An interesting comment from a female friend of mine, whose male live-in significant other has just finished undergoing treatment for prostate cancer, which included injections of female hormones. He tends to be a pretty aggressive guy, and he reported that he could actually physically and psychologically feel his aggressiveness diminishing as the hormones took effect. Just another example of how we are at the mercy of our biology and chemistry. (And maybe how we don’t have to be if we don’t want to. And I’m not advocating that aggressive men take female hormones!)

As b!X quotes from a Harper’s article by Lewis Lapham, who refers to the Wall Street Journal’s reference to America’s lost “ethical compass,” I think about how so many of the “compasses” that we humans have built to guide our journeys are also lost — or at least malfunctioning. The religions that were supposed to point the way toward moral, caring, inspiring behaviors don’t work when and where they’re most needed. The educational systems that are supposed to point the way toward meaningful, fulfilling, life-enhancing work and life-enhancing lives have lost the sense of that direction. The sciences to which we look for answers and solutions are being swept away by the greedy seas of politics and markets. The family, clan, and tribal systems that once guided, protected, and nurtured our hearts are rusting away.
So, what do we have left? Maybe only our individuals selves and what stabilizing connections we can forge with other individuals. Maybe only our shared readings of the stars to keep us from drowning (or from drowning alone). Am I feeling Apocalyptic? Yes I am.
Meanwhile, I’m glad that I gave b!X a subscription to Harper’s for last Christmas/Solstice. He always pulls out the really good stuff.

On the surface, she’s probably as unlike me as possible: she’s younger, I’m older; she’s loves the cutting edge of various technologies, I’m lucky if I can put the code in for a link without screwing it up; she’s not into “girly” things; I color my hair blonde, wear make-up, and have closets full of clothes and shoes (including sexy ballroom dance stuff); she’s not into having kids; I’m really into my two and my new grandson; she likes Tolkein, I like Zimmer Bradley. She’s happily married; I’m once-married-long-ago and now happily single. She probably drinks coffee (don’t all techies?) and I only drink tea. But I’ll bet that if we sat down with each other across our libations of choice, we’d find that we laugh at the same things; want the same things from the world in general and the opposite sex in particular; and have very strong senses of who we are, where our strength and “power” lie, and how we want to exercise them. We also use our voices, clearly, confidently, and appropriately. I it would be interesting to find out how those voices harmonize in a two-way conversation. It’s not likely to happen, given where we live and how we live. But I still think it would be way cool!

Dorothea Salo makes the following comment on Blog Sisters to Denise Howell’s post (see previous post here):
I really want to feel cynical about the rah-rah aren’t-women-great tone of this article. I really do. I really do.
But damn it, I am more ethical than many of my male counterparts. I do like my current all-female work environment better than the mixed ones I’ve been in. And I have toyed with finding a way to do things right on my own, since whenever I get hired to do things I end up forced to do them wrong.
I know some great guys and some terrible women, I admit. (I left my last job in large part because of a real dragon lady.) Still, I have to admit I think this article is on to something. Whether it’s all she’s cracking it up to be I’m not sure — but there’s a nugget of truth there
And I add the following:
Having fought the good fight back in the seventies, having worked for a dragon lady and a superb female manager (but not one male boss who could hold a candle to the latter), and now watching and reading about where women in the workworld are today — their struggles, their frustrations, the attitudes toward them — I see that we haven’t come a long way at all. The “good” guys out there understand what’s going on and don’t perpetuate the “good o’l boy, boys-will-be-boys” crap. The rest of ’em? Well, I for one am not going to let them get away with it. We should have the right to own our powerful female sexuality and not be demeaned for it, even in a (supposedly) spirit of public playfulness. (I do, however, believe that anything goes in private between consenting adults.)
I repeat all of this here because I think it needs to be repeated. Over and over again in many different forms and forums.

(The title of this post is a Comment to Halley’s Suitt’s well-written piece.)
My thanks to Blog Sisters colleague Denise Howell who quoted a section other than what follows from an excellent article by Margaret Heffernan in the August edition of Fast Company: The Female CEO ca. 2002.
I’m using the following quote because it describes just one of the many effects that sexist male attitudes have on women who really don’t want to be treated as ‘babes’ (well, except maybe in some playful private moments.)
‘Neutron Jack’ Welch and ‘Chainsaw Al’ Dunlap may have inspired men, but macho leadership styles continue to alienate women. The Boom Boom Room of Smith Barney was more luxurious than the cubicles of software startups, but I’ve talked to too many women in both environments who have been — and who continue to be — subjected to routine sexual harassment. I’ve even unwittingly hired some of the perps — liberated guys who definitely know better.
The truth is, the macho exhilaration of coding through the night holds no charm for female engineers. For women executives, racing rental cars around the hotel parking lot is not a cheap thrill. But you will find women enduring these events — sometimes even competing to join them — because they know that it’s where the important information always surfaces. When women are asked to name the most significant factors that are holding them back from advancement, the top two answers are ‘exclusion from informal networks of communication’ and ‘male stereotyping and preconceptions of women.’
Nuff said.

Tom Shugart, one of my contemporaries in Blogdom, is still trying to get a Comment feature on his weblog, so I often simply email him such things. Here he refers to what I sent him in one of my emails. And I point this out because it supports the direction of my ruminations about what kind of men are truly attractive to women, make us want to open our arms, our hearts, and our other body parts to what they offer us and the world.

….I get taken up short by something like this and then really get annoyed — at the everything from the juvenile attitude and form of expression to the impact that such (even though small potatoes compared to what we get in the popular media) has on how the world objectifies women. And then I wind up in an email blitz that really doesn’t change anyone’s mind and wastes too much of my time and energy on such “boys will be boys” posturing.
Maybe it’s because someone at Blog Sisters recently referred to the Native American focus on the Seventh Generation. The Native American Seventh Generation philosophy says that decisions you make today (and also the behavior you model) should take into consideration the impact that these decisions (behaviors) will have on the next seven generations to come after us.

I’ve been gathering up the children’s books that I still have from when my kids were young to give to my grandson. (I know that he’s not old enough yet, but I need to make room in my bookshelves.) I have copies of an illustrated two-volume set of Grimm’s and Anderson’s fairy tales that were mine from the 1940s, and a Mother Goose book that was my daughter’s in the 60s. At b!X’s request ages ago, I sent him his Winnie the Pooh and Dr. Seuss books, so Little Lex is on his own for them.
Oddly enough, b!X called me tonight asking if I still had a book that he remembered from his childhood that included the rhyme about Winkin, Blinkin, and Nod. I had been looking all over for that book but hadn’t been able to figure out what I did with it. As we were on the phone and he was describing the book — big, blue, in a slip-in cardboard cover — I looked over in the corner of my bookcase, and there it was: a 1955 edition of The Illustrated Treasury of Children’s Literature, edited by Margaret Martingnon, still in great shape. He’s trying to track a copy down so that he can read the stories to the toddler that he takes care of. Our family heirloom copy, of course, will go to Lex. But I think first I’m going to read through it, again, myself.
I wish that I knew what became of a large-sized nursery rhyme book I had as a kid. The one thing I remember was a rhyme about a girl who played with matches, and there was an illustration of her running away with her hair on fire and a look of sheer terror on her face. And another about a girl who was always stretching her neck and watching what everyone else was doing. The illustration at the end was of this girl with a neck so long that she had to wheel her head around in a wheel barrow. I had nightmares about those rhymes for years. I can still visualize the illustrations. I’d love to look at them now and see if they’re still as scarey as they seemed back then. I have a feeling I got rid of that book because I didn’t want my kids to have nightmares too. Hmph.
As final note, one of the books I left as part of my bookcrossing.com stuff was picked up and logged in on that site. This is so cool!

Remember Abbie Hoffman’s struggle to get his book by that name published and distributed back in 1971? No? Well, you can read about it here and also download a free copy. Abbie has won out after all.
Good ol’ Abbie came to mind as I was formatting the book marks that I inserted into the books I’m leaving around as my part in the BookCrossing project. My lead line is ‘Take This Book.’ Not quite the revolutionary spirit that Abbie tried to stir up, but the best I can do at this point.
I left two books in different rest rooms at the Empire State Plaza in Albany, one in my doctor’s office, one at a shopping center bus stop, and one on a bench at the entrance to a Hannaford supermarket. I have a whole pile of more books that need to have bookmarks inserted. I never throw a book out, even if it’s one I couldn’t stand to finish. This just seems like a great way to get all these paperbacks out of my already crowded little apartment and not feel guilty about getting rid of them.
It’s a far cry from what Abbie had in mind, but I think he probably would think it was a pretty good idea anyway.

Don’t blame me. Shelley started it, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to be left out.
So, I’m contributing a body part to the accumulating pile being offered (to Rage Boy’s voodoo gods perhaps?) to get the ol’ guy back at his keyboard. Too bad that Gary Turner beat me to offering the septum; I have a newly revamped one and am very aware of mine at the moment.
Instead, then, I offer the commonly ignored and uncommonly inelegant elbow, both the sensuous, sensitive inner and the sad, age-roughened outer. Let’s bend some elbows in honor of Rage Boy and bellow a few “get off you ass”es in mellow sodden harmony.
I’ve given you the elbow, Rage Boy. Nudge. Nudge.
Join the campaign. Follow Shelley’s supportive lead and get the word out to Gonzo Guy.