Chore Wars: Everybody Loses

It's obvious no one likes to do chores. Who likes to spend their Saturday washing dishes (boring), cleaning the bathroom (gross), or mowing the lawn (too much exercise)? I would rather be watching TV, thank you very much. As a woman, I felt immediate relief for my near future that it's looking a lot like rainbows and sunshine because men are doing more chores than ever before. Hurrah! A recent study shows that men did about six hours of housework a week in 1976, compared with about 13 hours in 2005. In comparison, women did an average of 26 hours of housework a week in 1976, compared with about 17 hours in 2005. Gender stereotypes? So quaint, so archaic. You can stop thinking of women with brooms or dish soap now. It's also comforting to know that while women are still in the lead, if this trend keeps going, we might actually balance out. Breathe a sigh everyone (but maybe not men). 

Marketing companies have cleverly picked up on this trend. P&G have started targeting male customers for their home products. One way that P&G have achieved this is to, for lack of a better word, “dumb down” the process of chores. This year, P&G introduced Tide Pods which eliminates the need for pouring and measuring. They've also introduced the Bounce dryer bar, which is a fabric softener installed in the dryer that lasts for months.

In addition, just in time for football season, Tide, a National Football League sponsor, put New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees on its sports-gear detergent bottles. Thebrand signed up TV host and husband Nick Lachey as a spokesman. I'm guessing this has to do with associating men with chores and making chores “masculine.”

You know things aren't a fluke when even marketing companies are picking up the good news. Things are looking pretty bright for women everywhere. It’s the 21st century. We're allowed to vote. We’re allowed to have jobs. We can voice our opinions, get an education. It seems as though we’re (almost) equal, right? Yes, we hear about the occasional gender pay gap, the occasional uneven distribution of household chores, but nothing too big. Generally speaking, men are contributing more to chores. Everyone's happier. Or are they?

Here's where the universe plays a little joke on us. A recent Norwegian study found that the divorce rates for couples who share housework are fifty percent higher than for couples in which the wife assumes the sole responsibility for household chores. “The more a man does in the home, the higher the divorce rate,” said Thomas Hansen, co-author of the study.

Although the researchers couldn't find a cause and effect relationship between a man's duties at home and divorce rates, it could be a sum of other factors, including a modern perception of marriage. Does this mean that couples who share housework value marriage less, or that women nagging their partners about helping out around the house may lead to divorce more? We don't know. But I guess not everyone's happy after all.

So thanks, universe. So much for equality between the sexes. Do we now have to choose between chore equality and marriage? It now seems like it. Maybe it's not rainbows and sunshine for the near future anymore because in a divorce, everyone loses. But in a world where women and men still can't divide up chores evenly, everyone also loses. If this is a sad reality of life, and these two notions cannot reconcile themselves, then I don't think we'll ever reach an age of equality. And it would be a sad day indeed.

Is the Republican Party Really the Dumb Party?

When Mitt Romney lost the election last semester, it was needless to say that many people were not just surprised, but downright shocked. What were the reasons for this devastating loss? There were countless ones (his wealth, his hair, his awkwardness, his inability to evoke any sort of emotion, the fact that he won't let his dog ride in the car...take your pick). But with his loss, people started searching for answers on what the Republican Party must do to secure the presidential seat four years later. Bobby Jindal, the governor of Louisiana and a Republican, offers us this piece of advice for future elections:

“Stop being the stupid party. It's time for a new Republican party that talks like adults. It's time for us to articulate our plans and visions for America in real terms. We had a number of Republicans damage the brand this year with offensive and bizarre comments.”


Woah, that's a little harsh. “Stupid?” Can't “talk like adults?” It kind of feels being told by my parents to grow up when I'm throwing a temper fit (just kidding, I grew out of that ages ago). But is he right? Is the Republican Party the “dumb” party?


Lots of evidence point to the affirmative (but hold your horses until I’m done!). This seems to be the party of offensive and bizarre comments. Take Todd Akin, who believes that in cases of “legitimate rape” (as opposed to illegitimate rape?), “the female body has ways to try to shut the whole thing down.” All I can say is, I wish my vagina behaved that way. Or Richard Mourdock, who I believe thinks that in the situation of rape, pregnancies are a “gift from God.” Um, thanks for the gift, but I think I'll pass on this one. Other Republican candidates Linda McMahon, Tom Smith, and Josh Koster also deserve special mentions for their views on abortion too. These comments are strange, and strongly question the intelligence (and integrity) of these people.

These are arguably be the few cases of the extreme right on the views of abortion. We'll always have extremists on both sides. But when it comes to basic science, the majority of Republicans (58%) also believed that God created humans in their present form within the last 10,000 years. Most Democrats and independents, on the other hand, did not agree.


Believing that humans were created 10,000 years is a downright contradiction of evolution, which is a concept in science which fuels our understanding of the world in every area, such as why we're lactose intolerant, how antibiotics work etc. Evolution is the basic building block of all scientific endeavors. Believing that the Earth wasn't created billions of years ago, but in recent times, also contradicts evolution. But Marco Rubio, the Senator of Florida and a member of the Tea Party explains his reluctance to accept that the Earth is around 4.5 billion years old like this: “I'm not a scientist, man. I can tell you what recorded history says, I can tell you what the Bible says, but I think that's a dispute amongst theologians... I don't think I'm qualified to answer a question like that.”


Hey, man, I’m not a scientist either. But when people have dedicated thirty years of their lives to the pursuit of science, I am generally more inclined to agree with them than not, since they've probably replicated the data, verified it with other scientists and have all agreed to a consensus. And as for being qualified to answer a fact? I don't think I need to be a mathematician to be qualified to answer that 1 and 1 will equal 2. Sorry Rubio. I think you are qualified to answer a question like that.


It shouldn't be surprising then, that a research report found that only 6 percent of scientists identified as Republican and 9 percent identified as conservative. Furthermore, a 2005 study found that just 11 percent of college professors identified as Republican and 15 percent identified as conservative. With scientists and college professors predominantly Democratic or Independent, it would seem as though the Republican Party is lacking a strong based of academic power.

That is not to say there is no hope for the Party – there are undoubtedly bright people within the party. But their policies and words are being overshadowed by social policies intended to appease the extreme right. Before the Republican Party can regain its reputation, it needs to go back to its fundamental base, and fully separate religion from the state. No more talk about what God had intended (abortions, pregnancies, rapes). No more medically inaccurate facts about how a woman's vagina functions. Please, for the love of common sense, establish the significance of science, because it's what got us so far. Jindal was right – this is a party not associated with smartness. But it doesn't always have to be this way. With the right course, I sincerely believe that one day the Republican Party could someday be seen as the Smart Party. 

Ireland Woman's Death: A Philosophical Look at Abortion

Abortion is a deeply emotional, sensitive and controversial topic for most of us, but I felt the need to address some of the arguments facing abortion today given what has happened in Ireland recently.

A little more than a month ago, a woman named Savita Halappanavar from Ireland died when she was refused an abortion and died from her miscarriage days later. Ms Halappanavar had gone to the hospital in severe pain and told she was going to miscarry the baby. The doctors told her the miscarriage would be over in a matter of hours, but the hours dragged on and she was still in pain. They asked for an abortion to expedite the miscarriage, but was told that Ireland was a "Catholic country" and they had to wait until the fetus' heartbeat had stopped before they could do anything. The fetus died three days later and was removed, but shortly after, the mother died from a blood infection. The husband is now suing the Ireland government.

This tragedy has sparked protests and re-examines Ireland's legislation for abortions.

Ms Halappanavar's death has sparked protests both in Ireland and worldwide.

It is difficult to address the abortion on one level, because there are so many debates and views going on at the same time. Between pro-life views alone, there are different levels such as abortion impermissible only after the first trimester (as in the case of Roe vs Wade), abortion impermissible except in the cases of rape, or abortion impermissible except in the cases where the mother's life is in danger. 

Judith Jarvis Thomsom makes a compelling argument for pro-choice in her paper "In Defense of Abortion." She relies on her now famous violinist argument, which is here:

"You wake up in the morning and find yourself back to back in bed with an unconscious violinist. A famous unconscious violinist. He has been found to have a fatal kidney ailment, and the Society of Music Lovers has canvassed all the available medical records and found that you alone have the right blood type to help. They have therefore kidnapped you, and last night the violinist's circulatory system was plugged into yours, so that your kidneys can be used to extract poisons from his blood as well as your own. ... To unplug you would be to kill him. But never mind, it's only for nine months. By then he will have recovered from his ailment, and can safely be unplugged from you."

This is meant to be an analogy of the relationship between a mother and a child and a random person and a famous violinist. You're not obliged to keep him alive. It would be a nice gesture, it would be kind, but it is certainly not an obligation. So given the assumption that many advocates of abortion have made, that all persons have the right to life, that right to life outweighs your right to decide what you do with your body. What if it wasn't nine months, but was nine years instead? Would you be obligated to have a violinist latch onto you for nine years? Twenty years? Your entire life? That kind of conclusion seems a little preposterous.

An argument that proponents for the view that abortion is impermissible even when the woman's life is in danger is the argument that performing an abortion would be directly killing the child, whereas doing nothing would technically not be directly killing the mother.

But to complete the analogy with the case of the woman in Ireland, Thomson further elaborates with an extension of her original violinist argument:

"There you are, in bed with violinist and the director of the hospital says to you, “It’s almost distressing and I deeply sympathize, but you see this is putting an additional strain on your kidneys, and you’ll be dead within a month. But you have to stay where you are all the same. Because unplugging you would be directly killing an innocent violinist, and that’s murder and that’s impermissible.”

Can it seriously be argued that the woman must refrain and sit passively by and wait for her death? I constitute this as killing someone. I feel as if passive inaction is an action within itself (but that's a whole other debate).

Whether you are pro-choice or pro-life, these are undoubtedly compelling arguments that as a philosophy major, I urge you to take a look at. There are too many debates based solely on faulty logic, ("Abortion is wrong because it is wrong." Have you ever heard of circular reasoning?), emotion ("Abortion is wrong because it's killing a baby! And babies are cute little humans!"), or religion ("Abortion is wrong because God tells us that all persons have the right to life, no matter what."). It wouldn't hurt to dig a little deeper and visit some of the philosophical debates regarding abortion before making a formulated opinion on abortion.

Buy my virginity! A woman auctions off her first time

So I totally watched Memoirs of a Geisha, and half of the film was about the girl (Zhang Ziyi) waiting to have her virginity auctioned off so she can become a "proper geisha". This was Japan in the 20th century, I believe. 

Alas, for those of you who don't know, virginities are auctioned off even now. And now there's going to be a whole documentary about it! It will be directed by a relatively unknown Australian director named Justin Sisely, who is now facing criticism from the Australian government. One politician called the project “absurd, ridiculous and disgusting.”

To spice things up, the documentary will include both a male and a female virgin (I was quite surprised by this, since I know women's virginities are generally considered more "worthy than men's is - and you will see why later): a 20-year-old woman named Catarina Migliorini from Brazil and 23-year-old Alex Stepanov from Russia.

Both candidates have agreed to have their "journey" filmed - all the way until the actual consummation. To avoid prostitution laws, the fornication will happen on an airplane.

As Migliorini says: "The winner will be entitled to at least an hour with me. He cannot act out fantasies, use sex toys, nothing. It is also mandatory to use a condom and can only take my virginity, nothing more. He can talk. But no kissing." 

On October 24th, 2012, Migliorini's virginity was sold to man (presumably) named Natsu. Sounds like a Japanese name. Also is this just a coincidence that this man happens to be Japanese, and Memoirs of a Geisha was based in Japan. Remind me to look into the value of virginity in Japan. Anyway, he has offered a $780,000. Ah, the price of making love. Stepanov, on the other hand, received a winning bid of $3,000.

Here are the two uncomfortable notions I have with this story: first, Migliorini has expressed interest in donating her money to charities in Brazil. However, charities may refuse the money because it might "set a dangerous precedent." Second, why was Migliorini's virginity worth so much more than Stepanov.

I am conflicted on the first point. On one hand, I think Migliorini's intentions are great. On the other hand, I see the arguments that charities can make - technically, they are allowed to refuse money from people. They can refuse money from terrorists, from bribers, from political affiliations. But should they? Does it matter where money comes from, as long as the money goes somewhere good? Money is money, so are people allowed to be picky as to whom they're receiving the money from?

On the second point, I am deeply concerned with the disparity between the value of a man's and a woman's virginity. For anyone who has seen or read the Purity Myth by Jessica Valenti, you'll see how in some societies, the value of a woman's virginity overshadows that woman's personality or character. Take purity balls, purity rings, purity t-shirts, purity statements - we are a country that takes a woman's virginity way too seriously. That's why we have celebrities like Jessica Simpson, Britney Spears, Miley Cyrus amongst the few, proudly claiming or having proclaimed that they are virgins and waiting to be married.

Last time I checked, I only cared whether you were a good singer or not, not if you were sleeping around with other people. But somehow they feel the need to answer or proudly exclaim it, which makes me wonder: do we associate virginity with whether they are "good" people or not? Why is being a virgin something women feel the need to share? Do we have as many men come out and shout out he's a virgin? I don't think so.

If we want to treat men and women equally, we need to treat their virginities equally as well. Women are not "tainted" or "damaged goods" if they sleep with men. They do not "lose all their petals" and become worthless. Migliorini's virginity should not be worth so much more than Stepanov just because she is a woman (I checked the website; he is not unattractive either, so I ruled out that as a possibility as to why his bids were much lower). 

But whether or not hers is higher, I am still uncomfortable with the idea that virginities could be bought or sold. I'm thinking maybe we could think of it in terms of service, like giving massages. I'm not really sure how I think about this.

60 Facts about Attraction

For more good stuff on attraction, click here.

Say it loud and proud: I'm shallow!

We’ve all heard that Beauty and the Beast story before. Whether it’s the Disney film (with the singing teacups and talking chandeliers) or a real life fairytale, we've always commended and congratulated those who can see beyond another person’s physical flaws. It's true love, so pure and so untainted. We admire those who understand inner beauty, and see beyond trivial things such as attractiveness.

This explains our outcry over the opposite phenomenon—people who blatantly value physical attractiveness over other traits. For example, the men who only date models. Or barely-legal teenagers. Or models who are barely-legal teenagers. But even in everyday life, we are upset when we see obvious displays of people preferring more attractive people in many respects, whether it's an employer at work ultimately choosing the more attractive interviewee, or a waiter being more polite to a pretty girl than her ordinary looking friend.“They’re so shallow,” we’ll mutter bitterly. “Don’t they know people can be beautiful on the inside?” With our furtive glances and sharp whispers, it's judgment day.

Hence the recent backlash at the Chinese man who divorced his wife and then sued her for being ugly. A few weeks ago, a Chinese man was distressed to find out his newborn daughter was, to put it mildly, not as attractive as he thought she would be. She looked like neither him, nor his wife. At first, he jumped to the conclusion that his wife had been unfaithful. Perhaps he's never heard of the Ugly Duckling (aren't all babies born kind of wrinkly anyway?). After great hesitation, his wife reluctantly admitted that she had spent hundreds of thousands on plastic surgery before meeting him, resulting in her much-improved exterior. Alas, with this great relevation solves the ultimate mystery of where the baby's genes came from. The husband subsequently divorced her, and then sued her for deception.

That seems outrageous. Supposedly he didn’t marry her just for those round, lovable eyes and those plump lips. Or that thick cascade of hair. He should love her, inside and out. Forever and always. Until death do them part. Why does it matter then, that she's had her whole face reconstructed? It's the inner beauty that matters, isn't it? Here we voice our strong condemnation, even disgust. How could his love have been so superficial?

Photo courtesy of Weibo.

But here's a shocker for you – human beings are shallow. We are superficial creatures. As much as we want to believe that looks don't matter, we do judge a book by its cover. Every one of us. 

We associate beauty with positive traits. Therefore, we have a generally biased and preconceived notion about beautiful people. We think they're funnier, friendlier, and more intelligent. They're more exciting, have better social skills and are more interesting and poised.

These particular attitudes are thus reflected in our actions. Attractive people receive all kinds of benefits. They may get higher starting salaries, perhaps because their qualifications are perceived as more solid, giving them an overall greater potential. Then, later on, they have an advantage in promotions. In fact, statistics indicate that the women who advance the most at work are more attractive, thinner, taller and younger-looking than their female colleagues. These are only a few studies out of thousands that basically re-emphasize the same sad truth: we're shallow creatures.

Perhaps you think we've been conditioned to value beauty. You're thinking, society is crue. We've just been taught to associate and treat beautiful people better! Your thinking is wrong. Even infants from 2 to 6 months of age prefer to look longer at faces rated as attractive by adults than at faces rated as unattractive by adults. Essentially, babies can already tell who is attractive and who is unattractive. They pay attention to the better-looking people, just like we do.

It is evolutionarily adaptive of us to be shallow. Men prefer beautiful women so they can have beautiful offspring to carry on their beautiful genes. Thus, the trophy wives. Women, on the other hand, value beauty in terms of height because this normally indicates strength (and therefore the ability to provide). Basically, being shallow is natural.

So next time you judge someone and accuse him or her of being shallow, remember that you behave in ways that are favorable towards attractive people too, almost on a daily basis. Let's blame evolution, let's blame the unbelievably high standards of beauty that exist in the world, let's blame the sensory glands that link to your pupils or corneas or something. But give that Chinese man a break, will ya? Perhaps it was a little overboard for him to have sued his wife for compensatory damages, but say it with me guys: we're all shallow! And there's nothing wrong with that.

Aw, come on. Look at that little cutie!

For anyone who's still undecided...

Just in case you're still undecided (which, hopefully, by now, you're not), Time's got a little chart for you to figure it out!

http://swampland.time.com/2012/11/01/executive-decision/?iid=sl-main-belt