what moms should do: gender

Showing posts with label gender. Show all posts

Stop whining and 'man' up

Oh dear...it appears that men are getting a little sensitive about being 'overworked and underappreciated' for not being recognised enough for all of the hard work their doing in the domestic realm. A recent article from The Age suggests that male partners and husbands are feeling angry because they too are just as overworked as women. The article cites that a 2006 study into how Australians used their time found that men spent a combined average (over seven days) of 11.44 hours per day performing professional, childcare and domestic tasks. And women? They came in at a combined average of 11.35 hours - nine minutes less than the men.

Now, I may get slammed for this (or maybe not?) but I have to say, that I really can't feel too badly for men on this front. Whilst I think it is brilliant that men are stepping up and sharing in the domestic load with their female partners, the truth is that no one should get a gold star for cleaning the bathroom. The only reason women have been banging on about having their work recognised for so long is because WOMEN, for the bulk of human history, have been doing the caring and cleaning work for the family almost exclusively. It is only recently (I mean broadly, since the early 20th century) that women have had real opportunities to be in the paid workforce.

So what if men are doing are feeling overworked? SO THEY SHOULD.

Truth is (at least according to a new study), most men are lying about their 'work' in the household. According to an article in Slate:

"Social psychologists call this aspirational lying—the unconscious shading of the truth to make us appear smarter, more generous, and closer to the person we want to be."What you want leads to what you do. If you say you're doing more, it really is a measure of the societal change," said Ellen Galinsky, president of the Families and Work Institute. "If it were not OK to be doing things with your kids and to be nurturing them— not just bringing in the money—you might lie in the other direction."

Pregnancy is almost never recognised as 'work' in itself. Ask any gal who's had kids and she will tell you that the work begins at conception and doesn't end until the kids go off to university (and even then, statistically, lots of kids are living with their parents until well into their 30s...yikes). Even without children, I still struggle with my partner when it comes to sharing the domestic load. Inevitably, I always end up doing more and I can't imagine what it would be like (and honestly, I worry about it) when we do have kids. I really struggle with this as a feminist.

Now that educated middle-class women are reaping more of the benefits of feminist movements and greater access to the paid workforce, I hardly think the time is ripe for men to 'blame' women for their achievements. I don't think any woman needs to feel guilty if the tides are turning in her favour.

Seriously, guys, if you're partner carried your child for 9 months, the least you can do is man up and do 9 more minutes a week of cleaning. Yeah, that's right. MAN UP (besides, you're probably lying about it anyway *snigger*)

Sex selection in US

A controversial article in the New York Times suggests that sex selection is happening in the US among Chinese, Indian and Korean American families. Researchers argue that they have found significant statistical evidence to show that there is most likely a preference for sex selection, IVF and sperm sorting or abortion:

"In those families, if the first child was a girl, it was more likely that a second child would be a boy, according to recent studies of census data. If the first two children were girls, it was even more likely that a third child would be male."

Now, it is dangerous and potentially racist to suggest that certain groups of people are deliberately using abortion for to have more baby boys. But, according to Columbia University economists, among American families of Chinese, Korean and Indian descent, the likelihood of having a boy increased to 1.17 to 1 if the first child was a girl. If the first two children were girls, the ratio for a third child was 1.51 to 1 — or about 50 percent greater — in favor of boys.

While sex-selection is not illegal in the US, it is surprising to find that some fertility clinics actually target Asian Americans in their advertisements. For example, The Fertility Institutes, with clinics in California and New York, which does not offer abortions, has openly advertised its services in Indian- and Chinese-language newspapers in the United States.

Discover 'pink or blue' with a 10 minute test

Man. Everyday I think of look for things to write about for this blog, I think to myself that pregnancy is getting way too complicated.

Not only can you now find out if you are pregnant about 2 minutes after conception, have 3D ultrasounds set to lullaby music and wear organic cotton birthing wraps during labour, thanks to the brains trust at Intelligender, now you don't even have to wait to find out the sex of your future child at the second trimester ultrasound.

The Intelligender Gender Prediction Test (US$34.95) claims that you can know the 'gender' of your fetus within 10 minutes as early as 6 weeks after your first missed period through a simple urine test.

Firstly, the name of the test is actually incorrect. Sex and gender are two different things. Sex is a biological category* (male or female) and gender refers to the social constructed characteristics that make us male or female (masculinity or femininity). The company has clearly confused these definitions purposely as a way to sell women on the idea of the test as being a "fun, affordable way to discover pink or blue."

The fact that the test even exists says alot about the developed world: not only can we not wait to 'see' our foetuses until they are born given the preponderance of entertainment ultrasounds, now, as the company claims, women 'need' this test because it "bridges the curiosity gap between conception and sonogram." Seriously, since when have women been unable to wait 16-18 weeks?! Considering pregnancy is 40 weeks, 18 weeks seems like a drop in the water.

If this isn't a worrying example of immediate gratification of needs, I don't know what is. What concerns me the most about this product is 1) that if women are testing for 'gender' at 6 weeks, how will this early knowledge affect those women who have pregnancies that end in miscarriage? It seems like this might be another way that women can feel even more devastated and disappointed if their pregnancy ends in loss. 2) What awful things can happen in terms of sex-selective abortions? The fact that this product is not going to be available in India or China suggests that there is already an existing undercurrent of worry about how the product might be misused. In fact, this only gives people more, legal and socially sanctioned opportunities to abort 'undesirable' girl foetuses.

Of the gender test, I say FAIL.

*not according to Judith Butler, but that's another more complicated story.

Cereal is not sex linked (duh!)

Back in April I blogged about a British study that suggested that women who ate lots of cereal when they were pregnant were more likely to have a boy:
http://babybumpproject.blogspot.com/2008/04/want-baby-boy-eat-breakfast.html

According to a different research team from Cornell, this is..well..highly unlikely. Using a different statistical test, the authors think that the results from the first study were largely due to chance:" By our analysis, it looked like everything was random and there was nothing special about cereal," says Stan Young, assistant director for bioinformatics at the National Institution of Statistical Sciences.

Just by the nature of a large dataset, it is inevitable that the interaction of some variable will show statistical significance. Confirming my own suspicions at the time, the Cornell group further implores the tenuous link between nutrition and gender (if there is one at all).

So ladies, you can keep eating the Cap'n Crunch but just don't get your heart set on a growing a tiny pair of testicles in your womb.

Source: http://tinyurl.com/765psy

Want a baby boy? Eat breakfast.

And more useless information from the people who study things:

According to a new British study, pregnant women that eat breakfast (and cereal in particular) around the time of conception are more likely to have a boy. Those women that consume less calories and skip breakfast are more likely to have a girl.

Argh. Bad, bad science.

I don't know about you, but I was always under the impression that sex was determined by sperm..so how in the world caloric intake affects this process is beyond me. Moreover, the methodology of the study is also highly unreliable. The research had 740 women keep a food diary before and after falling pregnant. They were then split into groups according to caloric intake. Self-report is a highly problematic methodology especially when it comes to women and food, a very sensitive and culturally meaningful issue. Let's face it. Informants lie about lots of things and it is very possible that the women who were in the lowest calorie group were purposely underreporting their intake.

I'm particularly troubled by the suggestion by one of the researchers that this information "could be of help to women wanting to balance their families." Right. And why might this logic lead to very bad things? As it has occurred throughout history and through to the present (Hello, China!?), such a proposition implies that girl babies are usually less desirable and now women will think that they can control sex through food. Ridiculous.

Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/health/healthmain.html?in_article_id=561384&in_page_id=1774

new gender testing kit

Has anyone else heard about the new DNA testing kit which determines the gender of the fetus at 6 weeks? 'The Early Gender Test' is sparking protest in Britain particularly from Right to Life proponents who argue that if women are able to find out the gender of a fetus so early into the pregnancy, abortion rates will increase. The test apparently is accurate because fetal DNA is present in the mother's bloodstream only a few weeks into the pregnancy. Women can purchase the DNA kit online and then receive the results within 4 working days. The test checks for Y-chromosomes in the mother's blood which indicates the presence of a boy.

I have to say I am not concerned about the test in terms of the anti-abortion position of 'killing' more 'babies', what does concern me is that this test will be used as a means for sex selection; for example, it's a frightening prospect to think that even more baby girls will be terminated because they aren't as culturally 'valuable' (hello, China!). Apparently the company claims it does not allow orders to be taken on the website from countries that are known for gender biased birth policies like China or India but this is not indicated on the company website. In China, sex selection has led to an imbalance of about 120 men for every 100 women; and in India, one recent report from an affluent area of New Delhi found that for every 1,000 boys born in 2004, only 762 girls were born.

Bioethicists have made similar arguments about the increasingly sophisticated nature of 3D/4D ultrasound technology which is used for the same purposes by most expectant parents just later in the pregnancy (normally at about 18 weeks). The gender of a foetus can be determined by ultra-sound imagery but it is not very accurate before four to six months. The company that created the product, DNA Worldwide, claims that the new test is 99% accurate and if it does make an incorrect prediction parents will receive a refund. Many doctors are still skeptical of the accuracy of the test and at least 200 couples have already received incorrect gender determinations which were confirmed with ultrasound later in the pregnancy.

Should we make use of new technology just because we can?