http://womanstats.org/blog.htm WomanStats News and Blog en-us Wed, 09 May 2012 23:11:10 -0700 http://womanstats.org/blog.htm#femspace Culture, folk-lore, beauty magazines, rampant pornography in TV and film; the list goes on-and-on of the everyday propaganda which defines the female body not only as a sexual object, but a public one. And the planning of the city you live in most likely perpetuates the vulnerability you feel in public. Wed, 09 May 2012 23:11:10 -0700 RSSPECT-001942343 http://womanstats.org/blog.htm#mothersmon Several years ago I was at the site of Valley Forge in Pennsylvania. We stopped at an old church to see the stained glass windows, and as I walked around the grounds I came across a beautiful old statue. I have included the pictures below. It was a woman kneeling, as if in mourning. The inscription read "To the mothers of the nation, and in memory of Henrietta Heckscher. Died in childbirth June 11 1912." At that time, the world was about to enter into World War I. Hundreds of thousands of people were about to die due to violence, making it easy to overlook one mother’s death. But Henrietta's husband commissioned the statue to honor his wife and all the mothers of the nation who have died in childbirth. Many people have given their life for our nation over the years, and I have great respect for each of them. There are monuments, schools roads, even national holidays named in honor of these heroes. But, as of 2012, this small statue in Valley Forge is the only one dedicated to the millions of mothers who have given their lives for the nation. Wed, 02 May 2012 23:06:20 -0700 RSSPECT-001917191 http://womanstats.org/blog.htm#raisegoodmen So therefore how does this dilemma inflict harm upon the work of feminists? According to Silverstein and Rashbaum it is similar as asking males to look both left and right in regards to all female issues and topics. In short, to be feminists while still being patriarchal. Fri, 27 Apr 2012 08:04:04 -0700 RSSPECT-001899223 http://womanstats.org/blog.htm#swp Does my job as a WomanStats coder really matter? As I read the new book Sex and World Peace by Valerie Hudson, Bonnie Ballif-Spanvill, Mary Caprioli, and Chad Emmett, I was reminded of the reason I am a coder. Like most writers and readers of this blog, I strongly feel that one of the most important struggles in the world is that of women and their fight for equality and security. Mon, 23 Apr 2012 21:20:50 -0700 RSSPECT-001887965 http://womanstats.org/blog.htm#legs Why do parents in some societies marry off their prepubescent daughters? Why are the practices of Female Genital Mutilation and the wearing of chastity belts common among some cultures? Why are girls of certain peoples punished for being raped? The answers to these questions are summed up in this Ecuadorian saying: “The honor of a man lies between the legs of a woman.” Wed, 18 Apr 2012 13:35:21 -0700 RSSPECT-001872419 http://womanstats.org/blog.htm#pretty Arguing that a projected innocence will change men’s behavior and solve societies’ morality issues is like dousing yourself in cologne or perfume and refusing to take a bath. Fri, 17 Feb 2012 09:37:15 -0800 RSSPECT-001689911 http://womanstats.org/blog.htm#zooey These quirky 20-something women like Zooey Deschanel are considered "too girly." They love the "little girl" things like rainbows, ribbons and kittens. The argument is that these women are simply playing to man’s fantasy of dating with little girls. That they are specifically acting in this way, liking beanies that look like pandas and wearing frilly clothes, to appeal to this fantasy. They argue that his portrayal of women is degrading and offensive to feminists everywhere. Is that? Sun, 12 Feb 2012 20:12:10 -0800 RSSPECT-001676440 http://womanstats.org/blog.htm#barbie In December 2011 America’s National Advertising Division banned Proctor & Gamble’s CoverGirl mascara ad because of its misleading photo created by Photoshop. It was a great baby step forward, but there is a lot of work to do in regards to Photoshopping ads. Thu, 02 Feb 2012 18:14:40 -0800 RSSPECT-001650575 http://womanstats.org/blog.htm#gunsautos Does the tradition of American women not knowing how to tinker with their automobiles stem from the same ideology that kept them from gaining an education? Is it one factor keeping them economically disadvantaged? There are obvious connections between who has a certain skill or knowledge and who holds the physical and economic power. Sun, 29 Jan 2012 08:02:24 -0800 RSSPECT-001638854 http://womanstats.org/blog.htm#senegal I never imagined I’d end up living in Senegal for six weeks, it just sort of happened. I applied for a French Study Abroad program on a whim, always hoping but never really expecting for it to become a reality. But somehow or other I ended up on a plane to that little pac-man shaped country I knew so little about. Sun, 22 Jan 2012 09:28:26 -0800 RSSPECT-001620669 http://womanstats.org/blog.htm#uganda Whenever I had a few spare moments to talk with women who weren’t being interviewed for the research I had come to do, I would always ask them to tell me about their lives and their views of the world. Fri, 11 Nov 2011 17:21:57 -0800 RSSPECT-001492501 http://womanstats.org/blog.htm#costarica At the WomanStats project we have a saying: "once a coder, always a coder." You’re trained to see the world and its anecdotes as data points that display an overarching attitude of a country. By experiencing Costa Rica through this lens, I realized how important this project is to humanity across the globe. Sat, 08 Oct 2011 18:10:03 -0700 RSSPECT-001457511 http://womanstats.org/blog.htm#depression Out of 34 students only 6 believed that it was a medical problem and five of those people were boys. I sat and watched as the students in groups of four (most of them being consisting of all girl groups) stand up and say how depression was solely emotional and could be solved by simply changing your life-style and living healthier or talking to your friends. Tue, 27 Sep 2011 09:21:11 -0700 RSSPECT-001447373 http://womanstats.org/blog.htm#mars As clearly demonstrated by the picture, men seem to believe that the female gender is a puzzle of more complexity than any Rubik's cube; and whose complete manual is beyond the first volume shown in the picture. Clearly, the concept of "men are from Mars and women are from Venus" still permeates in the American culture and likely is prevalent in most other cultures. Tue, 20 Sep 2011 08:05:57 -0700 RSSPECT-001440161 http://womanstats.org/blog.htm#freak My self-defense teacher taught us to be freaks today. The best techniques for self-defense, I’ve learned, are utilized before the attacker is even close enough to touch you. . . . It’s time for us to fight again. I think it’s time for women to get freaky, to be loud and crazy, radical and assertive. To call attention to a society that has attacked, continues to attack women, to objectify and subjugate them. In a society where you can’t be feminine and powerful, we need to redefine power, to take back our identities as women--professionally, politically, sexually. Thu, 15 Sep 2011 06:29:33 -0700 RSSPECT-001434948