NO, It's Not Hip to Be Round. I'm Calling 'Lazy.'

What a ridiculous premise this NY Times article has!
So, just because the economy is bad, we should forget about health and well-being. Since when was taking care of one's self a sign of decadence and having too much time?
I don't know Guy Trebay nor have I ever seen him in person but I would bet that he has, at least a mild form, of bicep-envy.

A bit says:

“I sort of think the six-pack abs obsession got so prissy it stopped being masculine,” is how Aaron Hicklin, the editor of Out, explains the emergence of the Ralph Kramden. What once seemed young and hot, for gay and straight men alike, now seems passé. Like manscaping, spray-on tans and other metrosexual affectations, having a belly one can bounce quarters off suggests that you may have too much time on your hands.

“It’s not cool to be seen spending so much time fussing around about your body,” Mr. Hicklin said.

And so guys can happily and guiltlessly go to seed.

No way, man, no friggin' way! How ridiculous is this?! Are the Times out of serious writers with credible stories and premises?
More here.

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The Economics of Being a 'Hef' Girlfriend

Yowsah, yowsah!

"Being a Hefner Girlfriend was a specialised job, not to be confused with being a Playboy Playmate. In fact, Girlfriends were not allowed to become Playmates because Hef had found that they tended to flee the Mansion as soon as they collected their $25,000 Playmate cheque. Girlfriends were given their own bedroom, an allowance of $1,000 a week in cash, a new car, free dental and medical treatment, almost limitless clothes, hairdos, make-up and facials and all the cosmetic surgery they could wish for – Izabella reckons Hef shelled out $70,000 a year on breast implants. "

Read more here.

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New Study on Gender and Academia

The abstract of the study says:

"Why aren’t there more women in science? Female college students are currently 37 percent less likely than males to obtain a bachelor’s degree in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), and comprise only 25 percent of the STEM workforce. This paper begins to shed light on this issue by exploiting a unique dataset of college students who have been randomly assigned to professors over a wide variety of mandatory standardized courses. We focus on the role of professor gender. Our results suggest that while professor gender has little impact on male students, it has a powerful effect on female students’ performance in math and science classes, their likelihood of taking future math and science courses, and their likelihood of graduating with a STEM degree. The estimates are largest for female students with very strong math skills, who are arguably the students who are most suited to careers in science. Indeed, the gender gap in course grades and STEM majors is eradicated when high performing female students’ introductory math and science classes are taught by female professors. In contrast, the gender of humanities professors has only minimal impact on student outcomes. We believe that these results are indicative of important environmental influences at work. "

The full study may be found here.

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Men and Women Read Differently?

Definitely worth a read.

"A study of reading habits showed almost half of women are 'page turners' who finish a book soon after starting it compared to only 26 per cent of men.

The survey 2,000 adults also found those who take a long time to read books and only managed one or two a year were twice as likely to be male than female.

Men are also more likely to have shelves full of books that have never been opened.

The only similarities between the sexes came among those who have two books on the bedside table at once and who start one book on the middle of reading another, switching easily. Twelve per cent of women were in this category – exactly the same number as men.
...
About four in 10 of the 1,500 said they had lied about what they had read to impress friends or potential partners – 46 per cent of men and 33 per cent of women.

Read more here.

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Gender in Higher Professions: How Does It figure?

"“People say, oh, we shouldn’t have quotas, but diversity is a form of excellence, and there are plenty of outstanding women out there,” Jo Handelsman, president of the Franklin society and a microbiologist at the University of Wisconsin, said in an interview. “You don’t have to lower your standards in the slightest — you just have to pay attention.”

Some would like to see novel approaches to treating systemic problems that often work against women’s scientific ambitions. Mary Ann Mason and Marc Goulden of the University of California, Berkeley, have gathered extensive data showing stark male-female differences in the family structure and personal lives of academic researchers at the top tiers of the profession."

A very good piece! And not only for those in academia. More here.

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Gifts for Men or Women?

Especially apropos during this season. Here is the featured piece.
What do you think?

A piece says:
" The researchers think their findings are consistent with the tendency for women to act as guardians of relationships, and that their positive reaction to the receipt of a bad gift was a form of psychological defence against the disappointment of receiving a dud present.

"That is, in response to the relational threat posed by receiving a bad gift from a partner, women may be more motivated than men to protect their sense of similarity to the gift-giver," the researchers said, adding that this reflects "the broader tendency for women — more than men — to guard relationships against potential threats."

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via MR
graph per google image

Gendering a Profession

Good piece.

"Rania Abou Youssef, 26, a flight attendant for the Dubai-based airline, Emirates, said that when she went home to Alexandria, Egypt, her female cousins treated her like a heroine. “I’ve been doing this for four years,” she said, “and still they’re always asking, ‘Where did you go and what was it like and where are the photographs?’ ”

Many of the young Arab women working in the Persian Gulf take delight in their status as pioneers, role models for their friends and younger female relatives. Young women brought up in a culture that highly values community, they have learned to see themselves as individuals.

For many families, allowing a daughter to work, much less to travel overseas unaccompanied, may call her virtue into question and threaten her marriage prospects. Yet this culture is changing, said Musa Shteiwi, a sociologist at Jordan University in Amman. “We’re noticing more and more single women going to the gulf these days,” he said. “It’s still not exactly common, but over the last four or five years it’s become quite an observable phenomenon.”

More here.

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Salt Lake City Healthiest City

Those of us who have experiential knowledge of Salt Lake City find the below enclosed article particularly true.

"If your New Year's resolution is to live healthy, you might want to move. A new study shows Salt Lake City, Utah, is the healthiest city for women, while Madison, Wisconsin is the best place for men."

Read more here.

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Old Greece From Female Perspective

"The main misconception is the notion that women had a universally mute and passive role in Athenian society. It is true that they lived with restrictions modern Westerners would find intolerable. Technically they were not citizens. In terms of civil rights, their status differed little from that of slaves. Marriages were arranged; girls were expected to have children in their midteens. Yet, the show argues, the assumption that women lived in a state of purdah, completely removed from public life, is contradicted by the depictions of them in art."

More here.

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Don Draper's Guide

Those of you who enjoy AMC's Mad Men, especially its leading character Don Draper as played by Jon Hamm, will find this SNL bit worthy of a chuckle. A previous blog is here.

The Women, the Movie

The Women is directed by Diane English. It could have been significantly better, most definitely. Annette Bening's talents were underused. As were those of Candace Bergman, even Meg Ryan's.
Another thing that Diane English could have tackled is the reality of class differences and class mobility. The film left much to be desired, especially on this account.
Also, I realize that fashion and the aesthetics of the field are, indeed, relevant and important to many, but isn't the 'text' of fashion been covered enough?
All the Patricia Field 'texts' and the 'Project Runway' and 'Project Runway'-ish shows havent' quite been enough?!
When Meg Ryan's character, Mary, shows her 'fashion line' at the end of the film, I believe I heard something like, 'oy!' sighed somewhere. I concur with that sigh. Fully.
graph per movies.yahoo

Culture and Gender Difference

An interesting read.
"When men and women take personality tests, some of the old Mars-Venus stereotypes keep reappearing. On average, women are more cooperative, nurturing, cautious and emotionally responsive. Men tend to be more competitive, assertive, reckless and emotionally flat. Clear differences appear in early childhood and never disappear.
...

What’s not clear is the origin of these differences. Evolutionary psychologists contend that these are innate traits inherited from ancient hunters and gatherers. Another school of psychologists asserts that both sexes’ personalities have been shaped by traditional social roles, and that personality differences will shrink as women spend less time nurturing children and more time in jobs outside the home."

Read more here

graph per ny times

Gender Differences: Car Style

Now this.
Apparently an anthropomorphised car is, indeed, this powerful.
I thought Toyota Prius would have been mentioned, too. Well, at least, it could have gotten a favorable mention.

"A study commissioned by a phallically named insurance company proves beyond all doubt that the unbridled roar of an Italian supercar turns women on but the soft purr of a fuel-efficient econobox doesn't stimulate anyone's MPG-spot.

David Moxon subjected 40 men and women to the sounds of a Maserati, Lamborghini and Ferrari, then measured the amount of testosterone in their saliva. He found everyone had higher levels of the stuff -- a measure of their arousal -- after hearing the revving exotics, but the amount the women had was off the charts.

The econobox, however, left everyone colder than a January day in Nome.

The study was commissioned by the ultra-exclusive British insurer Hiscox (we swear we're not making this up), which was curious to know how people respond to high-end luxury cars. "We knew owners of luxury cars felt a connection with the sound of their vehicles," says Steve Langan, managing director of the insurance company. "We have now scientifically proven the physical attraction people feel when it comes to cars."

To test the theory that high-performance cars get people hot, Moxon had 40 men and women listen to recordings of the three Italian exotics and a Volkswagen Polo. Everyone had significantly more testosterone after hearing the exotics, and all of the women were turned on by the Maserati. The guys, on the other hand, were drawn to the Lamborghini."

graph per blog.wired

Manscaping

Hm, women need more time to get ready?
Well, Chad tells us a different tale.

Women Take Too Long to Get Ready?

The second biggest pet peeve of mine is being late for any/everything. But some people, it seems like, do need more time to get ready than others. More patience is required by those who get to 'see and be seen' in a shorter amount of time. Hence this article on the Telegraph was bound to be featured here as well.
A bit says:
"Women spend 3,276 hours getting ready
Women spend 136 days of their lives getting ready for a night out - enough time for an astronaut to fly to the moon and back 22 times."
Any strong feelings on the matter?