When Women Run for Office

(Flickr/jypsygen)

Via Andrea Grimes, this analysis from the Dallas Morning News of possible candidates to replace Dallas mayor Tome Leppert is fascinating. Can you spot the sexism?

POSSIBLE CANDIDATES

ANGELA HUNT
Dallas City Council member, Dallas lawyer

Pros: High name recognition and ability to get votes across the city. Could be dangerous if matched up against the right candidate.

Cons: Considered the enemy of some in the business elite. Ability to run an aggressive campaign could be affected by her new family. Can she raise enough money to compete? [emphasis added]

JIM MOORE
Defense attorney

Pros: As the only announced candidate in the mayor's race, he has an opportunity to get some early momentum.

Cons: He has to build recognition as he is virtually unknown throughout the city.

RON NATINSKY
Dallas City Council member, Dallas businessman

Pros: Got out the gate early and appears to be in position to get support from various Dallas business leaders. With consultant Carol Reed already on board, Natinsky has access to campaign dollars.

Cons: Could have difficulty getting southern Dallas support. Some business leaders looking for an alternative.

MIKE RAWLINGS
Park Board president, former homeless czar

Pros: Long considered to be a viable successor to Leppert. Strong ties to city's business elite and could get votes in the south.

Cons: Does he really want it? Has no campaign experience.

BRINT RYAN
Dallas businessman

Pros: Has enough money to self-finance his campaign and attract solid consultants. Could be appealing to those looking for a pro-business candidate.

Cons: Still relatively unknown to much of the city. Has to overcome being known as the guy who spent $1 million on an unsuccessful council race.

Hm, one of the female candidates seems to have a con that the male candidates don't.

My Birthday Books

Via the Awl, there is apparently a website that tells you what books were bestsellers on the day you were born. Mine are below (non-fiction first, followed by fiction):

Uh, I know my birthday is coming up next week and all, but no need to commemorate the day with either of these books. What's yours?

Women Spend Less Time on Research in Academia

(Flickr/Marshall Astor - Food Pornographer)

Via Inside Higher Ed, Academe is publishing a new study that finds women in academia are routinely given more departmental service duties -- duties that often aren't considered when considering promotions. The study examined 350 faculty members at the University of Massachusetts–Amherst and found:

Although associate professors of both sexes worked similar amounts of time overall—about sixty-four hours a week—the distribution of work time varied considerably. Men spent seven and a half hours more a week on their research than did women. Even if these differences in research time occurred only during semesters, not during summer or holiday breaks, this would mean that men spent in excess of two hundred more hours on their research each year than women. On the other hand, women associate professors taught an hour more each week than men, mentored an additional two hours a week, and spent nearly five hours more a week on service. This translates to women spending roughly 220 more hours on teaching, mentoring, and service over two semesters than men at that rank.

In other words, when it comes to promotion in academia it's research that matters -- and men are getting to spend more time on research than women. In many ways, it's the equivalent of the housework paradox; women spend just enough more time on household duties than men often translating into less time working those extra hours that might get you promoted.

I wish I could say I was surprised, but this study just confirms what I learned anecdotally from women I've interviewed in academia. Women are often assigned to more administrative and teaching duties while their male peers are left to do more research and publish more studies. It will take some serious cultural changes to alter this pattern.

No Wonder Woman TV Show

(Flickr/jooleeah_stahkey)

Alyssa Rosenberg writes on the fact that it seems clear we're not going to be getting a Wonder Woman TV show. Alyssa covers many of the practical reasons why such a show might not be good, but I'm still a bit bummed at the news. Truth be told, I haven't read too many of the Wonder Woman comics, and plenty of feminists have mixed feelings about Wonder Woman. (See this piece by Shelby Knox on why Wonder Woman's recent "modernization" isn't such a win for feminists.)

But the reason I'm bummed about the lack of of a Wonder Woman TV show has a lot to do with why it took me so long to come around to comics in the first place: The fact that female characters in comic books tend to be either an afterthought, a supporting character, or -- if she is given her own title -- generally seen as less good than the male superhero giants like Batman, Spider-Man, and Superman.

Wonder Woman, though not a perfect superhero, is the first female one. She also possesses strength that is on par with her male peers. And though her costume is certainly sexy, her powers aren't sexual -- she's intelligent and powerful in her own right.

It's true that the major comic publishers are making more efforts to highlight female characters and run titles with female leads, but it will be a while before those those characters are considered on par with the big male characters -- if they ever are. Television producers have certainly been more willing to produce TV shows that feature male leads (i.e. Smallville) than they have been to experiment with female leads.

And for what it's worth, many girls who read comics enjoy reading stories about male characters, as Okazu noted. But it'd be nice if we didn't have to be second banana to the boys.

Stagnation in Abortion Rates, Says Guttmacher

(Flickr/ClinicEscort)

Today the Guttmacher Institute reported that abortion rates, after decades of decline, are holding steady. Guttmacher found that there were 19.4 abortions per 1,000 women for women in 2005. That number is nearly on par with the 2008 rate of 19.6 abortions per 1,000 women.

Overall the abortion rate has been on a steady decline since 1981, when the rate was 29.3 abortions per 1,000 women. That has all been due to greater access to health insurance, birth control, better information about unplanned pregnancies, and more options for contraception.

But typically in tough economic times, experts that follow abortion rates usually see an increase in abortion. Women typically have less access to regular health care -- and therefore less access to contraception -- and that means that women are more likely to have an unintended pregnancy. It seems the stagnation in the drop in teen pregnancies is also part of this trend. In tough economic times, a woman who already faces a tight financial situation might decide to end the pregnancy rather than putting her family through greater hardship. And this is often the case for women who choose abortion; the typical woman who has an abortion is a woman who already has other children.

Ideally no woman would face an unwanted pregnancy. But for obvious reasons, that's unrealistic. The pro- and anti-choice movements are both expressing concern about a stagnation in the of the abortion rate -- and even worry that that poor economic conditions could even cause a the number of abortions to tick upward. If anything, this should be yet another reason to make contraception part of preventative care under the new health care law.

How 'Life Before Man' Beats 'Blue Valentine' on the End of Relationships

Yesterday I finished reading Margaret Atwood's Life Before Man, which is about the end of a marriage in the 1970s (the book was first published in 1979). Though the book has nothing to do with the Ryan Gosling/Michelle Williams film Blue Valentine, I can't help but make the comparison since they've coincided in my media consumption.

While Blue Valentine certainly tried to be "real" about the end of a relationship, there are ways that a film is limiting. For one, the fact that the film tries to condense enough significant scenes into a two-hour film is challenging. Many relationships that crumble do so over the span of months or, most often, years.

This is where Life Before Man has the depiction Blue Valentine tried to create beat. The book covers the four main people in a relationship: the husband, Nate; the wife, Elizabeth; the mistress, Lesje; and the man the mistress leaves for the husband, William. In Life Before Man, no one is innocent, but no one is exactly a villain, either. Both Nate and Elizabeth are unfaithful to each other, but they approach their infidelity in a way a way that is both mature and destructive.

Like the characters in Blue Valentine, they feel an obligation to make the relationship work on some level for the children. But Life Before Man takes the complexity to a higher level. The characters are sometimes selfish, often tortured, and always elegantly written. Perhaps the character that's depicted as the most selfish and vengeful, Elizabeth, is not entirely unsympathetic. After all, she's trapped in an unhappy marriage and is suffering from the loss of a former lover. She also faces extreme pressure to be a good mother, an accomplished employee, and a woman in her late 30s who is still desirable. She is certainly not perfect and not always likable, but I think that might be why I like her so much.

In any case, it's an excellent book and I highly recommend reading it.

The Problem With 'Like a Man' Articles

(Flickr/Chris_J)

Today the Wall Street Journal has some advice on what women can learn about dressing well. The solution, it seems, is to "shop like a man." The piece itself offers some advice on looking for quality and comfort over labels and style -- something that my mother who sewed many of her own clothes over the years would likely raise her eyebrows at the idea that these are "masculine" qualities.

See, there's a problem with the "like a man" genre of article -- and there's no shortage of them. Women are frequently told to ask for a raise like a man, Date Like a Man, and even pee like a man. But the problem here is that "like a man" is often synonymous with "do it better." When women are given advice on asking for raises "like a man" it's because women are often paid less than men, and it's often thought that the solution is to simply mimic men's behaviors to receive the best results. Same goes for dating and peeing -- the idea is that men somehow do it better. The way to fix that seems to be to tell women how to be more like men.

There's a reason there isn't a genre of "like a woman" articles for men. (Except for this Daily Fail Mail article on a man who spent a week "living like a woman.") See, the idea is that men would never want to be "like a woman" because women are generally considered inferior, even though if you replace "like a woman" with "better," you could write articles on how men should drive like a woman, how to multitask like a woman, or how to fly a fighter jet like a woman.

But you don't see articles like that -- or at least, not nearly to the frequency with which you see "like a man" articles.

In the case of the WSJ article, it was talking about ways that men and women's clothing industries differ. But while women's clothing is often made, marketed, and sold in ways that are different than men's clothing, it's a shame to write the article in a way that assumes all women go for more cheap clothing over men, who buy fewer quality pieces. After all, there are plenty of women who don't like to buy shirts with mismatched stripes, spend time looking at quality over labels, and refuse to buy fabrics that aren't comfortable. Let's stop with the gender essentialism.