Jezebel: Harvard

Some People In Politics Live In An Alternate Universe

Megan — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 18:30:00 EST

Once upon a time in a universe far, far away, a group of supposely intelligent women decided that Barack Obama wasn't sexy enough for them. And thus the world was denied his image in a Harvard Law beefcake calendar. I guess we'll always have People. [Politico]
Obama has told people he wants Lieberman to continue to caucus with the Dems, something Lieberman is swearing that he won't do if Democrats take his committee assignment away. Let the whiny bitch go, please. "No drama Obama" doesn't have to mean rolling over for Lieberman. [Huffington Post]
Speaking of the Senate, the difference between Norm Coleman and Al Franken in the Minnesota Senate race is down to 204 votes. One more reason to cut the dead weight, Harry Reid. [MSNBC]

There's a fake guy who claims to be the one who told Fox News that Sarah Palin didn't know about NAFTA. He claims to be best buds with Randy Scheunemann and "added" that she didn't know the difference between Hezbollah and Hamas, Sunnis and Shi'ites or the IRA and ETA. [Politico, Fake Martin Eisenstadt]
None of that will delay the start of Palin's comeback tour, which begins this week at the Republican Governor's Association in Miami. [Washington Post]
She's headed there once she's done sorting through her massive wardrobe to find the clothes the RNC desperately needs back. You know, the clothes she never wore that lived in the belly of the campaign plane after the convention. Those clothes. [Associated Press]
Howard Dean is going to leave the DNC. [Washington Post]
Former DNC Chair Terry McAuliffe is going to run for Governor of Virginia. [Politico]
And everyone in the world is calling Obama on the phone, including Russian ~~Putin-puppet~~ President Dmitry Medvedev. No wonder he always has the thing up to his ear when he's getting out of a car lately! [Washington Post]

Some Career Paths Just Don't Work For Working Moms

Dodai — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 12:00:00 EDT

"Mothers who work and those who stay home often end up judging one another," writes Maya Dollarhide Lucca in a CNN article about working moms. Shocker. But this issue will not go away, and the two sides are each adamant that they are right. Dr. Scott Haltzman, a clinical psychiatrist and an assistant professor at Brown says: "It's very clear to me, from what I've seen in my clients, that children who are put in day care, not raised by their mothers at home, feel a real loss. They feel the absence of those parents and it affects how they want to parent their own children." But author/psychologist Debra Condren counters: "Each time the media reports an interview with yet another professional woman who has seen the light and taken time out for motherhood, everyone breathes a collective sigh of relief. Finally, this woman has figured out what's really important. But keeping yourself from your own ambitions, dreams and career goals can be soul destroying."

Yeah, same old issues. But a new study by UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business found that MBAs were more likely to drop out of the workforce than doctors or lawyers. Why?

It's not because of education: All of the 1,000 participants in the survey went to Harvard. It's not age: All were 37 years old and had at least one child. The difference was in the workplace. A third of the women with MBAs became stay-at-home moms; compared to 6% of MDs. Could it be that doctors often work in private practice and can make their own hours? Could it be that a business environment is not family-friendly? Would it help if there were more women in business, thereby forcing companies to become flexible or lose valuable employees? But why would more women go into business when clearly women in business have a tough time? It's a catch-22. (Would some sort of Title IX help?) I'm reminded of something I read recently, in which the author suggested that the reason the comments on this site are so witty and funny is because women are underutilized at their jobs. Maybe it's not just businesses — maybe the entire concept of a "workforce" needs to be overhauled?

Working Moms Look Back With Mixed Emotions [CNN]
More Women With MBAs Take Mommy-Track Than Doctors: Study [Reuters]

Earlier: Many Women Prefer Stay At Home Motherhood To Soulless Cubicle Dwelling

Harvard Doc Likes Big Butts And He Cannot Lie

Dodai — Wed, 07 May 2008 15:00:00 EDT

Dear Dr. Ronald Kahn of Harvard Medical School: Your new study is amazing. You found that subcutaneous fat (that's fat right under the skin, for those who don't know) which accumulates around the hips and bottom may offer protection against diabetes. Love it! See, researchers have always known that fat in the abdomen — visceral fat — can raise a person's risk of diabetes and heart disease. Duh. But pear-shaped people (cough!) are less prone to these problems. So, Dr. Kahn, it was sheer genius when you decided to conduct experiments on mice. Because you found that subcutaneous fat transplanted into their bellies cause the mice to lose weight and show improved blood sugar and insulin levels. Crazy, right? Even crazier is what you said about fat:

Some reporter interviewed you about the improvement in metabolism in the lab mice. You said,

"I think it's an important result because not only does it say that not all fat is bad, but I think it points to a special aspect of fat where we need to do more research."

Not all fat is bad? Seriously, Dr. Kahn. I think I love you. But more research is needed? Sigh. I don't even know what to think anymore. One day thin is in; the next day the French are passing laws against promoting skinny. One day fat is bad; the next day it's good! In any case, I'm totally psyched that I — and many other women — have the "right" kind of fat. For now.

Love,
Kim Kardashian.

Scientists Find Something Good About A Big Bottom [Reuters]

Aliza Shvarts: The Halloween How-To For Harvard Students

Jennifer — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 13:30:00 EDT

Aliza Shvarts '08 is more than just an alleged abortion-inducer; according to our commenters, she is also a style icon of sorts. In fact, we predict that come Halloween, students all over Cambridge and other rival Ivies will be dressing up as the suddenly-notorious art student from that other East Coast institution of higher learning. In order to help them along, we decided to create a handy guide to recreating Aliza's look... Black leggings? Check! Fringe boots? Check! Leopard-print shorts? Of course. Everything they need to create a Shvarts costume (except for the discarded uterine lining), after the jump.

The foundation of Aliza's outfit is, naturally, built upon the shopping mecca of aspiring hipster poseurs everywhere: American Apparel. Below, the leggings, scoop-neck leotard and black hoody.

(Unisex flex fleece zip hoody, $40; cotton spandex jersey legging, $26; jersey short sleeve t-shirt leotard, $28.)

And her boots? White fringe stylings are something that could only be found at a place called the Boot Barn.

(Oak Tree Farm "Oasis" fringe boot, $89.99)

And don't forget the hair! This Beverly Johnson wig in Shade 4 ought to do the trick.

(H-214 by Beverly Johnson wig, $45.90)

But to really encapsulate Aliza-style, you've gotta rock the baggy leopard-print short. Where to go? The men's underwear section of WildFree, naturally.

(Wild Free men's lingerie silk leopard-print boxer shorts, $24)

Related: Shvarts Explains Her 'Repeated Self-Induced Miscarriages [Yale Daily News]

The Best Email I Have Ever Received

Moe — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 16:40:00 EDT

There are no facts, only interpretations, and if you comprehend an interpretation to its very depths you're likely to change your mind about it, as I have on occasion on this blog when challenged on one of the metaphors, metonyms and anthroporphisms marching around in the mobile mind army of thoughts and variables I falsely perceive to make up some sort of truth, which you may perceive to be a long-winded preamble to telling you I received an email Wednesday evening from a certain individual I'd described upon very little scrutiny as "amusingly pretentious," in a post of earlier this week. Was it unfair? Why not leave judgment to the herd?

from [Redacted] xxxxxxxx@fas.harvard.edu> to moetkacik@gmail.com, date Wed, Apr 9, 2008 at 6:00 PM subject Amusingly pretentious mailed-by gmail.com signed-by gmail.com hide details Apr 9 (2 days ago) Reply
Hi Moe,

Nice to meet you in NYC last weekend! Just out of curiosity, what did I do
to merit the label "amusingly pretentious"?

Cheers,

[Redacted]
______________________________________
[Name Redacted]
Ph.D. Candidate, Harvard University

37 Charles St., Apt. 6B
Boston, MA 02114

Phone: 617-555-9808
Cell: 203-555-7890

"When one rows it is not the rowing which
moves the ship: rowing is only a magical
ceremony by means of which one compels
a demon to move the ship." -Nietzsche
______________________________________

BY THE WAY GUYS, I CHANGED ALL HIS INFORMATION AND EVEN IF I HADN'T I DON'T THINK NIETZSCHE BELIEVED IN MORALS BUT WHATEVS.

Harvard Virgin Leo Keliher Not As Horny As The Times Made It Sound

Moe — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 17:40:00 EDT

Remember Leo Keliher? He's that virgin I made fun of last week after the New York Times Magazine published his musings on why he felt it important to deny his ever-present lust. It was a really cheap shot, not that it isn't always a cheap shot with me, but it was a cheap shot because some of the things he said made me think about actually thinking about the whole thing — lust, desire, need, self-sacrifice, blah blah — for a few minutes before I took the whole "God grant me the wisdom/empathy/attention span to resist the overpowering urge to turn this whole story into an explicit doggy style church pew fantasy, but not just yet" route. Leo, the son of a child molester whose mom's second husband had left her for a woman 20 years younger, who had seen a lot of shit for someone barely born in the Reagan administration, seemed like an extraordinarily thoughtful person. I emailed to tell him that, and he emailed me back and I thought I'd share.

"I just have a huge amount of frustration with guys," he told the Times. "They need to know that so much hurt can come from the lack of respect for women."

Dear Moe,

Here are some explanations of the conversation that I actually had with Randall, and the understanding that he surely had, but didn't present in writing. The main problem with the article is that it presents only the fact of sexual arousal and temptation, and says nothing about the degree. I carefully explained to Randall that almost all men in our culture live at a hyper-stimulated level of sexual arousal, fed by pornography, their own fantasy, advertising, women's fashion choices, etc. Almost everyone knows that men are "horny," but what they don't realize is that it's not a natural state. When you stop pouring gasoline on the fire, as it were, it goes down to a manageable level. Living a chaste lifestyle means not drooling over every attractive woman you see, fantasizing whenever something crosses your mind, and watching pornography. The sexual input is minimal, and so it is easy to live with it from day to day, so that you're not pulled around by your nose. It's an incredibly liberating and hopeful message for men, because they feel like they have no possibility of controlling their sexuality, when in reality it's entirely possible.

About the way that he manipulated the quotations from me: describing my lust as an "untamed beast" was a comment on the nature of lust itself, not the strength of my own. It's untamed precisely because it is lust, and if given free rein it considers nothing but its own gratification. It seeks to use another person to gain personal pleasure, which is why you have to take away constant fuel for it if you want to love and respect women for who they are, and not just how they turn you on. Also, the ways in which things like a touch, a glance, or a random thought can bring arousal is simply an observation about manners in which it can happen. The actual occurence of such stimulation goes down at the same rate as the willful input of lustful stimulation, and while such things (like a thought) may occur regularly, they rarely bring any arousal at all if you learn to let go of them and ignore them—like a fly buzzing around. Basically, it's not a huge deal! I'm frustrated that Randall didn't make any of this clear, because I said all of this to him, and more. It would have been easy for him to pain a picture of me as someone who had fought a battle and emerged free, happy, and comfortable with his sexuality, but instead he makes me seem like a repressed weirdo. All this does is perpetuate the myth that men have no choice except to be horny, and if you act like I do then you'll go crazy and salivate at every little thing that crosses your path. Our culture so badly needs role models of the opposite lifestyle.

Oh, and on another note—Janie was laughing when she was asked about being attracted to me! Lol, we both found it a funny question, but he totally changed it in the article. And we weren't supposed to smile in the photos either—somebody commented on that, lol. They said that Janie and I should smile more and lighten up!

Everything above is what I wrote, so if you could write up something to append to your blog, I would be very grateful.

Peace,

Leo

Incidentally, I also met up with Lena "Whore Whore Slut" Chen, who appears to be in a monogamous relationship with an amusingly pretentious German graduate student. She felt the virgins were portrayed as being overly mirthless, and also wanted to state for the record that she was not wearing stilettos during her interview with the Times, because it was raining.

Dear Ivy League Virgins: Did You Ever Think Maybe Fucking Once In Awhile Would Make You More Fun?

Moe — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 12:00:00 EDT

What if I had stayed a virgin? I entertain this thought sometimes, like when reading the New York Times Magazine story on Ivy League virgins. The difference between Ivy League virgins and regular virgins is that while regular virgins are scared of kids and Eternal Damnation, Ivy League virgins are scared of oxytocin. And to that end, they're not completely retarded. Oxytocin is the neurotransmitter released in the state commonly known as "infatuation", and it's probably the reason I personally sort of avoid sex these days, because of the chance said sex will lead to infatuation, which can be really fucking distracting. But I'm glad I wasn't always this way, because of girls like Janie Fredell. Janie, pictured, is a virgin. She is very very serious about limiting her oxytocin. She is so serious that she doesn't realize that her best friend Leo, an aspiring monk and her male partner in Harvard's "True Love Revolution" abstinence club, jerks off every morning to a fantasy about fucking her doggy style in a confessional. No seriously! I mean, the story doesn't specify the doggy style, but check out this passage.

The one great difference between them seemed to be in their experience of abstinence. Fredell was unaware of that gap. Whenever sexual urges struck, she told me, she was able to manage them by going on a long run and assumed that everyone should be able to do the same. "The biological drive can be overcome," she said. "It's not like it reaches a peak, and you have to go out and have sex."
"And you don't go down the street thinking you'd like to have sex with him, him, him and him?" I asked.

"No!" she said, abruptly. "Is that what men do?"

It seemed a good time to talk with her about what else Keliher had told me. He described the act he has never experienced as something "breathtakingly powerful" that "lights all of your body on fire." He spoke of his lust as "this untamed beast."

Fredell was incredulous: "Leo said that?"

He told me that he struggles constantly against "physical lustful temptation" — that he can be aroused just by a woman's touch, by even a look at a woman or at a photo or sometimes by "thoughts that just come out of the blue — basically pornography in my head." They come to him when he's merely walking around campus, or even when he's alone in the library — "like a fly buzzing around."

To the matter of masturbation, he said, "This was really tough for me . . . because when you have a habit that's so deeply ingrained, it's hard to stop."

Fredell, when asked about masturbation, just said, "Oh, God, no!"

Keliher quoted to me what an abstinence speaker said — that the real meaning of masculinity is "being able to deny yourself for the sake of the woman." "To have that kind of self-control is really what it means to be a man," Keliher had told me. When he finds himself aroused these days, he endures it and waits for it to pass. In this way, he said he has "matured out of that more infantile need for a woman into a recognition of self-sufficiency." But some women, Keliher granted, continue to give him trouble.
One of these is a freshman — "a very gentle, caring soul," he said, who "works with little kids and stuff." Keliher can't help thinking about her glossy hair and beautiful skin.

Another appears to be Janie Fredell. Keliher smiled and said he was "a little bit" attracted to her — "in very superficial ways," he added. "It's something we laugh about — if we dated."

But Fredell did not laugh. "No!" she erupted, and with increasing volume, "No! No! No! I can't emphasize enough that there is nothing between me and Leo! It's just that we're not compatible in that regard."

Hahahaha wow. Is that not like a scene from a porn?
Okay, then we meet Lena Chen, Janie's intellexual adversary. On the internet blog IvyGate, people refer to her as a "whore whore slut," which is the best thing ever. Lena eats chocolate cake and also likes being eaten. And look here, doesn't she look fun?? Lena is a slut, therefore you could watch Stella shorts with Lena.
And anyway, isn't that the whole point? Sluts are fun. Give Eva a few years and some 90-hour-a-week management consulting job and she will probably be as celibate as Janie, because excessive oxytocin is almost as big impediment to getting anything done as taking yourself wayyyy too seriously.

Or actually, that is a lie, taking yourself too seriously is up there with "presumptuousness" when it comes to achieving things I guess, so what do I know; I'm still with Lena, for whatever it's worth.

Students Of Virginity [NY Times]

What, You Assumed The Blind Guy Would Be A Faithful Husband? Did None Of You See Ray?

Moe — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 10:00:05 EDT

Oh, what? You thought blindness would be an effective antidote to the old "wandering eye" problem? Wrong! Being blind just means crap taste in hotels. But here's the part we don't get: why, after you've been illicitly screwing some broad at the 94th street Days Inn do you take your wife back there? And what's more highbrow, Days Inn for a blind man in New York, or T.G.I. Friday's for a closeted gay and his orgy club in New Jersey? Is any of this as highbrow as getting called "guido" by the Jersey shore posse of Ashley Alexandra Dupre? Glamocracy's Megan Carpentier and I discuss all this, Obama's mystery brother in RED CHINA, and how the unprecedented JP Morgan-Bear Stearns-Fed bailout came together because the JP Morgan investment banking chief and the new Bear Stearns CEO were frat brothers at Duke. Oh yeah, and Obama is about to address the subject of his insane pastor who thinks white people control everything. That's happening now! Liveblog it, folks!

MEGAN: So, apparently, fidelity is just a big fat lie for everyone now.

MOE: It's biology!
Don't you love political sex scandal-pegged science stories?

MEGAN: Best pun by a scientist ever: "Infants have their infancy; adults, adultery."
But can we have a moment of silence for the end of my nascent crush on brand new NY Governor David Paterson?

MOE: Did you like the detail about how he took the mistress to Day's Inn, but he's also taken his wife to the same Day's Inn? Here she is. Isn't she a beauty? Though to be fair, I've stayed in places about four diamond ratings beneath that place in this town. And I have, like, 20/30 vision.

MEGAN: Like, ok, this I need to understand. Why if he and his wife live in Harlem, did he take her to the Days Inn to fuck her? Like, that's about 30 blocks from the Harlem line, right? So it's not even very far.

Like, I can totally see taking your mistress there, but your wife?

MOE: Yeah I lived in Harlem. That's like a two and a half mile walk and I lived up at 149th.
I bet the fuckin marriage counselor recommended it.

MEGAN: Oh, God, you're so totally right. Men are creatures of habit. He was probably like, I had a ton of great sex in that hotel, I'll just go back there! Rather than, like, shelling out for the W or something.
David, I have seen your wife. She deserved some high thread count sheets and strawberries and champagne from room service, I'm just sayin'.

MOE: I bet you can get "room service" from that hotel. It just comes from the local diner and they will totally mess up your order but as a plus they'll charge you $7.95, no matter what you got. I wonder if the Day's Inn is one of those hotels where there is a microwave in every room and free microwave popcorn with an advertisement for a Grey Line Bus tour on the packaging.

Soooooo...should we talk about Pastor KKKRazy?

MEGAN: Ah, The Reverend Not-Wright

MOE: The Reverend Wright wing conspiracy!
According to Fox News, he's sorta like Hitler.
Hitler did some great things1

MEGAN: Well, he does have a 'stache, I guess that seals it. I mean, except for the whole part where he's black and stuff.

MOE: He fixed the economy!

MEGAN: By starting a war!

MOE: Yeah well! Nicer guys have tried that and failed!

MEGAN: Well, several years into Hitler's war the economy in Germany tanked, too. Apparently, it's not that great for the economy unless you win and stuff.

MOE: So anyway, Obama is supposed to address the problem of the pastor who changed his life being some sort of Stalinist Che Guevara Islamofascist black supremacist firebrand and it's happening this morning at the Constitution Center in Philadelphia, which is only about two blocks away from my old apartment (sigh!) and I hope they air it on Fox News because, for one, the sound isn't working on any of my other news channels and two, I love Fox News. They just interviewed Mr. Feeley from Mr. Roger's Neighborhood. Can you IMAGINE naming a character on a kid's show "Mr. Feeley" now? No! It's unthinkable! Anyway, let's really get into the Pastor Wright thing. I feel like no one in the media has a real opinion about this guy because everyone has had at least one boyfriend who has made more ridiculous utterances and, you know, it's not like Obama touched dicks with this dude. On the other hand, he's supposed to be some sort of spiritual adviser. But, like, "spiritual adviser" — what do any of us know about that? So we're all circling around one another, trying to figure out whether anyone cares, whether this is going to totally sink his campaign or just fly over their heads and... and...I still don't know what I think.

In other news, Obama has a black Chinese math nerd brother by another mother. Maybe if the Dalai Lama steps down the Chinese government can make him the official reincarnated Dalai Lama.

MEGAN: Well, CNN keeps running the clip where he says that Hillary Clinton doesn't know what it's like to be a black man in a country run by rich white people and I'm sort of failing to see that as being controversial. Are we arguing that the country isn't run by rich white people? The median income in this country is less than $45,000 a year and Congressmembers make more than $150,000 and the President makes more than $200,000.
Well, but the Dalai Lama would still be the Dalai Lama, only he just wouldn't be the political-leader-in-exile anymore.
MOE: No but he's apparently going to step down from his exiled title if the violence doesn't stop.
I'm not sure what the succession plan is but I would really love it if it involved an Obama.

MEGAN: That would be too much for me to handle in the morning.
MOE: I do love how Roger Cohen paints the picture of this guy as a "potential problem" for Obama. Because the Clinton clan is full of such upstanding citizens.

MEGAN: Lovely people, even.

MOE: Anyway, so...what is the worst thing this guy Wright has said anyway? "God Damn America" or that the government created AIDS? Did you ever date one of those guys who told you crack cocaine was invented in a CIA lab? Because I have. And this was before Wikipedia, so I finally had to Nexis the fucking story and all the ensuing retractions to shut him the hell up. Not that I really felt like defending the CIA! But the thing is, it took a lot of time for me to get it up to want to refute any of the retarded things he said, even though I loved him, and I sort of feel like that must be Obama's thing, like...blah blah blah. Anyway, as it turns out it doesn't seem like Obama spent that much time in church anyway.

MEGAN: Oh, but he used to say he went every week! I can't say that I dated a guy who thought crack cocaine was a CIA plot against white people (although, hello? FBI would've made more sense conspiracy theorists) but I've definitely heard it and it totally still holds sway among many people in this country. And, hell, fucking South African President Thabo Mbeki thinks we hatched AIDS to keep Africans from breeding and shit, so, you know, apparently it's pretty widely believed that we're coordinated and shit.

MOE: Oh man I just rewound my Fox and they were interviewing that black republican ex Lt Governor of Maryland and he was talking about how a "spiritual adviser" is a really important force in your life, he knows because he used to be in a monastery. Um, was Barack Obama in a monastery? Because I don't remember that part. It's like his Chinese African brother! (Oh my god, Chinese African! Do you think he is involved in Sudanese blood oil??) Anyway, whatevs! I'm about to change the subject. Can you handle this?
I actually read almost the entire account of the Week That Shook Wall Street and I have a takeaway.
MEGAN: Wow, no wonder we got started late. That's longer than Crappy Hour itself!

MOE:

Chief Executive Officer Alan Schwartz was out of pocket. Although Bear Stearns had been struggling with mortgage-related losses and problems in its wealth-management unit, Mr. Schwartz was hosting a Bear Stearns media conference in Palm Beach, Fla. On Wednesday morning, he left the conference briefly to do an interview with CNBC in an effort to deflect rumors about liquidity issues at the firm.

Steve Black, co-head of J.P. Morgan's investment bank, returned early from vacation in the Caribbean, spearheading the bank's efforts with his J.P. Morgan counterpart in London, Bill Winters. Mr. Black's role was pivotal. He was a longtime associate of J.P. Morgan Chief Executive James Dimon. And Mr. Black had a long relationship with Bear's CEO, Mr. Schwartz, dating back to the 1970s, when the two were fraternity brothers at Duke University.

Okay, so we've got two paragraphs. Palm Beach. Media conference. Media companies paying New York-based media employees to stay in Palm Beach and eat Bear Stearns-financed weak hotel coffee and fruit plates and report on what New York-based Bear Stearns has to say to the public! And what are they saying on Wednesday in Palm Beach? Oh, they're "deflecting" liquidity rumors. All right, fast foward, Friday. In the Caribbean. A much deserved vacation! Fraternity brothers at Duke University.

At 5 a.m. Friday, Mr. Geithner, Mr. Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, calling in from home, joined a conference call to debate whether Bear should be allowed to fail or whether the Fed should lend it enough money to get through the weekend. At 7 a.m. they settled on the lifeline option.

Would it have been so bad to just let this shit fail? You know, and let the MARKET SORT IT OUT?
MEGAN: Why did we decided that they shouldn't be allowed to fail? What fraternity were they in... and WHAT FRATERNITY WAS BERNANKE IN? Maybe it's a faux-Greek cabal on Wall Street.
MOE: Don't they only have, like, finals clubs at Harvard? I don't know. I dropped out. Fuck Harvard. To Ben's credit, he "worked as a waiter" throughout college. This was in the seventies, when food service positions were not so highly coveted.
MEGAN: Food service positions at Harvard (or anywhere) are definitely still not highly coveted. I drove the drunk truck at my college to get out of working food service.
But I don't know about Greek at Harvard.

New DKNY Designer Rachel Bilson Can Neither Sketch Nor Sew

Jennifer — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 12:30:00 EDT

DKNY Jeans has announced a "partnership" with Rachel Bilson, who will be doing her own denim line for the brand. "Fans of 'The O.C.' really like DKNY Jeans, and I know they make great stuff, so I thought it could be good... I can't draw at all, so I won't be doing any sketches, but I am learning to sew," she says. [WWD, sub req'd]
Good for designer Bradley Bayou for organizing a forum on the fashion industry and eating disorders. Bayou said fashion editors and the CFDA are at great fault for the growing number of young women developing eating disorders: "We have girls getting very sick because they can't beat the system and look like what's on the cover of the magazine...There are two ways to become a size zero: Starve yourself or take drugs. Or both. And yes, [models] all do it." [WWD, sub req'd]
"She is a very modest woman." That's Fashion Fringe co-founder Colin McDowell on Donatella Versace. Um, sure. [Fashion Week Daily]

Guess: Launching an eco-friendly capsule collection in April. [WWD, sub req'd]
Make your own score for Miuccia Prada's trippy and twisted animated short "Trembling Blossoms" on Prada.com. [WWD, 1st item]
Not gonna lie: I sorta want a Jean-Michel Basquiat Uniqlo t-shirt. [WWD, 2nd item]
Alber Elbaz has started designing bridal for the House of Lanvin under the label Collection Blanche which — oh the irony — contains very few white dresses. [Vogue UK]
The 2008 international fur and leather exhibition, Mifur, will be paying special homage to the late fashion designer Gianfranco Ferre, who loved him an animal pelt like it was nobody's business. [Fashion Week Daily]
French Connection's profits are down 22% this year. FCUK! [Independent]
Diddy vs. J.Lo: Battle of the fragrances! [BellaSugar]
Henry Holland Easter eggs: Just what humanity needs. [Sassybella]
What? Men do more shopping online than women? [WSJ]

Newsweek ponders why Ivy League students ...

Jessica — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 14:45:00 EST

Newsweek ponders why Ivy League students aren't getting laid, despite the fact that they're publishing erotic magazines by the boatload. Here's one reason: deconstructing sex is the least sexy thing in the world. Ivy leaguers are sitting around discussing Foucault on fucking, instead of you know, actually fucking. Here's a second reason: Ivy League students are almost exclusively nerds. Despite some jocks and hipsters who are the exception to the rule, the majority of most Ivy Leagues consists of a seedy nerd underbelly that rarely emerges from the science library. This is why, according to Newsweek, "In 2006, nearly half of Harvard undergrads who responded to a survey reported they had never had intercourse." [Newsweek]

Female Bosses Have To Choose Between Being Loved & Being Feared

dodai — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 17:00:00 EST

Different standards for men and women in the workplace? You don't say! A new study shows that a female boss is judged differently than a male boss. According to Live Science, Kristin Byron of Syracuse University tested managers, asking them to rate the emotional state depicted on a series of photos showing facial expressions and audio clips with different tones of voice. Then Byron surveyed the managers' staff, asking them how their bosses rated when they considered statements like "My manager shows concern for me as a person," "My manager can inspire enthusiasm for a project" and "I am satisfied with the degree of respect/fair treatment I get from my boss." Female managers who were bad at reading unspoken emotions we seen as uncaring, and got lower ratings from their staff. But male bosses who were crappy at figuring out emotions didn't get the same negative marks. Bottom line? People expect female bosses to be "understanding, kind, supportive and sensitive," Byron says. In other words, more like your mother.

As for men, Byron says, "It is far more important for male managers... to be seen as analytical, logical and good at reasoning." Who cares? An "understanding" boss is better, right? Wrong, according to a research by Harvard Business. Researcher Steve Kaplan found that CEO skills can be classified into two areas: "Hard" skills like aggressiveness, follow-through and speed; and "soft" skills like creativity, listening and team skills. Guess which set of skills were shared by highly successful CEOs? The aggro ones. "Our results do not necessarily mean that soft skills are unimportant," Kaplan says. So if you're a woman with "hard" skills, your employees hate you; if you're supportive and "soft,"you're going nowhere. Which would you rather? It all goes back to Machiavelli: Is it better to be loved or feared?

Female Bosses Evaluated As 'Office Moms' [MSNBC]
Harvard: "Hard" Skills Trump "Soft" Skills [Harvard Business, via BusinessWeek]

Today's Teens Believe It's Better To Be Sexy Than Clever

dodai — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 16:20:00 EST

"In a culture that celebrates Paris Hilton, thong underwear and songs like 'My Humps' — where the female singer expounds the sexual magnetism of her breasts and buttocks — there's scant recognition or respect for female modesty or achievement that isn't coupled with sex appeal," writes Carol Platt Liebau, managing editor of the Harvard Law Review and author of a new book, Prude: How The Sex-Obsessed Culture Damages Girls. Liebau argues that "the overwhelming lesson teenagers are now learning from the world around them is that being 'sexy' is the ultimate accolade, trumping intelligence, character and all other accomplishments at every stage of a woman's life." And, while this fact alone is disturbing, Liebau also notes that "girls are being led to believe they're in control when it comes to sexual relationships but they're actually living in a profoundly anti-feminist landscape where girls compete for attention on the basis of how much they are sexually willing to do for the boys."

(Related: as many as 1 in 5 female adolescents have been abused physically or sexually by a dating partner, reports Reuters.)

Of course in many ways, young women have never had it better. Liebau states:

Given the breathtaking opportunities before them and the magnificent advantages they enjoy, it seems Western society has treated young girls with enormous generosity. And in many ways, it has. But not all the changes have been to the good. Today girls are forced to navigate a minefield more challenging, difficult and pressure-filled than ever before when it comes to sex. Somehow, as society has been revelling the ubiquity of sex, the very real psychological, emotional and physical impact on young girls of giving too much, too soon, has been discounted.

From the pole-swinging antics of the Kardashian kids to Slutoween and the tramps in training clothes on the market, doesn't it feel like the sexualization of girls has reached crisis level? And even if the fashion trends are leaning away from low-rise jeans and toward ladylike dresses, what will become of a world in which all the little girls would rather be sex symbols than scientists?

Today's Girls Prefer To Look Sexy Rather Than Be Clever [Guardian]
Girls 'Being Brainwashed To Be Promiscuous' [Telegraph]
Related: Teen Dating Violence Leads To Risky Health Behavior [Reuters]

Earlier: Is "Slutoween" Actually Scarier Than Halloween Ever Was?
Young Girls Today: Tramps In Training?