Mother Earth vs. Mother Russia

Before I climb down off of my zero population growth soapbox, I thought I would share my thoughts about another population issue that’s been bugging me for quite some time.

Although the Earth’s total human population is growing so fast that there will be over 9 billion of us here by the year 2050, this population boom is happening mostly in the developing world; in many first world nations, birth rates are not even at the 2.1 or so children per couple that is needed to keep the population constant. To combat the their dwindling populations, many governments – including Japan, Portugal, Australia, Russia, and France – have instituted policies that offer women financial incentives to have more than 2 kids.

Aside from the extremely creepy womb commodification* aspect of these policies, is coercing women to have more children really the best way to grow your nation’s population? It’s 2007 folks, and we have to start thinking about ourselves as global citizens (it’s corny, I know, but we’re all subject to the same rising sea levels) – so while your nation’s population may be dwindling, your planet’s isn’t – and both should matter in crafting public policy.

In France, Australia, Japan, and Portugal, I can think of a much much easier way: relax you immigration laws. You need more Frenchmen? I know some Algerians who might be interested. The reason that this is unlikely to be popular, of course, boils down to racism. Or, I guess we call it “preservation of national identity” or something, to be polite. But the idea that if immigration is the primary source of new people, then “Japan will not be as Japanese and Germany will not be as German,” is pretty thinly veiled racism, if you ask me. Also, is having an ethnically homogenous country (aka one that is “very French” or “very Portugese“) really that great of an idea? Aren’t we in the middle of a pretty serious pickle in Iraq (uhm, and Chechnya, and the Sudan, etc etc) in large part because of Kurds not getting along with Sunnis not getting along with Shiites (insert religious and ethnic groups of your choice here). How about if the notion of “national identity” or what it means to be “more French” or whatever, was expanded to include people who look different than the descendants of the Normans? It would probably be OK. And you wouldn’t have to pay women to have babies.

(A quick aside – one of the things that really sticks in my craw about the money-for-babies scheme is how outraged first world Western people would be if this policy were taking place in reverse. Can you imagine how much the rightwing of the US and UK would flip out if these governments were offering payments for people to have only 1 or 2 children, with an extra bonus for the childless?? Or even if it were dont more subtly, like the children-for-pensions plan in Portugal, and the rule was that your first two kids get to go to public school and after that you’re on your own? I’m not necessarily advocating for these kinds of policies, because at the end of the day, they smack of totalitarianism, but I do just want to point out the hypocrisy – if you truly believe that babymaking is a personal choice then the idea of paying someone to have a baby should be just as reprehensible as paying someone not to.)

This, of course, will not work for Russia, as there is not exactly an eager group of Swedes who have been swimming across the Baltic Sea in the hopes of crossing those long-dreamed-of borders. In other words, relaxing your immigration laws only works if people want to live there. And Russia, with its tempting poverty and terrible weather, is not at the top of any lists. So what to do? How to increase your population when the birth rate is low and the average lifespan is 59? Well, it takes two factors to make a population decline so dramatically (Russia’s pop is dropping at the rate of about 700,000 people per year), so perhaps working on the mortality rate and not just the birth rate would be helpful. Alcoholism, accidents, and AIDS are top causes of death in Russia, so alcohol treatment programs or even (gasp!) increasing the price/taxation of booze might be a step in the right direction…

Or I guess we could just pay the babymakers.
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* Look who’s been reading her feminist blogs!

Women Aren’t Funny; Neither is Christopher Hitchens

In last month’s Vanity Fair, Christopher Hitchens wrote a “Provocation” piece called “Why Women Aren’t Funny.”  His investigation of “the humor gap” is just about as insightful as it sounds.  Get excited, because if there’s one thing I know, it’s that the drawing of incredibly broad generalizations about personality and gender always make for excellent journalism! 

I was pleased to find that the essay opened with some horrible writing and obtuse observations.  Why is it that women always cite their boyfriends’ humor as a top quality – right up there with intelligence – while men never mention humor as a trait in their mates, Hitchens wonders.  He concludes that it is because men are funny and women aren’t, not even pausing to consider that there might be some social constructs at play here.  Excellent; if he’s this stupid, I don’t even have to bother to get offended, and everyone wins. 

I was stopped in my skeptical tracks in the fourth paragraph of the article, when Hitchens cited a study from Stanford Medical School, which he used as evidence that women are not funny.  Here’s what the study said:

“Women appeared to have less expectation of a reward, which in this case was the punch line of the cartoon,” said the report’s author, Dr. Allan Reiss. “So when they got to the joke’s punch line, they were more pleased about it.” The report also found that “women were quicker at identifying material they considered unfunny.”

I am a person who believes in scientific studies, so I was dismayed to see this being presented as evidence.  Then I actually read the citation above, which is more than Hitchens could be bothered to do.  Here is Hitchens’ interpretation of that study:

“Slower to get it, more pleased when they do, and swift to locate the unfunny—for this we need the Stanford University School of Medicine?”

Take a second to actually read the quote from the study, and you’ll notice that the first item in Hitchens’ triad – “slower to get it” – is not a conclusion from the study.  How he is able to extrapolate from “less expectation of a reward” to “slower to get it,” is beyond me.  But then let’s give Christopher the benefit of the doubt on this one, because after all I am a woman, and lest you forget, we are not just unfunny, we also suck at science.

After some really stupid paragraphs about how Jewish humor is inherently male and how poop jokes really are hilarious, there is a glimmer of intelligent analysis:

 ”Precisely because humor is a sign of intelligence (and many women believe, or were taught by their mothers, that they become threatening to men if they appear too bright), it could be that in some way men do not want women to be funny. They want them as an audience, not as rivals.”

Imagine that!  A difference between the sexes that is attributable to societal expectations and mores, not to inherent gender differences!  Golly!  Maybe I am being overly sarcastic here (make that bitchy, come to think of it, me being a lady and all), but you must forgive me if this is all just a little bit too obvious.  Hitchens comes so close to making a valid point that you just want to reach out and shake his big, fat, hilarious joke-writing, male head.  He devotes a few sentences to the fact that men think that penis jokes and prostate cancer jokes are just great, and then writes,

“This is funny only in male company. For some reason, women do not find their own physical decay and absurdity to be so riotously amusing.”

Anyone with an ounce of analytical talent would at least try to isolate the variables here.  Men think that jokes about their bodies are hilarious, but only in male company.  Women, apparently, do not joke about their bodies at all.  Does Hitchens wonder if perhaps women do have analogous humor, but that – like men saving prostate jokes for other dudes - they prefer not to tell menstruation jokes in mixed company?  Or, use the concept a little more broadly – men and women behave differently when they are surrounded by members of their own gender.  Hitchens himself introduces this idea.  Is it so unreasonable to think that, in a society where (Hitchens also introduced this himself, at the start of the piece) women’s primary role, traditionally, is as a visually pleasing sexual object to be impressed by male humor, we ladies might be funnier around each other than in the presence of lugs like Hitchens?  In science, we call this the “uncertainty principle” or the “observer effect” – the idea that by watching something you may very well change it. 

But Hitchens is clearly not a scientist, he’s a wonderful comedian!

The article, which by the way is speckled with such horrible attempts at humor as “wouldn’t know a joke if it came served on a bed of lettuce with sauce bearnaise,” leaves one with the impression that, women could be telling hilarious jokes to Hitchens all day long, but the old blowhard he wouldn’t shut up long enough to notice.

Thoughts on “The People’s Prostitutes”

Today a man was arrested in connection with the string of murders in the little town of Ipswich.  Over the past few weeks, five prositites have turned up murdered, naked, around the town, and the serial killer dubbed the “Suffolk Strangler.”  Today, 37 year old ex-police officer Tom Stephens was arrested, although as of the writing of this article it seemed unclear whether he was actually guilty or just involved in some John Mark Karr-esque bid for attention.

I will spare you, gentle reader, the discussion of why when a series of women are killed it isn’t a “hate crime,” although that is certainly something that we could talk about later.  But for the moment I have bigger fish to fry, having read an article by a man I can only assume is the Rush Limbaugh of the UK, one Richard Littlejohn of The Daily Mail.

 Littlejohn’s recent article, “Spare Us the ‘People’s Prostitute’ Routine,” is just about as ridiculous and offensive as the title suggests.  Sure, it starts off with a couple of paragraphs of disclaimer, designed to prevent people from saying about him all of the things which I am about to say.

Littlejohn opens his abomination of an op-ed with,

“Let’s get the caveat out of the way from the off. The five women murdered in Ipswich were tragic, lost souls who met a grisly end. I sincerely hope whoever killed them is caught, charged and convicted.

No one with a shred of humanity would wish upon them their ghastly lives and horrible deaths. But…” 

Wait for it…  Here it comes…

“Mother Teresa, they weren’t.”

Now, that is a fair point.  They weren’t Mother Teresa.  And lest you forgot, we aren’t supposed to get upset or feel indignant about murders unless the victims are nuns from Calcutta.  So calm down already!

In case you think I am overreacting, here are some other choice excerpts from the article:

“They weren’t going to discover a cure for cancer or embark on missionary work in Darfur. The only kind of missionary position they undertook was in the back seat of a car.”  Lest you call the man tasteless for making jokes about the recently murdered, may I remind you that these women were dirty prostitutes and therefore it is acceptable – nay, fantastic and worthy of publication! – to laugh at their deaths.  And in case you are tempted to shortsightedly accuse Littlejohn of sexism just because he makes fun of dirty whores, I should tell you that in addition to writing for the Daily News, Littlejohn himself does cure cancer and volunteer in Darfur, thereby affirming his superiority over you (and needless to say, over aforementioned filthy whores), and - more importantly - sealing his right not to be murdered and then made a joke of.  [See if you can find the sarcasm in this passage.]

The thing is, the yelping of all these bleeding hearts has old Liljohn just plain tuckered out!  “Frankly, I’m tired of the lame excuses about how they all fell victim to ruthless pimps who plied them with drugs. These women were on the streets because they wanted to be. “  Unfortunately, not everyone is as sensible as our friend Littlejohn, and apparently the UK has recently “been treated to the All Men Are Bastards/Rapists/Murderers mantra from assorted Glendas who ought to be old enough to know better.”  Now, I haven’t heard anyone say that all men are those things.  I think the idea was generally that the bastard who raped and murdered these women – just that guy is who we’re talking about – is a Bastard/Rapist/Murderer.  And I guess I find that point kind of hard to argue.

The thing about these women, Littlejohn argues, is they weren’t just prostitutes.  They were dirty prositutes.  (Cleanliness, apparently, being the requisite quality for being treated with an ounce of respect upon one’s violent death.)  I’m not even twisting his words here.  In sum, he writes that people are always talking about how we should legalize prostitution, but that is not necessary because “we already have legalized prostitution” in the form of massage parlours.  But “these five women were on the streets because even the filthiest, most disreputable back-alley “sauna” above a kebab shop wouldn’t give them house room.”  They were able to make a living, our sage reporter notes, because some men are attracted to “filthy, drug-addled street whores.”

I don’t want to wind up defending prostitution as a practice, because generally I think it’s a bad idea because of its effects on all parties involved, the moral implications of trading sex for cash, and the air of female objectification that is at the heart of it.  But what makes this essay so outrageous is that, faced with a killer and a prostitute, Littlejohn seems to find the prostitutes more offensive.  And while I am not a fan of the oldest trade in the world, prostitutes don’t even come close to murderers in terms of moral turpitude.  Anyone callous enough to sit around in the aftermath of a killing spree and talk what can only be characterized as mad smack about the victims because they were prostitutes (oops, I mean filthy whores) borders on the sociopathic, if you ask me. 

So, at the risk of being some “Glenda” who calls all men bastards, let me just say this:  in this case, it’s unclear who the Rapist/Murderer is, but the Bastard is most certainly Richard Littlejohn.