sparrow's nest

Do you give too much unsolicited advice?

Hey, have you ever been told that you don’t listen to people?

What I want to point out to men who give out advice, is that you need to be sure that whoever you are listening to is at the “I want your help” stage of the problem-process. To give advice too soon is to tell whoever you’re slathering the advice on that the process they are in needs to pick up speed, and get to the orgasm of problems—the “I HAVE THE SOLUTION!” phase. Just let it go, the orgasm isn’t everything. The solution isn’t everything. And who says this person wants you to be part of that phase anyway. Maybe they can just do it for themselves.

So, this means you just have to be patient. Listen a little more, and if you are feeling antsy about getting to fixing everything, just ask, “Hey, it sounds like you are saying ___. Would you like to brainstorm to try to figure out how to fix that, or I can keep listening, too, if you want.”

This really helps. Just validate them. Everyone wants validation, even advice-givers.

NOTE: If you are a guy, chances are, you made whoever decided to tell you this very uncomfortable for a long, long time.

ok cupid + planned parenthood

Here is the match I want to see made: ok cupid and planned parenthood.

I imagine it working as follows:

You sign up, you get free dental dams/condoms

You wink, you get more

You message someone, you get more

You routinely get messages about different services they have at PP, and a special discount pass! (Maybe then chlamydia and gonorrhea wouldn’t be the number one and two infections in the U.S., respectively)

There could also be secret links all over the ok cupid website for safer/safe sex information.

Why do you want to be more lady like??

I have recently gotten a bit obsessed with the social goal networking site 43Things. It’s a fun community to be part of. Each member posts goals, checks off things they’ve done, and others can cheer you on, and write responses.

At the bottom of the page, there is a box that has a list of goals people are working on. I clicked on one that read: “be more lady like.” 12 people share this goal. I support people doing what they want, and I think being a woman is pretty tricky because we are constantly told what kind of “she” to be. I guess I just want to know what being more lady like means.

One user said that she calls herself ladylike because “i am a fantabulous lady like creature! i wear high heels, nice underwear, pretty skirts etc, i say please and thank you at the right times and i can cook!!!” later she adds: “but i sometimes think i need to be more lady like!”

Another explained that lady like to her means more adult, less like a girl. She wants to be more lady like because she wants her customers to trust her as they would someone older.

Another member attributed her lack of lady likeness to her cursing: “I am goign to try first BY NOT CURSING NEARLY AS MUCH… GRRR.”

First, i want to be clear about something: for me, being ladylike is overrated.

From the 43things members, we can see that being lady like has a lot of different interpretations. Like women thinking that cursing and bad manners are not lady like, so we can assume that these attributes are associated with being manly? or man like? Does this mean that there are men out there wondering why they aren’t manly enough? I checked. There were only 18 entries related to becoming more manly on 43Things (I just searched for “manly” and “man-like”), as compared to a whopping 116 (using search term “lady like”). This 116 is not even counting all of the goals which the social construction of “lady” is a part.

Maybe the disparity exists for the following reasons:

1. women are more likely to talk about wanting to be more womanly/ladylike than men are to admit they want to be more manly

2. men are forced to talk about manliness with indirect language like: I want to work out more, i want to lose 30 lbs, etc.

The problem with reason 1 is that it reiterates the socially-constructed idea that women are more likely to talk about problems than men. But, it does not ignore that both men and women are part of a social construction of gender.

The problem with reason 2 is that both men and women use indirect language to talk about gender. Gender is so salient that you don’t have to say the gender you are talking about.

Fortunately, gender is something that 43Things doesn’t ask about, so you can remain ambiguous. However, many of the women who posted made it pretty clear that they were women…

I have a bunch more questions I want to think more about for this…

+ + everything nice =

bogus social construction

What’s missing from lesson plans: Race Matters in Second Grade

I teach before and after school in Southeast San Diego. I’m not one of those “do gooder” types, I just realized that you don’t need to go anywhere other than your backyard to help people, and I’d never say I want to save the world. So, when I moved back to San Diego in May 2009, I decided to do this job.

Let me begin by saying that it has taught me a lot about patience, a lot about people, and a lot about pieces of the world.

In my first week of work, I met a second grade boy who I will call Henry (for confidentiality’s sake). I wanted the kids in the morning program to make animals that they might find in the jungle, which I would then hang up for all of their classmates to see. Henry intently drew a tiger on bright orange construction paper. One of his best friends, Adrian, was sitting next to him, working hard to get a panda’s ears just right.

For the past three days, the two of them had taken advantage of my ignorance about their names. They switched hoodies, and called each other by their own name: I called Adrian Henry, and Henry Adrian. When I learned that they had duped me from my boss, I began calling them by their correct names. “How did she figure it out?” I heard one whisper loudly (elementary school kids rarely develop quiet whispers before 6th grade).

Adrian is what most people would call white, and Henry is what most people would call Black. So when they do the “twin swap” game, it’s very easy to tell them apart.

While they cut out their respective animals, they talked about their identity swap.

“You know, Adrian,” Henry said, “she could tell us apart because I am Black, and you are white.”

“You’re right,” Adrian said, as he put the scissors down carefully.

“I can never be as white as you, and you can never be as Black as me,” said Henry.

“Yep,” said Adrian.

Kids have so much to teach.