The mission of the Library-Archives Division of the Wisconsin Historical Society is to acquire, preserve, and present records and information documenting the history of Wisconsin comprehensively and aspects of North American history. As the State Archives it holds the records and publications of Wisconsin state and local governments. The Library-Archives Division is also a major manuscript repository and serves as the American history library for the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
In the last couple of decades many female artists have investigated the personal landscape of their sexuality, as a means to seize control of their own representation within a culture milieu whose imaging of women has a long track record of idealization and exploitation. Taking my cue from this work, through direct and indirect references to classical painting and photography, my intent is to acknowledge these various traditions and debates, twisting and blurring the codes of classical aesthetics, contemporary rhetorically motivated art, and even erotica.
Ah! So he's riffing on those feminist artists.
In particular, I want the viewer to know I am investigating a history and practice of representation where the roles of viewer and viewed, seducer and object of seduction, are examined and perturbed. In short, I hope to move beyond simplistic notions of viewer and victim, exploring the possibility of a complicated exchange of power that informs the way these pictures come about.
But then... to use students....
Such collaboration involves considerable risk-taking and trust. The images do not mean I have this or that fantasy about a particular individual or situation, but they do explore emotions that I -- and I assume most others -- have felt.
Over the last couple days, we watched the lengthy PBS documentary about Woody Allen. I know a lot of my readers haven't been watching his movies and think of him only in terms of his sexual misdeeds. Exclude that topic for the comments on this new post. All that has been said. Noted. If you must say that again, go to the link above and put it in that comments thread. I want to say something new, based on the documentary, which is overwhelmingly about Allen's work. If you don't know his movies or don't want to talk about the ideas about writing that I'm going to raise, please don't comment in this new thread.
Woody Allen has directed a movie a year — almost precisely — every year since 1969. He's an astounding movie-making machine. It's really quite bizarre. He's a monument not so much to hard work, but to consistently cranking out work, much of it quite excellent. As a writer, he's a lot like a blogger. He just keeps going. It's what he does, quite aligned with living itself. I love that.
Now, it suddenly occurred to me that his achievement is propelled by 2 super-powers — one which he knew he had from his teenage years and another that he discovered through Diane Keaton. (I'll try to finds the specific lines in the documentary that support my theory and transcribe them for you, but I don't have time for that now).
Super-power #1: Automatically thinking of one-line jokes. It's harder for him to stop his thoughts from taking the form of jokes than to think of them (he says). As a teenager, he got a job making $20,000 a year writing jokes. He had to write 50 jokes a day. It wasn't difficult for him.
Super-power #2: As a man, taking the woman's perspective. We see this power burst forth in his fabulous movie "Annie Hall." Allen gives credit to Diane Keaton, whom he worked with in the earlier films "Sleeper" and "Love and Death," for getting him interested in taking on the feeling of being inside the woman's head and writing from there. In this position, he experienced a flow of ideas, that let him write wonderful scenes for actresses, like this one, from "Hannah and Her Sisters," which is used in the documentary as an illustration of his style of writing from the woman's perspective:
You can say that he doesn't really achieve the female perspective or that women aren't really quite like that, but that isn't the point. The point is that his sense of being inside a woman's head empowers him to produce writing that often works for the viewer, including many, many women who love and identify with scenes like that. He's a man, with male thoughts, projecting those thoughts into women's minds. What a powerful force that is, the male with something of his own that he wants to put inside the woman. It makes the urge to write like the sexual urge. That's creative flow. If you can put that force behind your writing... it's a super-power.
Boys swimming is held in the winter, when pool space is limited and expensive to rent, which is a deterrent for many schools. Athletic directors say the sport is not as popular among boys as it is girls, making it hard to field full squads. Some schools in the winter offer coed swimming, where boys and girls compete side-by-side in the dual meets and then separately in the postseason.
Over the years, there have been girls wrestling on boys teams or playing football or ice hockey. Boys have been on field hockey teams and girls have competed alongside boys in golf.
But in wrestling, boys and girls of the same weight compete against each other. And in field hockey and other team sports, a boy on a girls team achieves success through cooperation and collaboration with his teammates.
But what if a child is presented as a boy who has a strong identification with things that are traditionally female? Here's Bobby Montoya, whose mother tried to get him into the Girl Scouts, but didn't claim he was female:
My problem with this is that the argument that he belongs in the Girl Scouts is premised on stereotyping girls. I think the better argument for kids like Bobby is: Let children choose their own toys, hairstyles, clothes and don't make a big deal about whether he or she has chosen things that are more often chosen by members of the opposite sex. Emphasize individual freedom!
Bobby's family put him in a situation where he was excluded because — as the troop leader allegedly put it — he has "boy parts." He has a real physical difference from the girls, and he was classified based on that, not his personal preferences and interests. Now, he's focused on genitalia-based limitations, as if his natural body parts are his problem!
AND: When is it appropriate to make your child a gender celebrity?
Why? Lawprof Felice Batlan elicited these comments:
• “Females are harder on their female assistants, more detail oriented, and they have to try harder to prove themselves, so they put that on you. And they are passive aggressive where a guy will just tell you the task and not get emotionally involved and make it personal.”
• “I just feel that men are a little more flexible and less emotional than women. This could be because the female partners feel more pressure to perform.”
• “Female attorneys have a tendency to downgrade a legal secretary.”
• “I am a female legal secretary, but I avoid working for women because [they are] such a pain in the ass! They are too emotional and demeaning.”
• “Female attorneys are either mean because they're trying to be like their male counterparts or too nice/too emotional because they can't handle the stress. Either way, their attitude/lack of maturity somehow involves you being a punching bag.”
• Women lawyers have “an air about them.”
The most obvious theme there is: emotion. It's the old: Women are more emotional. A secondary theme is: Women display the effects of the discrimination they've experienced. It's a complex mix, apparently.
Obviously, the secretaries' perspectives are subjective, and they themselves are women (95% of those surveyed were) so whatever is true of women — they're emotional/they're victims of discrimination — would, presumably, also be true of them.
Let's look a the man problem for once. Here'sthe Amazon list of bestselling men's costumes —via Instapundit — and the #1 costume is some stretchy fabric that covers your entire body and makes you all one color. What is the attraction here?
IN THE COMMENTS: I'm schooled by DannyNoonan, who seems to think I'm a bit of an idiot not to know about the "green man," and KLDavis, who points me to a video clip that makes me laugh a lot.
Headline on a NYT article about a study by sociology professor Aaron McCright, titled "Cool dudes: The denial of climate change among conservative white males in the United States."
To test for the trend amongst conservative white males, the researchers compared the demographic to "all other adults." Results showed, for instance, that 29.6 percent of conservative white males believe the effects of global warming will never happen, versus 7.4 percent of other adults. In holding for "confident" conservative white males, the study showed 48.4 percent believe global warming won't happen, versus 8.6 percent of other adults....
To understand why there is a trend amongst conservative white males, the Gallup data was cross-examined with research about the "white male effect" -- the idea that white males were either more accepting of risk or less risk averse than the rest of the public....
McCright says, up to 40 percent of all white males in the study sample believe in hierarchy, are more trusting of authority and are more conservative. Conservative white males' motivation to ignore a certain risk -- the risk of climate change in this case -- therefore, has to do with defending the status of their identity tied to the white male establishment.
A few things:
1. Apparently, the "white male effect" has been studied quite a bit. I'm not surprised that studies of white males yield results that researchers characterize in negative terms. I call that the "lefty sociologist effect."
2. Look at the global warming question from the opposite side: Why are liberals less skeptical? I'd say there is more "trusting of authority" among people who accept the assertions of scientists and think government can solve this problem. And believing in climate change fits nicely with the general liberal mindset that involves enthusiasm for top-down government solutions and puts a relatively low value on preserving traditional ways.
3. McCright highlights the risk that the skeptics are willing to tolerate when they avoid taking steps to deal with the predicted climate change, but there is also risk in imposing solutions to head off problems that might not occur. Since there are risks all around, we're not really talking about differences in risk aversion. These are differences in weighting and comparing various risks.
4. The article uses the words "skepticism" and "denial" almost interchangeably, but these are actually dramatically different words. Skepticism is part of rational, scientific thought. If you don't have it, you are gullible. Denial involves an irrational resistance to evidence. McCright's study title reveals a bias: These people are in denial; what's their problem? I'd rather see a neutral study, something that seriously and fairly asked: What psychological tendencies explain the disparity in acceptance of scientific reports on climate change?
"Each season the competition is so stiff over who you can get to watch," a professor says analytically and probably without intending double entendre. "That’s why you’re getting more explicit, or more explicitly inferential, use of language."
YES, THEY DON'T LIKE HEARING IT AND FIND IT DIFFICULT TO SAY, WHEREAS WITHOUT BATTING AN EYE A MAN WILL REFER TO HIS DICK OR HIS ROD OR HIS JOHNSON: Apparently not any more, Maude: the new fall tv season chock full of people saying the word "vagina."
Oh, man, the guys will have their revenge for all the cat litter box cleaning they had to do when we women were pregnant and had to be protected from toxoplasmosis.
During pregnancy, the man is the pussy man, dealing with the cat poo. But now that the baby is born, if she doesn't want a pussy man, depleted in testosterone, it is her turn to handle the poo.
Now, these arguments about division of household labor have a new dimension: My dear, are you anti-science or are you trying to emasculate me?
ADDED: Is it manly to make that argument? It suggests you need to conserve the testosterone you have. It would be more macho to act like you have plenty to spare. Also, I think diaper changing is one of the more manly baby-related chores? It's a dirty job and someone's got to do it. We don't have a study about which specific baby-relted activities are testosterone depleting. I'm going to speculate that it would tend to be the ones like bottle/breast-feeding where you look for a long time into the baby's eyes... not the one where you're looking at the nether regions.
You have to watch this several times to notice all that's going on. The first time I watched it, I was unaware that I had lapsed into watching only the woman until the late 60s came along and the man's look suddenly popped.
That reminds me: The Wall Street Journal alerts us to "Male Fashion's Feminine Turn." That seems more about commerce (and language "Men can also wear 'mandals' (male sandals), 'murses' (purses), 'mantyhose' (pantyhose) and 'mankinis' (swimsuit variants)").
Now, I see a problem in this line of thinking: It's easier for men to say I'm ugly than for women. The men are going to rake in all the money. Look at me! I'm so ugly! Imagine presenting that to a jury! Or do you think women have an advantage because they can appear in court without makeup and hairstyling?
"... either a) being able to produce human-ovum-fertilizing substances or else b) deciding that your genitals either are or ought to be male, what is there, exactly, that makes Rick Perry more 'manly' than Bruce Springsteen, or Conan O’Brien, or the late Fred Rogers, or for that matter the female-bodied but impeccably masculine Sinclair Sexsmith?"
A question has been posed!
"... American doctors are left to decide on a case-by-case basis whether to perform these procedures, without any consistent ethical guidelines. The reasons American women undergo them are complex, from situations that don't seem particularly troubling (the upper-middle-class woman who wants a daughter to 'balance out' her three boys) to those that are deeply concerning (the immigrant woman who wants a son to avoid emotional abuse by her in-laws)."
This is like that asking-for-directions thing, isn't it? Women are more inclined to seek help, while men like to try to solve problems on their own?
Should unmarried men read this and think I should get a woman, because it might save my life? Of course not! We don't know the full causal effect of these wives. Sure, they got their man to the hospital faster, but why did the man have the heart attack? Maybe she stressed him out with all the nagging about other things he was always supposed to seeking help with, things he could do by himself, wanted to do for himself, and wanted that wife to believe he could do.
NOTE: Stereotypes refer to averages within groups, not what real human individuals do. Personally, I'm not the help-seeking type. I'm just responding to a newspaper article on the level at which it is pitched.
Until now, looking like the players was not such a problem for guys. The women's uniforms, with their formless, masculine cuts, were essentially "sized-down versions of men's jerseys," according to Nike. This year, the team's sleek cap-sleeve jerseys zip up the front, hug the bust, taper in at the waist and jut out at the hips, drawing comparisons on soccer forums to Halloween's ubiquitous "sexy nurse" costumes...
Brian Bober, an executive director at Morgan Stanley from Pelham, N.Y., who coaches his eight-year-old daughter's soccer team, says the situation has left him frustrated. "I've been trying to think of a way I could buy a jersey or something without looking like Freddie Mercury," says Mr. Bober, referring to the late lead singer of British rock band Queen, who wore a lot of tight clothing. "I generally dress with complete disregard of what people will think of me, but based on what's available I would get ridiculed right out of my town."
Bober doesn't sound like the kind of guy who should be experimenting with wearing women's clothes. By contrast: Alexi Lalas. La la la.
Nike denies the charge that they deliberately made the uniforms sexy. Their spokeman says they made "the lightest, most comfortable" jersey cut to "provide the greatest range of motion." Range of motion? All right then: Let's see the cap sleeves on the guys' clothes.
By the way, I think team sports uniforms should be figure flattering to the players. These are spectator sports. The point is to watch impressive human bodies. We want to see what we're looking at. It should look great. Not like pajamas. Not like you're a kid wearing your older sibling's playclothes.
Men have gained jobs in the retail sector where women have lost them. The retail, manufacturing and finance sectors employed 253,000 more men in May 2011 than in June 2009 and 433,000 fewer women.
And men have gained more jobs than women in health and education -- two sectors where employment grew during the past decade.
So underneath the recovery news (dismal though it is) are really horrible numbers for women. Why are men faring better? Because they were originally hurt more, or is this some real shift favoring men over women?
What I see beneath these data is something like this -- a picture of men hustling to acquire new skills and learn how to do different jobs than they have in the past, while women have been more likely to sit back and accept whatever the macroeconomy doles out.
Why does Barone see that? Is that a stereotype about male and female psychology?
the Amazon list of bestselling men's costumes —via 
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