Pacific Standard May-June 2013 Cover

Betty Friedan, Open Heart Surgery, and Me

February 22, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
Sara Miller McCune

In early 1991, I embarked with Betty Friedan on a five-day trip with a mutual friend, Jeremiah Kaplan. (Betty and I had met professionally once or twice before.) The three of us left LA in my car for a visit to my home in the south end of Yosemite National Park. Of course, I had read The Feminine Mystique not once but twice: first, as a young woman—when it was originally published in 1963—and later as a more mature woman. This second reading occurred after I started what turned out to be a successful career, a happy marriage, and building a business of my own. Betty and Jerry (who was ... Read More

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Men: Want More Sex? Don’t Do the Laundry!

February 12, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
(PHOTO: GUALTIERO BOFFI/SHUTTERSTOCK)

When it comes to sex, don’t believe everything you read on the Web. As we discussed earlier, the myth of “sexercise” persists online despite physicians’ assessment that rolling in the sheets is hardly an efficient way to burn calories. Now, a trio of sociologists, writing in American Sociological Review, takes on the notion that men who do more housework lead healthier sex lives, a bit of pop wisdom that went viral in 2009 thanks to the CBSNews.com article, “Men: Want More Sex? Do the Laundry!” In fact, the authors argue, that write-up was based in part on an unpublished ... Read More

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‘Slut’ Label Refuses to Die

December 3, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
scarletletterblue

For women, engaging in casual sex still carries a stigma, and the prospect of being judged dampens their interest in one-night stands. That’s the key finding of a newly published study that suggests sexual mores remain stubbornly stable. It concludes that, more than a half-century after the introduction of the birth control pill, the sexual double standard is alive and well and still influencing women’s everyday behavior. The research, published in the Psychology of Women Quarterly, is by three University of Michigan psychologists led by Terri Conley. Last year, she authored a paper ... Read More

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The Great Depression and the Rise of the Refrigerator

October 9, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
Refrigerator ads from the April 16, 1933 San Antonio Light (San Antonio, TX)

When I moved to Los Angeles and began my search for an apartment I was a little surprised by the fact that a refrigerator wasn't included with most of the units I toured. In every other city where I've ever lived, the average apartment always included a refrigerator with the cost of rent. I was only looking for a one-bedroom apartment, but I was expecting that this was the norm everywhere for the most basic of apartments. When I asked the manager of the apartment building I wound up renting from why there was no refrigerator, she explained that the property only supplies "the essentials." ... Read More

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Sex Stereotypes and the Single Robot

August 7, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
Sex Stereotypes and the Single Bot

How strongly do we cling to our ideas about the proper roles of men and women? We even apply them to robots. That’s the clear conclusion of newly published research from Germany, which finds one needn’t have any actual sex organs to be the target of gender stereotypes. In the Journal of Applied Social Psychology, psychologists Friederike Eyssel and Frank Hegel of the University of Bielefeld describe an experiment in which 60 students—30 men and 30 women—were asked to evaluate “modern technologies of the future.” Specifically, they were asked to look at images of two new ... Read More

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Law of the Jungle: Powerful Men Have More Children

August 25, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment

Two generations after the beginning of the feminist revolution, men still dominate positions of power in the United States. Why are men still over-represented in corporate board rooms, halls of government, and other places where decisions are made? One reason might be that men are evolutionarily programmed to seek positions of high status, as a means of upping their reproductive output. In the podcast, Christopher von Rueden, an anthropologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, talks about his research into the connections between status and reproduction among the Tsimane, an ... Read More

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Woman Boss May Lower Men’s Pay, Prestige

July 5, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment

The measure of a modern man’s masculinity typically is taken in the workplace. How big is his office? How high is his salary? How impressive are his responsibilities? Newly published research adds an unexpected ingredient to this mix: What sex is his supervisor? Victoria Brescoll of the Yale School of Management reports male employees get penalized when their boss wields power in defiance of gender stereotypes. Her research suggests men in such positions suffer a loss of status and prestige due to a perceived lack of masculinity. “These results further indicate that gender ... Read More

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No Room for Error With Sex Stereotypes

October 1, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment

If you’re drawn to a high-profile line of work generally associated with the other gender, rest easy. Newly published research finds people will respect your choice and accept you in that role. That is, so long as you don't make a mistake. That’s the cautionary conclusion of a team of scholars led by Victoria Brescoll of the Yale School of Management. Writing in the journal Psychological Science, they report that while gender stereotyping may be less overt than in previous generations, those who buck the accepted norms are given only a limited opportunity to succeed. “A ... Read More

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Real Men Do Apologize

September 23, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment

Men, according to conventional wisdom, are stubbornly unwilling to apologize. Countless pop psychology books have referenced this reluctance, explaining that our egos are too fragile to admit we’re wrong, or we’re oblivious to important nuances of social interaction. Sorry to disrupt that lovely feeling of superiority, ladies, but newly published research suggests such smug explanations miss the mark. Writing in the journal Psychological Science, University of Waterloo psychologists Karina Schumann and Michael Ross report that men are, indeed, less likely to say “I’m sorry.” But ... Read More

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The Picture for Men: Superhero or Slacker

August 17, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment

At the end of the fourth season of the critically loved and chronically underwatched Friday Night Lights, the former football star Tim Riggins martyrs himself for the sake of his brother and newborn nephew. For much of the season, he and his brother Billy have been stripping down stolen cars and making the type of fast cash they cannot make legitimately. Tim wants the quick cash to fund his desire to buy a bit of sun-drenched Texas countryside, and Billy needs it for his new duties as a father. As the season finale starts, the brothers are talking to a lawyer and working through their ... Read More

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