Female Role Models VII

Did anyone report on what she was SAYING?

Time Magazine tried to start another "mom versus mom" fight and Secretary Clinton went out without makeup on.  You know what that means: another round of media flatulence over "appearances," a few bush-league insults, the requisite meta-concern-troll navel gazing from media critics...  and another installment of my series highlighting Female Role Models. (I'm gonna have to add a page on this - but here are installments one, two, three, four, five, and six.)

   This installment has been long overdue, and for so many reasons.  For those just joining us, I like to highlight a small group of female role models whenever a man (or men) says or does something that attempts to "put women in their place" by degrading them or otherwise trying to assert some kind of power over them.  Let's just say it's been a busy couple of weeks.

First, we have Chicago Sun-Times idiot Joe Cowley, who apparently thought deleting his twitter account would somehow staunch the bleeding from his latest online rant that I can only conclude is a cry for help.  But you want to know something interesting?  Go to the Chicago Sun-Times website and search for "Cowley apology." You won't find one.  (Also haven't yet heard his thoughts on the Arizona Catholic high school, ironically named Our Lady of Sorrows, that had their baseball team forfeit the state championship game rather than play against a girl.)

And speaking of deleting tweets, we have the curious case of now-former Romney campaign spokesman Richard Grennell, who suddenly erased some real gems, like noting the First Lady was "sweating on the East Room carpet" or that Rachel Maddow "needs to take a breath and put on a necklace."   Of course, Grennell's case is awash in irony - he quit not because people wouldn't tolerate his sexism, but because people wouldn't tolerate his sexual orientation.  

But the big example in my mind has to be the Vatican. (No, not just the war on the Girl Scouts.) A couple of weeks ago the leadership of the Catholic Church ordered a "doctrinal assessment" of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious - the organization that represents nuns in the United Sates - for supporting "certain radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith." No specific examples of actual radicalism were provided in the official report, but they did cite one specific speech by a Dominican nun in 2007 and that the organization's national  leadership received some letters or something.  The report also specifically faults the nuns for not implementing "initiatives" that confirm that only men can be priests and that homosexuality is a sin.

So, I can go on for pages about how unflinchingly moronic all this is, or I can use my little corner of cyberspace to recognize and celebrate some uplifting examples of this:

Someone an online mom can show her daughter [or son, a great point my wife made] and say, "See her? See what she's doing? See how she's living in the same world you are, with the same challenges you have, and see how she succeeds? THAT is how you do this. THAT is what I stand for. I want you to be like HER."

I've asked FRM "alumni" as well as some like-thinking dad bloggers for ideas on role models.  So far I got two really good ones: Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Zainab Salbi - both people who have made names for themselves in standing up to powerful interests, daring to speak their minds, overcoming tremendous adversity.  I'll put them on the pin board.  Of course, I also like to share examples of people who may not be famous (yet) - people like...

Emily Willingham. This co-founder of Double X Science (and, ahem, YouTube star) has zero tolerance for pseudo science and hype, and she isn't afraid to take unpopular stands.  When she calls out journalists, she gets corrections fast - that's something PR guys like me would LOVE to be able to do. She's also a great science communicator - she wrote The Complete Idiot's Guide to College Biology and a cool book about how bears and people really don't mix.

Nuvia Crisol Guerra. I learned about her from Leah Peterson's blog post. Nuvia is the guest curator of Domestic Disobedience,  Redefining the Feminine Space.  This group exhibition ran at San Diego Mesa College last month, and features some incredible Latina artists.  When she's not creating art herself, she's advocating for and promoting other artists.  Oh, and she's a molecular biologist. You know, in case you were wondering if she had any other interests.

Carmen Stacier. The Mom to the Screaming Masses is so badass even the honey badger knows not to mess with her.  Black belt in Muay Thai? Check.  Lost 80 pounds and kept it off? Check.  Mom to six kids?  Check.  When she's not juggling asthma meds and epi pens for her kids, or cross training like crazy, she's providing leadership at her church and showing some damn fine writing skills on her blog (and other places like BlogHer). She's a vital, vibrant part of the online mom community - the kind of person everyone wants to know.

Sloan Martin. She's one of the young female sports journalists who stood up to Joe Cowley in his rant.  She clearly loves baseball - you don't write a blog focusing on a AAA team if you don't.  She's also an advocate of women's sports and Title IX.  Most importantly to me, she showed no fear in calling out a senior, ahem, statesman of her field publicly - and enduring his ridiculous taunts. She's trying to start a career in Cowley's field and basically introduced herself by showing she doesn't tolerate asshattery. That's risky in a field that's even more male-dominated than most.  Mad props to her. 

Now BACK IT UP with action

I kinda wonder if she figured it out yet.

UPDATE: Nope, she still hasn't figured it out yet. And so it continues.  Look for her on conservative media gab shows soon...

Maybe she's still mad about this

Sometimes writers are intentionally provocative to get more attention.  It's particularly common in the online world because controversy begets page views which beget ad revenue.  Of course, sometimes, people get a little carried away with it.

From Naomi Schaefer Riley, newly-former contributor to the Chronicle of Higher Education's Brainstorm Blog on April 30: 

You’ll have to forgive the lateness but I just got around to reading The Chronicle’s recent piece on the young guns of black studies. If ever there were a case for eliminating the discipline, the sidebar explaining some of the dissertations being offered by the best and the brightest of black-studies graduate students has made it. What a collection of left-wing victimization claptrap. The best that can be said of these topics is that they’re so irrelevant no one will ever look at them.

Yeah, go read the post.  It's helpful to read the article she links to. It would be most helpful to read the dissertations themselves - but hey, it's not like Riley did.  Oh, and I really can't let this one go, from the same post:

Seriously, folks, there are legitimate debates about the problems that plague the black community from high incarceration rates to low graduation rates to high out-of-wedlock birth rates. But it’s clear that they’re not happening in black-studies departments.

Which, as you can imagine, leads to stuff like this and this and this.

I think experts on race can more than adequately handle the statements the writer makes on race - I'll simply suggest it's important to read something before dismissing it - and its entire field - as irrelevant.

But then there's this, from Naomi Schaefer Riley, newly-former contributor to the Chronicle of Higher Education's Brainstorm Blog, on May 3:

...since this is a blog about academia and not journalism, I’ll forgive the commenters for not understanding that it is not my job to read entire dissertations before I write a 500-word piece about them. I read some academic publications (as they relate to other research I do), but there are not enough hours in the day or money in the world to get me to read a dissertation on historical black midwifery.

Yeah, so then there's this, from the editors at CHE:

Ms. Riley’s blog posting did not meet The Chronicle’s basic editorial standards for reporting and fairness in opinion articles. As a result, we have asked Ms. Riley to leave the Brainstorm blog.

Not all that surprising.  But then there's this interview of Riley by Craig Silverman at Poynter, and apparently she's still confused about why this was such a big deal.

“It’s a new standard for a 500-word blog post if you have to read the dissertations in order to comment on their topics,” she said. “That seems to me a little absurd.”

Riley also said that “the immaturity and childishness of the reaction [by commenters on the website] is all the more surprising” given The Chronicle’s well-educated readership. “This to me was kind of a not particularly big news flash of a blog post so I think the vitriolic reaction is kind of surprising,” she said.

Maybe Riley has a point - after all, what's the big deal?  All she did was use her perch at the Chronicle of Higher Education to dismiss an entire field of academic study because it doesn't focus on the notion that black people are ignorant, slutty criminals. Why would anyone care about that?

Jay Rosen is hosting a decent case study discussion regarding this on his Facebook page.  It goes beyond the very basic issues I highlighted here.  I wonder if Riley will read it - or if she's too busy.

Most brilliant billboard ad campaign ever.

OK, for starters - climate change is real, it's caused by people, and the only real question is what should we do to stop it.  This really is the consensus from the scientific community, no matter what some politically or financially motivated people may tell you. If we lived in a society and had a media that cared about facts and reason and understood the dangers of misinformation, this would basically be the beginning and end of this discussion.

However, we live in America, so we get this:

Yes, this is part of a billboard campaign brought to you by our dear friends at the Heartland Institute.  In all my years I can think of no other billboard campaign in history that is so brain-searingly stupid and yet so utterly brilliant at the same time. Honestly, I look at it and all I can do is applaud.  I'm not even going to link to it because I really don't have to.

It's brilliant because it demonstrates a complex understanding of what it takes to make a splash in today's media and society.  We are rewarded when we go all-out, over-the-top, insert-lousy-metaphor-here crazy in public. And let's face it - this is Ted Nugent meets Octomom crazy.

It also demonstrates an understanding of where the money is.  While some reputable larger companies are pulling out of groups like Heartland after facing scrutiny when Heartland does... well... stuff like this, the Heartland guys know there are a couple of billionaires out there who will pay any price for anything that really pisses off liberals (and by extension here, scientists).  Now that the guys who almost singlehandedly bankrolled the Gingrich and / or Santorum campaigns are looking for something to do, up pops this idea.

Finally, it demonstrates an understanding of how to score "earned" media.  Millions of people will see these billboards - but only on computer screens. Stories about the campaign have been written by outraged liberals in the Guardian (UK), The Hill, The Daily Beast, The American Prospect, and countless blogs and tweets and Facebook posts.  Scientists and liberals will be giving this cheap stunt free publicity for weeks. And that's exactly what Heartland was hoping for when they thought of this.

Of course, this strategy probably isn't all that sustainable.  But then again, maybe it is. If you don't need facts or reason to get your point of view across, and all you have to do is annoy liberals and scientists who just plain NEVER go on offense, why would you ever stop?

Amendment 1: Social Media and the New South?

Next week North Carolinians will go to the polls to vote on a state constitutional amendment asserting that marriage is between a man and a woman only. (Of course, that's already the law here.)  One might expect that this would pass easily in a southern state, but the outcome is in question for a variety of reasons.  First, legal scholars say the amendment creates a host of unintended consequences on issues such as domestic violence.  Ohio had these problems for years after they passed a similar amendment.

Second, and perhaps more relevant to this blog - opponents of the amendment have employed an unconventional strategy.  They have used social media tools to highlight the words and actions of the amendment's most strident supporters. Two of the more popular examples of this are basic displays of typical redneckery - YouTube videos of young supporters, umm... defacing "oppose the amendment" lawn signs, either with urine or buckshot.  (The internet is forever, idiots.) Another popular one is the support the amendment has received from white supremacists. But to me, the most effective example has been the audio recording from a North Carolina pastor  suggesting parents should "punch" the gay out of their kids, and giving them a "special dispensation" to do exactly that.  Listen for yourself.

Normally it isn't wise to promote the views of your opponents in a political campaign. But amendment one opponents are banking on it - they assert that these views are held by most amendment supporters and they are trying to show the rest of the world what they're dealing with.

I'm an opponent of the amendment for a variety of reasons - mostly because I think gay people should have the same rights as anyone else, but also because this amendment goes far beyond what proponents say.  I do think, however, this is a somewhat risky strategy.   Social media tools can be very effective at times, but in my experience it serves to strengthen opinion within specific communities more than persuade people beyond that community.  Are the typical and perhaps undecided voters watching these videos and considering them as they come to a decision on the amendment?  Maybe.  But I'm completely convinced the overwhelming majority of views and shares are coming from people who are already decided and going to other people who are already decided.

Of course, this isn't the only strategic element to the campaign, and I do think opponents have done a good job garnering support from the business community and from mainstream media outlets.  But in the end, we'll see if highlighting the bigotry of the old south online will help lead to a new southern ideal of equality.