chimerically

As some of you know, my mom's side of the family has consisted of quite a few more girl babies than boys for several generations back now. My sister and cousins have all had girls (five daughters between my sister and four cousins). My mom and aunts all had girls (six of us). My grandmother had five girls, and though I don't have the records, I've been told that her twelve siblings had several times more girls than boys. In her generation, there were five girls before the first boy, and in my grandpa's family, there were also a number of girls born before the first son (which I think was him, the youngest).

I've always figured my family was just a statistical anomaly. My sister has looked into various chemistry or dietary reasons for this (wanting to have a boy next), but the research I've seen on this has generally been pretty sketchy and incomplete, so I've decided to chalk it up to chance -- at least, until I see compelling evidence otherwise.

Well, I read an interesting article today that seems to indicate that there are some chemicals out there that do noticeably tip the scales. I've long known that the benzene and other chemicals in sunscreens mimic estrogen, shifting the sex of fish toward the "default" female, even during an individual fish's life, and having similar effects in rats and other animals. I have blogged about the cosmetics safety database listing the safety of sunscreens. (It looks like the famous "wear sunscreen" column, in which the author said the only sure advice she could give was to wear sunscreen, might have been wrong after all.) I had also heard that PCBs, common in flame retardants and coolants, and other chemicals had documented effects on development, especially sexual development. But this is the first I've heard of the chemicals actually causing a shift in sex ratios at birth.

According to the article, the Arctic populations that the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program studied had imbalances that were particularly pronounced (twice as many girls as boys, where before the ratio was 1.1 boys for every girl) because of their reliance on marine meat, which is high on the food chain and thus had heavy concentrations of these chemicals.

Though it's doubtful that anything like this has caused the generations-long surplus of girls in my family, it does make me reconsider my "just-chance" stance on the trend. It also places even more importance on one of my main reasons for being vegetarian for 9 or so years through my youth and into college. ( Read more... )

With quals just behind me and research ramping up, I've been struggling to come to terms with my academic identity and to rekindle a passion for my research that I know is there, but has been dormant for the last little while. It struck me that one book in particular has influenced me more than any other in the last year -- and this has been a particularly mind-expanding year for me. (I'll post more article and book summaries soon to demonstrate.) But for anyone interested in development, modernization, globalization, or Africa -- or any combination of these -- I highly, highly recommend Global Shadows by James Ferguson. It's extremely well-written, and though certainly not an "easy" read, it is very illuminating. In a way, it has both opened my eyes and (temporarily, hopefully) paralyzed me -- I can't help but think that there's just too much that I don't know for me to make any useful difference. But Ferguson himself would not accept such an excuse (I've taken a class with him and am pretty sure of this), so I'm back in the ring, taking more anthropology, equipping myself to grapple effectively with such thorny, complicated issues. (As a side note, I scoff at anyone who thinks computer science or statistics is harder than this stuff. I've done both; I know.)

Below is the summary I wrote of the book last November. It's very long, but for those of you interested in these topics, I think it is worth the time and effort -- and the book even more so! (I was thinking of dividing this across multiple posts, but wanted any ensuing discussion -- and I hope there's some! -- to happen in one place, so I chose not to.)

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What is “Africa”? What are globalization, development and modernity? These concepts – though they may be at times vague and ill-conceived – nonetheless play a central role in discourses, economic and otherwise, about the fate of the many interconnected yet unique groups on the continent. It is understandable, James Ferguson argues, for anthropologists to dismiss the notion of a unitary “Africa” as culturally absurd, but the fact remains that just such a notion is used by many around the world, including those in Africa, to justify political and economic decisions from which anthropologists have been largely absent. In this book, Ferguson proposes ways of defining (or redefining) the idea of “Africa,” as well as the ideas of “globalization” and “modernity.” He calls on anthropologists to face these and other similar issues head-on, and to address themselves to wider audiences, in their own work.

How is “Africa” defined? Africa is a place that confounds the definitions of modernity, development, and globalization: many of the usual hopes and fears associated with these concepts simply don’t fit the case of Africa. Ferguson says Africa is often defined “through a series of lacks and absences, failings and problems, plagues and catastrophes” – when Africa is even present at all in discussion, it is as a “shadow” place of “black” markets and informal economies, parallel to, or echoing, the “legitimate,” “authentic” ones. But this view is inaccurate and inadequate, just as anthropologists’ status-blind celebration of the cultural diversity of Africa is. The latter, Ferguson argues, blithely ignores the stark economic inequalities between various regions of the world.

( Globalization )( and modernity )( and development, oh my! )

( a 'native' perspective from Zambia )

( the real face of modern foreign investment in Africa )

( Economic language and Africa )

( Complicating neat definitions of 'local' and 'national' ) (As a side note, this strikes a chord with me because my home discipline of communication has been working to address this issue for years.)

These new definitions suggest intriguing directions for anthropology and for thinking about Africa, modernity, development, and globalization (and “civil society”) more generally. First, how could this be taken up in our own work? What issues are there with the definitions as Ferguson has presented them – do we buy them? Second, how do they reflect on other authors we’ve read: Charles Piot’s arguments for African modernity in Togo (Ferguson explicitly critiques this on page 167), the “informal” but highly organized and hierarchical economic structures Janet Roitman documented in areas in and around Cameroon (seems to fit with Ferguson’s deconstruction of local/national/international to some degree), Liisa Malkki’s discussion of how refugees in Tanzania imagine themselves, Donald Moore’s documentation of discipline and skirmishes between local and state in Zimbabwe (where would Ferguson’s deconstruction of local/state fit with this?), Louise Meintjes’ overseas-focused musicians in Johannesburg, Nuttall and Mbembe’s ideas around Johannesburg modernity and their call to approach studies in Africa not as intrinsically “other” but a place like any other place? Finally, what can we make of Ferguson’s rallying call to anthropologists to actually weigh in on political debates, instead of (sometimes purposefully) standing by the sidelines and remaining in academic circles – do we buy that, and what are its implications? What is the future of anthropology in an increasingly non-local, status-defined world?

I've realized that I could never effectively argue with most anti-choice activists about birth control and abortion because we would be making completely different assumptions about the world -- different and fundamentally incompatible paradigms, in Kuhn's terms (since I've been reading lots of and about him in my philosophy of science class). Their arguments about what the Bible says about sex and other topics hold no weight for me. My arguments about problems of abused and neglected children, overpopulation, and a woman's right to control the course of her life hold little or no weight for them.

The point where we might be able to actually speak to one another, rather than past one another, is the issue of viability and when "life" starts, but even there they take what I see as ridiculously extreme views such as "life starts at conception" or sometimes with the possibility of conception (thus, the fight against birth control as a preventative measure) that I can't possibly agree with, given the messy realities of life: so many fertilized eggs don't implant, so many proto-fetuses don't last even a week, etc.

Furthermore, if they take this stance, why aren't they attacking in-vitro fertilization as vehemently as they are abortion and birth control? Multiple fetuses are grown and then one (or sometimes a few, but certainly not all) is implanted, and the rest are discarded. Isn't that murder in their eyes? Shouldn't all viable fetuses be given the chance to live in that case too? Funny how the intention of the couple seems to change the morality of the fetuses: people who are going through in-vitro fertilization want to be parents while people practicing birth control don't.

Along those same lines, it's also very strange that some anti-choice people take childlessness to be irresponsible, while from an environmental perspective, I think that having children is the more irresponsible choice (which, of course, some eco-minded parents mitigate in various ways, as I hope I would too if/when I have children -- but all things considered, that's still another person using a lifetime's-worth of resources, which is not small even when minimized). And moreover, making sure that one has children at a point in one's life when they can be best provided for seems to be, to me, a lot more responsible than risking having kids as soon as one starts having sex, which for a very large part of the population is very young (even with abstinence-only education like I grew up with, as a recent study shows). Of course, the anti-choice people would say one shouldn't be having sex until one is prepared to have children (which is the often-unsaid corollary to most of their points), but that's a whole 'nother can of worms with its own set of worldview incompatibilities, and I'll save that for another post (though you're welcome to rail in the comments if you want to).

No wonder this is such a hotly-contested debate. Except that it's not really a debate at all.

(NOTE: I don't mean to imply that one side is more "rational" than the other, even though I have made it clear which "side" I am on. These sorts of disagreements happen all the time, in many areas. My main argument is that the incommensurability of worldviews prevent the two sides from even seeing eye-to-eye.)

I don't have time to expound on the implications of this as I would like to just now, but I heard on NPR's The World earlier today about a new addition to Google Earth: high-resolution images of burned villages and refugee camps in Darfur. Those involved hope that the imagery will function as a call to action to stop the genocide. Another fascinating use of photos as unquestionable "evidence," of the surveilling power of photographs, and of the (hoped-for) power of photos to make events more real and immediate.

http://www.ogleearth.com/2006/10/darfur.html
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N10439052.htm
http://www.ushmm.org/googleearth/

Selected quotes:

It's hard to picture a genocide ... Officials at Google and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum hope that visualizing events in Darfur in specific detail will move people to act. ... We want ... perpetrators to understand that they are being watched. ... Knowing about a genocide has not been enough in the past to stop it. The question is whether seeing it -- especially in this large-scale, high-tech way -- will help make the difference.

Here's your daily dose of evil, as heard on NPR a few minutes ago. Donegal International bought a portion of Zambia's national debt, worth $55 million, for $3 million a few years ago, counting on rumors that Zambia's debts would be canceled (and relying on precedents of another vulture company successfully suing two Latin American countries for canceled debts it purchased). Sure enough, the Zambian debts were canceled, and now they're suing the Zambian government for the full value of their "investment." One Zambian official said that this amount could have hired 6,000 teachers and opened a hospital ... but instead it has to be spent on making some billionaires even richer. Sort of defeats the purpose of debt cancellation, dunnit?

"A British court recently ruled that Donegal International ... has the right to profit from its purchase of millions of dollars worth of Zambia’s debt – acquired for a tiny fraction of its face value eight years ago. ... The Donegal case in Zambia shows just how skewed the current financial system is towards the interests of the wealthy. Before reaching a debt cancellation agreement, an impoverished country must borrow from the international financial institutions in order to repay wealthy creditors and those same financial institutions."

This. is. fantastic.

President Cecilia Fire Thunder of the Oglala Sioux tribe has declared that she is going to build a Planned Parenthood clinic on tribal land. In South Dakota.

Donate directly to PP! Thanks to corpsefairy for the heads-up.


Utah Quicksilver, Park City and Salt Lake City's best transportation service

This is, at last, the final installment of my notes on Unlocking the Clubhouse. My other posts on this are here and here. This post is much more of a mish-mash of information, summarizing chapters three through six, than the other two, which summarized one chapter apiece. Ah well, better late than never. Feel free to point out inconsistencies in my summary and I'll elucidate if I can.

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In college computer science, most men are interested in computing (programming, tinkering, gaming, etc.) for its own sake, while many women are more interested in computing's effects on and applications in other fields and how it can be useful to society. The focus in many introductory CS classes on technical details makes some women disillusioned, and they drop out of CS, not realizing that it's not just about silly technical details.

Many men have wanted to study computer science since before they could remember, and think of it as a "no-brainer" to be a CS major; most women decided to study computer science in high school or college, and the choice was much more rational. Their reasons for choosing CS are much more broad than "enjoyment of computing," most men's primary reason.

Men are more likely to like programming for its own sake, and are more likely than women to spend endless hours programming outside of classes. When asked about their ideal computer, teenage boys described machines that give them super powers; teenage girls described machines that helped in tasks or offered companionship. One researcher notes that "the feminine take on technology looks right through the machine to its social function, while the masculine view is more likely to be focused on the machine itself." Many high-school and college kids erroneously see computer science as "number-crunching" and computer games as one of the main applications of computer science (when they have any conception at all of what computer science is); many high-school and college curricula support this misconception by focusing on banalities of programming languages and pointless programming exercises, especially in lower-division classes. (My experience with programming contest problems support this, perhaps explaining the dearth of women in such contests.)

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Students in top-ranked programs like Carnegie Mellon's are very aware of the intense geek culture in such programs - of the expectation that they spend all their time in front of the computer, for work and play. (This is backed by some practices in industry such as providing bunk beds at work.) A well-rounded set of interests is undervalued and sometimes actively shunned in this culture. Women on average are more disturbed at this ideal, and how badly they fit it, than men. They are more likely to decide such an intense culture is not for them, and they drop out at a rate three or more times that of men.

Top-ranked programs are also so overzealous, in general, that novices, especially minorities, feel hopelessly behind. Between male "posturing" and lack of programming experience in high school and before, women feel that everyone catches on more quickly than they do and that they can never catch up, even though performance between women and men, in terms of grades, is nearly identical. Many also assume that such passion for computers is required to be a computer scientist, and if they don't have it, they should quit. They're also more likely to keep confusion to themselves because of comments like "what's your major, again?," or the threat of them.

(Some interesting trends in attrition: American women and women from wealthy families are more likely to drop out of CS, the former because many Americans credit intelligence to innate ability and not to hard work, and the latter because these women aren't as worried about having a good-paying job to support themselves or their families.)

Women also have to deal with "you're only here because you're female" talk that men never have to face. Expectations that women will not do as well may have a huge effect of performance, as shown by Claude Steele's experiments at Stanford (repeated elsewhere) that showed that an expectation of a gender difference on performance on a math test resulted in one, while an expectation of no gender difference resulted in near-equal scores. (There are similar results for race if participants are asked to note their race on the test.)

Admissions policies that value previous programming experience or high math SAT scores are biased against women. CMU found that prior programming experience does not affect success in the program, and others have found that math SATs "systematically underpredict" women's college performance (though it was the opposite for me, at least according to my GPA :~)).

I'm rereading Unlocking the Clubhouse and realizing how much my parents countered gender paradigms. The book cites interesting studies that find that parents give girls girl-themed toys and boys boy-themed toys, even if they set out to make their toys gender-neutral, because parents are more likely to react to boys' excitement with, say, Legos than to girls'. Additionally, parents call their daughters back more often than their sons when their kids are playing on playgrounds, resulting in girls covering less ground and being trained to more cautious. People are more likely to label a boy baby's cry as anger and a girl baby's cry as fear. Men and boys are more likely to be seen as a family's technology experts, while women and girls (especially mothers) are often seen by other family members as clueless or techno-phobic. Boys are much more likely to be labeled "computer whizzes" and given special treatment than girls with similar capabilities, at school and at home. And parents are more likely to allow boys to monopolize a computer (often even putting it in their room) than girls. Regardless of the "nature" arguments, there are definite "nurture" arguments to why few girls are in science. Most men AND women majoring in computer science have at least one parent who is technically-inclined, but most women report growing up on the "technology sidelines," not allowed or not able to explore much on a computer by themselves.

Not much of this sounds familiar to me. Sure I had dolls (though my mom forbade Barbies for a long time), but I also had my Legos and transformers and micro-machines and lots of homemade clay. My sister and I played outside all the time, and for several years our best friend was a next-door boy my sister's age, who was one of the only kids in the neighborhood. Both of my parents worked, but my dad had a much more flexible schedule and was often the one driving us to school, picking us up, tending us, or taking us with him on landscaping jobs where we'd play in the sand and sod piles; my mom would spend time with us too, but she was the "breadwinner" with the fixed schedule. Though neither of my parents are technically-inclined, my mom used computers first for her master's degree and then for her work, but my dad has never used computers much. I had no brother to hog the computer. Still, I didn't learn more than basic DOS commands, probably because I had no one to teach me. By high school, the computer classes were definitely boys' territory, and several geeky acquaintances went out of their way to make CS sound incredibly complicated (surely to make themselves look smarter :~)).

I'm listening to newscasters blather about a huge power outage across the east caused by overloads of the system, and while they fuss over the effects on hospitals and airports and subways, my first reaction is to shrug and turn it off. Let New England get a taste of the rolling blackouts California has been experiencing for years; let them learn the lesson of conservation the hard way. This is my response to many of these catastrophes or impending disaster due to overuse of gas, or water, or electricity ... ideally we could reduce our demands before these problems happen, but I'm not holding my breath. And though I turn off lights and try to conserve water and all, I'm part of the problem, just by living in this country, by living in the developed world.

I had a conversation with David earlier today about globalization, and why a laissez-faire economy doesn't work. It's all just amateurish opinions, of course, since neither of us know much about economics, but it's still interesting to discuss. My argument is that because their bottom line is solely economic, companies will tend towards collusion and exploitation to undercut competition and establish a monopoly.

We also discussed other aspects of bottom-line economics, such as overseas exploitation to reduce prices and environmental degradation. In our (surely simplistic) view, companies move manufacturing overseas because even though shipping costs are higher, manufacturing costs are SO much lower because of pittance wages and lack of taxation, so it's overall cheaper to produce overseas. If there was a global minimum wage - say, $4 a day, double the global poverty level - then perhaps shipping costs would push expenses over what they would be locally. Perhaps production would move closer to consumption - more sustainable because of the lack of environmentally-harmful shipping and the increase in accountability. And even if production didn't move, at least workers worldwide would have a higher standard of living, even if it was at the expense of our overly-high standard.

Suppose, for a moment, that there was a reliable quantification of environmental and community damage - never mind the impossibility of such a feat. If companies were taxed or fined for this damage and the money was put back into the harmed community, would this provide incentive to be more environmentally and socially responsible? If companies just payed the fines, would the money really help offset damage in any way?

David and I also talked a bit about cities and suburban sprawl. In my annual reading of the last year's National Geographics here in Michigan, I even found an article on this, discussing mixed-use and compact communities and "new urbanism" and other strategies we discussed in my sustainable cities class. It's nice to see all this explained to a wide audience, if an affluent one. I wonder if these ideas really are becoming mainstream, or if it's just select urban planners a few weirdos like me that espouse them. The feeling I have about anti-war ads, anti-SUV commercials, and the like is that while many react violently and unthinkingly to them, at least it's known that there is a movement, and the movement has the power to be heard. But ... how valuable is awareness, anyway?