The Intelligent Conversationalist
Page 22
* * *
NOTEWORTHY NUGGETS: OLD WIVES TALES VERSUS THE FACTS
People see a woman with child and become instant know-it-alls—but usually they are know-nothings. Here is a roundup of the most common misconceptions doing the rounds postconception.
Tale
Fact
You can tell from the shape of the bump what sex the child is. Carrying it low = boy; high (and/or fast heartbeat/morning sickness) = girl.
Myth. Without an ultrasound you won’t know which you’re having.
Heartburn means your baby will be born with a full head of hair.
Myth. Pregnancy hormones loosen the muscles of your esophagus, causing heartburn.
Spicy food and raspberry leaf tea in late pregnancy will bring on labor.
Myth.
Computers or cell phones can harm a baby.
They can’t, but jury’s out on microwaves.
You can eat for two.
Myth. Calorie needs are basically the same until late pregnancy, when you need an extra 300 calories or so.
Caffeine is bad for your baby.
True! Starbucks will unfortunately survive without you.
You can’t dye your hair.
Avoid in first trimester.
Tanning beds and reflexology should be avoided throughout pregnancy.
True. What did Snooki do?
You can’t drink when you’re pregnant.
Our parents did. Look how we turned out. Best stick with the Poland Spring.
You can’t eat sushi.
Stay off the raw fish—something to do with parasites.
* * *
Although you must NEVER ask a modern woman when she is due (social suicide if she isn’t), it is in fact quite obvious to tell. She won’t be drinking caffeine or cocktails in her normal fishlike way and will be off the raw-fish sushi, and her normally immaculate hair will have roots.
* * *
NOTEWORTHY NUGGET: BOYS VERSUS GIRLS
You have to feel sorry for Henry VIII’s wives. It is in fact men who determine the sex of a baby, depending on whether the sperm that hits the jackpot is carrying an X or a Y chromosome. An X chromosome combines with the mother’s X chromosome to make a baby girl (XX) and a Y chromosome will combine with the mother’s to make a boy (XY).
* * *
MINI REPORT 4. DEATH
We begin this report with the death penalty. But since that’s not a good place to bid our adieus on a Cheat Sheet, we then touch on the afterlife and finish up with some thought-provoking quotes from wise women and men on the subject of moving on.
Capital punishment, when the state puts a person to death, remains a divisive issue around the world. It has, as with abortion, existed throughout history. As of May 2013, 140 countries were abolitionist in law or practice. In 2014, at least 22 countries around the world carried out executions.
In 2015, the USA was the only source of executions in the western hemisphere (Japan still has it, if that makes you feel any better). You cannot be a member of the European Union and have the death penalty. However, surveys have long shown the majority of Americans are in favor of it. Since 1976, over 80 percent of all American executions take place in the South, less than 1 percent in the Northeast.
* * *
STUNNING STATISTICS: COUNTRIES WHO EXECUTED THE MOST PEOPLE IN 2014
1. China
2. Iran
3. Saudi Arabia
4. Iraq
5. USA
6. Sudan
7. Yemen
8. Egypt
9. Somalia
10. Jordan
* * *
Amnesty International has proclaimed that “the death penalty is the ultimate, irreversible denial of human rights.” But if you’re comfortable hanging out with the company America’s keeping in the list of countries who execute the most, so be it.
Told you so. European liberal feminist. There’s another matter that Europeans differ from their American counterparts on—the acceptance of the right to die and suicide tourism. “Going to Switzerland” has become a euphemism for assisted suicide.
There is no end in sight for the debates on these issues in many nations. However, we have the end in sight with this Cheat Sheet, so we now turn to the concept of the hereafter/life after death/the next world/the afterlife, which has rather obviously been around about as long as procreation.
Ancient cultures were terribly thoughtful for future archaeologists. The ancient Egyptians saw death not the end of life, just as an interruption, so the physical form needed to be preserved—hence mummification. Ancient Greek souls needed to give a ferryman some gold, so coins would be put under the deceased’s tongue.
As we saw in the religion section, many adhere to the belief of reincarnation, including Buddhists and Sikhs, while the whole megillah of heaven aka paradise/hell with a bit of purgatory thrown in can be found in religions from Catholicism to Islam.
Science remains skeptical of the existence of the afterlife, although it has become somewhat less so. Hundreds of scholarly articles have been written over the last few decades about near-death experiences.
Fundamentally no one can know. You can’t interview dead people. Well, those who are considered sane can’t.
Thus we conclude by considering some wise words of people who are living—and have lived—some renowned lives.
* * *
WISE WORDS: DEATH
Do not pity the dead, Harry. Pity the living, and above all, those who live without love.
—J. K. Rowling
A man who won’t die for something is not fit to live.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
While I thought that I was learning how to live, I have been learning how to die.
—Leonardo da Vinci
Any man who has $10,000 left when he dies is a failure.
—Errol Flynn
When you’re dead, you’re dead. That’s it.
—Marlene Dietrich
* * *
SOCIAL SURVIVAL STRATEGY
Argument: “I think we can all agree on one thing about Hillary Clinton from the 1990s, ‘Women’s rights are human rights.’”
Hillary Clinton has been a lightning rod in American conversation for decades. This comment will at least cool down the debate long enough for you to figure out how to change the topic—or come up with some better facts to win it.
Crisp Fact: “We, the USA, are the only source of executions in the western hemisphere.”
You need to be aware of this one because if you’re with foreigners, they probably are, and you need to stake your position, whether you are proud or ashamed of it.
Pivot: “As Errol Flynn once said, ‘Any man who has $10,000 left when he dies is a failure.’ What’s on your bucket list?”
All of us have a fantasy list of things we want to do before we die. This will keep others occupied and your tête-à-tête out of trouble and strife.
CHEAT SHEET 25—FEMINISM
BACKGROUND BRIEFING
Feminism.
Pretty much ever since Socrates’s wife was painted as a jealous shrew by one of his pupils, women have had it tough in philosophy. Thinkers from Aristotle to Kant questioned whether women were fully capable of reason.
CEO Marissa Mayer, Carla Bruni, Katy Perry, and Carrie Underwood have all distanced themselves from the F word. Susan Sarandon has muttered something along the lines that it’s old-fashioned and prefers “humanist.”
One might facetiously suggest that these women, unlike Emma Watson, Beyoncé, Lena Dunham, and Taylor Swift (who was assisted by Dunham in coming to terms with feminism), don’t have access to a dictionary. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word feminism, which first appeared in its tome in 1895, is “the advocacy of women’s rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men.”
In this day and age, surely it should be uncontroversial, at least in developed nations, to believe that women should be treated as so
cial and intellectual equals to men. Something has surely gotten lost in translation when you have women who believe in that concept but deny feminism.
However, rightly or wrongly, there can be no doubt that the label has become stigmatized. Which is annoying. As there is nothing that gives a misogynist greater pleasure than a female not deigning to call herself a feminist.
* * *
WISE WORDS
I’ve thought about what is an alternative word to feminism. There isn’t one. It’s a perfectly good word. And it can’t be changed.
—Annie Lennox
* * *
Feminism is of course an umbrella term that includes a number of movements. Perhaps the roots of the controversy concerning it lie in the fact that it has never been a cohesive entity. It means different things to different people, sometimes unifying on certain issues.
The issue of women’s rights first seriously cropped up during the French and American revolutions in the late eighteenth century. The word itself comes from the French word féminisme, and was supposedly invented by a man in 1837—Charles Fourier, a philosopher. However, the term became widespread in the West during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, in what was subsequently labeled the first wave of feminism, which particularly focused on suffrage—the right to vote. US superstars of this era included the triumvirate of Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Lucy Stone. American women won the right to vote in 1920.
The second wave of feminism is believed by many to have been kicked off by Betty Friedan’s 1963 book, The Feminine Mystique, wherein she discussed “the problem that has no name”—women’s discontent with their role in life. So came the fight for legal and social equality. “The Personal Is Political,” wrote Carol Hanisch. Australian-born, British-based Germaine Greer penned the international 1970 pivotal bestseller The Female Eunuch, in which she argued male entitlement and female repression reduced women to the status of eunuchs.
Front and center in the second wave of all these trailblazers was the legendary Gloria Steinem, who founded Ms. magazine—its first 1972 issue of 300,000 rapidly sold out and became the landmark feminist American publication. Politicians included Bella Abzug, the first Jewish congresswoman (1971–1976), who was key in getting the Equal Rights Amendment as far as it did.
* * *
KEY TERM: THE EQUAL RIGHTS AMENDMENT (ERA)
• The ERA actually wasn’t started by second-wave feminists, oh no. There was a 1923 draft by suffragist Alice Paul, and from then until 1970 it was introduced in some form in EVERY Congress session—and held up in committee EVERY time.
• Fast-forward to 1970, Martha Griffiths, a Democratic (surprise!) representative from Michigan, managed to get it to the House. Where it passed. Only to be killed by the Senate.
• Griffiths reintroduced a redraft, which was approved by the House in 1971 and the Senate in 1972, where it went to the states for ratification.
• The ERA was ratified in “only” thirty-five states—it needed three more in order to become a constitutional amendment.
* * *
* * *
NOTEWORTHY NUGGETS: SECOND-WAVE LEGAL SUCCESSES
1963—Equal Pay Act.
1964—Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.
1965—SCOTUS decision on Griswold v. Connecticut. (SCOTUS ruled that a state prohibiting birth control violated the right to marital privacy.)
1967—Executive order extending full affirmative action rights to women.
1970—Title X (family planning).
1972—Title IX in the Education Amendments.
1973—Roe v. Wade, SCOTUS.
1974—Women’s Educational Equity Act, Equal Credit Opportunity Act.
1978—Pregnancy Discrimination Act.
* * *
There is debate over whether the second wave has ever really ended—it sort of goes along with the third wave of feminism, which hit in the 1990s. The third wave basically filled in the gaps that the second left. It was more inclusive of women of color and from diverse backgrounds (the second wave had been predominantly white and middle class). Poster girls—or should that be women?—of this era included the African-American academic and defiantly uncapitalized bell hooks and culturally Queen Latifah and Madonna, along with the Spice Girls and Girl Power.
WHY IT MATTERS TODAY
There are still some rather large outstanding difficulties that exist for women here, even in America. The ERA never passed, so these words have never made the Constitution: “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.”
Girls may get better grades in school, but in no small part because of the unfair division of domestic labor, the glass ceiling is still present. Oh, and unequal pay, violence against women, social inequality—plus women’s portrayal in the media. Boys no longer have to buy a National Geographic to see breasts—they just Google porn. And what does that do to America’s daughters?
Flip side is, there are Fifty Shades to the issue. Women may be, as ever, their own worst enemies—for instance, buying into airbrushing and even promoting the body fascism that breeds anorexia and bulimia.
* * *
NOTEWORTHY NUGGET
Hitler and Mussolini claimed they opposed feminism.
* * *
Still unconvinced feminism has no place today? What about these words from Mr. Rush “Feminazi” Limbaugh, No. 1 American radio talk-show host, 14 million listeners a week: “Feminism was established to allow unattractive women easier access to the mainstream.”
Or perhaps these of Pat Robertson, media mogul: “Feminism encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism, and become lesbians.”
Even if you think there is no more work to be done on equal rights for women in the developed world, you surely cannot argue that far more needs to be achieved in the developing world. Prime example: Malala Yousafzai, the schoolgirl shot by the Taliban for championing girls’ education. Hillary Clinton has called women’s rights “the unfinished business of the twenty-first century.” Sums it up for me. But it would, wouldn’t it?
* * *
WISE WORDS
I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat, or a prostitute.
—Rebecca West
* * *
TALKING POINTS
• Feminism’s first wave was not just about suffrage. In 1918, Marie Stopes published Married Love. It was a bestseller. Women were desperate for access to material about their own health.
• We would be remiss if we didn’t mention Simone de Beauvoir’s 1949 existentialist, Marxist look at feminism, Le Deuxième Sexe, The Second Sex.
• No surprise that Saudi Arabia was the last country to grant partial suffrage for women in 2011 for 2015 (we’re still waiting on Brunei—for men and women), but note that Switzerland only did so in 1971. Iran had managed it in 1963. New Zealand was first, in 1893.
• Marital rape was not illegal in all US states until 1993. North Carolina was last to get on that bandwagon.
• The second-wave bra-burning thing? There’s a big debate over whether or not it actually occurred at the protest outside the 1968 Miss America pageant. However, it was from this that the media moniker “bra burners” originated.
The bras are definitely off now for Femen members. Femen originated in Ukraine in 2008, with topless demonstrators protesting against sex tourism. The movement snowballed.
Unfortunately for Femen, Putin in 2013 showed exactly how to invalidate their actions. He enjoyed them.
• We do all love Sesame Street, but along with the whole Elmo dubious-sex thing, why did it take until 2006 to get its first female lead, Abby Cadabby?
• The average woman smiles sixty-two times a day, the average man only eight. How can you not lov
e the fairer sex?
RED FLAGS
• Mary Wollstonecraft was around in the eighteenth, not the nineteenth century. Her A Vindication of the Rights of Woman was first published in 1792, where she came up with the revolutionary concept that women are not naturally inferior to men, suggesting that they should be educated. Fancy that.
• Although Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters Christabel and Sylvia were notorious British militant suffragettes, they were not the ones who died throwing themselves under the king’s horse at 1913’s Derby. That was Emily Davison.
• The least interesting thing about Gloria Steinem is that Batman is her stepson. She married David Bale, Christian’s dad, age sixty-six. Sadly he died three years later.
* * *
WISE WORDS
The idea of being a feminist—so many women have come to this idea of it being anti-male and not able to connect with the opposite sex—but what feminism is about is equality and human rights. For me that is just an essential part of my identity. I hope [Girls] contributes to a continuance of feminist dialogue.
—Lena Dunham
I’m a feminist because I believe in women … it’s a heavy word, feminism, but it’s not one I think we should run from. I’m proud to be a feminist.
—Sheryl Sandberg
* * *
SOCIAL SURVIVAL STRATEGY
Argument: “There is nothing that gives a misogynist greater pleasure than a female not deigning to call herself a feminist.”