS on their web site! But when I showed it to mr. lp, his reply was “why does it need to be pink? Why does a toy have to be pink for a girl to play with it?”
Hmm. And now I don’t know what to think. He does have a point. My thinking was: If little girls see that they can like science, and engineering, and so on and so on and still be as pink and sparkly as they please, this seems like a good idea; divorce the fashion of the gender from the stereotypical interests of the gender. Let girls say “I’m still a girl, I just like cars!” (N.B. I don’t endorse “girlie” fashion. I’m against it–except on boys–truth be told. But obviously, a lot of little girls aren’t.)
But maybe mr. lp is right. Maybe making the girls’ dinosaur shirt pink only widens the pen a bit, when what we want to aim for is (if you will) free range girls (and boys!). What do you think?
Overview of same sex marriage rights April 8, 2009
From the excellent FEAST-L, a list compiled by Jeff Jones, of the University of Kentucky, compiled the following as of April 7, 2009. How wonderful to have trouble keeping track of all these advances! (This is obviously far more detailed and useful re the US than elsewhere. If readers want to write in with details about other countries, that would be fab.)
UPDATE Maria Bevacqua on WMST-L adds this important caveat: “I might offer a small but significant correction: no person in the United States in a same-sex marriage has “full marriage rights.” A same-sex “marriage” has no federal meaning. Such a couple cannot file a joint federal tax return or experience any of the other privileges or responsibilities of marriage except for what their state law provides.”
WHERE SOME RIGHTS EXIST:
MA, CT, IA, and VT have full marriage rights.
CA, NJ, NH, and OR offer almost all the benefits of marriage under another name (civil unions, domestic partnerships).
WA, DC, HI, MD, and ME offer some limited benefits to same-sex couples under domestic partnership laws.
NY and DC both explicitly recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states.
RI and NM may recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states but this has not been tested yet.
NH and ME are both considering bills to legalize equal marriage benefits for same-sex couples.
MD had a bill seeking to legalize same-sex marriages but it didn’t move in the latest legislature.
NM and HI both considered bills to create full civil unions, but they failed this term. HI’s bill passed its House but did not come up for a vote in the Senate.
CA had domestic partnerships, then marriage, and then banned marriages. The CA Supreme Court is considering whether a majority of voters can amend a state constitution to erase a fundamental right for a minority and whether the 36,000 people married under the prior law should be forcibly divorced.
NO RIGHTS:
Some states ban same-sex marriages but not civil unions. Thus, they leave the door open for civil unions.Some ban marriage by statute/state laws. Others ban marriage via a constitutional amendment. Some states have both.
Kentucky has one of the most oppressive legal status. Both a state law and constitutional amendment ban same-sex marriages in the state and recognition of those performed in other states. To boot, Kentucky voters amended the state constitution to ban civil unions as well.
IN OTHER COUNTRIES:
In general, same-sex couples receive all or some of the rights granted opposite-sex couples in Europe, Australia/New Zealand, South America, and North America (more conservative areas of the US and Mexico now becoming the exceptions). Most of Asia has no recognition of same-sex couples. Much of the Middle East and Africa (except for South Africa), on the other hand, criminalize homosexuality (which is punishable by death in some countries). The pattern closely resembles which countries and provinces have the most women in political life and/or have laws more equitable to women.Canada, the Netherlands, Sweden, Spain, South Africa, and Norway all have full marriage rights.
France and Israel do not perform same-sex marriages but recognize them if performed elsewhere.
Most of western and central Europe, New Zealand, Iceland, Greenland, Uruguay, etc. offer civil unions or recognition of cohabitating couples. A number of provinces and states in Australia and several South American countries also offer some type of civil union or domestic partnership.
DNA Evidence Frees Black Man Convicted of Bear Attack. April 8, 2009
The Onion. Brilliantly devastating. (Thanks, Mr Jender!)
On “Afghanistan’s Rape Law” as a focus April 7, 2009
I’ve written posts focussing on Afghanistan’s marital rape law, as have others here. (See elp’s below.) It’s an appropriate object of outrage. HOWEVER it’s important to note that this actually seems to be the same law that forbids women from leaving the house without male permission. (JJ mentioned this bit here.) Both of these are grotesque infringements on women’s freedom, yet the rape law is getting far more coverage. Non-western feminists have often criticised Western feminists for so strongly prioritising sexual matters, and I wonder if this is an instance of that. Though it may also be that the marital rape law has more resonance for Westerners– we’re not so far historically from allowing marital rape (1992, in the UK), but we’re very far from forbidding women to leave the house. (It’s worth noting that it’s not at all surprising for bloggers to focus on the rape law, since it’s getting all the press. What’s more interesting is the fact that this is getting all the press– and that even news articles which mention the other bits of the law still have “rape law” as their headline.)
Obama Criticises Afghanistan’s Marital Rape Law April 7, 2009
In case anyone (other than me) hadn’t seen this:
I’m not sure I feel completely satisfied with what he’s said. Am I being too picky?
(thanks CR!)
Women and Lawn-mowers April 7, 2009
Defiance of gender stereotypes? Nope, don’t think so. (Thanks, Sally!)
Fanning the Flames: Advice on Drinking in Pregnancy April 6, 2009
The comments on JJ’s recent post on breastfeeding have strayed off-topic to a related and rather interesting question: is it okay for public health advice to be false if it’s perceived to benefit the public? To that end, I bring you the lingering tension between Nice, the Royal College of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, and the Royal College of Midwives; and the poor innocent beer producers forced to take sides.
In 2007, the National Institute of Clinical Excellence (Nice) changed the UK guidelines for advice on drinking during pregnancy.
- Pre-2007 guidelines: Pregnant women are advised to limit their alcohol intake to no more than 1-2 units of alcohol, once or twice a week.
- New Guidelines: Pregnant women and women trying to conceive should abstain from alcohol.
You are dying to know the big important new piece of scientific evidence that has prompted this change, aren’t you? Well don’t hold your breath. In fact, there was no new evidence*. So why the change?
Dr Gillian Leng, of Nice, said the advice was tightened partly because of the recognition of the harm excessive drinking was doing in society generally.
So, stop preggos drinking their 5 ounces of wine twice a week, so as to cut down on binge drinking. Makes sense, right? No; no it doesn’t. Let’s try again:
Mervi Jokinen, of the Royal College of Midwives, said: “We are concerned that many women will be unsure about what a unit of alcohol is, and therefore may drink more than the guidelines recommend.”
Does this make sense? Well, only if you’re keen on the idea that policy should be shaped—even bent and falsified—around the needs of that massive underclass of pregnant women who are innumerate. Beer, wine, and spirit bottles are all labelled as to their alcohol content. True, a glass in a pub is not, but if we’re worried about that (surely some innumerate people are nonpregnant, after all), why not change pub labelling, instead of giving deliberately misleading pregnancy advice—ESPECIALLY if your concern, Dr Leng, is binge drinking in society at large.
And what have obstetricians had to say about the change?
… the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists said there was no evidence that drinking small amounts did any harm.
Oops. Looks like Doc is not willing to collude**. My heart aches for the poor babies of innumerate pregnant women for whom nothing further could possibly be done, now the two-units cat is out of the bag.
Of course, I could go on and on about this. Instead, I will entertain you with visual evidence of the discord. On the left is the French pictogram that, one by one on a voluntary basis, has become standard labelling for bottled beer in Britain since 2007. And on the right is a new maverick, caution-to-the-wind label from the Freeminer Brewery that has the NERVE, the AUDACITY to assume that its customers—even the pregnant ones—can do basic maths. (Or perhaps: that it’s their duty to print true things on their labels!) How vicious of them!
*Further, in the years leading up to and since 2007, several good studies have been published that support claims of alcohol safety in moderation, even above the 1-2 units once or twice limit.
**In fact, I was pregnant in 2006, and am again now. If anything, Doctors and most midwives seem more intent on letting women know that it’s okay to have a glass of an evening these days. So perhaps there is backlash within the profession.
bad pregnant woman! no no no! shoo!
May the president’s wife touch the queen? April 5, 2009
It’s such a relief to have this issue settled! Thank you, thank you, Buckingham Palace:
First lady Michelle Obama did not breach protocol by touching Queen Elizabeth II at a reception for world leaders attending the G-20 summit, Buckingham Palace told CNN Thursday.
“It was a mutual and spontaneous display of affection and appreciation between the Queen and Michelle Obama,” the Royal Press Office said in a statement Thursday. “The London Summit reception at Buckingham Palace was an informal occasion,” the statement also said.
No breach of protocol occurred, according to the Royal Press Office, because Buckingham Palace does not issue instructions about how to address the Queen.
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