According to Erbé's blog, "To reveal their gender role views, participants indicated how strongly they agreed or disagreed with statements such as: a woman's place is in the home; employment of wives leads to more juvenile delinquency; a man should be the achiever outside the home; and women are much happier if they stay home and take care of children." Erbé believes that the researchers' questions are so extreme that participants wouldn't take them seriously. "If the authors' view of 'traditional' Americans is that 'women are much happier if they stay home and take care of children,' they need to look up the difference between 'traditional' and 'atavist.'" Oooh, burn, Bonnie!

Erbé's other arguments are that more egalitarian men might opt out of jobs that involve longer hours so that they can help raise children, and that men who have "traditional" attitudes generally gravitate towards fields with reputations for institutionalized sexism, like finance and law. Of course, not all bloggers disagree with the original study. The enlightened gentlemen over at the Motor Trend forums (!) are thrilled with the results of the study. The study was first posted in the forum by "scout_vet" whose tag quote is, "The eight words to save your marriage: long hair, stay thin, sex anytime, shut up." Charming! Another poster called "as_long_as_it_runs" notes, "It sounds like to maximize your income as a couple, you need to be a traditional guy who marries a raging feminist. Personally, I'll settle for a little less income." Those are pretty tough words for a dude who uses emoticons. Anyway, this pretty much proves one of Erbé's points: perhaps "traditional" men go into fields where institutionalized sexism is rampant... like the auto industry!

Sexism Pays? Studying It Certainly Seems To [Us News & World Report]
Sexism Study, Take Two—the Absurdity Continues [Us News & World Report]
Men With Traditional Views On Women Earn More? [Motor Trend Forum]

Earlier: Sexism Pays: Men With "Traditional" Views Earn More

Another cause for frequent incontinence might be the amounts of water and caffeine that many women consume. Nygaard tells Time, "If you are on the verge of having leakage and you are drinking three or four times more water than you need, then you are going to urinate three or four more times than you need to."

Pelvic Disorders Common Among Women: Study [Reuters]

What's especially negative for young girls is the related mental hazard of "'emotion contagion' or 'contagious anxiety,' in which one person’s negative thoughts or anxiety can affect another’s mood, sometimes over a long period." the Times reports. It's a hornet's nest for the adolescent woman! But we knew that already.

Tessa, a Brooklyn teen whose mom says she talks on the phone so much that "sometimes I think they just like to hear each other breathe," tells the Times: “Sometimes we get into disagreements and we have to settle them. My friends think that my other friend did something wrong, but she didn’t do something wrong. Sometimes it makes the situation worse than where we were when we began. It spiraled into something bigger than it was.”

For moms out there, shrinks say to watch out for obsessive modes of thinking in your daughters — even if you fall prey to those obsessive modes yourself. "It certainly does seem to be a female behavior, and grown women do it, too, ruminating about certain issues and experiences. It can become a mutual complaint society," psychologist Toby Sitnick says. The mutual complaint society sounds like a club that would have me as a member!

Girl Talk Has Its Limits [NYT]

• NYU has received a $490k grant from the National Science Foundation to promote women and minorities in the sciences. • The Iranian government is looking to decrease elective Cesareans (which make up 40% of births) by educating women and doctors about the benefits and risks of natural births. • In 2005, nearly 4,000 women were treated in a NYC emergency room for injuries inflicted by their partners. • Diet tricks: eat food naked, take pictures of what you're eating, brush your teeth when you are hungry, or wear tight clothes! Basically, try everything but eating healthier, whole foods. • As more women join the field of urology, the culture of the medical field is undergoing a gender makeover that is friendlier and more welcoming to women. • Female condom-makers in India aim market their condoms to female sex-workers through NGOs at a lower cost. • A study in South Africa reveals that over 1 in 4 South African men who have been married or have lived with their partner reported using violence against their current or former female partner. • Cosmopolitan is teaming up with YouTube for StarLaunch, a contest encouraging YouTube female singers to post videos of themselves and win a chance to share the stage with Solange Knowles. Squee! • A luxury boutique hotel in Singapore has set aside a whole floor (5 suites) that are strictly for women only, giving female travelers not traveling with men feel "a sense of peace." • An Australian woman has set up a website to track down a man who viciously beat her outside of a casino. • A new test for a protein called P16INK4A is more effective at catching pre-cancerous cells in women who might have cervical cancer than a normal pap smear. • Women earn roughly two-thirds of the average male income in Brazil in 2006 while blacks earn about half of what whites make.

• Many facial plastic surgeons are turning away potential patients because their expectations are too high. • The ACLU is helping a woman from Pennsylvania fight for her right to get a permit to open a pole-dancing workout studio. • More on the Indian Vogue scandal: Turns out fashion people are tasteless when it comes to stirring up sales. • The Spanish government's Socialist Party is forming a panel to amend its restrictive abortion law, which only allows abortions to be performed in the first 12 weeks in cases of rape, 22 weeks in cases of fetal malformation, and at any time if a psychologist deems pregnancy harmful to the woman. • The level of acceptance of transgender workers is growing in top companies, with 125 of the Fortune 500 currently including "gender identity" in their nondiscrimination policies. • Infant abductions are increasingly rare in the U.S., with most of the abductions taking place at the mother's home or in public and the average kidnapper being an overweight woman who feigns pregnancy. • The house and museum of Edith Warton in Massachusetts (called 'The Mount') is facing foreclosure. • Author Ruth Butler chronicles the muse-wives of famous painters in her new book, Hidden in the Shadow of the Master: The Model-Wives Of Cezanne, Monet and Rodin. • 2channel and Komachi are two of Japan's largest anonymous online forums for women, where women talk about their personal lives, troll, and get into arguments.

The worry now, says the Scientific American, is that fewer parents are vaccinating their children because of the earlier study. "The CDC confirmed 131 measles cases in the U.S. between Jan. 1 and Aug. 1 of this year, more than double the number of cases reported annually between 2001 and 2007," Scientific American reports. Larry Pickering, a pediatrician and immunization expert at Emory University and the CDC tells the Washington Post, "Often these [un-vaccinated] children will cluster…If a measles case comes into this cluster, this virus is very easily transmitted. The clustering of people without protection against measles is doubly worrisome."

Study Finds No Autism Link in Vaccine, Digestive Problems, MMR Scrutinized [Washington Post]
New Study: Measles Vaccine Doesn't Cause Autism [SciAm]

Earlier: Loose Lips

• This just in from assuming crazy things from statistical studies: polygamy makes men live longer! Spoiling grandchildren helps older women live longer! • Anti-abortion activists in India target Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft for allowing ads to appear on their websites that advertise letting couples learn the gender of their fetus (which could lead to abortions of unwanted female fetuses). • Is the old wives' tale that morning sickness indicates a mother is pregnant with a female baby true? Probably, but only if the morning sickness is severe. • The funeral for Sandy Allen, the tallest woman (coming in at 7 feet, 7 inches) drew 200 people and she was remembered for her kind generosity. • A US researcher claims that Australian women are too timid at work, and struggle with appearing too pushy at work. • Horror story! A hospital in Japan mistakenly removed a woman's left breast after they confused her ID number with that of a cancer patient. • Bev Street has entered the record books by catching the largest freshwater fish ever caught by a woman in Britain. It was a 69 lb. catfish.

Not that we're necessarily smelling MHC's in all their glory in the first place. As the points out, MHC aroma is "complicated by factors such as soap and aftershave." So um, basically I wouldn't worry about the pill screwing up your love life, beyond the ways it already screws up your love life with side effects.

The Pill Makes Women Pick Bad Mates [Live Science]

The Pill May Change Women's Choice In Men [Telegraph]

Earlier: Estrogen Does Not Exactly Enhance The Porn Viewing Experience

[Photo via Flickr]

But! There's a silver lining, as most Brits no longer believe that it's the man's job to work and the woman's job to raise wee ones — only 31.1% of women and 41.1% of men believe in this old-fashioned notion, down from 59.2% of women and 65.5% of men in 1984. "It is conceivable that opinions are shifting as the shine of the 'super-mum' syndrome wears off, and the idea of women juggling high-powered careers while also baking cookies and reading bedtime stories is increasingly seen to be unrealisable by ordinary mortals," says Cambridge sociologist Jacqueline Scott.

Really Jacqui?? Are we still pretending that this "super-mum" was ever anything but a fantasy meant to make women feel guilty if they weren't perfect? I've said it before here, and I'll say it again: parenting takes compromise, and children miss out if a father is never, ever home just as they suffer if a mother is never home. Every individual makes the choices he or she believes is best for their family — however — it does make me wonder why this shift has occurred. As it has been noted, there's been somewhat of a renewed backlash against feminism since the riot grrrl-friendly 90s, and certainly there has been a glorification of motherhood, with every celebrity baby bump receiving hysterical coverage on the internet and in magazines.

Speaking of the glorification of past ideals, there was an article in CNN yesterday about the "growing trend" of stay-at-home wives without children. First of all, the statistics they gave on this "trend" were vague at best, so I'm going to have to assume that it was manufactured by an editor who realized it was August and that he was going to have to come up with something to write about in this molasses-slow news month. Anyway, CNN dug up some boring-ass ladies who fill their days doing laundry, charity work, and "creative writing." Apparently, they are less stressed out than when they worked! Imagine that! Doing yoga all day and a few errands is less stressful than a full time job!

Anyway, I'm less irked by these women than by the attitude above that women working outside the home is harmful to children. There are many, many, different kinds of full time jobs, and it's terrifyingly reductive of people to think that working moms are anathema to healthy kidlets.

[Image via Harvard Gazette]

'Support For Working Mums Falls' [BBC]
No Kids, No Jobs For Growing Number Of Wives [CNN]

A second study, published in the Journal of Homosexuality, showed that heterosexual couples deploy more destructive tactics in verbal battles, while homosexual couples were more likely to be able to see the other person's point of view. “When they got into these really negative interactions, gay and lesbian couples were able to do things like use humor and affection that enabled them to step back from the ledge and continue to talk about the problem instead of just exploding,” UC Berkley psych professor Robert W. Levenson told the Times.

But the differences end there: apparently same sex couples and heterosexual couples alike display the "demand withdraw reaction," which, according to the Times is when "the woman tends to be unhappy and to make demands for change, while the man reacts by withdrawing from the conflict." Though the demand aspect of this interaction was previously attributed to a male/female disconnect, now researchers realize that this sort of behavior is not gendered.

And anyway, in addition to being potentially more egalitarian, a new study out of UCLA shows that the gay marriage industry could pump hundreds of millions of dollars into the California economy. According to the AP, "Gay couples are projected to spend $684 million on flowers, cakes, hotels, photographers and other wedding services over the next three years…[and] The nuptial rush is expected to create some 2,200 jobs." Can't wait for the awesomely lavish DeGeneres/de Rossi California nuptials myself!

Gay Unions Shed Light On Gender In Marriage [New York Times]
Study: Gay Marriage Good For Economy [AP via CBS News]

Perhaps this study will help authorities take teen depression seriously, as I think youthful mood swings can often be dismissed as hormonal or intrinsic to adolescence. I had my first (and only, to date) period of serious, clinically-diagnosed depression at age 18. Afterwards, it made me mentally rewind and review all the other depressed phases I had been through.

That time when I was fourteen and cried for an entire summer — was that early evidence of my burgeoning depression, or was it hormonal? That month I couldn't sleep junior year of high school: Was that SAT stress, or suicidal ideation? I never came to any definitive conclusions, but hopefully with these newly released statistics, teenage depression will be explored more thoroughly.

More Than 2 Million U.S. Teens Depressed [Reuters via MSNBC]

Earlier: Are Men Less Likely To Be Depressed Because They Don't Even Know What It Is?
British Women Twice As Likely To Suffer From Depression; Three Times As Likely To Write About It

Louisa Bradshaw Jessop gave birth to a son — her third child — in Austin, Texas. Jessop says that she is 22, though state authorities believe her to be 17. Jessop's husband, Rulan Danial Jessop, 24, "filed a habeas corpus petition in Austin last Wednesday that argues his wife is being improperly detained by the state," according to the Salt Lake Tribune. For now, a Texas judge has allowed a temporary restraining order against the Department of Family and Protective services to prevent them from moving Louisa and her baby to San Antonio.

We don't know how big Louisa's baby is, but if it is a super wee one, the boy has a greater chance of growing into an angry young man. According to research from the University of Helsinki, low birth rate and slow growth in childhood lead to "increased levels of hostility in adults," and this hostility is a harbinger of health troubles like heart issues and type 2 diabetes. Maybe that woman who's still breastfeeding her eight-year-old is just doing it to prevent her child's ire!

28 Million Women At Risk Of Unwanted Pregnancy [Reuters]
Second FLDS Mother Gives Birth While In Texas Custody [Salt Lake Tribune]
Smaller Babies Become Hostile Adults: Study [Newser]

Earlier: At What Age Is A Kid Too Old To Breastfeed?

What's interesting is that African-Ameircan women have the lowest rates of alcohol abuse, and Grucza attributes this to the fact that by and large, they have yet to "immigrate" into the dominant culture. "Black women...have a second barrier between them and the dominant U.S. culture, namely, their race," Grucza points out. "That may be keeping them from adopting the standards of the dominant culture with respect to alcohol use."

Shelly F. Greenfield, associate clinical director of the Alcohol Abuse Treatment Program at McLean Hospital, suggests that alcohol education programs be designed that are specifically geared towards women, primarily concerning the "gender differences in metabolism of alcohol, and the associated heightened female vulnerability to alcohol's adverse health consequences at lower doses than men."

If Greenfield's suggestions are taken to heart, and alcohol abuse and education programs are formatted for women, they'll probably work, as Amstel Light has proven. When the beer company started advertising their product specifically to women, Amstel Light volume rose 13%, according to USA Today. If we can be enticed to buy beer, we can be enticed not to.

Alcoholism Is Not Just A 'Man's Disease' Anymore [Science Daily]
Women Take Stage In Beer Ads [USA Today]

It took these teens an average of 10 weeks to get over their relationship angst, and, according to Eastwick, "It would've taken about double that amount if you'd gone by their predictions." At first I wanted to call bullshit on this study, because most college freshman relationships are completely transient; you're not talking five years living together with a mortgage and a dog. But then I remembered being 18 and how goddamn melodramatic I was. I thought I was in the be-all, end-all of relationships my freshman year, and was completely and utterly devastated for almost a semester after that four month relationship ended.

Anyway! Eastman attributes the reasonably short recovery period for most breakups to the emotional resiliency of people and to the unpredictable nature of life. "Life goes on in the wake of a breakup," Eastwick told Live Science. "And when you're making your predictions, you aren't thinking about all the things that could be positive that might happen in the next week or two." He added, "[People] often don't realize the kinds of psychological defense mechanisms they'll use at the drop of a hat."

Breaking Up Not So Hard, Study Finds [Live Science]