If Women Relate Their Own Gender Battles To Clinton's, She Wins Big

I keep reading polls that say Clinton is only slightly less disliked than her opponent.  When I look at her opponent's records, this makes no sense to me.  When people believe something that makes no sense to me, I search for some explanation.  In this case, my tentative conclusion is sexism and the Right's smear machine that spearheaded campaigns like the Swiftboating campaign against Kerry.
The point of this post is simple:  If women can see the crap that Clinton is taking because she's a woman and relate it to the crap they take in their lives, Clinton can't lose.  The rest explains my thinking here.


Before the industrial revolution, there tended to be two worlds - the public world where men could go when they overcame the biological survival needs.   The women stayed in the private world.  As Europe evolved and with the arrival of the industrial revolution, women began moving out into the men's world.  Some jobs were almost exclusively reserved for women - sewing in factories, nursing, elementary school teaching.  But whenever women ventured into male domains - in the crafts, in factories, in higher education, in the professions - they were second class citizens.  There's so much documentation on this it seems unnecessary to provide links.  One example I recently read was  Barbara Goldsmith's biography of Marie Curie Obsessive Genius.   In it she documents all the ways that Curie had to fight against barriers that kept women out of science.  They weren't allowed in the best schools. (Her father taught her and hired tutors.)  They weren't accepted into the universities.  They didn't get appointments to academic posts.  Their work was belittled.

Deborah Tannen's  Talking 9 to 5  examines the  how the language of men and women use differs, and how this disadvantages women in male dominated settings.  She also talks about norming - how the white male is the norm in the US and in male dominated organizations.  As people differ from that norm (less masculine men, women, people of color) they stand out as lesser.  But as women, say, try to be more like the norm they become less 'feminine' and they get criticized for that as well.  And this seems to be a lot of Clinton's image problem - she's a woman trying to fit a role traditionally limited to men.  She doesn't fit as a man, but as she tries, she doesn't feel right as a woman to many either.  

Sexism is often hard to prove.  Often employees have been forbidden to talk about salaries so women don't know that their male colleagues get significantly more for the same work.  And women usually didn't have more than their own anecdotal experience.  But here is one study cited in Scientific American that does give proof of what I'm talking about:

"research from Yale . . . had scientists presented with application materials from a student applying for a lab manager position and who intended to go on to graduate school. Half the scientists were given the application with a male name attached, and half were given the exact same application with a female name attached. Results found that the “female” applicants were rated significantly lower than the “males” in competence, hireability, and whether the scientist would be willing to mentor the student."

Another example is powerful men taking sexual advantage of less powerful women.   The Roger Ailes case is just the most recent.  Significant here is how long this went on and all the pressure on women not to say anything.  And the pressure of those inside Fox not to challenge the all powerful boss who was accused, not to mention the network of other men who took advantage.

So most women understand what they're up against.  They've all experienced this in some realm of their life.  If they are lucky, they've been able to live in a relative safe bubble where it didn't happen often, but the more they ventured out of the small protected group, or up in an organization, the more likely they were to face obstacles.  And there is no question that men deal with crap from male competitors within organizations as well, but being beaten by a woman is worse than being beaten by a man.  Being reprimanded by a woman is much worse than being reprimanded by a man.

There's no other explanation I can see that explains her negative perception.  OK, she's more a wonk and her work is her life.  But so were Dukakis, Gore, and Romney and their ratings were much higher.  She has issues in her past, but that's been true of every high level candidate.  But men can be wonks in our society, but women should be warm and fuzzy.  That's changing, but given the polling numbers, lots of folks haven't made that move yet.

Reagan got the Iranians to keep the hostages until he was elected* then did the arms for hostages deal with Iran.   That wasn't a problem, but Clinton's emails are a problem?  Give me a break. Benghazi and email are manufactured problems, that in the larger scheme of things are trivial.  They aren't venal, and no serious damage has been proven.  If they want to talk about civilian deaths due to drone strikes, then that's a different issue.  But they don't care about dead foreigners.  Issues about Clinton's close ties to Wall Street are problematic, but few politicians get to her level without having a number of difficult connections.  They should be talked about.  But compared to her opponent, well, there's just no comparison.

Sure, it's more than just a woman thing.  It's also about winning the presidency and all the power that gives to one faction or the other.  But the fact that Clinton's a woman is being exploited by her opponents.  That's the very definition of sexism.

So, if Clinton can figure out how to get most women voters in the US to see that her negative ratings are a result, to a great extent, of our culture's inherent sexism, the same kind of sexism they deal with daily,  then Clinton will win big.   Especially if the women then explain it all to their fathers, brothers, sons, and husbands.  Tell them the stories of the harassment they deal with daily, the stories they don't usually share because, because it doesn't seem worth the trouble.

Good Time To Book Anchorage-LA Flights - From $127 One Way

I know there is a supposed logic behind airline ticket prices.  It's clearly not related to cost.

Fortunately, my mom lived in LA and prices between Anchorage and LA have been on the silly cheap side for much of the last four years.  Due, they say, to competition from Jet Blue.  Whatever the reason, flights in October and November this year (and maybe other times, I didn't look) are $127 one way, with a stop in Seattle.  Of course, there are also more expensive flights, but there are plenty at this low price right now.

In contrast, the lowest prices between Anchorage and Seattle are $163.  If you were to fly Anchorage to Seattle at their lowest fare at the end of October ($163) and then get a flight from Seattle to LA at the lowest fare ($59), it would cost a total of $222, not quite double the Anchorage-LA lowest fare.

There have been times when it was a better deal for us to fly to LA, get a round trip ticket to Seattle, then fly home from LA.    At these current prices, it would be cheaper, slightly, to just book a stop in Seattle in one direction and the cheap LA fare in the other direction.

The $127 price to LA is the same price flying Alaska Airlines in October to Bethel, Alaska.  To LA is about five hours, to Bethel is listed as one hour 22 minutes.  (There's also a $123 fare on Raven airlines, but it takes a little longer.)

The fact that it can cost more to fly to the layover city than the final destination city on airlines is not news.  People used to book to the distant city and skip the last leg of the flight.  Online discussions suggest that probably isn't a good idea because the airline can charge you the actual fare and bar you from flying with them until you pay.

I guess the point of this post is to alert Alaskans who have a reason to go to LA, that there are some good fares.  And LA folks who want to come to Alaska as well.  October isn't a bad time to come to Anchorage.  Fall colors should be good and we haven't had much October snow for a number of years now.


[If you get here from another blog's blogroll, there were two posts that never made it you may want to check out below;
Man Goes
Who Invented Inflatable Tube Guys?]

Man Goes *

I've got several draft posts, but nothing done.  Well, I did post "Who Invented Inflatable Tube Guys?" but Feedburner didn't get it to other blogrolls.  This is just a filler post, but did you ever consider that the name of the fruit mango is essentially, Man Go?  So technically the picture below should be Men Go.

Who Invented Inflatable Tube Guys?

You've seen the dancing in car lots and lots of other kinds of businesses.  But who thought this up?

It turns out to be something of an evolutionary process - starting with Israeli Doron Gazitt who started out making balloon figures on the street for kids, a design school project helped by his father's work in agriculture - with plastic green house tubes. Trinidadian Carnival artist Peter Minshall, and eventually the the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta and the 1998 Superbowl halftime show.

"But these first tube guys didn’t look much like the simple wiggling noodle man that’s since come to dominate America’s used car lots. They were sixty feet tall, with two legs that each had a dedicated fan and a separate articulated torso, arms, and head. These weren’t tube guys. These were full-on tube gods."

All this comes from a fascinating history of inflatable tube guys at reForm, called

Biography of an Inflatable Tube GuyThe checkered past and lonely future of air puppets

Well worth the time with pictures showing the evolution from art to advertising distraction.  Or as, according to the post, both Gazitt and Minshall agree,

"the single-tubed descendants of their wacky inflatable Olympic babies are an abomination. Gazit calls them “very ugly and very unattractive,” and Gulick, 'an impoverished version of the device.”

The writer  does it all.  There's nothing for me to add, except I saw this red one Monday in front of High Frequency, a locally owned shop, where I bought a used phone for my wife before hers is no longer served.  I think I sidestepped the high prices at ATT for a reasonably good phone.  We'll see.  And it seems all the prices there are negotiable.

From Love To War - New Books At UAA

I checked the new books shelves at UAA library the other day and I'm finally getting around to putting up a short sampling.  I'm trying to spend more time off the computer, so this will be brief.  There were also some more technical books, but social sciences and humanities seemed to dominate.

These two books with practically the same title:

From an interview with Nancy Sherman the author of Afterwar:

"The concept of ‘moral injuries’ associated with combat experience, an affliction of growing interest to both military and healthcare communities, features prominently throughout the book."

And from a review of Zoë Wool's After War:

"In After War: The Weight of Life At Walter Reed, Zoë Wool shares her experience working with some of the most grievously wounded veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. During a year of research from 2007-2008, Wool conducted fieldwork with amputees recovering at Walter Reed Medical Center, the military hospital complex that has become emblematic of the post-war experience of American combat wounded service members."

There were two books about Yiddish - one on short stories and one on theater.
















These covers seemed a bit out of place at a university library - but they're Alaska stories.

And now that I've looked it up, it seems that sometimes you can judge a book by its cover.  From Lifeway, where you can watch a video of the author and/or read the transcript :

"Christian Romance Fiction author Dani Pettrey talks about her books Shattered and Submerged. We also find out more about her writing process, the role of fiction in ministry, and her favorite authors."

Here's a more academic look at romance.  You can read a review of Brossard's On Romantic Love.

This one deals with a subject dear to my heart - how we know things.  In particular it looks at how the stories sent from the New World back to Europe reflected what Europeans thought about the New World as much, if not more, than it reflected the New World.  From the back cover:

"Comparing the official 1784 edition of [Captain James] Cook's journal for that voyage with Cook's actual journal accounts, Curie demonstrates the representation of North America's northwest coast in the late eighteenth century was shaped as much by the publication process as by British notions of landscape, natural history, cannibalism, and history in the new world.  Most recent scholarship on imperialist representation of the non-European world takes these published accounts at face value.  Constructing Colonial Discourse combines close textual analysis with the insights of postcolonial theory to critique the discursive and rhetorical strategies by which the official account of the third voyage transformed Cook into an imperial hero."

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet is one of the UAA/APU Books of  the Year along with The Color of Water.

These books should show up in a lot of different classes and discussed from the perspective of the course subject.  The "Topics of Relevance" for 2015-2017 is "Negotiating Identity in America."

From Project Muse:

"Networks of Modernism offers a new understanding of American modernist aesthetics and introduces the idea that networks were central to how American moderns thought about their culture in their dramatically changing milieu. While conventional wisdom holds that the network rose to prominence in the 1980s and 1990s in the context of information technologies, digitization is only the most recent manifestation of networks in intellectual history. Crucial developments in modern America provide another archive of network discourses well before the advent of the digital age. The rise of the railroad recast the American landscape as an assortment of interconnected hubs. The advent of broadcast radio created a decentralized audience that was at once the medium’s strength and its weakness. The steady and intertwined advances of urbanization and immigration demanded the reconceptualization of community and ethnic identity to replace the failing “melting pot” metaphor for the nation. Indeed, the signal developments of the modern era eroded social stratification and reorganized American society in a nodal, decentralized, and interpenetrating form—what today we would label a “distributed” network that is fully flattened and holds no clustered centers of power."

You can look at the table of contents here.

From a Journal of Europe Studies review of the book:

“Inner emigrants were nonconformist writers ‘dealing in ambiguity’, whose works had - and retain - ‘the potential to be read and understood simultaneously as both a form of tacit opposition to and acquiescence in the regime.’

From an interview with the author on why she chose to write about social media in the war zone:

"A: My brother was on his first deployment in Iraq while I was in graduate school studying communication. At the time, he and I mostly wrote letters back and forth. But I began paying closer attention to advancements in digital communication technologies, especially when the infamous Abu Ghraib photos emerged. At the time, it seemed like new communication technologies (MySpace, YouTube, Facebook) were becoming available at the same time we were becoming increasingly entrenched in Iraq and Afghanistan. So I was personally and academically invested in keeping a close eye on both of these “fronts.” I wondered how all this connection would change what it’s like to be at war."

Cleverly Designed Political Cartoons Then And Now

From Zazzle

You've probably seen this Joe Heller cartoon already and thought, wow, that's clever.  It reads very differently from top down to bottom up.






















But while I was looking through the new books at the UAA Library I found this political cartoon that had a similar up and down (though visual not verbal) aspect from the 1860s.





This comes from the book The Comic Art Of War:  A Critical Study of Military Cartoons, 1805 - 2015 with a Guide to Artists by Christina M. Knopf.

Obscurascope - Danielle Morgan Paints

Stopped at the UAA library to pick up a book from interlibrary loan (A Short History of Privacy) and stuck my head in the little art gallery just north of the library entrance.  Bright, bold, colorful watercolors by Danielle Morgan.   Here's a closeup from Tryptomania.

Click to enlarge and focus any of these images

From the artist statement:

"Obscurascope is a word that I assembled which means to 'investigate the unseen.'  I think a lot about the transience of life, the permanence of death, and enjoy the mysteriousness of it all.  The eye is a symbol that I use to represent my fascination with this mystery."

Investigating the unseen is definitely a topic that fits right in here at this blog.  I suspect that death fits in this category well, but being unseen means we don't really know if it is permanent.  We know about the death of the body and things like no pulse, no breath, and other medical ways to determining the death, but what does permanent mean?  One could argue that death is very fleeting - it's the moment that life ends.  Or as Buddhists might, that death is a temporary state before you are reborn.  This is not meant to challenge artist Morgan's words, but to take her thoughts and play with them a bit.

The one above is called "The Beast."  There were maybe 20 pieces in this exhibit reflecting a number of different styles.

The artist statement continues:

"My drive to create has been with me from a young age, and I spent countless hours drawing and writing as a child and as a teenager.  As an adult, I was in an abusive relationship for over three years.  I spent the majority of that time in seclusion and without access to my family or friends.  Drawing in my sketchbook and exploring my imagination helped me get through those dark times, and made me feel free.   . ."

This one is called "Don't Forget To Breath."   More from the artist statement:

"I started drawing with ballpoint pen many years ago, but didn't start using watercolor paint until I took Beginning Watercolor at UAA with Professor Garry Mealor back in early 2013.  At first the medium frustrated me and I was sure that I would never get the hang of it.  With each assignment I felt like I was improving and have since worked primarily with watercolor paint.  It wasn't until the past year that I thought to combine my love of both ballpoint pen and watercolor.  Since the ink in the ballpoint pen I use is oil-based, the water based paint does not smear it."

Most, if not all, of the paintings were for sale from around $200 to $1400.  You can see this exhibit until (see poster below) right next to the entrance to the UAA Consortium Library through the end of August.  You can see more works and even enquire about purchasing something at:

https://daniellemorganart.carbonmade.com  or
https://www.etsy.com/shop/obscurascope    

Four Years Later, Becky's Back From Mexico

Anchorage Returned Peace Corps Volunteers (RPCV) had a BBQ Thursday evening.  I vaguely knew that the Anchorage Assembly now has TWO RPCVs on it, but I hadn't really thought about it, but there they both were.  (I'll let Anchorage readers guess who they are.)

Had a good time sharing thoughts with volunteers from places like Nepal and the Philippines.

And then there was Becky, who is technically still a volunteer, into her fourth year in Mexico.  Yes, that is a long time.  The normal assignment is two years.  Well, she's finishing up, maybe this month.

What makes Becky particularly relevant to this blog is that I met her four years ago here in Anchorage just as she was about to first leave for her assignment.  It was send off dinner for new volunteers.   Here's the link to that post.   And a picture of her in May 2012 before she left for Mexico.

And this was Thursday evening.  I should have checked the picture after I took it.  It's the only one I have.  We were talking quickly at the end of the BBQ and someone suggested she get in front of the Peace Corps emblem for the picture.

Four years ago she only knew the general area she was going into - Environmental Education.

Her town was just outside El Chico National Park and some of her recent projects were connected with the park.  Like developing an activity book for primary school kids that helps to introduce them to the National Park.  She helped set up an environmental book section in the local library.  She's also been doing community based workshops on a variety of topics including organic pesticides and bio-fertilizers.  There was also the book published by the kids in the community using their drawings and photos showing a kids' eye view of the community and the environment.   You can see the whole book here.

This was just a quickie overview of things she was working on recently.  But it seemed like a good idea to do a follow up of the four year old post.

The Emperor's New Clothes: The Power Of Fairy Tales And Of Expectations

From The Classic Reader's version of Hans Christian Anderson's The Emperor's New Clothes:

"Many years ago, there was an Emperor, who was so excessively fond of new clothes, that he spent all his money in dress. He did not trouble himself in the least about his soldiers; nor did he care to go either to the theatre or the chase, except for the opportunities then afforded him for displaying his new clothes. He had a different suit for each hour of the day; and as of any other king or emperor, one is accustomed to say, 'he is sitting in council,' it was always said of him, 'The Emperor is sitting in his wardrobe.'"

Then two scam artists arrive in the capital and declare that they weave clothes out of an exquisitely beautiful material.  But more importantly, only the good and honest can see its beauty.  Those unfit for the offices they hold are unable to see it.

"'These must, indeed, be splendid clothes!' thought the Emperor. 'Had I such a suit, I might at once find out what men in my realms are unfit for their office, and also be able to distinguish the wise from the foolish! This stuff must be woven for me immediately.' And he caused large sums of money to be given to both the weavers in order that they might begin their work directly."

The weavers set up their looms and work late into the night.  The emperor gets curious about how things are going.  While he doesn't doubt himself at all, it seems more appropriate to send one of his ministers to check on the weavers.  The minister goes into the room and is startled to see no cloth on the looms at all.  He begins to question himself.  Am I not really wise?

"The impostors requested him very courteously to be so good as to come nearer their looms; and then asked him whether the design pleased him, and whether the colors were not very beautiful; at the same time pointing to the empty frames. The poor old minister looked and looked, he could not discover anything on the looms, for a very good reason, viz: there was nothing there. "What!" thought he again. 'Is it possible that I am a simpleton? I have never thought so myself; and no one must know it now if I am so. Can it be, that I am unfit for my office? No, that must not be said either. I will never confess that I could not see the stuff.'"

The weavers describe to the minister the intricate and beautiful patterns and colors and he listens closely so he can describe it accurately to the emperor.  They also ask for more gold and silk so they can finish the project, which they get.

The minister returns to the king and describes the magnificent new clothes.  Not much later a second minister is sent to check on the progress.  He too sees nothing and questions his own fitness for the office that pays him so well when he sees nothing and goes back to describe the amazing new clothes.

Word gets out in the city about the emperor's new clothes and everyone is excited, particularly about the fact that only the competent and honest can actually see the material.

When the emperor himself finally is presented the new clothes he is shocked.  What is this?  Am I unfit to be emperor?  When asked by the weavers what he thought, he smiled and said it was charming.  The rest of the courtiers smiled and competed in their praise of the new suit.

A city wide procession was held.  The streets were crowded.  Everyone buzzed and murmured when they saw the emperor.  Then there were shouts of how magnificent the new suit was.  But then the procession passes a child.

"But the Emperor has nothing at all on!" said a little child. "Listen to the voice of innocence!" exclaimed his father; and what the child had said was whispered from one to another. "But he has nothing at all on!" at last cried out all the people. The Emperor was vexed, for he knew that the people were right; but he thought the procession must go on now! And the lords of the bedchamber took greater pains than ever, to appear holding up a train, although, in reality, there was no train to hold. [emphasis added]

The Role of Fairy Tales

Fairy tales serve a significant function in the development of children and the passing on of cultural norms.  A number of articles, such as this one, talk about how they help children resolve inherent emotional conflicts.  One article I found, that gathers together many of the benefits, was a chapter subheading called,  "The Value of Fairy Tales In Education."  It listed:

• Fairy tales bring joy into child life.
• Fairy tales satisfy the play spirit of childhood.
• Fairy tales are play forms.
• Fairy tales give the child a power of accurate observation.
• Fairy tales strengthen the power of emotion, develop the power of imagination, train the memory, and exercise the reason.
• Fairy tales extend and intensify the child's social relations.

Fairy tales pose moral dilemmas for us along with an array of human qualities to overcome these dilemmas.  Fairy tales pass on cultural wisdom that we can apply to our daily lives as adults.

I'm assuming that some of you have thought about the Republican nominee and his supporters as you reread the Emperor's New Clothes.   And the various stories that are coming out that suggest that he is all hype and fiction.  Such as this Newsweek story that details the fictions of his fortune.  I would caution those looking for proof of Trump's duplicity to remember their own expectations when accepting the facts in the Newsweek story.  But also take note of the auther Kurt Eichenwald who has done groundbreaking financial reporting including the book Conspiracy of Fools on Enron.  

As more and more 'children' are saying out loud that the Donald has no clothes, more and more people are starting to question their beliefs.

The Role Of Expectations

But I want to share an incident that occurred the other day that demonstrates the power of mental expectations. (Or maybe just the declining quality of my mind.)

I drove to the market. I was taking an air mattress bed, something too big to carry on my bike, over to a friend, and getting some food on the way.  When I came out of the market, I walked over to where I had parked my car.  I was looking for my wife's car and couldn't find it.  Instead, there was a car exactly like my own car.  I was so committed to the idea that I came in my wife's Subaru that I thought, "Wow, there's a car like mine."  Then I looked at the license plate.  It was my car.  Yet my mind was tightly bound to the idea that I'd driven over in the Subaru.  (It uses less gas and so, if I need to drive, and my wife isn't using her car, that's the one I take.) And if I had the Subaru, then my wife must have had to use my car.  But why wouldn't she just call me, since she knew I was going to the market.  And as I was listening to the rings on the phone to ask my wife why she'd driven to the market, I suddenly realized - I had driven my car and not hers.  

As I say, this might just be an indicator that my mind is rapidly deteriorating, but even if that is the case, it still shows how powerfully an expectation can prevent us from seeing the obvious.  Whether it's racial stereotypes, political ideology, ego, desires, one's personal interests, or simple habit, we usually see what we want or expect to see.  

[I'd note one of the more literate discussions of fairy tales, by Meg Moseley, who, importantly, notes that often such tales carry forward cultural biases, like the idea that young maidens must wait to be rescued by handsome princes.]

Loussac Update And Vote

Went by Loussac library while doing errands. It keeps changing.  Here's are some shots at other stages.

If it isn't obvious, I photoshopped the sign into the main picture (which was through the chainlink fence.)  The sign says it's scheduled to be finished by October 24 this year.

I also voted on this ride.  We're headed out of town the day before the primary, so I decided to do my duty today since it was on my roundabout path to get things done.

You can vote early various places.  Voting on Gamble meant I didn't have to fill out all the forms I've had to fill out when I voted at the library.  It was pretty empty and there was no wait at all.  And I joked as I showed my ID about how often I was going to vote.  The lady said a number of folks had mentioned it.  But, she said, in Alaska, if you don't use a picture id or your voter registration card, then your ballot goes into a special envelope and doesn't get counted until after the election when they can check if you voted more than once.  So, there is an easy way to deal with that sort of voter fraud.   Even remote provinces like Alaska can figure it out.

Then I rode the bike trail around Goose Lake to drop off some books at the UAA library and check out the new books shelf.  I'll post some of the new books in the next post or two.