The XX Factor

More Kids Equals More Happiness?

2009-11-06T18:29:00Z

A post from DoubleX writer Bonnie Rochman: Well, fire up your engines, ladies, because now there’s a new bit of research supporting a third conclusion: that being married with children is the key to happiness . In contrast to previous research that indicates an inverse relationship between satisfaction and number of children, this particular study, which tracked 10,000 British households over 15 years, found that the more kids you have, the happier you are. I think that would come as news to those...(read more)

Sesame Street Turns 40, and My Kids Aren't Staying Tuned

2009-11-06T17:03:00Z

A post from DoubleX writer KJ Dell'Antonia: I admit it--I wanted my kids to watch Sesame Street because I knew it was at worst harmless, and at best educational--although I've never believed watching TV could make kids smarter , I'm willing to accept that it can teach them to recognize a rectangle. But from the first, it held little interest for them. My oldest preferred Baby Einstein, although with proper maneuvering, I could get in a shower during "Elmo's World"--although not necessarily without...(read more)

The Cute-ocalypse is Coming

2009-11-05T21:48:00Z

Like Lauren, I enjoyed Jim Windolf's insightful attack on cute culture, but I find the otters-holding-hands/Iraq War connection to be a bit of a stretch. Windolf suggests that we're asking for forgiveness through penitential offerings of cuteness, but it's not my impression that most Americans think we need to be forgiven. Maybe popular cuteness is intended "as some sort of correction" to our new status as invaders, but that presupposes a level of remorse I don't really see. Which is not to say cuteness...(read more)

The Dangers of the Cute-R-Net

2009-11-05T17:51:00Z

A post from DoubleX writer Lauren Bans: Several times a week I walk by the marketing section of my office and see a group of grown men and women in their business-casual attire standing over someone’s computer screen giggling and cooing. Almost daily, I get an e-mail entitled, “SO CUTE I WANTZ TO DIE” or “AHHHHHHZZ! CUTEGASM!” along with a link for, say, a YouTube video of a sweet-faced pug so fat it can’t roll over, or a 4-year-old performing the Single Ladies dance. Most of these videos live up...(read more)

Polygamists are Packrats

2009-11-05T17:05:00Z

A post from DoubleX writer Sonia Smith: What have I learned over the past week watching polygamist Raymond Merril Jessop’s trial in the sleepy west Texas ranching town of Eldorado? Members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints save everything. And now, with the first criminal prosecution of an FLDS leader in Texas, this tendency to hoard every little scrap has come back to bite them. In trying to prove Jessop impregnated his 16-year-old “spiritual” wife in November 2004...(read more)

In A Long-Term Relationship, Do Women Lose Their Sex Drive More Quickly Than Men?

2009-11-04T21:14:00Z

A post from DoubleX Desire Lab blogger Daniel Bergner: There’s a theory that has some currency among sex researchers and therapists: that, over time in monogamous relationships, women lose desire more than men do. Not much data exists; I’m aware of only one large study on this subject. But the thought is that women’s libidos need more spark in order to ignite, and so women are particularly susceptible to losing desire as they remain with the same partner. It’s an idea that runs somewhat counter to...(read more)

We Shouldn't Judge Abby Johnson Yet, We Need to Know More

2009-11-04T20:28:00Z

Amanda , Before I begin, I want to clarify something. I’m not “anti-choice.” I am anti-abortion. That might sound like semantics, but I think it’s a sign of the gulf between abortion-rights supporters and abortion foes. “Anti-choice” has a connotation of “anti-woman,” that being against abortion means you think women shouldn’t have control over their bodies. I will defend until my dying day a woman’s right to choose whether to have sex. I think the pill might have been the greatest invention of the...(read more)

Pagans Were the Real Winners in Last Night's Election

2009-11-04T18:42:00Z

Dan Halloran is the next City Council Representative for New York’s 19th district. He is a Republican. Also, he is the "First Atheling," or prince, among members of a local pagan group that worships Norse gods. "It is our hope," he explained on his now-missing website, "to reconstruct the pre-Christian religion of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European peoples, within a cultural framework and community environment." Excellent ... (Read the rest of this article in DoubleX )....(read more)

Women and Virginia Governor-Elect Robert McDonnell

2009-11-04T17:36:00Z

The turning point for the Virginia governor’s race came in August, when the Washington Post published a copy of Republican Robert McDonnell’s master's thesis , in which he argued that working women were detrimental to America, among other retrograde points. McDonnell’s genius in the campaign was to instantly focus the debate on whether or not he thinks women should be able to work (which, of course, he does) and thus obscure every other way in which his policies are, in fact, retrograde and bad for...(read more)

Even The Very Worst Prosecutors Can't Be Sued, For Good Reason

2009-11-04T16:03:00Z

A post from DoubleX writer K.J. Dell'Antonia: Supreme Court followers (and NPR listeners) heard an outrageous story today—that of an innocent man who spent more than two decades in prison for a murder he didn't commit before evidence of the apparent gross racism and misconduct of the police and prosecutors who put him there was uncovered. It's hard not to crave justice for this man—but what seems just for him will make justice less likely for everyone else. Lawyers for Terry Harrison have argued...(read more)

"Precious" Gets A Few Things Wrong

2009-11-04T15:20:00Z

A post from DoubleX writer Beth Fertig: In the new movie Precious , Clareece Precious Jones is beaten by her mother and raped so often by her father that she’s pregnant with his second child. She’s also illiterate. I’ve spent the past three years profiling illiterate young adults, and I decided to take two of them to a preview screening . Yamilka and her brother, Alejandro, now 26 and 24, are Dominican immigrants. They’d gotten all the way to high school without learning to read. After a hearing...(read more)

Maine Voters Rejected Gay Marriage

2009-11-04T04:35:00Z

When the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts legalized same-sex marriage in 2003, the polls showed disapproval by a margin of 53 percent to 35 percent. After the ruling went into effect, legislators geared up to reverse it by amending the state constitution. But two years later, the poll numbers had flipped, and the backlash never came. That's because reversing the court's ruling was a long process, not a quick and hasty ballot initiative like the one that Maine passed in Tuesday's election....(read more)

Fishy Story From Former Director of Planned Parenthood

2009-11-03T22:58:00Z

A post from DoubleX writer Amanda Marcotte: I'm sorry, Rachael , but this story you linked about Abby Johnson's sudden conversion from a Planned Parenthood director to an anti-choice fanatic has more holes in it than a piece of Swiss cheese after being used for target practice. Johnson's story fits way too neatly into a bunch of easily disproven anti-choice myths, the main one being that all it takes is one glance at an ultrasound to cause someone to "realize" that hey! abortion removes a fetus from...(read more)

In Support of a More Stringent Use of the Term ‘Douchebag’

2009-11-03T21:48:00Z

A post from DoubleX writer Lauren Bans: There’s a funny spoof video up on Boing Boing framed as a PSA of sorts in support of douchebag solidarity. It features a handful of self-pegged douchebags, one pumping iron at the gym, another riffing for the amusement of drink-dangling babes at a bar, all waxing on about the persecution of the douches: “For too long you’ve told us to shut the fuck up ... that people who are different from me matter.” But because I evidently cannot take a joke (and this may...(read more)

The Obamas Do Not Have a Post-Feminist Marriage

2009-11-03T20:52:00Z

Just one small response to Hanna's excellent observations in today’s DoubleX discussion of an alternate universe in which Hillary had become President : I can't resist disagreeing with her that the Obama marriage is post-feminist. I don't think any marriage where one spouse is gone out of the house to the extent that he was, and one spouse is left to raise the small children and hold down the fort, and, oh yes, make the money necessary for the mortgage payment, can be described as post-feminist....(read more)

1950s Dating Horrors

2009-11-03T18:47:00Z

Hanna , I am the product of the “simpler” '50s dating culture. My parents were young, hot for each other, met their families' requirements of looks (her) and potential earning capacity (him), and married at ages 19 and 20. Their union produced four children, lasted 20 years, and was a nightmare for all concerned. So I do not share David Brooks’ nostalgia for a time when dating had ‘guardrails.' I dated for decades in the pre-cell phone era, and it wasn’t technology that gave me an ironic, contingent...(read more)

A Defense of "Cougar Town"

2009-11-02T17:09:00Z

Emily Nussbaum makes the case against Cougar Town in this week’s New York : Courtney Cox’s Jules Cobb is no Samantha Jones. “The Samantha Jones iconography has gone retro, regressing to a Cathy cartoon in heels,” Nussbaum writes. “Jules Cobb, the divorced ninny played by Cox, might date younger men but she’s no cougar. Samantha Jones might have been a cartoon, but she was a cartoon who loved pleasure.” But comparing Jules to Samantha is like comparing a mealy apple to a juicy orange: Yes, one is...(read more)

You Can't Wish the Crazy Away

2009-11-02T17:04:00Z

A post from DoubleX writer Amanda Marcotte : I usually love Charles Pierce's writing, but this recent piece in which he tries to pin some of the blame for the surge in right wing paranoia simply fails to make its point, and veers ever so slightly into the victim-blaming arena. It's tempting to suggest that if Obama made better choices, especially with regard to his appointments, then this whole right-wing freak-out wouldn't be so bad, but it simply isn't true ... (Read the rest of this article in...(read more)

What if women had gone to space first?

2009-11-02T16:57:00Z

A post from the DoubleX staff : According to a recent issue of Wired magazine , women performed just as well as men in late 1950s astronaut training tests. What if a woman had been the first American in space? ... (Read the rest of this article in DoubleX .)...(read more)

Do Women Really Ask for Raises Less Often Than Men?

2009-10-30T21:10:00Z

A guest post from DoubleX intern Danny Townsend : In the New York Times last week, Joanne Lipman declared that women's progress has stalled because " we've focused primarily on numbers at the expense of attitudes. " She tells one story with a precise tally: "In my time as an editor," she writes, "many, many men have come through my door asking for a raise or demanding a promotion. Guess how many women have ever asked me for a promotion? I'll tell you. Exactly ... zero." Reluctance to ask for a raise...(read more)