Lady time
signout | September 22, 2007Much as activism kind of annoys me--I blame my polite mother--I am fairly solidly behind the woman who's fighting facebook for banning pictures of her breastfeeding. Breastfeeding is really good for babies,* and I'm all for making it as easy for moms to do as possible. That might mean overcoming our discomfort at viewing the breasts of women we don't know.
In the U.S., it's normative to find female breasts sexay. I'm not sure why; they have a pretty clear function, and it's not reproductive. Lots of people in this culture get a little shifty-eyed around breastfeeding mothers, and although…
signout | September 6, 2007See, this kind of shit makes me crazy.
There's a press release floating around about another study that demonstrates that women and men are, well, you know. The way they are.
It should be noted that this report will appear in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (appropriately, PNAS), and is made of SCIENCE, so it's definitely true.
The study reports differentials in the importance of a potential date's physical attractiveness among male and female speed daters--I mean, among the general population. In their sampling--according to the press release--men went for the most…
signout | August 3, 2007As part of my efforts to multitask, I read while I work out. It works well for me: if the reading material is interesting, I hardly even notice I'm schvitzing while reading. An unfortunate consequence of this habit is its magnification of my tendency to talk to my reading material, as when I yelled "Oh, no you didn't!" at the article on workplace discrimination against caregivers in last Sunday's New York Times Magazine. I was provoked by the part where the author, Eyal Press, unflinchingly writes that "becoming a parent is a choice."
Let's be clear: In the United States, half of all…
signout | June 6, 2007The chief complaint listed next to her name was, "wants to know if she is pregnant." At first, it didn't seem like she wanted to know that badly--she barely looked up from her cell phone when I walked into the room for the first time. She answered questions the way fifteen-year-olds often do--briefly--and held out one skinny hand for the urine sample cup without turning her eyes away from the keypad of her phone.
I imagined the exchange:
"@ drs ofc 2 chk f nokd up"
"wnt 2 mt l8r @ mall 2 mk sum bad choicz?"
"abt fashn or sex?"
"both!!!!!"
"OK, f my boyfrnd cn come"
She looked up the second…
signout | August 20, 2006Today has been an unbelievably frustrating day in the hospital, but I don't want to bring anyone down. In an effort to promote peace, harmony, and blogular happiness, I'm going to instead write about something everyone can get excited about: the patriarchy.
Earlier this year, the venerable American Medical Association (the AMA) put out this press release, which describes the findings of a recent study of young women's behaviors on Spring Break and their subsequent gnawing regrets.
I found the press release appalling. For starters, by leaving men out of the story, it tacitly sent the message…