Phyllis Schlafly was a Woman Too...

And see where that got us?? Well, at least there aren't any of them un-i-sex bathrooms that will be the undoing of the American Family.






Oh... yeah... I forgot about those







But seriously, McCain's VP nominee is just plain insulting.

The woman has very few credentials. She's the governor of a state with less people in it than more than 10 American cities. Sure, she's pushed ethic reform, but she's also under investigation for ethic violations.

Yeah. Really.

So why did McCain pick a woman that he's only met six months ago and only met with once? hmmmm....could it be because she's a woman?? Could it be that McCain's camp is trying to get those disgruntled Hillary supporters by upstaging Obama's less-than-exciting pick of Biden?

Because if that's the case--and it sure looks like it is--McCain is playing a game of identity politics that are completely ridiculous considering the state this country's in. He, apparently, thinks that women can't tell the difference between policy and pandering.

I love that my mother-in-law is pissed off by his pick. hee-hee. So much for getting the second-wavers behind him. Now if the rest of them are just as smart.

But seriously, this is just ridiculous. If McCain's elected, and there's a good chance he will be*, this woman--with absolutely NO experience in the national or international arena will be second in line as president. And at McCain's age, with McCain's past health concerns, this is a real issue. She didn't even have a passport until 2007.** This is a woman who last month couldn't even answer a reporters questions about her prospects for being VP. She told a reporter:

"As for that VP talk all the time, I’ll tell you, I still can’t answer that question until somebody answers for me what is it exactly that the VP does every day? I’m used to being very productive and working real hard in an administration."

Um... they serve as president of the senate... shouldn't a person with a poli-sci minor KNOW THAT?!?!

Holy cr@p.

If his ant- women and anti-family policies aren't bad enough--voting against equal pay for equal work, believing that the market can somehow correct the health insurance issues our country faces, his anti-choice stand--he's now proved that he has very little respect for women's intellects. Because to pick such an unqualified candidate, he apparently thought that women would believe that simply picking a woman was enough.

In her speech today she said, "“It turns out that women in America aren’t finished yet and we can shatter that glass ceiling once and for all."

Um...no. Being used as a pawn in the big-boys' political games does not count as breaking through the glass ceiling. Being hand-picked by a man to help out his ticket because you have a vagina does not count as breaking through the glass ceiling. Being second in command to said guy does not count.

It's silly and insulting and downright scary. Because if McCain gets elected and keels over, this woman would be our president. And if that happens-- I'll be looking for jobs in some other country, because this country will officially be certifiable.



*After 2004, I basically have no hope left that the American people even pay attention to more than one issue at a time. Abortion? Gay Marriage? Of course- THOSE are the problems we need to really worry about!
**J keeps saying- "I have more

Feminism- 21st Century Style

Last Thursday, I did my brief spiel about feminist literary criticism in my class. I asked how many of them considered themselves feminists. Out of 8, only 4 raised their hands. Two women didn't.

That's fine. It's understandable even. We've gotten to this post-feminist moment (god, I hate that phrase) where most of my generation and the generations following me think that feminism equals bra-burning man-haters and that everything has already been fixed. These are young women who never grew up thinking that there were any limitations to their lives. No one told them that someday their brothers would go to college and they'd become mommies. No one tells them that they need to make a choice between being a partner and mother or having a career. And perhaps, for many, they never will.

But the cold hard truth is that someday most of those young, bright women in my class will hit the glass ceiling so hard that their teeth will rattle. Maybe they'll grow up and get married and no one will expect them to start having babies, so they'll be safe. Maybe their husbands will even "help" around the house--how lucky they will be to have such enlightened mates. Maybe, even, they will make more than their husbands.

The cold hard truth is that for many of them--feminist or not--they will reach a point where they have to choose. Where they have to make sacrifices that their partners never even think about making.

I've been reading some of my favorite bloggers lately, and it's made me curiously aware of my own situation. While they've been struggling along, I've been very, very lucky. My own husband is a partner in every sense of the word. I cook, he cleans the dishes. He gives little man a bath, I put him to bed. I nursed, he changed every diaper. He doesn't help around the house. He doesn't babysit for me. It's his home and he maintains it; it's his child and he cares for him. Period. There is no sense that we are anything but completely equal. And that's the only way I would ever have it. I've never been willing to be someone's maid, chef, and nanny.

He was raised by a second-wave feminist--one that marched on Washington for the Equal Rights Amendment and still curses Phylis Schaffley's name if it comes up in conversation. He wasn't raised to expect anyone to cook or clean for him. He's a better feminist than many women I've met.

But the job market it coming fast. Very fast. And I am very aware that his discipline makes more money than mine. If we have to choose between positions, I will loose if it comes down to money. It makes me angry. Very, very angry. And sad. Very, very sad. Because I've been reading the saga of another mother an wife who was denied tenure and who has decided to give up her hope of a research career to keep her family together. I can't help but see the pain and anger in her posts, and she should be sad and angry. It's not fair in a lot of different ways.

Studies have shown that women with families suffer in academia. In one study about the California system, the research showed that women predominantly hold those non-tenure track positions while men who were married and had children actually did better than their non-married counterparts. For women, having children is a liability. For men, it's proof that you're stable.

And I've been reading the blog of a local mom whose husband is a grad student and who stays at home with her daughter. Except that she, too, works as a freelance writer. And she laments being the one in charge of the household alone. It's a choice, I know, but she's also fighting against a society that sees her work as less valuable than his.

And it makes me sad and angry, because this is where we've gotten. To a place where the young women don't need to be feminists, don't identify with feminism as a cause, and won't fight for it.

We still don't have an equal rights amendment. We still have a presidential candidate that claims that women are paid less because they have less education and training. We still live in a world where I cannot put a picture of my son on my web page because it might cost me a job, when it will probably get my husband one. We still live in a word where smart women pick up their husband's messes, even when they have work of their own to do. And we still live in a world where it's a given that mothers will nurture, but its emasculating for men to nurture as well. We still live in a world where the media can call a presidential candidate a bitch or some other misogynistic slur, and there's not a thing she can do about it. We still live in a world where a woman is raped every minute and for the cost of one fighter plane we could test every one of the rape kits sitting on shelves because of lack of funding.

It makes me sad. It makes me glad I have a boy. I'm not sure that I could raise a girl in this world, because how do you tell her that she can do or be anything she wants, when you know that it just isn't completely true?

Post-feminist my a$$.

I believe in assigned seats and I good, strong yard stick....

I've been trying to write a first draft of my teaching philosophy-- one that doesn't sound too cliche, too grandiose, or too, well, anything but me.

This has not been going well.

The fact that I've had two students in two successive days make appointments with me (for which I had to rearrange both my and J's entire work schedules) and then not show the F$%* up.

This only causes anger, resentment, irritation, and the desire to write teaching statements about how even though I want to treat my students like the adults they are, I end up playing kindergarden teacher to a bunch of irresponsible and disrespectful brats.

Dude. I HAVE THINGS TO DO. Things which do not include sitting in a coffee shop waiting expectantly, like some sort of twisted blind date that I didn't want to go on to start with.

Now how am I supposed to sound pedagogical when I just feel like starting class with a stern lecture?

Really people, this is why I never wanted to teach High School.

uf.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

Or- ways I know that I am officially getting "older"*

• The station I usually listen to on the radio has changed from the "New Rock Alternative" to "classic" alternative. And while I think someone should tell them that Duran Duran is not really alternative, it does depress me when they announce "1994" before a song and I realize that it's a song that still feels as new as yesterday. Has it really been that long. Indeed it has, Smashing Pumkins, indeed it has.
• So I've been reading the Twilight books--totally enjoyable fluff--and looking forward to the movie coming out in December. And then I realize-- they're all just babies. There's something about the book that doesn't read like teen-angst fiction, but when you see the cast all dolled up, it looks likes one of those teeny-bopper reality soap things- One Tree OC or something.
  
• I went into a store called "Forever 21"--new at our local mall--because someone had said they had some cute accessories. Suffice it to say that I am no longer 21. Not even close.
• Old Navy is out. Express is out. Banana Republic--totally in. Thank goodness we have one now.
• Someone thought I was already 30 the other day. Sheesh- I get to go to Vegas before that happens.
  

*Not a bad thing- just an observation

The One about Spanking

I know that some people have reacted and commented on the last post I made-- especially my own guilt about wanting to spank Little Man. I really appreciate those comments, because they always make me reexamine my own beliefs and my own decisions.

I think I need to clarify some of my comments though.

I think that we all have to make our own decisions about parenting and discipline-- only we live with our children. I know, in my own situation, that the moments I've wanted to smack my child doing so would have only made me feel better--and then very soon after, worse.
I know that developmentally, a child Little Man's age isn't really able to control his impulses-- it's why they do things over, and over, and over, and over, and over--until they can control their impulses, I don't think that a little (or big) smack can be effective. That urge to keep trying things is natural, and fear doesn't stop it. I don't think toddlers know what they're feeling half the time. Most of the time tantrums are just an overwhelming rush of desire and angst and fear all rolled into one. They seem so out of control because they, literally, are.

J and I have thought long and hard about the way we want to discipline our children. All I ever knew was discipline that involved a swat on the behind occasionally. I didn't really even buy into the whole time-out thing until somewhat recently. But as I think back over what I remember of the discipline of my childhood--and, really, I wasn't disciplined all that often-- I realize that spanking loses its effectiveness. I can remember the moment when it stopped being effective for me: my dad threatened to hit me for something and I thought to myself, "go ahead...I don't care." Maybe I said it out loud, I don't remember. But he didn't carry through. I don't think I was ever threatened with a spanking again...

The thing about spanking, I think, is that it is founded on fear rather than respect. I don't want my children to fear me. I want their respect, but like anyone else, like anything else, respect is something that has to be earned. I believe that parents earn that respect through consistency, stability, and the unconditional love they give their children. J and I decided that we want to think of discipline as a way to educate and guide. Yes, there will be punishments. Yes, it will drive me batty not to smack him sometimes. But in the end, I know that hitting him will make me feel awful--absolutely awful. I don't want to hurt the thing I love most. So, for me, I want to choose a disciplinary style that I don't feel bad about. I have no qualms whatsoever about sitting him in a corner or boring him silly. That I can do without guilt.

I like to think, in my infinite wisdom, that my instinct not to hit is the right one. But the American Association of Pediatrics backs me up on this. They state in their "Guidance for Effective Discipline":

Despite its common acceptance, and even advocacy

for its use, spanking is a less effective strategy
than time-out or removal of privileges for reducing
undesired behavior in children. Although spanking
may immediately reduce or stop an undesired behavior,
its effectiveness decreases with subsequent
use. The only way to maintain the initial effect of
spanking is to systematically increase the intensity with which it is delivered, which can quickly escalate
into abuse. Thus, at best, spanking is only effective
when used in selective infrequent situations.

They also say
• Spanking children ,18 months of age increases the chance of physical injury, and the child is
unlikely to understand the connection between the behavior and the punishment.
• Although spanking may result in a reaction of shock by the child and cessation of the undesired
behavior, repeated spanking may cause agitated, aggressive behavior in the child that may lead to physical altercation between parent and child.
• Spanking models aggressive behavior as a solution to conflict and has been associated with increased aggression in preschool and school children.
• Spanking and threats of spanking lead to alteredparent–child relationships, making discipline substantially more difficult when physical punishment is no longer an option, such as with adolescents.
• Spanking is no more effective as a long-term strategy than other approaches, and reliance on spanking as a discipline approach makes other discipline strategies less effective to use. Timeout
and positive reinforcement of other behaviors are more difficult to implement and take longer to
become effective when spanking has previously been a primary method of discipline.
• A pattern of spanking may be sustained or increased.Because spanking may provide the parent some relief from anger, the likelihood that the parent will spank the child in the future is increased.

Now I'm a scholar by trade. I know what goes into research and I know that when a study is published by a large scientific organization, I'm going to tend to trust it. I know that a mother's intuition is worth something, but I also know that there are a lot of times that it can be wrong.

Looking back over my childhood, the patterns that the AAPA discuss seem in many ways eerily familiar. I was never abused--never even close to being abused--not even in the same ballpark, but there is a point when physical punishment ceases to be effective. It's usually that same point where your kid has access to a car, access to friends with cars, and access to a whole other realm of dangers. That's not really the time that I want to be figuring out a back up.

I don't doubt that spanking works.... for a while. But then suddenly, your little man is 6'3" and the trusty old belt just doesn't seem like it's gonna do the trick any more. And then what??

For me, for us, spanking is not a discipline I'm willing to fall back on. I want to give my child the gift of a violence-free childhood. They do exist. J had one--and because of it, he doesn't have the slightest impulse to swat little man. For him, hitting seems so foreign, so strange, so unnecessary.

I want it to be unnecessary. We both know that it's much harder not to hit. You do have to repeat and repeat and repeat and repeat, because there is not immediate shock. It takes unending patience (something that I most certainly do not and will not ever have) to commit to this form of child-rearing.

I read once somewhere that Time-outs only work if there are also time-ins. But in a world of rushing around, stressful jobs, and limited patience, putting time in is extraordinarily difficult and exhausting. But it's work I'm willing to do. It's work that I believe needs done.

Do I think that spanking is wrong? Unequivocally, yes. Am I going to judge people who do it? Probably, but I'm sure they also think my time-outs are ridiculous. Such is life. Can I change people's minds about spanking? I don't think so. It's like J says, changing someone's mind about the way they were raised is like trying to change someone's mind about religion.

I'm just thankful for my own conversion.

Random Bullets

I have a lot on my mind, and not the time or energy to develop any of these into a real post, so please excuse the randomness:

• Dear plagiarizers, I am not stupid. Really. I promise. And even though there's not a thing I can do right now, I'm watching. Sincerely, Me.
• I just got done re-reading most of my classes blogs for their mid-term evaluations. There's some really great stuff in there. As much as I'm now regretting the sheer amount I have to read, I like the opportunity to see them as complete people.
  
• Did I mention that chocolate covered caramel popcorn is better than crack?
• We just got back from a weekend in Ohio. It was so good to see everyone, and the visit (although short) was a good length. Sometimes I feel guilty for living so far away, but the truth is that I don't miss Akron at all. Sure, I'd love to be able to see my parents and grandparents more often or to have Little Man around the family more, but I like my little life out here on the prairie. I like that we don't have a lot to work our schedules around, other than our jobs. Retirement is coming soon, so hopefully Little Man will get more time with them all soon.
• Little Man thinks he's 2. I thought we were supposed to get 2 years before the tantrums start. What do you do with a child who's having a meltdown?? He's been so good thus far that I am totally unprepared to deal with this new phase. Maybe it will pass quickly.
  
• I hate people who tell me that I turned out ok after being raised in an environment where spanking was one form of discipline. Old school, ya know? I more and more realize that I can't possibly be ok when I have the urge to hit a toddler. There can't be anything productive in hitting a toddler. They don't have the ability to know right from wrong, predict consequences, or even control their own impulses yet. Hitting is totally and utterly counterproductive at this age (and really, at any I think). But the impulse I have is to smack him. And then I feel guilty about feeling like I should hit the most precious thing in my world. And then the guilt is just as exhausting as the toddler himself. I just can't win.
• Also, he's started hitting. How's that for irony?
• It's finally fall! Ok, it's almost 80 here, but at least the trees are starting to turn.
  
• I haven't done anything on the dissertation for 2 weeks. Thanks to the hubby's last minute job application, the trip to Ohio, and my general urge to do something crafty rather than academic, I'm playing catch up.
• Talked to Baby Bro the other night. I have no idea what's going on for Christmas this year. One minute I thought we had come up with a plan to get everyone together, the next minute it's not a good plan after all. Baby Bro's gonna have to figure this one out, because I'm off the case.
  
• Did I mention that chocolate covered caramel popcorn is better than crack?

Ok- enough for now, but you gotta check out Mommy/Prof's random rants of bitterness. Priceless.

Really?!?? (my appologizes to SNL)

Is this really news?

There aren't more important things happening in the world--you know, like the problems in Burma, the genocide in Sudan, the fact that Hillary just voted to call Iran and terrorist state and thus open a possible door to declaring war on them.

When I turn to the NY Times each morning for my daily dose of important headlines, I don't really except to see an eloquent, elegiac account of the death of Flower.

Yes. I understand that Meerkats are adorable. Even Nazi Meerkats are adorable:


I even understand that the massive response to Flower's death might constitute some sort of cultural event that scholars twenty years from now will evoke as some sort of postmodern existential phenomenon.

I maybe heartless and unfeeling for saying this, but WTF? This is what the NY Times calls news?

Really.

The Oldest Rant in the World. Tribute.

This morning, while taking a break from grading the mountain of papers sitting in front of me, I was reading a blog that belongs to a friend of mine at Nowhere U. Said friend said that she has recently realized that maybe she dresses too provocatively and despite her attempts to un-hooch-ify her wardrobe, she realized that she inadvertently fell of the modesty wagon when she noticed people looking at her in the hallways. Most of the "neckline-gawkers" were women in the department, and when she finally asked one if the shirt was too low-cut, the gawker couldn't tell her no.

Let me back it up a minute and say that among most grad students and many professors in our department the dress code seems to be just (barely) on the better side of casual. Said friend, however, always always looks professional and...well...fabulous. The girl has the wardrobe that I usually imagine myself having if I put enough effort into getting dressed in the morning to think about a wardrobe.

But the neckline-gawkers (her words, not mine) irritate me to no end. It reminds me of the first time I went back to the building when I was "showing." It was just after the New Year and I hadn't seen anyone in almost a month. Every single person I met in the hall seemed absolutely shocked at my burgeoning bump. Only one said congratulations. Most simply said hello or attempted to carry on a short conversation while ignoring it, their eyes unconsciously lolling on my protruding belly. It must be what well-endowed women go through at bars. The oogling, the judgment. I realized then that bodies do matter--they change people's perceptions of who you are and what you are capable of. There are more than a few people in the department who seem different to me now. More than a few people who only say a brief hello instead of updating me on the latest gossip about their progress or advisers.

I knew all of this coming in. We planned Little Man so that we could have kids while the old clock is still young and far before I had to sit in an interview in front of judging eyes. I've heard stories about a brilliant up-and-coming young scholar with two books out who still couldn't get a job for almost 4 years. Why? Because she was gorgeous and knew it. She wore short skirts with funky boots and vibrant lipstick. Even dressed in a black suit, she couldn't hide that she was pretty. No one, for a long time, took her seriously. Even with two books out of grad school.

So my friend's experience walking down the hall in our building makes me angry. We women are our own worst enemies. We judge and pick and belittle--and usually we use the most superficial aspects we can get our claws into. We forget that feminism doesn't mean we change the list of requirements a "real" woman must meet to be a legitimate person. We forget that feminism was supposed to give us that choice.

It makes me angry because I see this tendency in my students, colleagues, and friends all the time. People will act surprised and tell me how lucky I am that J does the dishes without being asked or "helps" with the baby so much. They're his dishes. It's his baby. It's not helping. My students still tell me that they couldn't vote for a woman for president because "women are too emotional," as though we still teach biology out of 19th century textbooks. Newspapers have a field day when Hillary shows the tiniest amount of cleavage. As though that counts as news when hundreds die each day in a war we created. But there's smaller things--I want a job, so I delay a second baby past the job market. No one, I know instinctively, will hire a brand new PhD who is due in 5 months. They may not even hire the mother of a 3 year old. I worry about not being taken seriously when people discover that I'm a mother as well.

It's frustrating. In the 21st century it's still frustrating, and the neckline-gawkers are just one symptom of the whole problem.

So what if I have a child or want another? So what if I consider myself a wife rather than a partner? So what if I make dinner--he cleans the dishes. Fair is fair in my house, and I can only hope to raise a son who understands that women
bake pies from scratch or
wear lipstick and heels or
want to have babies or
want to not have babies
and she might
want to be married to the right partner--whoever that is or
want to be single forever and
she might
listen to the Indigo Girls or
listen to Metallica
and she might
not shave a hair on her body or
want laser hair removal the instant she can afford it and
she might
think that her fight is over or
think that there's no fight left or
think that it's only begun
and she might
be any number of things
including beautiful or fabulous or frumpy or ugly

and that doesn't change what she should be capable of doing.

Damn. People who work in departments where feminist theory and queer theory and body theory are all legitimate courses of study should know better than to judge a collegue by the way she chooses to show or hide her rack. Enviable as it might be.