Essential Estrogen

As you may have already read on Around Des Moines and Blog for Iowa, I was selected as one of the 10 finalists for the Women's Voices Making History Favorite Female Blogger contest at Women's Voices. Women Vote. Although I know this will sound cliche, the truth is that it has been an amazing honor just to be nominated and selected to stand with the other nine amazing, intelligent and opinionated women.

I'd be remiss here if I didn't send some thank you shout-outs to Seth, Debi, Kay, Debby, Lori, Dave, Chris, Sam, Rose, Carol and all the other friends and readers who have already passed this wonderful news along through their email lists and blogs. In as much as I find the national attention an honor, your personal notes of appreciation and endorsement have left me humbled beyond measure... and even a tad speechless, which I'm sure all of you will find hysterical.

Thanks also to my co-workers and friends at Iowa Independent, RH Reality Check, and Huffington Post. It is in large part due to their help, deadlines and inspiration that many of the posts you read here were written. I'm blessed to be a part of such a diverse and wonderful professional network.

Voting for your favorite of the final 10 women selected will continue through Friday. Regardless of which blogger you choose, please take a moment to visit the site and cast a vote for one of the women listed there. As the Essential Estrogen mission statement reads, "Throughout history every significant societal shift toward a more equitable community has taken place because either a woman or a group of women took action. ... History has not only shown women in politics to be beneficial to society, it has shown such influence to be essential to society."

My thanks and congratulations to all nominated. Our voices are essential.

SHeDAISY singing Get Over Yourself:

Over the past few weeks I've been confronted with the "Why do you blog?" question. And, before anyone asks: "Yes, it is different for girls and women." There is an odd and sometimes scary ugliness that comes from allowing others a sense of anonymity while you, the blogger, have little.

While I'm not sure I've come up with an answer to the question that adequately fits for me, I did look over at some other women's blogs to see why they might feel compelled do this. One particular post on Blogher, written by Jennifer Satterwhite discusses her celebration of being eight years passed a drug addiction and what she finds by reading blogs and being a blogger. (There are also some great links in her post, so go read it.)

There is one thing I know: I have a split-blogging personality. One side of me writes traditionally, describing events and gathering quotations from those in attendance. That side also writes the statistical pieces readers find here from time to time. The other side of me, however, writes these Sunday posts and discusses life, emotions and ideas. I know how to write both ways and, so I've been told, I have a certain amount of talent for each. What I've yet to develop... actually, what I've questioned could be developed... is a way to merge the two. Is it possible to bear your soul to readers while following the journalists' mandate of "just the facts?"

I was happy when I saw that Jack and Jill Politics had been featured on Anderson Cooper. Then I read what the blog author(s) thought about it.

This problem illustrates perfectly what seems to be happening in the traditional media. Blogs and online news sites are gaining more credibility, but are often not afforded the same considerations that are given to fellow journalists and traditional pundits. That is, often our words are taken, read out of context and then discussed by individuals who rarely (if ever) have read our thoughts as a whole.

No doubt you've probably heard at least something about Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius by now. If nothing else, you should know that she's considered to be on the short list of vice presidential contenders.

If you head over to Mom's Speak Out, you'll read a post about Sebelius possible green leanings. (She recently vetoed expansion of a coal-burning power plant in her state.)

Did you see the piece Students of Virginity in the New York Times Magazine? It's about the outbreak of abstinent-until-marriage groups at institutions of higher learning. The article especially focused on such groups at Ivy League schools.

Some snippits:

In a follow-up study to a 1995 national survey of close to 12,000 students in grades 7 through 12, two sociologists, Peter Bearman at Columbia University and Hannah Brückner at Yale, found that while those who took virginity pledges preserved their technical virginity about 18 months longer than teenagers who didn’t pledge, they were six times more likely to engage in oral sex than virgins who hadn’t taken a pledge. They were also much less likely to use condoms during their first sexual experience or to be tested for sexually transmitted diseases. Disease rates between those who pledged and those who didn’t were actually similar. The authors, who published their findings in 2005, concluded that the emphasis on premarital abstinence was insufficient to fend off disease and “collides with the realities of adolescents’ and young adults’ lives.”

...

A voluntary online survey showed that students at Harvard were less sexually active than undergraduates elsewhere, says Dr. David Rosenthal, director of University Health Services, which conducted the survey. But perceiving a sexualized culture, members of True Love Revolution went to war. The group did not require an abstinence pledge, nor concern itself with drawing specific boundaries. Its one stated purpose was to discourage premarital intercourse, but by declining to endorse gay marriage, the group left gays, just as Princeton did, with no option but to abstain forever. Since True Love Revolution did not condemn gay marriage, Murray hoped no one would feel “personally attacked.” “We just wanted it to be kind of humorous and lighthearted,” he said.

True Love Revolution was denounced, however, after its first big outreach effort, on Valentine’s Day 2007. Members had sent out cards to the women of the freshmen class that read: “Why wait? Because you’re worth it.” Some interpreted the card to mean that those who didn’t wait until marriage to have sex would somehow be worth less. One writer for The Crimson concluded that “by targeting women with their cards and didactic message, they perpetuate an age-old values system in which the worth of a young woman is measured by her virginity.”

There's much more at the link. The paragraphs I pulled above are the ones with which I had the most issue. First, we know that "just say no" doesn't work. It never has and it never will. While I believe we could teach our young people that sexual intimacy should be sacred and coveted, we cannot just leave sex itself sitting out as some mysterious bottle of goo (good or bad goo). It is important for us to give our young people all the information available so that when decisions are made, the decisions are educated.

Finally, I'm still a bit disgusted with the Valentine's Day stunt. Why is a woman who has sex a slut while a man who has sex is a stud? And, no, I don't buy the fact that "that's the way it's always been." Further, for a woman to be the instigator of both demeaning women and applying the slut label... well, I find that all the more distasteful.

At his blog A Fly Bottle, Will Wilkinson pulls some interesting statistical data from the book "Gross National Happiness" that seems to show that having children actually makes adults less happy.

The more children you have, on average, the unhappier you get — up to a point. The average happiness of adults — correcting for all the factors mentioned above — falls as more children are added to the family.

For the record, I've met certain people who found their most happiness through raising and caring for children. But those people -- of whom I am not one -- are few and far between. Truly raising and caring for children is non-stop work. While I write this post, I can think of literally hundreds of things I *could* be doing that would all fall under the category of child-rearing. Don't believe me? Well, I could be checking out colleges for my oldest daughter. I could sew the hole in my son's favorite piggy. I could be pulling too small clothing from the drawers, or unpacking the summer things I packed away last fall. I could be disinfecting door knobs. (This is still the flue season.) I could be playing a game with them. I could be taking them to the park. I could be making sure homework is done. I could be preparing baths. I could be doing the dishes left in the sink. I could be brushing the now-shedding cat, since I know her loose fur will be play havoc with my middle daughter's allergies.

As I said, there are hundreds of things I could be doing. I'm doing this, however, because it is something I find enjoyable. It is something that makes me happy. I'm not sure if that makes me a horrible person; however, I am quite sure that I'm not a lonely parent in this regard. Most parents I know rejoice in the few hours of solitude they can find away from their children. This does not mean we aren't happy to return home or that we don't miss our children while we're away. It just means that humans are typically selfish creatures and the work of raising children is primarily selfless.

Every so often I read something on a blog that has me literally jumping up out of my chair to applaud. Such is the case with the Why Democrats Soliciting Religious Voters is Silly, Stupid and Suicidal post at the Watching Those We Chose blog. Bravo!