AboutShe can be contacted at cheryl [at] americasfuture [dot] org. Read my other blog. The one that's not obnoxious and self-absorbed! Recent publications"Scary Rise of the 'Sanctimommy'" in The Washington Times "Why Malamud Faded" in Commentary "Blogging Infertility" in The New Atlantis "Outsourcing Childbirth" in The Wall Street Journal "The Painless Peace of Twilight Sleep" in The New Atlantis "The Genius of Old New York" in The Claremont Review of Books "Parenthood At Any Price" in The New Atlantis "Modern Girls and the Moral Revival They Are Leading" in The Washington Times ARTICLE ARCHIVE Links |
Friday, February 29, 2008 Labels: gender wars posted by Cheryl # 10:30 PM I have always been fairly skeptical of conservatives' tales of cultural decline, and then I saw this. Yes, that's what they were showing on television in 1969. Meanwhile, we have become a nation of morons who apparently spend our every spare moment posting funny pictures of cats on the Internet. Labels: alas posted by Cheryl # 10:13 PM So to further my education, I purchased The Sourcebook of Contemporary Architecture. For the most part, I can't say I've been too impressed, nor have I come up with anything more informed to say. Then I came across this:  It's the Selfridges building in Birmingham, U.K.! It's a mall! And I love it! Doesn't it look like something from Oz? Or an alien spaceship? (More pics here, and check out some cool night shots here. I like how it seems to change color depending on the time of day.) I'm well aware that this will probably end up on James Howard Kunstler's list of eyesores of the month (if it already hasn't), but I glory in my bad aesthetic judgment. So much so that I freely admit to being obsessed with this: the "Tropical Islands" biodome in Germany. It has the world's largest indoor rain forest and fake dinosaurs. Also seven-fully stocked bars, which is seven more than the actual rain forest. Basically, I need to go here before I die. Labels: the arts posted by Cheryl # 11:48 AM Wednesday, February 27, 2008 But when you drunken text message a guy at 2am and show up to his room drunk and get naked and give him a blow job, do you really expect he is going to respect you?Actually...yes, I think a woman should expect that. Probably not to marry her or even to date her, but to respect her--in the very limited sense of not treating her like an object or plaything, and certainly not forcing her to do something against her will--definitely. I wasn't aware this was a controversial stance, but it seems to be so. Certainly, if we're going to tell women how they should conduct themselves sexually, we should offer the guys a little guidance too. But this guidance (with a few honorable exceptions) has not been forthcoming. So let me help. For starters, social conservatives' response to these kind of allegations should not be "Shrug, boys will be boys;" indeed, such a response just confirms radical feminists' view of men as animals who can't control themselves. Unfortunately, many conservatives seem to have given up on the idea of masculine honor, that taking advantage of a drunk woman (which you can do without legally committing rape) is unmanly and disgraceful. Worse, they act like they're proud to have done so. The attitude is too often, "Great, now we can act on our basest impulses, and when things go wrong...hey, you skanks made the rules." And they make this argument even as they acknowledge that the playing field isn't really level, and sex will always be more emotionally-fraught for women. Shouldn't a recognition of that fact--of women's special vulnerability--entail a moral responsibility to protect those women, even the drunk, skantily-clad ones? Lastly, might I suggest that if you find yourself frequently in situations where you "ma[k]e [your] partners feel disrespected during sex," you should probably feel ashamed and try to change your behavior--not just chalk it up to the way of the world now that the feminists are in charge. UPDATE: Fear & Loathing responds. Labels: gender wars posted by Cheryl # 7:20 PM Happiness Research and Writing Similarly, I think one of Bailey's commenters makes a good point when he says "I am guessing that if you surveyed marathon runners at various intervals during the race, they'd complain about how miserable they are. Upon crossing the finish line, they would talk about the overall achievement and how wonderful it was. Same with raising kids."I would suggest an example much closer to hand for many journalists: writing. There's a reason for the saying, "I hate writing; I love having written." (Anyone know who said this? I have Dorothy Parker, but I attribute everything cool to Dorothy Parker.) Every time I sit down to write a piece, I think of how bad I am at writing and how I'm going to go to law school so I can at least make tons of money doing a job I hate. But then I finish and I'm elated (you can decide if that's just the exhaustion talking). Aside for "born writers"--people who just can't stop writing (lucky few!)--I think this is probably the experience for most of us. I'm more than willing to allow I'm just irrational, but we can't all be. Or can we? UPDATE: Peter Suderman (who I think is one of the lucky few) gives his take. In the comments: Noah Millman is brilliant; Stuart Buck is mean. Labels: the writing life posted by Cheryl # 1:41 PM --David Brooks on William F. Buckley, foreword, Let Us Talk of Many Things Labels: alas posted by Cheryl # 12:26 PM Tuesday, February 26, 2008  The latest issue of Doublethink is now online. The table of contents: The Virginia School by Nicholas Desai Move over Austria and Chicago. George Mason University makes economics interesting. D.C.'s Kid Speechwriters by Ashley Parker The Beltway's best and brightest never stop working -- and never take credit. I Want to Believe? by Sean Higgins Reason science reporter Ron Bailey's recent conversion on global warming has other libertarians all fired up. Fugitive Hopes: The Radiohead Decade by James G. Poulos Reckoning with ten years of life lived in the shadow of the world's biggest -- and most elusive -- indie rockers. What's Your Story?: Jesse Benton by David Donadio The Joe Trippi of the Right. Everyone agreed it was a great party until Jesus arrived. You can pick up a physical copy at our happy hour Thursday, March 6th at Science Club. (Click here for more details.) Not in D.C.? Can't make it? You can always subscribe. Labels: Doublethink, shameless self-promotion posted by Cheryl # 2:58 PM Monday, February 25, 2008 Move Along, Nothing To See Here Reproductive technology, a boon for countless people, has also created a strange kind of tyranny. By extending the deadline and loosening the criteria for getting pregnant, by granting no exemptions from the unremitting pressure to procreate (Menopausal? No problem! Lesbian? No excuse!), the ever-widening window of reproductive opportunity contributes to the notion that not only should parenthood be available to every individual or couple, it's a good idea for every individual or couple too. One needn't pay a midnight visit to the diaper aisle of Walgreen's to suspect that that might not actually be the case.(This bit is also pretty good: "the problematic aura of 'empowerment' that surrounds popular notions of single-by-choice parenting.") But then, just as you think she is about to say something that will actually upset someone not Maggie Gallagher, she backtracks and explains the people she really means aren't single mothers or lesbians as she hinted at before, but women who "want a baby in the same way they want a Louis Vuitton bag." A courageous stand, I think we can all agree. All the more so since Daum never explains exactly who these women might be. In all my interviews with people undergoing infertility treatments, I have never come across one. And it's not even clear she thinks this applies to Gottlieb, making the column all the more pointless. (P.S. Is there some reason that the feminist critique of ART almost always takes the form of this "cult of mommy" silliness: i.e., Are you really sure you want a baby or is that just the patriarchy (and all that cute stuff at BabyGap!) talking? My guess is after the hysterosalpingogram you're pretty sure.) Labels: angry woman beat, repro tech posted by Cheryl # 6:12 PM Just Go Back To The Fifties And No One Gets Hurt Mac Donald attacks colleges for treating campus rape in a way inconsistent with the sexual liberationist ethos prevalent elsewhere on campus. But isn't this a feature, not a bug? Don't conservatives agree that men and women are different (especially when it comes to sex), that women are more vulnerable, and that men thus have a special responsibility to protect women? (Think Charlotte Simmons.) As Rita puts it: Earlier, it might have been argued that such a double standard speaks to inherent gender differences--men are more sexually aggressive by nature, and women less likely to seek out intercourse, so women must be protected from men.This seems like a much better solution (sneaking social conservatives values in through the back door) than some of the things you hear in certain conservative circles. A few years back, I went to dinner with some friends of my ex-boyfriend, and we got into just this argument. There were two guys at the dinner--seemingly nice, decent men, both social conservative types--and their position was basically, "If they're sluts enough to be willing to go back to my apartment, then they must be game." As they saw it, the occasional date rape was a punishment for the Sexual Revolution. "Payback is a bitch," and all that (an argument which Rita seems to be very close to making, though she probably wouldn't say "punishment."). So our options it would seem are 1) to go back to the Fifties and no one gets hurt (a solution I don't think any sane conservative sees as desirable or even possible), 2) resign ourselves to the occasional date rape as the collateral damage of the Sexual Revolution (which I think is Rita's ultimate position), or 3) try to deal with these situations seriously even if it's an incoherent and imperfect solution. Labels: gender wars posted by Cheryl # 4:25 PM Hope to see you there! Labels: Doublethink, shameless self-promotion posted by Cheryl # 1:01 PM Wednesday, February 20, 2008 --"The 6 Cutest Animals That Can Still Destroy You," Cracked.composted by Cheryl # 3:15 PM Tuesday, February 19, 2008 [Benjamin] Franklin is a curious bird: a witty writer, skilled diplomat and a genius who invented lightning conductors--and yet, one can't help imagining, slightly irritating. "He seems like the type of guy," writes the blogger Rita, "who might have a lot of Facebook friends who, upon further questioning, would admit they accepted his friend request only because they didn't want to offend him."Check out the entire article here. Also, the Winter issue of Doublethink is coming out soon. A sneak peak at the table of contents:
Labels: Doublethink, shameless self-promotion posted by Cheryl # 4:21 PM Sunday, February 17, 2008
Labels: miscellaneous posted by Cheryl # 6:22 PM Thursday, February 14, 2008 --Kierkegaard, Either/Or, II p.104posted by Cheryl # 6:00 PM Tuesday, February 12, 2008 Never have I seen so many sperm-shaped pens. The best of the tchotchkes was hands-down the California Cryobank pen. Not only does it light up (in several different colors, I might add), but the sperm--along with some decorative glitter--travels half-way down the pen when you shake it. The slogan on it reads "Heads and Tails Above the Rest." Since I have no shame, I talked the rep into giving me two. Clearly, I should have been more craven since all my friends now covet my pen. (Cryobanks of the world: I can be bought!) A distant second place goes to the egg-shaped mint holders handed out by Fertility Futures. Now onto important matters... At the exhibition hall:
CA Cryobank already has an unbelievable sperm donor catalog available on their website, complete with baby pictures, personal information (e.g., physical description, medical history, education) staff impressions, and handwritten essays from their donors. To this, they've added a number of premium services, including handwriting analysis (which the rep insisted was crazy accurate; he said they tested it on some of their staff before offering it to their customers), a personality test, and audio CDs. Currently, they're working on producing short films with the donors. The films will include voice-overs and show the donor (neck-down only to protect his identity) participating in favorite activities, like playing soccer.I asked about privacy issues for anonymous donors. One of the donors listed his major as "Danish Literature." Surely, I said, there aren't many schools offering this major, and combined with the other information available, you could probably track the guy down after some avid googling? The rep agreed this was a concern, and said the clinic had hired a few private detectives to check the profiles and flag possible problems.
The Sperm Bank of California (located in Berkeley) was the first to offer such a service, and other clinics have quickly followed suit. (Pacific Reproductive Services now claims the "most willing to be known donors.") The demand has largely come from gay and lesbian couples and single mothers.More to come... Labels: infertility, the baby business, third-party repro posted by Cheryl # 3:46 PM Friday, February 8, 2008 --Norman Rush, Mating posted by Cheryl # 11:23 AM I'd thought that in our little bubble, a bubble, it should be said, that was defined not by class or money or education, but rather by goodness and decency and values and realness (even I am laughing now), the men were somehow different from the men Out There who dated women multiple decades younger than themselves, prized them for their looks and their fecundity and fell in love with the magical rejuvenating mirrors they found in the women's adoring young eyes.RELATED: It's all evolution! And is the only solution for women to become as shallow as men? Labels: gender wars posted by Cheryl # 11:03 AM Wednesday, February 6, 2008 Democrats who deeply excite young people and play most strongly to the party's anti-war left seem to have a bigger barks than bites. Young people and "latte liberals" have disproportionately high media profiles, and that seems to make for a misleading impression of momentum[....] Hillary's women may not make as much noise as Barack's college students, but they will not be moved by mere buzz.Of course, the great Ron Brownstein already had this all figured out. His analysis of the Clinton-Obama contest is worth revisiting: Since the 1960s, Democratic nominating contests regularly have come down to a struggle between a candidate who draws support primarily from upscale, economically comfortable voters liberal on social and foreign policy issues, and a rival who relies mostly on downscale, financially strained voters drawn to populist economics and somewhat more conservative views on cultural and national security issues. Labels: politics posted by Cheryl # 9:51 AM Put in black and white, scored with a little acoustic riffing and soulful, expertly Pro-Tooled background singing, he becomes a vector for treacly indie-yuppie political fantasy. I'm surprised Zach Braff didn't make an appearance. The whole thing plays like a smug grup love-in. Love me, Park Slope!UPDATE: One of us! David Brooks weighs in: Obama's people are so taken with their messiah that soon they'll be selling flowers at airports and arranging mass weddings. There's a "Yes We Can" video floating around YouTube in which a bunch of celebrities like Scarlett Johansson and the guy from the Black Eyed Peas are singing the words to an Obama speech in escalating states of righteousness and ecstasy. If that video doesn't creep out normal working-class voters, then nothing will. Labels: politics posted by Cheryl # 9:17 AM Tuesday, February 5, 2008 [W]hen it comes to the family, America really has become two nations. The old-fashioned married-couple-with-children model is doing quite well among college-educated women. It is primarily among lower-income women with only a high school education that it is in poor health. This fact may not conform to the view from Hollywood; movies from Kramer vs. Kramer to The Ice Storm to the recent The Squid and the Whale, not to mention unmarried celebrity moms like Goldie Hawn and moms-to-be like Katie Holmes, have helped reinforce the perception that elite women snubbing a conformist patriarchy were the vanguard of a vast social change. Now it's pretty clear that this is a myth saying more about La-La Land than the reality of American family breakdown.If this still holds, griping about the (only temporarily) muddled romantic lives of elites seems a little like fiddling while Rome burns. There are definitely "child-man" issues in the inner-city culture Hymowitz analyzes in Marriage and Caste, but clearly they aren't the decisive factor in the family breakdown occurring there. Labels: gender wars posted by Cheryl # 5:56 PM What these writers are responding to (and it's not just conservatives; just see Tim Hartford or Jezebel, the other writers Phoebe cites) is the social confusion that this blurring has resulted in, especially when it comes to dating and marriage. The real trouble is not the delaying of marriage--which is happening for numerous reasons too complex to get into here--but the expectations. Women and men no longer have a reliable script for dating and marriage, that X will lead to Y which will lead to Z, etc. They're on their own, and they often have very different ideas of where a relationship is heading. (For example, women tend to see cohabitation as a step toward marriage; men don't.) As a result, there's a lot of romantic frustration and confusion out there--which tends to get voiced as howls of rage from whichever side feels screwed over at the moment. At one extreme, you have men seeing newly emancipated women demanding more equality at home and the workplace (and often outperforming them), and you get men's rights blogs and lad mags. At the other, you have these high-striving women trying to navigate a path somewhere between June Cleaver and Murphy Brown, and feeling they're getting no help from men, and you get The Rules and The Bitch in the House. And so the argument goes on: When did men become immature buffoons who are committed only to their subscriptions of Maxim? (See: every episode of Sex and the City.) When did women become ball-busting bitches who boss men around all the time? (See: every Internet comment section on sharing housework.) In pop culture, this romantic upheaval gets played out in movies like Knocked Up, High Fidelity, Juno, and the various other slacker-striver comedies. It's there in fat husband sitcoms on TV. (I recently tried to make this argument to a bunch of male commenters over at Blowhards to no avail. They continue to believe it's a feminist--or gay (?)--conspiracy. See for yourself.) At some point (one hopes), we'll reach an equilibrium, people will adjust, and we'll have a new script. (Some would argue we're already on our way.) But until then, we'll probably be hearing a lot more of this. Labels: gender wars posted by Cheryl # 2:39 PM But alas, I am naive. We live in the era of the "child-man," and strippers still make appearances at bachelor parties--even parties of guys you otherwise consider dateable (i.e., not just misogynist jerks who spend all their time playing Halo 3 and posting on men's rights boards). Since I don't approve of strippers in really any context, I am not pleased by this development. I'm not sure why paying to watch naked women (or worse, getting a lap dance--which should definitely be off-limits) is somehow sanctioned just because you/your friend is getting married soon. But apparently the bachelor party is some kind of "get out of jail free" card, where you can misbehave in a way you wouldn't normally have to the nerve to--like this cretin: "Being a married man, I don't get that many chances to see naked women other than my wife," said David Eddie, a novelist who flew in from Toronto for the Beeman weekend. "So I guess I felt like that would have been an opportunity." Although he enjoyed the pate, the first-growths and all the clubby perks, he felt that something was lacking. "My thought was, There's only so much happiness you can take in through your mouth," he said.("An opportunity?" I seriously hope this guy's wife maxed out the credit cards after reading this and bought herself something expensive and sparkly.) But then in the age of Maxim and Abercrombie & Fitch ads, are strippers really such a big deal--especially if the guy in question doesn't make the strip club thing a habit? Mark Oppenheimer does have a point here: Which suggests how pro forma strippers can be. More often than men would like to admit, bachelor parties happen at strip clubs because that's what our culture has expected of men. What's more, the bachelor party used to be the last time a man could expect to see a naked woman other than his wife; but in these days of American Apparel advertising, starlets wear Oscar dresses more revealing than much of what used to pass for burlesque wear.And if we can be practical for a moment, not dating men who don't think strippers are morally offensive probably means not dating--which is not a desirable outcome. (N.B.: Since this is an equal opportunity blog, all the ongoing applies to bachelorette "revenge" parties too, which are slightly less gross, but only because they are mostly just pathetic (Note that "revenge" part). Does anyone seriously think women are "getting their fiance's back" by having wild parties of their own?) Labels: gender wars posted by Cheryl # 10:33 AM Monday, February 4, 2008 This might all sound far out or outlandish, but it got me re-thinking many of the questions I discuss in an upcoming article on fertility bloggers in The New Atlantis. What does it mean to be infertile? Is infertility a "lifestyle choice" or a medical condition? And are the infertile really a unified bloc or community? Melissa's post puts these questions into sharp relief, particularly the divide between the socially or functionally infertile and the biologically infertile. People might not be having children with robots anytime soon, but many of the functionally infertile are--e.g., gay and lesbian couples, single mothers by choice, older mothers, etc. Do their interests diverge with those of the biologically infertile? Melissa is pretty optimistic on this front. Her post ends with the suggestion that as more people join the ranks of the functionally infertile, there will be more understanding and sympathy for all infertiles. I have my doubts, especially when it comes to the holy grail of infertility activism: mandated coverage for infertility. It seems here that the interests of the functionally infertile and socially infertile diverge. Most states that mandate coverage have some kind of criteria for who's eligible: e.g., age limits, married heterosexual couples only, etc. This seems unlikely to change, especially as health costs continue to rise. Are we really going to delay granny's hip replacement so Joe and his cyborg girlfriend can have a baby together? Doubtful. Exhibit A: Wesley Smith's post on the recent debate in the U.K. over whether to cover surrogacy for the infertile. He writes: This is unbelievable: The NHS is seriously considering paying 15,000 Pounds (about $32,000) to surrogate mothers to gestate babies for infertile couples. This, from the same NHS that rations care to the elderly[...] Moreover, I think this will not only be the attitude of fertiles, but of many infertiles too. I recently had an interview with Gabrielle of Fertility Notes where we discussed just this question. (N.B.: I sort of blindsided her, so you probably shouldn't take this as her considered views on the subject.) She's a strong supporter of mandated coverage and an active "blogtavist." She's also a very sympathetic case: a young, married woman whose childhood cancer left her unable to have children. Most people would say her treatment should be covered. But her case, I pointed out, is weakened when combined with the functionally infertile. Resources are limited, and while most people would probably see Gabrielle's situation as deserving, they'd likely balk at the idea of funding a 62-year-old woman's IVF cycle with tax money. Gabrielle saw the problem, and agreed that there might need to be some limits on what we cover, though she wasn't sure what those limits should be. I think a lot of the biologically infertile would agree. So is it really "all for one, one for all" in the infertility community? Given the limits on the public purse (and public sympathy), is it better to get coverage for the few? And how do we decide who those few should be? Labels: coverage, infertility posted by Cheryl # 11:58 AM Archives December 2007 January 2008 February 2008 March 2008 April 2008 May 2008 June 2008 |