Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Out on a Limb: Could Richard Sherman be interpreted as a 'gender role shift'?

"[T]his was Hampton’s most surprising finding: Today there are just a lot more women in public, proportional to men. It’s not just on Chestnut Street in Philadelphia. On the steps of the Met, the proportion of women increased by 33 percent, and in Bryant Park by 18 percent. The only place women decreased proportionally was in Boston’s Downtown Crossing — a major shopping area. “The decline of women within this setting could be interpreted as a shift in gender roles,” Hampton writes. Men seem to be “taking on an activity that was traditionally regarded as feminine.”

"Across the board, Hampton found that the story of public spaces in the last 30 years has not been aloneness, or digital distraction, but gender equity. “I mean, who would’ve thought that, in America, 30 years ago, women were not in public the same way they are now?” Hampton said. “We don’t think about that.”

Last two paragraphs of a NY Times Magazine article titled "Technology Is Not Driving Us Apart After All"

Watch the video (again please) with a perspective of 'gender roles' in mind.


 
 
Is there any there there? or, is it that it is, by now, so weaved in the fabric of our society, it escapes conscious attention.

18 comments:

Palladian said...

“I mean, who would’ve thought that, in America, 30 years ago, women were not in public the same way they are now?” Hampton said. “We don’t think about that.”

Some of us have more interesting things to think about.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

I've stopped eating tofu so that'll help set things right.

Leland said...

So on V-J day, when the guy grabbed the girl walking by on Time Square; he got lucky in more than one way?


Speaking of gender role shift; did anyone else read all of this?

JAL said...

The "this" above is one of the strangest stories I think I have seen in years, if ever.

Holy cow.

Amartel said...

In this video, who is the emotional basketcase (NTTAWWT, I mean I get it, it was an emotional moment and Crab totally just insulted him), and who is playing along with the emotion because it's amusing and cute?
There's your gender role shift.

deborah said...

Wimmens rule bitches!


I've always thought that female sideline reporters were a sop to affirmative action. But now they're just part of the background, which I assume was the AA goal, so win-win.

Leland said...

The "this" above is one of the strangest stories I think I have seen in years, if ever.

I've seen something similar, but the reaction at the end was beyond anything I've seen. And the greater reaction since the article came out is even more strange.

ricpic said...

In other words they're not at home raising children. Some triumph.

deborah said...

Fascinating article, Leland. The most interesting aspect to me being that it may only be a good putter if you believe its designer is an engineer.

Leland said...

Deborah, I can see that aspect.

Personally, I think its entirely possible that the person actually discovered a primitive aspect to golf. That perhaps all the engineering in other putters is no more value than the BS that went into Dr. V's putter. After all, the variability in golf comes more from the conditions and the personal skill than the equipment. Otherwise, anyone could purchase a GX1 and win the Masters.

But if that was true. That being: this one person discovered the inconsequence of the putter's techonology. None of that seems to matter because of the fraud that lead up to this discovery.

Sadly, it has gotten worse. Because even if we can look past the fraud and concentrate on the positive, the would be supporters of "Dr. V" won't let that happen.

I can be entirely wrong in the aspect in which I see this. Perhaps you are wrong. But right or wrong, the context now is not what the person created, but their gender identity.

It is just bizarre.

deborah said...

OIC. The transgender aspect had little bearing on how I read the story other than I assumed it contributed to mental duress (the strange printing she used, etc.)

Yes, they sure did drop the ball, thanks for the second link. It helped me understand transgender better. I have the Karhl article bookmarked for later.

deborah said...

One more think I question for reasons of practicality: why would the original author have not begun with researching her bona fides re colleges attended, instead of trying to find out if she worked on the stealth jet? That's just bass ackwards.

Chip Ahoy said...

What is that putter story about? I tried to stick with it, I did, like this, zippidy zip zip zip and what I got was a woman marketed a new putter like Ginsu knives under false claims but sold a lot of them nonetheless.

And the whole time I was going, "This is like Little Orphan Annie; poor girl goes to the city and makes big."

Leland said...

why would the original author have not begun with researching her bona fides re colleges attended, instead of trying to find out if she worked on the stealth jet?

I'm guessing it was just easier to get ahold of a fellow journalist like Sweetman. Also, employment records are a bit easier to get than academic records (see Obama and Hillary). Besides, not going to Harvard would just be an embellishment. Having no engineering or scientific credentials at all was a bigger deal. The engineers I work with care more about what you've done than where you went to school, unless the discussion is college sports. But then I'm an engineer and that's how I think. Asking for a diploma or transcript seems reasonable. It's amazing that some people don't think of it.

deborah said...

Agreed. Also, I didn't mean to say it wasn't a good putter with legitimate physics behind it. I was just taken with the author saying he stopped putting as well after he knew the inventor who had invented education and background details.

deborah said...

Chip, a difficult to track down inventor of a putter that took in different considerations of the physics of putting in relation to MOI, moment of ineritia. She predicted that less MOI was beneficial, not more, as applied to previous hi-tech putters. Her putter had an MOI of zero.

Over time, it was found out that she was a transgendered male with no credentials.

Trooper York said...

She has Wendy Davis eyes.

Leland said...

Chip,

What deborah said plus another thing... So the inventor turned out to be a transgendered "She". So it wasn't just the false educational and business background, and not just a false alias, but a whole different gender. Alas, that wouldn't mean much to many of us, because the fraud on credentials was the business issue.

So when confronted by the author that the plan was to publish the article with the entire details; the inventor took her life. The result, the transgendered community is hounding the author for being insensitive to the plight of the inventor and driving her to suicide.