Snails, Puppy-dog Tails 'n' Stuff
So here's the deal. After a 16-week semester teaching The Biology of Gender and Sexuality and after now eight straight days of grading term papers and final exams, my mind has become entirely saturated with the ins and outs of gender theory. The normally unremarkable things I see during the day, the mindless conversations I have with lab mates and roommates, these things now precipitate small flurries of analysis in the back of my mind:
"When such-and-so said, 'That's such a GUY thing to say/do/think,' what makes is so GUY-ish? And why does that seem like sufficient explanation for his poor behavior?"
or
"Why is it that when I look at Eric's freakishly-clean bench, I think 'neurotic' but when I look at Kim's equally sterile workspace I think 'tidy'?"
Or, when driving home recently I observed the following. A tired-looking mother walked down the sidewalk, several feet ahead of her three children. The gap between them may have been enough so that she could not hear the squeals of her younger son who, trapped in a headlock by his older brother, was being thoroughly nuggied. Walking calmly beside them, their sister looked on with an expression somewhere between horror and distain.
Why do brothers, or any boys for that matter, feel the need to cause each other damage? Why is it so normal and natural seeming for that older brother to torture his younger brother so casually as they walk down Sachem Street behind their mother? Aggressiveness is associated with masculinity but all the gender theory peeps like to blather on about how masculinity and femininity are just social constructions and there's nothing biologically inherent about gender roles... But these boys are so young, too young to do things that aren't in some way hard-wired. Oh rats! I forgot about theory of parental conditioning! These boys have been brainwashed to beat each other up!
And why aren't they beating up their sister? What's up with that?
Or like, when Harvard's president Larry Summers made his tactically unfortunate suggestions about the possible reasons for the paucity of female professors in the physical and life sciences, my brain almost exploded.
I wasn't interested in analyzing the validity of his claims that 1. the 80-hour workweek required of junior faculty is unappealing to women, because they tend to be more family-minded 2. cognitive differences between men and women make men better at science and 3. there may be some issues with gender discrimination. No, I was having too much fun using my new gender theory super powers to hypothesize about why Larry, a smart dude, would feel good saying these things, and why so many smart science dudes and dudettes were lining up militantly to both condemn and support him.
Were the women supporting him showing their normal feminine-associated tendency to prevent boat rocking, live by the rules of the hierarchy and play nice? If so, were the women deriding him in harsh tones in some way being man-ish? Does that make the men who criticized Summers a bunch of ladies? The mind boggles.
Which brings me back to my current project: grading a bazillion term papers on the biological and sociological underpinnings of gender. While reading one paper, I came across what I thought may have been a misuse of the whole 'boys are made of snails and puppy-dog tails' idea. The version of the saying the student had written just didn't seem right so I humbly approached the knower of all things, Google, to settle the matter.
To my great frustration, but perhaps appropriately, I discovered that Google doesn't know what makes a boy, either. According to the first dozen or so Google hits, boys appear to be assembled from any combination of the following: snips, snakes, snails, puppy-dog tails, frogs and slugs - the general consensus being that they are mostly snips, snails and puppy-dog tails. Fine then. If not even Google can find a straightforward answer about the basis of human gender, I may as well stop trying.
I should probably explain the photo up at the top of all my blather then. This image is in no way meant to illustrate any of the points made above. My original intention was to post it as a congratulatory shout-out to my friend and newly minted doctor of philosophy, Michael Booth. This past Thursday, he gave a fantabulous defense of his research on the effects of myccorhizal networks and nutrient sharing on forest plant species diversity. Or, simply put, "Why mushrooms rock."
Unfortunately, when I looked a little closer at the photo of Michael, taken on Thursday afternoon when complete exhaustion had reduced him to rolling around on my living room floor, I realized that this snapshot might be part of the grand theme after all. Please note that Michael is wearing the same clothes he wore to defend his thesis - jeans and a flannel shirt. The flip-flops he was also wearing lay next to him.
Who wears flip-flops to the defense of their doctoral thesis?! Who stands in front of six years of masterful research and their entire department with feet that dirty?! I'll tell you who! Michael does. And he's SUCH a BOY.
"When such-and-so said, 'That's such a GUY thing to say/do/think,' what makes is so GUY-ish? And why does that seem like sufficient explanation for his poor behavior?"
or
"Why is it that when I look at Eric's freakishly-clean bench, I think 'neurotic' but when I look at Kim's equally sterile workspace I think 'tidy'?"
Or, when driving home recently I observed the following. A tired-looking mother walked down the sidewalk, several feet ahead of her three children. The gap between them may have been enough so that she could not hear the squeals of her younger son who, trapped in a headlock by his older brother, was being thoroughly nuggied. Walking calmly beside them, their sister looked on with an expression somewhere between horror and distain.
Why do brothers, or any boys for that matter, feel the need to cause each other damage? Why is it so normal and natural seeming for that older brother to torture his younger brother so casually as they walk down Sachem Street behind their mother? Aggressiveness is associated with masculinity but all the gender theory peeps like to blather on about how masculinity and femininity are just social constructions and there's nothing biologically inherent about gender roles... But these boys are so young, too young to do things that aren't in some way hard-wired. Oh rats! I forgot about theory of parental conditioning! These boys have been brainwashed to beat each other up!
And why aren't they beating up their sister? What's up with that?
Or like, when Harvard's president Larry Summers made his tactically unfortunate suggestions about the possible reasons for the paucity of female professors in the physical and life sciences, my brain almost exploded.
I wasn't interested in analyzing the validity of his claims that 1. the 80-hour workweek required of junior faculty is unappealing to women, because they tend to be more family-minded 2. cognitive differences between men and women make men better at science and 3. there may be some issues with gender discrimination. No, I was having too much fun using my new gender theory super powers to hypothesize about why Larry, a smart dude, would feel good saying these things, and why so many smart science dudes and dudettes were lining up militantly to both condemn and support him.
Were the women supporting him showing their normal feminine-associated tendency to prevent boat rocking, live by the rules of the hierarchy and play nice? If so, were the women deriding him in harsh tones in some way being man-ish? Does that make the men who criticized Summers a bunch of ladies? The mind boggles.
Which brings me back to my current project: grading a bazillion term papers on the biological and sociological underpinnings of gender. While reading one paper, I came across what I thought may have been a misuse of the whole 'boys are made of snails and puppy-dog tails' idea. The version of the saying the student had written just didn't seem right so I humbly approached the knower of all things, Google, to settle the matter.
To my great frustration, but perhaps appropriately, I discovered that Google doesn't know what makes a boy, either. According to the first dozen or so Google hits, boys appear to be assembled from any combination of the following: snips, snakes, snails, puppy-dog tails, frogs and slugs - the general consensus being that they are mostly snips, snails and puppy-dog tails. Fine then. If not even Google can find a straightforward answer about the basis of human gender, I may as well stop trying.
I should probably explain the photo up at the top of all my blather then. This image is in no way meant to illustrate any of the points made above. My original intention was to post it as a congratulatory shout-out to my friend and newly minted doctor of philosophy, Michael Booth. This past Thursday, he gave a fantabulous defense of his research on the effects of myccorhizal networks and nutrient sharing on forest plant species diversity. Or, simply put, "Why mushrooms rock."
Unfortunately, when I looked a little closer at the photo of Michael, taken on Thursday afternoon when complete exhaustion had reduced him to rolling around on my living room floor, I realized that this snapshot might be part of the grand theme after all. Please note that Michael is wearing the same clothes he wore to defend his thesis - jeans and a flannel shirt. The flip-flops he was also wearing lay next to him.
Who wears flip-flops to the defense of their doctoral thesis?! Who stands in front of six years of masterful research and their entire department with feet that dirty?! I'll tell you who! Michael does. And he's SUCH a BOY.
posted by Eva Marie at 7:56 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home