The Republic of T.

After the last post, I thought I’d share one more celeb citing, as I was on my way out of Denver. This time, I was at the Denver airport, taking the shuttle from security to the departure gate. (Note: this couldn’t be posted from the Denver airport because — like most of my time at the convention — I was never able to get their wifi internet access to work. To add insult to injury, the 24-hour technical support number on the brochure that the woman at the information desk gave to me as dead. It never even rang when I called it. The call just disconnected. Did the same thing when she called it, after I informed her of it.)

I didn’t see her going through security, but I glimpsed a flash of red out of the corner of my eye, turned my head ever so slightly, and there she was, wheeling her carry-on to the shuttle.

Read the rest of this entry »

We needed a study to tell us this?

In the largest study of its kind, girls measured up to boys in math in every grade, from second through 11th. The research was released Thursday in the journal Science.

Parents and teachers persist in thinking boys are simply better at math, said Janet Hyde, the University of Wisconsin-Madison researcher who led the study. And girls, who grew up believing it, wound up avoiding harder math classes.

“It keeps girls and women out of a lot of careers, particularly high-prestige, lucrative careers in science and technology,” Hyde said.

That’s changing, albeit slowly. Women are now earning 48 percent of undergraduate college degrees in math; they still lag far behind in physics and engineering.

But in primary and secondary school, girls have caught up, with researchers attributing that advance to increasing numbers of girls taking advanced math classes such as calculus.

I’ve known this all my life. Like I’ve said before, I suck at math. I did well enough to graduate from college.

Then there was college. At my university, the math department had a reputation when it came to algebra. People failed all the time. I did. Actually, I dropped before I failed. People transferred to other universities for a semester in order to take and pass algebra elsewhere, and then returned. I did. I went back to the local college in my hometown, where I took and failed algebra. I went back to my university and worked around it, taking and passing statistics and logic (also known as “math for poets” at my university). All the while, I was struggling with undiagnosed, untreated ADD, and as a result could only handle a partial class load after I hit the wall during my sophomore year.

At the time, there was a loophole when it came to statistics. If I took it and passed it, I would be exempt from taking algebra even though it was a prerequisite for statistics. So, I did. It wasn’t until a semester before I was scheduled to graduate (after taking six years to finish, by going part-time) that I found out different. My graduation advisor made a funny face when she looked over my records, and then informed that the loophole had closed, just before I took statistics. So, I wasn’t exempt. I would have to take algebra and pass it if I wanted to graduate.

I suppose I could have dropped off my books and walked awa. But then, she made another face. There was another loophole. The semester after I was scheduled to graduate, the algebra requirement was going to be dropped from my degree. I thought moment, and told her to move my graduation deadline back a semester. I would take one more elective and wait for the algebra requirement to be dropped. That’s what I did, and I graduated from college withouthaving to take algebra.

And I’ve always, always known girls who could run rings around me in math. (No major feat. By the time he gets to middle school, I’ve no doubt Parker will run rings around me in math. He’s a bright kid.) In fact, the people I knew in school who did best in math were mostly girls.

It’s not a matter of boys being better at math than girls, or vice versa. It’s a matter of some people being better at or more talented or gifted at math than other people. It doesn’t mean the rest of us can’t learn math. I can learn to paint, but no teacher can turn me into a Picasso or a Van Gough. Y’know?

I don’t know if these two bloggers were on the same wavelength or what, but I did a doubletake when I saw was looked like high heels for babies over at I Blame the Patriarcy.

A glance at the website reveals a link to an Entertainment Tonight article describing the crib shoes (wait, crib shoes? Why does a bedridden infant need shoes?) as “made from soft, flexible fabrics with a collapsible heel and are not intended for walking.”

The pair of women sexopreneurs who invented the infant fuckme pumps chap the Twisty hide in many ways. Forget about the obvious antifeminist implications of infant pornulation for a second; what’s with the repellent adult pastime of casting children in the role of joke-butts? Warning, says the website, these Heelarious shoes “May cause extreme smiling and hysterical laughter when in use (this is completely normal).”

Normal! Man, what is wrong with people? Why does everybody think it’s okay to openly jeer and laugh at kids? Do they think the tots just don’t notice that they are perennial objects of mockery? Last Halloween, at the neighborhood cul-de-sac trick-or-treat party (or what I like to call the Barton Creek Toddler Burlesque), my 4-year-old niece Rotel flat-out refused to wear her elaborately cute costume. It was obvious that she just didn’t want to make a spectacle of herself for the amusement of the drunk adults. Much consternation ensued. Rotel was seriously in violation of some primal code of childhood conduct when she dared to expect that she could collect candy without putting on Hilarious Kid Drag. She was robustly critiqued for having had the temerity to assert personal bodily sovereignty in the face of patriarchal tradition. I am happy to report that she prevailed in the end, but it was clear from the reaction of the neighbors that they considered her strange, and I don’t believe for a second that the kid won’t carry deep emotional scars for life. Probably she will turn to a life of crime.

Now, according to the website, the shoes are not meant for kids older than six months, and not meant for walking. (They collapse if any weight is put on them.) But come on, people!

I mean, first of all, don’t sentence your daughter to a life of corns and bunions. Take it from me, I’ve worn high heels. (Yes, I’ve done drag. Deal with it) They are not meant for the human foot. Even wearing them for a few hours did a number on my feet for a while.

Second, can we just let children be children, please? Sure, a little girl (or little boy, for that matter) might try on mommy’s (or daddy’s) pumps, and it’s cute. But putting these on a baby? There’s a point at which we need to start questioning people’s sanity. What’s next? Pimp and Ho costumes for Halloween?

As for the rest, see Habladora’s post for a larger discussion.