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Rachael, it's lovely to agree with you ... at least partly. I too am vastly in favor of contraception being available to all, and yet agree that it shouldn't be in the stimulus package.
I've long found it amusing that Viagra, but not contraception, is regularly covered by health insurance: Why should men's sexual pleasure be underwritten but not women's? I don't know whether Medicaid covers Viagra without a waiver (according to MSNBC, 27 states' Medicaid programs do cover contraception, but they had to seek a waiver to do it.) If yes, obviously contraception should be, too. And I agree that underwriting contraception for poor folks seems like a no-brainer-except for the radicals (and yes, they do exist) who believe that all sexual activity should lead to babies.
And yet like you, Rach, I humbly disagree with my admired friend Ruth Rosen's position ... although for different reasons. I don't have any economic philosophical objections to its inclusion: After all, this stimulus package includes money for food stamps, the GAO, the census, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, unnamed projects for the Department of Homeland Security, information technology projects for the Department of State... and what's most relevant, Medicaid. If the Obamites deem a project good for the country, it's in this bill.
So why do I disagree with Ruth? Because the White House is already showing incredible savvy in making controversial changes about women's health. I was wowed by the fact that the controversial global gag was repealed on Friday at about 4:45 p.m. ... perfect timing for missing the American news cycles. Thursday's and Friday's news cycles were dominated by Gitmo closing; Monday, the news media were all over the plan to back higher fuel-emissions standards, a big symbolic move on environmental policy. Obama slipped through his move to improve women's lives by allowing women's health providers to talk freely about all options without losing U.S. funding with no controversy. (If Rick Warren's ghastly inaugural prayer was a fig leaf for this repeal of the gag rule, well, it was worth it.)
That's why I don't mind seeing this particular, um, withdrawal from the stimulus package: because I'm guessing that the Obamamites are being savvy—taking this fight out of the public eye so that they can handle it in a better way.
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Slate's William Saletan returns for a second guest post on female sexuality:
Hey, no fair with the complications, Emily! I had a nice, simple thesis
that men and women were different,
and you had to go fuzz
it up with all your nuance and stuff. But, heck, I’m a gentleman. You took
my bait; I’ll take yours.
I can’t rehash all the research on sex patterns in aggression, responsiveness,
and social editing in this space or without putting everyone to sleep. Plus,
why trust my spin? Here are abstracts and write-ups from a few recent studies,
which can be interpreted in various ways. A little nature here, a little nurture
there. Have at it.
1. Do angry men
get noticed?
(Current Biology,
2006)
Angry
male faces were detected significantly more rapidly by male than female
observers. … Our findings are consistent with the notion of a perceptual system
in both males and females that has evolved to rapidly detect aggression in
males.
In
humans, evolution has resulted in marked differentiation between males and
females, including differences in the structural and functional organization of
the brain. These differences are reflected in patterns of cognitive and
behavioural abilities. For example, females tend to perform
better than males at fine motor and perceptual discrimination tasks, whereas
males are better at route-finding tasks. Males are also physically larger
and more aggressive than females, and so more likely to pose a physical threat. Such physical differences between the sexes may in turn have
shaped the cognitive processes involved in detecting threatening behaviour in
others. Early detection of an angry facial expression, for example, might
reduce the likelihood of an injurious or potentially fatal confrontation. … Recent evidence suggests that females are better than males
at recognizing non-threatening facial expressions such as happiness or sadness.
2.
Empathic neural responses are modulated by the perceived fairness of others
(Nature,
2006)
We engaged male and female volunteers
in an economic game, in which two confederates played fairly or unfairly, and
then measured brain activity with functional magnetic resonance imaging while
these same volunteers observed the confederates receiving pain. Both sexes
exhibited empathy-related activation in pain-related brain areas … towards fair
players. However, these empathy-related responses were significantly reduced in
males when observing an unfair person receiving pain. This effect was
accompanied by increased activation in reward-related areas, correlated with an
expressed desire for revenge.
3. Sex
differences in rhesus monkey toy preferences parallel those of children
(Hormones
and Behavior, 2008)
Male monkeys, like
boys, showed consistent and strong preferences for wheeled toys, while female
monkeys, like girls, showed greater variability in preferences. … The
similarities to human findings demonstrate that such preferences can develop
without explicit gendered socialization. We offer the hypothesis that toy
preferences reflect hormonally influenced behavioral and cognitive biases which
are sculpted by social processes into the sex differences seen in monkeys and
humans.
(More on the study here:
The animals were offered two categories
of toys— ones with wheels such as wagons and other vehicles, and various dolls
and cuddly toys.)
4. Sex
differences in the development of termite-fishing skills in the wild
chimpanzees
(Animal Behavior,
2005)
[T]he techniques of female offspring closely
resembled those of their mothers whereas the techniques of male offspring did
not, suggesting that the process by which termite fishing is learned differs
for male and female chimpanzees.
(More on the study here:
By the first day, adult
females were getting at the mustard and a young female watched carefully and
began to pick up the skills, she said. Two young males did not fare as well—one
simply sat next to his mother and tried to steal some mustard from her, Dr.
Lonsdorf said. The behavior of both sexes may seem familiar to many parents,
she said, adding, "The sex differences we found in the chimps mimic some
of the findings from the human child development literature." She pointed
out, however, that at least in the case of chimps, each is doing something
important, since the males' play is practice for later dominance behavior.)
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When I read this morning that President Obama was going to ask House Democrats to pull family-planning funds from the stimulus package, I breathed a sigh of relief. Not because I'm opposed to birth control (quite the contrary, actually), but because I was opposed to the stimulus package being used for such a purpose. (And yes, feel free to insert your jokes about the, har har, stimulating effects of birth control at any point.) Alas, and perhaps obviously, not everyone shares my sentiments. At Talking Points Memo, Ruth Rosen chides Obama for courting Republicans and calls his request "misguided."
This doesn't have to be an issue that divides women and brings Democrats and Republicans to blows so early in the new administration. I feel like there's a liberal argument for excluding the funds from the stimulus package, and a conservative argument for providing birth control for family planning.
First, not including the funds in the stimulus package: Despite Obama's pledge that there would be no pork in the legislation, Las Vegas' mayor has been trying to get stimulus bucks for a planned "Mob Museum" for his city, and conservatives are already having fun with such proposals as an extra $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts. If family planning is so important, do we really want it to be reduced to comparisons to the Mob Museum? Can't it stand on its own merits?
As for the (fiscally) conservative argument for funding family planning, well, as much as I rarely agree with Nancy Pelosi on anything, her comments to George Stephanopolous make a point. It's cheaper to provide birth control to poor families than it is to pay for unintended and sometimes unwanted children. And I'd rather fund birth control than abortion, a million times over. If we can give these parents the means to limit their family size, they will have an easier time taking care of themselves, meaning they will be less likely to need government assistance. And the parents will have more time and resources to devote to the children they already have, helping them with school and getting them involved in extracurricular activities, with the effect of helping them to break the cycle of poverty once they become adults themselves. (To me, that's a pretty important "family value.")
But both arguments lead me to the same conclusion: Make funding for family planning its OWN legislation. Get the debate out into the open. Obama promised hope and change. Congress shouldn't let him down with business as usual.
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Will, we invite you to join the party and you show up and ask hard questions. Ok, I'll bite. You ask whether the women-as-reactive pattern extends "to other realms
of life," since "it certainly
resonates with broad sex-differential patterns of aggression,
responsiveness, and social editing." So tell us more about the research you're referencing. I'm often driven mildly crazy by the exaggeration of findings about brain-based sex difference. It's just sexier to say that women are different from men than to say they're mostly similar. (See this great series by Amanda Schaffer for a take down about sex-based differences on language and types of intelligence.) On the other hand, when the research is solid, it's of course worth grappling with. My recollection is that you're right about aggression, but remind us why, and fill us in on the other fronts you raised.
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Dahlia, Meghan, like Jessica, I'm not so alarmed by the Girl Scout Research Institute findings (so that's where the Thin Mints money goes). Hillary Clinton almost became president this year, didn't, and now she's secretary of state. Sarah Palin could have become vice president, but wasn't ready for the job, and when you're not ready for a very public job, you can find yourself humiliated (ask Dan Quayle). Caroline Kennedy (whose paper doll image I played with as a girl, and so I find myself untroubled by the appearance of Malia and Sasha dolls) almost became senator from New York, but it turns out more than a famous name was called for, and a better qualified woman, Kirsten Gillibrand was chosen. I think the parents of the girls who took the poll need to help them to see that the lessons of this political year are that there are and will be plenty of opportunities for them to be become leaders—but that not everything will go their way, and when things don't, they have to be flexible enough to seize the opportunities they can. And also that Girl Scout training provides a crucial lesson in getting ahead: Be prepared.
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I haven’t been on our blog much of late because I recently became one of the millions of Americans who lost someone to cancer: On Christmas Day, my mother died after a two-and-a-half year “battle,” as the locution goes, with colorectal cancer. As many of you know, cancer affects nearly all of us in one way or another. New 2008 figures from the American Cancer Society show that men have an approximately 1 in 2 chance of developing some form cancer over the course of their life (44.92 percent) and women have an approximately 1 in 3 chance (37.52 percent). One of my New Year’s resolutions involves urging everyone I know near the age of 50—including you, dear readers—to get a colonoscopy. Really. It’s not that bad. And colon cancer, unlike many other cancers, is detectable in its early stages, before it has spread to other organs and lymph nodes.
Early detection is notoriously difficult, so I was particularly eager to read Wired’s provocative January cover story about the flaws in our “war on cancer.” It profiles a number of scientists and doctors who believe that America should spend less money on developing treatment on late-stage patients and more on developing tests to detect cancer before it metastasizes. The idea is that we can actually make headway in identifying cancer early on—though we have done a bad job of it so far. This proposition is tantalizing, and the Canary Foundation, a newish research group devoted to “the new science of early detection,” appears to be doing good work. But the piece (by Thomas Goetz) also manifested, I thought, a slightly breathless embrace of science that still seems to be iffy. To take one small example, the test for ovarian cancer Goetz mentions—measuring levels of the protein CA-125—can also be indicative of underlying conditions that have nothing to do with cancer—including endometrial cysts. This doesn’t help someone figure out whether to have reproductive- or cancer-based surgery. Now, as Goetz points out later, researchers are working on developing an ancillary test that will work with the CA-125 tumor marker to pinpoint ovarian cancer more specifically. But I wonder if any of our other science-minded bloggers read the article, and, if so, what light you might be able to shed. Should we be making a more concerted effort to develop tests for early detection rather than new treatments? Is it really an either/or option?
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On this morning’s Washington Post op-ed page, my friend Ruth Marcus made a similar point as your mother, Jessica, on the upside of Ty’s opportunistic marketing of dolls with “beautiful names.” The marvelous and sweet effigies of the president’s daughters indeed provide long overdue racially correct toys for little girls to be proud of. Citing the troubling psychology experiments of dark-skinned children choosing white dolls described in Brown v. Board of Education, Ruth thinks the inherent social service trade-off might be worth it. The manufacturer of Beanie Babies has again created a direct connection to the imagination of a new generation. Even in this belt-tightening moment, I’m sure the dolls are selling like crazy and even lifting the economy. I’m not offended by the actual toys and can imagine which little girls in my life I would enjoy giving them to. My fear is that if the first family is mined as a commodity, there will come a time when their worth is depleted. Right now the public wants to embrace them like a cuddly toy. It’s time to get off the stage and get back to school.
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Dahlia, Jessica,
Like you, I'm not entirely surprised by the depressing Girl Scout stats. But two thoughts spring to mind: First, I wonder what a poll of girls 9-12 would show. In my anecdotal experience with pre-teens this past election (my mother ran a secondary school that I used to spend time in), the girls in the 10-year-old range were picking up the excitement of the fact that Hillary and Sarah Palin were strong female candidates, and little of the debate over it. Second, adolescent girls are hitting that moment when they do begin to doubt themselves (the Reviving Ophelia moment) and so I wonder if this age group was particularly susceptible to absorbing the glass ceiling message. Just speculation. It'd be interesting to know more.
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Dahlia, you're right that at face value, those Girl Scouts stats are disheartening. But the silver lining may be that these girls are thinking about themselves in leadership positions in the first place. As a teen, I never considered women in politics at all. I was not an especially political adolescent, but I didn't think about the glass ceiling for women running for office because I wasn't even in the room. That girls are even considering those barriers in the first place might be a small step in the right direction. At least Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton are now sharing brain space with Taylor Swift and Zac Efron.
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Courtesy of Feministing, a new study launched by the Girl Scout Research Institute shows that girls between the ages of 13 and 17 came away from this past presidential election with some very mixed feelings about females and power. On the one hand, these young women report big increases in engagement in politics, their confidence in discussing political issues, and their sense of their own power to change things in this country. But the numbers also show a huge uptick in their awareness of barriers for women. For instance, 43 percent of girls strongly believe that "girls have to work harder than boys in order to gain positions of leadership." (Just 25 percent of girls agreed with that statement only one year ago.) And the percentage of girls who believe that "both men and women have an equal chance of getting a leadership position" has declined from 35 percent to 24 percent in one short year. Zounds.
None of this surprises me. This election seems to have inspired and discouraged most of the women I know in just about equal measure. But I hadn’t stopped to think about how that would be experienced by a 15-year-old girl, who suddenly feels powerful and smart enough to change the world but deeply doubtful that she will get the chance.
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I agree with Marjorie, Bonnie and everyone else that using Malia and Sasha Obama's images for fun and profit is beyond gross. However, my mother pointed out the one upshot to this capitalist debacle: Little girls of all races might want to play with black dolls now. I am reminded of a recent This American Life show in which a former FAO Schwartz employee talked about a coveted brand of baby dolls. The store ran out of white dolls, and so white moms were relegated to buying Asian dollies. After the Asian babies went the Latino babies. The black baby dolls were left to languish under the cheap industrial lighting. With the creation of Malia and Sasha dolls, the girls' privacy may be slightly violated, but it might change the ethnic makeup of the toy box.
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Samantha,
I don't think it's fair to compare Obama allowing his girls to accompany him on the campaign trail to the Ty Co.'s shameless marketing of Sasha and Malia dolls for profit. In American politics, it's standard operating procedure, and the expectation of voters, for political candidates—especially male candidates seeking high office—to show that they are "family-oriented men," i.e., husbands and fathers who love baseball, apple pie, and Chevrolets. For some irrational reason, images of candidates standing with their wives and children grants them legitimacy in the eyes of voters, no matter if they are cheating cads like John Edwards, Bill Clinton, Gary Hart, Eliot Spitzer, David Paterson, or the legions of other skirt-chasing politicians who are too many to name here. Obama may have thrust his daughters in the public eye, as you say, but I don't think he "cashed in" on his daughters' cuteness. He didn't try to promote them in books, market them as dolls, or put their pictures on T-shirts. Granted, his cutie-pie daughters did melt some voters' hearts—how could someone with such typically precocious American children be a closet Muslim terrorist and secret black militant?—and demystified their daddy with the weird name and nontraditional background. Still, no amount of cuteness can get you the White House if you don't have the goods the run the place. Just look at Sarah Palin and her boatload of cute kids. McCain's brood isn't too shabby, either, although the cute factor diminishes after age 10. G.W. Bush's win was an anomaly, and one I'd not like to see repeated.
Obama certainly could not lock his girls in the family's basement until after the campaign. They are a legitimate and important part of his personal bio, much as Chelsea Clinton and the two Bush girls were for their dads. And sometimes, Obama aides have said, he just missed his family and wanted them with him.
The Obamas certainly do not forfeit their right to be outraged by companies exploiting their children's names. Although I argued for limiting the girls' exposure in the media, I don't think that Mom and Dad have crossed good-parenting lines. I just think it opens them up to more people feeling entitled to take liberties with their daughters' privacy. That's why I think they should be careful. I wouldn't be surprised if their displeasure with the Sasha and Malia dolls caused them to pull the girls back a bit.