Pills, politics, and puzzlement

I'm listening to an NPR story on the controversy in Connecticut about a bill requiring hospitals to offer emergency contraception to rape victims. The debate centered, not surprisingly, on the four Catholic hospitals in the state, who did not want to be required to provide EC, as they are morally opposed to it. Their policy is to test female rape victims to see if they are near ovulation, and if they are, to tell them where they can obtain EC.

Wait a minute. If Catholics are morally opposed to the use of emergency contraception and they are trying to be consistent with this moral opposition, why would they tell the women where to go to get emergency contraception? If you're opposed to some action, you don't help people commit that action. It's like saying, "I think armed robbery is wrong, but the liquor store next door has a lot of cash, and here's where you can buy a gun." This is a cop-out. If you believe that EC is morally wrong for all women in all circumstances, then you wouldn't tell rape victims where to get it. If you believe it is an acceptable choice for some women in certain contexts (e.g., rape), then you offer it to women in your hospital and leave it up to their conscience to decide. The current policy is just moral hand-waving -- Oh, we didn't give them the EC, so our conscience is clean.

It reminds me of the inconsistencies in policies which ostensibly claim abortion is murder.

End of the story: The bill wasn't passed . . . lawmakers declined to vote on it.

Edible books

Dr. Bibliovore has found books you really *can* eat!

Choices, choices

Check out the cartoon at Minimum Security : Second from the bottom, about salad dressing. Very on-target!

Bunny!

I love that we have bunnies living in our back yard. Tonight I got to watch one of them hop around, nibble grass, and wash its face with its paws -- so cute! It's like having pets without any of the work or allergies (major allergies for me). I love to sit at my sewing desk and watch the wildlife.

I'm sad that spring break is coming to an end.

Flanagan and the motherhood mystique

After reading this post on Pandagon about Caitlin Flanagan's rhetoric regarding motherhood, I was intrigued enough to go read the article in Elle about Flanagan and some of Flanagan's articles. She talks about how mothers should stay home and care for their children full-time, that children are harmed by their mother's working outside of the home.

In other words, she's completely immersed in the motherhood mystique, which claims that:

• motherhood is a full-time (and more than full-time) job
  
• it is supremely fulfilling to women to be immersed in the task of mothering (indeed this is constructed as the ultimate fulfillment for all women -- a woman who does not want to mother or doesn't enjoy it is seen as psychologically disturbed)
  
• the best thing for children is the full-time, intense devotion of their mother (and only their mother)
  
• Women are naturally good at caregiving and should be responsible for all nurturance (husband, children, elders, etc.)
  
• Mothers have infinite patience and the willingness (nay, eagerness) to engage in self-sacrifice for her children (and other family members) -- she should put her own needs last. Flanagan mentions that when her children were young, "I was a mother virtuously willing to sacrifice her own happiness for the sake of her children," ("How Serfdom Saved the Women's Movement," Atlantic Monthly, p109).

Let's put this in context: This construction of motherhood is a modern, Western construction which emerged out of the industrial revolution, changing family and work patterns, gendered beliefs, and a healthy dose of patriarchy. Prior to the industrial revolution, most women and men were engaged in agricultural labor, and this involved productive labor for both men and women -- women made many of the items for home use (cloth, garments, candles), as well as participating in farming and animal husbandry, in addition to engaging in care of infants. Children were cared for by fathers, mothers, and older siblings (a pattern replicated around the world -- many cultures have an older sibling caring for the younger child). The Industrial Revolution hit, many men became wage slaves, and families became structured around one or more members of the family working for pay in an urban center. In poor families, men, women, and even children were wage laborers (until child labor laws went into effect); in middle-class families, men were wage laborers and women were in charge of domestic labor (housework and child care), for which they were not paid. But how to keep women busy with domestic labor, now that so many of their tasks had been relegated to mass-production in factories? I know! We'll tell them that raising children is a full-time job, which requires the skills of teacher, nurse, psychologist, and nutritionist, and that domestic labor is a labor of love for their families. Cook for your family and show them you love them! Decorate the home to be a haven of rest for your husband. So the domestic and child care tasks that remained were inflated in importance (the development of the cult of domesticity), and the belief that children needed full-time, devoted attention from their mothers was a device to keep women at home (instead of out agitating for the vote).

This construction emerged in the late 1800s and then again in force in the 1950s in the U.S., and Flanagan has got the rhetoric down pat. From her insistence that having a hot meal ready for her husband shows how much she loves him (and her critique of mothers who do not provide hot meals for the family) to her insistence that women are naturally skilled at, and are drawn to, domestic tasks, to her strongly-worded claims about the harms to children which stem from their mothers working outside of the home, she is the mouthpiece for the motherhood mystique and the cult of domesticity.

So why does her argument bother me? For many reasons:

• Natural and universal? Flanagan relies heavily on the notion that "woman in the home" is a natural and universal role: Women are naturally good a child rearing, naturally want to engage in domestic tasks, and that there is a natural "maternal bond" between mothers and their children. But it is clear that childrearing and domestic tasks are taken on by men and women, boys and girls, in many different arrangements in cultures around the world. Certainly, mothers are often involved in breastfeeding infants, but other types of care vary considerably. It is also clear that women and men vary in their enjoyment of, and desire for, childrearing and domestic labor. Flanagan herself seems to have little affinity for cleaning, cooking, or laundry, and she relates real ambivalence in her experiences of childrearing.
  
• Harm to children? The claim that children will be harmed by not receiving the full-time devotion of their mothers has been a cultural trope since the Victorian era, but there is little scientific support for this notion. Infants and children clearly need care, and it helps to have a consistent set of caregivers for infants so that they can develop secure attachment patterns. Beyond that, however, children do as well when they are in high-quality day care as when they are raised by full-time mothers or fathers or some combination of parent and paid caregiver. In fact, children generally do better when in high-quality child care if they come from a home environment which provides less cognitive and linguistic stimulation. Flanagan even admits that children who went to day care seemed to be "a little more on the ball" ("To Hell With All That", New Yorker, 80(18), 2004).
  
• What about fathers? It ticks me off to no end that women get castigated for combining paid work with child rearing, when fathers are almost never held to the same standards. Where is the concern for children of working fathers? Where is the criticism of inadequate fathering? It seems that the only thing a father can do to engage similar critique is to stop being the breadwinner and become a "deadbeat dad." We praise men for their contributions toward child rearing, but we rarely hold them accountable for their children's care to the same extent that we do women.
  
• She's a hypocrite She says women should be full-time mothers, but she has a writing career. She snubs women who take their children to day care, but she employed a nanny for many years. She exhorts women to cook, clean, and create lovely homes for their families, and she herself does little of this work (she employs cleaning services, etc.). Classic Flanagan from "To Hell With All That" (New Yorker, 80(18), 2004) -- she relates a story of being at a nursery school event:
  
  

  It was a dinner dance with an auction, and the signal items up for bid were chairs hand-painted by the members of each class, a project that had been laboriously created and supervised by an exceedingly earnest and energetic athome mother. . . Leaning against a far column watching her, with drinks in their hands and sardonic half-smiles on their faces, were two of my friends: a lawyer and a movie producer. . . We looked at the woman --- think of all she'd sacrificed to stay home with her children, think of the time she'd spent dipping our own children's hands in paint so that they could press their little prints on the miniature Adirondack chairs. "Get a life," one of us said, and we all laughed and drank some more. And then we turned our backs on the auction and talked about work. But I'm craven enough to change colors if the occasion calls for it. "Is that poor child's mother ever at school?" someone hissed when a (perfectly happy) little girl marched off with her nanny one recent afternoon. "I've never seen her," I clucked back, feeling guilty about knifing the absent mother and glad as hell that I hadn't sent my own nanny to pick up the boys that day."

  
  
  This is a woman who is opportunistic and hypocritical -- she will say whatever will sell best at the moment. And yet she has the hubris to criticize Laura Schlessinger for being a hypocrite for not living by the standards she advocates("Do As I Say", Atlantic, 293(1))!
  
  You know what? I've given this woman far too much of my time already. She needs to be ignored, because she has nothing important to say; she contributes nothing to our understanding of women's or men's lives or how to make them better. She needs to stop writing until she can figure out what she really wants to say, other than to claim a superior status to which she has no legitimate right and get paid for the privilege.

Today's fortune

You are imbued with extraordinary vitality.

I also have a bunch of new music to inspire my dancing -- yippee!

Cool website

Check out this website which shows you all the facial muscles and how they relate to facial expressions -- very cool! Very useful for drawing or for the study of emotional expression. Did you know we have an "irony muscle" (the risorius muscle) which pulls the mouth to the side in an ironic smile?

Secrets of happy, enduring relationships

I gave a talk at the college on Monday entitled "Is Love Enough? The Science of Intimate Relationships." It was very well-attended (we had people spilling into the hallway), and we had a great discussion of what factors researchers have found which correlate with relationship satisfaction and longevity in couples. It's a great topic, because there is direct applicability of the findings to improving one's own life. I ended with the question: Why is it that all couples start out enthusiastic and happy, and yet so many relationships end with bitterness and rancor? People rarely walk into their wedding saying, "I really hate my fiance" or "Well, this is ok, but I'm really waiting for my soul mate to come along." And yet 50% of marriages end in divorce (and often not a friendly one). What happens, and how can researchers help couples more effectively create happy relationships?

Please note: I'm not suggesting that relationships should last forever. There are many good reasons to separate from one's partner (abuse, etc.). I have no problems with that. I just hope the research can help people who really want to stay together and make it work be able to find more effective methods of building relationship. But with that said, sometimes the right thing for each individual person is to part ways. One of the weakness of the research on couples often prioritizes the maintenance of the couple over the needs of the individual, which is a limited perspective.

What will they think of next?

This one is for kiaroskuro and cheqyr. Something to ask for next Valentine's Day...or maybe Halloween?

Check out the chocolate skulls!

So Tired

I. Am. So. Tired.
Too many hours of coaching and stage managing for the campus performance of The Vagina Monologues. Both shows were great -- the cast and crew did a terrific job and both shows were well-attended and we raised several thousand dollars for organizations working to end violence against women. They also gave me some beautiful roses as a thank-you. But now I'm in post-production ennui (augmented, I'm sure by staying out too late last night chatting with students from the cast). Now I have to get caught up on everything else that didn't get done while I was at rehearsals.

My to-do list includes:

• Write exams for two different classes by Monday
  
• Finish organizing a silent auction to raise money for the Women's Studies Scholarship Fund at the Women's Studies Breakfast on Wednesday -- some very cool items so far, including jewelry, molas, tickets to local events, pillows, scarves, Brazilian crafts, etc.
  
• Grade grade grade student papers and journals
  
• Write my yearly evaluation packet
  
• Dance!
  
• Prep for the Zar workshop on Tuesday (I'm TA-ing for Yasmin, need to format the warm-up and make sure the tech is ready)
  
• Work on various unfinished projects as time permits (too many to list!)

Gosh, that just makes me feel even more exhausted!