Blogging While Female

Every time Legally Blonde comes out with something new, I'm extremely wary of it. When the movie first came out I refused to see it because it looked like some of the crappiest crap Hollywood had released at the time. It wasn't until my mom rented it on DVD that I discovered how amazing and, surprisingly, how feminist it is. What looked like Pink (yes, the capital is needed) fluffiness was actually hiding a very empowering story of a woman who vowed to make something of herself when everyone was telling her it was impossible.

Okay, I'll admit I should have been more wary of the sequel to the movie (considering it came out before Elle was supposed to have graduated). It was all right, but not nearly as awesome as the first.

And then comes along Legally Blonde...the musical. I heard about it and was drawn to it like a train wreck. How on earth do you turn the movie into a good musical? Well, I heard the number So Much Better, as I'm singing it in a show I'm currently doing, and was instantly hooked. It's catchy, it's upbeat, it perfectly embodies everything that the movie was.

And then this weekend I saw it on MTV.

As far as musicals go, it's better than a lot of them. The music is almost uniformly catchy, though sometimes you get the feeling that they put in a song just because they needed to fill time (Ireland? Really?). However, it takes out 98% of the feminist elements of the film :-(

( And now cut for spoilers )

There have been multiple comparisons in the media between Michael Vick's dog fighting accusation and the public's reaction and reactions to athletes comitting acts of rape/abuse against women (or allegedly comitting the acts). More than one person has said that in some way or another, Vick's abuse of dogs is worse than raping a woman.

Radar Online now gives us a fun quiz to see if you can tell the difference between a reference to animal abuse and a reference to domestic abuse.

Impressive, isn't it? In a sad, sad way.

Dannica McKellar is one smart cookie.

She graduated from UCLA with a degree in mathematics, is co-author of a friggin' proof, has testified before congress AND has been a substitute teacher.

Now she's a young adult author, having written a magazine-style math book for middle school girls.

Now on the one hand, this is all great...in theory. We really do need to be encouraging girls to, at the very least, not abhor math. I absolutely hate math. I just could never, ever get it (I think it started back in 4th grade, when we had to do these timed worksheets of 100 problems. First the addition, then subtraction, then multiplication and finally division. You only got to move on to the next sheet if you'd completed the previous one with no mistakes. I never got past the subtraction sheet :-( ). I even had completely non-traditional math teachers throughout most of school - my middle school math teachers were women and half of mine in high school were as well.

But I couldn't get it. And now that I know I'm going into a career where I definitely do not need math, I have no incentive to try to learn it now.

So McKellar is trying to prevent there from being another me by writing her math book, that emphasizes how math is used in every day life - y'know, when you bake cookies and go shopping.

~headdesk~

This is where my admiration for the book falls apart (but increases for Wired, because they called her out on the exact concerns I had going into the article). Yes, there are plenty of girls who don't seem to care about anything beyond how they look, but should we be encouraging that? What about the girls like me who would rather have taken an algebra test than buy lipstick? How will these young, impressionable girls know there's another option out there for them if it's not presented to them?

Wired also brings up that this may just be encouraging the girls to be more materialistic. McKellar laughs that off, saying that they already are, and this book isn't going to change anything. No, it's probably not going to turn a switch in someone's head to say "I NEED MORE MAKEUP NOW!!!!!!!!!!" but again, it's not presenting them with other options.

In Dannica McKellar's world, it appears there are two choices for women: vapid and fashionable, or mathematically inclined and fashionable. Where do the rest of us fit in?

One of the first entries in this blog was about the release of the Butzel-Long report, the first report which condemned Eastern Michigan University's administration for mishandling the discovery of rape/murder victim Laura Dickinson.

Since then, a second report has been released, this one produced independently of the university by the Department of Education. The Dept. of Ed. report doesn't tell us anything different than the BL report, except that it lays out some specifics, namely that the University violated federal law a number of times, putting us at risk for fines and even the loss of federal financial aid funding (which would CRIPPLE the students of this university, as at least 60% of us receive/are eligible for federal aid. That would vanish if the ED chose to exert it's full power - which it never has before).

In the aftermath of these reports, three top administrators were fired/"let go" from the university: President Fallon, VP for Student Affairs Jim Vick, and the chief of public safety Cindy Hall. Fallon was outright fired, while Vick and Hall were "separated."

That all happened about two weeks ago, but EMU isn't out of the national news yet. On July 19, the father of Laura Dickinson appeared on Larry King. On July 27, Anderson Cooper mentioned the scandal on a rather sensationalistically-titled episode called "Crime and Punishment: Keeping Them Honest." And tonight, former president John Fallon and his wife appeared on Larry King for about twenty minutes.

Here are my notes from as it happened:
*Larry King mispronounced Ypsilanti, lol (notable because on Anderson Cooper, the reporter seemed to be trying very hard to pronounce the city correctly)
*Fallon says Vick told him Laura was half-naked, yet there was no sign of foul play? Claiming that Vick was purposefully keeping everything under wraps - sounds like he’s blaming it entirely on Vick.
*Fallon doesn’t seem to like the term “separated” for Vick’s departure.
*Claiming there’s an inverse relationship between the BL report and the personnel decisions made by the BoR. He’s the fall guy.
*Fallon’s wife, Sidney, is here as well. So far she’s just playing the supportive wife role, talking briefly about her husband’s integrity, etc.
*Ooh, his attorney is here as well. No legal action yet, but a suit based on fraud is being considered. She’s drawing a comparison between Vick’s behavior and the cabinets of large company CEO’s…I think I might have missed something here.
*Fallon came to the university when it was having “significant problems” and he was “determined to tackle them.”
*Sidney Fallon views this interview as part of the moving on process, bringing out the “other side” of the story.
*Neither Vick nor Hall returned calls inviting them to appear on the show tonight.
*Apparently the terms of Fallon’s severance isn’t final yet? He says “nothing is official” when King asks if he’s getting a year’s severance pay.
*Ooh, University House issues. Apparently living in that house was part of his contract.
*King asks the attorney if there’s any way parents can know the safety records of campuses. There’s a semi-complex list of steps to get the information from the FBI. I wonder if they’re going to mention that EMU has apparently been covering up crime stats? … Apparently not.
*”What do you want, John?” To clear his name, to regain his career. His “friends and colleagues from around the nation,” though they don’t know the details, don’t believe this can be true.
(originally published on EMUTalk.Org)

Really, it just seems strange that Fallon would appear on Larry King. For one, many of us thought that this story would pretty much be over, as it seemed likely that part of the separation agreements would include gag orders. Apparently that wasn't the case. Also, while Fallon thinks that "any reasonable person" would see the inverse relationship between the cover up and the personnel decisions made by the Regents, I would think that a reasonable person would hear what he's saying and say "Yeah, okay, but at the end of the day you were the president. You should have tried to get more information out of someone other than the VP." Who is going to have faith in a president that admits he's clueless when a brutal rape/murder occurs on campus?

Certainly not us.

Also, does it sound good for Fallon's career to admit that you've been president of three different schools in the last 5 or so years? We now know that some of the shady administrative decisions Fallon made at his last job were repeated here (appointing a provost without consulting the faculty. It's been discussed on EMUTalk, but the search function isn't turning anything up for me). It's not surprising that Fallon's career, by his own admission, is probably over. Heck, it's the one rational thing I've heard him say since the cover up was revealed.

Wow. This is fascinating.

Sexism, Strength and Dominance: Masculinity in Disney Films

It's not exactly groundbreaking subject matter - Disney's portrayals of masculinity warp boys just as much as their depictions of femininity warp girls - but the fact that it's the equivalent of an academic paper...on Youtube is fascinating. It allows the argument to really work on multiple levels: the ethos of facts and examples and the pathos of seeing these films that we grew up with. To me, the argument is greatly enhanced by showing Simba and Scar fight rather than just saying "The movie's climax is a brutal battle between Simba and his evil uncle."

That being said, I think there's some criticism that can rightfully be leveled at this piece, namely with the references to Beauty and the Beast. Does Gaston thinking the beast is weak and unmanly truly support the argument that Disney is teaching our boys to behave this way? Gaston is the bad guy, and clearly has been throughout; everyone that we are sympathetic to thinks he's an idiot. I always thought it was obvious that we shouldn't be like Gaston? And I'm sure that somewhere in Disney cartoons we get a good guy implying that one needs to be aggressive in order to be manly (Mulan, anyone? Or maybe there's something in Aladdin? Certainly Mufasa and Simba, in all their light color, muscular strength, are better than thin, dark Scar).

But shortcomings of the actual argument aside: I want to post academic work on Youtube! Appropriate mindless Web 2.0 (I don't even know what that phrase actually refers to, but I think Youtube is probably part of it) applications for something useful! VIVA LA REVOLUTION!

So people with too much time and money on their hands have once more decided to study the phenomenon that is MySpace. Yes, that dangerous haven for the dark and depraved monsters of the world that want nothing more than to get their hands on tender young flesh.

Except that it turns out that those who posses said flesh are a lot smarter than grown ups give them credit for.

Allow me to reiterate: no. Fucking. Shit.

Also, apparently there is room to argue with MySpace's claim of 100,000,000 users. Extra! Extra! Water is still wet!

Of course most teenagers know to keep their profiles, or at least select portions of it, private. Not everyone in the school needs to know what you were doing on Saturday night. I'm not surprised that more IM usernames were revealed than e-mail addresses: the spambots don't troll for AIM names (yet); my e-mail address is rarely displayed in a non-mangled format. And guess what? I've been doing that for years, even back in the days when I was a teenager.

And do you have any idea how many profiles on any social site are created as just a way to check on friends or as a duplicate site? I can't tell you how many people on LiveJournal (or, I'm sure, InsaneJournal) have multiple journals for different uses (if LJ hadn't turned into a bunch of idiots I'd be hosting this particular journal over there as well).

We really need to start giving teenagers some credit where it's due. I know back in those halcyon days I hated being lumped in with all of the dumb kids, internet users or not. Know why? Because I knew that I, and (most) of my friends, were smart enough to avoid the really dangerous situations. I can't think of a time when I received unwanted sexual advances from someone I didn't know. I certainly never gave out my phone number/address to someone that I didn't know extremely well (I actually can only think of one person that I ever gave out my home address to. I'm not sure if I ever gave out my phone number because I'm an awkward enough conversationalist in writing). It's silly to think that kids who've grown up with the Internet (I didn't get it until 7th grade, but "kids today" have had it for a much longer portion of their lives) make bigger and dumber mistakes than the rest of us did.

Yes, there are always going to be kids who put themselves at risk. Kids will run out in front of ice cream trucks or take candy from strangers. Setting the MySpace profiles of 14 and 15 year olds to default to "private" is a smart, unobtrusive way to protect as many kids as possible. Thinking that every single person on MySpace is out to kidnap those kids is just unfounded paranoia.

Is it cliche by now to call the US government a terrorist organization? It probably is, but...I'm going to do it anyway.

They haven't strapped bombs to their chest or kidnapped anyone post propaganda video to the Internet attempted convert the masses to their idealogical agenda... okay, so that's about the only thing they haven't done.

But the real reason I consider them to be a terrorist organization is because they're trying to terrify the country with ominous reports of terror threats.

My main issue is that apparently al-Qaida in Iraq poses a "persistent and evolving threat" to the US, which will culminate in an attack on US soil. That would be a lot easier for me to believe if al-Qaida's presence in Iraq hadn't been used as a continuing excuse for our occupation to continue, or if it weren't pretty obvious that al-Qaida showed up there only after we did.

I'm not saying it isn't possible, or even probable, that al-Qaida (especially the Iraq-based contingent) wants to attack the United States again. I'm just saying that I'm not comfortable with them being the justification for our government to continue carrying out actions in our name that we are vehemently opposed to. We never had a convincing reason to go into Iraq and so I am inherently skeptical of every lame excuse that comes out of our government officials that justifies our continued presence.

Anyone who knows me in real life (and currently, I think that's everybody who reads since all of my readers are through the LJ feed) has probably heard me rail against sexist terms like "actress" and "waitress" and "stewardess" (one that is, thankfully, firmly on its way out!). There is absolutely no point in differentiating people in their job titles by gender. A female server of food does the exact same job as a male, for example.

That's why I'm extremely happy about MSN's list of TV's Best Actors. This is not a list of the best male performers on television; it's a list of the best performers. Period. (Well, according to these editors; I'm sure everyone would quibble with an inclusion/exclusion on this list, like every other list ever created!) Two women (of color, even!) are featured on the list. Now, I'm not sure if the ratio of best female-to-male actors is 8-to-2, but at least these two women have been recognized as being among the best in their craft, not just the best women in their craft.

Finally an article about sexual identity that I can completely relate to: But I'm Gay!

It's all about that life-up-ending moment when, after being happily gay and out and proud, you find yourself attracted to the opposite sex.

That was totally me three and a half years ago (I can't believe I've been dating Billy for almost that long!)

When I first realized I had a major crush on a boy (my boyfriend, during my freshmen year of college, after never having had an interest in men of any sort and one failed relationship with a girl) it was sooooooooooooo confusing. It wasn't a situation I'd heard of anyone else being in before. Intellectually I knew sexuality was fluid and that bisexuality existed, but it didn't make any sense for this to happen to me.

I think for me the situation was helped because Billy and I were already such good friends before we started dating. We'd met at the beginning of the school year and had quickly become fast friends (despite a jealous girlfriend on his part). And when I figured out that I did, in fact, have a crush on him, I shrugged it off because of said-girlfriend. It was a "safe" crush because nothing could come of it; it would pass in time and I could go back to looking for Ms. Right.

Well then he had to go and dump her because he liked me and the rest is history :-)

I do wish this issue was talked about more, however. Like the article mentions, at first you feel like a traitor (and I was apparently branded one by a high school friend). You feel like you're giving credence to the "it's just a phase" and "all you need is the right man" arguments. You feel like you've been slapped in the face when you see the look of relief on your parents faces. And until today I had never seen anyone else talk about it. Because it is such a taboo topic within the LGBT community, I think we're afraid that if we talk about this too much we'll just give fuel to the aforementioned arguments. It's the same reason that bisexuals have often, and still do, get the short end of the stick when it comes to LGBT issues. We're the least visible because it is so easy for us to "pass" as heterosexuals. I think in some ways those of us who are bisexual aren't really considered part of the queer community if we're dating someone of the opposite sex.

Any thoughts?

July 1st marks the beginning of the fiscal year, which means a bunch of new laws are going into effect around the country. Here are some interesting ones:

HPV Vaccine: Indiana and North Carolina are both requiring schools to inform parents of middle schoolers about HPV and its connection to cervical cancer, as well as the existence of a vaccine. Nevada is requiring insurance carriers to cover the vaccine (yay!)

Sex ed: Colorado bans abstinence-only sex ed! Yay!

Sex offenders: Virginia is requiring sex offenders to list their e-mail addresses with the state...because it's so hard to get a different one. Nevada has placed new residence restrictions on sex offenders so they must live 1000 feet away from schools "and other places children gather" (so...malls? Movie theatres? Totally bad idea, Nevada. And you were doing so well!) Connecticut has created a new sentence for those who abuse children under the age of 13 (Finally a law that might actually do something)

Abortion: Women in Georgia must be given the opportunity to see an ultrasound and women in both Georgia and Mississippi must be given the opportunity to listen to the heartbeat. Now, if this is actually presented as an option, all will be well and good. If abortion providers start forcing these options on women, that would be bad, bad, bad.

Minimum wage: Illinois, Michigan and Pennsylvania are all increasing their minimum wages (Michigan is going up to $7.15. Yay my state!)

LGBT issues: Iowa's civil rights laws now cover gays and lesbians. Discrimination against transexuals (including those who are pre-op) is barred in Vermont.

So apparently, more good than harm is coming about this year, in terms of laws that affect feminism. Small steps in the right direction.

I have always hated commercials that show women happily cleaning their houses. Because who doesn't love using the latest in house cleaning products in her nasty bathroom? (And it's always women in these commercials. Have you ever seen a man cleaning house? And the guy on the OxyClean commercials doesn't count - he's cleaning up artificial messes that we just watched him make)

Well the commercial that I just saw takes the fucking cake. It's for the GoDuster which showed a woman actually pirouetting because this thing apparently makes dusting that much easier.

And there's also the requisite little girl claiming how "fun" it is to use the thing to dust her horribly chintzy porcelain collectibles.

And people wonder why I don't clean my apartment; I can't stand patronizing the companies that produce these products.

First she (and apparently their daughter) supports full marriage rights (even if it is sketchy that John apparently had no idea she felt that way)

Now she's called out Ann Coulter for being evil (okay, my words, not hers).

With her typical charm, Coulter purposefully misinterprets Edwards' message and says it amounts to asking her to "stop speaking all together" (although I certainly don't know anyone who would complain).

I already, of course, hope that Elizabeth Edwards can beat her cancer (again), but if I hadn't before I definitely do now. She's a bad-ass lady.

Why I Chose Abortion

Maybe this is because I've been feeling like a sappy wuss lately, but this story absolutely breaks my heart and has me tearing up.

Know what irritates the hell out of me, though? This is a personal story about an extremely personal and serious topic. And the friggin' "More from Marie Claire" links are for inane articles like "Do diets make you fat?" and "Score a celebrity body in four weeks!"

I know that those little link boxes are generated by some impersonal series of code somewhere in the Interweb's tubes, but it still seems extremely inappropriate for this particular story.

Free Love: Was there a price to pay?

Usually I really enjoy Brian Alexander's columns. His America Unzipped series paints a really interesting portrait of American sexuality and its changes.

His latest article, however, smacks of sexist, judgmental tripe. Exhibit A:
But there is no question that we are still living with the “free love” fallout. Everything from the rise of Viagra to “Girls Gone Wild” and feminist porn, to the sex education debate and the Christian fundamentalist backlash, bears the mark of that bohemian sexual revolution.
"Fallout" certainly has negative connotations, and just about everything in that list is abhorrent to somebody (except maybe Viagra - I don't think it's an inherently evil product. What's evil is its marketing. And how insurance providers wouldn't cover birth control until it came around and they wanted to cover that). Perhaps this instance is simply irresponsible editing, rather than out right idiocy. Let's read on.

The first page of the article is about all of the bad stuff we now have to live through all thanks to those dirty hippies. STD rates skyrocketed, abortion became legalized...but, oh wait, hippies weren't singlehandedly responsible for the new sexually liberated culture? Playboy had been around for 14 years? Masters and Johnson had published "Human Sexual Response" a year earlier? So...really we should just go back to blaming Hugh Heffner. Except that the concept of "Free Love" had been around since the 19th century (I'd argue earlier: look up John Wilmot, Second Earl of Rochester, in the 18th).

So really, the hippies didn't do anything new. Let's just hate on them anyway; it's the 40th anniversary of the summer of love.

Half way through page two we get to some actually positive things that came from the Summer of Love. Feminism took to the streets, as women realized that "free love" meant men got to have sex with whomever they wanted without responsibility.

Oh, and here's where we get to the extremely debatable parts of this article:
The age’s radical feminist notion of eliminating marriage never materialized, but demand from 40 years ago to have “the freedom to love, to chose whom to love and how to love,” written by Goldfield and her essay collaborators Sue Munaker and Naomi Weisstein, is taken for granted by the young women — and men — of the MySpace generation.

I realize that I'm on the older end of the MySpace generation (OT: I realized last night that I am getting old when I was playing a game at a high school summer camp and no one knew who Captain Planet was), but our choices in who we love are still rather limited: interracial relationships are still relatively rare and god knows that you'd better love someone of the opposite sex! Making out with a girl in a picture to post to MySpace so you'll get knew friends is completely different from marching in a Pride parade. Or fighting for the right to marry your girlfriend.

“Some [people] are monogamous, but they are choosing to be, rather than following some script. Maybe they are not having sex with 10 people at a time, but now they are following their own script,” says [Eli] Coleman [Director of the Program of Human Sexuality at the University of Minnesota and editor of the International Journal of Sexual Health].

I'd argue that monogamy is pretty much the norm. Unless you stumble on some interesting websites, the only way you're going to be exposed to the modern tradition of polyamory is if you're in a large city. We still largely follow the sexual role scripts in our society. (Alexander claims that studies support Coleman's statement...by citing a survey from 1994 that says 64% of women born between 1963 and 1974 had co-habited before marriage. That has nothing to do with multiple sex partners and everything to do with pre-marital sex. NOT the same issue)

But I'm waiting for my boyfriend to get here. So what better way to occupy my time than getting suitably outraged over stupid stuff like Nintendo's latest attempt to cater to women.

Full disclosure: I'm not what one would normally consider a "gamer" (well, not with video games. I kick ass in D&D, however). I enjoy playing the occasional video game (Dead Rising was bad ass. And I really, really want to get a Wii so that I can play the Pirates of the Caribbean game. Sword fighting!) but for the most part my favorites are from back on the SNES. I don't care about graphics or even story lines all that much; I want something with high replay value that doesn't take 45 minutes just to learn which button makes you jump vs. super jump.

I also have a weakness for simulation and strategy games, but that's a whole other post.

But you want to know how you attract me, a border-line female gamer, to buy your system and games? Don't patronize me. Give me an engaging game that DOESN'T objectify my gender/sexual orientation/race (okay, not my race - Caucasian woman here). I can shoot aliens or zombies along with my guy friends - I just prefer to have a female avatar while I'm doing it. A female avatar that isn't Lara Croft.

And give me sim games. Nintendogs looks incredibly cute and fun (I had Catz on my computer in middle school). There's a cooking game that I wasted some time playing in Best Buy once. Puzzle games are always a hit.

Do not try to sell me a "video game" that doles out advice on "womanly manners."

Now creating a "game" that helps monitor actual health-related activities (hours of sleep, activity levels and water intake) could possibly be helpful to everyone. We all know about the obesity epidemic in this country (and how people are hoping that the increased activity required for the Wii, or games like Dance Dance Revolution will have an impact). I could definitely see a simple "game" being created and actually used by people to keep track of their daily activities. So many people keep their video game systems with them 24/7, this could be used to keep an electronic food journal, or calculate just how many calories were burned by taking the five flights of stairs up to class rather than hopping on the elevator.

Let's hope that this particular game doesn't make the jump from Japan to the US. We have enough body issues without a video game telling us to eat more ginger.

Seriously. That's apparently the name of a new show on NBC this fall.

From the article:
The series is about a 17-year-old call girl who worries that her flat chest will consign her to a life of poverty.

...

I have to admit, that when I first heard about Ugly Betty, I wasn't too excited. I haven't actually watched any of it, but it appears that my fears were unfounded and it is a surprisingly positive show.

From what I've read about the original Columbian version, there is no way to put a positive spin on this. 17 years old, a prostitute for drug traffickers, AND obsessed with getting breast implants. Oh, and according to the Wikipedia article, she actually gets the implants, becomes "disillusioned" and then kills herself.

What a message to young people everywhere.

Word, Trojan.

Apparently Trojan's latest commercial is too hot for TV - at least if it's CBS or Fox TV.

Yes, because Fox is totally the moral network. I avoid Fox TV shows whenever I possibly can because 99% of them are exploitative pieces of crap. The other 1% are either unappealing to me for other reasons or are House. Yay House. (Which is actually produced by NBC, I believe, considering that it's replayed on USA. What's up with that? But that's for another time...and probably another blog).

So CBS and Fox's big objection to this ad seems to be that it's focusing on preventing pregnancy rather than STI's. Personally, I think they were looking for excuses. The ad doesn't focus on any one reason to use a condom; it's simply saying that using one is the smart thing to do.

Here's my theory on why CBS and Fox really rejected the ad:

The focus is on a woman finding someone appealing for a sexual fling.

Let's face it: most of us don't go to bars to look for our soul mates. You might pick up someone who could become a soul mate, but generally we're looking for a good time in the here and now. And if you're smart and you end up going home with your new friend (or your new friend comes home with you) you'll use a condom. For reasons including BOTH STI and pregnancy prevention.

The main focus in the ad (the commercial, anyway; the print ad is slightly different) is the beautiful women. The guys who aren't sexually responsible are unattractive (literally pigs). The one guy who has bothered to pick up a condom is suddenly beautiful and attractive to the woman.

Clearly she isn't looking for a night of stimulating conversation. She's a woman who knows what she wants: sex. And she knows how she wants it: safe.

That's what's shocking and apparently so dangerous about this ad: it's presenting a woman who knows what she wants when it comes to sex, and she isn't afraid to go out of her way to get it.

So while Trojan is willing to go out there and promote women having a healthy sex life (they also produce the Elexa condoms which I enjoy, though I wish they were easier to find!) network television is telling us once again that we shouldn't be feeling so liberated, using blatantly false reasoning for why they won't accept this commercial (as Feministing points out, neither Fox nor CBS has had a problem featuring Viagra/Cealis/Levitra ads during big sporting events. It's apparently not harmful to the kiddies to hear about four hour erections, but even suggest that women might want to enjoy risk-free sex and alarm bells go off).

Also worth noting: the title for this entry comes from a phrase that's all over the new Trojan site. And it is SO TRUE.

So legislation has been proposed in Oregon to make the paper work for changing names after marriage much more egalitarian. It's no longer assumed (by the proposer of this bill, at least) that women will definitely be changing their names to their husband's. Sweet.

Of course in the comments we're making it all about our name change stories.

I don't have much of a story yet - since I'm not married. However it is a topic that my boyfriend and I talk about from time to time. It's one of those Issues that should be worked out before getting engaged, we figure.

Of course, this makes for lots of unhappy and stressful dinner conversations.

The Bf and I are both very strong willed people. He's known since we met - well before we were even potentially interested in each other romantically - that I didn't want to change my name to match my husband's. Sexist, antiquated, etc. etc. However, now that I'm in a situation where marriage seems imminent (even if still years away), I've been reconsidering my position and seeking compromises.

I'm huuuuuuuuuuuugely against taking his last name. However I've proposed combining our names, hyphenation, and picking out a new one (we even had one all picked out and settled for awhile. Blaizer. Bad ass name - purposely misspelled - but apparently it was suggested in jest). After awhile the Bf concluded that he really didn't want to change his name, either - he's very proud of his family and where he's come from. I'm a little more ambivalent - maybe from growing up in a society where women's names have less permanence? - but not so ambivalent that I'm going to cave and take his name (and that's what it would feel like - giving up). So now it looks like we're going to just put our names together, so after I marry I'll be Angela Craft Coffing. Or Angela Coffing Craft.

Doesn't quite roll off the tongue like "Blaizer," does it?

So...why don't I just keep my name and he keep his? Well if we weren't going to have kids I'd be all for that. But we're going to have kids and just don't know what to do with naming them. Alternate last names (i.e. first born gets his, second gets mine?), combine our names for the kids, or give them the hyphenation? I don't want to alternate mostly so we don't end up with 'odd one out' syndrome - for a couple of years at least there would be two people with one last name and then the third person with the other. Petty, perhaps, but I certainly don't want to be that third person. And what if something happens and we only end up with one kid? The Bf is against combining names since half the point of keeping his is passing it on to the next generation. Hyphenating their names might be the best option in that case - though I still think its an unwieldy combination.

It's a difficult place to be in right now. I'm still not comfortable with our plans yet. Which means we'll end up with another angsty conversation in no time.

Mycoplasma genitalium "can cause inflammation of the urethra (the urinary passage from the bladder), in men, and inflammation of the cervix and the lining of the uterus in women, possibly leading to infertility. However, it seems many cases of the infection are symptom-free."

Also, "the prevalence of Mycoplasma genitalium infection was 11 times higher among individuals living with a sexual partner, seven times higher among blacks and four times higher among those who use condoms during sex."

So would that mean that I'm 15 times more likely to have this (living with sexual partner + using condoms)?

Most people think that condoms will protect you from STDs, yet this article could be read to imply that condom users at four times more likely to get this particular STD than their non-condom-using peers. Despite this fact, the article doesn't explain how one might end up with this particular STD that, while many people may not display symptoms, could affect something as important as fertility. Wikipedia says that it's spread through unprotected sexual contact.

I am so confused. And a little irritated at MSNBC for leaving so many holes in their article.

So my school, Eastern Michigan, has been in trouble for awhile now because back in December a student was murdered in her dorm room...and the school decided to frame it as a "death investigation" until February 23rd, when we were told that another student had been arrested in connection to her rape and murder.

Surprise, surprise: you're not supposed to hide such information from students. In fact, an investigation was started pretty quickly to see if the school had violated federal law. The investigation has been on two fronts: the US. Department of Education (responsible for enforcing the Clery Act) as encouraged by Security on Campus and by Butzel Long, a law firm hired by EMU.

Today, the Butzel Long report was released.

Tension and anxiety have been high on campus ever since February 23rd. NOTHING about this case was handled properly by the university. We were openly lied to, and this is simply the most serious incidence of the administration lying to us. Before I came here, there was the incidence of misappropriated funding for the President's House. Then there's the issue of a set of master keys being lost/stolen back in 2005. Long story short: keys were stolen, no one was actually told (although maybe they were supposed to be) and it took the University at least a year to get all of the dorms re-keyed (mine was re-done in July 2006) and there are still faculty offices that haven't been re-keyed and a number of thefts have occurred from locked offices. We also don't like the administration because they don't seem to be doing all they can do (or are unwilling to explain why they can't do more) in order to repair our aging classroom buildings. It's a mess.

The news that a fellow student had been arrested in connection to this rape/murder came as a complete shock to a lot of us. Corny as it may be, I still remember where I was when I first heard about it: I was in a van traveling with the forensics team to our state tournament. It was the first weekend of spring break, so while the abnormally-current-events-savvy forensics team was around to hear about this issue, a whole lotta people were already well on their way to Cancun and wouldn't hear about this for quite some time.

The eight of us or so who were in the van were absolutely livid. This was before we knew that it was obvious from the beginning that Laura Dickinson had been raped. We, having common sense, knew that you didn't go from "accidental death" to "rape/homicide" investigation over night. We were scared, knowing that the student had been with us on campus for the last two months.

Since February, the outrage has died down, but I have a feeling it's going to be rekindled once the general campus population has the chance to read the report. Especially this little bit taken from the summary:
Also that week, an initial DPS incident draft report (IDR)... was circulated to the Student Affairs office. The IDR contained specific and graphic information about Ms. Dickinson's room and the condition under which she was found. After several Student Affairs administrators discovered and read the IDR, they brought it to Mr. [Vice President for Student Affairs Jim] Vick's attention. Mr. Vick directed that the IDR be shredded (emphasis mine)

Who does that? Who in their right mind would think "Hm, a student has died on campus, this tells us what it was like when she was discovered...oh well, that's not important! Let's shred it!" Hey, it did say "draft" after all...

No, clearly this is an act of gross incompetence and best and criminal proportions at worst. I for one am extremely curious to hear Vick's excuse for shredding that report. Now, I have no idea if there would ever be a reason for that information to be released to the public...but I'd love to hear it anyway. (EDIT: I just read a report on EMUTalk in the comments section about this report. There was a press conference this afternoon where it was stated that Vick didn't want students working in the office to see the report and it's graphic details. Not a good excuse to shred the document)

Vick was placed on paid administrative leave back in March, so at the very least he's out of the picture. However, a cover up of this magnitude doesn't happen with just one person. Cindy Hall, chief of the department of public safety, has been implicated as helping to cover this up. The Butzel Long report concludes that President Fallon was never informed of the full extent of the Dickinson case, an explanation for which I can come up with four possibilities:
1) Vick and Hall were the only people who knew the extent of the case, thus were able to keep it quiet (nearly impossible, considering other Student Affairs administrators saw the IDR)
2) A whole lot of other people were involved in the cover up
3) Fallon never asked the right questions of the right people, leaving a "don't ask, don't tell" environment in Welch Hall
4) Fallon was willfully ignorant of the situation, refusing to ask the necessary questions and/or waiting for information to come to him.

None of these possibilities are very reassuring.