Daughter of No Comment -- November 2000

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Who do you think of when you hear heart surgeon?? Do you think of a man?? Mercedes Dullum of the Washington Hospital center is one of the 30 women heart surgeons out of a total of over 2,000 in the United States. She characterizes the next ten years in cardiac care as "a race between angiogenesis (genetic treatment to grow new blood vessels without surgery) or some form of tissue engineering and robotics." David C. Page of M.I.T. has just completed a study which refutes the long held belief that male genes control human evolution. When they examined X and Y chromosomes they found them to be almost identical with the same mutations. "This finding was totally unexpected and came as a big surprise to us," Page said. "It flies in the face of thinking that we've long held in human genetics that men are in the driver's seat when it comes to human evolution." Another assumption about male superiority down the drain or hubris loses again. Some corporations (Chase Manhattan, Merrill Lynch, Knight Ridder, etc.) have come to realize that the Boy Scouts policy of excluding gay scouts is inconsistent with their own diversity policies and have decided it is hard to justify continued funding. Merrill Lynch has contributed $1.9 million since 1987, is reviewing its policy and is likely to pull funding. Not to worry, of the Scouts overall annual revenue of $125.3 million, only $11.1 million came from contributions and each of the 300 local councils has its own budgets whose numbers aren't available. Gay customers and gay employees of any company which contributes to an organization which excludes them need to make their concerns known. It is known as hitting them where they can feel it, in the bottom line. Now which large corporations are funding the Girl Scouts? Girls, it seems, are satisfied with the cookie crumbs. In an book by Luhrmann on the biomedical theory in medicine it was pointed out that Freudian psychoanalysis, which came to the United States in force after the second world war, went unquestioned with its breathtaking arrogance and dominance. Schizophrenia, autism and numerous other disorders were blamed on the mother, with NO evidence, just complete certainty. The public accepted this, to the great disadvantage of patients, to say nothing of mothers. Genetic and neurological problems were not really considered until the late 1970's. Daughter wonders how much current gender specific "science" is MANipulated through stupidity and/or arrogance. Homecoming Queen takes on a new meaning thanks to Kathy Alridge, a 17 yo senior at Patrick County High School in Stuart VA.. She is the schools only female football player who at halftime, while still in her muddy uniform, accepted the crown and then gave it to the homecoming king and got back into the game for the second half. Her team won big and she may have started a "dressing down" fashion for high school royalty. What's next? Barbie in cleats? Did you ever think doctors were scary?? Ohio gynecologist James Burt, M.D. subjected hundreds of women, often after they had been anesthetized for other procedures, to a disfiguring operation involving clitoral circumcision and vaginal "reshaping" which he called the Surgery of Love. Since peer review does not cull these monsters from the profession women need to speak of the unspeakable and scream until we are heard. Book author and columnist George Weigel used the word "founderesses" in an article describing the beginning of two religious communities. The word is clumsy, unnecessary and serves only to identify by gender as in "they were only women." Any time we see a gender specific word used we need to look carefully to see if it is accurate and if it is needed to convey information. Any time the word MAN is used it needs to be looked at very carefully. Traditionalists and academics can be wedded to exclusive language simply because they don't think or because they don't like change or because they are misogynist bigots. Or all three. The Atlanta, Georgia, Girl Scouts are recruiting leaders in a new way which should help them retain both leaders and hold the interest of the girls so they don't leave when they become teen- agers. The 1950's crafts-and-cookies image was not working anywhere and now the Girl Scouts of the U.S.A. is looking at this successful model. The campaign uses funk and hip ads to recruit leaders. This doesn't suit the old conformists who have complained about the "corruption of Girl Scout values." Recruiters don't have to worry about sexual orientation because the Girl Scouts do not discriminate against lesbians and they haven't endorsed any particular life style since 1994. The Roman Catholic Church apologized and settled for an undisclosed sum a $44 million sex- abuse suit filed by 22 men who said they were molested by Oregon priest Rev. Maurice Grammond who enticed them to engage in sexual acts between 1950 and 1974. In 1998, the church paid $30 million to settle a Texas case. The sign on the collection plate should read "for payment of felony fines." Another commandment could be "do as I say, not as I do." Four High School football players at River Rouge, MI pleaded not guilty to raping a 14 year old cheer leader. The boys are 16 and 17 years old. Police say that each raped the girl while others held her down after forcing her to walk to a house where one of the boys lives. These sports heros need some kick ass parenting with zero tolerance. Year 2000 economics Nobel prize winner, University of Chicago Professor James Heckman, says that since his school has a theoretical bias against government intervention, he set out to prove that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act (1965) had not worked and that black workers had not been helped. He says he was surprised by his conclusion that they had been helped. "I truly did want to show the government didn't have an impact, but I convinced myself it had a huge effect." How many times have less principled researchers rejected facts they did not agree with or that did not help the corporation or entity paying for the study? Numbers are easy to manipulate and hard for us to evaluate. Funding and programs affecting women often depend on statistics and we need to pay attention since scientific studies can easily be subjected to political manipulation and are only as good as the integrity of the researcher. New York police arrested 13 year old twin boys and charged them forcing their way into a 40 year old woman's apartment and raping her in front of her two year old child. When does a boy become a man?? No rapist is a boy but the universal term "prick" fits all ages. Mike Trout, 53, a top official in the conservative Christian group Focus on the Family resigned because he had an extra marital affair. He is the on-air partner of the founder and leader of the ministry, James Dobson. These women, oppressing alleged Christians, are re-defining the word hypocrite. Hop-hop artists Eve, Rah Digga, Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliot and Da Brat are still outnumbered but increasingly powerful women of hip-hop, mixing designer-clad sex appeal, keeping the party rolling even as they add a much needed dose of reality to the testosterone-drunk fantasy world of rap. Their "Funkdafied" was the first female rap album to go platinum. Gruff voiced Rah Digga calls herself the Harriet Tubman of hip-hop and Eve says "A man cannot speak for us. It's our time." Music to Daughters' ears. In 1972 when Florida lawyer, Sandra McSorley, started her first job, a male colleague told her "that God gave women slender fingers to type not practice law." The former state and federal prosecutor is now a circuit court judge thanks to Gov. Jeb Bush. We need to track judicial openings in our jurisdictions and lobby the local bar to support women. When European captives were released after five months of captivity in the Philippines some of the women said they had been raped. The women did not want their names used but they wanted the incidents to be made public so the world would know. The group spokesman, Risto Vahanen, a Finn said "It was quite surprising because otherwise we were treated in a proper way." Easy for him to say. Oh well, only women were raped. As Eve (see above) said.. Men cannot speak for us. Gracenet, a San Francisco networking group for women is mad that tech companies are exploiting women to sell their products so each month it gives out a DisGraceful Award in Advertising. The winner is.. Lik Sang International, Ltd. who ran an ad for its video games showing a close-up shot of a smiling Japanese model under the slogan "We don't have young Japanese girls on sale right now, but..." Because of complaints the company says it won't use this ad in the U.S.A. again. Alex Ka, a Lik Sang spokesman says the game industry norm is to use sexy pictures of pretty models and that shock ads are usual to get attention. Kudos to Gracenet and let us all help advertisers get all the attention it takes until they understand that exploiting women will not fatten their bottom lines which are the figures they can understand. High IQ columnist, Marilyn Vos Savant says she "can only find positive aspects of little girls growing up with their mothers' last names and keeping them for life. In the past only little boys have had that privilege, which fosters both personal security and adult independence." She uses her mother's maiden name and many professional women have kept the same name throughout their lives. The "romance" of taking another's name cannot heal the disconnect from her past that lasts for a lifetime. Have you tried to find the young women you knew many years later? Why do we still follow this outdated custom? Encourage women to honor themselves and their birth names. Elaine Sollie Herman, head of an educators for Bush group and candidate for superintendent of schools in Montana, says she was joking about how to restore school discipline when she said "I'm going to give every teacher a gun and a holster, and tell them to line 'em up and shoot 'em." It's a sure fire solution to overcrowding. "The Door In The Dream: Conversations With Eminent Women In Science" by Elga Wasserman profiles women who have been elected to the National Academy of Sciences (86 women or 5% of the membership) The young women were encouraged by their families, they were mentored at critical times in school and in their career and they had supportive spouses. As one woman said, "If a husband does not support his wife's career...the wife has only two choices-give up her career or give up the husband." An important book to learn about the pitfalls and their solutions. Pennsylvania resident, Nicholas A. Hornack III, commenting on a coed sex ed class he took in the late 80's. On the first day the instructor said the class would be talking about gay relationships and some of the students laughed. The teacher told them "I wouldn't laugh if I were you girls. (sic) Society's treatment of gay men is a direct reflection of how it values the feminine in any form." Mr. Hornack compared this to hip-hop culture which defines "faggot" as soft and passive and therefore expendable and open to attack. We know women aren't safe from assault and he has an interesting slant on one reason why rape is so pervasive in our culture. It is a joy to be able to report that an anonymous Los Angeles donor has given $26.5 million to the University of Southern California and has designated the money to help attract more female professors into science and engineering and to encourage middle-school girls to focus on science education. Let's hope this gift leads the way for other donors to provide opportunities for women. Daughter wishes all a wonderful holiday and you can always find her at mary@hartzler.net