By Andre Picard, Globe and Mail, September 6, 2011
Take a close look at the statistics and a trend becomes clear: The No. 1 risk factor for suicide is being male.
Of the 10 people who die by suicide daily in this country, about eight are men and two are women.
There are libraries full of research examining this phenomenon, which is not unique to Canada. There are many possible explanations but few easy answers.
We know that suicide is a vast societal problem that affects all age groups – in Canada, suicides have been recorded in children as young as 8 and in seniors over the age of 90 – and all socioeconomic groups....
The vast majority of suicides result from underlying mental illness coupled with profound emotional pain, and they are often triggered by some external event, such as a job loss, failing an exam, the breakup of a relationship or the death of a loved one. In other words, stress is the big trigger.
Yet, only a tiny proportion of those who suffer from depression die by suicide. (On the other hand, close to half of people with untreated schizophrenia will take their own lives.) There are also factors that increase the risk of depression and suicide, including a history of head injuries and alcohol/drug abuse.
Women are about twice as likely as men to suffer from depression. They are also far more likely to attempt suicide but tend to be less “successful” (and, yes, that is a horrific notion of “success.”) Still, the stats tell us that, in women, there are 20 attempts for every completed suicide while, in men, the ratio is 4:1.
One reason is that men use far more violent means to kill themselves, principally hanging and firearms, while women generally use poisoning (drug overdoses). Death though is just the tip of the iceberg: Another 48 people daily are hospitalized with self-inflicted injuries, most of them women.
The principal reason more men than women die by suicide is that men do not seek help and spiral into despair, hopelessness and self-harm.
Men also self-medicate, largely with alcohol, which tends to make their symptoms worse. When they are depressed, they don’t retreat into a shell, but act out, often violently. (Perhaps we should consider that the depressed are drawn to being hockey enforcers rather than the reverse?) Women, on the other hand, tend to self-medicate with food and sleep; they also cry out for help – literally and figuratively. They talk to friends, they talk to counsellors and they talk to physicians about their depression and suicidal thoughts.
One of the main enduring stigmas about mental illness, particularly for men, is that it is a sign of weakness. From an early age, boys are taught – or socialized – to be tough, to not cry. They internalize their pain. They repress their feelings and their fears.
This silence can be fatal. Yet the continuing carnage that results – more men die by suicide than in motor vehicle collisions – is largely hidden away and invisible.
When we have a rare glimpse of this grim reality, as we have had with the death of Mr.(Wade) Belak (formerly of the Toronto Maple Leafs of the NHL), we owe it to ourselves to not be distracted by peripheral concerns like fighting in hockey and zero in on big issues like how to treat depression and prevent suicide in males. Obviously our current approach is not working.
When the black dogs of depression come growling, when the suicidal thoughts become overwhelming, boys need not be boys and men need not be men.
They need to learn – from an early age and regardless of how macho their profession – that they can seek help, they can be vulnerable, they can be sick and get better.
The hoary myths we cling to about toughness and manhood too often leave us with young men dangling by a rope.
Sadly, I recall the names of several males who took their own lives when I was a young boy growing up in a small Ontario town. A pharmacist, a wholesale, a men's clothing retailer, a retired gentleman, all come to mind, and all of them I knew personally, without even suspecting their outcome. Guns and a hose attached to the exhaust of the car in an enclosed garage were the methods I recall. I also recall, when I was twelve, one night being wakened around 3:00 a.m. by my mother and told to to the basement "right away!" I had no idea why, and did not bother to inquire.
When I arrived in the basement, I found my own father behind the charcoal-fired jacket heater used to generate hot water, holding a .22 calibre rifle to his head.
"Give me the gun!" I recall saying as calmly as I could.
He handed it to me and I took it upstairs, although I have no recollection where I placed it, or even whether or not it was loaded. I never checked. That was in 1954; he died in 1996, some forty-two years later, and in that time I never heard a word uttered about the incident from either my mother or my father.
What I did hear about many times, however, were allegations that my father's father, my grandfather, in my mother's words, "was crazy" because he attempted to take his own life, a story recounted by one of his adult daughters in a letter to me in the mid 1990's, yet when I attempted to confirm its veracity through my own father, he denied it ever happened.
While studying theology, I took a course entitled, "Death and Dying" from an outstanding pastoral counsellor. During that course, I inquired from the partner of another male suicide what follow-up support seemed to work for her. She confirmed that her deceased partner had returned to excessive alcohol consumption about which she had no idea. I also wrote a thesis on the liturgical suicide of a priest who was clearly depressed and wounded by many pains in his life a most recent rejection for a professional position to which he aspired.
Clearly, the culture of masculinity, not only the expectations of being male (including silence and resilience in the midst of pain, refusal to "talk" about pain to anyone, medicating the pain with whatever the choice of medicine: alcohol, work, drugs both prescription and non-prescription, sex, gambling etc. is more conducive to male suicide, especially to the much lower ratio of attempts to completions (4:1 as compared with women, 20:1)
Some men and women organized a conference on reasons why men do not seek professional help, in Kingston, ON. When I met one of the key-note speakers, I was moved to respond that men are men, are must not apologize for being men, just as a rose need not apologize for being a rose, and not a Lily.
A clinical, psychological approach to men, in my view, is not the answer to depression, nor is it the answer to mental illness, exclusively. Clinical approaches frequently involve one-on-one interactions although group interactions are also part of the available menu.
The clinical approach is to employ the medical model of treatment, as if there were a disease that needs to be made well, less toxic and less influential in a man's life. If he is too aggressive, he must be made to act out less, to repress his emotions and in order to achieve this result, both "talk therapy" and medications are prescribed. If he is too withdrawn, a similar chemical-talk duality is often prescribed.
Our society has become dependent on the medical model of treating most aberrant conditions.
I question the quality of "aberrant" that is allegedly found in many men. Have we not erred much too far in the direction of the "disease" model of defining what is wrong with a person whose attitudes, actions, speech and general demeanour do not conform to our "definition" of what is appropriate.
Using the DSM-IV, for example, the definition of "depression" in that "psychiatric bible" is derived from female patients, not from a cross section of both male and female patients. Consequently, the treatment modalities are also based on their relative success among women patients.
There is considerable evidence that North American society has made men the "scape-goats" for many of our social ills.
Men commit far more acts of violence that do women.
Men drop out of school at higher rates than women.
Men suffer from learning difficulties at a rate higher than women.
Men are considered "dummies," and/or "stupid" and/or "socially maladjusted" much more often than women.
Men do not adapt to a school curriculum that points them toward reading, writing and emotional identification nearly as effectively as do female students.
Men "hide" their shyness in their "tech" gadgets, and in their macho mask, and in their physical prowess whereas women seek out other women who are also shy and find comfort and solace with a comparable peer.
Men do not have a vocabulary for their emotions nearly as early nor as completely as do women, in fact many men consider such a vocabulary to be "effeminate" and therefore to be avoided at all costs.
Men are not taught, either formally or informally, the complexities of human relationships, especially with the opposite gender, when the need is measured in the number of divorces, reaching at least 40% by some studies and as high as 50% in other studies.
The male model of gathering and writing the daily news reports easily trumps the perspective of women: for example, it is the "horse race" of all political competitions that trumps the nuances of policy and their underpinning thought or philosophy. Consequently, a good idea will be far less likely to reach a headline than the score of the most recent poll.
The male model of measuring success in most organizations is seen in the inordinately high use of numbers, size, increased production and profits and dividends, not the drop in absenteeism, nor the rise in philanthropy by the company, nor the decline in frequency of personal conflict. This includes, tragically, the christian church, where, in my experience, a bishop's vision has been touted in corporate vernacular: 10% more people and 15% more money in the coffers. This example, a true story, demonstrates the abandonment of the principles of the gospel, and any attempt at removing gender from the calculations. It also engenders the opposite behaviours from clergy to those needed to grow integrated, and effective community circles when both men and women could and would learn from each other to talk about their spiritual lives, without fearing the embarrassment that often accompanies such a discourse involving both genders.
As our society moves to less and less authentic human contact, and more and more hiding our deepest feelings, including our deepest fears, anxieties and disappointments, men will "fit" into the model being created by both men and women, unconsciously, that not only permits, but actually encourages the cover-up of real pain, and real discomfort. It is as if we are addicted to the "story with the happy ending" as the one we are all pursuing....and look at the death-denying culture we have on our hands, our minds and our spirits.
A small sliver of hope might be seen peeking through the cracks around these three male suicides, as they stories prompt both more stories and more talk around the water cooler.
With profound thanks and encouragement for his insightful piece, to Andre Picard.
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Monday, August 22, 2011
Jack Layton's legacy: "He talked to men about men's issues" (Party President)
On this day that marks the death of the leader of the Official Opposition in the House of Commons in Ottawa, the CBC has dedicated several hours to commemorating his life, political contribution and personal legacy.
It is the comment of Brian Topp, President of the New Democratic Party that struck me. When asked what he will take away from the experience of working with Jack Layton, Mr. Topp commented:
"Jack always talked to men and he left that image in my mind, and I will try to learn to do that, as I pay respect to his legacy."
Imagine a political leader talking to men about violence committed by men, about the need to respect women, about the importance of being a male member of the human race....it is almost inconceivable!
And, in that moment, we saw, perhaps for the very first time in Canadian public life, a demonstration of the importance Jack Layton placed on the definition of masculinity in a world gone mad with hard power.
Jack's departure letter, composed on Saturday afternoon, a mere two days prior to his untimely death, with a few of his closest associates including his wife Olivia Chow, also herself a Member of Parliament for the NDP, closes with these words:
My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world.
Here is a national political leader unafraid to acknowledge his optimism, his hope and his love...as important qualities in any attempt to "change the world"....
Sounds almost triumphal, certainly spiritually uplifting and undoubtedly unexpected coming from a male, in the current cultural climate in North America.
And there is not a person alive who knows Jack Layton who would permit his being dubbed a "wimp"...
He was a partisan, a fighter for justice and equality and fairness in the Canadian political debate, a champion of individual rights of gays and lesbians, of the underclass, of First Nations people and of those who needed a helping hand to make their way out of dependence.
For all of his many gifts, talents and indomitable spirit, Jack Layton undertook one of the most challenging and important tasks for any political leader in the twenty-first century...challenging and mentoring other men into their highest ideals and their best in all relationships.
And he not only used these words; he lived their importance in being able to bring people of different ideologies and points of view together to accomplish practical goals in the larger public interest.
Would that more men than the NDP President can and do hear and accept the challenge that Jack Layton posed for men in Canada and in North America.
Such a level of acceptance of that challenge will change our schools, our families, our corporations and our political discourse...and all of that change will be for the higher good of both men and women.
It is the comment of Brian Topp, President of the New Democratic Party that struck me. When asked what he will take away from the experience of working with Jack Layton, Mr. Topp commented:
"Jack always talked to men and he left that image in my mind, and I will try to learn to do that, as I pay respect to his legacy."
Imagine a political leader talking to men about violence committed by men, about the need to respect women, about the importance of being a male member of the human race....it is almost inconceivable!
And, in that moment, we saw, perhaps for the very first time in Canadian public life, a demonstration of the importance Jack Layton placed on the definition of masculinity in a world gone mad with hard power.
Jack's departure letter, composed on Saturday afternoon, a mere two days prior to his untimely death, with a few of his closest associates including his wife Olivia Chow, also herself a Member of Parliament for the NDP, closes with these words:
My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world.
Here is a national political leader unafraid to acknowledge his optimism, his hope and his love...as important qualities in any attempt to "change the world"....
Sounds almost triumphal, certainly spiritually uplifting and undoubtedly unexpected coming from a male, in the current cultural climate in North America.
And there is not a person alive who knows Jack Layton who would permit his being dubbed a "wimp"...
He was a partisan, a fighter for justice and equality and fairness in the Canadian political debate, a champion of individual rights of gays and lesbians, of the underclass, of First Nations people and of those who needed a helping hand to make their way out of dependence.
For all of his many gifts, talents and indomitable spirit, Jack Layton undertook one of the most challenging and important tasks for any political leader in the twenty-first century...challenging and mentoring other men into their highest ideals and their best in all relationships.
And he not only used these words; he lived their importance in being able to bring people of different ideologies and points of view together to accomplish practical goals in the larger public interest.
Would that more men than the NDP President can and do hear and accept the challenge that Jack Layton posed for men in Canada and in North America.
Such a level of acceptance of that challenge will change our schools, our families, our corporations and our political discourse...and all of that change will be for the higher good of both men and women.
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Can we educate boys when "men are society's scapegoats"?
By Vicki Larson, Good Men Project website, July 12, 2011
Gabriel Aubry is being a bad dad. Well, we don’t know that for a fact; all we know is that actress Halle Berry, with whom the model had a daughter, now 3, is claiming that he’s been neglectful. She may be right, she may be wrong, but in the eyes of much of the world, Aubry’s already guilty.
People can — and do — say anything they want in a nasty custody or divorce battle. And as a society, we often tend to assume the worst about men. But what if we’re wrong?
We’re used to men being violent. Literature, movies and video games are full of heroes and antiheroes who kill and maim their way into our hearts and nightmares. At the same time, we tell boys to “suck it up” instead of expressing pain, leaving them few emotions but anger. Then we chastise them when they actually get angry — or live in fear of their anger. And sometimes we use the one emotion we’ve allowed them to our advantage.
Men, of course, aren’t the only ones who can do damage; statistics show that women can be just as violent as men. But while the Violence Against Women Act provides millions of dollars for shelters for abused women, you don’t see too many shelters — any, actually — for abused men. “It’s often been taken for granted that women can’t really do that much damage, so it’s OK to maybe slap your boyfriend or do something of that nature,” says Kellie Palazzolo, an assistant professor at Arizona State University’s Hugh Downs School of Human Communication who is overseeing research on how college students perceive female and male perpetrators.
That may be why so many women applauded Elin Nordegren’s alleged golf club attack on then-hubby Tiger Woods – we just don’t like to think of women being violent except in self-defense. He cheated on her; he made her do that!
And in the “he said-she said” of so many marital breakups, like that of Hulk and Linda Hogan, where she claims he was violent and abusive and he says she’s “delusional,” or of actress Meredith Baxter, who claims in her memoir, “Untitled”, that she was physically and psychologically abused by ex David Birney, while he says her book’s “an appalling abuse of the truth,” whom do we believe?
Same when it comes to sexual violence. In the “he said-she said” of former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who was released from house arrest last week, and the 32-year-old hotel maid he allegedly raped, the maid has a history of lying and Strauss-Kahn has a history of sexual predation. Whom do we believe?
Hélène Périvier, co-director of the gender program at Paris’ Institut d’Etudes Politiques, worries the fallout of the DSK case may hurt women; while false reports of rape and sexual violence are statistically rare, she says, “it suffices to cement doubts and discredit the word of women going to the police in the future.”
But women, like men, lie, and the results can be devastating. And false reports of rape and sexual violence are not as statistically rare as Périvier and others may believe, according to many experts, including Dr. Warren Farrell, chair of the Commission to Create a White House Council on Boys to Men, who details the results of numerous studies in his books “Father and Child Reunion” and “The Myth of Male Power.” In fact, they occur often during divorce.
As Farrell writes:
“Men are about 19 more times more likely than women to say they have been falsely accused of sexual abuse. About 85 percent of these abuse allegations are made by women during battles over parent time, during the throes of divorce, or when a live-in situation is failing. … “(A) sex-abuse charge — even if false — often costs the father his job, his health, his friends, his reputation, and his relationship with his child.”
Like the hotel maid who allegedly discussed the possible benefits of pursuing charges against Strauss-Kahn, we’re all — men and women — able to exploit each other. When it comes to custody cases, however, the odds are often stacked against dads. “Some women are coached to make false allegations of domestic violence, rape and child abuse,” says Dr. Tara Palmatier, the no-nonsense founder of A Shrink 4 Men, in an email exchange with me. “Their attorneys may file baseless restraining orders to raise the stakes on men in the divorce or custody cases. These tactics don’t just hurt men: they create widespread cynicism about the family court and the efficacy of the justice system.”
Oregon took a bold step to address that last week when Gov. John Kitzhaber signed into law HB2183, which comes down hard on anyone knowingly making a false case of child abuse. The key is “knowing,” says the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Wayne Krieger, who acknowledged that false accusations often arise between divorcing couples.
But, how often is that? The U.S. Department of Health and Human Service’s Administration for Children & Families says of the percentage of the 3.3 million referrals for child abuse and neglect in 2009 it investigated, “Two-thirds of reports found all allegations to be unsubstantiated or intentionally false (64.3% and 0.1%, respectively).” But child abuse or neglect is just a small part of false claims in custody battles.
Many high-conflict custody cases don’t start out that way, Farrell says, because most about-to-be divorced moms recognize that kids need their dads, too. But divorce offers a chance to start over — maybe move closer to one’s parents or to a new love, or relocate for a new job. If a savvy lawyer informs a woman that her ex could get equal custody, thus putting the kabosh on her plans, and then asks if she ever feared him, whether he ever cursed at her, called her names, raised his voice or screamed in a fit of rage, “I’m so angry at you, I could kill you” — and what marriage doesn’t have some sort of anger, yelling or threats? — well, there’s a false case of abuse in the making, he says. Divorces can become high conflict if a dad, realizing that his ex’s plans may cause him to lose his kids and he doesn’t want to lose them, cries, “No way!”
In the custody battle between champion fighter Chuck “The Iceman” Liddell and his ex, Lori Geyer, over their 12-year-old son, accusations are flying on both sides. Who knows who’s telling the truth? But one thing Geyer may have on her side is fear; she says Liddell tried to intimidate her by “pacing back and forth and staring her down.” And fear is enough to raise the shadow of a doubt, Farrell says. Most judges would rather take the safe route — after all, who wants to make a mistake and put a child or woman back in an abuser’s control?
And so men walk around somewhat guilty until proven innocent. And sometimes, no one’s too interested in proving them innocent.
Farrell is. He gets weekly calls from men who say they’re being falsely accused. So is Palmatier. The clinical psychologist has worked with numerous men in abusive relationships who feel unheard. Men, she tells me, are often default scapegoats. A woman hits a man and we assume he did something to her to justify it. A father doesn’t see his kids so he must be a deadbeat dad, even if the truth is that his ex has done everything in her power to keep him from them. A woman screams and neighbors call the cops who arrest the husband when it was the wife who assaulted him.
“As a society, we don’t typically think of men in the role of a victim. We can’t even recognize it when we’re confronted by physical evidence,” Palmatier writes. “On the other hand, we’re inclined to believe accusations about men.”
Not only is it unfair and dishonest, she says, but it’s “damaging to boys and young men, gender relations, relationships, families and ‘the best interests of the children.’ And it gives the women who are predators a free pass.”
Automatically assuming the worst of men is a form of discrimination, she, Farrell and others say. And they’re right.
Halle Berry says Gabriel Aubry is being a bad dad, just as many women say about their exes. Whom do you believe?
This article first appeared on the Huffington Post, where Vicki Larson is a regular columnist.
Vicki Larson is the lifestyles editor at the Marin Independent Journal, and writes for Mommy Tracked, Huffington Post, The Working Chronicles, a national project that explores what Americans think about work, as well as other places. You can follow her on Twitter at @OMGchronicles or visit her blog at OMGchronicles.vickilarson.com
Gabriel Aubry is being a bad dad. Well, we don’t know that for a fact; all we know is that actress Halle Berry, with whom the model had a daughter, now 3, is claiming that he’s been neglectful. She may be right, she may be wrong, but in the eyes of much of the world, Aubry’s already guilty.
People can — and do — say anything they want in a nasty custody or divorce battle. And as a society, we often tend to assume the worst about men. But what if we’re wrong?
We’re used to men being violent. Literature, movies and video games are full of heroes and antiheroes who kill and maim their way into our hearts and nightmares. At the same time, we tell boys to “suck it up” instead of expressing pain, leaving them few emotions but anger. Then we chastise them when they actually get angry — or live in fear of their anger. And sometimes we use the one emotion we’ve allowed them to our advantage.
Men, of course, aren’t the only ones who can do damage; statistics show that women can be just as violent as men. But while the Violence Against Women Act provides millions of dollars for shelters for abused women, you don’t see too many shelters — any, actually — for abused men. “It’s often been taken for granted that women can’t really do that much damage, so it’s OK to maybe slap your boyfriend or do something of that nature,” says Kellie Palazzolo, an assistant professor at Arizona State University’s Hugh Downs School of Human Communication who is overseeing research on how college students perceive female and male perpetrators.
That may be why so many women applauded Elin Nordegren’s alleged golf club attack on then-hubby Tiger Woods – we just don’t like to think of women being violent except in self-defense. He cheated on her; he made her do that!
And in the “he said-she said” of so many marital breakups, like that of Hulk and Linda Hogan, where she claims he was violent and abusive and he says she’s “delusional,” or of actress Meredith Baxter, who claims in her memoir, “Untitled”, that she was physically and psychologically abused by ex David Birney, while he says her book’s “an appalling abuse of the truth,” whom do we believe?
Same when it comes to sexual violence. In the “he said-she said” of former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who was released from house arrest last week, and the 32-year-old hotel maid he allegedly raped, the maid has a history of lying and Strauss-Kahn has a history of sexual predation. Whom do we believe?
Hélène Périvier, co-director of the gender program at Paris’ Institut d’Etudes Politiques, worries the fallout of the DSK case may hurt women; while false reports of rape and sexual violence are statistically rare, she says, “it suffices to cement doubts and discredit the word of women going to the police in the future.”
But women, like men, lie, and the results can be devastating. And false reports of rape and sexual violence are not as statistically rare as Périvier and others may believe, according to many experts, including Dr. Warren Farrell, chair of the Commission to Create a White House Council on Boys to Men, who details the results of numerous studies in his books “Father and Child Reunion” and “The Myth of Male Power.” In fact, they occur often during divorce.
As Farrell writes:
“Men are about 19 more times more likely than women to say they have been falsely accused of sexual abuse. About 85 percent of these abuse allegations are made by women during battles over parent time, during the throes of divorce, or when a live-in situation is failing. … “(A) sex-abuse charge — even if false — often costs the father his job, his health, his friends, his reputation, and his relationship with his child.”
Like the hotel maid who allegedly discussed the possible benefits of pursuing charges against Strauss-Kahn, we’re all — men and women — able to exploit each other. When it comes to custody cases, however, the odds are often stacked against dads. “Some women are coached to make false allegations of domestic violence, rape and child abuse,” says Dr. Tara Palmatier, the no-nonsense founder of A Shrink 4 Men, in an email exchange with me. “Their attorneys may file baseless restraining orders to raise the stakes on men in the divorce or custody cases. These tactics don’t just hurt men: they create widespread cynicism about the family court and the efficacy of the justice system.”
Oregon took a bold step to address that last week when Gov. John Kitzhaber signed into law HB2183, which comes down hard on anyone knowingly making a false case of child abuse. The key is “knowing,” says the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Wayne Krieger, who acknowledged that false accusations often arise between divorcing couples.
But, how often is that? The U.S. Department of Health and Human Service’s Administration for Children & Families says of the percentage of the 3.3 million referrals for child abuse and neglect in 2009 it investigated, “Two-thirds of reports found all allegations to be unsubstantiated or intentionally false (64.3% and 0.1%, respectively).” But child abuse or neglect is just a small part of false claims in custody battles.
Many high-conflict custody cases don’t start out that way, Farrell says, because most about-to-be divorced moms recognize that kids need their dads, too. But divorce offers a chance to start over — maybe move closer to one’s parents or to a new love, or relocate for a new job. If a savvy lawyer informs a woman that her ex could get equal custody, thus putting the kabosh on her plans, and then asks if she ever feared him, whether he ever cursed at her, called her names, raised his voice or screamed in a fit of rage, “I’m so angry at you, I could kill you” — and what marriage doesn’t have some sort of anger, yelling or threats? — well, there’s a false case of abuse in the making, he says. Divorces can become high conflict if a dad, realizing that his ex’s plans may cause him to lose his kids and he doesn’t want to lose them, cries, “No way!”
In the custody battle between champion fighter Chuck “The Iceman” Liddell and his ex, Lori Geyer, over their 12-year-old son, accusations are flying on both sides. Who knows who’s telling the truth? But one thing Geyer may have on her side is fear; she says Liddell tried to intimidate her by “pacing back and forth and staring her down.” And fear is enough to raise the shadow of a doubt, Farrell says. Most judges would rather take the safe route — after all, who wants to make a mistake and put a child or woman back in an abuser’s control?
And so men walk around somewhat guilty until proven innocent. And sometimes, no one’s too interested in proving them innocent.
Farrell is. He gets weekly calls from men who say they’re being falsely accused. So is Palmatier. The clinical psychologist has worked with numerous men in abusive relationships who feel unheard. Men, she tells me, are often default scapegoats. A woman hits a man and we assume he did something to her to justify it. A father doesn’t see his kids so he must be a deadbeat dad, even if the truth is that his ex has done everything in her power to keep him from them. A woman screams and neighbors call the cops who arrest the husband when it was the wife who assaulted him.
“As a society, we don’t typically think of men in the role of a victim. We can’t even recognize it when we’re confronted by physical evidence,” Palmatier writes. “On the other hand, we’re inclined to believe accusations about men.”
Not only is it unfair and dishonest, she says, but it’s “damaging to boys and young men, gender relations, relationships, families and ‘the best interests of the children.’ And it gives the women who are predators a free pass.”
Automatically assuming the worst of men is a form of discrimination, she, Farrell and others say. And they’re right.
Halle Berry says Gabriel Aubry is being a bad dad, just as many women say about their exes. Whom do you believe?
This article first appeared on the Huffington Post, where Vicki Larson is a regular columnist.
Vicki Larson is the lifestyles editor at the Marin Independent Journal, and writes for Mommy Tracked, Huffington Post, The Working Chronicles, a national project that explores what Americans think about work, as well as other places. You can follow her on Twitter at @OMGchronicles or visit her blog at OMGchronicles.vickilarson.com
Saturday, April 16, 2011
American males educated in sex through porn: Researcher
Dr. Gail Dines is a professor of sociology and women’s studies at Wheelock College in Boston, an internationally acclaimed speaker and author, and a feminist activist. Her writing and lectures focus on the hypersexualization of the culture and the ways that porn images filter down into mainstream pop culture.
Gail’s work on media and pornography has appeared in academic journals, magazines such as Time and Newsweek, and newspapers across the country. She is a frequent guest on radio and television and is a recipient of the Myers Center Award for the Study of Human Rights.
Gail is a founding member of Stop Porn Culture – an educational and activist group made up of academics, anti-violence experts, community organizers and anyone who is concerned about the increasing pornification of the culture.( http://stoppornculture.org/) (from Dr.Gail Dines website)
Dr. Dines appeared on a recent edition of On Point with Tom Ashbrook, from NPR in Boston. The program focused on the increasing numbers of aggressive sexual incidents including rape, on American college campuses where the evidence suggests that one in five women have been victims of sexual assault or rape. According to Dr. Dines, boys are being educated in sexuality almost exclusively through pornography, and they begin at around 11 years of age in both their education and their first sexual experience.
Also according to Dr. Dines, the American culture teaches young girls to dress in an extremely provocative manner, in order to be noticed.Her research also suggests that in common rooms on many if not all U.S. campuses, male students are using the internet to access porn websites and that dating as a form of respectful relationship development has been replaced by "hook-up's" or what another generation called "one-night-stands".
Naturally, in any "hook-up" neither party assumes the other wants a more premanent relationship.
So from the perspective of this scribe, it appears that, at least from this researcher, the American culture has been extremely successful in commodifying both male and female genders, at a very early age, in a reduction to "bare essentials" of the encounter between male and female when the biology of both is exploding.
When the society exists for the profit of those generating the business models, and
when that same society depends, for 70% of its economic activity, on the purchases made by consumers
and when the engine drving those consumer sales of both products and services is sexuality (blatant and somewhat less so)
and when the offspring of that society find themselves alone with their laptops and blackberries, I-pads and Ipods, surfing the porn sites that excite them
and when those same offspring "party" with excessive binge drinking, to the point where students are dying from alcohol poisoning
and those same students, both male and female now intoxicated, fall into some form of "bed" together,
on the "morning after" there are bound to be deep and profound regrets...
and the officials, administration, dorm proctors who are charged with the responsibility of "protecting" students from such tragedies are in a quandry about their appropriate and fair rulings (who wouldn't be?)...
This is another pot of a perfect storm boiling without adequate control measures, guidelines and punishments.
As the other guest on the On Point program pointed out, however, if one in five laptop computers were being stolen on every campus, the President of the University and the Chief of Police of the city or town where the university is located would be holding a press conference to announce stern measures to stop the theft and to return the computers to their rightful owners and to punish the offenders. Also the parents would be demanding action.
Unfortunately, a young woman's chastity and virginity are not as easily or as clearly "recoverable"...and her life may be dramatically and negatively impacted for the rest of her life.
However, the universities themselves, have permitted their own programs to suffer a reduction from the original template of liberal arts courses for those seeking to explore new and challenging and challengeable ideas to a virtual technical school for the training of job-fillers. This is another of the many reductionisms that education has undergone, as another of the many ways by which the commercial, corporate, consumer culture has conquered the landscape, including the university campuses.
So long as the only thing that matters is the "brand" of the university education our sons and daughters are receiving (obviously only available from the "best" names like Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Stanford, etc.) so that the corporations who are hiring their graduates can boast of the pedigree in their staff stable, so that they can generate the most dividends for their investors, all participants will be pawns to the Kings and Queens of corporate design and control.
We need to take back not only the curricula in our universities, but also the flow of cash, and the idolatry of cash and profit that reduces human beings to serfs in a master-slave relationship to money, power and the idolatry of those with the biggest bank accounts, as the end goal of the university education....and then, perhaps both men and women will be able to see more than sex and orgasms and conquest and notches on a belt as the purpose and the gift and the blessing and grace of the relationships to which we all aspire.
And then, perhaps, both men and women will re-occupy the appropriate terrain of healthy respectful and mutually committed relationship(s), with the support of their mentors, their universities and the culture in which those institutions reclaim their original role and purpose.
And that will take a radical renovation of the existing landscape by all of us!
Gail’s work on media and pornography has appeared in academic journals, magazines such as Time and Newsweek, and newspapers across the country. She is a frequent guest on radio and television and is a recipient of the Myers Center Award for the Study of Human Rights.
Gail is a founding member of Stop Porn Culture – an educational and activist group made up of academics, anti-violence experts, community organizers and anyone who is concerned about the increasing pornification of the culture.( http://stoppornculture.org/) (from Dr.Gail Dines website)
Dr. Dines appeared on a recent edition of On Point with Tom Ashbrook, from NPR in Boston. The program focused on the increasing numbers of aggressive sexual incidents including rape, on American college campuses where the evidence suggests that one in five women have been victims of sexual assault or rape. According to Dr. Dines, boys are being educated in sexuality almost exclusively through pornography, and they begin at around 11 years of age in both their education and their first sexual experience.
Also according to Dr. Dines, the American culture teaches young girls to dress in an extremely provocative manner, in order to be noticed.Her research also suggests that in common rooms on many if not all U.S. campuses, male students are using the internet to access porn websites and that dating as a form of respectful relationship development has been replaced by "hook-up's" or what another generation called "one-night-stands".
Naturally, in any "hook-up" neither party assumes the other wants a more premanent relationship.
So from the perspective of this scribe, it appears that, at least from this researcher, the American culture has been extremely successful in commodifying both male and female genders, at a very early age, in a reduction to "bare essentials" of the encounter between male and female when the biology of both is exploding.
When the society exists for the profit of those generating the business models, and
when that same society depends, for 70% of its economic activity, on the purchases made by consumers
and when the engine drving those consumer sales of both products and services is sexuality (blatant and somewhat less so)
and when the offspring of that society find themselves alone with their laptops and blackberries, I-pads and Ipods, surfing the porn sites that excite them
and when those same offspring "party" with excessive binge drinking, to the point where students are dying from alcohol poisoning
and those same students, both male and female now intoxicated, fall into some form of "bed" together,
on the "morning after" there are bound to be deep and profound regrets...
and the officials, administration, dorm proctors who are charged with the responsibility of "protecting" students from such tragedies are in a quandry about their appropriate and fair rulings (who wouldn't be?)...
This is another pot of a perfect storm boiling without adequate control measures, guidelines and punishments.
As the other guest on the On Point program pointed out, however, if one in five laptop computers were being stolen on every campus, the President of the University and the Chief of Police of the city or town where the university is located would be holding a press conference to announce stern measures to stop the theft and to return the computers to their rightful owners and to punish the offenders. Also the parents would be demanding action.
Unfortunately, a young woman's chastity and virginity are not as easily or as clearly "recoverable"...and her life may be dramatically and negatively impacted for the rest of her life.
However, the universities themselves, have permitted their own programs to suffer a reduction from the original template of liberal arts courses for those seeking to explore new and challenging and challengeable ideas to a virtual technical school for the training of job-fillers. This is another of the many reductionisms that education has undergone, as another of the many ways by which the commercial, corporate, consumer culture has conquered the landscape, including the university campuses.
So long as the only thing that matters is the "brand" of the university education our sons and daughters are receiving (obviously only available from the "best" names like Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Stanford, etc.) so that the corporations who are hiring their graduates can boast of the pedigree in their staff stable, so that they can generate the most dividends for their investors, all participants will be pawns to the Kings and Queens of corporate design and control.
We need to take back not only the curricula in our universities, but also the flow of cash, and the idolatry of cash and profit that reduces human beings to serfs in a master-slave relationship to money, power and the idolatry of those with the biggest bank accounts, as the end goal of the university education....and then, perhaps both men and women will be able to see more than sex and orgasms and conquest and notches on a belt as the purpose and the gift and the blessing and grace of the relationships to which we all aspire.
And then, perhaps, both men and women will re-occupy the appropriate terrain of healthy respectful and mutually committed relationship(s), with the support of their mentors, their universities and the culture in which those institutions reclaim their original role and purpose.
And that will take a radical renovation of the existing landscape by all of us!
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
A sign of the TImes: Scholarships for White MALES (TEXAS)
Texas-based Group Offers Scholarships Only to White MALE Students
Former Majority Association for Equality claims to "fill in the gap"
Written by Ryan Leclaire, from STUDY magazine website, March 9, 2011
A new group is awarding scholarships of $500 to five students who meet some controversial qualifications.
The Former Majority Association for Equality is offering their grants to male Caucasian students, as their group feels that demographic is underrepresented.
To qualify you must:
■Be male
■Be no less than 25% Caucasian
■Be currently enrolled in college, university or high school
■Hold a GAP of at least 3.0
Despite the organization’s aggressive name, they reject the idea of being a hateful or racist group. In their mission statement, they state “We do not advocate white supremacy, nor do we enable any individual that does. We do not accept donations from organizations affiliated with any sort of white supremacy or hate group.”
The group currently has 491 friends on Facebook, as they try to rally support via social media. Their Facebook wall contains supportive posts, such as “bill gates gave 1,000,000,000 dollors to minority schlorships, that white people are not eligable for. i say boycott microsoft,” from Jeff Thompson of Bluffton College
It also contains chatter, such as Hellen Allegras’ wall posting that reads: “Prejudice is always a problem in every civilization in every age, and our job as rational humans is to help those who are downtrodden. And right now, in this country, that means helping white males who are sneered at almost incessantly.”
Former Majority Association for Equality claims to "fill in the gap"
Written by Ryan Leclaire, from STUDY magazine website, March 9, 2011
A new group is awarding scholarships of $500 to five students who meet some controversial qualifications.
The Former Majority Association for Equality is offering their grants to male Caucasian students, as their group feels that demographic is underrepresented.
To qualify you must:
■Be male
■Be no less than 25% Caucasian
■Be currently enrolled in college, university or high school
■Hold a GAP of at least 3.0
Despite the organization’s aggressive name, they reject the idea of being a hateful or racist group. In their mission statement, they state “We do not advocate white supremacy, nor do we enable any individual that does. We do not accept donations from organizations affiliated with any sort of white supremacy or hate group.”
The group currently has 491 friends on Facebook, as they try to rally support via social media. Their Facebook wall contains supportive posts, such as “bill gates gave 1,000,000,000 dollors to minority schlorships, that white people are not eligable for. i say boycott microsoft,” from Jeff Thompson of Bluffton College
It also contains chatter, such as Hellen Allegras’ wall posting that reads: “Prejudice is always a problem in every civilization in every age, and our job as rational humans is to help those who are downtrodden. And right now, in this country, that means helping white males who are sneered at almost incessantly.”
Friday, February 4, 2011
Seeds of Relationship-building curriculum (#4)..Ashes Time
Mircea Eliade (1907-1986)
Eliade was educated as a philosopher. He published extensively in the history of religions and acted as editor-in-chief of Macmillan's Encyclopedia of Religion. The influence of his thought, through these works and through thirty years as director of History of Religions department at the University of Chicago, is considerable.
Eliade's analysis of religion assumes the existence of "the sacred" as the object of worship of religious humanity. It appears as the source of power, significance, and value. Humanity apprehends "hierophanies"--physical manifestations or revelations of the sacred--often, but not only, in the form of symbols, myths, and ritual. Any phenomenal entity is a potential hierophany and can give access to non-historical time: what Eliade calls illud tempus (Latin for 'that time,' I tend to think of it as 'yon time'). The apprehension of this sacred time is a constitutive feature of the religious aspect of humanity. www.westminster.edu/staff/brennie/eliade/mebio.htm
Mircea Eliade recounts in his books the brilliant use of ashes made by old men initiators in Australia, Africa, the Near East, South America, the Pacific. Initiation says that before a boy can become a man, some infantile being in him must die. Ashes Time is a time set aside for the death of that ego-bound boy. The boy between eight and twelve years of age, having been taken away from the mother, passes into the hands of the old men guides who cover his face and sometimes his whole body with ashes to make him the color of dead people and to remind him of the inner death about to come. He may be put into the dark for hours or maybe days, introduced to spirits of dead ancestors. Then he may crawl through a tunnel-or vagina- made of brush and branches. The old men are waiting for him at the other end, only now he has a new name. The mothers in some cultures feel so strongly about the importance of the ritual that when reunited to their sons, they pretend not to recognize them and have to be reintroduced. The mothers participate joyfully in this initiation.
The gold-obsessed man, whether a New Age man or a Dow Jones man, can be said to be the man who hasn't yet handled ashes.
The word ashes contains in it a dark feeling for death; ashes when put on the face whiten it as death does. Job covered himself with ashes to say that the earlier omfortable Job was dead; and that the living Hob mourned the dead Job. But for us, how can we get a look at the cinders side of things when the society is determinded to create a world of shopping malls and entertainment complexes in which we are made to believe that there is no death, disfigurement, illness, insanity, poverty, lethargy or misery? Disneyland means "no ashes."
Despite our Disneyland culture, some men around thrity five or forty will begin to experience ashes privately, without ritual, even without old men. They begin to notice how many of ther dreams have turned to ashes. A young man in high school dreams that he will be a race driver, a mountain climber, he will marry Miss America, he will be a millionaire by thirty, he will get a Nobel Prize in physics by thirty-five, he will be an architect and build the tallest building ever. He will get out of his hick town and live in Paris. He will have fabulous friends...and by thirty five, all these dreams are ashes.
At thirty -five his inner stove begins to produce ashes as well. All through his twenties, his stove burned with such a good draft that he threw in whole nights until dawn, drinking parties, sexual extravagance, enthusiasm, madness, excitement. Then one day he notices that his stove doesn't take such big chunks anymore. He opens the stove door and ashes fall out on the floor. It's time for him to buy a small black shovel at the hardware store and get down on his knees. The ashes fall off the shovel and onto the floor, and he can see the print of his bootsoles in the ashes.
Robert Frost said of the "Oven Bird":
The question that he frames in all but words
is what to make of a diminshed thing
Some habitual error we keep making in our relationships produces more ash than heat. A number of men around thirty-five have told me that they are afraid to go into a new relationship for fear it will end as the last ten or twelve have ended, in "ashes." But young men can't get enough ashes. Enlightenment addicts think they want ecstacy from their association with their guru, but they may really want the ashes. Having no kitchen fire to sit beside and no Wild Man to send us there, the young man smears soot on his face and hopes that his own mother will not recognize him.
Pablo Neruda says:
Out of everything I've done, everything I've lost
everything I've gotten unexpectedly,
I can give you a little in leaves, in sour iron...
here I am with the thing that loses stars, like a vegetable, alone. (from "Brussels, Trans. by Robert Bly)
Ashes present a great diminishment away from the living tree with its huge crown and its abundant shade. The recognition of this dminishment is a proper experience for men who are over thirty. If the man doesn't experience that diminishment sharply, he will retain his inflation, and continue to identify himself with all in him that can fly: his sexual drive, his minds, his refusal to commit himself, his addiction, his transcendence, his coolness. The coolness of some American men means that they have skipped ashes.
Franklin Roosevelt found his ashes in his polio; Anwar Sadat in his prison; Solzhenitsyn in the gulag. Some of our liveliest writers--John Steinbeck, William Faulker, Thomas McGrath, Tillie Olson, David Ignatow, Kenneth Rexroth--found their ashes in the poverty of the Depression.
Katabasis and ashes are a little different. We could say that a man finds katabasis only through dropping, poverty, abrupt change in social class; and prison is a traditional place to experience both katabasis and ashes. But a man may keep his job and famly and still experience ashes if he knowns what he is doing. From Robert Bly, Iron John, Vintage Books, New York, 1992, p. 80ff(To be continued)
Eliade was educated as a philosopher. He published extensively in the history of religions and acted as editor-in-chief of Macmillan's Encyclopedia of Religion. The influence of his thought, through these works and through thirty years as director of History of Religions department at the University of Chicago, is considerable.
Eliade's analysis of religion assumes the existence of "the sacred" as the object of worship of religious humanity. It appears as the source of power, significance, and value. Humanity apprehends "hierophanies"--physical manifestations or revelations of the sacred--often, but not only, in the form of symbols, myths, and ritual. Any phenomenal entity is a potential hierophany and can give access to non-historical time: what Eliade calls illud tempus (Latin for 'that time,' I tend to think of it as 'yon time'). The apprehension of this sacred time is a constitutive feature of the religious aspect of humanity. www.westminster.edu/staff/brennie/eliade/mebio.htm
Mircea Eliade recounts in his books the brilliant use of ashes made by old men initiators in Australia, Africa, the Near East, South America, the Pacific. Initiation says that before a boy can become a man, some infantile being in him must die. Ashes Time is a time set aside for the death of that ego-bound boy. The boy between eight and twelve years of age, having been taken away from the mother, passes into the hands of the old men guides who cover his face and sometimes his whole body with ashes to make him the color of dead people and to remind him of the inner death about to come. He may be put into the dark for hours or maybe days, introduced to spirits of dead ancestors. Then he may crawl through a tunnel-or vagina- made of brush and branches. The old men are waiting for him at the other end, only now he has a new name. The mothers in some cultures feel so strongly about the importance of the ritual that when reunited to their sons, they pretend not to recognize them and have to be reintroduced. The mothers participate joyfully in this initiation.
The gold-obsessed man, whether a New Age man or a Dow Jones man, can be said to be the man who hasn't yet handled ashes.
The word ashes contains in it a dark feeling for death; ashes when put on the face whiten it as death does. Job covered himself with ashes to say that the earlier omfortable Job was dead; and that the living Hob mourned the dead Job. But for us, how can we get a look at the cinders side of things when the society is determinded to create a world of shopping malls and entertainment complexes in which we are made to believe that there is no death, disfigurement, illness, insanity, poverty, lethargy or misery? Disneyland means "no ashes."
Despite our Disneyland culture, some men around thrity five or forty will begin to experience ashes privately, without ritual, even without old men. They begin to notice how many of ther dreams have turned to ashes. A young man in high school dreams that he will be a race driver, a mountain climber, he will marry Miss America, he will be a millionaire by thirty, he will get a Nobel Prize in physics by thirty-five, he will be an architect and build the tallest building ever. He will get out of his hick town and live in Paris. He will have fabulous friends...and by thirty five, all these dreams are ashes.
At thirty -five his inner stove begins to produce ashes as well. All through his twenties, his stove burned with such a good draft that he threw in whole nights until dawn, drinking parties, sexual extravagance, enthusiasm, madness, excitement. Then one day he notices that his stove doesn't take such big chunks anymore. He opens the stove door and ashes fall out on the floor. It's time for him to buy a small black shovel at the hardware store and get down on his knees. The ashes fall off the shovel and onto the floor, and he can see the print of his bootsoles in the ashes.
Robert Frost said of the "Oven Bird":
The question that he frames in all but words
is what to make of a diminshed thing
Some habitual error we keep making in our relationships produces more ash than heat. A number of men around thirty-five have told me that they are afraid to go into a new relationship for fear it will end as the last ten or twelve have ended, in "ashes." But young men can't get enough ashes. Enlightenment addicts think they want ecstacy from their association with their guru, but they may really want the ashes. Having no kitchen fire to sit beside and no Wild Man to send us there, the young man smears soot on his face and hopes that his own mother will not recognize him.
Pablo Neruda says:
Out of everything I've done, everything I've lost
everything I've gotten unexpectedly,
I can give you a little in leaves, in sour iron...
here I am with the thing that loses stars, like a vegetable, alone. (from "Brussels, Trans. by Robert Bly)
Ashes present a great diminishment away from the living tree with its huge crown and its abundant shade. The recognition of this dminishment is a proper experience for men who are over thirty. If the man doesn't experience that diminishment sharply, he will retain his inflation, and continue to identify himself with all in him that can fly: his sexual drive, his minds, his refusal to commit himself, his addiction, his transcendence, his coolness. The coolness of some American men means that they have skipped ashes.
Franklin Roosevelt found his ashes in his polio; Anwar Sadat in his prison; Solzhenitsyn in the gulag. Some of our liveliest writers--John Steinbeck, William Faulker, Thomas McGrath, Tillie Olson, David Ignatow, Kenneth Rexroth--found their ashes in the poverty of the Depression.
Katabasis and ashes are a little different. We could say that a man finds katabasis only through dropping, poverty, abrupt change in social class; and prison is a traditional place to experience both katabasis and ashes. But a man may keep his job and famly and still experience ashes if he knowns what he is doing. From Robert Bly, Iron John, Vintage Books, New York, 1992, p. 80ff(To be continued)
Thursday, February 3, 2011
"Dirtier" Boys have healthier immune systems (Researcher)
By Whitney Blair Wyckoff, on SHOTS, NPR's Health Blog, February 3, 2011
There's a growing body of research showing that children exposed to lots of germs early in life are less likely to develop allergies, asthma or autoimmune disorders as they grow up.
But now there's a new twist on the theory, known as the hygiene hypothesis in scientific circles, and it's about little girls in cute little dresses.
In an article in the peer-reviewed journal Social Science and Medicine, Sharyn Clough, a philosopher of science at Oregon State University who studies research bias, says young girls are held to a higher standard of cleanliness than young boys, a discrepancy that could help explain later health differences.
Girls are expected to stay squeaky clean while boys are encouraged to play outside, Clough argues. And that might explain why women have higher rates of certain illnesses.
Women have a higher rate of asthma than men — 8.5 percent compared to 7.1 percent, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They're also more likely than men to have allergies. And the American Autoimmune Related Diseases Association says autoimmune disorders affect women three times more often than men.
Now there are lots of differences that could account for those discrepancies. But Shots was intrigued by Clough's research and talked about it with her.Our conversation, edited a little for clarity and length, follows.
What makes you think there's a link between cleanliness and rates of chronic illness and autoimmune diseases in women?
I read about a study that was linking these large environmental patterns of hygiene and sanitation with autoimmune disorders. [The researchers] suggested the lack of exposure to parasites may be related to the increased rate of Crohn's disease in industrialized Western nations — and then they generalized to other autoimmune disorders. I happen to know among those who've got these diseases, women are overrepresented. So, it struck me as odd that gender was missing from the analysis.
Why don't girls get exposed to the same germs as boys?
In large populations, you can make generalizations about the differences in the ways we socialize little boys and little girls. We still dress little girls in clothes that are restrictive and not supposed to get dirty. Little girls are still way less likely to play outdoors than little boys. And little girls are supervised more often by their parents during their play, which is likely to keep them from getting dirty.
What exactly is in the dirt?
There are a variety of bacteria even just in soil. A gram of uncontaminated soil contains 10 billion microbial cells. Playing in dirt is a reliable way to ingest dirt. Playing in the dirt is highly correlated with eating it. And when you eat it, you know you're exposed to bacteria — all kinds and in high numbers
So that exposure to dirt makes it less likely to have allergies or asthma later on?
Young boys actually have higher rates of asthma than do girls. So my thinking is that [at a very young age], boys are exposed to more of the allergens and things that inflame their immune systems more often than do girls. So boys will have higher rates of asthma early on. But then after puberty, girls have higher rates of asthma and then for the rest of their lives.
What about the fact that it's becoming more socially acceptable for girls to behave stereotypically like boys? More girls are playing sports, and fewer girls are wearing dresses to go out to play.
You'd think that this is changing but you'd be surprised. In a study from 1998 of American children in preschool, one-third of the 5-year-old girls came to school in dresses each day. Title IX and getting more girls into sports — that's clearly a phenomenon that's changing things. But I think for little girls, things aren't changing much.
Allergies, asthma and autoimmune disorders are increasing for everyone — both men and women in our populations in the North and West. So what that means — if the hygiene hypothesis folks are right — is that we're decreasing our exposure to germs all the time even though we have more girls playing sports. There are competing trends that affect boys and girls, men and women.
What should policy makers and parents take from your research?
I think if you've got a teeny kid — like an infant or a toddler — I think it doesn't hurt to get them dirty. But the jury is still out. We're only beginning to understand the relationship between bacteria and other kinds of organisms in our bodies. And the higher rates of diseases are unintended consequences of policies that are, for the most part, pretty good. It's actually pretty good that we have higher sanitation rates than we used to. But it turns out, we just weren't aware of how complex the ecologies of germs are.
There's a growing body of research showing that children exposed to lots of germs early in life are less likely to develop allergies, asthma or autoimmune disorders as they grow up.
But now there's a new twist on the theory, known as the hygiene hypothesis in scientific circles, and it's about little girls in cute little dresses.
In an article in the peer-reviewed journal Social Science and Medicine, Sharyn Clough, a philosopher of science at Oregon State University who studies research bias, says young girls are held to a higher standard of cleanliness than young boys, a discrepancy that could help explain later health differences.
Girls are expected to stay squeaky clean while boys are encouraged to play outside, Clough argues. And that might explain why women have higher rates of certain illnesses.
Women have a higher rate of asthma than men — 8.5 percent compared to 7.1 percent, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They're also more likely than men to have allergies. And the American Autoimmune Related Diseases Association says autoimmune disorders affect women three times more often than men.
Now there are lots of differences that could account for those discrepancies. But Shots was intrigued by Clough's research and talked about it with her.Our conversation, edited a little for clarity and length, follows.
What makes you think there's a link between cleanliness and rates of chronic illness and autoimmune diseases in women?
I read about a study that was linking these large environmental patterns of hygiene and sanitation with autoimmune disorders. [The researchers] suggested the lack of exposure to parasites may be related to the increased rate of Crohn's disease in industrialized Western nations — and then they generalized to other autoimmune disorders. I happen to know among those who've got these diseases, women are overrepresented. So, it struck me as odd that gender was missing from the analysis.
Why don't girls get exposed to the same germs as boys?
In large populations, you can make generalizations about the differences in the ways we socialize little boys and little girls. We still dress little girls in clothes that are restrictive and not supposed to get dirty. Little girls are still way less likely to play outdoors than little boys. And little girls are supervised more often by their parents during their play, which is likely to keep them from getting dirty.
What exactly is in the dirt?
There are a variety of bacteria even just in soil. A gram of uncontaminated soil contains 10 billion microbial cells. Playing in dirt is a reliable way to ingest dirt. Playing in the dirt is highly correlated with eating it. And when you eat it, you know you're exposed to bacteria — all kinds and in high numbers
So that exposure to dirt makes it less likely to have allergies or asthma later on?
Young boys actually have higher rates of asthma than do girls. So my thinking is that [at a very young age], boys are exposed to more of the allergens and things that inflame their immune systems more often than do girls. So boys will have higher rates of asthma early on. But then after puberty, girls have higher rates of asthma and then for the rest of their lives.
What about the fact that it's becoming more socially acceptable for girls to behave stereotypically like boys? More girls are playing sports, and fewer girls are wearing dresses to go out to play.
You'd think that this is changing but you'd be surprised. In a study from 1998 of American children in preschool, one-third of the 5-year-old girls came to school in dresses each day. Title IX and getting more girls into sports — that's clearly a phenomenon that's changing things. But I think for little girls, things aren't changing much.
Allergies, asthma and autoimmune disorders are increasing for everyone — both men and women in our populations in the North and West. So what that means — if the hygiene hypothesis folks are right — is that we're decreasing our exposure to germs all the time even though we have more girls playing sports. There are competing trends that affect boys and girls, men and women.
What should policy makers and parents take from your research?
I think if you've got a teeny kid — like an infant or a toddler — I think it doesn't hurt to get them dirty. But the jury is still out. We're only beginning to understand the relationship between bacteria and other kinds of organisms in our bodies. And the higher rates of diseases are unintended consequences of policies that are, for the most part, pretty good. It's actually pretty good that we have higher sanitation rates than we used to. But it turns out, we just weren't aware of how complex the ecologies of germs are.
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