Know your pronouns
Chartreuse Flamethrower (who sometimes comments here as Z2) has a really excellent post up about choosing your pronouns correctly. Here’s the crux of the issue:
Pronouns are a big deal for transgendered people. Calling a trans man (female to Male) ’she’ is at best misinformed and at worst purposefully hurtful and can be a very painful thing. Calling a non-binary ‘he’ or ’she’ is just as inaccurate, which brings up another problem- the English language isn’t equipped for gender neutrality.
They go on to discuss several options for more appropriate pronouns, and the pros and cons of each. It’s a very insightful and thorough post, while still being concise and understandable. The post title sums it up well in that it is both “an explanation and a request” (for respectful behavior), which is why I think it’s so important to pass this on to my readers — especially those of you who don’t usually encounter, and so probably don’t spend much time thinking about, gender identity issues. It’s definitely worth your time. What are you waiting for — read it!
Does this give you hope?
Alongside Twitter and Tumblr, we’ve also seen the proliferation of ultra-brief update sites like F My Life, Texts From Last Night, and My Life Is Average. They’re borderline-addictive to read, but a lot of the posts can be pretty depressing and/or depraved. I sometimes like to check out the sites It Made My Day and Gives Me Hope for more positive stories. IMMD makes me smile because the stories are so bizarre and funny, while GMH is more of the inspirational variety — so much so that it occasionally comes full circle around to sadness again. You know, kids with terminal cancer saying really sweet things to comfort their parents, formerly suicidal teens finding a reason to love life and finally stop cutting themselves, stories like this.
Lately GMH has been making me sad, but not quite for the usual reason. Here are a few recent, poignant examples of this depressing flavor of “inspirational.” All the bold and extra spacing is original, from the site.
Last Sunday, my dad was at a church service in Austin, TX. An obviously homeless man sat next to him in the pew.
During the offering, the man put $2 into the basket.
Selflessness GMH.
That’s right, we’re supposed to be hopeful about humanity because a man who really couldn’t afford it somehow scraped together some money to give to a church. Aren’t churches supposed to be helping the poor, not taking their money? I don’t know what it means to be “obviously homeless,” but I assume it means he appeared unwashed, with ragged or dirty clothes, and maybe seemed noticeably in need of medical or dental care. I’m pretty sure he could have put those couple dollars to better use at a laundromat, or Goodwill, or a grocery store. What’s the great thing the church is going to do with it — buy some new hymnals? Send some solar-powered audio Bibles to Haiti? Best case scenario, they put it towards a soup kitchen, a shelter, or other resources for the neediest in society. I think Jesus would want this man to keep his two dollars, this week and every week, at least until he is able to get his own life back on track. (Or for him to give away as much money to the church as possible, so God would make him rich. Either way.)
Today, the pastor of my church anounced that his 19-year-old daughter was pregnant out of wed-lock.
As the pastor’s wife began to cry, a little boy ran up to her and hugged her saying, “It’s okay! Babies are the best thing in the world, no matter what.” GMH
I’m sorry, no. It does not give me hope to think that this 19-year-old girl — just getting started with adulthood and figuring out what life she wants for herself — is going to be putting her life on hold indefinitely to raise a child she is probably nowhere near ready to care for, even if she had a stable partner to help, which it sounds like she doesn’t. It does not give me hope to think of the child who will grow up around grandparents (and presumably also parent/s) who were sorrowful and ashamed when they anticipated the baby’s birth, rather than proud and eager to move forward into a new and exciting part of their lives. Without further details, I am also left to assume that this girl probably missed out on anything resembling comprehensive sex education, at home or at school, all in the name of purity and devoutness. I am left to assume that if she had been more informed about how babies are made and not made, this whole thing could have been avoided. Look, I like babies too. Babies are great. But at some point we have to admit that being pregnant is not an awesome development for every female person at every point in time. Pretending otherwise is just sad.
I recently rung up a young boy and his mother. When he saw me at the register, wearing a hijab, he grinned broadly at me. As they were walking away afterwards, he tugged on his mom’s sleeve and said,
“Did you see her, ma? She’s gorgeous! I bet that’s why she’s all covered up.”
He GMH.
This anecdote fails to give me hope for precisely the reason it seems to give hope to others: this little boy is exactly right. I wouldn’t stop a woman from wearing a hijab if she really wanted to; I appreciate the importance of cultural history and tradition in some people’s lives. For some, the hijab is basically just a form of traditional dress, so who cares about where it came from. But it is important to remember that the origins of the tradition are pretty suspicious from a gender equality standpoint. There is no clear commandment in the Koran that women must cover themselves in precisely this way. The commonly cited passages sound more like suggestions, and are not specific. An ultimately more revealing passage can be found in the hadiths: “O Allah’s Apostle! I wish you ordered your wives to cover themselves from the men because good and bad ones talk to them.” Yes, by request rather than by divine order, these women (well, at least Muhammad’s wives) must be covered (in some way or other) because they are getting nonzero attention from men, and this ought to be stopped. That is the philosophy behind this tradition. So yes, it would seem that you are all covered up because you are too gorgeous to be seen by men around you. It’s nice that a little boy thought you looked pretty even though you were dressed differently than most of the people he saw in your store, but his comment is so emblematic of a larger problem that it doesn’t give me hope, it takes some of my hope away.
What is Acts 29?
You may recall Pastor Winfield Bevins from my post last week. Pastor Bevins’ byline on the Resurgence blog lists him as an “Acts 29 Pastor.” Curious as to what that was, I first tried to look up Acts 29 on Bible Gateway, but apparently it doesn’t exist. (Acts stops at 28.) So, I followed the link at the bottom of the Resurgence site to Acts 29 Network.
I couldn’t find any explicit explanation of the name on their site, but I assume their intention is to imply that their work is the “next chapter,” as it were, of the “Acts of the Apostles” (or the “Acts of the Holy Spirit,” whatever you prefer to call it). Their About section says that “Acts 29 Network exists to start churches that plant churches.” They go on to say that their intention is “to plant 1,000 new churches in the next 10 years.” (That’s one new church about every three and a half days, so… good choice not to have a starting date prominently displayed. Good luck with that!) The page explaining their doctrine says that they are “first Christians, second Evangelicals, third Missional, and fourth Reformed.”
Well, okay, so what does this doctrine actually say? Most of it is pretty straightforward. I did like the line: “First, we are Christians which distinguishes us from other world religions and cults.” Heh. Okay, if you say so. As Evangelicals they “believe the Bible to be the inspired, the only infallible, authoritative Word of God,” and you already know what I think about that subject. I’m curious which parts of the Bible they’re choosing to care about when they say that, as Missionals, they “believe that our local churches must be faithful to the content of unchanging Biblical doctrine,” and I also wonder how their churches can do that and simultaneously “be faithful to the continually changing context of the culture(s) in which they minister.” All the bullet points under the list for being Reformed sound pretty traditional to me; some other time I’ll look into what the term means in this context.
Of perhaps more note are the things which Act 29 Network does not endorse. There is a long list.
For example, they write, “We are not fundamentalists who retreat from cultural involvement and transformation, but rather missionaries faithful both to the content of Scripture and context of ministry.” They also write, “We are not liberals who embrace culture without discernment and compromise the distinctives of the gospel, but rather Christians who believe the truths of the Bible are eternal and therefore fitting for every time, place, and people.” (Aside: note the implication that “liberal” and “Christian” are mutually exclusive… also, that liberals don’t use “discernment.”)
First of all, I’m not sure I would say that fundamentalism is generally known for advocating retreat from attempts to transform culture. But even if we take that for granted, what exactly does it mean when they say they’ll be faithful to the context of ministry, if they think there is one set of rules for everyone at every time in every place? It sure sounds like they respect cultural differences, but they have two distinct bullet points in this list proclaiming that they are not “relativists.” I guess they remain faithful to the context of ministry by telling people to change only in the specific ways they need to. But they’re not fundamentalists! They just think the Bible has only one set of truths which absolutely everyone ought to live by!
They also have a statement called Acts 29 and Alcohol [PDF] which lists vomiting as among one of many sins resulting from drunkenness (citing three verses, none of which seem to really say that it’s a sin, just that it’s nasty). I guess you’re just out of luck if you get the flu or food poisoning!
But my favorite thing that Acts 29 Network doesn’t like, other than fundamentalists, liberals, and vomit, is egalitarianism. Yeah, that totally crazy notion that people should be treated as equals, with the same rights. In a blockquote so you can’t miss it:
We are not egalitarians and do believe that men should head their homes and male elders/pastors should lead their churches with masculine love like Jesus Christ.
Well, that sheds some light on this mysterious no-girls-allowed event that Act 29 is apparently promoting in Columbus, OH called Act Like Men. I know many evangelical Christians think wives should be subservient to their husbands, but I always thought “egalitarian” was an unambiguously positive word. If you were going to say that you didn’t think men and women have equal worth, I’d expect you’d find some more positive way to say it. Maybe you “believe in traditional gender roles,” or perhaps you “believe in celebrating the naturally different strengths of men and women.” Both of those are crap (the first slightly more than the second), but at least they don’t sound so blatantly awful. It’s really demonstrative of exactly how anti-woman this group is, that they don’t even perceive a negative connotation from saying, “We are not egalitarians.” Even a genuinely stingy person would probably describe themselves as frugal instead.
I know that some people are less than thrilled when I do these “somebody is wrong on the internet” kind of posts. To be honest, it’s not my favorite thing either. But it feels important. This isn’t just somebody; this is a large group of somebodies trying to start a new church every three or four days. This is truly a network of organizations, spread out all over the world. The Resurgence blog, just one part of the Acts 29 Network, has a sidebar promoting their Facebook page where they have over 14,000 fans. They have more fans than Fareed Zakaria, even if you add together the page for just himself and for his CNN show. I know that’s a silly, random measure, but I think it’s enough to say that if it’s worth discussing Zakaria’s opinions here, it’s worth discussing Acts 29’s.
Also, I hope that a couple of those 14,000+ fans, and some prospective future ones, stumble across this post and give it some real thought. Does this group’s belief system really make sense to you? (If so, please explain it to me.) Is this really the kind of group you want to be a part of?
More on gamer stereotypes
By way of follow-up on my post from Wednesday, here are some interesting tidbits from a recent LA Times article (via):
- Women spend more time playing online role-playing games than men.
- Women “play more intensely” than men and “are happier playing.”
- Women play “less aggressively” than men, especially when gaming with a male romantic partner.
- Women prefer in general to play games with others, while men prefer to play alone.
Reporter Alex Pham sums it up in a nutshell, saying
Why does this matter? In part, because developers have puzzled for years to figure out ways to get women to buy and play more games. Figuring out what motivates them to play is a key step.
I think this study sounds right in line with what commenters Chris Guin and Emily K were saying on Wednesday’s post. Gaming on the Wii, “dancing” to DDR, games with complex and inclusive storylines… all these things attract more people to video games one one level simply because they increase the diversity of available games, and thus the probability that there’s a game out there someone will find interesting. But it seems that the particular aspects of group gameplay or more engaging storylines are especially appealing to women, in the aggregate.
Oh, and happy new year, everyone!
Video games for girls
Here is a TED talk from 1998 by Brenda Laurel, software designer and researcher who founded Purple Moon, in which she discusses her philosophy about making video games for young female gamers (via Sociological Images).
I actually owned and played one of Purple Moon’s games, Rockett’s New School, on our old Power Mac back in middle school. Honestly, I found it mildly entertaining while it lasted, but ultimately not worth playing again. It has a plot that you could only deviate from slightly (disappointing given the box’s promise that you’ll “make choices that change what happens”). I never really felt like I did anything — mostly just watched things happen. I didn’t hate it, but it didn’t seem like much more than a primitively interactive sitcom.
I may not be a typical female computer user, and it’s possible that other girls loved it. It certainly sounds like Laurel and her company did plenty of research to back up their design. But this video got me thinking: what should video games designed for girls look like?
Now hold on for a second before you jump all over that sentence. Yes, we’re dealing with stereotypes here. Obviously not every girl would like a “video game for girls” just like not every boy would like a “video game for boys” — and this is true of all the other gendered toys out there as well. (To say nothing of the glaringly false binaries!) But, but, but. Let’s accept for a moment that in order to develop and market a product and ideally keep one’s business afloat, one has to think of the big picture, find a large enough target group, and so on. Some level of generalization is necessary.
The Rockett model of girl’s games hasn’t exactly made it to the big time over the past decade, yet female gamers are a substantial demographic. In 2005, a Nielsen study counted nearly 40% of gamers were female, and I’d expect the numbers are even closer to even now. Perhaps the barely-interactive, storybook-type game wasn’t really what girls were looking for after all, and perhaps that “certain flavor of feminist” was right to point out that the premise is kind of demeaning. Sure, girls do think a lot about the social choices they make daily, and do enjoy narrative play, but must their games be so tightly restricted to those stipulations that the ideal game for them consists of helping an eighth-grader navigate middle school cliques? I doubt it.
Look at the most popular games of this year — it’s stuff like Call of Duty, Dragon Age, Assassin’s Creed, Left 4 Dead. We’re on the edge of our seats waiting for the next StarCraft game to come out. Arguably these are all male-targeted games, though females play them too. Regardless, I don’t think that this screenshot (from StarCraft 2) is intended to remind guys of their daily lives:
Most people don’t want to play games that closely mirror their everyday thoughts and actions. Most people, I think, wouldn’t even call such a thing a game. Most of the games we play — board games, computer games, pretend games we made up for ourselves as children — are based on the fantastic, the unfamiliar, the surprising and new. They incorporate elements of the familiar but give us a new context in which to experience it. If they didn’t, why would we play the game? We’d just go out and live our lives, and it’d be equally fun.
I think the question that game developers should be asking themselves isn’t so much “What do girls think about?” as “What do girls want to think about?” And perhaps also: “How does that differ from what boys want to think about?” I suspect that these questions will lead girls’-game developers to reduce the number of huge-breasted heroines and probably also the extent to which games are centered around gruesome destruction of one’s opponent. Change the average level of testosterone in your target audience, and you’re pretty likely to change their demand for such things.
So what would developers replace those things with? I haven’t done the market research, so I can only offer my conjecture, based on my own gaming experience and conversations with friends. Although I enjoy real-time strategy games like Warcraft and StarCraft, and remember really liking some first-person shooter games like Heretic, the aspects of those games I most enjoy have always tended to be the “building” rather than the “battle” ones. I like the parts where you set up a base, get upgrades, or train for new skills. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that I also love games like SimCity and Civilization. (And hey, maybe it’s my girly nature, my interest in social interactions, that makes me appreciate the diplomacy and public relations aspects of games like these.) I’ve also heard of games more in the FPS mold where, instead of walking your character into another battle, you walk them into a puzzle challenge. That’s not typically my cup of tea but I know girls and women who enjoy it.
At the end of the day, I hope people remember that male-targeted games are currently enjoyed by girls and women, and female-targeted games can be enjoyed by boys and men. I doubt that when they began their long line of Sim games the developers at Maxis were even thinking of a female audience in particular, but I’m sure they had a sizable one even before The Sims. “Video games for girls” don’t have to be all about fashion and parties and make-up in order to be appealing; simply by having a premise other than wreaking testosterone-fueled havoc they are making a major step in the direction of inclusivity.
News on the math gap
We interrupt these long essays on religious belief to bring you a tidbit of news about math education!
Back at the beginning of the month, the MIT News Office reported on a recent paper by economics professor Glenn Ellison and econ PhD student Ashley Swanson regarding the gender gap in math performance. Their research showed “not only that girls are a small minority of elite high school math students, but also that the prevalence of high-achieving girls in math varies from school to school.” It’s a very interesting result.
This extreme concentration of talent strongly indicates the crucial role that environmental factors, not just innate ability, play in shaping the accomplishments of students. “It’s significant that the top girls are coming from a very, very small subset of schools with strong math programs,” says Ellison. “That suggests most of the girls who could be doing well, aren’t doing well. The thousands and thousands of other schools in the United States must have a lot of talent, too, but it’s not coming out.”
I’m really happy about this work because so much of the dialogue about gender disparity in STEM fields centers around anecdotes, or on assertions of trends which, while convincing, are still assertions. And I think that’s part of why it’s still such a contentious issue. If we’re ever going to reach a consensus about the extent of the problem and what, if anything, should be done about it, we need to roll up our sleeves and crunch some numbers. (And okay, I’ll admit, I’m also happy about this paper because it makes me feel a little more secure about not having done so well on the AMC back in high school.)
There’s a PDF of the paper online, so give that a read if you’re interested in more details.
Cis and trans
I’ve read a couple posts by recursiveparadox lately (here: the first and the second) about the prefix/word “cis,” as in “cisgender,” meaning the opposite of “transgender.” Apparently there has been some sort of huge uproar—follow the many links in RP’s posts if you are interested—because some people think the word “cis” is a slur. It’s intended to refer only to the fact of not being trans, to help in a situation that would be awkward at best and unfairly normative at worst (since “normal” or “regular” are the words that come to mind if you are trying to name that side in a comparison).
I agree with RP when she says that, “It is not a weapon, it is a classifier, used for discourse only.” I cannot imagine why anyone would be offended by it… but my intention is not to rehash that argument or to take anyone to task. (RP does a more than adequate job.) My reason for posting is that, as a scientist, I am very excited about this term. It is awesome! It is brilliant!
I think I did hear “cisgender” once a few years ago but didn’t run into it again until I read this stuff, and I guess I didn’t see the connection before. In all the posts I read in my wild goose chase to understand this recent controversy, I only saw one passing reference to the origins of the term. I feel like explaining it might take some of the edge off the anger that folks are apparently feeling out there, so here goes.
This is trans-2-butene. The CH3 functional groups are on opposite sides of the double bond.
This is cis-2-butene. The CH3 functional groups are on the same side of the double bond.
(Images thanks to Wikipedia.) So… if your gender identity is opposite that of your birth sex, we say you are transgender. And then, if your gender identity is the same as your birth sex, what to call you? Cisgender, of course! Not an insult. Not even a value judgment. Just a clever borrowing of a simple fact from chemistry! (Science to the rescue!)
Of course, even this terminology still presents gender identity as a binary rather than a continuum; it’s not perfectly inclusive. I think we ought to be able to agree, however, that it’s a significant improvement over comparisons between “trans” people and “normal” people. Apparently, the word “cisgender” has been in use since the mid-1990s. I’m surprised it hasn’t caught on more since then.
Ada Lovelace Day
Perhaps you recall my pledge a couple months back to participate in Ada Lovelace Day, a blogging celebration of women in technology. (Lovelace was the first computer programmer, even before there were computers. She wrote code for Babbage’s analytical engine before it was built.) The pledge needed 1,000 signers to go into effect, and as of right now it has nearly twice that: 1,980. Nearly two thousand people are writing today about a woman in technology they admire. Too cool!
I’ve chosen to write about Stephanie Kwolek, the DuPont chemist who is best known for having invented Kevlar (poly-paraphenylene terephtalamide) in 1964. Five times as strong as steel, Kevlar has found many applications, from sports equipment to synthetic woodwind reeds to bulletproof vests. Kwolek worked on many other synthetic materials, including Lycra and Spandex (probably pretty familiar to you), Nomex (flame-resistant and used by firefighters and race car drivers), and Kapton (used in flexible electronics and space suits).
Stephanie Kwolek graduated in 1946 with a B.S. in chemistry from Margaret Morrison Carnegie College, the now-closed women’s college associated with Carnegie Mellon University. She wanted to go on to medical school but couldn’t afford it, and interviewed for a research position at DuPont. I love this story about her interview:
After [W. Hale] Charch indicated that he would let her know in about two weeks whether she would be offered a job, Kwolek asked him if he could possibly make a decision sooner since she had to reply shortly to another offer. Charch called in his secretary and in Kwolek’s presence dictated a job offer letter. In later years, reflecting upon this bold request for a woman to make in 1946, she suspected that her assertiveness influenced his decision in her favor.
Kwolek holds 28 patents and has won many awards recognizing her contributions to the polymers industry. In 1995 she was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. In 1996 she won the National Medal of Technology “for her contributions to the discovery, development and liquid [crystal] processing of high-performance aramid fibers which provide new products worldwide to save lives and benefit humankind.” She also won the Lemelson-MIT Lifetime Acheivement Award in 1999.
Kwolek’s biography in the “Winner’s Circle” on the Lemelson-MIT Program’s website catalogues her many contributions, and also notes that she began her education and career in chemistry
during a time when women were encouraged to be homemakers instead of going to school. Inspired and supported by her parents to pursue this route, Kwolek comments, “I recommend that parents encourage their daughters to pursue scientific careers, if they are so inclined, in the same way they would their sons. The opportunities for both sexes are far more equal now.” Though she faced gender discrimination as she rose to the top, she paved the way for other aspiring female scientists and now serves as a mentor to many.
I found this profile of Kwolek, originally broadcast on public radio as part of a series on women in science. It sounds like she’d be an amazing mentor. She’s certainly an inspiration:
“I discovered over the years,” she said, “that I seemed to see things that other people did not see. Generally, if things don’t work out, I don’t just throw them out, I struggle over them, to try to see if there’s something there. You have to be inquisitive about things. You have to have an open mind.”
That same program notes that as a child, Kwolek had dreamed of being a fashion designer. It makes a nice story, to have wanted to be a fashion designer or a doctor, and end up using chemistry to design fabrics that save lives. I think it’s also interesting in terms of our preconceptions about what being a scientist means and what scientists ought to care about. It’s another reminder that liking traditionally feminine things is not mutually exclusive with being a successful scientist. Additionally, it underscores the fact that the messages we send children matter. Kwolek’s parents could have fostered only her interest in sewing, but they encouraged her to study science. If they hadn’t, the world would really be missing out.
Remembering Kitty Genovese
I can’t say this any better, so I want to send you to Skepchick to read bug_girl’s post.
Today, 45 years ago, a beautiful young woman was sexually assaulted and stabbed in New York. The assault lasted half an hour, and occurred outside of an apartment building where 38 witnesses either heard or saw the attack and did nothing to stop it.
They did nothing.
[...]
I have chosen to be open about my status as a rape survivor because I don’t think it’s something I should be ashamed of. I didn’t make it happen–it just happened. Also, as someone who has the benefit of 20+ years of time and healing, I can say things that more recent survivors may not be able to.
What I want to know is: What are YOU doing to prevent this from happening again? Or about any violence against women?
Go. Read it. And think about it.
Reading about women’s lib
I recently acquired a copy of Gabrielle Burton’s book, I’m Running Away From Home but I’m Not Allowed to Cross the Street. It’s “a primer on women’s liberation,” and it’s a really interesting window into what life was like for women in the US in 1972, when it was written. Some of the things Burton writes about still ring true today, while other things sound to me like they were written on an alien planet. I’m captivated by it.
I’m about halfway through the book so far, but it occurred to me that it raised so many interesting political and social issues that I would be remiss not to blog about it alongside my reading. You can expect several upcoming posts about topics such as gender roles, family and parenting, and “women’s issues” (as well as some exploration of what that phrase means). While I get back to combing the first 100 pages for passages that should have made it into posts, I’ll leave you with this quotation from the beginning of the Foreword. I think it does an excellent job setting the tone for the rest of the work.
Betty Friedan, Kate Millett, and Germaine Greer have already written definitive books on the Women’s Movement. Like the three sisters, the books are brilliant, beautiful, and have a lot of class. I keep the trilogy by my front door so that anyone who enters will know where I stand. But none of these books are ones that a person reads in her bathtub. They contain such a wealth of unfamiliar, challenging insights that even the determined reader often succumbs to the temptation to tackle them another day. This primer is to read in that interim.