Dickerson is not great. I don't know the other two.
Kaufman is their sports columnist (and it is indeed a very enjoyable column). Kamiya does mostly foreign policy stuff.
I mainly read the advice column and "Ask the Pilot." Heather Havrilesky is a great writer but she watches such unbelievably awful television that I can't stomach her column.
Dickerson is not great.
But she does race and gender posts and isn't afraid to piss people off. Perfect for blogging.
I like Cary Tennis, but I can see why some people do not. Also, Tom the Dancing Bug!
Maybe I'm thinking of the wrong person. Isn't Dickerson old?
Isn't Dickerson old?
And thus banned from blogging.
8: What I really meant is that when I've seen her work, it seems to be addressing issues from the last decade. To wit:
For too many blacks (African American is just too unwieldy), ‘Afrocentrism’ means “I thumb my nose at Western culture.” It’s a rejection of white people, not an embrace of something else that lives and breathes. It’s a way to punish America for mistreating us by pretending to opt out while availing themselves of every morsel of their American, Western rights and benefits.Wow, groundbreaking.
See, people can't help but comment on her stuff.
Might you point to something which impressed you? (And isn't the FP guy sort of...groovy? I think you posted about him once.)
The FP guy?
Dude, I didn't say Dickerson was impressive; she's punchy and controversial. People would read her, if she were a blogger.
That said, the article I linked here was good.
Sorry. FP="foreign policy," which is the sphere that Apo suggested Kamiya focused on. And, it turns out, he is kind of groovy. The Dickerson bit in the post to which you linked would be more interesting if I thought it were still true. But, seriously, how much black music (e.g., "Milkshake") is sold specifically on the basis of black sexuality?
(Don't mind me. I think I'm just pissed because Apo made me realize how fucking pointless and amoral all of my wittering about Iraq has been, is, and will continue to be. We suck.)
Kamiya doesn't just do foreign policy, it seems. This is pretty good.
I just got lobofilho's CD and he did a great job.
They have a blog; it's called Broadsheet, and it's not bad imho. They also have a political blog called the Daou report, and a video blog, and a pop culture blog.
I actually don't think that the "filler" is bad stuff. I really miss Mothers Who Think, which all the hard news folks poo-pooed for being girly, but it was quite good. That said, I do miss some of the foreign reporting they used to do.
I know about their blogs, but I think it would be a lot more popular if the whole thing went to a blog format and they pared down to the really good stuff. (Didn't Daou leave to work for Hillary?)
I stopped reading Salon when they got rid of the Sex section. I mean, what's the point anymore?
I really miss Mothers Who Think, which all the hard news folks poo-pooed for being girly
Mothers Who Think was a good department with a terrible name. Who came up with that one, Daniel Dennet? It was well-advised neither to bill the material as being of exclusive interest to mothers; nor to imply that mothers don't, as a matter of course, think.
22: Disagreed. What's wrong with billing the thing as being specifically for mothers? 'Twas a bold feminist move, imho. And while yeah, mothers do think (duh), it's nonetheless true that the stereotype of "mother" is of someone who doesn't think about anything other than playdates and spitup.
I liked the name. I thought it was punchy and pointed and good.
The name "Mothers Who Think" implies that such mothers are the exception. Now this may of course be true -- it is arguable that people who think are the exception -- but as it stands it has a bit of a sexist vibe.
Hrm. I wouldn't take an organization titled "Lawyers who Care" as a slur against lawyers.
I see the arguments against the title Mothers Who Think as a version of blaming the messenger. As if the Salon department somehow originated the idea. Please.
standpipe's one of those ch/ild f/ree freaks. Don't get him/her started on how society is always pushing, pushing, pushing motherhood as some sort of special category.
On the contrary, Standpipe Bridgeplate is a refugee from China, who walked all the way here in order to breed at will.
I wouldn't take an organization titled "Lawyers who Care" as a slur against lawyers.
OK. But contrast "Liberals Against Terrorism". They don't call it that anymore.
B, you're already whipping out the "please"? Honestly.
Fuck you, ogged. I told you that in confidence.
30: Walked? S/he traveled in a boat made of the bones of the once legion, now fallen, standpipe enemies. To know standpipe is to fear standpipe, Shi'a.
In for a penny...Standpipe Bridgeplate's children: Elbow Trap, Dry Riser, Bib Cock.
So that's what happened to praktike.
Forgive me
I am an idiot
so slow
and so old.
35 to not-appearing-in-this-thread.
Ran Rennet something cheese something something.
Dennett and Dummett and Devitt
Were a trio of Philosophical… dudes. Crap.
The Victor Jara reference in "One Tree Hill"--how has it been employed in the televisual entertainment bearing the same name?
On the contrary, Standpipe Bridgeplate is a refugee from China, who walked all the way here in order to breed at will.
Breed dogs, that is.
I await China's forthcoming "one policy" policy.
No, standpipe, that would be much too scrutable.
no one should like cary tennis because he is so extraordinarily self-centered, fatuous and pretentious.
but everyone should love and fear standpipe bridgeplate.
In lieu of love and fear, I would also accept naming rights to your stadium.
maybe one expects fatuity and pretension in advice columnists? I dunno, I like that he doesn't really worry about answering questions.
I also like his little picture. He is like a small shrew or marmoset, with wild, distressed eyes, who gives advice.
I feel like back in the early days of liberal blogging, "how can we fix Salon" was a prominent genre of post.
Tim Grieve's War Room and The Daou Report are essential parts of Salon for political junkies; Ask the Pilot is pretty cool, in the same way as Kaufman; as far as I know, they were the first to put out all the Abu Ghraib photos, which are still on their front page; their movie reviews match my tastes. It's a worthwhile stop for me.
31: I reserve the right to whip out the "please" any time I feel like it. Anyway, the argument that mothers who think is a sexist title is an old one, and a silly one. Specifying "mothers" is not exclusionary, and any sense that it somehow trivializes the material is itself rooted in sexism; specifying "mothers who think" points straight at an all-too-common sexist idea that mommies are marginal and silly. If you want to argue that the best way to get rid of sexist tropes is to pretend they don't exist, go right ahead, but I reserve the right to roll my virtual eyeballs.
Also 43 is correct. Cary Tennis drives me straight up a wall.
But I followed my hissing with a compliment to SB!
My immediate impression of the title "Mothers Who Think" - which I first encountered here in this thread - was that it was elitist, and an oblique slam at other mothers, who apparantly aren't thinkers.
I'm not going to argue that I'm right just that that was my initial reaction.
But I followed my hissing with a compliment to SB!
Girls fight tricky.
If you want to argue that the best way to get rid of sexist tropes is to pretend they don't exist
I don't. At least I don't think I do. I'm having a hard time articulating why, but 49 doesn't seem like an accurate summary of what I was trying to say. Of course I was too brief in what I did say, and I can hardly expect you to read my mind.
For all I know my opinion may be sexist, but not, I don't think, for the reasons you give. I have to think about it some more.
This girl fights pretty much on the up and up, as you well know, Mr. Catfight.
(Pause to listen intently to second-favorite Sufjan song.)
I really don't mean to be rude, but I don't know which compliment you're referring to.
You have been misled. I sold your goldfish into slavery.
Of course, she would take all the credit.
55: I think an unspoken sexist trope here is that anything marked feminine is completely inaccessible and exclusionary to men, and not the reverse. Girls can wear football jerseys, boys can't possibly wear sparkly pink t-shirts. That's a very deep cultural assumption.
So the reaction to 'Mothers who Think' as a name is partially 'Hey, that's important, interesting stuff. What idiots of them to name it something that makes it difficult and unlikely for men to read or pay attention to it.' Which is a superficially (and sincerely) anti-sexist reaction, in that it recognizes the importance and universality of the subject matter, but doesn't recognize the sexism inherent in assuming that tagging something for 'Mothers' is going to shut it down for anyone else.
Shorter me: 'Mothers who Think' as a name, didn't have girl-cooties, and reacting as if it did is kinda sexist.
58: I was endorsing 43, including the part about loving and fearing you, SB.
As to that goldfish, I was hungry. The one you sold into slavery, SB, was one of those cracker things which no one in their right mind would actually eat.
WTF? Goldfish crackers are full of snacky goodness!
Ever had a real goldfish? No comparison.
tagging something for 'Mothers' is going to shut it down for anyone else
I don't think the objection is that it shuts it down for anyone else, but that insofar as you name a group "Ys who X," you're necessarily implying that there are "Ys who don't X." This seems pretty basic, so I must be missing something.
While I'm pondering 49 and 62, are we all agreed that "Mothers Who Think" was much, much better than "Life"?
ogged, you and I should pitch a new department to the Salon editors. Call it, "Blacks Who Articulate".
We're carp we eat tin cans, we're goats we eat tin cans.
67: I like to chomp on it.
66: No; you are *naming* a belief that *already exists*.
Actually, I guess I could see defending MWT and BWA on reclaiming-the-stereotype grounds.
The major problem with BWA would be that it's not a good title, whereas MWT is.
Granted that it's not a good title.
But, like, "The Signifying Monkey" is a good title.
A brown person into semiotics? How drole!
"Iranians who are not Terrorists"?
Who cares? The larger point is that Salon should be shut down, and the people who run should be parted and mailed to the four corners of the earth.
69: My experience from class is that black students are much more articulate than white students -- the latter too often mumble or else use "like" a lot.
The African American community is also single-handedly keeping the art of public speaking alive.
The major problem with BWA would be that it's not a good title, whereas MWT is.
you are so very wrong.
it's not even arguable. "MWT" is trying to be earnest, and, as we can see by the confusion in this thread, not really succeeding. Whereas "BWA" is plain hilarity. Which plainly makes it superior.
I wanted to be able to read "Mothers Who Think" as something along the lines of "The Thinking Person's Guide to Paleolithic Endosperm," without the Paleolithic endosperm, and yet I did tend to get stuck on the "Black People Who Do Speak Properly" kind of interpretation.
SCMT -- got something against runners?
Heh -- rfts said "sperm".
76, there's a whole undergraduate program for them.
Specifying "mothers" is not exclusionary
Of course it is. If it's intended as a women-slanted section of the site, the title excludes women who are not mothers. If it's intended as a parenting section, it excludes dads.
Also, it's obnoxiously smug, in that "liberals are the only ones who really know how to think" kind of way.
Given that women have grown up being expected to realize that "mankind" includes them, and that people with kids are used to being "included" in situations that make no arrangement for child care, I don't see why folks who aren't mothers can't suck it up for a change.
And if it *is* exclusionary, so what? Is there some rule that says that mothers aren't allowed to have a high-profile forum to read and think about things that affect them?
"And if it *is* exclusionary, so what?"
I think the problem is that, supposedly, mothers *aren't* the sole intended audience, so an exclusionary title doesn't fit. If it *were* a section intended for mothers, then no problem.
You won't get cooties by reading something that's published under a title with the word "Mothers" in it.
I think LB's 62 offers a powerful and interesting alternative and orthogonal explanation for the reaction to the MWT title.
Oooh, sparkly adjectives.
I'm not saying that there shouldn't be a high-profile forum for mothers; just don't claim it's not exclusionary to do have one.
It was clearly a marketing decision on Salon's part, and they're welcome to make whatever decisions they wish along those lines. I thought part of the point of feminism was to have women seen as having roles and talents other than motherhood, so it chaps my ass to see "women" and "mothers" conflated in this sort of context.
92: That's a fair point, but not, I think, why most people object to it, which I still think is the perception of girl-cooties. I just don't see the insult to mothers. The smugness, as in Magpie's 87, is fair (Salon readers are SMRT!) but it doesn't strike me as an insult to the mothers who don't read Salon, rather than all people who don't read Salon.
I brought up an imaginary "Lawyers who Care" charity, and that's a little funny because of the heartless lawyer stereotype, but it's still a possible name for a charity. And something like "Actors who Care" would be possible even in the absence of such a stereotype.
but not, I think, why most people object to it, which I still think is the perception of girl-cooties
I'm completely at a loss as to where this is coming from. I thought the issue was whether the title was a broad insult to most mothers or not.
"Care" is misleading, because it has a history as a word associated with charities, so one of its (connoted, anyway) meanings is "do good works."
ah, i see, in 22 SB asserts that billing a column as MWT is going to result in the column being perceived as exclusive interest to mothers. That slipped by me.
hmm, I actually have no idea what MWT was about, but I would guess it's about mothering, a subject i'm not currently interested in, and so i'd skip it.
You don't have to agree with me about this, I'm not calling anyone a bad person, possibly I'm wrong, I am in fact smoking crack as we speak. With those caveats:
I have heard people bitch about the name 'Mothers Who Think' before, frequently, usually on the grounds that it's insulting to mothers. I don't think it is insulting to mothers (my example of a charity called 'Actors who Care' doesn't imply that most actors are heartless bastards, at least not to me.)
I think that many decent, trying-to-be-nonsexist people have a strongly negative reaction to the name because of girl-cooties: "You took all this important, interesting stuff, and slapped a girl-cooties name on it! How could you marginalize the subject matter like that" but that they don't manage to consciously conceptualize the basis for their negative reaction. They just get a sense that it's contemptutous (because they have the unconsciously sexist assumption that to associate something with femininity is to denigrate it), and come up with the 'insulting to mothers' thing as a rationale for why they react to it like that.
I fully recognize that this is an obnoxious argument, because it relies on 'U R teh sexism, and you don't even know it'. And maybe I'm wrong about it.
(Oh, and I should say again that Magpie's criticisms of the name seem like better ones to me.)
Agreed with 89. I e-mailed Salon about the title shortly after MWT came out, raising the points I've raised here, and the response I got was really mushy and noncommittal. It was clear, though, that their intended audience was all women, not just mothers, and that they hadn't really thought about it when they chose that title for their women's section.
This annoys me not because of mom-cooties, though I don't doubt that that's a major factor turning off people to that title. Rather, it's because "women" is often used as code for "mothers of school-aged children" in the public sphere, most particularly in the media (online and otherwise) and politics, where that's the group of women considered most valuable (either because of spending power or perceived likeliness to vote).
So I see something like MWT, one of the few places that assumes women have interests in addition to catching a man and keeping a man and having his babies and then conveniently disappearing around age 40 or so, and think, "Why hang up the 'mommies' club only' sign, when lots more women than that would appreciate not being treated like morons?"
and come up with the 'insulting to mothers' thing as a rationale for why they react to it like that.
Unless I'm missing something, this cannot possibly apply to me, b/c I have no idea of the content of the column.
MWT was excellent, and the book collecting the columns is worth reading by any parent, regardless of your chromosomal composition. It never really occurred to me that it was written for mothers; I always took the title to mean it was written by mothers. I didn't find them any less meaningful as a father.
It was really good. Except for Anne Lamott.
103: True, under those circumstances it can't.
It's seriously unlikely that I would ever click through to a column called "Mothers Who Think." I don't have kids and hear *plenty* about children and child-raising without seeking out this sort of content.
What is the word "sexist" supposed to mean here? Surely we think that most of the people who write MWT are pro-women. And so are the women who are objecting. Is "sexist" really the right objection?
This is usually B's line, but we've all got a certain amount of sexism going on in us. We've all been raised in a society where the feminine is regarded as weak, and dull, and unimportant, and male or female, feminist or not, that upbringing comes out sometimes. And so the reaction can be a sexist one, even if the person having the reaction is generally feminist.
109: Right. I can see that answer, but I find it increasingly frustrating. As things have changed, "sexism" (like "racism") references different in kind ills, but is still used to reference the old kind. At some point, the usage covers so much that I find it nearly pointless. I've read the thread once, and have no idea what the issue is here. I'm spectacularly unconvinced that there's a "right" position, particularly for a magazine like Salon.
It's as if we've decided to stick to some sort of binary model in the face of increasingly complicated behavior out of familiarity or fear of backsliding or a simple lack of energy. And, then, someone like Dickerson makes a trivial point, like the one quoted above, and we all, what, clap at the insight? Pretending that's insight slows everything down.
I thought part of the point of feminism was to have women seen as having roles and talents other than motherhood, so it chaps my ass to see "women" and "mothers" conflated in this sort of context.
Indeed. But as 107 inadvertently reveals, the presumption behind the "mothers is exclusionary" argument--*and* the reason the thing was called "Mothers Who Think"--is to point out that the things that mothers thing about include things other than children. And that mothers, like everyone else in the damn world, have roles and talents other than motherhood.
So saying that one isn't interested in children, or isn't interested in mothers, is no different than saying one isn't interested in women. It's tatamount to saying that being a mommy is somehow marginalizing, that the things that mommies think about aren't really interesting or relevant to everyone else. Which is patently false, and I'm pretty sure everyone here knows that or will recognize it with a momen'ts thought.
And that's why LB is right: the sense that something labelled "mothers" marginalizes the subject matter *comes from sexism*. It is sexism that teaches us that "mother" = "about children," and that if I don't have children, then anything that's about children or mothers isn't of interest to me. This despite our own experience, in which people who are mothers have a lot of things to say about a lot of topics--and sometimes, even the things they say about children are interesting.
I loved the title because I felt it put a lot of pressure on *exactly* these issues, and I think they're issues that are worth recognizing, discussing, and getting the fuck over.
Also, I agree that Anne Lamott was often somewhat trying.
"the things that mothers thing about include things"
All right, "things," "think," "things." Sue me, it's a fucking blog comment.
Also, "moment's." Feel free to look for other typos on your own; everyone can play along.
110: I think that `the old kind' is a somewhat problematic idea. Of course a certain amount of progress has been made in both these areas, but it is equally true that deeply held cultural biases still exist.
A little while ago I was skipping through radio stations in Houston and happened to stop on a bit of conversation between a DJ and a caller. The two of them talking about a previous caller (who I didn't hear), a woman who said she wished she didn't but realized that she did deeply resent white people. The DJ's and caller were both agreeing that with the woman being in her early 40s, they couldn't understand how she couldn't just drop that, `I mean, it isn't like she was alive to witness the effect of any Jim Crow laws or anything' (quote exact as I can remember it).
As if there isn't any racism in Texas anymore, and this lady just had issues of her own to deal with.
Some how, some of these threads remind me a bit of that.
He's on an editing kick today.
110: I'm not getting you. The idea is that thinking that anything feminine is weak and dull and bad is real, important sexism. Genuinely big stuff. It's just that it isn't limited to the minds of people who would consciously affirm that women are inferior. It's worth talking about the sexism expressed by people who consider themselves feminists, or at least don't consider themselves sexist, because it does harm.
That whole godawful girls&math argument in the other thread -- do you think those of us arguing for the possibility that social pressure keeps girls and women out of technical careers are arguing that it's a conscious plot? No, it's nice, decent, not-intentionally-sexist-people doing things that seem natural to them without ill intent, that end up steering women out of the sciences.
So saying that one isn't interested in children, or isn't interested in mothers, is no different than saying one isn't interested in women.
This is so ridiculous. Jack and I said we're not particularly interested in reading about mothering. Which is not the equivalent of saying we're not interested in mothers. I actually happen to have a mother, and so that subject is not alient to me. And I really like kids. I still don't feel like reading about them.
The term "Mothers Who Think" has a similar problem to the term "Intelligent Dance Music":
About mothers? Or about what mothers think? Or about mothering? The column wasn't titled "about mothering."
The column wasn't titled "about mothering."
I don't think anyone was mistaken about this.
Michael, you said, in 117, that you weren't interested in reading about *mothering*. The point of 111 was that "mothers who think" think about things *other* than mothering from time to time. And that therefore, a column written by or for mothers might very well contain material of interest to people who aren't mothers. Which maybe you'd find out if the word "mothers" didn't put you off.
'Women' and 'children' are not co-extensive. I can be interested in what a mother has to say about politics without being interested in whether a Boppy is a necessaity or not.
However, if you refuse to listen to women graduate students, you are not just anti-whining, you're anti-woman.
Frankly, at this point in my life, I'm not even particularly interested in reading stuff by women who primarily self-identify as mothers. The culture I'm trying to overcome really really wants me to consider motherhood as the best possible role for and only way really to be an adult woman. That role has sufficient, distractingly seductive influence in my life.
And that's why LB is right: the sense that something labelled "mothers" marginalizes the subject matter *comes from sexism*. It is sexism that teaches us that "mother" = "about children," and that if I don't have children, then anything that's about children or mothers isn't of interest to me.
But isn't it pretty clear that "motherhood" = "about children"? Someone can have a lot more to their life, but their existence as a mother is defined by the existence of their children and their relationship.
Given the compartmentalization of most media (i.e. there's an international news section, a home improvement section, a business section), content is sliced up to reflect it's interests to small groups and is given titles to reflect that. If a piece has "Mothers" in the title, I will assume that it was deliberately so titled because it is of interest to mothers as mothers, as the female parents of children. I could see it also being of interest to fathers, as it would likely touch upon parenthood in general quite often. I would not, however, expect anything of general interest or great scholarship (not relating directly to children and/or motherhood) under that title.
Assuming "Mothers Who Think" was a broad-ranging op-ed type piece from a feminist perspective (which is what I assume from the comments thus far), it was a terrible title given this convention in media, because it will unnecessarily limit the audience for what clearly was a good column.
Well, this is a good and fair point.
Michael, on the other hand, has no such excuse.
126 to 124.
125: The point of the thing is that . . . oh, never mind.
Of course, I've been beaten six ways from Sunday
115: Given that I'm still working my way down from believing (very, very wrongly) that burning the Red states to the ground was an appropriate policy solution to many of our ills, what happens in Texas, in particular, is spectacularly unconvincing. You could tell me that they secretly still have slave auctions, and I'd be half willing to believe you.
116: No, it's nice, decent, not-intentionally-sexist-people doing things that seem natural to them without ill intent, that end up steering women out of the sciences.
Except that the issue started out as regards women in the math department at Harvard. And--without denying that sexism at Harvard's math department might be the explanation for its deplorable gender ratio--sexism at that department at Harvard isn't necessary to explain it, even excluding the increasingly unconvincing biological explanations. It might be naive sexism earlier in the educational chain. It might be structural sexism. Relatedly, and per Hirshman, it might be exit options. Which is to say, I don't think we know enough for me to buy that sort of specific account as regards Harvard. OTOH, I'm entirely willing to believe it as regards math graduates and math departments broadly.
Sometimes I feel like we are simply unwilling to say, "OK, I think it might be X, but we just aren't far enough along to have a good sense of it. Let's put a pin in it, and move on to easier and at least as important issues." Or, again, "Something fucked up is happening here. Let's try a bunch of things and see what works."
In some ways, I think the lesson of the 70s Democratic program was not to over-promise solutions. Because when the promised fixes don't work--largely because it turns out we don't understand the problem very well--people naturally turn to other guy. Thus "welfare reform," which is now counted as a success, and will continue to be so even after the economy tanks and people are really hurting. Revisiting our earlier ideas won't be on the table. And sometimes, I think, saying "sexism" or "racism" (here, I'm sort of thinking of the Harold Ford ad) amounts to over-promising.
111: "Mothers Who Think" implies that the authors are taking on the role of "mother" (as opposed to "woman," "mathematician," etc) as they're writing. It's not such a stretch to assume that the subject of the column is going to be mothering, and not so unreasonable for people who aren't interested in reading about raising children to want to take a pass on that.
Which maybe you'd find out if the word "mothers" didn't put you off.
god you're fucking offensive.
But B, I was explaining why the word "Mothers" in the title put me off without any sexism behind it. I don't read the "Modern Business" column in a major paper either, because I really don't give a shit what new management technique they will be discussing.
And sometimes insisting that sexism or racism be proven beyond the shadow of a doubt in a specific case, without reference to a broader context, amounts to being a doofus.
you're so caught up in seeing what you want to see you don't even extend to me the charity of thinking I have some basic humanity. piss off.
Sure, moms think about a lot of things besides mothering, but then what's the point of calling attention to their motherhood? I'm sure that tax auditors have diverse interests and intelligences as well, but I wouldn't read a column called "Tax Auditors Who Think," either.
I amount to being a doofus. no, that's "aspire."
What's the point of *not* calling attention to their motherhood?
130 and 136 are right. now let's have tea. I have a kettle.
Sure, but you're wrong about where it started. It started with my commenting on being disturbed by how seriously Summers' speculations were taken, given the obvious magnitude of social effects in spheres where biological sexual dimorphism clearly isn't the issue. I don't know a thing about Harvard's hiring practices, and where I was talking about Harvard I meant it to be understood as a stand-in for 'really really high prestige universities'.
My sense of how this conversation is going is:
"Problem X is caused by social forces, probably including sexism on some level!"
"I don't think you can reasonably say it's a specific plot to exclude women... why are you calling it sexism if it's not clearly a plot? Wait and see."
And my response is that it doesn't have to be a plot. Social attitudes that disadvantage people because of their gender are sexist regardless of whether the people acting on the basis of those attitudes know what they're doing, or mean to do it.
139.---Well, how about not putting off the younger female contingent who are trying to come up with some other roles for themselves? (And the men who are dating them.) I do come from a fairly specific cultural background, but I don't think that the pressure women feel to have children is unique to Mormons.
139 - What? This is totally confusing. If the subject matter of the column is not primarily about motherhood, the default would be to not refer to motherhood in the title of the column.
And sometimes insisting that sexism or racism be proven beyond the shadow of a doubt in a specific case, without reference to a broader context, amounts to being a doofus.
Is this to me? Are you seriously saying that "beyond a shadow of a doubt" is what I'm requiring for Harvard's math dept., given the apparent small number of women PhD's in math and much smaller number of Harvard hires? Jeebus.
Look. 130 and 136 are *not* right, because *the point of the title is to draw attention to the sexism behind assuming that "mothers" is a niche audience*. The fact that the word works this way is, *yes*, a perfectly valid reason not to click on the articles. It is *also* a reason that is *rooted in sexism*.
And saying that does not mean I'm failing to recognize that Michael is a human being. It means I'm saying that like every other English-speaking human being including my own damn self, he's learned to think of "mothers" as having dull and narrow interests. The name "mothers who think" on a column that was neither dull nor narrow was a feminist move that effectively, for those of us who read the column, helped change that assumption.
Why is it so impossible to understand that saying "x works this way" doesn't in any way counter the statement "x is sexist"?
I'd be a lot more likely to click on a column section called, I dunno, "Women in the World" that happened to include pieces about child-rearing.
"Look. 130 and 136 are *not* right"
Look. **yes**they**are**
I did read the column regularly, but it wouldn't have been nearly as interesting (and I'd have read less often) if I hadn't been a parent myself. I don't think that's much rooted in sexism.
139: Because of the titling convention that I talked about in 125.
White males with names like David Brooks who talk about general subjects aren't put under the title "WASPs Who Think", because it's assumed that their pieces will be of interest to more than WASPs since they are intended to be general-interest. They're merely called "Opinion" or "Editorial", no qualifiers. Putting a column written by a woman, a mother, a tax accountant, or anyone else under a heading giving that designation is ghettoizing them. It signifies that their column, due to its content, is of interest only to other members of that group or those particularly interested in that group.
144: In part because for many people, being an independent woman necessarily means "not having kids." Because once you have kids, you're "just" a mother. Yes, women who feel pressured to have kids definitely need it to be recognized, often and repeatedly, that their entire identity shouldn't be bound up with whether or not they breed; by the same token, women who *do* have kids should also be recognized as having identities that aren't entirely bound up with having done so.
146: The point is that the subject matter "motherhood" includes an enormous number of things, most of which are, in fact, of interest to a general audience.
148: No, the point is in calling attention to the sexism inherent in the idea that mothers don't think. But I still don't believe that it's a stretch to think that if a woman is explicitly calling attention to the fact that she's a mother, she's writing about parenting.
It's the difference between being labeled a "mommy blogger" because you write about, among other things, your children, and calling your blog "Mommy Blog." If you do the latter, why would you be surprised if people who aren't interested in raising children pass you up?
I might also click through to read a column called "Superawesome kick-ass smart women who have children."
151: I read the column before I had kids.
152: That, and because "WASP" = "general interest." Whereas "women" or "mothers" or "black people" or "latinos" or "immigrants" = "not general interest." The problematic nature of this assumption should be obvious to everyone.
Linking this thread back to the Monsters thread, how about a horror film: "Moths Who Think".
154: You might not be surprised; but that doesn't mean that people might not be passing you up because they assume, in a sexist way, that a "mommy blog" isn't going to be interesting reading.
Anyway, this mommy has to go write something else now. I hate you all.
156 -- In your response to 152, you are missing that Brooks' column is not headed "WASP opinion". The assumption that it will be general interest because it is white is not made explicit this way.
156: That's exactly why I chose that example. However, if "WASPs Who Think" was the column title, I'm sure a lot more people would skip it. I certainly would, and I'm even technically a WASP.
Social attitudes that disadvantage people because of their gender are sexist regardless of whether the people acting on the basis of those attitudes know what they're doing, or mean to do it.
I think I'm missing something. I don't disagree with that. I'm saying that it need not be the explanation. I'm not rejecting it as an explanation; I'm saying it might or might not be true, and that where it is more obviously the explanation, let's move full-speed ahead immediately. I am much more concerned that leblanc didn't get pushed at math grad school than that Harvard's dept. ratios are low. Get enough leblanc's in math grad school, and they'll diagnose Harvard's problems better and change it more robustly.
157: Linking this thread back to the Monsters thread, how about a horror film: "Moths Who Think".
163: I may be missing something, haven't had a chance to read everything ... but certainly the scope in the other thread was larger than just Harvard, but sometimes using Harvard as a proxy.
If you're saying that the peculiarities of a particular departments hiring practices have way too many variables for anyone to nail down much from the outside, I don't think anyone can really disagree. It's a little too specific for that.
156: You're conflating "women" and "mothers" again. And while there's no question that having children colors your perspective on a wide range of issues, and you may see a broad range of issues as motherhood issues since you had PK, that doesn't mean that most people will think a column about "motherhood" will incude, say, global warming.
163: I think you're being overly cautious. No one's suggesting doing anything to Harvard that would turn out to be a bad idea if sexism at that level weren't the problem. People are talking about paying close attention to hiring practices, looking for female candidates, not strapping Larry Summers to an examination table and putting electrodes on his testicles.
I'm not sure what, concretely, you think I or any other feminist is advocating in this regard that you think is a bad idea.
If you're saying that the peculiarities of a particular departments hiring practices have way too many variables for anyone to nail down much from the outside, I don't think anyone can really disagree. It's a little too specific for that.
165: Yup. But precisely what Harvard was a proxy for slid around a fair bit. Similarly, here, I'm not convinced that there's a clear answer to whether the use of "Mother" is sexist or anti-sexist. For all I know, it was done by accident and no one really cared initially. I'm even less convinced that it matters. Whatever else it is, Salon has (IIRC) a deep commitment to "right on!" politics.
Tim, Tim, have we taught you nothing? There are no 'accidents'.
There are no 'accidents'.
Tell that to my pregnant wife.
I'm not sure what, concretely, you think I or any other feminist is advocating in this regard that you think is a bad idea.
Focusing time and attention on this rather than the various leblanc's out there. I find it pretty shocking that (a) leblanc could be the best student in her year, (b) we could actively want more women in math and math departments, (c) and yet no one pushed her towards getting a PhD. (Who knows, maybe she would have told them to piss off. Someone still should have made that move.) That's much more troubling to me than the Harvard issue, but the only way you're going to hear that tale is at the tail end of the Harvard discussion. That just infuriates me for some reason.
not strapping Larry Summers to an examination table and putting electrodes on his testicles.
Are you sure? The Pay-Per-View revenues alone could fund countless bright women through their PhDs.
But seriously, 'is sexist or anti-sexist' is the wrong way to look at it. I think one type of negative reaction to it is a sexist one, although the sort of sexist reaction that many decent people would have.
On the question of whether 'Mothers' excludes other women, or people uninterested in the minutia of spit-up and diapers? I'm torn. I find B's point (or what I understand it to be) that most women are, at some point, mothers, and so that a column focused on topic of interest to mothers is a column of general interest -- that treating 'mothers' as a marginal group is sexist -- persuasive. On the other hand, what I understand Magpie to be saying, that any treatment of 'mothers' as a norm marginalizes women who aren't mothers, is also very reasonable. It's a problem, because 'motherhood' is both treated as an expectation for women and marginalized -- you're a freak if you don't have children, but a boring drone with no interests beyond strained peas if you do. My gut goes with B -- I think you can marginalize neither group -- but I don't know.
But I still don't get what the problem is in talking about this in terms of sexist reactions. They're part of what's going on.
171: That is, I think, the Lump of Outrage theory, and while attractive, I believe that it's mistaken. Attending to one issue (those rat bastids at Hahvahd) doesn't distract from related issues (like the esteemed monseiur), it creates publicity for them.
For the record, I wouldn't have told them to piss off. I started looking at other things to go into, but if one of my profs had told me "you're an incredibly talented student with a possibility at a great career in Mathematics--it would be a loss for us if you went and did something else," I would have listened.
Also, thanks SCMT for being shocked on my behalf. These threads have helped me sort out some things in my mind, at least.
that doesn't mean that most people will think a column about "motherhood" will incude, say, global warming
But we have to save the planet from global warming For The Children!
Yeah, what gets me about this sort of thing is how little things make huge differences. I had a professor in law school who did a lot of game theory/mathy stuff, and he had some models relating to affirmative action. I wouldn't swear to the details, but there was one model that assumed that one in twenty hiring or promotion decisions was made in a racist fashion -- not hiring or promoting a black candidate on the ground of his race. And when you ran that through a five-tier organization, very, very few blacks made it to the top.
People who succeed at a very high level are, in large part, along with the absolutely necessary competence and hard work, people for whom a whole lot of things they had no control over went right.
Attending to one issue (those rat bastids at Hahvahd) doesn't distract from related issues (like the esteemed monseiur), it creates publicity for them.
The primacy of one over the other--Harvard over leblanc--is the problem. And we do it because we buy...something, which I'm not clear about...that we shouldn't be buying. At some level, it's the easy out.
Or, in some way relatedly, is affirmative-action a solution or a kludge to avoid dealing with a real and really difficult problem. Who knows? It could be either, it could be both. I have my suspicions about social statistics for a significant part of the African-American community are going to look like in twenty years, though.
I think that I would read a column called WASPs who think. It implies that many WASPs are rather unreflective which is probably true. The title also suggests that its writers are self-aware and undercuts the notion that white men are the norm by which we should judge all other contributions, that they are the reasonable, educated reader. (It sort of like the legal standard of the reasonably prudent person. In real life, I have never met an RPP.)
"WASPs who think" recognizes that the term WASP should not be conflated with "general reader."
173: I think I just have the emphasis in a different place. Motherhood itself is a fairly common thing, as you said, and it's not really able to be marginalized. However, strong self-identification as a mother, to the point where it supercedes all other self-identifications, is far more unusual. In my mind, the former case tells you nearly nothing about the person in question other than their gender. They could have any number of great insights, many of which may tangentially involve their children. The latter tells you that there's probably not a fat lot going on in their life outside the minutia of their kid's day-to-day lives, and that is (hopefully) a very marginal perspective. They will probably not write much of use to those who are not parents.
When you title a column with your profession, or your gender, or your race, you are implying an extremely strong self-identification with that title. Personally, I'd prefer if anyone who wrote outside a tiny subject area was just lumped into a very large general interest Op-Ed section where there's no signals to imply only one group should read them.
There the problem is 'what is affirmative action'? The Army's version is great (I looked into this in the course of tendentious argument with Idealist: "Nyah, nyah, the Army does it! Pthbbbbthpp!") What they do, as I understand it (I looked up the regulations, but have no direct experience), is do their usual promotion process in a race-neutral fashion, and then check to see if the people they've promoted match the racial breakdown of the pool they're promoting from. And if not, they go over the records of the ones they didn't promote with a fine-tooth comb to figure out what happened to them. Did the black guy inexplicably get one really bad review in the middle of a bunch of good ones? Is it possible that that review wasn't the most reliable possible? And after that process, they come up with a bunch more minority officers to promote, without lowering their standards, just correcting spots where they can identify something screwy happening to the minority candidate's record. That kind of thing is, I think, a real solution, because that's how racism works to hold people back -- one asshole screws you, and then everyone else judges you on the basis of that screwing.
College admissions? Eh, that sort of thing is more of a kludge. I'm torn about it -- I think it may need to be abandoned just because it pisses people off so much, and we're going to need to find a better solution. But I think the people who are pissed off are unreasonable idiots.
WASPs who think: An idea whose time has come.
173: Yes, I think you have it exactly right.
I think most people have a strict definition of "mother" topics as being those directly related to raising children and that it's not necessarily sexist or marginalizing to not find the minutiae of childrearing interesting reading material.
However, I also agree that there is a tendency of people to dismiss or trivialize the opinions of mothers, which is what I was trying to get at with the externally-applied vs. self-identified "mommy blog" label.
Assuming women all share the same interest in childrearing because most women will eventually become mothers is marginalizing, full stop, because it plays up the freak status you mention. The last stat I heard was that 85% of American women would become mothers by age 45. That still leaves 15% who will never become mothers (or more, because that number's increasing) and an awful lot more who aren't mothers just yet and not planning to be mothers any time soon.
It's a good idea in terms of, e.g., workplace and hiring policies to assume that all women of childbearing age are potential mothers and compensate accordingly, because most women will become mothers, will face a lot of the same challenges when they do become mothers, and these policies have a huge and disproportionate impact on women as a class. (It also has some spillover benefits for fathers who want to participate more in their children's lives and childless women who don't want to be discriminated against because they're viewed as potential mothers and therefore workplace defectees, but the main point is to allow the majority of women full participation.)
It's NOT a good idea to assume that because I sport a pair of ovaries, I will be interested in hearing about someone's toddler's poop, and that I'm sexist or insensitive to the needs of children and mothers if I don't. In that case I think the assumption is sexist, because my assumed potential to become pregnant is not a large part of my identity, and that there's a lot more to being a woman (and a person) than one's ability or interest in reproduction.
I should explain MIT's brilliant approach to gender-based affirmative action in admissions here. (Note: This I got from a faculty member at a party, a decade later. If it's wrong, it's my fault -- it's certainly going to be imprecise.)
When I was admitted to MIT, there was a transition in the number of women admitted going on. Two classes before me (juniors when I was a freshman) the sex ration was something like 5-1 M-F. My class, and the class before, were more like 2-1, maybe even more balanced than that. And you could tell just from interacting with people that something was different about the people in my group from those in the older years -- artsier, less hard-core nerdy, something. But the weird thing was that the men in my group were also different -- it wasn't a difference between the new extra women and everyone else, it was a global difference between the Classes of 91 and 92 (and later ones) and prior classes. It was notable enough, and simultaneous enough with the increased representation of women, that people talked about it, and tried to figure out exactly what had changed.
Just a year or two ago, I ran into an MIT faculty member at a party, and we got talking about the old place, and I mentioned this to him. And he cracked up at how noticeable it had been. Apparently what had happened was that MIT had been trying to increase female enrollment, and was going to institute an AA program lowering standards for women -- adding X points to your math SATs, for example. And the faculty threw a collective tantrum, horrified at the idea. (Don't worry, the faculty is teh hero.) And they made an offer to the administration: "Look, let us come up with a better alternative." And they thought about it, and instead of lowering standards for women, they got more women admitted by raising the standards for both genders.
Turns out, that the pool of applicants with 780 math SATs (basically what MIT had been pulling from) is very heavily male. But the pool of applicants with 780 math and 780 verbal SATs, while much smaller, is also much more gender-balanced. And it's still big enough to make up a freshman class.
The prof I was talking to said the new-style MIT students were clearly distinguishable -- weaker in some regards (not achieving manaical focus quite as easily) but stronger in others (having a global sense of what the point of whatever they were doing was), and that over all, he thought there weren't any real downsides to the change.
Here's the tricky thing about encouraging undergrads to get PhDs: it's a bad idea for the majority of them, male or female. You have to want a doctorate, actively, having had some experience of life outside of school to compare it with.
185: Is that true in the sciences in the same way it is in the humanities? My understanding is that the problems are very, very different.
I think there is a difference in that science PhDs tend to work in labs and get more frequent contact with their peers and mentors, but I would suspect that the need to self-motivate at a very high level is similar.
184: That's cool to hear. By the time I was applying to schools, MIT had become nearly 50-50 in its gender split. It's now CalTech that has to work super-hard to attract girls. They actually pay every girl they accept to fly out to campus for the orientation weekend. Only a few boys who were super-high achievers (as in, top 24 on the USA math olympiad for 4 years running) that I know of got the same treatment. I think it really has been to MIT's benefit.
That said, given the people I know who got accepted there, I'd guess they had different standards for their male and female enrollees, at least from my school.
187: The difference I was thinking of was the "You get your PhD, and then you're adjunct faculty with no benefits and no hope of tenure ever" problem. I don't think that's a problem for technical PhD's, because they're often desirable from an employment point of view outside academia. I've got a good friend who's in a molecular genetics post-doc, and while she's still ambivalent about academia, she has no sense that she's screwed herself professionally.
Oh, that difference. Yes, that is a real difference. I was thinking of how much it can suck to try to persevere in the face of overwhelming, abstract indifference to your success, which I've heard is a feature of PhDs in most fields.
180, 183: The hostility to mothers ("hearing about someone's toddler's poop"; "there's probably not a fat lot going on in their life") is precisely the point. Saying that well yes, a lot of smart women are mothers, but mothers who make a *point* of being mothers are probably boring or talk about nothing but poop is really not all that different than saying that yes, most black people are perfectly fine, but black people who make a *point* of acting like niggers are probably criminals or talk about nothing but hos and drugs.
The reason I like the title is that it *means* something. Some people are arguing that it might not have been an *effective* title in terms of gaining maximum readership; that may well be true, and that's not what I mean when I say it was a good title. What I mean is that it's a title that foregrounds the fact that we, as a culture and as individuals, think of "mothers" as a marginal group who, if they are interested in (say) politics or global warming are interested in those things in some capacity *other than* their capacity as mothers. That is, they're interested in them as people, not as mothers.
The point is, mothers are people. As such, they have the same set of interests as anyone else. Extra special bonus: as people who have children, they also have a front-row seat on questions of gender, feminism, public policy, environmental issues, education, and a lot of other things. The column was great because it covered all that stuff and more. (And it wasn't exclusively written by mothers, or even by women, by the way.)
Everyone here *knows* that mothers have opinions on a lot of interesting things. But nonetheless, a lot of people are determined to argue that when you *label* someone a mother, your doing so implies that those other, "general interest" things are somehow not included. I think that that distinction is one that we really, really ought to get past, and that the *reason* Salon gave their column that title (and even if it wasn't their intent--though the preface to the essay collection indicated that it was, if memory serves--the *effect* of that title) was to make that clear. That's what makes it a good title: it does a *lot* of work in communicating/summing up the viewpoint of the column.
That that work may not be clear to people who never bothered to read the column doesn't mean anything; a lot of good titles don't really mean much until after you read the books they belong to.
190: I doubt going after a ph.d in any field is a good idea for someone who derives too much of their self-worth from external validation.
186: For most technical fields, the marginal gain of a ph.d is pretty questionable. The `job security' effect of it makes things different than for humanities grads, so long as you are happy with leaving. I mean, if you are dead set on an academic position and don't make it, you'll often have more lucrative jobs open to you than if you had been in humanities, but I'm not sure that makes you any happier over all.
On the other hand, the corporate world doesn't care that much about whether or not you finished your ph.d., for the most part.
193: I found out the hard way too. we can cry into a beer about it someday.
191: If all you took away from my comment was a snarky line about poop, then I don't know why I'm even bothering to try to discuss this with you.
The real learning curve was figuring out that adolescent beliefs that "I don't care what other people think" aren't, in fact, true.
196: If I may respond more fully to your comment:
It's NOT a good idea to assume that because I sport a pair of ovaries, I will be interested in hearing about someone's toddler's poop, and that I'm sexist or insensitive to the needs of children and mothers if I don't. In that case I think the assumption is sexist, because my assumed potential to become pregnant is not a large part of my identity, and that there's a lot more to being a woman (and a person) than one's ability or interest in reproduction.
It's also kind of not okay that your assumption about the contents of a column labelled 'Mothers Who Think' is 'toddler poop' or its equivalent (snarky and offhanded, but you meant something, didn't you?). It's a column identifying itself as from a viewpoint that isn't yours, and it's wrong and oppressive for anyone to assume that it should be yours, or that there's something wrong with you for not coming from that viewpoint. But it's also wrong and oppressive for you to assume that that viewpoint is limited or dull just because it identifies itself as maternal.
I think the study of mathematics is limited and dull.
198: I initially referred only to the minutiae of parenting -- may I respectfully point out that you were the first to bring bodily fluids into it in 173?
I'm not assuming that all or even most mothers' viewpoints are dull -- otherwise I would have stopped reading Dooce and Sundry a long time ago.
I am assuming that someone who uses the label "motherhood" to describe their column or blog is talking about motherhood in a very restricted sense, and I think that's an expectation that lots of people share.
I meant "toddler poop" as shorthand for conversations like the sessions that women in one of my past offices would get into where they'd swap labor stories and day-to-day parenting experiences -- interesting and important if you're a parent, boring if you're not. I was interested in their perspectives on any other topic, including topics related to motherhood in the broader sense, but the labor stories drove me straight out of the room.
And I'm not using 'toddler poop' as anything more than shorthand for the minutia of day-to-day parenting. The point is that labeling a column as being from a maternal perspective does not limit it to day-to-day parenting minutia, and that assuming that it does is, itself, problematic.
Turns out, that the pool of applicants with 780 math SATs (basically what MIT had been pulling from) is very heavily male. But the pool of applicants with 780 math and 780 verbal SATs, while much smaller, is also much more gender-balanced. And it's still big enough to make up a freshman class
Maybe here we have the seeds of an answer to the math thread: girls aren't going in droves to math because if they're strikingly bright, they are likely to be bright in more than one area and have many options open to them.
. If a piece has "Mothers" in the title, I will assume that it was deliberately so titled because it is of interest to mothers as mothers, as the female parents of children.
This I agree with. I never read the column, but it doesn't seem like it would be crazy to assume that since they titled it 'mothers' it might have something to do with motherhood, even if they're thinking mothers with keen intellects, just as the 'ph.d.' in 'bitch ph.d.' is a clue that some of the content of the bitching is going to be about the academy. It might not even be derisive, but I might think that someone who is so adamant about calling herself a *mother* who thought is probably offering insights on specifically maternal areas of expertise. Not toddler poop. But maybe how to manage a career and kids, or how to reconcile staying at home with an ambitious career. Not that that would be her only area of expertise, mind, but if LB runs a lawyer blog, I don't go there if I'm interested in learning about knitting. I don't expect to find medical advice at 'Lawyers, Guns, and Money.'
See, I wouldn't give anyone a hard time for making that mistake -- "I never clicked on it because I figured it was the strained peas column." One could reasonably be confused. But arguing that it's somehow wrong to name a wideranging column 'Mothers Who Think', after you're aware of the subject matter, because if you call it 'Mothers' that means it's the strained peas column, is IMO a problem.
Not wrong to name it that, though perhaps not the best choice, advertising-wise. But I read everyone on this thread as saying 'I didn't read it because I figured it must be about 'toddler poop' (shorthand for 'areas of greater concern to parents)', not that 'Motherhood means you have no opinions on anything besides strained peas.'
203: Fair enough. I still would have preferred a more inclusive title, though, since this was clearly Salon's content aimed at women.
It's not just parenting minutae that would annoy me. I read arguments all the damned time that go like: "when my children do X, I do Y, which is why I think that the US position towards the Iraqis needs to be more like Y." Both men and women make this argument, and it drives me up the wall.
Then, I'm reminded of how Laurie David, the producer of the Gore documentary, would end every interview with a plea to mothers to agitate....for a no-idle pickup lane in front of their schools. Over and over she did this (NPR and its affiliates tend to booking redundancy); this was her pragmatic PR move. It's not a bad political position to take--suburban women did move Dem this election--but every single time I heard her make her call to environmental action a call to *mothers in particular*, I felt a little more out in the cold.
Oh, and then there's the problem of trying to engage with parents on topics they feel is close to their parenting. Even laying to one side all of the delicacy necessary not to intrude on or judge someone else's decisions, as a non-parent, you get told, repeatedly, even if often in subtle ways, that "you'll feel different about it once you have kids." That's awful in a conversation, and I tend to seek out columnists with whom I can imagine having a productive conversation.
This thread has gotten me a bit peevish, so I should probably leave it there.
Oh, the whole thing is confused enough that I'm not dead sure what anyone is arguing any more. I have the impression that there's hostility to the name that goes beyond the 'What, there was interesting stuff in there? If they'd called it something else I would have known to read it.'
I am assuming that someone who uses the label "motherhood" to describe their column or blog is talking about motherhood in a very restricted sense, and I think that's an expectation that lots of people share.
Exactly. And that is the expectation that I am objecting to. And that the title obviously meant to take headon, given what the content of the column was often about.
The main confusion I'm seeing here is that people are saying they didn't read it because of the name and then other people keep going on about how that is sexist (sure, but so what? lots of stuff is sexist, and pointing it out is good, but there are a lot of other issues going on with that behavior which are not necessarily reducible to pervasive sexism) and it's still a great name because it challenges stereotypes (sure, but again, so what? if all these people aren't reading it because of the name, their stereotypes about mothers aren't being challenged). Then everybody gets defensive and goes around in circles.
208: I don't think Salon was intending to be that overtly political, just clever. Nothing in the e-mail they sent me suggested they weren't conflating women and mothers.
I am assuming that someone who uses the label "motherhood" to describe their column or blog is talking about motherhood in a very restricted sense claiming a privileged status position.
And that the title obviously meant to take headon, given what the content of the column was often about.
How, though? People who don't read it because of the title aren't going to change their minds because of how great the content is, because they're not reading it.
212: Well, the thing is that I've been in this argument before with people who did read it and still got huffy about the title. And we're talking about it now, and hopefully someone who never read it is thinking 'Huh, I guess I do assume that anything mentioning "mothers" is focused on the strained-peas end of things. That's a little messed up, isn't it.'
211: Arrgh. It's not that I don't sympathize, it's that I don't think MWT was an example of marginalizing those without children. But you could probably talk me into it -- I'm wobbly on this whole argument.
211: Well, yes and no. Yes, women who wear the mother badge are often claiming a privileged status position. But the catch-22 is that, in fact, motherhood is *not* a privileged status position. The privileges of motherhood are mostly lip-service or surface privileges: you get a closer parking space at the mall, people smile at you on mother's day. On the other hand, you're much likelier to end up poor, you're assumed to be boring and single-minded, you're single-handedly responsible for overpopulation, you're second-guessed about your work life and your home life, and so on.
That is to say, I recognize--and think abhorrent--the way that women are pressured to become mothers. I'm completely on your side there. What I'm saying is that the gotcha part is that once you succumb to that pressure, it becomes an excuse for denying you all sorts of basic human rights.
Which is of course *why* women are pressured to become mothers, or part of why. To the extent that women themselves pressure other women to become mothers, it's a kind of false consciousness--sort of like women who pressure other women to wear makeup or get their hair done, or whatever.
Not marginalizing, necessarily, to my mind. Just that if you make a big point of saying 'we're lawyers' or 'we're mothers', it's not crazy to expect that there are going to be a number of positions on which they will claim to have privileged understanding.
Well, isn't it probable that they will? Just as women will often claim to have privileged understanding of feminist issues?
Oh come on. It's not so one-sided. Mothers are morally superior to us single chicks. Did you know I'll be an adult once I reproduce? Did you know that I'd understand, if I were a mother? I must be crazzzzy, because I am 27 and not a mother. I could have my opinions taken seriously in Salon, but I'm not a mother?
That's a gross overstatement of what the title is claiming, and what I'm saying. I'm in no way ever going to argue that mothers are morally superior to single women, that women without kids aren't adults, that women without kids aren't to be taken seriously, or that women should have kids by 27 or any age. Claiming a rhetorical position as a mother does not necessarily marginalize women who aren't mothers; I acknowledged a couple of comments ago that a lot of mothers *do* use it to marginalize women who aren't mothers, but I think that is a mistaken thing to do. I also think that, like women who claim privileges based on being girly, it's a measure of their own internalized oppression and should be understood as such.
The point is that there is nothing *wrong* with labelling a column as by/for "mothers," and that doing so does not imply a narrow point of view *except inasmuch as we make the sexist assumption that mothers are narrow people.*
Right, but if you were you'd be marginalized differently, as a mindless maternal drone. The answer isn't to accept the marginalization of whatever category you aren't in: MWT reasonably makes the point that childbearing doesn't make you stupid or limited, and something else can make the point that not having kids doesn't make you a failure or a weirdo.
220: So, SB, having thought about it: do you still object to the title?
221 to 218, with agreement for 219, and really, really sympathy, and as much understanding as I can muster from the point of view of someone who never got any pressure to procreate, for Cala and Jack. I know it's a huge freaking maddening deal.
Yeah, let's all don leopard skins and rend Standpipe limb-from-limb for maddening us! </maenad>
Enough women in my experience have claimed the rhetorical position of the mother to marginalize single women that I'm suspicious of women who claim the title as an authoritative ground for any argument beyond their own specific lives.
I'm willing to admit that there may be a fat cloud of ressentiment wafting about my comments on this thread. I'm all for the social and economics rights of people who care for children, really I am, but I've had enough cant about motherhood to last me a decade.
The point is that there is nothing *wrong* with labelling a column as by/for "mothers,"
Except when that viewpoint is intended to be by/for all women, which I would argue was Salon's intent.
226: I don't think it was. I think there was a clear expectation (perhaps unrealistic, but there) that men were reading, as well as women. I really think it was meant as a viewpoint, not a synedoche equating mothers with all women.
LB, please check your email (if possible).
184 something like this may have happened but the average MIT student does not actually have a 780 verbal sat. According to data which can be found here (25 percentile, 75 percentile) verbal scores for entering freshmen were (680,760),(680,760) and (690,770) in years 2003-04,2004-05 and 2005-06 respectively. Also the percentage of (males,females) admitted was (11.6,29.3),(11.7,27.4), (10.0,26.0) for those years. I am a bit skeptical this is the result of a sex blind admissions process.
I encourage you in a healthy skepticism.
Seriously, as I said, this is a story I was told at a party, that corresponds well to my perceptions at the time. I have no internal knowledge of MITs admissions policies beyond that.
But here's their official position, if you're interested.
226: Don't give into the Maternal Oppressors, MP. Who the fuck are they to define the discourse? Hand that rocks the cradle, my ass.
(Interestingly--or embarrassingly, given what I've said about the magazine--I just read an article at Salon about women choosing not to have kids, and the explicit pressure they feel from mothers, often friends, to follow on their choice. It might have been linked from here. Or even this thread. (That would clearly be embarrassing.) If not, it was probably linked at Beyerstein's or GFR's. It was worthwhile.)
189 Actually it is a problem for Phds in technical fields for a number of reasons. First even when there are reasonable alternative employment possibilities, many people pursue Phds because they are modeling themselves after tenured professors they have encountered and want to live the same sort of life. They may have wholly unrealistic ideas of how easy it will be to obtain a similar tenured position. This can lead to a series of marginal academic jobs and rather bitter disillusionment when their dream dies. There are some aggravating factors. Role model professors may have obtained tenure themselves when it was easier or mostly by luck and be blissfully unaware of current conditions and portray academic career possibilities in an unjustifiably rosy light. And there is a cultural belief in academia that a tenured position is the golden ring and anyone who fails to get one is in some sense a failure.
Also there can be problems with seeking alternative employment. Some technical fields like astronomy have very little appeal to industry. Others like mathematics are in demand but not necessarily because industry needs research mathematicians. Instead a Phd in mathematics is taken as strong evidence that you are smart and you can get jobs that require brains but usually have nothing to do with mathematical research. This is ok if you realized when deciding to get a Phd that it was just an elaborate IQ test but may be disappointing otherwise.
Enough women in my experience have claimed the rhetorical position of the mother to marginalize single women that I'm suspicious of women who claim the title as an authoritative ground for any argument beyond their own specific lives.
This is what I'm thinking about. Of course there are intelligent women who are mothers, and have areas of expertise to which they can speak. But that doesn't necessarily *derive* from the fact that they're mothers, but from other areas of their lives.
That someone is a mother doesn't imply that she is in a special position to speak about economics, or global warming. It doesn't mean that she can't, of course. Just that tagging 'but I'm a mother!' on the front of it seems to lend it, in some cases, undeserved gravitas. I'm a mom, so I care more about Iraq than those kerrazy single gals who are too busy sipping champagne out of their manolo blahniks! I'm a mom, so I really understand about global warming!
This isn't really aimed at the Salon section, but just a general annoyance. If you're capable of speaking to an interesting area, why is it so important that you also had a kid?
235: So the sciences are pretty much the same as the humanities in this regard. Makes sense.
236: It may well not be. But the flip side is, why be so insistent on denying that the experience of motherhood might actually make a difference in how one understands some things?
The whole thing feels like a zero-sum game. Moms and non-moms fighting each other over who's got it worse. I don't see why we need to do this.
But the flip side is, why be so insistent on denying that the experience of motherhood might actually make a difference in how one understands some things?
I'm not denying it. But it is a trump card that can't be beat. "You'll understand when you're a mother." I'm sure it shapes your experience, but it's very unfair rhetorically.
233 the article you linked doesn't describe a sex blind admissions process and appeared in the student newspaper in 1997 making it a less than authoritative statement of MIT's current official admissions policy.
That's true.
If we can continue the discussion, though, and purely hypothetically and having nothing to do with present company, I've never been able to figure out a satisfactory answer in arguments where, say, person A has a firm opinion about some child-rearing issue--"I'll never do that"--and person B both recognizes the position, and recognizes (through experience) its impracticality. I mean, there *are* things that I was certain about before I had PK that I now realize, with experience, are more complicated or different than I thought they were.
Obviously not every person who doesn't have kids is the pre-kids me. On the other hand, it's really frustrating to talk about stuff and have your experience disallowed as evidence. And b/c I know that the "well, you don't have kids" thing is just asinine, I don't want to say it. But what else could one say that wouldn't be asinine, but would make the point that one's experience really should be given some credit, or that one's interlocutor really is speaking from a position of incomplete understanding of whatever-it-is?
I'm fine with the rhetorical move if it's something actually related to rearing children or childbirth or, well, an area in which a mother might be expected to have earned some real expertise. I don't mean this to be read overly narrowly; mothers do lots of things.
Less so when it's about something like economic policy, or global warming, and the 'but the children are our future, and I, as a mother can have that in mind.'
And this is what I think bothers me (extremely abstracted) about the Mothers Who Think model. In one light, it's great: moms think about more than toddler poo, and that's not emphasized enough. In another light, though, the fact that X is a mom really doesn't add anything to her authority on non-mom-related issues.
It's sort of like when Volokh wraps himself in the academic flag when he wants to do no more than basically bullshit about a subject that interests him. It's not academic freedom if he wants to pretend to be a psychologist or a philosopher on his blog. But he can say, I'm just being an academic, and suddenly, it's okay that he's arguing for heinous things. 'Cause he's a law prof.
Likewise, to the extent that X's opinions would be ignored except that she's a mom, it's really frustrating. I'm smart. I'm educated. I pay my taxes. But I, as a woman, can't hold grown-up opinions about issues. Unless I have a toddler.
Yeah, I agree with that--although from the other side of the parental divide, it feels a lot like I, as a mother, can't hold grown-up opinions about issues because I'm not expected to be interested in anything besides toddlers.
The whole "children are the future" rhetoric is incredibly irritating, and it kinda screws over moms who think by oversimplifying stuff--the way that arguments like, "well, as a woman, I'm an authority on housework/children/fashion/single-sex education/whatever" do. And obviously having a kid doesn't suddenly grant one an understanding of economics. OTOH, it certainly gives one insight into certain economic realities that I had no idea about before I had a kid. But of course one would need to offer explanations of those things if one were engaged in a discussion about them.
I'm certainly not going to click through an ad to read more of that article, true enough.
227: But if the column is on general topics and just happens to be from the viewpoints of different women (and apparently some men even), why not title it in such a way that shows the breadth of topics?
I understand that I'm just running the topic in circles by this point, but I do just agree with 204 and 205. I'm mostly annoyed that a column which sounds very interesting, and is well-regarded by a fair number of people here, was given a title that seems to clearly denote limited subject material in the same way as columns labelled "Modern Business" or "The Zen of Fandom".
