Gender + Zombies in an Upcoming Anthology

(Flickr/Med's Photo)

Did you like my post on weird racism and sexism that got added to The Walking Dead's television series? I'll be contributing to an anthology on The Walking Dead called Triumph of The Walking Dead: Robert Kirkman's Zombie Epic on Page and Screen and it'll come out in November of this year (but you can, of course, pre-order now by following the link).

I have to admit, I'm in esteemed company. Here's a preliminary list of contributors:

Kyle William Bishop
Southern Utah University English professor, author (American Zombie Gothic: The Rise and Fall (and Rise) of the Walking Dead in Popular Culture)

Arnold Blumberg
Instructor University of Baltimore, author (Zombiemania: 80 Movies To Die For, The Big Big Little Book Book: An Overstreet Photo-Journal Guide)

Jay Bonansinga, author (The Black Mariah, Frozen, co-author with Robert Kirkman of upcoming Walking Dead novels)

Brendan Deneen, editor, film producer, publisher (former Director of Production & Development for the The Weinstein Company, editor on the Walking Dead novel trilogy for Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Press)

Craig Fischer, professor at Appalachian State, comic scholar (The Comics Journal, The International Journal of Comic Art)

Kenneth Hite, game designer, writer (Zombies 101: Knowledge Is Survival, Trail of Cthulhu)

David Hopkins
Educator, comic book author, essayist (Karma Incorporated, Emily Edison, Webslinger: SF and Comic Writers on Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man)

Del Howison
Author, editor, actor (Dark Delicacies, When Werewolves Attack)

Scott Kenemore
Author (The Zen of Zombie: Better Living Through the Undead, Z.E.O.: How to Get A(Head) in Business, The Art of Zombie Warfare: How to Kick Ass Like the Walking Dead)

Jonathan Maberry
New York Times bestselling author (Patient Zero: A Joe Ledger Novel, Dead of Night, Rot & Ruin)

Lisa Morton, author, screenwriter (The Castle of Los Angeles, The Lucid Dreaming, A Hallowe'en Anthology: Literary and Historical Writers over the Centuries)

Kim Paffenroth, professor of Religious Studies, zombie scholar (Gospel of the Living Dead: George Romero's Visions of Hell on Earth, History Is Dead: A Zombie Anthology, Dying to Live series)

Brendan Riley, professor Columbia College Chicago, author (Journal of Popular Culture, The Amazing Transforming Superhero)

Steven Schlozman, M.D., assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, Lecturer in Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, author (The Zombie Autopsies: Secret Notebooks from the Apocalypse, Psychology Today)

Kay Steiger, editor of Campus Progress, author (The Atlantic, Bitch Magazine, In These Times)

Ned Vizzini, young adult author (It's Kind of a Funny Story, Be More Chill, and Teen Angst? Naaah . . .)

COVER by Rafael Kayanan, artist Conan, Star Wars, Amazing Spider-Man, The Immortals

EDITED by James Lowder, editor, author (Curse of the Full Moon: A Werewolf Anthology; Prince of Lies (Forgotten Realms: The Avatar); Books of Flesh series: Book of All Flesh, The Book of More Flesh, The Book of More Flesh, The Book of Final Flesh (All Flesh Must Be Eaten), The Best of All Flesh: Zombie Anthology)

D.C. History: Lewis Wentworth Giles, Architect

(From the collection of Lewis W. Giles, Jr., courtesy Cultural Tourism DC)

Today I attended a free class put on by the D.C. Humanities Council in collaboration with the D.C. Public Library and the Historical Society of Washington, D.C., that taught you how to research the home in which you live. I discovered my home was designed by Lewis Wentworth Giles, a prolific and prominent African American architect in D.C.

According to the African American Architects: A Biographical Dictionary 1865-1945, which has an excerpt of Giles' biography online, he was born near Richmond, Va. His family moved to D.C. when he was young, and his father became one of the city's first African American police officers in the city. He graduated from Armstrong Technical High School and attended college at the the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he studied architecture. But before he could graduate, he was drafted in 1917 to serve in the U.S. Army during World War I. After his dishonorable discharge, he moved back to Washington, D.C., where he apprenticed with Isaiah Truman Hatton. He married in 1920 to Gladys Wheatley, who he met while attending the University of Illinois. Giles was under suspicion for his mentor's death in 1921:

Hatton died May 21 under mysterious circumstances, and Giles as his only employee came under suspicion. He was arrested and spent several nights in jail. No charges were filed and Giles was released three days after his arrest.

After Hatton's death, Giles opened his own architecture firm in a building at 1200 U Street NW, which is now home to the Public Welfare Foundation Inc. and the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless. In 1929, he moved his firm to the home he designed and built at 4428 Hunt Place. He and his wife Gladys had two children, Lewis W. Giles, Jr. and Julian Giles. His namesake followed in his footsteps and became an architect and Juilan went on to become a physician. He worked from his home on Hunt Place until his death in 1974.

Lewis' role as a trained architect served him well, since the D.C. government began requiring architects to be professionally trained in 1924. It's difficult to track down exactly how many building Giles designed over the course of his career; one source says "over 1,000" and another says "hundreds of houses, apartments, and churches here and across the city." According to a pamphlet created by the DC Community Heritage Project, "He had a reputation for creating such accurate drawings that he had little trouble getting approval from the city's permit division."

Incidentally, Giles worked with Randolph Dodd to build my apartment building, another highly successful and prolific builder in the city. He build many of Giles' designs, including many on the 1000 block of 49th Street in Deanwood. He also worked often with his brother, Jacob. They likely got a lot of work because their construction was cheap and reliable, according to one pamphlet, "To save money, the Dodds installed windows only in the front and back of the houses. Owners sometimes cut side windows later."

It's all pretty fascinating stuff, and now I learned some more skills in how to research the property databases and old city directories. If you ever get an opportunity to take such a class again, I'd highly recommend taking it.

Friday Links: Lady Gaga and Zombies

(Flickr/Kerry Burnout)

• Apparently Lady Gaga's songs present problems for sign language interpreters. How do you translate disco stick? [Washington Post]
• Last week, I highlighted Sarah Jaffe's series on anti-choice Democrasts, but it's also worth highlighting some great pro-choicers. [Keep Your Boehner Out Of My Uterus]
• "Americans are so used to the fact that women are capable of doing anything that we hardly ever discuss it." [Gail Collins]
• These awesome ladies (and men) are protesting to change bad sexual assault policies. [Penn Live]
• Why do environmentalists hate the Easy-Bake Oven? [Food & Think]
• "It took me a long time of standing still and being quiet to figure out what in retrospect appears to be a pretty simple lesson: writing a novel and living a life are very much the same thing." [Fuck Yeah Lady Writers]
  
• Are you sure you're rooting for the right baseball team? [YFSF]
• Only about 20 percent of plays are written and produced by women. [Female Playwrights Initiative]
• We're becoming the United States of Zombieland. [AlterNet]
• The super-awesome Anna Holmes takes on Charlie Sheen and his horrible misogyny. [New York Times]

Top Chef All Star Gets For-Profit College Issue Wrong

(Flickr/Rep. Virginia Foxx)

Tiffany Derry, of Top Chef All-Stars, has written an opinion piece for The Hill this week publicly fighting the “gainful employment” regulation proposed by the Department of Education. Derry says this proposed rule is bad because, “The proposed regulation is going to hurt students who need help the most: students who are considered at-risk, minority and low-income or older students who may be raising a family by themselves.”

Her op-ed was accompanied by lobby visits to Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.) and other members of the Congressional Black Caucus this week about the regulation.

The proposed regulation will look at default rates and debt-to-earnings ratios, but her conclusion that the regulation would “limit federal aid to students” is flat-out wrong. Under this regulation, it isn’t the student who won’t get funding; it is specific programs at schools that risk getting their funding pulled because too many of their students end up with overwhelming debt. Students are welcome to get financial aid for programs that provide better educational value.

Read more.

The Friday List-down: 10 Challenges Women Around the World Still Face

(Flickr/JIGGS IMAGES)

March is Women’s History Month, so this month the Friday List-downs will focus on women. Tuesday is International Women’s Day, which celebrates 100 years this year. The Asia Society has invited prominent feminist Gloria Steinem to participate in a conversation about the challenges women face in Asia. Check on events near you here. There are certainly lots of challenges that women face around the world. Here are some startling facts on women’s place in an increasingly global economy.

1. Iceland ranks number one in the World Economic Forum’s 2010 survey of the gender gap worldwide, followed closely by Norway, Finland, and Sweden. The survey takes into account various factors, including economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment. Yemen comes in last place, preceded by Chad and Pakistan.


2. Josina Machel of the International Women’s Health Coalition spoke [PDF] at the recent Africa Conference on Sexual Health and Rights, saying, “Seventy-six percent of people living with HIV and AIDS are women, and one-third of all these women are between the ages of 15 and 24.”


3. In a recent Guttmacher Institute report [PDF] on women’s health in Ethiopia, they learned 71 percent of Ethiopian women have an unmet need for contraception.


4. In a comprehensive World Health Organization study published in 2005, between 15 and 71 percent of women experience some combination of physical or sexual violence from an intimate partner over the course of their lifetimes. Women in Japan were the least likely to experience such violence, while women in more “provincial” countries were the most likely to experience intimate partner violence: Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Peru, and the United Republic of Tanzania.


5. The United Nations notes that rape is still used as a weapon in war. A government study of Liberia, which has undergone a 13-year civil war, found that 92 percent of the 1,600 women interviewed had experienced sexual violence.


6. A study put forth by the John F. Kennedy School of Government [PDF] found that women were more than twice as likely to be elected in countries that used proportional representation, or systems that divide up seats in multi-member districts by the proportion of votes received and distribute them to various parties or groups who choose a list of candidates, than they do under majoritarian electoral systems.


7. The focus on women’s economic security has led to the idea of micro-lending, small loans given to people in developing countries to start small businesses or help make ends meet offered at low interest rates. The World Bank found that, as of June 2010, women borrowers account for 67 percent of these types of loans [PDF].


8. According to 2007 Goldman Sachs findings cited by the State Department, closing the gender pay gap could have a significant impact on GDP growth. It could boost the United States GDP by 9 percent, Europe’s by 13 percent, and Japan’s by 16 percent.


9. As information technology is a growing field in India, so is women’s participation. Women’s participation in the industry grew from 10 percent in 1993 to 35 percent in 2005 [PDF].


10. Women endured the global economic crisis slightly worse than men. The International Labour Office found that the global unemployment rate for men was 6 percent in their 2011 report [PDF], whereas for women it was 6.5 percent.

Check out last week’s List-down here.

Cross posted.

The Bright Girl List

Via Sadie at Jezebel, Heidi Grant has a theory about Bright Girls:

Bright Girls, when given something to learn that was particularly foreign or complex, were quick to give up; the higher the girls' IQ, the more likely they were to throw in the towel. In fact, the straight-A girls showed the most helpless responses. Bright boys, on the other hand, saw the difficult material as a challenge, and found it energizing. They were more likely to redouble their efforts rather than give up.

[...]

Are there things you decided long ago that you could never be good at? Skills you believed you would never possess? If the list is a long one, you were probably one of the Bright Girls.

Ugh, I really hate it when theories explaining sexism or gender differences ring totally true to my own experience. Therefore, here's a list of things I gave up on being good at pretty early in life.

1. Playing piano. (Let's face it. I really hated practicing.)
2. Playing clarinet. (Same reason.)
3. Playing alto saxophone. (Don't worry, I'm getting to non-musical related things soon.)
4. Math. Like tons of other girls, I was really good at math throughout high school, but then when I fit my three years of requirements, I stopped instead of going for pre-calc even though my geometry teacher encouraged me to pursue a career in math. I guess I believed the stereotypes.
5. Cooking. Well, at least this was true for a long time. Because cooking was something that women were supposed to be good at it, I stayed away for a long time.
6. Video games. I always got really frustrated that I wasn't good at these right away. I guess I missed that you have to spend hours and hours on this to get better at it.
7. Fashion. Same with shopping. I hated it as a kid and have only gotten to like it marginally more as I get older, thanks mostly to online shopping. I find going to stores tiresome and I'm not particularly fashionable.
8. Economics. It took one class in college to convince me I was no good at this. Do I get points for listening to the Planet Money podcast?

This list could be much longer, but I'm going to avoid going down that ego-stripping path. The point is, women seem to judge themselves much more harshly than men do. Or at least, I find that anecdotally true.

The Worst Thing I Read Today, Or Adventures In Slut-Shaming

(Flickr/umfi1)

Well if this isn't the worst piece of slut-shaming garbage I have ever read, it's at least a close second. Possibly to this other really terrible thing Mark Regnerus wrote. Today he asserts the following:

When attractive women will still bed you, life for young men, even those who are floundering, just isn't so bad. This isn't to say that all men direct the course of their relationships. Plenty don't. But what many young men wish for—access to sex without too many complications or commitments—carries the day. If women were more fully in charge of how their relationships transpired, we'd be seeing, on average, more impressive wooing efforts, longer relationships, fewer premarital sexual partners, shorter cohabitations, and more marrying going on. Instead, according to the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (which collects data well into adulthood), none of these things is occurring. Not one. The terms of contemporary sexual relationships favor men and what they want in relationships, not just despite the fact that what they have to offer has diminished, but in part because of it. And it's all thanks to supply and demand.

To better understand what's going on, it's worth a crash course in "sexual economics," an approach best articulated by social psychologists Roy Baumeister and Kathleen Vohs. As Baumeister, Vohs, and others have repeatedly shown, on average, men want sex more than women do. Call it sexist, call it whatever you want—the evidence shows it's true. In one frequently cited study, attractive young researchers separately approached opposite-sex strangers on Florida State University's campus and proposed casual sex. Three-quarters of the men were game, but not one woman said yes. I know: Women love sex too. But research like this consistently demonstrates that men have a greater and far less discriminating appetite for it. As Baumeister and Vohs note, sex in consensual relationships therefore commences only when women decide it does.

So aside from the fact that there are probably very good reasons why women approached by a stranger, even an attractive one, Regnerus also makes the extremely original point that boys will be boys! And he also repeats the idea that women don't actually want sex, they just go along with it. Ugh.

Regnerus also cites the work of the really awful Catherine Hakim, who, as I explained once before, is at the UK equivalent of the Heritage Foundation. So that pretty much destroys his credibility right there.

Let's for a moment remember that Regnerus believes it's a huge problem people aren't getting married until later in life. Instead, as I've noted many times, this is merely what happens when we as a country get richer, weddings get more expensive, and more people are focused on establishing their careers first (thanks, in part, to the United States' pretty atrocious work/life balance).

So, when people delay marriage, they might engage in some casual sex or temporarily monogamous relationships to fill the sexual needs in that gap. It might seem inconceivable to Regnerus that women might want to engage in that, but believe it or not, it happens! But Regnerus asserts that that never happens, so therefore if you're a woman who has casual sex, you're just giving in to men who want sex. You slut.

This doesn't mean that men "hold all the power," it just means that men are willing to say yes more. There are a lot of factors that go into whether women decide to engage in casual sex, and let's not forget that personal safety might be among them. This might be just one reason why women are more willing to be up for casual sex less than men. Others? Slut-shaming, double standards, and the fact that there are a lot of undesirable sexual partners out there. Those are just a few. But I do not believe, as Regnerus does, that the fact that young people engage in casual sex is some kind of crisis. What is a crisis is access to safe and affordable sexual health care.

Geez, Slate, try not to assign articles to someone so terrible next time.