-
sponsorship
Emily, Meghan and I have been conducting a dialogue in Slate for fellow Friday Night Lights addicts. One of my entries discussed the house of Tim Riggins. It inspired this poem "in the style of Billy Collins" from Ann Scanlan, a reader in Ireland.
The Perfect Chaos of Tim Riggins' Living Room
The cardboard beer girl
stands and surveys
the perfect chaos
of Tim Riggins' living room:
yesterday's dishes and last week's laundry
empty bottles and crushed cans
the place for everything is
wherever it was dropped or tossed.
A teenage boy stumbling through
another moody day, looking for
some kind of a family life in a home
where beer is a major food group.
-
sponsorship
Dayo, it's giving a little too much credit where credit doesn't belong to say Republicans "ruled" by hissy fit on the contraceptive provision. You could claim that it was removed thanks, obliquely, to House Minority Leader John Boehner and the other GOPers who turned it into a big story, but at bottom (no jokes, please), it was removed for Democrats' sake. The Blue Dog Democrats, that is, who could have sunk the stimulus had they voted en masse against it and who—having run on heroic promises to crusade against fiscal irresponsibility—were feeling super antsy about the whole $819 billion bonanza.
Usually, the House GOP's bellyaching about being victimized by Nancy Pelosi and left out of the "process" strikes me as so many crocodile tears. Did any more vomitous image emerge from last fall's congressional session than that of Eric Cantor, then the GOP's chief deputy whip, waving a copy of a "partisan" speech by Nancy Pelosi in front of the cameras and claiming that it had so hurt his delicate-flower Republican colleagues' feelings they'd refused to vote for the financial bailout? But I actually think the Republicans performed a type of useful minority function in this whole contraceptive thing: publicizing a conservative objection to the bill so that more conservative-minded Democrats could consider whether it might sway them, too.
But "ruled" by hissy fit? No Republican voted for the stimulus, even after the contraceptive provision was yanked. But it didn't matter, because hey hey, it still passed the House! Some rule. I know it's considered a moral defeat for Obama that tonight's stimulus vote was party-line, but frankly, I kind of liked it. The GOP might have thought it was in "the minority" last year, but this New York Times lede is what it really feels like to be in the minority: "Without a single Republican vote, President Obama won House approval on Wednesday ..."
Maybe more of these ledes will finally prompt some soul-searching.
-
sponsorship
Dayo,
Forgive me, but didn't we just spend eight years complaining that George Bush and Congress were saddling future generations with an unfair burden of debt? (I was no fan of the GOP-led Congress, believe me.) And wasn't one of the many complaints about the Patriot Act that it was rushed through and congressfolk didn't have time to read it? But now we have a proposal that will end up costing $1 trillion with interest and a president who says there is not a "moment to spare," and yet it's the Republicans with their concerns who are trying to "rule by ... hissy fit." (Um, also, aren't the Democrats in the majority here?) [Note: The NYT reports that the package has passed the House. It apparently went through without the contraceptives, but with $335 million for STD prevention.]
Now that they are out of power, the Republicans have an opportunity—and a responsibility—to start living up to their historical reputations for fiscal conservatism. House Minority Leader John Boehner had compiled a long list of concerns about the stimulus package, of which the complaint about contraceptives was just one item. For example, the creation of 32 new government programs that will cost $136 billion. What happens when they've spent their stimulus money? Will the programs go away? And then there's the fact that this is being sold as an "infrastructure" package, yet only 25 percent of the infrastructure dollars would be spent in the first year. (So, why the rush?)
I'm not an economist. I have no idea if the stimulus is going to work. It might be the only thing standing between us and a depression, or, as Politico pointed out today, even $1 trillion on stimulus might not be enough. But what I do know, is that if we're going to go ahead with this massive and hugely expensive project (the Senate takes it up next week), I want the focus to be on creating jobs quickly and getting money pumping through the economy. Whether that is through infrastructure or corporate tax breaks, I don't care. But I don't think that $200 million for contraceptives would create as many jobs as it could if directed toward some other purpose. There are lots of generic oral contraceptives, for example, which cost less (yay for Medicaid and our tax dollars) but reduce the incentive for pharmaceutical companies to have people out there selling (profitable) brand-name alternatives. And while $5 billion might sound like a big industry, it's comparable to what we spend on Halloween. Heck, the porn industry has asked for a bailout worth $5 billion. I'd much rather see that $200 million go as tax breaks to small businesses in return for hiring new employees, or a necessary infrastructure project (maybe a couple of bridges to SOMEWHERE, for a change). It's got nothing to do with scorn for women's health.
-
sponsorship
My old compatriots at Jezebel mocked the tone-deaf women behind the blog Dating a Banker Anonymous earlier today.This gaggle of entitled broads (known as DABAs) was featured in a New York Times article. In a nutshell, these women have seen their relationships become difficult because their banker-lovers have fallen on hard times and are no longer the carefree captains of industry they were in the halcyon days of 2006.
Anyway! Their hubris is easy to make fun of, but what struck me was the final two paragraphs in the Times article:
Despite the seemingly endless stream of disparaging remarks and shaking heads, some of the appeal of dating a banker remains.
"It's not even about a $200 dinner," Petrus said. "It's that he's an alpha male, he's aggressive, he's a go-getter, he doesn't take no for an answer, he's confident, people respect him and that creates the whole mystique of who he is."
Maybe I'm reading between the lines too much, but it sort of sounds like these women like bankers not because of the money, but because they're jerks. This suspicion was confirmed by one of today's entries on the DABA site titled, "Ain't Messin' With No Broke Banker."
"Overnight, he went from unavailable to downright clingy. He wants to have dinner every night. By dinner I mean staying in and cooking as Megu is no longer in the budget," laments a sad, sad DABA. "Thanks to the recession, I now have a completely devoted BF, which is exactly what I wanted. So I should be happy, right? Wrong. I’m bored and can’t stop thinking about my perpetually unattainable Euro ex-boyfriend who is recession proof courtesy of an offshore trust account." Is it possible that even if Donald Trump were broke, he'd still be a model magnet as long as he remained emotionally adolescent?
Even though they may date wealthy louts, don't cry for the DABA girls: Word on the street is they've locked down a book deal for their tales of fiscal woe.
-
sponsorship
In a blatant, desperate, and misguided bid for page-views and newsstand sales, More (More? Does anyone read More? I don't know if I've ever even seen a copy in my doctor's office) asked three women writers to weigh in on Sarah Palin. Days, weeks, months later, Palin still "sells." Their responses are a heady mix of maddening, confused, and inane.
Lisa Schiffren writes: "Knowing that conservative, evangelical Christian women want their daughters to see such a role model [as Palin] tells us that feminism, in its best sense, has won its central battle." Eh? What? I can't even figure out what that means. According to Schiffren, Hillary is a bombastic careerist, but Palin is all right because she's more "Sam's Club than Yale Club." When Sam's Club becomes your selling point, I remain unsold. Ergo, Palin is the Wal-Mart of politics. If you get what you pay for, I am glad I passed on her in the vice presidents aisle.
Next up, Kellyanne Conway wonders: "Is Sarah Palin a Plus for Women?" My vote? No. Unless by "plus" you mean "minus." If that, then yes. Conway takes issue with all the "unsavory talk" that arose around Palin. (Full disclosure: I wrote about the Sarah Palin inflatable love doll, which, I assure you, was most unsavory of me.) What did the Palin experience teach the women of America? "If you dare to seek standing in any powerful institution, attacks on your husbands, hairdos, handbags, and haute couture will be just the beginning." God help us when they come for our intellects. The fallout from this "so-called sisterhoods" (that's you, feminists) "Palin impaling"? "At a minimum, we'll see a chilling effect on women venturing outside their usual realms, speaking in anything but broadcaster English, and wearing anything but a safe, neutral uniform." When we're all wearing beige, we'll know who to blame. The feminists.
Finally, we hear from Cathy Young. Young's bite-sized take on America's hate-hate relationship with Palin is that liberal women were wanting Hillary in the White House, Palin came along and messed that up, but everything worked out fine in the end because we have a new face of feminism, and that face is attached to Sarah Palin's head. "If nothing else, she has given feminism a new face, with profound appeal to women of different ages and walks of life." No regrets for those who got Palin tattoos, then.
What is going on here? Is this feminism? Neo-conservatism with a vagina? Insanity? If Palin is the new face of feminism, I'd like to request a post-feminist president, please.
-
sponsorship
I’m a bit disappointed by President Obama’s rude expurgation of contraceptive planning from the “economic recovery package”—as we’re being asked to call the stimulus bill that’s working its way through Congress. Perhaps I’m just not down with all the euphemism on tap this week: Why not just call “Republican skepticism” here on the Hill what it is—an attempt to derail the future expansion of health coverage, couched in a puritanical queasiness with contraception. Lisa Lerer reports Minority leader John Boehner asking: “How can you spend millions of dollars on contraceptives? How does that stimulate the economy?” Well, John—hot button-ness aside—birth control is a commodity bought and sold like any other.
I agree with EJ that in many cases (I felt this way about Rick Warren) progressives should attempt to see the forest, not the offending tree. But here, it’s not just a bunch of women begging for their crazy pills! The Democratic White House’s concession of rhetorical and political ground—about whether contraception (a better than average return on public investment) and other Medicaid assistance counts as “stimulus” or not—could have outsized effects on the future of the universal health coverage debate. Over at the Washington Independent, Lindsay Beyerstein makes roughly this point. Harold Pollack and Nicholas Beaudrot at TAP make it explicit: We’re now, the latter writes, subject to “rule by Republican hissy fit.”
Who knows whether it’s the public climate that requires lifting of the odious global gag rule to be done under cover of media darkness, or the lightweight status afforded to “women’s health” in general—but birth control represents an arm of the pharmaceutical industry that nets drugmakers over $5 billion annually—perhaps even in a recession. I imagine the investors of $5 billion in any other American industry could, presumably, expect some back-scratching, be it through money kicked into the search for a better product, or strenuous lobbying to ensure access to said product is available to American women—especially those planning families, and seeking “economic recovery” from the new Congress.
-
sponsorship
Hello Yasmine, welcome to the meeting. I appreciate Hillary and Chelsea’s close relationship, but I don’t find it that unusual among the women in my circle to have strong, impressive, female offspring. We didn’t simply raise our daughters to be participants in the world. We conspired with them to take the world over. These young post-feminists were encouraged, applauded, educated, groomed and imbued with every opportunity we could offer, especially the ones their mothers missed out on. My adult daughter outpaced me years ago. I was a TV news producer for one of those ratings-driven network magazine shows that proliferated in the 1990s, and she, not long out of NYU, told me she wanted to make documentaries. I was flattered she wanted to follow in my shoes and offered at once to help her meet my colleagues. We were on the phone, but I could hear her eyes roll as she explained she wanted to make vérité features, not the correspondent-narrated consumer and medical alert pieces I labored over. A year or two later, she and another woman director had formed a production company and I, too tired for even one more “wheels up at 7 a.m.” breaking story, left the juggling act for more tranquil journalistic pursuits. Since then, I have watched the two women indefatigably create and innovate in a medium come into its own right along with them. The women of their generation are amazons but their mothers, Hillary included, are not at all surprised.
-
sponsorship
We welcome this guest post from Yasmine Ergas, who teaches international law at the School of International and Public Affairs of Columbia University and is the associate director of the Center for the Study of Human Rights.
Earlier this year, French minister of justice, Rachida Dati, created shock waves, not so much by giving birth out of wedlock and refusing to divulge the name of the father, but by going back to work after only five short days. Last spring, the Spanish minister of defense, Carme Chacon, proudly reviewed the troops, pregnant belly first. And on Jan. 13, Hillary Clinton appeared at her confirmation hearing with Chelsea at her side. Are these women, Hillary in particular, heralding a new way of politics by bringing female solidarity, maternity, and womanly ways of being into the traditionally male—and adamantly masculine—enclosures of government?
Sometime in the middle of her campaign, after Bill had made one too many offensive remarks, Hillary changed strategy: Bill was relegated to the background. The iconic Clinton family had never done much for her candidacy anyway. Those pictures a' trois on the campaign trail served as a perpetual reminder of unsavory domestic relations rather than as a net positive. It was smart of Hillary to let Bill go silently into his foundation's night.
In place of the threesome came Hillary and Chelsea. A grown woman with her grown daughter. Sure, it was a unit made of shared ambitions and intense grooming. But it was also a unit made of similarity and difference, of experience and apprenticeship, of a solidarity that runs both ways. Standing next to each other on a podium, working the crowds together, they seemed to acknowledge that there was a reason why it was just the two of them up there, and that reason might not have been of their own making. Surely, neither Hillary nor Chelsea had invited Gennifer Flowers, or Monica Lewinsky, or any of their ilk, into their household. Of course, mobilizing Chelsea wasn't just circumstantial, it was also clever politics. It brought some youth appeal (not much, to be honest) to counter Obama's messianic status among the young. It dispelled the idea that Bill would be the real president. Even more, having her child around feminized Hilary. It promised to transform the incipient dragon lady—the "monster" that Samantha Power had invoked—into a mother figure.
And that transformation emphasized the idea that the relationship between mother and child can stand on its own terms, that what can be passed from mother to daughter includes knowledge about how to be out there in the world, that a woman with children is not a woman alone. So it is actually Hillary and Chelsea who are iconic. They represent all those women who, in fact or in fantasy, have brought up their daughters to be participants in the world.
-
sponsorship
Apologies for the pun, but it's hard to be clever when your heart is breaking. Domino, the home design magazine from Conde Nast—and sister publication to Lucky and Cookie—is folding. I truly love this magazine, as my 3-foot-tall stack of well-thumbed back issues can attest. (June Thomas, ever the finder of silver linings, points out that at least my collection has now shot up in value.) What I particularly loved about Domino was its friendly, service-y vibe. Yes, there was much parading of beautiful, costly things—what E.J. might call real estate porn. But there was also a lot of solid, useful design advice that even a poor studio dweller with a limited budget could learn from. Domino really spoke to the New Victorian in me, the homebody that craved the lovely, the handmade, the chicly comfortable, and I'll be sad to see it go. Now, who wants to trade a November 2006 for a September 2005? (For disclosure's sake, I should mention that Domino's editor-in-chief, Deborah Needleman, is married to Jacob Weisberg, head of the Slate Group.)
-
sponsorship
OK, Will, I am fuzzing up your thesis about sex difference because I wonder about how grounded parts of it are, and like I said, I find exaggerations of sex difference slightly maddening. So a few thoughts in response to yours (and from here on out I am channeling Slate columnist Amanda Schaffer, who knows much more than I do about all of this).
I agree with your claim about aggression, to the extent that boys on average tend to score higher on specific measures for aggression that's physical and verbal. I'm not sure the relevance of the study you cite though; I'd offer this one instead.
About responsiveness and social editing, I'm not exactly sure what you mean. Responsiveness to anger, pain, or what? And does social editing mean changing the way you present yourself based on cues from people around you, and is the idea that women do more of it? I Googled to not much avail. I see that the second study you cite sort of relates to some idea of responsiveness (though the findings show only a partial sex difference). But the third study is about money and kid toy preferences, which doesn't seem to relate to responsiveness or social editing (am I missing something). And what's the fourth one supposed to signify? The authors say that the finding that the male chimps played more "is practice for later dominance behavior." But why--couldn't it just as easily be about females' greater industriousness or something? And in any case, aren't we far afield from whether men are more likely to be desirous and women more likely to want to be desired, itself a speculation based on preliminary research?
Feel free to ignore me--I know you have your own blog to manage!
ADDENDUM: On bloggingheads.tv, Ann Althouse and I discuss how women's sexuality may differ from men's and what this new sex research means for feminism.