For all of their pluses, there are plenty of confusing aspects of Facebook and Twitter. The biggest positive…
For all of their pluses, there are plenty of confusing aspects of Facebook and Twitter. The biggest positive is that Facebook and Twitter leverage your relationships with contacts. And we all know that relationships help sell art. Additionally, Twitter allows you to “follow” people that broadcast information and links that can broaden your understanding of topics, industries, etc. For example, I follow 100+ t-shirt designers via my Twitter account, and have found that the their tweets keep me “in the know” about seasonal and pop-culture merchandising trends. RedBubble has both a Facebook page and Twitter account. Back to Facebook. As an artist and designer, Facebook can be a great awareness builder and sales driver. Here are three easy ways to promote your art and design on Facebook. 1. Friends, and friends of friends, buy art / You may already have a growing list of contacts that Facebook defines as friends. Tell friends about your art and design via: Link to your RedBubble profile page or Bubblesite from your Facebook profile. Post new artwork in your Facebook status. This broadcasts an image, a link, and associated text to your friends. Create a collection (or collections) of artwork as a photo album. Be sure to note the artwork URL in the image description. Note: You might want to watermark your images or overlay your RedBubble URL on the image. While Facebook down-samples files to 72 dpi, expressing copyright is never a bad idea in digital public spaces… though one would hope that your Facebook friends would give credit where it’s due. Use Facebook Notes to tell the story behind the creation of your artwork. If you’re a writer, you can tease your work in the Notes section and link to your writing portfolio on RedBubble. You can also install the RedBubble Facebook slideshow found in the Promote area of MyBubble. Status update of an artwork and link. / Addition of a photograph / B. Groups contain focused, interested buyers / Join Facebook Groups where members share common interests related to your artwork content. By being active in Facebook Groups, you can subtlety migrate interested parties to your RedBubble profile and/or Bubblesite. It’s helpful if you can use your art and design to educate others and gather feedback, e.g., post “New images of Yosemite National Park. I’m interested in feedback about which images I should place on RedBubble.” You can obviously use this same technique on RedBubble. / / C. Use Pages to create fan clubs / Facebook Pages are separate from your personal Facebook profile and are also free to create. Think of your Facebook Page as a business page where you can give people a view of your studio, news of a recent exhibition, show work in development, etc. It’s also good to use RedBubble journal posts to do the same for those watching your RB profile. The distribution power of Facebook Pages comes from their ability to update “fans” whenever you post something new to your Page (like your status update, but for your business). However, note that your friends need to become a “fan” of your Facebook Page in order to receive updates. The Pages updates won’t duplicate nor conflict with your personal Facebook profile. You can also announce promotions on your Page. Here is a contest example created by Diesel Laws. Contest created by Diesel Laws / Advertising is easy, but demands attention / Facebook advertising is easy to set up, but not a “set it and forget it” exercise. You’re dedicating funds to this exercise, so consider the following when creating your ads: What images will capture the viewer’s eye best amongst all of the other Facebook page clutter? What designs sold best for you previously? What art or design is at a price point that will attract a first time buyer? What outcome would you consider a success – exposure and sales, simply sales, etc.? FB ads work on a pay-per-click basis, which means that you’re only paying for the clicks that you receive. You can cap the cost per day, so if you want to test ads at $5 per day it’s simple to do so. FB ads also feature demographic (age, location …) targeting, as well as psychographic targeting (interests, hobbies, career …). This allows you to show ads to people you know or estimate to be very good targets. You were once only allowed to create ads for businesses with websites outside of Facebook, but now you can create ads for Pages and Events too. Start simple / My advice is to try the free options first – especially if you already have a large Facebook friends list. Personal referrals will often convert (create a sale) better than a paid ad. That’s not to say that a targeted ad can’t work well if you present the right image, copy and URL. Let’s close / If you’ve found success with Facebook personal, business pages, events or paid ads, please add your comments below. We’re always looking for success stories or warnings about sales and marketing programs as they relate to selling your art and design. And finally, if you want to help other members sell, you can join our “You Can Sell Art and T-shirts” Group (by invitation). Bubblemail me with the topics you feel confident sharing. Thank you. Regards, / Jason BTW, click here for our Twitter tips and tricks. It’s also worth noting that Twitter integrates with Facebook; your tweets can be broadcast as your Facebook status. Janis also pointed out a great Twitter guide on Mashable.
I am. RedBubble is too. And i have definitely noticed a jump in sales since i’ve been on there. Whatever you think of it, it is a good…
I am. RedBubble is too. And i have definitely noticed a jump in sales since i’ve been on there. Whatever you think of it, it is a good place to post links to your work here. And a good way to promote others as well. Mobii’s “Nobody Reads Your Tweets” shirt seems to be going viral on there right now, he’s probably goint to retire a millionaire, or at least get his bar on the beach. Some of the people on here who’s work i’ve tweeted – mobii, Janis Zroback, Dorothy Venter, nexus7, Mui-Ling Teh, Rajee, Incredible India Group, and Yanmos. A few quick hints- / 1)You only get 140 characters, including links. Shorten a long url by going to tinyurl.com No code needed, just paste url’s as is. / 2)Follow lots of people, you’ll get followed back. / 3) They have a pretty good search function on there to find both people and subjects. / 4) A few ways to find people to follow – You can pick through other people’s follower/followees, use the search function to look for subjects you find interesting, look at links via @ replies, search museums, companies, organizations that interest you, etc. / 5)Anyone who does t shirts – most of the big companies – zazzle, threadless, designs by humans, hide your arms, artevist, mysoti, skreened, etc will happily follow you back. / 6) Janis says below about uploading you artwork to the background – I haven’t figured that out yet, but Thick Black Outline has an awesome looking page there. Also don’t forget to put you website in your info section, that’s what people will click on when they look at your profile. / 7) Don’t worry about getting unfollowed. I get unfollowed a lot :) (i can be kind of obnoxious i guess). And you’ll get unfollowed by some people you don’t follow back, people with different interests, etc. Sometimes you’ll get refollowed as you post more. It’s no biggie either way. / 8) Something else for anyone with a Zazzle shop – there’s a “Twitter” link at the bottom of your product pages, click on that and it will upload straight to Twitter. And if you’re lucky and Zaz is working properly, (and you’re logged into Zaz) ,your referral code will be included too. One you can follow off the bat : RedBubble I’ll follow anyone from RB back – (Me) Asiantees Feel free to post your own profile in the comments here if you want to be followed.
You want it? OK then you got it! POOF!!! No more Socialism in America. Let’s see what that leaves us with shall we? MEDICARE...
You want it? OK then you got it! POOF!!! No more Socialism in America. Let’s see what that leaves us with shall we? MEDICARE Tear up your Medicare card all you elderly people. The government will no longer be subsidizing your health care costs. If you can’t afford private insurance, well that’s not the government’s problem. MEDICAID No more free health care for disabled and poor people either. Pay for it yourself, or do without. The government is no longer in the business of health care. Good luck. SOCIAL SECURITY Save for yourselves. Don’t expect the government to collect Social Security taxes to help provide some income for you in your old age. Perhaps you should start treating your kids better, since either they take care of you or you are out of luck. SUPPLEMENTAL SECURITY INSURANCE Born with a disability? Never been able to work? There is no more SSI, so I don’t know what to tell you except get a good piece of cardboard, a sturdy cup, and take up residence on the nearest street corner. Perhaps someone will drop you a dime or two. PUBLIC SCHOOLS The government is no longer in the business of baby sitting and trying to educate your kids. You don’t like what the public schools have to offer anyway, so teach them yourselves or hire a private tutor. GRANTS FOR COLLEGE Since the government is no longer educating your minor children, it will not be providing grants to educate your adult kids either. If they can’t afford it, they don’t get it. This will work well to keep the populace poor and ignorant. It’s what you wanted right? PUBLIC LIBRARIES Why should the government help provide you with reading material free of charge? This goes against the free market and hurts private book stores. Go buy the book. MUSEUMS & GALLERIES Henceforth all museums and galleries that were funded by the state and federal governments are on their own. If they can’t make enough money to stay open by charging admission, then screw them. That is what a free market is all about, right? Who needs to look at a bunch of old pictures and broken pottery anyway. PUBLIC HIGHWAYS You paid for your own car, so build your own roads too. Why should the government provide interstate highways so you can drive to the beach for vacation every year? HOUSING The government will no longer build and maintain low income housing. The people that currently live in subsidized housing will either come up with the full rent or get out. FHA, FmHA, HUD, and VA home loans – no more. If you want a loan to build a house you will have to go to a bank, pay a big cash down payment, and pay the current interest rate. No longer will the federal government be providing low interest loans to anyone for housing. SMALL BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION The SBA is immediately disbanded because in a free market, business should succeed or fail on its own without loans from the government. If you want to start a business you better have the start up capital, know some wealthy people who are willing to partner with you, or go to a bank to borrow the money. LAW ENFORCEMENT Local law enforcement will have to be paid for by individuals in each community or State. There will be no more federal funds to help equip and train police officers. If your community or State can not afford new police cars, or the newest surveillance equipment, or even to hire and train new officers, what is that to the federal government? FIRE DEPARTMENTS Federal programs have provided more than $1 billion in financial resources directly to local fire departments since a fund was established in 2001. But local fire departments have requested more than $7 billion in federal funding. From this day forward, no more federal money to train and equip your local fire departments! Your town, city, or State will have to carry the complete burden – that means YOU will have to pay for your own fire department. CHILD SUPPORT ENFORCEMENT Nope. No more help prosecuting dead beat parents. No more capturing federal income tax refunds for back child support. If you can’t collect it on a local level, then that’s your problem. Maybe you shouldn’t have kids if you can’t afford them by yourself. FOOD STAMPS & WIC No way will the federal government feed people anymore. If you can’t afford to feed yourselves, beg or go to a food pantry. Oh and you grocery store owners – you will no longer benefit from federal money to reimburse you for food stamps and WIC vouchers. So you might want to consider raising your prices to make up the difference. FARM SUBSIDIES You farmers are just going to have to take it on the nose like every one else. No longer will you be paid for fallow fields. Grow crops and sell them. If you make money that is great. If not, well that’s what a free market is all about. Some years you earn, some years you starve. Good luck and pray for a good crop. Oh and you rural farmers, no more free money from the federal government. HOSPITALS There will be no more public funding for hospitals because the office of Health and Human Services will no longer be providing funding to States. This includes mental hospitals. You deal with it on a local level. If your State can not fund these facilities on its own, well once again you are on your own. ENERGY Federal subsidies used for electricity production are a thing of the past. The federal government won’t be in the business of giving your hard earned dollars to subsidize energy production anymore. You will probably have to sell everything you own to pay your electricity bill, but that (like everything else in a totally free market) is your problem. You should invest in candles now, as the price of candles is expected to increase dramatically once this program is ended. WATER You want clean water? You pay for it. Did you know the United States Geological Survey will no longer be collecting data on water quality either. There will be no more federal money for water treatment facilities. If your local and State government can not afford to clean up your sewage with your own financial contributions, then you are literally up shit creek. AIR The EPA will not be providing grants to help businesses and communities meet the federal air quality guidelines. The laws on air quality will not change, and it is up to all States and local communities to make sure that pollution levels do not exceed those mandated by the federal government. States will just have to figure out how they will pay for equipment and research to help keep them in line with federal law. I hope that helps the anti- Socialism people breathe a little easier. SOIL This one also falls under the purview of the cut backs on farm subsidies. Because subsidies to farmers no longer exist, they will just have to figure out how to farm without completely stripping the soil of nutrients, wasting soil by erosion, and damaging the environment with excessive chemical fertilizers. There will be no more federal money for lead testing, mercury testing, and other hazardous material testing of the soil. Superfund is history! If you want clean soil the you pay for it. It’s just dirt. Dust Bowl, anyone? DISEASE CONTROL About 85% of federal money that goes to the Center for Disease Control is returned to the people by way of grants for “health information dissemination, preparedness, prevention, research, and surveillance.” Since we are ending all Socialist programs in the USA, this one is on the chopping block as well. If there is an outbreak of some horrendous disease, and you catch it, I hope there is enough money in the coffers of your State to pay for the research to find out the cause and cure. If not, well I hope your immune system is not compromised. Oh yes, and those free immunizations for your kids? Forget about it. What about HIV/AIDS research and treatment? Nope. No way. Forget about it. Advice from the new free market federal government? Just don’t get sick. NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION Click this link to see how your federal tax dollars are wasted on programs for junk like Astronomy and Astrophysics Research Grants, Advanced Manufacturing Research, Agricultural Development, Domestic Nuclear Detection, Infectious Disease Research, and Drilling in the Ocean for Oil. Be a real capitalist and do not under any circumstances apply for Social Security Disability when you retire. Do not take part in any community program that receives federal money. If you are going to talk the talk then walk the walk. There are many more cuts to come, I’m tired and have to take a break United States Budget for 2008 Federal Data Procurement History of Government Bailouts in USA
JOURNAL Well, I have just finished publishing this dateless and timeless Journal. A personal hea…
JOURNAL Well, I have just finished publishing this dateless and timeless Journal. A personal healing journal that takes you on a journey through your uniqueness and personal cyclic patterns. Our Daily Bread is an acronym, inspired by the Lord’s prayer, meant to create a journaling prescription, personalized for activating change towards a new perception on your unique “healing path”. O – Observing and noting your unique habits, in your daily routine / U – Uniting with thoughts which manifest an abundance, health, love & responsibility / R – Remembering that you deserve ALL the love, respect, joy & prosperity D – Defining your relationships with clear boundaries / A – Abounding and sharing the positive and healing knowledge you’ve acquired / I – I (SELF) am a unique individual becoming the best person I can be / L – LOVE and care for yourself and others by example / Y – You are responsible for your WILLPOWER B – Believing that the possibilities are endless, in achieving your Healing goals / R – Respect that NO one else can “fix” you – but you / E – Emote your feelings to yourself in a mirror or in your journal, as well as to others / A – Accept that there is a reason for everything, in your life’s journey / D – Divinity is present, become aware of non-logical insight and perceive intuitively This journal can be used on its own, or in conjunction with my previous ‘works’, “Sailing through the 7C’s”, “Beyond Symptoms”, and “Puzzled Isles of Spirit”, which would pursue more in-depth explanations of the workings of this journals’ purpose and function. Thanks so much for looking and taking the time to see what I have been up to…
Facebook provides a place for you to represent your business, and that is Facebook Pages (he…
Facebook provides a place for you to represent your business, and that is Facebook Pages (here my page). Here’s the reason to have your own Facebook Page (as well as your own Profile): More people can find out about your business because your Page gets indexed and is searchable inside and outside of Facebook! The site is totally free and everyone can see it, doesn’t matter if he is already a Facebook member or not… So there is no reason not do do it! Here a video how to install Facebook Pages if you are a beginner… And here I want to introduce the 6 best FACEBOOK PAGES ADDs… ARTSHARE Great to upload the art of your choice with links to your purchasing site… BLOG BOX There you can import your website contents via rss and write notes… SOCIAL RSS Here you can import up to 5 of favorite rss feeds… TWITTER You can post to Twitter directly from Facebook, see all your followed twitters and display your twitter-posts to your profile at Facebook. MARKETPLACE You can sell your art and shirts also directly from Facebook! There is an app, which helps you to show to the world, what you would like to sell, with the link to your purchasing site… And you would not believe how much people are watching the stuff! REDBUBBLE PORTFOLIO Last but not least you can show your newest Redbubble art and shirts as a presentation directly at your Facebook wall. Very useful. When you add the apps be sure, that you add them to your Facebook PAGE and not only to the PROFILE… Like this you can share all your artistic news to the world outside, since Facebook is the most growing social community (even if you don’t like to hear it). With a lot of greetings Nuh Sarche Read also: Get a free artistic website and promote your work… or Want to know what sells??? or Present your pictures in an infinite cool gallery!
The best way to spread and promote your work is to add the social bookmark button to your profile and your artwork or t-shirt sites… / ...
The best way to spread and promote your work is to add the social bookmark button to your profile and your artwork or t-shirt sites… Don’t wait until someone finds your work between all the great RedBubble artworks! Just add this (remove the free space between the excalamation mark and the http) and spread it around….. ;) ! http://s7.addthis.com/static/btn/lg-share-en.gif!:http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=20 I wish you a lot of visitors -> and many sales! With a lot of greetings Nuh Read also: Want to know what sells??? or deadly serious art… or Get a free artistic website and promote your work…
UPCOMING: Adelaide Photographers MeetUp About five weeks ago half-a-dozen Adelaide photographers converged on the Adelaide Zoo...
UPCOMING: Adelaide Photographers MeetUp About five weeks ago half-a-dozen Adelaide photographers converged on the Adelaide Zoo for a day of networking, social chitchat and LOTs of photography. This time I’m organising a “City-Walk” where we walk, talk and shoot architecture and objects. Here is the area of the city I’d be interesting in walking.. Yes, this is a large area! I happily walk around ALL day, photographing people, architecture and oddities. DID YOU COME TO SEE THE LIST OF ATTENDEES? You can view it here . Moved for easy-viewing. EDIT: 11:29 PM 17/05/2009 Big thanks to everyone who has responded and is interested: The date has been decided: 31st May Here is the plan for the day: Between 11.00am-12.00noon – Meet at Rotunda on Elder Park. / We all know it, surely. Early arrivals can scope out a good place to watch everyone arriving and get their portrait shots! (I’ll be there at 11.00am!) 12noon – 12.45pm / Walk up KW Road to North Terrace, turning right at Parliament House down toward the Casino/Train Station. Quick visit into the atrium to photograph. It is permitted, I’ve done this on Flickr-group meetups. Continue down North Terrace to the Morphett Road Bridge. 12.45pm – 4.00pm / OPTION 1: / We turn right, crossing the bridge, walking all the way to War Memorial Drive. Those that wish to can take the stairs (just beyond the river that takes you) down to the Torrens … and we all meetup just in front of the Tennis Stadium (or thereabouts). We walk and photograph the length of War Memorial Drive, back across the bridge at KW Road, back to the Rotunda. We then walk up KW Street. From here, read from where option #2 is underlined. OPTION 2. / Just before the bridge, we cross over to photograph the historic Church. (You’ll know it when you get there!) We then walk up Morphet Street, turn LEFT into Hindley Street and we walk and photograph interesting sites along the way. There are few interesting locations behind buildings, (particularly those toy-cars stuck to the wall in Rosina Street) that we can detour to see. When we reach KW Street, we cross over to Rundle Mall to go shoot the Brass Pigs and the Silver Balls! At Pultney Street, we turn left; At North Terrace, we turn left (Some may choose to cross the road). / Photographing historic limestone architecture along the way, we head back to the KW Road intersection, taking the pedestrian lights over to Government House. Here I can show you some interesting facts that I discovered a few years back that is not-overly-publicised! / We then cross the road to Parliament House, and walk back to the Rotunda Wait, wait, you want food and drinks: At some point in Hindley Street or Rundle Mall we find a nice coffee shop! Considering all the chatting and stopping that normally occurs with these events, this will surely fill the afternoon. If anyone knows of any events happening in the CBD that are happening the same weekend, tell us about it now so we can jostle it into the timeline. EXTRA (courtesy of Michael Tapping) / Government House and Grounds are open to the Public on Sunday 31st May between 10.00 AM and 4.00PM / We’ll go there from the Rotunda before moving into the CBD. This may take some time! Tag word for event is asacitywalkmay2009
Well the turn out was a little disappointing but for the first Sydney meet but the trains, and that it was the first meet we still had a …
Well the turn out was a little disappointing but for the first Sydney meet but the trains, and that it was the first meet we still had a good showing and enjoyed a great day in the city with like minded folk. In attendance was Macro Britti, Bodymechanic, Miloman, Ozcloggie and the every charming MBartworks (that stands for MB Artworks, not Bartworks…incase like me you were confused). Well I decided for the first time to opperate the D200 in Black and White mode only (I shot RAW+Jpeg so I could always get at the colour if I wanted too). I really liked Hien’s photos of the melbourne meet, so decided to try my hand at Black and White, and mix up the ISO to introduce what I hoped was some complimentary noise. So here are my top 20 shots from the day, no PP except resizing for the web. #1 The Rubber Duckie made famous by Ozcloggie (this duck seems to go everywhere. / #2 Macro Britti sitting on the Town Hall Steps / #3 Ozcloggie sizing up his Rubber Duckie on Town Hall Steps / #4 The Gang loose out on the streets (L-R, Marco, Miloman, MBartworks, Bodymechanic hiding behind MBartworks and finally Ozcloggie) / #5 Interesting sculpture / #6 The Park was a great place to relax / #7 This Varigated Plant was begging for it’s own photo. / #8 A Holy Fence / #9 The Walkers (L-R ,Bodymechanic, MBartworks, Marco) #10 Tree Texture / #11 Ever happy to Model, Rubber Duckie poses for Ozcloggie / #12 Marco wishes he bought a sketch pad as the cameras come out over lunch. / #13 MBartworks and Marco review images on Marco’s phone / #14 Bodymechanic caught mid conversation with Miloman / #15 Miloman poses for the camera, hands on chins seemed a popular pose. #16 Ozcloggie enjoying lunch and a social chat. / #17 Duckie again the centre of attention. / / / #18 Duckie being waited on / #19 The Duck is amused at it’s own reflection. / #20 The Gang walk off into the distance… figuratively /
I’ve covered the issue of objectification of women previo…
I’ve covered the issue of objectification of women previously, and I was met with resistance by quite a few women. This surprised no one more than me, as I fully expected that women would be able to see the fine line between art and exploitation. The vast majority of my female readers have seen through the illusion of empowerment and recognize exploitation. A number of women can not see beyond the curtain where a man is pulling the levers. We can talk psychology, sociology, and genetic differences versus sexist perceptions all day long, but that doesn’t amount to a hill of beans in the real world. There is the academic and hypothetical, and then there is the male mechanic who sees me as an easy mark. I can change the oil, change the spark plugs, and put on a new water pump as easily as I can pump the fuel into the tank, but he doesn’t know that about me. He assumes that because I am female, I don’t know the difference between a double overhead camshaft and air bags. Why does he assume that I, a woman, know nothing about the workings of the internal combustion engine? or anti-lock brake systems? or transfer of energy from the engine to the wheels via the transmission and driveshaft? Why are women still paid less than men for the same work? Are we of less value than males? Obviously, corporate America thinks women are worth less than male workers. Why are women still photographed draped half nude over the hood of a car in an advertisement? Because sex sells. The ad says, “buy this car and you may get to fuck a woman like the one in this picture.” Why is pornography a billion dollar a year industry? Because sex sells, women are willing to sell it, and people are willing to buy it. Why, in this the 21st century, when women are running entire countries, are we still fighting against sexism in America? / / See previous questions/answers. I might as well ask, “Is there life after death?” The answers to the foregoing questions will be different for those who attempt to justify disparate treatment of women. Some will even deny that women are treated differently in areas where gender should not be an issue, like jobs or intellectual ability. Some will say that the women are adults and as adults they can do anything they want to do. They deny that there are any victims here because the alleged victims are active, willing participants. Many will deny that sexism exists. Often, I think that our sexist views are apparent to everyone except ourselves. Why the hell do I care what other women do? Because the conduct and views of all women affect all women. All blonds are not stupid. All brunettes are not bitches. All redheads are not possessed of a fiery personality. All menstruating women do not turn into crazed Nazis once each month. Part of the problem is the persistence of stereotypes. We human beings love our stereotypes don’t we? The stereotype helps people cope with the world. It is easier to dismiss the conduct of a person as typical than it is to try to understand on an intellectual level. Thinking is hard. Stereotyping is easy. People like easy. “So,” you ask “What has all this to do with art?” “Everything,” says I. How we portray women, especially how women portray themselves, in art and writing goes a long way in either (1) supporting sexist stereotypes or (2) promoting women as intelligent valuable human beings. Are you empowering women or exploiting them? The choice is yours. Choose wisely. Also published on: Bascom Digital Art & Essays
I have created a place for RedBubblers at the Social Network Ning, where you are invited to join and post your work pictures with links…
I have created a place for RedBubblers at the Social Network Ning, where you are invited to join and post your work pictures with links… Let’s show to the world our creative side… It’s never wrong to make some promotion for ourselves! Click here (By the way… When the site name is too complicated for you, you can find it also at www.redbubblers.tk) With a lot of greetings Nuh Sarche Read also: You can see live, who visits your site if you want… or I’m also a blogger now…. ;) or Get short WEBSITE-ADDRESS for FREE!
Let’s take a common sense approach the $787 billion stimulus package that just passed the United States House of Representatives Here…
Let’s take a common sense approach the $787 billion stimulus package that just passed the United States House of Representatives Here are a few of the more contentious points that conservative bloggers hold out as examples of waste of tax payer money: $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts Bloomberg reports that the arts contributed $166.2 billion and 5.7 million jobs to the U.S. economy in 2005. Hmm, invest $50 million to help an organization that provided millions of jobs and returned three times the current stimulus allocation? Good idea? You bet! $380 million in the Senate bill for the Women, Infants and Children program The money allocated for the WIC program would be spread among all 50 States to provide free food to pregnant and nursing mothers and children under age 5. In addition to providing jobs to the people who administer the WIC program, low income women and children are provided with vouchers which they use to buy specific highly nutritious food items from a participating market in their home town. The vouchers are paid by the federal government (i.e. tax payers like me and you). Everyone wins with this program. Women and children who can not afford milk, eggs, cheese, beans and other food staples receive food, the markets are reimbursed for the purchases, and the manufacturers who provide the food sell their products to the markets. So Republicans don’t want to feed poor pregnant women and children? No, they don’t. $300 million for grants to combat violence against women Domestic violence has a negative impact on the economy. Do I need to repeat that for you? Domestic violence has a negative impact on the economy. According to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, domestic violence costs exceeds $5.8 billion each year, $4.1 billion of which is for direct medical and mental health care. Victims of domestic violence lose almost 8 million days of paid work annually because of domestic violence. This equals more than 32,000 full-time jobs and almost 5.6 million days of productivity. Does it make good economic sense to spend $300 million to reduce the annual negative economic impact of $5.8 billion? I thinks so. $2 billion for federal child-care block grants I examined the economic impact of child care in only two counties in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. In Jefferson and Hardin Counties Kentucky, more than 4278 people were employed in the child care industry which produced more than $137 million in revenue for the two counties. Compare those numbers to the economic impact of child care in Los Angeles, California where working families using the Early Care and Education facilities returned $22.3 billion to Los Angeles County alone in earnings annually. Child care assistance just makes sense. If parents can’t afford child care, they can’t work, and if they can’t work – well Los Angeles County alone would lose $22.3 billion each year. Stastics from Full Report, page 15 Find a report of the economic impact of child care near you in Linking Economic Development & Child Care Cornell University Studies $6 billion for university building projects If we examine only one economic impact study for the State of Arizona, we see an immediate benefit to the Arizona economy as a whole. In a 2008 report from the University Economist for Arizona State University an investment of $1.4 billion in building projects resulted in an immediate direct impact of $828 million in gross state product, $700 million in labor income, and employed 14, 438 people. An additional $1.1 billion in gross state product and an additional $711 million in labor income was produced as the initial investment in building projects resulted in economic activity in the state. This is only the State of Arizona. Should we invest in building projects for all 50 States? The economic impact of building projects is enormous and the return exceeds the investment. It only makes good economic sense. $15 billion for boosting Pell Grant college scholarships The Republican philosophy is generally anti- intellectual. A December 2008 Brookings Institute Study found that expanding access to education increases the earning capacity of students particularly for metropolitan residents because they possess greater skills. Students who graduate from a university are likely to remain and work in that area. It just makes sense to invest in education. Or is an uneducated population more desirable to the Republican Party? $4 billion for job-training programs, including $1.2 billion for “youths” up to the age of 24 There are currently about 3.8 million youths age 18 to 24 years out of high school, not enrolled in college, and unemployed. It only makes sense to train and employ these young people. Their wages will be immediately returned to their local economy as they spend their earnings. According to a 1985 Commission on Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education publication federal programs like Job Corps work and are a good investment. United States Department of Labor National Job Corps Study 2001 conducted by Mathematica Policy Research, Inc. shows that such programs return the benefits of reduction in crime, educational and skill development and increased earnings. $1 billion for community-development block grants Housing and Urban Development provides block grants to communities for such services as decent affordable housing and to create jobs through the expansion and retention of businesses. HUD provides a State by State listing of grant funding for community development. You can view Accomplishment Data by State. $4.2 billion for neighborhood stabilization activities The Neighborhood Stabilization Program provides grants to every state and certain local communities which is used to buy foreclosed and abandoned homes. These homes are then repaired with the money for resell, in order to stabilize neighborhoods and prevent the decrease in house values of of other homes which result from blight caused by abandoned homes. What are the economic benefits of giving money to the States to rehabilitate abandoned homes? People are employed to repair the homes to make them more attractive to buyers. The owners of other homes in these neighborhoods enjoy the benefit of value retention and sometimes an increase in the value of their homes. People get paid to do the work, houses sell, homes retain value or increase in value. $650 million for digital TV coupons On 17 February 2009 all television broadcasts in the United States will switch over from analog to digital. People who do not have cable, or a newer model television will no longer be able to receive television broadcasts. The switch will affect about 15.5 million American households who have older analog technology. The government will be providing $40 discount coupons to those who apply for the coupon. Who will be receiving these discount coupons? You guessed it – the family without cable, with an old television, and who can not afford to buy a new digital television. The Bush Administration set up this digital disaster, mandating change without the necessary funding to implement the new federal law. This debacle sounds remarkably like the No Child Left Behind Act. $90 million to educate “vulnerable populations” Who are the people classified as in the “vulnerable population”? Besides the poor, the “vulnerable population” includes the elderly and the disabled. The transition to digital will leave millions of households in the “dark” when it comes to receiving important local news and severe weather reports. Local news stations play an essential role in early warning of impending severe weather, especially in regions of the Country like Tornado Alley. Without the digital converter box, or the skill to install a digital converter, many people will be unable to receive local broadcasting. The $90 million will pay people (i.e. provide JOBS) to provide outreach and education to these “vulnerable populations.” This is just a small sampling of the real stimulus that will be provided by this package. Hypothetical question: how many jobs were created by the billions of dollars that were handed over to the banks? Once the bill is passed, concerned citizens can check up on how their dollars are being spent by visiting the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act website. © 2009 Helen Bascom / All Rights Reserved This is part one of a much larger evaluation of the stimulus package which will be published on another blog
Yep, I just cancelled my MYSPACE account, realizing it’s not as GREAT as FACEBOOK. For those of you hip enough…please join me there:...
Yep, I just cancelled my MYSPACE account, realizing it’s not as GREAT as FACEBOOK. For those of you hip enough…please join me there: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=613400719 It’s great for writing MOVIE reviews and BOOK reviews (my favorite part of it) besides keeping tabs with cool friends.
Got it in the post this afternoon… I thought it would be a great way of getting exposure for important causes and the artists that m…
Got it in the post this afternoon… I thought it would be a great way of getting exposure for important causes and the artists that make the messages of conscience in visual arts. I have seen members of the redbubble community go above and beyond for raising their voice when they felt strongly about something, it’s one of the affirming things about humanity for me. So… With the Art: Action Without Violence Group in mind I decided to apply for a rather hefty grant through the *JB Seed Grant Fund... if the application is successful (fingers crossed) we can print 10,000 post cards distributed in 125 venues promoting 4 ethical and important organisations, 4 pieces of work and 4 Redbubble artists… I thought, seeing as it drove me a little crazy this week, that I would put up the artist profile part of the submission to say thanks to the other participants for their involvement. Thank you!!!
The Republicans tend to harp about socialism as if it is an evil thing that is to be avoided at all costs. What they don’t want you to k…
The Republicans tend to harp about socialism as if it is an evil thing that is to be avoided at all costs. What they don’t want you to know is that under the Bush and McCain bank deregulation efforts that we are currently reaping the benefits of, the debt of the banks has been socialized. That’s right, the banks can’t be allowed to lose the money they pissed away, we save them by taking on their debt which is a drastic form of socialism. The down side to that socialistic response, the banks are still free to piss away money, but they get to keep any profit they manage to make without sharing the profit with us. The government will be paid back without getting any real benefit from owning a stake in the banks. McCain’s plan to have the bad mortgages be bought by the government, is yet another attempt at making maximum profit for the banks and screwing us. The banks will sell the debt at face value, not market value. That rewards the robber barons bank owners for making bad loans and makes it much more difficult for the government to do anything but lose in the long haul. Anti-abortionists claim to be pro life, most are not (support of a death penalty automatically excludes one from truthfully being pro life). They would love to have their socialist agenda, become law. They wish to force their ideology of life beginning at conception upon everybody. They usually also are against having those most likely to become pregnant given enough information to prevent one. Just saying no doesn’t work for drug users or sexually active teens. Teens that are informed about proper methods for contraception are less likely to get pregnant, but are no more likely to engage in premarital sex. The one main place I do not want government intervention is in bedrooms or between doctors and their patients. If you are going to socialize one area that should not have needed it, why do you not socialize the one thing that would benefit the most Americans, our health care. We are not enabling our citizens to have full and productive lives under the present system. Many older Americans have to choose between eating and medicine. We DIE at a younger age than the citizens of many countries that have socialized care. To further make my point, those of us that do have coverage pay higher premiums for our insurance because ultimately the costs for the uninsured patients unable to pay are passed on to us. Why not make the system fairer for all? Medicare and Medicaid were reasonably well run programs before Bush got his hands on them. They were among the better government run systems. A health care system incorporated into that existing system would offer significant benefits to the majority of Americans. As it is now, health care varies significantly from plan to plan and state to state, so much so, that it is sometimes impossible to find coverage for older employees that were forced to find a new job when their ex employer decided to ship their job to Bangalore or Manila. Why would you be content to cover some citizens, when all of us need it?
I am a member of a social website where they actually pay you and its free to join. It’s not big dollars but could develop over time to …
I am a member of a social website where they actually pay you and its free to join. It’s not big dollars but could develop over time to something worthwhile! So I thought I would give it a go! My portfolio page has a link back to my page here at Red Bubble. I have also made many friends there who are artists and photographers! So if you are looking for another site to market your work here…... just send me a Bubblemail with your email address and I will send you an invite! I usually pop in there once a week to see whats happening.
Seventeen photographers met up in May 2009 to photograph e…
Seventeen photographers met up in May 2009 to photograph elements of Adelaide. Here are a few photographs of each of the photographers, photographed by each other… To view all photographs shot on the day, follow this tag: asacitywalkmay2009 . If you were one of the 20-ish photographers who attended on the day, did you get any more photographs of your new friends? To view all photographs shot on the day, follow this tag: asacitywalkmay2009 .
THE BASICS OF ART FOR ACTIVISM AND CHANGE COMMUNITY BASED ART Creative expression emerging from a NEED to collectively highli…
THE BASICS OF ART FOR ACTIVISM AND CHANGE COMMUNITY BASED ART Creative expression emerging from a NEED to collectively highlight and educate for social improvement. Involves many varied social contexts and definitions. Includes an understanding not only of geography but also history and tradition, ethnicity and dedication or belief in spirit. Includes topics/issues (but not limited to): racism, sexism, homophobia, ageism, classism, ableism and all forms of discrimination that create marginalisation in society. COMMUNITY BASED ARTISTS Concerned with the functionality of art in public arenas including community development, corrections, education, intergenerational communications, aging, environment, conflict resolution, cultural citizenship etc. Work with all media, in all disciplines, everywhere. Committed to bringing arts and education to highlight and expose the widest possible range of social conditions and challenges facing our communities. Seek to create social change on every level of society, from the most ‘personal’ to the most ‘political’. Activist Art for Leadership… How do we practice it and what style does it inhibit? Is it catching? WHAT IS IT ALL ABOUT? A few thoughts… If you want to change things you do it with people not to people. Ongoing revolution. To service the greater good activist art (like all forms of expression) should be regarded according to review, peer assessment, research and budget in order to gauge it’s effectiveness in society. A crucial shift in thinking is to involve people for their abilities, what they can do, rather than build up an attitude that only aesthetic or technically sound work should be the focus or at the forefront of the revolution in an ideological sense. Artistic merit should be judged according to a clear communication of a relevant, centralised and communal message, no matter the art form or level of artistic development. Activist art is concerned with cultural and ideological democracy and the right of all to have access to services. Equal rights for one should not come at the cost of another’s rights. Activist art is concerned with promoting a community that encourages ideas and the community leaders who have the courage to put them forward. A community that takes pride in the way we treat and include those that need our help. Inclusion. Apart from enjoying the right to create art for its own sake, activists are often draw to art. Activist Artists are concerned with highlighting technocratic decision making processes… behind closed doors based on limited information and without initial intention to consult those whom the decision most affected. Rather than fearing our differences, we wish to be a people who celebrate it. Recognising diversity can give birth to creativity as much as conflict. / YET… We do not seek to be a society that fears rigorous debate. It is through the testing of ideas, through endless argument and negotiation that a community retains it’s vitality and survives. let our debates be based on mutual respect and the denial of violence. Some Examples of Activist Art: Some Examples of Activist Art In the Art Action Union Gallery One REALLY GOOD link: / Community-based Art for Social Change
2,504 Steps to Closing Your Facebook Account...
2,504 Steps to Closing Your Facebook Account Front page on MSN today: DIDN’T YOU KNOW? FACEBOOK IS FOREVER / Posted: Friday, February 20 2009 at 05:00 am CT by Bob Sullivan on MSNBC The Red Tape Chronicles
FYI: competition for photos that tell a positive social justice or environment story http://www.peopleandplanet.org.au/...
FYI: competition for photos that tell a positive social justice or environment story http://www.peopleandplanet.org.au/ 1st Prize: AU$1,500 Entries Close: 3 July, 2009
I have to say that I am heartened by the way the Bubblers drew together over the polyvore.com affair...
I have to say that I am heartened by the way the Bubblers drew together over the polyvore.com affair How people from all over the world, with different backgrounds, with different religious beliefs, of differing ages, sexual orientation, sociological ideologies, political leanings and nationalities, all pulled together, to help one another. I don’t know about you, but I’m proud to be a Bubbler!! BUBBLE POWER!
American Psychological Association, Invited Address, 2007 Media Transcript Full Version Is There Anything Good About Men? / ...
American Psychological Association, Invited Address, 2007 Media Transcript Full Version Is There Anything Good About Men? Roy F. Baumeister Contact: R. Baumeister, Eppes Eminent Professor of Psychology & Head of Social Psychology Area, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306, Baumeister@psy.fsu.edu, phone 850-264-8792. Note, I will be out of the country July 3-31 except for the night of July 17-18. You’re probably thinking that a talk called “Is there anything good about men” will be a short talk! Recent writings have not had much good to say about men. Titles like “Men Are Not Cost Effective” speak for themselves. Maureen Dowd’s book was called “Are Men Necessary?” and although she never gave an explicit answer, anyone reading the book knows her answer was no. Brizendine’s book “The Female Brain” introduces itself by saying, “Men, get ready to experience brain envy.” Imagine a book advertising itself by saying that women will soon be envying the superior male brain! Nor are these isolated examples. Eagly’s research has compiled mountains of data on the stereotypes people have about men and women, which the researchers summarized as “The WAW effect.” WAW stands for “Women Are Wonderful.” Both men and women hold much more favorable views of women than of men. Almost everybody likes women better than men. I certainly do. My purpose in this talk is not to try to balance this out by praising men, though along the way I will have various positive things to say about both genders. The question of whether there’s anything good about men is only my point of departure. The tentative title of the book I’m writing is “How culture exploits men,” but even that for me is the lead-in to grand questions about how culture shapes action. In that context, what’s good about men means what men are good for, from the perspective of the system. Hence this is not about the “battle of the sexes,” and in fact I think one unfortunate legacy of feminism has been the idea that men and women are basically enemies. I shall suggest, instead, that most often men and women have been partners, supporting each other rather than exploiting or manipulating each other. Nor is this about trying to argue that men should be regarded as victims. I detest the whole idea of competing to be victims. And I’m certainly not denying that culture has exploited women. But rather than seeing culture as patriarchy, which is to say a conspiracy by men to exploit women, I think it’s more accurate to understand culture (e.g., a country, a religion) as an abstract system that competes against rival systems — and that uses both men and women, often in different ways, to advance its cause. Also I think it’s best to avoid value judgments as much as possible. They have made discussion of gender politics very difficult and sensitive, thereby warping the play of ideas. I have no conclusions to present about what’s good or bad or how the world should change. In fact my own theory is built around tradeoffs, so that whenever there is something good it is tied to something else that is bad, and they balance out. I don’t want to be on anybody’s side. Gender warriors please go home. / Men on Top When I say I am researching how culture exploits men, the first reaction is usually “How can you say culture exploits men, when men are in charge of everything?” This is a fair objection and needs to be taken seriously. It invokes the feminist critique of society. This critique started when some women systematically looked up at the top of society and saw men everywhere: most world rulers, presidents, prime ministers, most members of Congress and parliaments, most CEOs of major corporations, and so forth — these are mostly men. Seeing all this, the feminists thought, wow, men dominate everything, so society is set up to favor men. It must be great to be a man. The mistake in that way of thinking is to look only at the top. If one were to look downward to the bottom of society instead, one finds mostly men there too. Who’s in prison, all over the world, as criminals or political prisoners? The population on Death Row has never approached 51% female. Who’s homeless? Again, mostly men. Whom does society use for bad or dangerous jobs? US Department of Labor statistics report that 93% of the people killed on the job are men. Likewise, who gets killed in battle? Even in today’s American army, which has made much of integrating the sexes and putting women into combat, the risks aren’t equal. This year we passed the milestone of 3,000 deaths in Iraq, and of those, 2,938 were men, 62 were women. One can imagine an ancient battle in which the enemy was driven off and the city saved, and the returning soldiers are showered with gold coins. An early feminist might protest that hey, all those men are getting gold coins, half of those coins should go to women. In principle, I agree. But remember, while the men you see are getting gold coins, there are other men you don’t see, who are still bleeding to death on the battlefield from spear wounds. That’s an important first clue to how culture uses men. Culture has plenty of tradeoffs, in which it needs people to do dangerous or risky things, and so it offers big rewards to motivate people to take those risks. Most cultures have tended to use men for these high-risk, high-payoff slots much more than women. I shall propose there are important pragmatic reasons for this. The result is that some men reap big rewards while others have their lives ruined or even cut short. Most cultures shield their women from the risk and therefore also don’t give them the big rewards. I’m not saying this is what cultures ought to do, morally, but cultures aren’t moral beings. They do what they do for pragmatic reasons driven by competition against other systems and other groups. / Stereotypes at Harvard I said that today most people hold more favorable stereotypes of women than men. It was not always thus. Up until about the 1960s, psychology (like society) tended to see men as the norm and women as the slightly inferior version. During the 1970s, there was a brief period of saying there were no real differences, just stereotypes. Only since about 1980 has the dominant view been that women are better and men are the inferior version. The surprising thing to me is that it took little more than a decade to go from one view to its opposite, that is, from thinking men are better than women to thinking women are better than men. How is this possible? I’m sure you’re expecting me to talk about Larry Summers at some point, so let’s get it over with! You recall, he was the president of Harvard. As summarized in The Economist, “Mr Summers infuriated the feminist establishment by wondering out loud whether the prejudice alone could explain the shortage of women at the top of science.” After initially saying, it’s possible that maybe there aren’t as many women physics professors at Harvard because there aren’t as many women as men with that high innate ability, just one possible explanation among others, he had to apologize, retract, promise huge sums of money, and not long afterward he resigned. What was his crime? Nobody accused him of actually discriminating against women. His misdeed was to think thoughts that are not allowed to be thought, namely that there might be more men with high ability. The only permissible explanation for the lack of top women scientists is patriarchy — that men are conspiring to keep women down. It can’t be ability. Actually, there is some evidence that men on average are a little better at math, but let’s assume Summers was talking about general intelligence. People can point to plenty of data that the average IQ of adult men is about the same as the average for women. So to suggest that men are smarter than women is wrong. No wonder some women were offended. But that’s not what he said. He said there were more men at the top levels of ability. That could still be true despite the average being the same — if there are also more men at the bottom of the distribution, more really stupid men than women. During the controversy about his remarks, I didn’t see anybody raise this question, but the data are there, indeed abundant, and they are indisputable. There are more males than females with really low IQs. Indeed, the pattern with mental retardation is the same as with genius, namely that as you go from mild to medium to extreme, the preponderance of males gets bigger. All those retarded boys are not the handiwork of patriarchy. Men are not conspiring together to make each other’s sons mentally retarded. Almost certainly, it is something biological and genetic. And my guess is that the greater proportion of men at both extremes of the IQ distribution is part of the same pattern. Nature rolls the dice with men more than women. Men go to extremes more than women. It’s true not just with IQ but also with other things, even height: The male distribution of height is flatter, with more really tall and really short men. Again, there is a reason for this, to which I shall return. For now, the point is that it explains how we can have opposite stereotypes. Men go to extremes more than women. Stereotypes are sustained by confirmation bias. Want to think men are better than women? Then look at the top, the heroes, the inventors, the philanthropists, and so on. Want to think women are better than men? Then look at the bottom, the criminals, the junkies, the losers. In an important sense, men really are better AND worse than women. A pattern of more men at both extremes can create all sorts of misleading conclusions and other statistical mischief. To illustrate, let’s assume that men and women are on average exactly equal in every relevant respect, but more men at both extremes. If you then measure things that are bounded at one end, it screws up the data to make men and women seem significantly different. Consider grade point average in college. Thanks to grade inflation, most students now get A’s and B’s, but a few range all the way down to F. With that kind of low ceiling, the high-achieving males cannot pull up the male average, but the loser males will pull it down. The result will be that women will get higher average grades than men — again despite no difference in average quality of work. The opposite result comes with salaries. There is a minimum wage but no maximum. Hence the high-achieving men can pull the male average up while the low-achieving ones can’t pull it down. The result? Men will get higher average salaries than women, even if there is no average difference on any relevant input. Today, sure enough, women get higher college grades but lower salaries than men. There is much discussion about what all this means and what should be done about it. But as you see, both facts could be just a statistical quirk stemming from male extremity. / Trading Off When you think about it, the idea that one gender is all-around better than the other is not very plausible. Why would nature make one gender better than the other? Evolution selects for good, favorable traits, and if there’s one good way to be, after a few generations everyone will be that way. But evolution will preserve differences when there is a tradeoff: when one trait is good for one thing, while the opposite is good for something else. Let’s return to the three main theories we’ve had about gender: Men are better, no difference, and women are better. What’s missing from that list? Different but equal. Let me propose that as a rival theory that deserves to be considered. I think it’s actually the most plausible one. Natural selection will preserve innate differences between men and women as long as the different traits are beneficial in different circumstances or for different tasks. Tradeoff example: African-Americans suffer from sickle cell anemia more than white people. This appears to be due to a genetic vulnerability. That gene, however, promotes resistance to malaria. Black people evolved in regions where malaria was a major killer, so it was worth having this gene despite the increased risk of sickle cell anemia. White people evolved in colder regions, where there was less malaria, and so the tradeoff was resolved differently, more avoiding the gene that prevented malaria while risking sickle cell anemia. The tradeoff approach yields a radical theory of gender equality. Men and women may be different, but each advantage may be linked to a disadvantage. Hence whenever you hear a report that one gender is better at something, stop and consider why this is likely true — and what the opposite trait might be good for. / Can’t Vs. Won’t Before we go too far down that path, though, let me raise another radical idea. Maybe the differences between the genders are more about motivation than ability. This is the difference between can’t and won’t. Return for a moment to the Larry Summers issue about why there aren’t more female physics professors at Harvard. Maybe women can do math and science perfectly well but they just don’t like to. After all, most men don’t like math either! Of the small minority of people who do like math, there are probably more men than women. Research by Eccles has repeatedly concluded that the shortage of females in math and science reflects motivation more than ability. And by the same logic, I suspect most men could learn to change diapers and vacuum under the sofa perfectly well too, and if men don’t do those things, it’s because they don’t want to or don’t like to, not because they are constitutionally unable (much as they may occasionally pretend otherwise!). Several recent works have questioned the whole idea of gender differences in abilities: Even when average differences are found, they tend to be extremely small. In contrast, when you look at what men and women want, what they like, there are genuine differences. Look at research on the sex drive: Men and women may have about equal “ability” in sex, whatever that means, but there are big differences as to motivation: which gender thinks about sex all the time, wants it more often, wants more different partners, risks more for sex, masturbates more, leaps at every opportunity, and so on. Our survey of published research found that pretty much every measure and every study showed higher sex drive in men. It’s official: men are hornier than women. This is a difference in motivation. Likewise, I mentioned the salary difference, but it may have less to do with ability than motivation. High salaries come from working super-long hours. Workaholics are mostly men. (There are some women, just not as many as men.) One study counted that over 80% of the people who work 50-hour weeks are men. That means that if we want to achieve our ideal of equal salaries for men and women, we may need to legislate the principle of equal pay for less work. Personally, I support that principle. But I recognize it’s a hard sell. Creativity may be another example of gender difference in motivation rather than ability. The evidence presents a seeming paradox, because the tests of creativity generally show men and women scoring about the same, yet through history some men have been much more creative than women. An explanation that fits this pattern is that men and women have the same creative ability but different motivations. I am a musician, and I’ve long wondered about this difference. We know from the classical music scene that women can play instruments beautifully, superbly, proficiently — essentially just as well as men. They can and many do. Yet in jazz, where the performer has to be creative while playing, there is a stunning imbalance: hardly any women improvise. Why? The ability is there but perhaps the motivation is less. They don’t feel driven to do it. I suppose the stock explanation for any such difference is that women were not encouraged, or were not appreciated, or were discouraged from being creative. But I don’t think this stock explanation fits the facts very well. In the 19th century in America, middle-class girls and women played piano far more than men. Yet all that piano playing failed to result in any creative output. There were no great women composers, no new directions in style of music or how to play, or anything like that. All those female pianists entertained their families and their dinner guests but did not seem motivated to create anything new. Meanwhile, at about the same time, black men in America created blues and then jazz, both of which changed the way the world experiences music. By any measure, those black men, mostly just emerging from slavery, were far more disadvantaged than the middle-class white women. Even getting their hands on a musical instrument must have been considerably harder. And remember, I’m saying that the creative abilities are probably about equal. But somehow the men were driven to create something new, more than the women. One test of what’s meaningfully real is the marketplace. It’s hard to find anybody making money out of gender differences in abilities. But in motivation, there are plenty. Look at the magazine industry: men’s magazines cover different stuff from women’s magazines, because men and women like and enjoy and are interested in different things. Look at the difference in films between the men’s and women’s cable channels. Look at the difference in commercials for men or for women. This brings us to an important part of the argument. I’m suggesting the important differences between men and women are to be found in motivation rather than ability. What, then, are these differences? I want to emphasize two. / The Most Underappreciated Fact The first big, basic difference has to do with what I consider to be the most underappreciated fact about gender. Consider this question: What percent of our ancestors were women? It’s not a trick question, and it’s not 50%. True, about half the people who ever lived were women, but that’s not the question. We’re asking about all the people who ever lived who have a descendant living today. Or, put another way, yes, every baby has both a mother and a father, but some of those parents had multiple children. Recent research using DNA analysis answered this question about two years ago. Today’s human population is descended from twice as many women as men. I think this difference is the single most underappreciated fact about gender. To get that kind of difference, you had to have something like, throughout the entire history of the human race, maybe 80% of women but only 40% of men reproduced. Right now our field is having a lively debate about how much behavior can be explained by evolutionary theory. But if evolution explains anything at all, it explains things related to reproduction, because reproduction is at the heart of natural selection. Basically, the traits that were most effective for reproduction would be at the center of evolutionary psychology. It would be shocking if these vastly different reproductive odds for men and women failed to produce some personality differences. For women throughout history (and prehistory), the odds of reproducing have been pretty good. Later in this talk we will ponder things like, why was it so rare for a hundred women to get together and build a ship and sail off to explore unknown regions, whereas men have fairly regularly done such things? But taking chances like that would be stupid, from the perspective of a biological organism seeking to reproduce. They might drown or be killed by savages or catch a disease. For women, the optimal thing to do is go along with the crowd, be nice, play it safe. The odds are good that men will come along and offer sex and you’ll be able to have babies. All that matters is choosing the best offer. We’re descended from women who played it safe. For men, the outlook was radically different. If you go along with the crowd and play it safe, the odds are you won’t have children. Most men who ever lived did not have descendants who are alive today. Their lines were dead ends. Hence it was necessary to take chances, try new things, be creative, explore other possibilities. Sailing off into the unknown may be risky, and you might drown or be killed or whatever, but then again if you stay home you won’t reproduce anyway. We’re most descended from the type of men who made the risky voyage and managed to come back rich. In that case he would finally get a good chance to pass on his genes. We’re descended from men who took chances (and were lucky). The huge difference in reproductive success very likely contributed to some personality differences, because different traits pointed the way to success. Women did best by minimizing risks, whereas the successful men were the ones who took chances. Ambition and competitive striving probably mattered more to male success (measured in offspring) than female. Creativity was probably more necessary, to help the individual man stand out in some way. Even the sex drive difference was relevant: For many men, there would be few chances to reproduce and so they had to be ready for every sexual opportunity. If a man said “not today, I have a headache,” he might miss his only chance. Another crucial point. The danger of having no children is only one side of the male coin. Every child has a biological mother and father, and so if there were only half as many fathers as mothers among our ancestors, then some of those fathers had lots of children. Look at it this way. Most women have only a few children, and hardly any have more than a dozen — but many fathers have had more than a few, and some men have actually had several dozen, even hundreds of kids. In terms of the biological competition to produce offspring, then, men outnumbered women both among the losers and among the biggest winners. To put this in more subjective terms: When I walk around and try to look at men and women as if seeing them for the first time, it’s hard to escape the impression (sorry, guys!) that women are simply more likeable and lovable than men. (This I think explains the “WAW effect” mentioned earlier.) Men might wish to be lovable, and men can and do manage to get women to love them (so the ability is there), but men have other priorities, other motivations. For women, being lovable was the key to attracting the best mate. For men, however, it was more a matter of beating out lots of other men even to have a chance for a mate. Tradeoffs again: perhaps nature designed women to seek to be lovable, whereas men were designed to strive, mostly unsuccessfully, for greatness. And it was worth it, even despite the “mostly unsuccessfully” part. Experts estimate Genghis Khan had several hundred and perhaps more than a thousand children. He took big risks and eventually conquered most of the known world. For him, the big risks led to huge payoffs in offspring. My point is that no woman, even if she conquered twice as much territory as Genghis Khan, could have had a thousand children. Striving for greatness in that sense offered the human female no such biological payoff. For the man, the possibility was there, and so the blood of Genghis Khan runs through a large segment of today’s human population. By definition, only a few men can achieve greatness, but for the few men who do, the gains have been real. And we are descended from those great men much more than from other men. Remember, most of the mediocre men left no descendants at all. / Are Women More Social? Let me turn now to the second big motivational difference. This has its roots in an exchange in the Psychological Bulletin about ten years ago, but the issue is still fresh and relevant today. It concerns the question of whether women are more social than men. The idea that women are more social was raised by Cross and Madsen in a manuscript submitted to that journal. I was sent it to review, and although I disagreed with their conclusion, I felt they had made their case well, so I advocated publishing their paper. They provided plenty of evidence. They said things like, look, men are more aggressive than women. Aggression could damage a relationship because if you hurt someone then that person might not want to be with you. Women refrain from aggression because they want relationships, but men don’t care about relationships and so are willing to be aggressive. Thus, the difference in aggression shows that women are more social than men. But I had just published my early work on “the need to belong,” which concluded that both men and women had that need, and so I was worried to hear that men don’t care about social connection. I wrote a reply that said there was another way to look at all the evidence Cross and Madsen covered. The gist of our view was that there are two different ways of being social. In social psychology we tend to emphasize close, intimate relationships, and yes, perhaps women specialize in those and are better at them than men. But one can also look at being social in terms of having larger networks of shallower relationships, and on these, perhaps, men are more social than women. It’s like the common question, what’s more important to you, having a few close friendships or having lots of people who know you? Most people say the former is more important. But the large network of shallow relationships might be important too. We shouldn’t automatically see men as second-class human beings simply because they specialize in the less important, less satisfying kind of relationship. Men are social too — just in a different way. So we reexamined the evidence Cross and Madsen had provided. Consider aggression. True, women are less aggressive than men, no argument there. But is it really because women don’t want to jeopardize a close relationship? It turns out that in close relationships, women are plenty aggressive. Women are if anything more likely than men to perpetrate domestic violence against romantic partners, everything from a slap in the face to assault with a deadly weapon. Women also do more child abuse than men, though that’s hard to untangle from the higher amount of time they spend with children. Still, you can’t say that women avoid violence toward intimate partners. Instead, the difference is found in the broader social sphere. Women don’t hit strangers. The chances that a woman will, say, go to the mall and end up in a knife fight with another woman are vanishingly small, but there is more such risk for men. The gender difference in aggression is mainly found there, in the broader network of relationships. Because men care more about that network. Now consider helping. Most research finds that men help more than women. Cross and Madsen struggled with that and eventually just fell back on the tired cliché that maybe women don’t help because they aren’t brought up to help or aren’t socialized to help. But I think the pattern is the same as with aggression. Most research looks at helping between strangers, in the larger social sphere, and so it finds men helping more. Inside the family, though, women are plenty helpful, if anything more than men. Aggression and helping are in some ways opposites, so the converging pattern is quite meaningful. Women both help and aggress in the intimate sphere of close relationships, because that’s what they care about. In contrast, men care (also) about the broader network of shallower relationships, and so they are plenty helpful and aggressive there. The same two-spheres conclusion is supported in plenty of other places. Playground observation studies find that girls pair off and play one-on-one with the same playmate for the full hour. Boys will either play one-on-one with a series of different playmates or with a larger group. Girls want the one-to-one relationship, whereas boys are drawn to bigger groups or networks. When two girls are playing together and the researchers bring in a third one, the two girls resist letting her join. But two boys will let a third boy join their game. My point is that girls want the one-on-one connection, so adding a third person spoils the time for them, but it doesn’t spoil it for the boys. The conclusion is that men and women are both social but in different ways. Women specialize in the narrow sphere of intimate relationships. Men specialize in the larger group. If you make a list of activities that are done in large groups, you are likely to have a list of things that men do and enjoy more than women: team sports, politics, large corporations, economic networks, and so forth. / Traded-Off Traits Again, important personality differences probably follow from the basic motivational difference in the kind of social relationship that interests men and women. Consider the common finding that women are more emotionally expressive than men. For an intimate relationship, good communication is helpful. It enables the two people to understand each other, appreciate each other’s feelings, and so forth. The more the two intimate partners know about each other, the better they can care for and support each other. But in a large group, where you have rivals and maybe enemies, it’s risky to let all your feelings show. The same goes for economic transactions. When you are negotiating the price of something, it’s best to keep your feelings a bit to yourself. And so men hold back more. Fairness is another example. Research by Major and others back in the 1970s used procedures like this. A group of subjects would perform a task, and the experimenter would then say that the group had earned a certain amount of money, and it was up to one member to divide it up however he or she wanted. The person could keep all the money, but that wasn’t usually what happened. Women would divide the money equally, with an equal share for everybody. Men, in contrast, would divide it unequally, giving the biggest share of reward to whoever had done the most work. Which is better? Neither. Both equality and equity are valid versions of fairness. But they show the different social sphere orientation. Equality is better for close relationships, when people take care of each other and reciprocate things and divide resources and opportunities equally. In contrast, equity — giving bigger rewards for bigger contributions — is more effective in large groups. I haven’t actually checked, but I’m willing to bet that if you surveyed the Fortune 500 large and successful corporations in America, you wouldn’t find a single one out of 500 that pays every employee the same salary. The more valuable workers who contribute more generally get paid more. It simply is a more effective system in large groups. The male pattern is suited for the large groups, the female pattern is best suited to intimate pairs. Ditto for the communal-exchange difference Women have more communal orientation, men more exchange. In psychology we tend to think of communal as a more advanced form of relationship than exchange. For example, we’d be suspicious of a couple who after ten years of marriage are still saying, “I paid the electric bill last month, now it’s your turn.” But the supposed superiority of communal relationships applies mainly to intimate relationships. At the level of large social systems, it’s the other way around. Communal (including communist) countries remain primitive and poor, whereas the rich, advanced nations have gotten where they are by means of economic exchange. There’s also the point about men being more competitive, women more cooperative. Again, though, cooperation is much more useful than competition for close relationships. What use is there in competing against your spouse? But in large groups, getting to the top can be crucial. The male preference for dominance hierarchies, and the ambitious striving to get to the top, likewise reflect an orientation toward the large group, not a dislike of intimacy. And remember, most men didn’t reproduce, and we’re mainly descended from the men who did fight their way to the top. Not so for women. One more thing. Cross and Madsen covered plenty of research showing that men think of themselves based on their unusual traits that set them apart from others, while women’s self-concepts feature things that connect them to others. Cross and Madsen thought that this was because men wanted to be apart from others. But in fact being different is vital strategy for belonging to a large group. If you’re the only group member who can kill an antelope or find water or talk to the gods or kick a field goal, the group can’t afford to get rid of you. It’s different in a one-to-one relationship. A woman’s husband, and her baby, will love her even if she doesn’t play the trombone. So cultivating a unique skill isn’t essential for her. But playing the trombone is a way to get into some groups, especially brass bands. This is another reason that men go to extremes more than women. Large groups foster the need to establish something different and special about yourself. / Benefits of Cultural Systems Let’s turn now to culture. Culture is relatively new in evolution. It continues the line of evolution that made animals social. I understand culture as a kind of system that enables the human group to work together effectively, using information. Culture is a new, improved way of being social. Feminism has taught us to see culture as men against women. Instead, I think the evidence indicates that culture emerged mainly with men and women working together, but working against other groups of men and women. Often the most intense and productive competitions were groups of men against other groups of men, though both groups depended on support from women. Culture enables the group to be more than the sum of its parts (its members). Culture can be seen as a biological strategy. Twenty people who work together, in a cultural system, sharing information and dividing up tasks and so forth, will all live better — survive and reproduce better — than if those same twenty people lived in the same forest but did everything individually. Culture thus provides some benefit from having a system. Let’s call this “system gain,” which means how much better the group does because of the system. Think of two soccer teams. Both sets of players know the rules and have the same individual skills. One group has only that, and they go out to play as individuals trying to do their best. The other works as a team, complementing each other, playing with a system. The system will likely enable them to do better than the group playing as separate individuals. That’s system gain. And one vital fact is that the scope of system gain increases with the size of the system. This is essentially what’s happening in the world right now, globalization in the world economy. Bigger systems provide more benefits, so as we expand and merge more units into bigger systems, overall there is more gain. There is one crucial implication from all this. Culture depends on system gain, and bigger systems provide more of this. Therefore, you’ll get more of the benefit of culture from large groups than from small ones. A one-on-one close relationship can do a little in terms of division of labor and sharing information, but a 20-person group can do much more. As a result, culture mainly arose in the types of social relationships favored by men. Women favor close, intimate relationships. These are if anything more important for the survival of the species. That’s why human women evolved first. We need those close relationships to survive. The large networks of shallower relationships aren’t as vital for survival — but they are good for something else, namely the development of larger social systems and ultimately for culture. / Men and Culture This provides a new basis for understanding gender politics and inequality. The generally accepted view is that back in early human society, men and women were close to equal. Men and women had separate spheres and did different things, but both were respected. Often, women were gatherers and men were hunters. The total contribution to the group’s food was about the same, even though there were some complementary differences. For example, the gatherers’ food was reliably there most days, while the hunters brought home great food once in a while but nothing on other days. Gender inequality seems to have increased with early civilization, including agriculture. Why? The feminist explanation has been that the men banded together to create patriarchy. This is essentially a conspiracy theory, and there is little or no evidence that it is true. Some argue that the men erased it from the history books in order to safeguard their newly won power. Still, the lack of evidence should be worrisome, especially since this same kind of conspiracy would have had to happen over and over, in group after group, all over the world. Let me offer a different explanation. It’s not that the men pushed the women down. Rather, it’s just that the women’s sphere remained about where it was, while the men’s sphere, with its big and shallow social networks, slowly benefited from the progress of culture. By accumulating knowledge and improving the gains from division of labor, the men’s sphere gradually made progress. Hence religion, literature, art, science, technology, military action, trade and economic marketplaces, political organization, medicine — these all mainly emerged from the men’s sphere. The women’s sphere did not produce such things, though it did other valuable things, like take care of the next generation so the species would continue to exist. Why? It has nothing to do with men having better abilities or talents or anything like that. It comes mainly from the different kinds of social relationships. The women’s sphere consisted of women and therefore was organized on the basis of the kind of close, intimate, supportive one-on-one relationships that women favor. These are vital, satisfying relationships that contribute vitally to health and survival. Meanwhile the men favored the larger networks of shallower relationships. These are less satisfying and nurturing and so forth, but they do form a more fertile basis for the emergence of culture. Note that all those things I listed — literature, art, science, etc — are optional. Women were doing what was vital for the survival of the species. Without intimate care and nurturance, children won’t survive, and the group will die out. Women contributed the necessities of life. Men’s contributions were more optional, luxuries perhaps. But culture is a powerful engine of making life better. Across many generations, culture can create large amounts of wealth, knowledge, and power. Culture did this — but mainly in the men’s sphere. Thus, the reason for the emergence of gender inequality may have little to do with men pushing women down in some dubious patriarchal conspiracy. Rather, it came from the fact that wealth, knowledge, and power were created in the men’s sphere. This is what pushed the men’s sphere ahead. Not oppression. Giving birth is a revealing example. What could be more feminine than giving birth? Throughout most of history and prehistory, giving birth was at the center of the women’s sphere, and men were totally excluded. Men were rarely or never present at childbirth, nor was the knowledge about birthing even shared with them. But not very long ago, men were finally allowed to get involved, and the men were able to figure out ways to make childbirth safer for both mother and baby. Think of it: the most quintessentially female activity, and yet the men were able to improve on it in ways the women had not discovered for thousands and thousands of years. Let’s not overstate. The women had after all managed childbirth pretty well for all those centuries. The species had survived, which is the bottom line. The women had managed to get the essential job done. What the men added was, from the perspective of the group or species at least, optional, a bonus: some mothers and babies survived who would otherwise have died. Still, the improvements show some value coming from the male way of being social. Large networks can collect and accumulate information better than small ones, and so in a relatively short time the men were able to discover improvements that the women hadn’t been able to find. Again, it’s not that the men were smarter or more capable. It’s just that the women shared their knowledge individually, from mother to daughter, or from one midwife to another, and in the long run this could not accumulate and progress as effectively as in the larger groups of shallower relationships favored by men. / What Men Are Good For With that, we can now return to the question of what men are good for, from the perspective of a cultural system. The context is these systems competing against other systems, group against group. The group systems that used their men and women most effectively would enable their groups to outperform their rivals and enemies. I want to emphasize three main answers for how culture uses men. First, culture relies on men to create the large social structures that comprise it. Our society is made up of institutions such as universities, governments, corporations. Most of these were founded and built up by men. Again, this probably had less to do with women being oppressed or whatever and more to do with men being motivated to form large networks of shallow relationships. Men are much more interested than women in forming large groups and working in them and rising to the top in them. This still seems to be true today. Several recent news articles have called attention to the fact that women now start more small businesses then men. This is usually covered in the media as a positive sign about women, which it is. But women predominate only if you count all businesses. If you restrict the criteria to businesses that employ more than one person, or ones that make enough money to live off of, then men create more. I suspect that the bigger the group you look at, the more they are male-created. Certainly today anybody of any gender can start a business, and if anything there are some set-asides and advantages to help women do so. There are no hidden obstacles or blocks, and that’s shown by the fact that women start more businesses than men. But the women are content to stay small, such as operating a part-time business out of the spare bedroom, making a little extra money for the family. They don’t seem driven to build these up into giant corporations. There are some exceptions, of course, but there is a big difference on average. Hence both men and women rely on men to create the giant social structures that offer opportunities to both. And it is clear men and women can both perform quite well in these organizations. But culture still relies mainly on men to make them in the first place. / The Disposable Male A second thing that makes men useful to culture is what I call male expendability. This goes back to what I said at the outset, that cultures tend to use men for the high-risk, high-payoff undertakings, where a significant portion of those will suffer bad outcomes ranging from having their time wasted, all the way to being killed. Any man who reads the newspapers will encounter the phrase “even women and children” a couple times a month, usually about being killed. The literal meaning of this phrase is that men’s lives have less value than other people’s lives. The idea is usually “It’s bad if people are killed, but it’s especially bad if women and children are killed.” And I think most men know that in an emergency, if there are women and children present, he will be expected to lay down his life without argument or complaint so that the others can survive. On the Titanic, the richest men had a lower survival rate (34%) than the poorest women (46%) (though that’s not how it looked in the movie). That in itself is remarkable. The rich, powerful, and successful men, the movers and shakers, supposedly the ones that the culture is all set up to favor — in a pinch, their lives were valued less than those of women with hardly any money or power or status. The too-few seats in the lifeboats went to the women who weren’t even ladies, instead of to those patriarchs. Most cultures have had the same attitude. Why? There are pragmatic reasons. When a cultural group competes against other groups, in general, the larger group tends to win out in the long run. Hence most cultures have promoted population growth. And that depends on women. To maximize reproduction, a culture needs all the wombs it can get, but a few penises can do the job. There is usually a penile surplus. If a group loses half its men, the next generation can still be full-sized. But if it loses half its women, the size of the next generation will be severely curtailed. Hence most cultures keep their women out of harm’s way while using men for risky jobs. These risky jobs extend beyond the battlefield. Many lines of endeavor require some lives to be wasted. Exploration, for example: a culture may send out dozens of parties, and some will get lost or be killed, while others bring back riches and opportunities. Research is somewhat the same way: There may be a dozen possible theories about some problem, only one of which is correct, so the people testing the eleven wrong theories will end up wasting their time and ruining their careers, in contrast to the lucky one who gets the Nobel prize. And of course the dangerous jobs. When the scandals broke about the dangers of the mining industry in Britain, Parliament passed the mining laws that prohibited children under the age of 10 and women of all ages from being sent into the mines. Women and children were too precious to be exposed to death in the mines: so only men. As I said earlier, the gender gap in dangerous work persists today, with men accounting for the vast majority of deaths on the job. Another basis of male expendability is built into the different ways of being social. Expendability comes with the large groups that male sociality creates. In an intimate, one-to-one relationship, neither person can really be replaced. You can remarry if your spouse dies, but it isn’t really the same marriage or relationship. And of course nobody can ever really replace a child’s mother or father. In contrast, large groups can and do replace just about everybody. Take any large organization — the Ford Motor Company, the U.S. Army, the Green Bay Packers — and you’ll find that the organization goes on despite having replaced every single person in it. Moreover, every member off those groups knows he or she can be replaced and probably will be replaced some day. Thus, men create the kind of social networks where individuals are replaceable and expendable. Women favor the kind of relationships in which each person is precious and cannot truly be replaced. / Earning Manhood The phrase “Be a man” is not as common as it once was, but there is still some sense that manhood must be earned. Every adult female is a woman and is entitled to respect as such, but many cultures withhold respect from the males until and unless the lads prove themselves. This is of course tremendously useful for the culture, because it can set the terms by which males earn respect as men, and in that way it can motivate the men to do things that the culture finds productive. Some sociological writings about the male role have emphasized that to be a man, you have to produce more than you consume. That is, men are expected, first, to provide for themselves: If somebody else provides for you, you’re less than a man. Second, the man should create some additional wealth or surplus value so that it can provide for others in addition to himself. These can be his wife and children, or others who depend on him, or his subordinates, or even perhaps just paying taxes that the government can use. Regardless, you’re not a man unless you produce at that level. Again, I’m not saying men have it worse than women. There are plenty of problems and disadvantages that cultures put on women. My point is just that cultures find men useful in these very specific ways. Requiring the man to earn respect by producing wealth and value that can support himself and others is one of these. Women do not face this particular challenge or requirement. These demands also contribute to various male behavior patterns. The ambition, competition, and striving for greatness may well be linked to this requirement to fight for respect. All-male groups tend to be marked by putdowns and other practices that remind everybody that there is NOT enough respect to go around, because this awareness motivates each man to try harder to earn respect. This, incidentally, has probably been a major source of friction as women have moved into the workplace, and organizations have had to shift toward policies that everyone is entitled to respect. The men hadn’t originally built them to respect everybody. One of the basic, most widely accepted gender differences is agency versus communion. Male agency may be partly an adaptation to this kind of social life based on larger groups, where people aren’t necessarily valued and one has to strive for respect. To succeed in the male social sphere of large groups, you need an active, agentic self to fight for your place, because it isn’t given to you and only a few will be successful. Even the male ego, with its concern with proving oneself and competing against others, seems likely to be designed to cope with systems where there is a shortage of respect and you have to work hard to get some — or else you’ll be exposed to humiliation. / Is That All? I have not exhausted all the ways that culture exploits men. Certainly there are others. The male sex drive can be harnessed to motivate all sorts of behaviors and put to work in a kind of economic marketplace in which men give women other resources (love, money, commitment) in exchange for sex. Cultures also use individual men for symbolic purposes more than women. This can be in a positive way, such as the fact that cultures give elaborate funerals and other memorials to men who seem to embody its favorite values. It can also be negative, such as when cultures ruin a man’s career, shame him publicly, or even execute him for a single act that violates one of its values. From Martin Luther King to Don Imus, our culture uses men as symbols for expressing its values. (Note neither of those two came out the better for it.) / Conclusion To summarize my main points: A few lucky men are at the top of society and enjoy the culture’s best rewards. Others, less fortunate, have their lives chewed up by it. Culture uses both men and women, but most cultures use them in somewhat different ways. Most cultures see individual men as more expendable than individual women, and this difference is probably based on nature, in whose reproductive competition some men are the big losers and other men are the biggest winners. Hence it uses men for the many risky jobs it has. Men go to extremes more than women, and this fits in well with culture using them to try out lots of different things, rewarding the winners and crushing the losers. Culture is not about men against women. By and large, cultural progress emerged from groups of men working with and against other men. While women concentrated on the close relationships that enabled the species to survive, men created the bigger networks of shallow relationships, less necessary for survival but eventually enabling culture to flourish. The gradual creation of wealth, knowledge, and power in the men’s sphere was the source of gender inequality. Men created the big social structures that comprise society, and men still are mainly responsible for this, even though we now see that women can perform perfectly well in these large systems. What seems to have worked best for cultures is to play off the men against each other, competing for respect and other rewards that end up distributed very unequally. Men have to prove themselves by producing things the society values. They have to prevail over rivals and enemies in cultural competitions, which is probably why they aren’t as lovable as women. The essence of how culture uses men depends on a basic social insecurity. This insecurity is in fact social, existential, and biological. Built into the male role is the danger of not being good enough to be accepted and respected and even the danger of not being able to do well enough to create offspring. The basic social insecurity of manhood is stressful for the men, and it is hardly surprising that so many men crack up or do evil or heroic things or die younger than women. But that insecurity is useful and productive for the culture, the system. Again, I’m not saying it’s right, or fair, or proper. But it has worked. The cultures that have succeeded have used this formula, and that is one reason that they have succeeded instead of their rivals.
Fancy a photo walk around Brunswick? I’ve been selected to guide a photo walk in Brunswick...
Fancy a photo walk around Brunswick? I’ve been selected to guide a photo walk in Brunswick for “Scott Kelby’s 2nd annual Worldwide Photo Walk”. Date: 18th July 2009 / Where/what: a casual social and photographic stroll in/around Brunswick, starting and ending in Sydney Road. / Times? – 3.30pm until 6pm (I’m likely to be kicking on at the Retreat Hotel afterward). / Who?: Anyone really with an interest in walking, photography, chatting with others! Registrations opened up this morning – only 50 spots are available. There’s also a walk being organised in St Kilda for those who can’t get to lovely Brunswick. Questions: bubblemail me, or ‘contact leader’ via the Walk’s website.
Just a quick Journal entry to thanks all my fellow photographers on RB. Since my first login a month or so ago I have found nothing bu…
Just a quick Journal entry to thanks all my fellow photographers on RB. Since my first login a month or so ago I have found nothing but support and encouragement from all on RB. You have provided me with the drive to improve my skills and the motivation to strive to do so. Not only have I gained many sources of knowledge and expertise, but I have also made new friends (I hope :D) I honestly did not expect RB to be so socially addictive as it is. That is not a bad thing at all. Rather it is the driving force behind our community. Joining RB has been the single most important step in my emerging photographic career. It has provided me with the support, encouragement and self-confidence to want to take my work to the next level…..and its all down to you….. Thank you Red Bubble…..
“Is it true?! They can cure us?” _“No, Rogue… they can’t cure you. Do you know why? There’s nothing to cure. Nothing’s wrong with…
“Is it true?! They can cure us?” “No, Rogue… they can’t cure you. Do you know why? There’s nothing to cure. Nothing’s wrong with you… or any of us, for that matter.” X3: The Last Stand might very well have been the worst movie out of the X Men movie trilogy, but some of the underlying social/ ethical issues throughout the movie really did hit home for me. The biggest of these was the issue concerning whether or not Rogue ought to have taken the “mutant cure” and become a normal human being. First, let me provide a bit of background information for those of you who might not be familiar with what I’m talking about – X Men started out as a very popular comic book series that eventually made its way onto the big screen, featuring people who were born with special traits/ abilities/ powers that made them different from others. These people were called mutants, and were feared by the rest of the human race because of what made them different. Eventually, however, that fear began to melt away, and was instead replaced with (misguided?) compassion – in X3: The Last Stand, a medical company develops a serum that, when taken by injection, removes the mutant gene from the body, and turns the mutant into an ordinary human being, without any of the different traits/ abilities/ powers they had been born with. This, of course, sparks a fierce controversy in the mutant population – for some mutants, their special abilities (ranging from telepathy, fast reflexes, the ability to manipulate the elements, etc.) are something to be celebrated, and any attempt to remove that or take it away is a huge insult to everything they are. For other mutants, this cure is viewed as an opportunity to finally be free of oppression, exclusion, and prejudice – an opportunity to finally be accepted by the mainstream society that has given them the cold shoulder for so long. This is especially true for a mutant named Rogue, whose special ability is that she can inflict intense, even life-threatening, pain on somebody just by touching them. Some might think it to be amazing, but for Rogue, it is a curse, as she feels condemned to live for the rest of her life without ever coming into contact with another human being. Her powers prevent her from being able to touch her boyfriend, Bobby, and prevent her from being able to even kiss him without putting his life in danger. As a result, she is eager to get a dose of the mutant cure, in spite of the fact that a lot of her peers and friends advise her not to, or at least think it over instead of just rushing into it. The question that I would like to ask the RedBubble community, particularly the gay and the Christian community on RedBubble, is: what if there was a way to cure homosexuality? What if it was possible for a gay person to change his or her sexuality and become a heterosexual? How many of us in the gay community would take that cure? I don’t care if you believe your sexuality cannot be changed. Assume, for a minute, that what I’m asking you right now is actually common knowledge and you really did have a choice. The reason I am asking you this question, is because this is a path that I have recently wondered if I am capable of walking on. As I said in a previous journal entry- , yes, I am gay… I also became a Christian four years ago, and have been trying to live my life in tune with the message of Jesus Christ ever since. I can’t say I left behind a life of promiscuity, since I’ve only had sex twice in my entire life… but the fact remains that my sexual desires are still directed towards other men, and even going beyond sex, I find it virtually impossible to even imagine myself married to and in love with a woman, with biological children of my own. Now this probably isn’t a problem at all for the gay man who doesn’t believe in God, and recklessly acts on his sexual desires every chance he gets, but for someone like me… it’s tough to call yourself a true follower of Christ when you find yourself getting really uncomfortable with verses in the Bible like Romans 1:27 and 1 Corinthians 6:9-10. Promiscuity no longer feels like freedom… instead, I only feel like a slave to my own body, which is humiliating, considering that I’d like to be seen as an intelligent human being that’s above bowing to every single request made by the area between my legs. In terms of love… I’d like to imagine that there’s a man out there who sees past whatever he witnesses with his own two eyes. I’d like to imagine that there’s a man out there who sees kindness and graciousness before he even notices muscles or good looks… a man who knows and loves Christ more than he could ever love me, and at the same time, be willing to make a commitment so that my lips would be the only lips he would ever kiss for as long as we both would live. And then I wonder… am I wishing for an impossibility, hoping that there’s a good Christian man out there that I could love with all my heart? Is it even more outrageous to hope that God would look down from Heaven at the two of us and smile? Is it like holding an apple in your outstretched hand, and hoping that it’ll fly up into the sky, instead of falling down to the ground when you let it go? I ask all this because I just get so tired of being at war with myself. The worst fight is over, mind you – I feel that it’s important to let you all know that I’m NOT struggling with this because I’ve got this intense fear that God is going to send me to hell. If it’s true that whosoever believes in the divinity of Christ Jesus will have everlasting life, then there’s no need for me to be afraid of the future. But if it’s also true that real Christianity transcends mere religion, and is instead a relationship with God, then I see my homosexuality as a barrier preventing my relationship with God from becoming more wonderful than it is as of today. Think of it this way – imagine a man who has the perfect wife… a wife who loves him wholly, unconditionally… and constantly forgives him in spite of the fact that he’s constantly cheating on her. The man sees how much his wife loves him and feels an intense wave of guilt over the fact that he feels so unworthy of her love because of his unfaithfulness to her. The husband knows that his wife’s love for him is so pure that she would never divorce him, but instead of seeing that as an incentive to keep cheating, the man is now inspired to stop, in hopes of becoming at least a little more worthy of the love that his wife gives so freely. That’s kind of the way it feels between me and God. I know, of course, that salvation is given by grace, and that even if I was as good of a person as Mother Teresa, it could never match the kind of love that God has for me. That being said, I also feel it important to mention that I’m not looking to destroy my sexuality in order to earn God’s love. There’s no point in trying to earn something that was already given to me freely. The reason why I’m trying to do this is because it tortures me to know that God is so madly in love with somebody like me, and I feel as if He deserves so much better than me. So even if I could never be “good enough” to God, I feel as if I should at least try to be good enough, so I can feel a little less guilt over the fact that I’ve received an incredible blessing that I know I don’t deserve. Think about the last time you deeply hurt somebody you love. Then think about how good it felt to be forgiven…to have that person hug you, look into your eyes and say, “It’s okay. I forgive you. I love you and will always love you.” I think about God’s forgiveness, and I as much as I am filled with relief and happiness… there’s another voice that points a finger at me and says, “You’re such a fucking asshole! If you really understood the weight of what you had done, you would’ve jumped into a tub of acid, because a person as bad as you doesn’t deserve to even look into the face of the person you wronged.” I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s felt this… more often than not, even though we wish to be forgiven… a lot of us sometimes wish that the person we hurt would stop loving us altogether, because we know that punishment is what we actually deserve, as opposed to having that person look us in the eye and say “I love you still, and I don’t love you any less than I did yesterday, or the day before.” To have God say that makes you all the more aware of how unworthy you really are… it makes you feel bad about yourself… it makes you want to hold God at arms length and wail “Look, God – just don’t_… STOP IT, okay?! I know You love me, and I love You too…but You’re too good for me, and I love You too much to let you settle for less than what You actually deserve… so let me just jump off this bridge, so You’ll have room in Your life to actually find someone who’s _GOOD ENOUGH for You, because that person isn’t me, as much as I wish it was!” So, going back to homosexuality… what if there really was a way to become straight? What if there really was a way to be at least a_little_ bit less ashamed of yourself when you look into God’s face for the first time? Why would anyone turn down the opportunity to make life a little easier, Christian or not? And if the opportunity is truly there, what am I supposed to do? Watch lesbian porn for weeks on end until I finally get turned on by it? Ask a random girl out on a date and pretend that I’m sincere enough times, hoping that by the end of the date I really will be sincere about it? It’s obviously not enough to argue the point that one should turn away from homosexuality because the Bible commands you to… if that was all it took, then nobody on this planet would be gay because nearly everybody on this earth has heard a pastor say those words at least once! So having a valid point in an argument clearly doesn’t do the job… So to my fellow brothers/ sisters in Christ, I ask you, how exactly does one deal with and fix homosexuality after letting God into their lives? I’ve prayed about it more than once, believe me, and my prayers have not been halfhearted either… yet I woke up the next morning and was still gay, so if “former” homosexuals are the real deal, it’d be nice to know what it is they did that I am obviously forgetting to do. I’m not even leading a homosexual “lifestyle” – been celibate for four years, don’t go to gay clubs/ bars/ events, don’t go around looking for hookups with other guys – check, check… checking everything off my list and I still know quite clearly in my heart that I’m gay. So what exactly am I missing? And to my gay friends/ family… if there really was a way to turn yourself around, if there truly exists out there a way for you to no longer be a homosexual, would you take the opportunity? And if you wouldn’t, why not? I sincerely hope you’ll try to give me more than the “I was born this way/ love yourself for who you are” cliché. There are serial killers and pedophiles out there that could probably make that same argument (keep in mind that I’m not equating my fellow gay brothers/ sisters with serial killers and pedophiles – I’m just saying that clichés heard a thousand times will not justify you in the eyes of the rest of the world when worse people than you will say the same things). Just because you’re born a certain way doesn’t mean you need to stay that way. If a person is born blind, would it be wrong for him to accept a doctor’s offer to give him a new set of eyes? Would the rest of his blind friends tell him there’s no need, and that he’s fine the way he is? And is that just because none of them have ever known what it’s like to have sight, therefore they just don’t know any better? Again, I say all this because I want to at least try. For all anyone knows, I might fall flat on my face and fail. I might never get married or fall in love for the rest of my life. I might even fall deeply in love with a man and stay married to him for the rest of my life. At this point, I hardly know what to pray for anymore. I might show up in Heaven one day just to have the angels say, “We’re letting you in, but just make sure you know that you were fooling yourself when you thought being in a loving monogamous relationship with another man would erase what the Bible said about homosexuality. Doesn’t matter if you sincerely loved him and weren’t having one-night stands all over the place.” I might hang my head in shame (I’m going to be humbled in the presence of God regardless), but I want to at least be able to say, “Yes, I failed at being able to live completely by Your word, God… but I can tell You, if nothing else, that at least it wasn’t for the lack of trying.”
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