And the Winner Is...

Thanks to all of you who responded to this month's GWP poll. You have spoken, and we listened. We're keeping the "feminist" in our tagline, rather than changing it to "gender." And, thanks again to a reader's suggestion, we are shortening it a bit. The new tagline will read:

"Bridging Feminist Research and Popular Reality"

Group launch is just around the corner...for reals!

Quick Hits on Market Bailout, for the Rest of Us

Atlas Shrugged by Greg Zehner, over at HuffPo

...and, always, Purse Pundit.

Other links to what's going on, in terms that make sense to the layperson? Please share!

My Cat Is Famous

Apparently, Open Salon (where Marco has taken up residence) declared today post-your-pet day in an effort to break from the distressing noise of the markets and the economy and the election and the world. And our Amelia Bedelia (a.k.a. The Mouse) made the front page!

She is purring with approval right next to me. Meanwhile, the pic above is not The Mouse but her beloved yet departed brother, Sam I Am. I figured, it was only fair.

Oh no -- I did it once again -- I cat blogged! And with that, I sign off for the weekend. Enjoy :)

Intergenerational Feminist Convo Goes to DC

So the intergenerational feminist panel I travel with, "Women Girls and Ladies", is presenting at George Washington University next Thurs (Sept 25, 6pm) and at the Association for Women in Communications conference next Fri (Sept 26, luncheon keynote). At GW, we'll be doing our "what made me a feminist" version, and at AWC, we'll be specifically talking about communicating among women across generations at work. The panelists are: Gloria Feldt, Kristal Brent-Zook, Courtney Martin, and me. I love traveling with these ladies. And speaking of Courtney, stay tuned for a guest post from her here at GWP next week....

For anyone in the DC area, thanks in advance for any help spreading the word about these events!

Sex and Sensibility: Thinking about the Boys

Sex and Sensibility: Thinking about the Boys
by Kristen Loveland

Michael Kimmel, in his new book Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men describes, as James Hannaham aptly summed up at Salon, a land "where women are treated as objects or bargaining chips, and alcoholism and drug abuse are the norm." A new anthology edited by Shira Tarrant, Men Speak Out: Views on Gender, Sex, and Power, gives us the voices of men living in the twenty-first century of what some would call post-feminism, what I would call the third wave. One of the contributors, Nate Einschlag, described going from the relative liberalness of New York City, where he grew up hanging out at Laguardia High School and talking about music, to a suburban university where girls did guys' laundry and guys talked about which "bitches" they'd had sex with the night before. All of which made me wonder about what borders should be drawn around this so-called "Guyland."

I went from a suburban Connecticut high school to a very urban college atmosphere, which represented a huge relief from the jockish and more overtly misogynistic guys I knew in high school. I've always called such guys "dudes" and I've met plenty of such "dudes" subsequently in the city. But overall, my college experience was one of emancipation, while "guyland" represents a place where men, and the women who love them, become entrapped by the masculine expectations of their new adult lives.

Of course everything was far from peach perfect in an urban college atmosphere: my feminist self was awakened by parody signs around Take Back the Night, where "dudes" on my floor demanded that women take back the kitchen instead. And a recent article by Anna Clark in Bitch describes some of the issues that I saw beginning at the university level:

the gender gap indicates that women are far less likely to land their stories in the nation’s top magazines and newspapers. Likewise, in the digital world, political candidates made a point of stopping by the YearlyKos conference last summer, headlined by a prominent progressive male blogger, but were absent from the BlogHer conference, which drew top women bloggers together.

This more aptly describes the atmosphere at my college: the suffocation of female ambition, or what might also be called: the female voice. Another contributor to Men Speak Out, Bob Lamm, caught the essence of this issue when he noted the importance of men listening to women, which I thought happened too infrequently in the classroom.

The lack of the female voice and the spidery web of the "old boys network," which still pervades clubs and classroom space alike, was paradoxically made clear to me at a college talk on the fluidity of gender and sexuality one night. When the female student facilitator paused for a moment to find the right words, her male deputy took the opportunity to depose her, grabbing the spotlight for himself and moderating the conversation from then on. He later complained to me about the female facilitator's lack of articulation, completely unaware of what he had done. It may be a more subtle misogyny than talking about "bitches," but it's harmfully ubiquitous nonetheless.

I still wonder where the delineation falls between the collegiate "guylands" described by Kimmel and Einschlag and the ones I've experienced. On the one hand, it seems to be a suburban versus urban phenomenon, and clearly Kimmel and Einschlag are talking about a mostly white, heterosexual population. Quite honestly, some of their stories seem to be taken straight out of every stereotypical and yes, essentially elitist, assumption I've ever made when I've considered what it would be like to go to a state school in the midwest. As a friend pointed out, these disparate experiences may also stem from whether frats and sororities are prevalent on campus or not. After all, what does it mean to live in an alternative world where men and women deliberately segregate themselves from each other, perpetuating a view of the other gender as occupying a rigid, mostly sexual, place in their lives, and cementing any innate tendency to go with the pack?

Looking at the outliers of "guyland" is just as important as looking at the core, and it's something I'd like to explore more. I'd love any feedback you, GWP readers, may have on on these constructions of masculinity and your own experiences with different (de)formations of it. You know, I began to write that last sentence with a self-deprecating, understated edge, asking whether "I had made vastly wrong anecdotal assumptions" about masculine constructions. But, really, why shouldn't I stand by what I've said?

Hillary, Sarah, and Beyond...

No matter what we think of Palin (um, barf), you gotta admit it's an interesting year for women in leadership. And next Wednesday, Sept. 24, the National Council for Research on Women and Dēmos are presenting a special forum on women’s transformative leadership. Emphasis on transform. Distinguished women leaders will explore the difference women’s leadership can make to bring about real change across sectors. Deets:

12:00 – 2:00 pm
Location: Dēmos - 220 Fifth Avenue between 26th and 27th Streets, NYC

Speakers:
Linda Basch, President, National Council for Research on Women
Michelle Clayman, Managing Partner and Chief Investment Officer, New Amsterdam Partners
Linda Tarr-Whelan, former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women and Distinguished Senior Fellow, Demos
Deborah Walsh, Director, Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University

Moderator:
Ana Duarte McCarthy, Chief Diversity Officer, Citigroup

For media accreditation, or RSVP, contact: Lisa Rast, email: lrast@ncrw.org

Mama and Papa PhD

A quick hit on a new study: The Clayman Institute at Stanford University has produced a report exploring hiring and retention issues for dual-career academic couples, and how they differ from those issues for faculty in other kinds of relationships. The full report is available for download here.

See also: Mama PhD--the editors of which will be here in NYC next month! Deets:

Monday, October 20th , 7:00 PM at Bluestockings Bookstore
Tuesday, October 21st, 7:15 PM , KGB Bar

My Fall Bloginar - Join Me!

Ok you GWP readers who want to learn more about how to blog, this one's for you. Here's the descript:

Girl w/ Keyboard: Making Waves through the Feminist Blogosphere
(Strategic Blogging for Advocates, Experts, and Organizations)

In this 5-week bloginar offered through the Women's Media Center, author and blogger Deborah Siegel will lead participants through the basics of blogging—both logistical and philosophical. Participants will leave with an understanding of how blogging is changing the media landscape—especially for women!—and the tools needed to start a blog or improve one that's already off the ground. Topics include: State of the Blogosphere, Tour of the Femosphere, Finding Your Niche, Creating Your Blog, Rules of the Road, Bells and Whistles, and more.

About the Instructor
[shameless self-promotion alert] Transforming her own blog, Girl with Pen, into required reading for the up-to-date feminist, Deborah has successfully created a presence in the world of Web 2.0. Deborah now keeps a daily web community in dialogue on the latest debates surrounding intergenerational feminism and research on women and girls across academic and popular realms. [shameless self-promotion alert ends] In this online workshop, Deborah, a graduate of the first class of the WMC's Progressive Women's Voices program, will take you on a guided tour through the blogosphere and teach you how to get your voice and ideas out there, too.

Details
5 Tuesdays starting October 14, 7-8:15pm ET, via conference call / online

Register early and receive a discount!

For more info, please contact girlwpen@gmail.com. And please spread the word!

GUEST POST: Palin in Prada or Platforms and Maverick was Hot!

I'm late to posting today, but I think you'll agree that this one is well worth the wait! Guest Girl w/ Penner Madeline Wheeler is a newly single mother of two and writer of the social action theater piece Revealing Frankie, a memoir of childhood abuse. She is currently the Coordinator for the Palmer, MA Domestic Violence Task Force. Madeline earned a BA from Harvard and credits the positive changes in her life to the Woodhull Institute for Ethical Leadership. Here's Madeline! - GWP

U.S. War Against Women:
Palin in Prada or Platforms and Maverick was Hot!
By Madeline Wheeler

First of all, I don’t care what Sarah Palin wears (Valentino apparently) and for those of us who grew up in the 80’s, Maverick is Tom Cruise, volleyball, tower fly-bys, and pilot in angst. And though, as of late, he is 4th on the overpaid actors list, he was Top Gun!

Now, after watching McCain ads depicting wolves crossing the tundra, worrying that Arianna Huffington might faint from outrage (her righteous indignation hits home)--not to mention that Matt Damon is seriously frightened--and hearing the word “vetted” jettisoned around the water cooler like a word-of-the-day bake off...I needed an espresso shot of reality. Yesterday, I paid for gas with a credit card and I just finished counting my change--the mortgage is due next week.

With truth blurred by a fury of lexis and linguistic limbo, and the media playing under the bar, the issues facing Americans are not dissipating. The heavy hitters remain: the economy, reforming healthcare and ending war in Iraq. But I’m wondering who will address the silent war against women happening on our own soil? Apparently, not Palin.

According to a 2006 Alaska Network on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault report, Alaska’s rape rate is 2.5 times the national average. Child sexual assault is almost six times the national average and Alaska ranks first in the nation with the highest homicide rate per capita for female victims killed by a male perpetrator. As an Interpersonal Violence (IPV) prevention advocate, I wouldn’t want to be wearing those shoes!

I’m for ending the war in Iraq safely and responsibly. I’m also for ending the war against women in the United States! Currently, we have more battered women’s shelters and violence prevention programs than ever, yet violence against women has reached epidemic proportions. Nationally, intimate partners murder over three women every day--3.56 to be precise.

Each morning we face the reality of war in Iraq with loss. But it is time for the cobbler to check his own shoes. If you can’t see the war against women, do the math. According to a 2006 CDC report, nearly 2 million IPV injuries occur each year among U.S women ages 18 and older, and close to 1300 deaths…bringing our five-year, six-month war against women death toll to approximately 7,155. This carnage does not include women murdered by strangers or otherwise.

If you need a dollar and cents account to seal the deal, the CDC reports that IPV costs exceed $5.8 billion each year, $4.1 billion of which is for direct medical and mental health care services.

According to the npr.org “Toll of War” website, since the invasion of Iraq, U.S. casualties have mounted to 4,148. The NPR website posts a timeline of U.S. troop fatalities against key events, along with eloquent remembrances of the fallen.

Objectors will say that the plight of American women cannot be compared to attacks on foreign soil. I’m not saying the death of troops, allies or civilians in war is acceptable, but it is expected. When considering the war, we must cling to the hope that courageous lives weren’t lost in vain, and that Iraqis have a future once only dreamt of. What, however, can we say to the increasing murder of innocent U.S. women in their own homes and environs? Wherein lies any hope or argument?

Iraqi Foreign Minister Zebari and the U.S. have set the preliminary date for American troop withdrawal as June 2009. Although President Bush long resisted “timetable” vocabulary, the Whitehouse is preparing to return our 140,000 troops.

American women, however, will not be leaving their homeland any time soon.

Jewish Women International’s (JWI) Executive Director, Lori Weinstein, currently champions a petition to urge candidates to make domestic violence a priority issue (www.jwi.org). JWI and the Interfaith Domestic Violence Coalition pleaded with the Democratic Party to “provide strong leadership on the issue of domestic violence, calling for expanded language in the 2008 platform.” The 2004 Democratic Platform included just one sentence--“We will help break the cycle of domestic violence by punishing offenders and standing with victims.” The 2004 Republican Platform didn’t fare any better, not mentioning it at all.

Do the 2008 Platforms meet the challenge?

After pouring over the 64-page Democratic Platform, I was pleased to see improvement over its predecessor; after all, Senator Biden championed the Violence Against Women Act of 1994, which he considers his ”proudest legislative accomplishment in 35 years in the Senate.”(www.biden.senate.gov) The 2008 Democratic Platform states, ”Ending violence against women must be a top priority. We will create a special advisor to the president regarding violence against women. We will increase funding to domestic violence and sexual assault prevention programs. We will strengthen sexual assault and domestic violence laws, support the VAWA, and provide job security to survivors”--A far wolf’s cry from the 2004 meager mention.

The Republican Platform refers to” battered women” in defense of the Crime Victims Fund established under President Reagan. However, it states “Bureaucracy is no longer a credible approach to helping those in need. This is especially in light of alternatives such as faith-based organizations which tend to have a greater degree of success with problems such as substance abuse and domestic violence.” Finally, it states, “Crime in Indian country, especially against women, is a special problem demanding immediate attention.” I’ve culled the 67-page document twice and this is all I can find in reference to domestic violence (www.gop.com).

Considering the Republican platform and the state of domestic violence in Alaska, I think it’s obvious, when it comes to the U.S silent war on women; Palin’s boots were made for walking.

Sideways Pic from Last Night

Team GWP with Shira Tarrant!

At Shira's bequest, I am posting this picture sideways. Because Shira and I both look taller sideways. Plus, the photo came to me sideways and I'm bad at turning them around. You can still see Shira's kickass boots. So here we are, with Kristen (who is naturally tall), celebrating Men Speak Out last night.

("Tell the truth but tell it slant"?!)

AWFO (Another Woman for Obama)

This just came in my Inbox. Please forward widely, if you see fit. - GWP

Friends-

Several of us in Portland, Oregon were sitting around over a glass of wine and whining about McCain/Palin and the direction our country is taking. In the tradition of Oregon's NIKE, we decided to stop whining and just DO something…..to ask our friends and their friends, to help us raise $500,000 for Obama/Biden by October 15. That's right. $500,000! Friends…..we have a country to save for ourselves, for our kids.

If we can get 500 women from each of the 50 states of the union (and ex-pats living abroad) to send $20 into the campaign, we can raise that much. We can show that John McCain/Sarah Palin do not represent our concerns. We've got one month to do it. And we can and will do it. But not without you!. WILL YOU HELP?

Here's how to help NOW (don't put it off!)

1.Go to: http://my.barackobama.com/page/outreach/view/main/awfo and donate what you can. Do it NOW! This site is dedicated to the Another Woman For Obama campaign.

Copy this email (rather than forward it) and send it to all YOUR friends, with a personal note from YOU. Ask your husband/partner to support you by including his/her friends as well. Never underestimate the power of women who are "mad as hell, and not going to take it anymore"! BE THE CHANGE. …..and thanks for your outrage and action!

You can track our progress toward our goal by using the same website.

Joanie Campf and Jane Comerford

Portland, Oregon

XY Files: Men, Dudes, and Guys

Last night I went to hear Shira Tarrant and the guys from Men Speak Out: Views on Gender, Sex, and Power read from the book at Bluestockings. I was very moved, hearing these men read. It kind of reminded me why I'm in this line of work to begin with. Thank you, Shira, and thank you, feminist dudes. You are everyday heroes, all.

Picture to follow soon.

Meanwhile, just came across today's review of Michael Kimmel's Guyland by Salon's James Hannaham. The review begins:

Imagine a world where you can't express your feelings. Where women are treated as objects or bargaining chips, and alcoholism and drug abuse are the norm. Where you must reject your own mother, and your father will rebuff you. You'll belong to a kind of cult that demands that you ostracize anyone who doesn't follow the group's twisted values. This cult may pressure you into physically and sexually abusing someone incapable of fighting back. If you're an American guy age 16-26, congratulations. You probably live there already.

Read the rest.

New Offering from GWP: Wordpress Website Customization

So my dear colleague Kristen Loveland, the mastermind behind www.deborahsiegel.net, my new customized Wordpress site, is currently engineering the look of the new Girl w/ Pen group blog launching later this month. I can't say enough good things about this gal, who is joining me as co-Girl w/ Penner-in-Chief as we relaunch in group form. Her work speaks for itself.

And lucky for others, she is branching out with her customization services, and offering a 10% discount to anyone who comes to her through GWP! Ladies and gents in need of a website, I give you: Kristen. Here's a description of how it works:

Need a website—fast—but don't have vast resources to invest? Kristen Loveland, a Wordpress customization consultant and web site builder, offers a unique solution. Skilled at using Wordpress' free and open-source platform to build personalized websites for authors, thinkers, feminists, and really, anyone else, Kristen is a writer/feminist blogger herself who understands how to create that unique internet presence in order to mainstream your blog, advertise your workshops, or highlight your latest publications. Because Kristen uses Wordpress as a platform, her websites are cost-effective and easy-to-use. Once built—in only four to six weeks after consultation—Kristen will teach you how to make most updates to the website yourself.

Mention GWP and receive a 10% discount! For more information, contact Kristen at Kristen.Loveland@gmail.com.

Save Bitch!

SOS from my friends at the fabulous magazine Bitch: Feminist Critique of Pop Culture:

The print publishing industry as a whole is staring into a void. Across the board, newsstand magazine sales are in a slump, subscriber numbers are down, and paper and postal costs continue to rise. But it's not magazines like US Weekly or Vogue that you'll see disappearing from the newsstands—they have the parent companies and the resources to weather industry ill winds. It's the small, independent magazines like Bitch that will disappear, because the odds are already stacked high against us. And simply put: We need to raise $40,000 by October 15th in order to print the next issue of Bitch....

Read the rest.

Wall Street Woes 101

For those looking for an insider's explanatory take on what's happening over on Wall Street, I refer you to Purse Pundit's blog. For those of you who don't yet know Jacki Zehner, the pundit behind the punditry over there, she's a frequent media commentator on women’s success in the workplace, women and wealth, investing, and philanthropy. She was the youngest woman, and first female trader, to be invited into the partnership of Goldman Sachs. The woman knows her sh*t.

And for a lyrically philosophical take on the Wall Street catastrophe as played out in Times Square, from the perspective of a visual observer, check out Marco's latest at OpenSalon, titled "Dystopia Now."

Girl w/ Cool Shirt

Check out this new shirt from feministing, based on a phrase Ann Friedman employed in an American Prospect article titled "McCain's Sexist VP Pick." Nicely done.

Tina Fey as Palin (In Case Anyone Missed It!)

See also: Eve Ensler, "Drill, Drill, Drill"

Couldn't not post these. Enjoy!

Polar Bear Moms Against Palin

So surprise, surprise: In spite of the Palin-o-mania that seems to have taken this screwy nation of ours by storm, it appears not all women of Alaska all agree. Check out WaPo's coverage of the Palin Protest held in Anchorage, and the footage posted on YouTube, above. Some memorable slogans from the march:

Bush in a Skirt
Jesus Was a Community Organizer
Palin: Thanks But No Thanks
Smearing Alaska’s Good Name One Scandal @ a Time
Candidate To Nowhere
Rape Kits Should Be Free
Barbies for War
Sarah Palin: So Far Right She’s Wrong
Coat Hangers for McCain
Sarah Palin, Undoing 150 Years of American Feminism
Hockey Mama For Obama
McPalin Out of My Uterus

Some of the protesters--in particular, two organizers of a group named Alaska Women Reject Palin--have received threatening and abusive phone calls, instigated by KBYR talk radio host Eddie Burke, who shared the names and phones numbers of the two contacts on-air. More about all that here.

And meanwhile, Women Against Sarah Palin put up a blog asking women to send in their thoughts about Sarah Palin and have received a whopping 120,000 responses.

Keep an eye out for a post here at GWP soon on what all this "Women Against" business is REALLY about.

Vote Acqui

Monday greetings!

Ok, so it's not Nov 4th yet and this current poll is of far less magnitude, but the votes over here at this month's GWP poll (-->) seem to be favoring keeping the current tagline vs. changing it. Interesting. 5 more days remaining to throw your 2 cents into the pool.

We're also playing with a title for the group version, which is launching real soon. Girls w/ Pen? Girls w/ Pens? Something else? We're open to suggestions! If anyone's got one, please share in comments. Thank you!!

Sex and Sensibility: Removing the Kid Gloves

Sex and Sensibility
Sex and Sensibility is a weekly column from Kristen Loveland that seeks to put the reasoned voice of a young woman in her 20's into the "sex wars" fray. Sometime member of the "hook-up generation" and frequent skeptic of the social, cultural, and sexual messages young women receive from the religious right and national media, Kristen provides a voice for a much-discussed generation that has had little chance to speak up for itself.

Removing the Kid Gloves
by Kristen Loveland

In an article appearing in Wednesday's New York Times titled “Girl Talk Has Its Limits,” the lives of young girls are once again put under the microscope for inspection by a pack of inquisitive adults. Not content to explore the sexual landscape of Miley Cyrus, cultural scrutiny now delves into female friendships and asks whether girls really should be talking, or “co-ruminating”, with each other so much, because “[s]ome studies have found that excessive talking about problems can contribute to emotional difficulties, including anxiety and depression.”

First of all, this is old news. My roommate’s abnormal psychology textbook from 2004 notes, “It is known that rumination is likely to maintain or exacerbate depression, in part by interfering with instrumental behavior.” Notice the terms “maintain” and “exacerbate”—the depression derives not from the rumination itself but from another source.

Unsurprisingly, one of the not-so-hidden assumptions of this article is that girls have an unhealthy obsession with boys:

“I could see it starting already,” she said, adding that she has made a concerted effort recently not to dwell on her own problems with friends and to try to stop negative thoughts. “From sixth grade, it’s boys are stupid, boys have cooties,” she said. “And then it progresses to boys have cooties but 20-year-old cooties. So you might as well change it when you can."

Ah yes, the fragile female psyche. I might ask why the author wasted over 1,000 words devoted to a question bound to lead to a dead end. After all, will you ask your daughter to bottle up her worries instead? I might also ask why the author used fictional models from Heathers, Mean Girls, Sex and the City, and Gossip Girl for female friendship. Sure, I’ll admit that I talk to my girl friends—a lot. I get a feeling of distinct pleasure when I look at my cell’s phonebook, considering which of my good friends I should call next to ruminate about “so-and-so who failed to call” or “you’ll never guess who showed up last night” or “is it just me, or does she seem a bit self-centered lately?” But these exchanges have never quite reached the dramatics of a Lindsey Lohan-led cast, though they might be a lot more interesting if they did.

While I’d like to say that the article’s author clearly hasn’t seen enough Woody Allen movies, it’s true that females are more prone to clinical depression than males. Nonetheless, it seems rather facile to place 1,000 words of emphasis on co-rumination as explanation—even irresponsible as I watch the article trek up the New York Times “Most Emailed” list. Because in the end the article (note its placement in the Fashion & Style section) is simply another of those proprietary “What’s wrong with our young women?” pieces that will make the rounds of forwarded email and provide all too simplistic answers for questions that really deserve more complex consideration. What’s wrong with our young women? They talk to each other too much. What’s wrong with our young women? They’re too superficial. What’s wrong with our young women? They give away the milk for free.

While newspapers and magazines are understandably aching to draw readers in, we can’t ignore the implications of such incessant prying into young women’s lives. It’s noteworthy that so many articles focus, or place the blame, on the actions of young women themselves (friendships, sexual relations, drinking habits, college experiences, etc.), instead of on the society in which they are raised. But perhaps we aren’t so much interested in solving “the young women problem” as in lifting back the curtain to sneak a covert glance at that object of intense public fascination: the Miley Cyruses, the Britol Palins, and all the other bright young female things that seem so troubled. As one writer notes, “The modern American female is one of the most discussed, most written-about, sore subjects to come along in ages.”

The funny thing is, that was actually written back in 1957, which means the new ain’t so new. A young Nora Johnson was talking about "Sex and the College Girl" in the 50s, the era of the domesticated and constrained female, who kowtowed to the reasonable, responsible expectations of society. Yet Johnson’s description of her generation struck me as so relevant to today:

We are deadly serious in our pursuits and, I am afraid, non-adventurous in our actions. We have a compulsion to plan our lives, to take into account all possible adversities and to guard against them. We prefer not to consider the fact that human destinies are subject to amazingly ephemeral influences and that often our most rewarding experiences come about by pure chance.

Those are my italics. I emphasize that last line, because I think it is something we often forget as a society, perhaps in an effort fill the news feed, perhaps in an effort to re-corset our daughters. Depression and anxiety are, of course, conditions to be treated seriously. But efforts to analyze each and every aspect of young American women’s lives, (always premised, of course, on a concern for those young American women’s well-being), is a form of the strictest regulation, and ignores the intense wonder of unknowing and chance.

Whenever I read stories implying that we should worry about such-and-such an aspect of young women’s behavior, I picture an invalid who lives to be a hundred by lying on her sofa all day. But does she live? And is she any more psychologically sound for having been removed from experience all these years—or has her mind warped in on itself, obsessively concerned with the minutiae in life because she has never known the larger things? Shouldn’t we... wait, sorry, I had to catch myself there for a second. I’m afraid I was getting rather alarmist.

Anyway people, remove the kid gloves.