Reading Responses

When your typical day involves spending between 4 and 5 hours riding or waiting for buses and trains, it's pretty easy to find time to read. So I've done a lot of reading since this April. And a couple of books that I read last month have been demanding that I make mention of them on here.

The first is a book that I've been trying to read since I bought it as a recommended book for a class I took Fall of 2006. It normally doesn't take me anywhere near 4 years to read a book, especially of this length - it's only about 160 pages. But this one, Gender Vertigo: American Families in Transition by Barbara J. Risman, was tough because it is based on an assumption that I just cannot get behind. In fact, it goes completely against what I believe to be true. The underlying belief of this book is that we, as a society, need to move beyond gender - that any difference between the sexes beyond basic anatomy is something that we need to get rid of. And it is hard work to read something that directly challenges deeply held convictions, such as that gender is good, right, necessary, and eternal.

There is a lot I could talk about here. She does include some pretty interesting studies, mostly with very solid methodology, and I could discuss what I think of her measures and results. Or I could try to evaluate what exactly I think gender is, because most of her measures I don't really consider accurate reflections of the real differences between masculinity and femininity. But I also can't figure out, if those measures aren't the difference, what is.

But what struck me most is her reasoning behind wanting a post-gendered society. In her introduction, she says, "Although some foraging societies may have had both a gender-based division of labor and near equality of men and women, such a scenario is unlikely in a post-industrial society, where ideology dictates that social position be based on achievement." She herself acknowledges that it is, or has been, possible to have gender divisions and at least near-equality. But there has never been a time in human history where gender was not an important structure in organizing society. So why this insistence on moving beyond gender? Wouldn't it be at least as easy to change society's view to see an equal value in "women's work"? After all, she herself says in the forward "The most important lesson I have learned, and from my mother, is that our post-gender families must elevate the traditionally female values of nurturing and homemaking above all else - for it is this work, what women have always done, that turns isolated individuals into families and communities, brick and mortar in hearth and home, and gives meaning to our lives." When she argues that the work traditionally done by men has greater prestige than that done by women, then says that the traditional women's contributions should be elevated above men's, I see the possibility of making them equal.

The other book I need to talk about is Lost Horizon by James Hilton. I actually did read this before but, oddly for me, remembered nothing other than the most basic ideas behind it. So it was a lot like reading it for the first time.

Before moving on, I must warn you that there may be spoilers coming.

From everything I've heard and read, Shangri-La is supposed to be a utopia. But in reading this book, I found it to be really disturbing. The main reason is probably that nobody is allowed to leave. It doesn't matter how nice the place is - if you can't leave, it is more prison than paradise. And that's the way things are in Shangri-La. And to add to it, they bring people in without warning them of this condition beforehand. Maybe it wasn't quite so bad when they were dealing with lost mountaineers who would have died anyway, but Conway's group was kidnapped for the very purpose of forcing them to come and stay.

Then the knowledge that when someone leaves the mountain they age drastically to where they would have been without the life-preserving properties of the mountain adds a little more creepiness to the situation.

I can see some of the appeal in the place, don't get me wrong. To have so much time to devote to little studies and hobbies and projects that you couldn't do in the regular world does have its draw. But I would still rather live a short life, maybe even in as confined an area, just to have the knowledge that I chose it.

Get the Basics, and Hustle

While watching a football game one day, my friend Sean made a comment about how the coaches usually say the same things in their halftime interviews, usually focusing on very basic things. And I thought that was a lot like the way things go at church. When it comes down to it, we always need to focus on the basics.

Happy Birthday

I notice significant-to-me dates. These are mostly the birthdays of people I feel close to. I often think things like, "Oh, the third season of Buffy is going on Hulu on so-and-so's birthday" or "This invoice was sent on other person's birthday". That can be helpful if I want to remember when the third season of Buffy is going up. But sometimes what I'm noticing is that a letter was written on my birthday, thirty years before I was born. It isn't a particularly helpful thing to notice in this case, but I notice it all the same. And sometimes I think about how whoever was writing the letter had no idea that the date Ocober 27 would mean anything to me. After all, they didn't even know about me.

And then sometimes I start to wonder which dates that feel so ordinary to me now will become significant later on. What will be my wedding date? When will my kids be born? Is today a significant date that I'm just not aware of yet?

High on the Spectrum

I recently read that some people say that shyness could be considered a very mild form of Asperger's. If this is the case, I definitely place on the Autistic Spectrum.

Boys are significantly more likely than girls to be diagnosed with an autistic spectrum disorder. When I think about shyness, however, I don't really associate it more with one sex than the other. But I've seen no data about shyness rates and wonder if anybody has ever studied that. I'd guess that someone has, but I don't know.

But the actual shyness rates between boys and girls wouldn't necessarily make any sort of case for or against general shyness being on the spectrum. But if a genetic link between autism and shyness were found, that could provide a valid argument. Autism is a genetically complex disorder- or, more accurately, group of disorders- so such a link could exist.

Of course, even if it turns out that shyness does have some sort of relationship to autism, it is not a psychiatric disorder. Some people say that Asperger's isn't a disorder either, but I don't really want to get into that- just acknowledging and moving on. Anyway, what I was taught is that in order to be diagnosed clinically, there needs to be a serious disruption in at least three areas of life. This particular criterion was brought up in a child psych class and the cutoff point may be different for adults, but it gets the point across. Although shyness can be a limitation, it generally is not serious enough to be considered a real disruption. As an example from a different set of behaviors, a tic is not a psychiatric disorder. But Tourette's is. It disrupts all sorts of aspects of a person's life.

More people are diagnosed with ASD than used to be. Some people think this increase is related to chemicals in vaccinations. An explanation more well accepted within the scientific community is that the symptoms are more recognized. But if the increase did come because of vaccinations, and shyness is related to autism, would that lead to higher rates of shyness these days?

I have also heard that a gluten-free, casein-free diet can reduce ASD symptoms. So if I change my diet, can I make all my shyness and social awkwardness go away?

Worst Journal Entry Ever

I was skimming though the journal I used during my senior year of high school and found this entry:

Sunday, Dec. 21, 2003

We

Yes, that's the whole thing.

Alma 31:35

Behold, O Lord, their souls are precious, and many of them are our brethren; therefore, give unto us, O Lord, power and wisdom that we may bring these, our brethren, again unto thee.

I read this last night and thought it is the perfect missionary scripture. Now, there are a lot of missionary scriptures, but I like how this expresses the reason (their souls are precious) and the goal (that we may bring these unto thee) along with the request (power and wisdom), which shows an acceptance of the responsibility and a true desire to fulfill the call. I feel that it expresses a real understanding of the importance of the gospel and of missionary work that I could probably do to have more of.

Plus, I always appreciate a prayer for wisdom.

And A Random Question

As I was going to sleep last night, my thoughts briefly turned to tithing. And I wondered why it is that we pay 10%. A lot of numbers of things in church have some sort of symbolic meaning: 3 and 12 are the most common, but I think 7 comes in there, too. But why ten? The only reason I can think for that particular number is that it makes figuring out how much to pay pretty easy using our numbering system.