"Traditional" marriage

There's an excellent blog-post on the ever-changing tradition of marriage on a blog entitled "This is what I think", by Archie Levine.

It is quite similar to a blog-post that I wrote earlier this year entitled "The changing face of marriage". In fact, mine could be a sequel to his, as his is more about marriage from Biblical times to the 19th century, and mine focuses more on how marriage changed in the twentieth century.

The Secret Gender Test

This was quite an interesting test, and the results were not a surprise to me.

Your result for The Secret Gender Test...

Hermaphrodic/Androgynous

33% Masculine / 48% Feminine

Likelihood if you got this result, it's either because you have behavior equally matched of both genders or neither.  This result means your gender identity is androgynous.  This means that you can probably equally understand average men and women, but don't understand super-men and super-women all that well.  Your male and female side is either well balanced, or not present in the normal manner.  Your sexual inclination is either dual-role, or assexual.  This means you may very well be single because of a lack of the same compelling drives average men and women have in this world.  Your also very likely gender-queer, or non-gender conforming.  Meaning, male or female you dress androgynously.  Some people may even refer to you as a gender-bender.
This doesn't mean you won't, and there is a chance that your still have some growing up to do, and given a lack of experience of your gender has left you with little to speak of in the sense of what this test can provide.  Sometimes gaining experience with reference with the questions will result in a conclusion that is different from this one.  Either way, your balanced.  If this is what you want then you are happy, and among a fairly small group of people in the world satisfied by gender neutrality.
Whether you were born male or female, your brain is variably somewhat intersexed, and if you were born intersexed then this would also be consistant.  You have senses and abilities of both sexes likely to varying degrees.  You can date any other gender type easily, though the greater extremes will still be difficult.  There really isn't a gender type you can't date as long as you understand what dating that particular type intails. All this being said, your ideal types are likely as close to center as you, or gender neutral, or gender reversed.  Those groups are likely to have respect for your androgynous nature.  You have an experience where gender is concerned that makes you an ideal counselor for issues regarding gender for others.
If you were born male, your very androgynous, or you lack strongly defining deviations from male or female aspects.  If you were born female the above applies as well, however female androgyns are more prevalent do to societal acceptance than male androgyns.  It's more acceptable for women to be tomboyish than men to be femmeboyish.  You can date any other type, but standard and higher male and female types may and most likely will not understand your gender neutrality.  As long as you understand this and take your balance and use it to your advantage you will manage okay.

Take The Secret Gender Test at OkCupid

Save philosophy at Middlesex

Late on Monday 26 April, staff in Philosophy at Middlesex University in London were informed that the University executive are to close all Philosophy programmes: undergraduate, postgraduate and MPhil/PhD.

Philosophy is the highest research-rated subject at Middlesex University, with 65% of its research activity judged 'world-leading' or 'internationally excellent' in the UK government's recent Research Assessment Exercise. It is now widely recognised as one of the most important centres for the study of modern European philosophy anywhere in the English-speaking world. Its MA programmes in Philosophy have grown in recent years to become the largest in the UK, with 42 new students admitted in September 2009. Middlesex offers one of only a handful of programmes left in the UK that provides both research-driven and inclusive post-graduate teaching aimed at a wide range of students, specialist and non-specialist. It is also one of relatively few such programmes that remains financially viable, currently contributing close to half of its total income to the University's central administration.

This is a shameful decision which essentially means the end of the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy, a hub for internationally renowned scholarship; staff include Eric Alliez, Peter Hallward, Mark Kelly, Christian Kerslake, Peter Osborne and Stella Sandford). This act of wilful self-harm by the University must be resisted.

Please join the facebook group, sign the petition and spread the word.

Source: Radical Philosophy group on Yahoo

The Island of Lesvos

A short story by Jeanette Winterson, The Poetics of Sex, is available on the Random House website. It is an extended poetic exploration of lesbian sexuality, written as a response to the sort of questions straights ask, but going far beyond those questions into the land of Sapphic delight. Here's an excerpt...

Hang on me my darling like rubies round my neck. Slip onto my finger like a ring. Give me your rose for my buttonhole. Let me leaf through you before I read you out loud.

Picasso warms my freezing heart on the furnace of her belly. Her belly is stoked to blazing with love of me. I have learned to feed her every day, to feed her full of fuel that I gladly find. I have unlocked the storehouses of love. On the Mainland they teach you to save for a rainy day. The truth is that love needs no saving. It is fresh or not at all. We are fresh and plentiful. She is my harvest and I am hers. She seeds me and reaps me, we fall into one another's laps. Her seas are thick with fish for my rod. I have rodded her through and through.

It's a wonderful piece of writing, very lush and sensual; it reads more like a prose-poem than a short story, but it has a narrative element.

Feminism and sexuality

Two articles about pornography and our society's hypocritical attitude to it.

The Power of Porn Stars: Why We Love, Hate, Fear and Want Them
Girls involved with paid sex, who gain benefit from their position as females while remaining independent, are feverishly desired, yet punished for their "transgressions."
By Virginie Despentes

Quiet Riot Girl - This is Hardcore: A feminist's journey into porn

Feminists and others have rightly called attention to the exploitation of women in the pornographic film industry. However, the first article points out that because of our society's assumption that a woman who is sexually active is also a brainless bimbo, actresses who work in porn films can't get jobs in other films, so are forced into a porn-film ghetto.

The second article points out that women can gain pleasure from pornography too; the kind of power games played in these films are part of many people's sexual pleasures, and just because people indulge in them in the bedroom does not mean they have to be acted out beyond the bedroom door. In fact, the playing of such games can resolve anxieties about power. The sociologist Michel Foucault liked S/M for this very reason.

Yes, treating people purely as sex objects is wrong; but lust in itself is natural and healthy; and by eroticising what we fear, it can be transformed into something else, something less frightening.

Hedy Lamarr: an unlikely geek

In celebration of Ada Lovelace day 2010, here's a biography of someone you might not think of as a scientist and inventor:

Hedy Lamarr (born 1913)
Radio communications system

The Viennese-born femme fatale of 1930s and 1940s films is a lot more than just a pretty face.

The actress, whose real name is Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler, immigrated to the United States during the early years of World War II. She is best known for sultry roles in such movies as "Ecstasy" and "Samson and Delilah," but she also coinvented a remote-controlled, anti-jamming communications system, a major contribution to U.S. defense technology.

According to Bethesda resident Anne Macdonald, author of a book about American women inventors and a patent-holder herself for a knitting machine, Lamarr learned about designs for military technologies while married to a wealthy Austrian arms dealer for three years. Soon after Nazi Germany invaded Austria in 1938, she left her husband and went to London, where Louis B. Mayer of MGM Studios changed her name and signed her up as his company's newest screen sensation.

In 1942, Lamarr and composer George Antheil received a patent for the communications system, which employed a feature known as frequency hopping. A radio signal, such as those used to direct torpedoes, would "hop" from one broadcast frequency to another at certain intervals. Therefore, if a receiver was not synchronized to receive the entire signal, the signal could not be "jammed" nor deciphered.

Lamarr's invention did not fit MGM's image of her as a glamorous movie star, and her creative side was a well-kept secret in Hollywood. Still, Lamarr was so passionate about helping the war effort that she seriously considered abandoning acting to join the National Inventors Council full-time.

Lamarr's system was never used during World War II, but long after her patent expired, the Sylvania Corp. adopted and further developed the idea.

Source: Female inventors: Mothers of invention

The annual German Inventors' Day is held on her birthday, 9th November:

This lady is Hedy Lamarr, a Hollywood diva and inventor.
She is the prototype for the everyday life an inventor, not because she was an Edison, but simply because she was someone that tried to realise her idea.
She did not become rich or famous from her idea (as an actress she was already). Her invention however, the frequency hopping process is still in daily use and an integral process in our mobile phones.
Her birthday, 9th November, has been taken to represent all inventors and this Inventors' Day.

My other Finding Ada blogposts:
Lisa Barone
Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin

Kate and the Angels of Xara

Kate and the Angels of Xara (by Brendan Hanley) is a coming-of-age story taking place in the near future. The heroine, Kate, becomes an astronaut, and grows up in the process. The story was apparently inspired by the author's admiration for brainy sassy tomboys (the kind of gals we at the Bluestocking also admire).

I enjoyed the contrast between the dangers of space and the dangers that one can encounter on Earth. I also liked the descriptions of landscape. I thought the level of technical detail in the space scenes was rather satisfying, because it really made it feel like I was there, and thinking through the dangers and the technical details makes the reader feel like a real astronaut for a bit. The fortune-telling scene was exciting, and I really liked the way it was handled - the initial scepticism giving way to fear that it might actually be true, and Sunita's reaction. I'm agog to see what happens next. I also liked the mixture of real and invented Tarot cards (rather like in T S Eliot's poem The Wasteland). I also thought the scene where the Angels rescued the boy Otto Muller from space was great - I was on tenterhooks to know if they would all get back into the spaceship safely, which shows that the characters were real enough to be cared about by the reader.

The scene where Kate watches the shuttle launch was well written, and I thought her response to it (and that of the other people present) was very believable. Another scene describes one of the characters cutting herself; I don't think I've ever seen a description of cutting in a book before; it was really well described, as it's how I imagine it would come about.

It's funny that I have written more in response to the scenes on Earth - perhaps because they resonate with experiences that I have had - rather than the scenes in space, which were also really good, but outside my experience. But the space scenes were good too - I enjoyed the bit where Kate gave Earl the controls of the ship for re-entry, that was great. Also the stunning views of Earth from from space, and the geographical detail about the Niger delta, and the really poignant bit at the end where they see the Earth and the Moon receding away from them as they set off for Mars.

It was really noticeable how much more confident and fluid the author's writing is after the first third of the book, once it gets into space; but also the emotions of family members and Angels are handled well and realistically. I also think the pace of the writing (and the handling of conversations) was better, and about right, in the latter two-thirds. I noticed a few typos here and there, but the actual writing is excellent - very clear, and I never had to go back and re-read anything to make sense of it.

For me, the major theme that emerges from the book is the tension between life and death -- wanting to live life to the full and wring every last drop of experience out of it, whilst being aware that we will die. I thought that this was explored really well. The only other book where this theme is explored at all (that I know of) is The Way of Wyrd by Brian Bates, and even there it's only touched on briefly, whereas I think this book is an extended meditation on it, and brings out the tension and the contrast, and the implications for how one should live one's life, really well. There's a great poem by Mary Oliver, The Summer Day, which includes the line "How will you spend your one wild and precious life?" It seems that the Angels of Xara have answered this question for themselves, and live in an awareness that each day might be their last, and therefore live it to the full, whilst everyone around them has not answered that question, and that's one of the reasons why the Angels make them so uncomfortable.

The naked lady

My friend Cat just tweeted about the blog of Tessa Chernoi, entitled Ramblings of a Naked Lady, in which she talks about her experiences of nude modelling and how it has enabled her to take pride in her body, and to help other women to do so too. She writes:

This enlightenment is also something that feeds my own photography, I don't care who she is, what she looks like, I would love to photograph every woman I meet. I want to be there when they discover that they are beautiful. My greatest triumph to date has been the reaction I received when I showed a good friend the pictures I had taken of her one evening as we tried to mend her broken heart with red wine. She started crying and asked how I had made her look so beautiful. I replied that I hadn't done anything. She was beautiful and all I did was see it, and photograph it.

How beautiful, and what a wonderful thing to do. Women are so constrained by the narrow mainstream definition of female beauty - it's time we reclaimed our bodies and celebrated them.

Bluestocking of the Week: Lisa Barone

My friend Kirsty just tweeted about an article by Lisa Barone rebutting an article in Canada's Globe and Mail claiming that men are better than women at blogging. And the offending article was written by a woman.

Lisa writes:

if you went to The Globe and Mail site expecting to read statistics about how men dominate the blogosphere and researched ideas as to why that was so, you would have come away disappointed.

Instead, Margaret did what women too often choose to do to one another – she cut them down for sport.

Margaret’s article featured nothing but a stereotyped opinion as to how blogging is really just a man’s task, similar to driving a snowmobile straight up a mountain, she says. Us, girls, just don’t have the stomach for opinions and pissing contests. Women are not interested in these sorts of things. We’re more restrained and less concerned with public displays of prowess.

Lisa Barone is the Chief Branding Officer of Outspoken Media.

You Shan't Go To The Prom!

I've just seen a shocking story about how a school in Mississippi won't allow a lesbian student to attend the prom with her girlfriend, and they wouldn't let her wear a tuxedo either.

Here's the email that I sent to tmcneece@itawamba.k12.ms.us, twiygul@itawamba.k12.ms.us

Dear Superintendent McNeece and Principal Wiygul,

I am writing to point out that lesbian and gay students have a right to bring a same-sex date to the prom and wear clothing congruent with their gender identity under the First Amendment, and the US Supreme Court has ruled that a policy or public entity that is based on discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people violates the Fourteenth Amendment.

Simply cancelling the prom seems like a disproportionate response to a simple request to bring a same-sex partner. Please reinstate the prom and allow Constance McMillen to bring her partner as her date, and wear a tuxedo if she wishes.

I am deeply dismayed by your discriminatory practice, and feel that it should be a matter of regret to you that your school is now infamous around the world for this bigoted, disproportionate and unjust response to a lesbian student and her partner.

Yours sincerely

I would encourage Bluestocking readers to write to the school on similar lines. You can get more information from the ACLU's letter on Constance's behalf (PDF).

• ACLU: Mississippi High School Insists on "Straights-Only" Prom
• Facebook group in support of Constance McMillen
• Photos of lesbian couples at proms (Autostraddle)
• Pink News: US School cancels prom over lesbian student's date

Update: apparently the email addresses above are now closed (wonder why?)

The ACLU has produced an online resource for LGBT students who want to take their partners to the Prom.

I am woman, hear me roar

I have just watched a fascinating documentary on BBC iPlayer that completely changed my view of second-wave feminism. When you realise the utter sexism that most men (and many women) espoused in the late 1960s and early 1970s, it's hardly surprising that many women thought that men were a write-off.

And in fact, many of the ideas which I had thought were third-wave feminism were actually formulated by the second wave - ideas like the social construction of gender, for instance.  Also, second-wave feminists invented consciousness-raising groups, and demanded equal pay for equal work, and abortions, and contraception, and the right to walk down the street at night without being in danger of getting raped or knifed.

And the women interviewed in the documentary admitted that political lesbianism was a bad idea, because it wasn't fair to real lesbians.

Geek Barbie = FAIL

She wears pink. No self-respecting girl-geek wears pink.

She has a T-shirt and a laptop with binary on it. That would be OK, if it was obviously in homage to The Matrix, but it isn't - it's just obvious that the designers of her outfit thought that you're still likely to see binary on someone's desktop. She should have a t-shirt with GOT ROOT printed on it, or maybe SELECT * FROM USERS WHERE CLUE > 0 - perhaps ThinkGeek could produce a range of T-shirts for her. And her laptop should have some code on it, maybe some Java or UML.

She works in tech-support. This is a perfectly respectable choice for someone who is just starting out in the world of IT, but someone who has been around since 1959 should be at the top of her game by now - a respected über-geek who gets invited to give keynote speeches at geeky conferences. I mean, I know she has had a number of other careers, but still.

The BBC article about this suggests that her wearing glasses is a bit stereotypical, but on the other hand, glasses do make people look brainy, and quite often, they actually are brainy (I wear glasses, for instance, and I am brainy).

According to the Women in Technology article, geeky Barbie's accessories were created in conjunction with the Society of Women Engineers and the National Academy of Engineering. Really?! Then why are they so naff?

Nora Lin, president of the Society of Women Engineers, said: "Girls who discover their futures through Barbie will learn that they - just like engineers - are free to explore infinite possibilities and that their dreams can go as far as their imaginations take them.

"As a computer engineer, Barbie will show girls that women can design products that have an important and positive impact on people's everyday lives, such as inventing a technology to conserve home energy or programming a newborn monitoring device."

Oh yeah? Then why isn't she a programmer, or a network manager, or a systems administrator, or a web developer?

Women inventors

The Women Inventors page at About.com has a huge selection of biographies and resources.

Women Inventors A to Z
Women Inventors A-Z the biographies - inventions and photos of inventors from Randi Altschul to Mary Walton.

Randi Altschul

Randice-Lisa Altschul invented the world's first disposable cell phone.

Dr. Betsy Ancker-Johnson

Dr. Betsy Ancker-Johnson was the third woman inventor elected to the National Academy oF engineering.

Mary Anderson

Mary Anderson invented the windshield wiper. Anderson was issued a patent for the wipers in 1905.

Virginia Apgar

Apgar invented a newborn scoring system or "Apgar Score" for assessing the health of newborn infants.

Barbara Askins

Developed a totally new way of processing film.

Patricia Bath

The first African American woman doctor to receive a patent for a medical invention.

Miriam E. Benjamin

Ms. Benjamin was the second black woman inventor to receive a patent. She received a patent for an invention she called a "Gong and Signal Chair for Hotels".

Patricia Billings

Patricia Billings invented a indestructible and fireproof building material called Geobond®.

Katherine Blodgett

Invented the non-reflecting glass.

Bessie Blount

Blount invented a device to help disabled people eat with less difficulty.

Sarah Boone

An improvement to the ironing board was invented by African American Sarah Boone on April 26, 1892.

Rachel Fuller Brown

Rachel Brown co-invented Nystatin, the world's first useful antifungal antibiotic.

Josephine Garis Cochran

In 1886, Josephine Cochran invented the first practical dishwasher.

Martha J. Coston

Martha Coston invented a pyrotechnic signaling system known as maritime signal flares.

Dianne Croteau

Invented Actar 911, the CPR mannequin.

Marie Curie

Marie Curie also known as Madame Curie discovered radium and furthered x-ray technology.

Marion Donovan

The convenient disposable diaper was invented by New Yorker Marion Donovan in 1950.

Gertrude Belle Elion

Elion invented the leukemia-fighting drug 6-mercaptopurine, drugs that facilitated kidney transplants and other drugs for the treatment of cancer and leukemia.

Edith Flanigen

Flanigen was the inventor of a petroleum refining method and is considered one of the most inventive chemists of all time.

Helen Free

Free was the inventor of the home diabetes test.

Sally Fox

Sally Fox invented naturally-colored cotton.

Frances Gabe

Gabe invented the "Self Cleaning House".

Lillian Gilbreth

Lillian Moller Gilbreth was an inventor, author, industrial engineer, industrial psychologist, and mother of twelve children.

Sarah E. Goode

Sarah Goode was the first African American women to receive a U.S. patent.

Bette Nesmith Graham

Graham invented liquid paper, also known as White-Out™.

Temple Grandin

Temple Grandin invented livestock-handling devices.

KK Gregory

KK Gregory is the ten-year old inventor of Wristies®.

Ruth Handler

The Barbie doll was invented in 1959 by Ruth Handler.

Elizabeth Lee Hazen

Elizabeth Hazen co-invented Nystatin, the world's first useful antifungal antibiotic.

Beulah Henry

All told, Henry made about 110 inventions and holds 49 patents.

Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin

Hodgkin used x-rays to find the structural layouts of atoms and to discover the overall molecular shape of over 100 molecules including: penicillin, vitamin B-12, vitamin D and insulin.

Krisztina Holly

Co-invented the telephony software called Visual Voice.

Erna Schneider Hoover

Hoover invented the computerized telephone switching system.

Grace Hopper

Grace Hopper was a computer inventor best known for the Mark computer series.

Mary Phelps Jacob

Mary Phelps Jacob invented the bra.

Amanda Theodosia Jones

Jones re-invented American food production by inventing vacuum packed canning.

Marjorie Stewart Joyner

Joyner invented a permanent wave machine that would allow a hairdo to stay set for days.

Anna Keichline

Architect, Anna Keichline created inventions for the home.

Mary Kies: Patenting Pioneer

Kies was the first women to receive a U.S. patent on May 15, 1809.

Gabriele Knecht

Patented the Forward Sleeve design for creating clothing.

Margaret Knight

Margaret Knight was an employee in a paper bag factory when she invented a new machine part to make square bottoms for paper bags. Knight can be considered the mother of the grocery bag, she founded the Eastern Paper Bag Company in 1870.

Stephanie Louise Kwolek

Kwolek invented a material five times stronger than steel called Kevlar.

Hedy Lamarr

Lamarr was a movie star and inventor.

Ada Lovelace

Wrote a scientific paper in 1843 that anticipated the development of computer software artificial intelligence and computer music.

Sybilla Masters - First American Woman Inventor

Masters was the first American female inventor in recorded history, but no doubt women have been inventing since the dawn of time without the deserved recognition.

Ann Moore

Invented the Snugli baby carrier.

Krysta Morlan

Krysta Morlan invented a device that relieves the irritation caused by wearing a cast - the cast cooler.

Ellen Ochoa

Ochoa invented optical analysis systems and was the world's first Hispanic female astronaut.

Alice Parker

Alice Parker invented a new and improved gas heating furnace.

Betty Rozier and Lisa Vallino

Rozier and Vallino, a mother and daughter invention team, invented the intravenous catheter shield.

Patsy Sherman

Patsy Sherman invented Scotchgard™.

Valerie Thomas

Received a patent in 1980 for inventing an illusion transmitter.

Ann Tsukamoto

The co-patenter of a process to isolate the human stem cell.

Harriet Tubman

Harriet Tubman was considered the "Moses of the Civil War" for her work on the underground railroads.

Madame Walker

Madame Walker was a St. Louis washerwoman-turned-entrepreneur, who in 1905 invented a method to soften and smooth African American hair.

Mary Walton

Walton invented several anti-pollution devices during the Industrial Revolution.

Carol Wior

Invented the Slimsuit, a slimming swimsuit.

Quote of the Day: Intersectionality

If, as a member of an oppressed group, I take a stand against that oppression and decide that I will work against it, it doesn't make any sense to work only for my own personal interests. It doesn't make any sense for me to only fight for marriage equality when there are other queer people losing their jobs for being queer or killing themselves for being queer because THAT'S how much they hate themselves. (If you are unfamiliar with my usage of the word "queer," it goes like this: "queer" used to be a derogatory term aimed at LGBTQ people. It has since been liberatingly reclaimed by LGBTQ people to generally refer to that which is not heteronormative. The non-heteronormative part is why I like to use it-- it's shorter than LGBTQ and also rhymes with "cheer.") The people within my oppressed group that are more oppressed than I are more oppressed for reasons that inevitably have to do with issues of money/class and race. That is how I understand intersectionality. It's all connected. And it doesn't make any damn sense to forget about other oppressed peoples while I work my own way out of oppression because that doesn't do anything to end oppression-- it only ends MY oppression. It only moves oppression around-- shifts it from one group to another. Meanwhile, the dominant group stays dominant while the system they sit atop says, "suckeeeers!!!" And by forgetting and/or not recognizing the other oppressed, I become the oppressor. I'm not down with this. This is what "no one is free when others are oppressed" means to me. No one is better than anyone else.

-- Jennifer Luu, 2010 Equality Rider