Hello Team Supervixen! Our founder hrh has asked me to fill in again this week. As hrh has stated:
Welcome to the Planet! "Feminist Supervixens", both female and male, are invited to come and participate in this discussion of feminism, women's issues, and anything even tangentially related.
This is a regularly-occurring "Feminists' Circle" for Daily Kos, where all the supercool feminist Supervixens can pull up a chair and chat, get things off their chests, and get to know each other.
Everyone is free to bitch (yes, BITCH!) and moan - this forum can be "What's Your Fucking Feminist Problem?!" if you're in that frame of mind - but humor, fun, happy stories and congeniality are encouraged.
Notice to anyone who is NOT a feminist and wants to come here and complain about how bad feminism is, the problems inherent in feminism, etc.: fuck off and write your own diary on the topic. That's not what this one is for.
Thanks for everyone's comments and awareness around the
single women voters issue last week. I think there were some neat ideas there, about successes and possible ways to make some progress. Free free to keep adding thoughts in this discussion group as we proceed and get closer to the elections!
This week I thought I would throw out something completely different. It is an issue that I feel really conflicted about, and I would love to hear your thoughts. But--don't feel you need to talk about this specifically, I'm just putting out something that I think about and would like to hear your thoughts on it. It is a feminism open thread, really.
My topic of interest this week is BrainSex. A flammable topic, for sure. In fact, I'm 100% sure I'll piss someone off with a bad turn of phrase at some point tonight!
My Tivo picked up a couple of interesting PBS/BBC stories last week: Secrets of the Sexes. They were based on a work done to explore the different approaches and outcomes that women and men have in life. Not in a Larry Summers statement sort of way--but an exploration of the issues and some of the science. In the Brainsex episode, they showed 5 women and 5 men specifically. They were tested on a range of situations and responses. They were able to show tendencies, but they made it clear that the whole thing is a continuum, and even people who may be more estrogened on some aspects may be more testosteroned on others. But they also had a quiz that is supposed to provide some indication of how one's brain leans, which has been taken by 500,000 people....I took it, and asked a male friend to take it. Our scores were interesting, and I think probably reasonable based on what I know about us! (Note: the quiz is in several parts and takes a little while. And you need a ruler--no, not what you are thinking....)
I'm conflicted about this because the idea of ghettoing some people as having women's brains or men's brains is a very bad thing. But on the other hand, there are real measurable differences. In a study just this past week a study demonstrated:
Gene study shows sex differences go deep Mon Jul 10
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Thousands of genes behave differently in the same organs of males and females, researchers reported on Friday, a finding that may help explain why men and women have different responses to drugs and diseases.
Their study of brain, liver, fat and muscle tissue from mice showed that gene expression -- the level of activity of a gene -- varied greatly according to sex.
The same is almost certainly true of humans, the team at the University of California Los Angeles reported....
And today I saw this:
Neuroscientist, once a woman, says he saw gender bias firsthand
By Marcella Bombardieri, Globe Staff | July 13, 2006
PALO ALTO, Calif. -- After Stanford neuroscientist Ben A. Barres gave a talk at the Whitehead Institute in Cambridge, Mass., some years back, a colleague is said to have overheard another scientist remarking that "Ben Barres gave a great seminar today, but then his work is much better than his sister's."
Ben Barres, however, didn't have a sister in academia. The scientist was referring to MIT and Harvard graduate Barbara Barres, who later changed her gender. And became Ben....
So, Supervixens, what do you think? Is it even useful to discuss female brain vs male brain? Is there anything we can take from a discussion about brain differences to the political discourse?
In case you are interested--here is my score. I actually wondered at first if it was a software bug--is this possible? But my male friend who took it got a 50, which is average for males. I'm afraid I am a zero....I'm wondering if this explains my inexplicable desire for autonomy....
If you take the quiz, come back and tell me your score in the poll. I'm curious. But skeptical....
Damn, apparently links don't work in the polls. [http://www.reelclassics.com/Actresses/Ginger/ginger-article2.htm Here is the Ginger reference].