Reading List

Adieu

Dana Goldstein — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 11:44:15 EDT

If you were at the Campus Progress National Conference on Tuesday you know this already, but for those who weren't: Today is my last day as associate editor of CampusProgress.org. On July 9 I begin my new job as a writing fellow at The American Prospect. I hope you check out my daily blogging there at TAPPED. And of course, you'll see me pop up occasionally at CampusProgress.org in my capacity as a freelance writer. I'm hoping to do some interviews with accomplished journalists for the site, and maybe even a few pieces on liberal thinkers young progressives should know about. Sound good? Any suggestions?

I have also launched a personal site for my more historical, light-hearted, and cultural writing, as well as my photography. I hope you'll check it out regularly.

Now comes the hard part -- expressing just how awesome it's been working at Campus Progress, interacting with you all through this website, and building a new generation of progressive leaders (especially journalists!). I started this job just two weeks after college graduation, having never lived in DC before. I had no idea what to expect. But what I found was an enthusiastic, intelligent, fun, diverse, welcoming group of young people working really damn hard. I respect my colleagues here immensely and will miss seeing them every day.

David: You've spoiled me for every other boss ever.

Ben: I know I gave you a bad first impression when I dissed on fact-checking (note to all interns and job-seekers out there: don't do that!). Thankfully, we ended up getting along.

Elana: You confirmed what I've always known is true. Brunonians are just better.

Graham: Only another only child could understand my need to sing to myself and speak in strange voices.

Tamia: Our friendship is so special because I think we always learned from each other in our long talks. I will miss sitting next to you!

Pedro: Your work on student lending impressed the shit out of me. And thanks for being such a peaceful person to share space with.

Ramya: I'll never forget that you remembered me from Westchester even though we had last seen each other 10 years before. You're filled with energy and enthusiasm -- and you're adorable, too. That's why you're great at your job.

Shereen: It has been a pleasure seeing you come into our team and just kick ass.

Rupa: Damn, you made that Iraq Film Project happen. Also - your ability to chat people up never fails to impress me. I'm so glad you're staying at CP.

Keisha: Congratulations on your promotion! I've always been impressed with your grace and can-do attitude.

Emily: From your great taste in music and books and clothes to your savvy on journalism and politics, it's just been wonderful working with you.

Madhu: When we're together, we can't stop talking. Which is why we almost missed that plane. And then walked into a men's bathroom. The conference was awesome. You rock.

Thomas: The publications network is in good hands. Good luck!

Jesse: Our time together was too short. But you kept me laughing, even when I was stressed and sick. Keep in touch!

Cara, Zach, and all the other interns I've worked with: Keep me updated on your exciting lives and your writing. You know where to find me!

Okay, that was a long goodbye, thanks for putting up with it. Much love.

Who You Gonna Call?

Dana Goldstein — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 11:25:03 EDT

According to the New York Times, if you're a young professional woman, you spend a lot of time on the phone with your mom. Hours. Like six hours. Four times a day.

Dr. Gadsden, of the University of Pennsylvania, said that if mothers are orchestrating their daughters’ lives and regularly attempting to take away the hurt, they could be turning them into overly needy adults.

“Parents over the last 25, 30 years have been far more indulgent than they necessarily needed to be with their children,” Dr. Gadsden said. “Some problems have to be solved by yourself.”

I talk to my mom several times a week, but not everyday. And when we do talk, it's usually for at least 15 minutes or half an hour, and often much longer. My male friends have remarked that I seem particularly close to my mom. Well, yes. I'm an only child and my parents are divorced, so we have been each other's main supports for years. But I see similar relationships between many of my female friends and their mothers, regardless of family dynamics. I think our cultural assumptions about young adult's relationships to their parents have certainly shifted, so much so that one friend of mine recently said she feels uncomfortable when she tells people she doesn't feel that close to her mother.

This Times article is gender-specific, but we've seen plenty of coverage of parental "hovering" over both male and female college students via cell phones and email. Do you think it's really about delayed marriage and increased technology? Or does our generation, many of us raised by children of the sixties, really have better, closer relationships with more "with it" parents? How often do you talk to your parents?

Embedding Feminism

Dana Goldstein — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 13:53:11 EDT

That was the title of my panel yesterday at the Campus Progress National Student Conference, which featured Jessica Valenti of Feministing.com, Aimee Thorne-Thomsen from the Pro-Choice Education Project, economist Randy Albelda from UMass-Boston, and political scientist Jennifer Lawless from my alma mater, Brown University. There's already been some discussion of the panel here, with the critique that only one speaker (Aimee) adequately addressed the intersection of race with class and gender.

While Aimee may have sparked many of those discussions, I don't think I'm speaking only for myself when I say that as a young feminist intent on expanding our movement, I think about intersectionality (of race with gender, of class with gender, of sexuality with gender) constantly. I'm a hetero white woman though, so I'm not always the best person to talk about these issues myself. That's why I rely on other women to teach me, and that's exactly what happened yesterday.

All in all, I think the panel was one of the most vibrant and funny conversations I've seen at a conference in a long time. Here are some of my unanswered questions and thoughts as I went over the event in my mind:

1. Aimee urged us to stop using the word "choice" (since not all women have the same choices) and talk about reproductive rights and reproductive justice. Here, here. Does that mean Aimee's awesome Pro-Choice Public Education Project might change its name?
2. I was struck by how many question askers were using feminism as a form of self-help, just like Jessica writes about in Full Frontal Feminism. From boyfriends and male roommates who don't carry their weight at home to conservative families who just don't get it, everyone wanted to talk about how to bring their personal life more in line with their feminist political consciousness. Ladies, I hear you. We all struggle with this everyday.
3. Kudos to Jennifer for being the change she wanted to see in the world and running for Congress against an anti-choice Democrat. She put up a great fight, even if one guy did liken her to a "babysitter." I loved Jennifer's comment that leadership qualities aren't "male" -- but both the men and women who achieve leadership tend to have similar, go-getter qualities that have traditionally been encouraged in men and discouraged in women.
4. Thank you Randy for bringing along a presentation with some powerful statistics: 40 percent of women are earning less than $30,000 annually. Think about that number. And then think about supporting a few kids.

Walking While Female

Dana Goldstein — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 18:16:23 EDT

One of the experiences I associate most closely with puberty is the beginning of cat-calls. I can remember clearly the very first time it happened to me: I was walking home from a friend's house at dusk and a car with a few men in it slowed down to a crawl and shouted at me. I don't remember what they said. My first feeling was fear. My second thought was that this meant I was now more of a woman than a girl. While that may have been briefly exciting, it wore off fast. Ever since, I've had to accept cat-calling as an annoying, gross, and scary side effect of WWF (Walking While Female).

I want to thank Ann Friedman for this excellent post taking apart a new Washington City Paper spread on cat-calling here in DC. A coworker put the City Paper on my desk this morning and suggested I read the pieces, but I avoided doing so, knowing it would open up a can of worms. I do applaud the City Paper for tackling this topic, and yes, it will be good for men to learn that what a woman wears has little to do with how much harassment she gets on the street. But I agree with Ann that the pieces are overly sympathetic to harassers and too focused on women's choices of where to live and what to wear...

What's Not Getting Talked About

Dana Goldstein — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 12:16:16 EDT

From Iraq, to health care, to global warming, the 2008 presidential election is shaping up to be about issues that matter. But what about what's not getting talked about so much? Who's speaking out on K-12 education, reforming our prison-industrial complex, international law, and other less glamorous topics? Check out my thoughts on important policy proposals from second-tier candidates here.

Bringing the War Home

Dana Goldstein — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 13:01:50 EDT

Our friends in IVAW (Iraq Veterans Against the War) "occupy" Manhattan to demonstrate what this war is like for Iraqi civilians. The Nation provides this short documentary of the event:

Cut Out HIV?

Dana Goldstein — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 12:20:24 EDT

From hippies reclaiming the body to immigrant groups who wouldn't even consider it, CNN reports that the circumcision rate in the United States has reached an all-time low of 57 percent. The American Academy of Pediatrics now recommends forgoing circumcision, calling it an unnecessary and painful surgery. Even so, the United States remains the Western nation with by far the least foreskins. In the U.K, for example, fewer than 20 percent of men are circumcised; in Denmark, the number is less than 2 percent.

But don't call off the bris just yet. As I reported for In These Times last month, the World Health Organization is now recommending the procedure, emboldened by studies that found adult circumcisions in Africa decreased men's likelihood of contracting HIV by as much as 60 percent. Following the WHO's lead, New York City is considering promoting adult circumcision as a preventative measure, which worries activists who've been struggling for decades to send the message that using condoms is the only surefire way to protect yourself.

Seems to me that since evidence clearly shows circumcision protects men and their partners from a variety of sexually transmitted infections, we should be promoting the practice, not among grown men who may see the procedure as an alternative to safe sex, but among expectant parents. Get 'em while they're young and you can give them the anatomical benefits of circumcision alongside the lessons about protection and contraception.

- cross-posted at TAPPED

Silencing "Rape"

Dana Goldstein — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 10:53:04 EDT

Can you imagine a person who's been robbed being barred from using the word "rob" at his assailant's trial? How can you tell a jury your wallet was stolen without using the word "steal?"

At Slate, Dahlia Lithwick writes of a Nebraska judge who has banned the words "rape," "assault," "victim," "assailant," and "sexual assault kit" from a rape trial. The victim says that after sharing a few drinks with a man in a bar, she blacked out, and awoke the next morning in the midst of being raped. But the only language left for her to use in the courtroom to describe this act is "sex" or "intercourse." As Lithwick points out, these are words that imply mutual consent. Is it any surprise the trial resulted in a hung jury?

The victim in this case is Torey Bowen. She has said, "This makes women sick, especially the women who have gone through this. They know the difference between sex and rape."

Why do we treat rape victims differently from the innocent victims of any other crime?

Exemplary America?

Dana Goldstein — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 13:55:47 EDT

I too was at Take Back America yesterday, wowed and moved by both Obama and Edwards' speeches. But I find it strange that Matt and Ezra found Edwards so "persuasive," "direct," and "plausible" on foreign policy. Edwards laid out a wildly optimistic vision in which:

1. American energy independence (hence, no more oil cash) forces Middle Eastern nations to invest in education, economic development, and good government.

2.The United States starts to rely on homegrown energy sources (ethanol).

3. Europe doesn't have enough empty space to compete, so it invests heavily in African agriculture and energy.

4. African poverty lifts.

These would all be excellent accomplishments. But the causality here is far from assured. I agree with Brian Beutler that this seems "incredibly difficult to pull off." And more disturbingly, the notion that we can "remake the Middle East" politically just by decreasing our dependence on their oil -- as Edwards suggested today -- is, I fear, as ignorant of entrenched ethnic and religious tensions as the neo-conservatism of George W. Bush. Both theories over-reach and rely upon a grandiose rhetoric in which the United States is not a helpmate to the world's disenfranchised but a direct architect of ideal societies. (To be fair, Edwards' words on aid to alleviate global poverty had an entirely different tone.)

The exceptionalist (and exemplarist) impulse in American history is well-covered, and has of course led to both triumphs and tragedies. Call me a realist, but I'm hoping for a newer, humbler tone to a progressive foreign policy.

- cross-posted at TAPPED

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!

Dana Goldstein — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 11:28:36 EDT

Via Garance Franke-Ruta: You must check out this video of the Clintons from 1992.

Vanity Fair Africa Issue

Dana Goldstein — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 22:49:12 EDT

Fresh on the heels of its green issue featuring Leo DiCaprio with an adorable baby seal, Vanity Fair has devoted July to Africa, with U2's Bono acting as symbolic "guest editor." I admit I was skeptical at first, especially considering the glossy adds for Product (Red)--Bono's effort to donate a percentage of profits from consumer goods to health care in Africa--throughout the magazine. And the Brad Pitt interview with Archbishop Desmond Tutu is unreadable. But I highly recommend Sebastian Junger's reporting from Chad on China's growing economic influence in Africa and support for the genocidal Sudanese regime. Junger highlights fears on the continent that over-reliance on Chinese construction, labor, and oil investments will create a neo-colonial relationship. And he points out that the United States' blockage of China's attempt to purchase UNOCAL forced China's hand in pursuing oil reserves in beyond-the-pale Sudan. A reminder that energy policy is a crucial aspect of our foreign policy. And that climate change and poverty and genocide go hand in hand.

The profile of Jeffrey Sachs is interesting if you don't already know a lot about him. I also wouldn't miss "The Lazarus Effect," which details exactly how the uber-slick Product (Red) campaign works: The advertising dollars are drawn from each company's marketing budget (Gap, Apple, Converse, etc.), so no charity funds are going toward PR. And so far, Product (Red) leather jackets, watches, iPods, and such have raised $25 million to provide Africans with anti-retroviral treatment for HIV/AIDS. (I just can't figure out why those annoying parentheses are part of the name).

If you make it through all this, the excerpt from Tina Brown's new book on Princess Diana is pretty absorbing. Who knew she was secretly in love with a Pakistani heart surgeon?

Gardasil Costs Mad Loot

Dana Goldstein — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 17:00:49 EDT

And Brian Beutler cracks me up. READ HIS BLOG DAILY!

All Hail the Washing Machine

Dana Goldstein — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 11:15:30 EDT

A reminder yesterday from Ben that all conservative cultural critiques have reactionary sexual politics at their core. Proselytizing for suburban sprawl, Reagan administration veteran Ron Utt

was once quoted in The New York Times denying that the sedentary lifestyle of suburbia contributes to obesity. Instead Utt points his finger at the washing machine, arguing, "you're fat for a lot of reasons, like the fact that you don't do laundry by hand."

It's just like a Heritage Foundation fellow to romanticize the days when soiled clothing was laboriously beaten with a paddle, scrubbed on a washboard, and then hung out to dry. It was women who did that work, both for their own families and as wage workers. And as anti-sprawl author James Howard Kunstler points out in Geography of Nowhere, it is women who so often get stuck shuttling children to and fro five times a day in our sprawling, car-dependent suburbs. The landscape of the 1950s all too often promotes the values of the 1950s.

Karma for Sex Blogger?

Dana Goldstein — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 15:13:05 EDT

Remember "Washingtonienne"? She was the low-level Capitol Hill staffer who was fired from her gig as a mail opener for a Republican Senator when her confessional sex-for-rent-money-and-luxury-gifts blog exploded all over the Internets. Then she got a book deal.

Well now Jessica Cutler (her real name) has filed for bankruptcy. I'm not ashamed to say I've read the book (Madhu made me do it!). Cutler's ex-boyfriend and colleague, who featured in the book as a spanking fetishist, is suing her for defamation. That's rather foolish. Now everybody (who didn't already) knows his real name: Robert Steinbuch. He's a former Judiciary Committee lawyer and now a law professor at the University of Arkansas-Little Rock. Anyhow, Cutler claims she can't even pay her bills and student loans, let alone reimburse Steinbuch for the embarrassment of having several thousand obsessive blog readers and political junkies know he's into S&M.

Okay this is all really an excuse to expose my pet peeve about Washingtonienne. In the book, she "slums it" when she hooks up with a bike messenger who lives in Adams Morgan. You know, the neighborhood I'm priced out of on my non-profit salary.

Thank God for Divided Government

Dana Goldstein — Wed, 30 May 2007 16:28:50 EDT

The Supreme Court's 5-4 decision on pay discrimination is disastrous. Employees must file complaints within 180 days of a salary being set, which is simply outside the bounds of common sense. We all know how much secrecy surrounds pay, even in otherwise congenial workplaces. But the Court has decreed that even when there is a pattern of lower raises for women or minority groups that develops over months or years, an individual employee has no legal recourse after 180 days.

The plaintiff in the suit, Lilly Ledbetter , worked for a Goodyear tire plant in Alabama, where she was the only woman out of 17 managers at her level. Although Ledbetter's starting salary was equal to that of her male colleagues, she was given smaller raises and eventually made less than even the lowest-paid man at her level, who started after her.In a characteristically withering dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg invited Congress to overturn the ruling. According to Congressional Quarterly, Hillary Clinton, Ted Kennedy, and George Miller immediately signified their intent to do so.

Who Tolerates LGBT People?

Dana Goldstein — Fri, 25 May 2007 11:51:53 EDT

Via Ezra: Matt Zeitlan hopes the public can be convinced to support LGBT rights under the rationale that as decent people, we should support equality even for those whose lifestyles we find discomfiting. It's a nice thought, but alas, I fear that chronology is exactly reversed. Surveys show that the number one indicator of increased tolerance of LGBT individuals is knowing an LGBT person. As Pew reports:

Personal contact with homosexuality is also a key factor in shaping people's views on this policy issue. Americans who have a friend, colleague or family member who is gay are roughly twice as likely to favor gay marriage as those who do not (39% to 21%).

The good news is that Americans are trending in a direction of growing tolerance for LGBT people and lifestyles. People in their teens and twenties are evenly divided on the question of marriage equality, while older generations overwhelmingly reject the idea. But it's important to understand the contours of the organized opposition to equality for LGBT Americans. Forty-five percent of Americans who oppose marriage equality say homosexuality is immoral, a sin, in contradiction to the Bible, or against their religious beliefs. Another twelve percent cite "[homosexuality] is just wrong." And then there are the nine percent who call homsexuality "not natural or normal."

It's clear that opposition to marriage equality and LGBT rights generally is based on unadulterated intolerance. So asking people to tolerate that which they find immoral, unnatural, sinful, and wrong is not a winning strategy.

Our Peers in Uniform

Dana Goldstein — Thu, 24 May 2007 15:13:55 EDT

A moving story from The Times about West Point's graduating class of 2007. Here's the kind of problem-solving their college courses consisted of:

Today’s West Point cadets are taught how to react to surprise uprisings, often while accompanied by someone acting as an embedded television reporter. “We have a road march, and a crowd of people come in the middle of the road,” Colonel Jones said. “There’s a vehicle on the side. There’s a camera, there’s a kid with a bat, there’s a pregnant woman.”

It makes me anxious just thinking about it. Almost all of the 1,000 cadets graduating this weekend will find themselves leading units in Iraq within the next year. And 49 West Point alumni, some of them born as late as 1983, have already died in Iraq.

Live-Blogging

Dana Goldstein — Thu, 24 May 2007 14:49:32 EDT

Paul Waldman asks "Does Live-Blogging Suck?" and basically answers in the affirmative, noting that there are few situations (if any) in which second to second description and commentary is more useful than reasoned reflection an hour or so after the fact. I agree with Paul; I find most live-blogging hopelessly slogging. I've done it myself, too, and can't say it has ever motivated many comments or debates.

Who Deserves to Learn?

Dana Goldstein — Thu, 24 May 2007 12:34:00 EDT

Last week we heard about high school students coloring in class. Today The New York Times reports on New York City's decision to close its four "P-schools," second-rate high schools opened in the 1960s with the intention of hiding pregnant teenagers from the eyes of their peers:

The decision to close the schools came after a six-month study commissioned by the Education Department essentially concluded that the girls, eager to earn high school diplomas despite their pregnancies, had been relegated to a second-class tier of schools that treat them more like mothers-to-be than curious students.

The schools offer young women classes in quilt-making and breast-feeding, not in addition to academics, but instead of them. Cutting shapes for the quilt patterns is akin to lessons in "geometry," one principal told the Times. Less than half of the "p-school" students return to regular high school after the birth of their babies; the infants aren't eligible for in-school daycare until they are two months old, effectively enforcing a 2-month break from study for their mothers.

Forty New York City public high schools offer daycare services, so there's hope that once back in the regular system, young mothers can work toward diplomas without struggling to find and pay for childcare. They'll need extra help and services, including workshops on parenting skills and academic catching up. But it's good news that the city is trying to do right by young mothers. More than any other students, they immediately need knowledge and skills-based learning. They have a family to support.

Cross-posted at TAPPED.

Map of the Blogosphere

Dana Goldstein — Mon, 21 May 2007 15:28:24 EDT

The Politico's interactive map of the blogosphere is fun stuff; roam around from "I.F. Stone's Glasses" to "Reagan's Belt," with a stop for some "Snark" "Inside the Beltway," and, if you're brave, venture out to "Ann Coulter's Whip." A few of my favorites are missing: Feministing.com, Ezra Klein, Echidne of the Snakes, and the feminist blogosphere in general. But all in all, amusing.