The Man I Love

Gigi

What Are Little Girls Made Of?

                                            

 

                                        What are little boys made of?

                                        Frogs and snails,

                                        And puppy dog tails;

                                        That’s what little boys are made of.

 

                                        What are little girls made of?

                                        Sugar and spice,

                                        And all things nice;

                                        That’s what little girls are made of.

                                        Mother Goose

 

In spite of Mother Goose’s ancient wisdom about the difference between girls and boys, the role of women in most societies has been and continues to be suppressed. For a long time, I have felt that we would be better off if we defied custom and put women in charge instead of men. 

This is another opinion that I share with my cousin and friend, Steve, and I’m afraid recent geopolitical tensions are about to again prove us right. Just look at all the wars going on now, all started and perpetuated by men. Look at the societies with oppressive governments in Afghanistan, North Korea, Syria, Sudan, Somalia, all run by men, and all of which suppress women’s rights. 

I think most of us in the US think of ourselves as open minded, with modern, progressive views, but the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, the Equal Protection Amendment, passed after the Civil War in 1868, didn’t apply to women, or to Native Americans, by the way. Women didn’t get the right to vote until 1920, when the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified, after much demonstrating, imprisonment, and hunger strikes by advocates. The Equal Rights amendment, specifically giving equal rights to women, proposed in 1923, and again in 1971, was never ratified. 

Throughout the years, prevailing opinion (especially among men) has been that women’s place was in the home, caring for the children, keeping the house clean, and their husbands happy. It was not until the year 2000 that the woman’s pledge to obey her husband was taken out of the marriage vows in the Anglican prayer book.  

A common belief has been that women are not as smart as men, that they don’t think logically, and that their opinions are often driven by emotions. As recently as 2006, Laurence Summers was fired as president of Harvard University, for a comment that women were not as good in science and math as men. The latest president of Harvard was a woman. During the 19^th century, “scientific” theories were advanced claiming that women are not as smart as men because their brains are smaller. It was later shown that brain size in humans is just proportional to body size, and has nothing to do with intelligence. 

It's a well known fact that girls tend to do better in school than boys, at least through high school. 70% of high school valedictorians are female.  Then several things happen: hormones kick in, people start asking girls when they’re going to get married, and boys what they’re going to do when they grow up. This steers girls into having babies and getting married, not necessarily in that order. And it steers boys into choosing a career, or at least finding a way to make money. 

The social pressures directing girls and boys in different directions are strong, starting at birth, when parents get girls pretty dresses and dolls, and boys cowboy hats and baseball bats. But there’s more to it than that. Girls have to face the real responsibility of having babies and caring for them. This makes them out of necessity more responsible, regardless of their interests or talents. And boys, boys have testosterone, which makes them more aggressive, makes them want sex and adventure, and less responsibility. 

Male and female roles are not just the result of social customs, they have evolved over the millennia. They enable women to bear children and to care for them, so women are naturally more empathetic, and nurturing, which serves to hold the family together.  

Men on the other hand, like males of other species, have evolved to fight to protect the family from predators, and other males. As a result they had to be competitive, possessive, and impulsive.

In my opinion these evolved differences are no longer useful. There are no longer lions and wolves lurking in the forest to carry away your children. Men no longer have to eke out a living by clearing the forest and plowing fields by hand. Women no longer have to make their own clothing, churn butter and cook dinner over an open fire. 

Throughout the ages women have had to fight against social expectations and prejudices, and at the same time shoulder the real burdens of caring for children and family. When my aunt graduated from law school in the 30’s she had to take a job as a secretary because no one would hire her as an attorney. She and my uncle divorced, and she had to give up custody of their son to him, since he had remarried and had a wife to care for his family.  She later worked as a teacher, served time in the Army, and finally worked as a clerk for a judge. My uncle, on the other hand, became a successful trial attorney, and later a district judge.   

Times have changed though, just in my life time. When I was a child, women were expected to stay home with the children. Those who worked were looked on as taking jobs away from men who were responsible for supporting a family. My own mother quit her job when she married my dad for this reason. She learned to play solitaire to fight the boredom. 

Now women have birth control so they can choose when or whether to have children, and they constitute a large part of the work force. When I went to med school there were only three women in my class of 100 students. Now they make up 55%. The numbers in law school are similar. Since 1970 the proportion of women with college degrees has increased from 8 to 39% surpassing males, which have increased from 14 to 36% during the same period. More and more women occupy leadership positions in corporations, and many have even become heads of state. 

Okay, so why should they be in charge? 

First of all, women are risk averse. It’s a well known fact that women are better investors than men, because they are less likely to take chances by investing in a volatile stock. Also they tend to be less impulsive, looking at the big picture, pursuing long term goals. 

Next, women are less aggressive, less confrontational and controlling. 80% of violent crime is committed by men. Men more likely to commit murder, domestic violence, gang or drug related violence and robbery. A 2008 review published in the journal Violence and Victims found that although less serious situation violence or altercation was equal for both genders, more serious and violent abuse was perpetrated by men. It was also found that women's physical violence was more likely motivated by self-defense or fear, while men's was motivated by control. 

Furthermore women are better problem solvers than men. They are more likely to see both sides of an issue, and to use negotiation and compromise to solve problems rather than competition and power. And they are better at multitasking, since they usually do the bulk of child-care, cleaning, cooking, scheduling, and transportation for the family. 

So who would you rather work for, someone who strives to understand your point of view and gives you a chance to try out your ideas, or a boss who tells you it’s his way or the highway? Who would you rather trust your savings to, a broker who wants to put your money into a company he believes to be the next Amazon, or one who prefers to spread your investments out among government bonds and stocks with long record of stability and safe dividends? 

And finally, who would you rather lead your country, someone who fights for dominance over his political rivals, who enters conflicts with other countries to show power, and who persists in wars to save face, or someone who settles differences with other leaders by negotiation and compromise, and whose goal in both domestic and foreign policy is to minimize hardship and suffering, and to reach solutions that are mutually beneficial to all parties.  

 

 

Last Rose of Summer

Overpopulation

 

I’ve been exposed to a lot of wisdom during my life, and I’ve spent a lot of time worrying about the world's problems. Ever once in a while I come up with a really good idea, only to discover that lots of other people have figured it out before, and have expressed it much better than I. The posts about my cousin Steve’s preference for ambivalence and earning your oxygen are examples. 

Most of my great ideas are just common sense, or go along with conventional wisdom, but lately I’ve been reminded of an idea that is not popular, and actually goes against conventional wisdom. I first heard it from my mother when I was a small child. She said “there’s just too many people in the world.” 

She was a social worker and saw a lot of abuse of the welfare system. That may have colored her opinions. 

It seems plain to me, every time I go out in public, which is less often since I’ve retired, there’s so many people. They’re lined up at the grocery store. The roads are congested with cars, even when there’s not a traffic jam. Apartments are jammed together, and still there’s not enough of them, so homeless people are living out in the cold, in tents, without jobs, or enough food, and I don’t even live in a heavily populated area. Many people in the world are suffering from lack of space, food, and other resources, and that leads to disease, starvation, and social unrest. 

There’s a dark cloud of smoke over every city, from the burning of fossil fuels. That was a problem at the Olympics in Beijing because the air was so polluted the athletes couldn’t breathe. Animals are becoming extinct and forests are being cut down. Global warming is leading to wild fluctuations in the weather, melting of the polar ice caps, and rising sea levels which will gradually sink many island communities and coastal areas. 

It seems obvious to me that this is all due to overpopulation. There’s too many people.  We’re contaminating the world and depleting our resources. What amazes me is that no one seems to be willing to confront the problem. Every night the weather man reports on  the warming temperatures, the increase in droughts, tornadoes, hurricanes and reminds us that we’re burning too many fossil fuels. International bodies have been formed to come to agreements  on switching to renewable energy sources, to commit to goals for becoming carbon neutral. Nations negotiate to settle internal and external disputes caused by overcrowding without actually naming it as the cause. Multiple organizations provide food and shelter for the hungry and homeless. We donate money to keep the elephants and the gorillas and the polar bears from becoming extinct because humans are encroaching on their habitat. 

At the same time there is a lot of opposition to any type of population control. Religious groups are almost unanimous in opposing birth control. Economists theorize that economies must grow to be healthy. They worry about Japan and Europe which have declining populations. We were horrified when China limited the growth of families. 

Studies have shown though that population control works. In overpopulated countries couples often have more children so that there will be someone to take care of them when they’re old.  However when women are given access to birth control they are freed up to work and be productive and the economy benefits. 

I don’t understand it. There seems to be a taboo against attributing our problems to overpopulation. Is it religious, cultural? I’m not saying our problems would be over if we had less people, but I think they would be a lot easier to solve.

 

Johnson's War

 

                  

                                    President Lyndon Johnson 

                  Pinning Medal on Soldier in Vietnam

When Lyndon Johnson assumed the presidency after the assassination of John F Kennedy in November of 1963, I don’t think he had given Vietnam much thought. He had gone there as vice president in 1961, but like most of Kennedy’s advisors, he came back with a mixed message: We should take a leadership role in Southeast Asia’s fight against communism, but if things didn’t go well in Vietnam, we might have to cut our losses and get out. 

Johnson’s primary goal as president was to create a “Great Society.” He had been a confidant of FDR, and admired his “New Deal” social programs, and as a long time congressional leader, he knew how to get things done. He created Medicare and Medicaid. He signed into law three civil rights acts outlawing discrimination based on race, religion, sex or national origin in voter registration, schools, public accommodation and employment, a special act giving equal rights to Native Americans, and a Fair Housing Act which prohibited discrimination in housing.   He signed the Higher Education Act of 1965, giving federal support for student loans, and the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, abolishing quotas based on race or national origin. He initiated the “War on Poverty” resulting in the Economic Opportunity Act, which created the Job Corps and the Community Action Program, designed to attack poverty locally. The act created VISTA, a domestic counterpart to the Peace Corps. He also made the Apollo Space Program a national priority, and after the assassination of Robert Kennedy, he even passed gun control legislation. 

Vietnam was a different story. At the time of John F. Kennedy’s assassination, our support of South Vietnam was considered a losing cause. Henry Cabot Lodge, our ambassador to Vietnam, reported that General Duong Van “Big” Minh, leader of the coup that ousted Diem, had no more support among the people than his predecessor. In fact, he was overthrown within three months of Diem’s assassination. U Thant, Secretary General of the UN, recommended removal of all foreign troops from Vietnam, and transferring control of Vietnam to a neutral government. De Gaulle also recommended a negotiated withdrawal, predicting the same fate for the US as befell France at Dien Bien Phu. Even in South Vietnam it was reported that Diem’s brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu, and also General Minh had negotiated independently with Ho Chi Minh about reuniting the country and expelling the Americans.  

Kennedy had already given orders to start withdrawing troops, but Johnson cancelled the order, not wanting to negotiate from a position of weakness; he didn’t see how we could fail against such a “Raggety-ass little fourth rate country,” and as he famously said: “I don’t want to be the first president to lose a war.” Thus, Johnson fell into line behind all the other presidents since FDR in following Tuchman’s rule: “Once a policy has been adopted and implemented, all subsequent activity becomes an effort to justify it.” 

After receiving intelligence that North Vietnamese troops had crossed the 17^th parallel, Johnson approved sending American naval ships into the Gulf of Tonkin as a warning to Hanoi to pull back. A destroyer, the USS Mattox, was attacked on August 2, 1964, by North Vietnamese torpedo boats. Another attack on August 4 was reported but denied by the North Vietnamese. As a result, Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution giving the President authority to defend any of our Asian allies with military force without an act of Congress. 

The sponsor of the bill in the Senate, William Fulbright, was opposed to the war in Vietnam, but like others he was convinced that Johnson wouldn’t  expand our role there. Also he didn’t want to embarrass the president in an election year. 

Johnson’s opponent in the 1964 presidential race was Barry Goldwater, who was in favor of our intervention in Vietnam, so Johnson pretended to be more moderate, even though he had already made plans to bomb Hanoi. Goldwater’s slogan was “In your heart you know he’s right.” Johnson’s campaign responded with bumper stickers which said, “In your gut you know he’s nuts.” Johnson won in a landslide. 

Johnson’s victory in 1964 gave him another opportunity to get out of Vietnam. He had a high approval rating; Diem’s government had failed, and leaders from around the world, including South Vietnam, favored our withdrawal. Instead, Johnson, on the advice of his military leaders, initiated a bombing campaign against North Vietnam, called Rolling Thunder, and began sending in ground troops, 200,000 by October 1965. 

Throughout 1966 and ’67 the escalation continued. The bombing campaign was extended to include supply routes through Laos and the Vietnamese Highlands, the “Ho Chi Minh Trail,” and without consulting the South Vietnamese, ground troops began the new tactic of “Search and Destroy,” where small villages thought to harbor Vietcong were destroyed. Horrific attacks were carried out using incendiary agents such as Napalm and White phosphorus. By September 1967 US troop levels had reached 500,000. As public awareness of the war grew, Johnson’s approval fell to 26%. Against all evidence to the contrary, Johnson continued to think that more was better. In a conversation with former president Eisenhower, he said, "I’m trying to win it just as fast as I can in every way that I know how". 

Then suddenly, everything changed. In January, 1968, during Tet, the new year’s holiday, when many in the South Vietnamese army were home on leave, Vietcong and North Vietnamese forces staged a coordinated attack on South Vietnamese cities. The result was 45000 North Vietnamese and Vietcong killed, over 10,000 South Vietnamese military killed or wounded, and almost 10,000 American military killed or wounded. The loss of civilians was almost 40,000 killed or wounded and 500,000 refugees were created, in addition to the 800,000 refugees already homeless as a result of the war. 

The assessment of the 1968 Tet offensive by US military leaders was positive. According to them, we had “won” since we scored a higher “body count” than the North Vietnamese and Vietcong forces. Westmoreland, the US commanding general, declared victory, and asked for 250,000 more troops to finish the job.  

This time Johnson didn’t go along with the military’s recommendations. He had had enough. On March 31^st, he gave a speech announcing a halt to the bombing of North Vietnam, and an offer of peace talks with Ho Chi Minh. Finally he withdrew from the 1968 presidential race, and fired Westmoreland.

September Song