Fearing our Students Redux

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Our director of University relations forwarded me a commentary by Gary Pavela from this week’s Chronicle of Higher Education, entitled “Fearing our Students Won’t Help Them.” This is a really excellent article from a disability studies perspective, as it cautions us  to focus on actual student conduct not stereotypes. Like Kathleen Jones did at AHA, he points out that campus shootings are almost always suicides as well — so suicide prevention should be the focus.

Some thoughts on the last two shooting incidents. Comments about Steven Kazmierczak at NIU have remarked at how “nice” and “normal” he was, unlike the “freak” at Virginia Tech. Meanwhile, discussions of Latina Williamshave disappeared, except at this site.

This is in sharp contrast to an article in yesterday’s New York Times, “Boys will be Boys, Girls will be Hounded by the Media.” The article observes, “Men who fall from grace are treated with gravity and distance, while women in similar circumstances are objects of derision, titillation and black comedy.”

I wonder — are the mental health problems of Britney Spears and Amy Winehouse more newsworthy because women are expected to be more “unstable?” Or do male celebrities like Owen Wilson have relatives who are better able to keep the press away and maintain privacy?

Girls Rule

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Just received this from one of my “biker chix” friends.  Ride on!

——-

Getting ‘Girled’

July 6, 2007 on 12:50 pm | In Racing | This will be one of the only posts you’ll ever see in ‘She Rides’ from a guy.

‘Getting girled’ is the latest in bike racing jargon from the man-pack. Admittedly, I know little of the history of strong women in cycling. My basis for discussion is simply emperical. Many years ago, only a few elite females could hand it to the guys. The lead pack of a road race was seldom anything but a sausage fest. In the dirt, even the Pro women were seldom pulling faster times in than the men’s Expert field. But women’s competition was marginal at the local and regional level in the midwest and SE US. Still, many men have blown themselves up to avoid being ‘girled’.

Before anybody finds any reason to be offended by the phrase ‘getting girled’, let me explain that it is a great thing. Moreover, ‘Getting womanned’ is just too hard to say.

In the mid-90’s thousands of women like Amanda McKay, Trish Stevenson & Karen Masson (now a mom!) got into the packs with the men, put up with our attitudes and egos, and perservered. In the new millenium, these grassroots heroines are huge players in the bike racing scene. They are inspiring all riders, shattering the glass ceiling of the male-dominated sport.

In 2003, I had the opportunity to ride the Shenandoah Mtn 100 with Trish S. I was in pretty good shape at the time and expected to finish in the top 10%. About 30 miles in, Trish grabbed my wheel, and we worked together for the next 30 miles or so. She probably did most of the work. Eventually, she pulled away on a long singletrack climb. I never saw her again. Damn, it made me smile. She won the women’s category with a big margin, and I made it into the top 10% of the robust field about 20 minutes back. (This was my first time at being ‘girled’. Frankly, it was a turn-on.)

Personally, I think this strong woman phenomonon kicks-ass. Maybe it is just because I love the balance women bring to the scene. Maybe its because they smell better than the guys. Maybe its because I own a bike shop and know that stong woman are growing our sport. Maybe its because I was raised in house full of women, and have a daughter. Maybe its because I enjoy watching guys wrestle with humility and their personal demons. For whatever reason, I have no choice but to look forward to ‘getting girled’ more often.

Show the world what you’ve got, ladies!

<!– –>

Gentlemen, pardon our stupidity. . .

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This was the subject line from one of my history department colleagues during a heated discussion about the ways in which Obama’s campaign of “hope” resembled that of FDR in 1936. Our resident blow-hard in the Communication Department insisted that the economy got worse between 1933 and 1936. I dug out evidence from Historical Statistics of the United States on our library website that indicated that in fact unemployment dropped from 25 to 16 percent and that the GNP rose. Still this jerk could not believe that those of us with lady parts could actually get our facts correct. This led my colleague to write, “ I know we are only women, and therefore we just cannot get our facts right. Heather is just an expert on the New Deal, but what would she know about the Great Depression? . . . I apologize on behalf of the female faculty who presumed that we were equal with our male colleagues in the brains department. What chutzpah!

I am grateful that so many of my male colleagues felt free to tell me in so many words how completely dumb I am because I really had no idea. Here I was being respectful of differences of opinion, thinking I could expect the same, but I see now that my ideas are just plain idiocy and therefore don’t need to be respected. Thank you for pointing out that “historians ought to know better,” and “Kathy should know better,” because obviously I should but I just don’t. Oh, I think I will just go bake something…”

Right on! Maybe we female faculty should also adopt “Respect” as our personal theme song.

Campaign Theme Songs

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Political discussions on our faculty listserv have become quite nasty, with the Hilary bashers clobbering anyone who dare challenge them. So, after reading on Wonkette that the founder of the 70s’ rock band Boston, Tom Scholz (who supports Obama), wants the Huckabeast to stop using their song “More than a Feeling” without permission, and John Mellencamp has told Walnuts to lay off his “Little Pink Houses,” I asked my colleagues to list their favorite campaign theme songs.

My buddy in the English department, who hosts a show called “Frank, Gil, and Friends” on the campus radio station, not surprisingly replied:

“Not only did Frank Sinatra record the best campaign song ever, Sammy Cahn’s revision of his own lyric for “High Hopes” (with it’s “K-E-Double N-E-D-Y, Jack is the nation’s favorite guy…”), along with several other political special lyrics (as already noted), Sinatra also produced the two best inaugural galas: 1961’s or Kennedy (in the midst of a huge snowstorm in DC) and 1981’s for Reagan — despite his singing “Nancy (with the Reagan Face)”.

Of course, lest we forget, he also campaigned in ’72 with golfing buddy Spiro Agnew (singing, to the tune of Rodgers and Hart’s “The Lady is a Tramp,” “That’s why the Gentleman is a Champ”).

But, perhaps most significantly (and least known), in 1946, to promote a new health care program in one of the Carolinas or Georgia, he and Dinah Shore recorded the best health care song ever, “It’s all up to you,” which goes, in part:

“And if we do then we will be the state
where the weak grow strong
and the strong grow great.”

If the Clintons had only resurrected it back in the ’90s, I’m not unconvinced that we’d have universal health care now.

Sinatra-ly yours,

Gil

PS: The best election-themed song? John Wesley Harding’s “Election Night”

I met you on Election Night
As we cried over our beer
Nothing you could do would cheer me up
We broke up later that year
How come you and I aren’t winners?
Why weren’t we born the other side?
And it’s raining
And It’s raining
On Election Night

You fight, you fight but nothing changes
And when it does the payback’s worse
We arrived here in the limo
We’re going back home in a hearse
You know we’re leaving none the wiser
I guess that we’re just not that bright
So I’ll see you
I’ll see you
Next Election Night

These balloons look so deflated
As they slowly float on down
It’s been 4 years we’ve been waiting
For those balloons to hit the ground
It looks like you backed a real loser
Who thinks that life is black and white
And it’s raining
Yes it’s raining
On Election Night”

Another colleague, a quiet fellow from the School of Technology, came up with a Queen greatest hists list:

”

The best campaign theme song?

“Since all the winning campaigns celebrate with “We Are the Champions” by Queen

And all defeated listen to “My Melancholy Blues” by Queen

I suggest the following:

For Hillary:

“Gimme The Prize” by Queen

or “Stairway to Heaven” by Led Z (substitute word heaven with White House)

For Baraka:

“Who Needs You” by Queen

For all politicians still in the race:

“Dreamers Ball” by Queen

For all politicians who were, are or will be in the race:

“Another One Bites The Dust” by Queen

For all voters and listeners of debates:

“Radio Ga Ga” by Queen

 

Keeping in the same vein, I suggested that Walnuts switch to “Back in Black” by AC/DC. I’ll stop my ears and let Hilary have her Celine Dion. But if Obama is really about change, he should use “Fight the Power” by Public Enemy. But that would mean having to abandon his promises to the farm lobby to do for ethanol what Earl Butts did for high fructose corn syrup.

More suggestions:

“Since we have moved on to AC/DC, how about “Highway to Hell”? Open to whichever candidate would like it.” [looks like Rudy 9/11iani has that one locked up]]

“Well, musically I would have to go with everyone who loves the Chairman of the Board, though you gotta love Public Enemy, but hey, it’s too much fun to play along, so how about “Kick out the Jams” by MC5? Or “We Can Be Together” by Jefferson Airplane? (I love the thought of some flunky choosing either of these based on the titles 🙂 Then again, I think the clear winner is “Alabama Song” by Brecht and Weill. “

“At the time of Jerry Garcia’s death, former Massachusetts Republican Governor Bill Weld mused that his favorite Grateful Dead song was “Ripple”. Very lovely and mellow.
I surmise that he liked it because of these lines, apropos of politicians everywhere:

—————————–
“You who choose to lead must follow
But if you fall, you fall alone,
If you should stand, then who’s to guide you?
If I knew the way, I would take you home.”
——————–

I think the American people are leading the politicians to take our children home from Iraq. Let’s hope the politicians follow…”


Visit by Robert Jensen, thoughts on free speech and democracy

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Last week, the CCSU Communication Department hosted a visit by Robert Jensen, a journalism professor from the University of Texas, Austin. His visit was prompted in part by recent controversies regarding the student newspaper. I’m not sure if his lectures and workshop had any impact on the newspaper staff, but my students certainly found his talks informative and provocative.

His first talk gender violence and pornography provided a feminist critique of the pornography industry. His work is inspired by that of the late Andrea Dworkin, who condemned censorship laws supported by religious conservatives but argued that the pornography industry promoted violence against women. By pornography industry, Jensen means mass marketed, industrial, largely misogynist and racist products that are targeted at a male audience and are meant to maximize profits. He specifically excluded erotica and art that depicts and explores human sexuality more broadly. Like Dworkin, he sees the pornography industry as a part of a patriarchal culture that eroticizes the domination and subordination of women. This is particularly true of the “gonzo” genre, which dispenses with any pretense of plot and which is constantly pushing the envelope in regards to sex acts and cruelty. He also noted that videos tagged as “interracial” played into and reinforced historical stereotypes about black male sexuality that perpetuated white supremacy and lynching in the United States. He ended his talk by suggesting that porn not only degrades women, but also degrades men by presenting a toxic view of masculinity associated with violence and domination. During the Q&A session, I asked him about idealized portrals of the porn industry in films like “The People vs. Larry Flynt” and “Boogie Nights.” He replied that Flynt is simply a despicable human being and the idea that he is a martyr to the First Amendment even more reprehensible. He was more generous towards the ideas behind “Boogie Nights,” mentioning one female performer/filmmaker who reminisced about an earlier day when she saw the genre as in some ways liberating, but now finds the turn in the industry to be really depressing.

Jensen’s second talk, “The State of the Media and the State of our Democracy,” provided some very thoughtful commentaries on media portrayals of the war in Iraq and the current presidential campaign. In other parts of the world, the war is portrayed as an illegal violation of international law. In the U.S., however, the news media is hamstrung by the imperialist notion that the invasion paved the way for democracy. The highpoint of the talk was Jensen’s dissection of the Obama campaign. Although he likes the guy, Jensen also says he really isn’t offering any change from the status quo. This is especially true of his energy policies, which revolve around the “crazy” idea of producing ethanol as an alternative energy source — not only is this a zero sum game (producing ethanol uses as much energy if not more than it produces) — it also relies on carbon fuels (usually coal) to produce it. I asked him about misogyny surrounding the Clinton campaign. He agreed that the media has been complicit in demonizing Clinton, which he called shameful. Yet he also said that Clinton represents the “death of feminism” in that it does not represent a meaningful departure from entrenched social hierarchies.

My students seemed to get a lot out of the talks. They asked lots of good questions in class even though they were bashful during the Q&A at the talks themselves. As it turns out, this all coincides with a “great porn debate” that caps off Sex Week at Yale. I’m sure it will be impossible to get seats so I’ll just have to watch the recap on Nightline.

Another Campus Shooting

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I had hoped to blog about something else today, but felt it necessary to comment on this news report of a shooting at Louisiana Technical College in Baton Rouge.

The story is still developing but what is notable is that this case, unlike others in recent memory, involves a female student killing other female students. This adds some food for thought, I think, to Historiann’s comments on gender and violence. Penny Richards over at Disability Studies, Temple U, has found some nineteenth-century cases of girls perpetuating violence at school. Also, colleagues in criminology and human development tell me that girls are becoming more violent in schools, and percentage of women convicted of violent crime increasing.

Update: more on this case from Chronicle of Higher Education.

Stanley Fish on Hilary Haters

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Well, the countdown to Super Tuesday is on here in the land of steady habits and I’m catching up on some political reading. This entry by Stanley Fish in yesterday’s New York Times pretty much confirmed how I’m going to vote tomorrow.

Later this week we’re hosting Robert Jensen from the University of Texas, Austin, who’s going to talk about his work on gender and politics.

Before that, I may show this link from the Women’s Media Center to my women’s studies classes.

Personal anecdote related to Fish — one of the reasons I went into academia was reading about the fictional version of Fish, Morris Zap, in David Lodge’s hilarious sendup of academic life in Small World. I think I’ll re-read it before my next trip to the AHA convention.

Presentism, Poxes, and Pap Smears

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Today’s post tries to bring together a bunch of issues that have come up in my various listserv and blog reading. First, the issue of presentism came up on Christopher Green’s blog, Advances in the History of Psychology. I don’t usually read this blog, but Chris advertised this exchange on Cheiron’s listserv. Chris is concerned about edits to his history of psychology entry in Wikipedia, about 6,000 words of which Chris wrote himself. Chris objects to a contributor named “Jagged 85” who has been inserting material on medieval Islamic psychology. Because part of what Jagged 85 writes argues that the Islamic world pioneered in the treatment of mentally ill individuals, including building the first mental asylums, I asked the question, “It seems to me that a related question is what “counts” as the history of psychology. Much of the Islamic section seems concerned with treatment of mentally ill patients, i.e. clinical psychiatry. Isn’t this part of the history of psychology? If not, why not?” So far, no one has addressed this point. I should note that a certain kind of presentism is at work in Chris’ blog in that he starts from the point of view of what “counts” as psychology today, and then works backward to the field’s roots in 18th century laboratory science.

Another kind of presentism appears on in a post on Historiann. regarding the new vaccine for HPV. She ties the current controversy regarding Guardasil to earlier debates about smallpox inoculation. Since I’m currently teaching about Cotton Mather and the inoculation debate in early 18th-century Boston in my history methods class, I wrote that in Mather’s time inoculation was a risky procedure — there was no certainty that the patient would not develop a full-blown case of smallpox, the patient could still transmit smallpox to others, and because inoculation consisted of introducing pus or scabs under the skin, the risk of infection at the inoculation site was not insignificant. So, we should be careful about attributing opposition to Mather solely to ignorance — there were legitimate concerns about the safety of the procedure which were raised by physicians and laypersons alike. For more on this issue, see Maxine VandeWetering, “A Reconsideration of the Inoculation Controversy.” New England Quarterly 58/1 (1985): 46-67.

Now on to pap smears. I recently submitted a proposal for a conference on “Cancer Vaccines for Girls? The Science, Ethics, and Cultural Politics of HPV Prevention,” which is going to be held at Rutgers University in May. My plan is to relate this debate back to my earlier work on the history of gynecological exams for girls. I’d also like to comment on Karen Houppert’s article in the Nation. Although I think Houppert raises some good points, I that the term “strange bedfellows” that lumps together religious conservatives, anti-vaccine libertarians, Big Pharma critics, and “and a smattering of women’s health advocates” too easily dismisses attempts by feminist health activists to craft a nuanced reaction to this new technology. I think she is particular unfair to Amy Allina at the National Women’s Health Network. My thoughts on the issue, thus far, are that by focusing on individual attitudes and choice, and emphasizing what Allan Brandt calls the “moral valence of individual risk,” the push for universal vaccination overlooks larger public health issues such as socioeconomic status and access to health care services. Until there is a greater social commitment to meeting the health needs of uninsured and underinsured women, a disproportionate number of whom are from racial minorities, these women will lack the routine preventive care more privileged women take for granted.