In Like A Lion

Once again, it's March. We all know what that means. More goddamn snow. Women's History Month. Soft-core porn season at the Globe. And, most importantly, it means only a few more weeks til St. Patrick's Day. So if you've been putting off buying your Kiss Me, I'm Marty Walsh T-shirt, delay no more. It's all for a good cause: 100% of proceeds go to the Lissa Harris and Paul McMorrow Guinness Fund for Little Wanderers.

Word on the street is that Rep. Walsh himself thinks it's hilarious. Oh, Marty, if only you were my elected representative. (Though Linda Forry's pretty hot too.)

Bonus: If you manage to get on TV on St. Patrick's Day wearing this amazing T-shirt, send us a clip and you win a prize. In lieu of something valuable, you will receive one (1) guest post on this here blog, on the topic of your choice. (Local politicians, take note!)

Bring Out Yer Dead

It pains me to do this. But it was bound to happen. I knew when I got into this Women Do racket that one day, a publication I'd recently written for would come out with a truly preposterous Women Do story. I am honor-bound to smite it, conflict of interest be damned. (Besides, the freelance check has already cleared.)

Today's item concerns women (naturally), who are flocking in increasing numbers (as is their wont) to the funeral industry. What do you suppose the headline is? Think about it for a minute before you click. Got it? OK! Here's the story!

Immediately we can see that Phoenix staff perkiness dispenser Sara Faith Alterman has turned the Useless Reveal, one of the standard tropes of Women Do literature, on its head. Gender stereotype first, manly occupation second.

Like any other 20 year olds, Megan Peterson and Mackenzie Byles chatter like hyperactive squirrels, excitedly finishing each others' sentences as though they're alien twins with melded minds.

Mind-melded hyperactive alien squirrel twins? That is so exactly what adult women are like!

It's incongruous to imagine their manicured hands expertly slitting a corpse's neck, fishing around under flesh and sinew with sinister-looking hooks for the carotid artery, exposed muscle tissue looking as plump and juicy as pre-packaged raw chicken breasts.

These fresh faces are the future of funeral service.

Be not distracted by all the hiply grotesque verbiage which is the Mark of the Alt-Weekly. Under all those juicy dead breasts is classic Women Do, as boilerplate as anything you might find in the dailies. To sum up the plot thus far: Women are dumb, and one is surprised to find them doing hard stuff, but they are. Let us continue.

As President Obama tries to resuscitate a flat-lining economy left for dead, a new wave of young females like Peterson and Byles are breathing life into the business of death.

This story was veering dangerously close to irrelevance in the national sociopolitical discourse, but we rescued it with a tacky analogy. Onward!

With increasing fervor, women are permeating what was once a male-dominated industry.

Permeate with fervor! DO IT, GIRL.

According to a study...

Hooray, Science! Enough of that. Why is it so crazy for chicks [sic] to be funeral directors?

The physical aspects of the job, historically, have been obstacles for women. Not because chicks can't haul a cadaver down a flight of stairs and then slice it open and snip rotting veins and arteries without crying and gagging at the sight of exposed muscle tissue, but because men have always assumed that they can't.

Damn those mens and their assumptions! Let's cut to the chase and find out why women are so keen on dead flesh. Increasingly. It's because they're caring. Is there ever any other reason? (Well, it might also be because they lust after corpses. Being an alt-weekly, we have to work sex in there somehow.)

Urges of a more cerebral nature have attracted many young women to the funeral industry; namely, the urge to help distressed mourners navigate one of the more difficult milestones of life.

Dr. Lyn Prendergast's slightly peevish quote indicates that perhaps a reporter has just asked her an irritating question. Maybe, "So, do girls get mortuary degrees because they like just want to help people or what?"

'The perception of the general public is that women tend to be more compassionate,' says Dr. Lyn Prendergast, founder (with her husband, Dr. Louis Misantone) of FINE. 'A lot of women do have compassionate sides, and I think it's one factor that draws them into the industry, but it shouldn't be a blanket statement. Unfortunately, though, it's mostly true.'

Can't...(cough, gasp)...fight...inherent...altruism. Must...help...people.

Of Diapers and Derring-Do

It came to my attention recently, thanks to CNN, that women rob banks.

You may have heard this already. Last August, the Globe ran a similar piece of journalism entitled "Bonnie Without Clyde," a great whacking Sunday magazine monster of a story. Having given birth to a baby on Saturday afternoon, I was still too enfeebled to work up enough rage to throw it across the room. It's very kind of this story to come around again and give me another shot.

I am never quite sure what to make of Women Do Crime stories. They're so disarmingly cheerful. The prospect of women running around in ski masks terrorizing the populace is rarely presented as all that terrifying. You get the sense that the reporter is secretly rooting for them.

""Here's a crime that you can commit easily and its an equal opportunity crime," crime historian Robert McCrie said. Banks have become so customer-friendly and open, they've become "a safe place to rob," he added."

The best part of the story, aside from the always-helpful "Story Highlights," is the experts they dredged up to shed light on why women (the caring gender, remember) would want to rob nasty old banks. Forensic sociologist (!) Rosemary Erickson opines:

""Women are more pragmatic," forensic sociologist Rosemary Erikson agreed. "They need diapers for the baby that kind of thing.""

As I was reading this, my eyes suddenly rolled back into my head and I had a flashback to my last brush with crime about a year ago. I was at the CVS in Lower Mills, whalishly pregnant, perusing the shampoo aisle, when suddenly there was a commotion in Baby Care. A CVS serf in a red vest was having some sort of altercation with a fat man clutching a package of Pampers. Busted!

Shoplifting an item the size of an ottoman is no mean feat, especially after you're caught doing it, but fat man was undeterred. Finding himself cornered, he began uttering vague threats and clawing suggestively at the waistband of his sweatpants. A gun, however imaginary, was clearly out of CVS guy's pay grade. He backed off, and the Scarlet Pampernel escaped into the night with his absorbent booty.

The lesson here is that you should never rob banks to buy diapers. Bank robbers get caught. Pampers robbers get Pampers. Time to smarten up, ladies.

Thanks to Dave for the heads-up.

What Do Women Need?

Unpaid writing jobs!

Hear ye, hear ye:

"A brand new online magazine "What Women Need"( http://whatwomenneed.com/)
needs writers.

Our website will focus on women aged 35-55. We're searching for several feature writers who have some meaninful or entertaining insights that they would like to share with others. This is an excellent opportunity to have your writing published online. At this point in our development, we're a start-up magazine and the position is unpaid. However, we believe that this will change and payments will be negotiated as we grow. We are hoping to have writers on a permanent basis. However, one-time submissions are welcomed.

The articles should be relevant to issues that women in their 30s and 50s can identify with. Some of the headline articles
will fall under these categories:

RELATIONSHIPS, BEAUTY & STYLE, CAREER & MONEY, SPIRITUALITY, MIND & BODY
HEALTH/ FITNESS & DIET, FUN, ART & MUSIC, HOME & FOOD, OUTDOORS & TRAVEL
PARENTING, POLITICS

Please forward a short bio, samples of your writing or articles that you would like us to consider to editor1@wwnmail.com.

Thank you!"

Not to be confused with www.whatwomenwant.com, which is sex, www.whatwomenmustknow.com, which is where you should go if you are "a person who is trying to make sense out of why you are not feeling healthy and vibrant," or www.womanwithin.com, which is the Lane Bryant Catalog.

Thanks to Adam for finding this.

Gettysluts!

Sexting. It's rampaging throughout the land. It's burning up the pages of your local newspaper. And it's exacting a terrible, terrible price from our young people.

I'm talking, of course, about Getty models. Sloe-eyed and mild, they gaze at us from the pages of our great nation's newspapers, shining like vacant beacons of sluttery for all mankind. Who are they? NO ONE KNOWS.

There are all kinds of good reasons why newspapers use Gettysluts instead of running actual teen sexting pix in the newspaper. For one thing, it's a family newspaper. (Never mind that nobody under 60 actually reads it.) For another thing, it's like running a giant ad that says SUE US, PLEASE. And for a third, the last sexpic anybody ever personally sent your average newspaper editor was probably a vaguely dirty playing card in 1973.

And so it continues: the wretched trade in human flesh and dreams. Skanks, sexters, MySpace addicts, cutters--for every species of wayward teen there is a Gettyslut. Who are these nameless harlots? Are they lured to pose for us with promises of puppies and Snickers bars? Are they destined for a life of shame? Are they all really 27-year-old waitresses with SAG cards and nose jobs?


Their faces are blurred with shame, but their knees are suspiciously well-defined. (momlogic.com/Getty)




What a ho. (InjuryBoard.com/iStockphoto)



Oh God! It's a sext! Someone call her parents. (Charleston Post and Courier)




What body part is depicted here? Does it belong to a squid? There's no shame in that. (Salon)




Sexting: It's not just for 27-year-olds in acid-wash overalls anymore. (Slate)



Here we see that peculiar shade of blue that signifies high-tech, mental rot, and young libidos gone astray. (CBS/iStockphoto)




I thought about omitting this one for decency's sake, but you should know what your children are up to. (Considering Homeschooling)

FYI, here's a sample Getty model contract. (PDF alert!)

21st Century Man: I Has A Forward Thinking!

From Indian news site OneIndia: Men today have a forward thinking [sic]. They no longer want their wives to spend all their time cooking and cleaning. That was the 1930s! Now they want them to still do all that cooking and cleaning and also make lots of money.

"Since there is a vast opportunity for education and career for women on these days, men expect to share their financial burdens with their partner. Even though they expect these modern trends men also wishes their partner to be good looking, a good cook and a housekeeper.

Men on the present day give least importance to the chastity in their partner."

Well, at least the poor thing can sleep around in her copious spare time.

I was about to be appalled by the incredible bullshit women in India have to put up with, but then I got to the last line.

"Researchers at University of Iowa conducted this study."

Tags: chastity, kitchen, housekeeper.

American Farmers Increasingly Female, Ethnic

Sometimes the good Lord tosses you something so beautiful, all you can do is just stand back and drink in the wonder of it all. Like a sunset. Or like the lede on this story by Mike Swift (any relation? Oooooh!) of the San Jose Mercury News:

"Sherrie Kennedy, a 55-year-old former gym teacher from Gilroy, never saw herself as a farmer. She just knew that she was good at making good things come out of the Earth, and that people got so happy when they tasted her heirloom tomatoes.

But in the three years since she went into business selling the organic tomatoes she grows on eight acres below Pacheco Pass, Kennedy has seen her sales mushroom tenfold each year. Last year, boutique grocer Nob Hill Foods came calling, selling her produce in stores in San Jose and Gilroy.

"I treat my tomatoes like a box of Whitman samplers," said Kennedy, "where you open up that box and you say, 'I've got to have that.'"

Excuse me. I am weeping.

It seems the USDA has counted the farmers, and found that they are younger, femaler, smaller and less-whiter than they were in 2002. Or are they?

"Part of the reason for the more diverse statistics, USDA officials acknowledge, is the agency tried harder to track down smaller, immigrant-run farms for the 2007 count."

Oops! But we won't let that ruin our story, will we? No!

"The aging of American farmers, along with Americans' changing palates, are driving the feminization of farming.

"You're seeing women taking over as the principal operator because their spouse has passed on," said Carol House of the National Agricultural Statistics Service. "You also see some women coming in and doing things like raising goats and selling organic specialty cheeses. The niche-type things — they weren't overrun by white male operators — and there is this role there.""

Die, white male farmers, die!

Invigorated by their recent widowhood, the new breed of female, ethnic* farmers are bringing a certain je ne sais quoi to the lush valleys of central California. Mike Swift cannot really sais it either--he alludes to a vague benevolence spread through the land by the earth-loving ethnic-women, a "great mix," if you will. Although it might involve Asian long beans.

*Actual word used in story.

Women Sometimes Do Boxing

It's been a slow week at Women Do HQ. The Globe's sins since the tattoo fiasco have mostly been minor. No Women Do Power Lunch. No Women Run Giant Lizard Farms. No Women, Once Liberated From The Tyranny of Needlepoint, Now Rediscovering the Domestic Arts Anew. Even Joseph P. Kahn seems to have given up on the Mr. Mom story he promised us.

I dared to hope. Could it be that a new day was dawning over Morrissey Boulevard? Had Marty Baron seen the light? Had somebody over there been reading this humble blog, and thinking, "You know, maybe we ought to take a few reporters off the Women Do Macrame beat and send them out knocking on doors in Dorchester. Maria Cramer's getting kinda lonely covering the entire distro area of the Bay State Banner all by herself."

Alas, as today's classic story proves beyond a shadow of a doubt, the women are still doing stuff. Namely, boxing. They do it. If there is anybody living under a rock in New Hampshire who remains unaware that women sometimes do boxing, consider yourself informed.

Milton J. Valencia's story contains a nice example of the old standby of Women Do, the Useless Reveal. This is a kind of lede, much favored by reporters on all beats, in which the first sentence or two lulls you into a sense of complacency by suggesting that nothing is out of the ordinary...

"These hands are no different from any Jack O'Neill has wrapped in his decades in boxing. Good jab, strong one-two. He would like to see a little more head movement, but so far he likes the progress."

...and then, WHAM! A surprising fact is interjected!

"Matie Desjardins, the woman who walked into his gym a year ago with barely any skills, has earned his respect."

Only the dark-horse vagina fails to surprise, because of course the giant screaming headline has already given the entire premise of the story away. Rats! Foiled again! Editor 1, Reporter 0!

I love the Useless Reveal, especially when it involves long blond hair cascading out of football helmets. My personal favorite isn't from a Women Do story at all--it's from a science story, in which a mysterious special clipboard-carrying person is revealed to be carrying not just any clipboard, but a clipboard for writing down things about bears. Globe columnist Kevin Cullen has also made good use of it: for instance, in his notorious June 5, 2008 column, in which ceremonial Fenway pitch-thrower Javier Serrano is revealed to have no hands.

The boxing story (which, mercifully, is titled "Round won" and not, e.g., "She box, he box, a-we box") would probably have made a decent profile. Instead, it meanders through the last 16 years of women-in-boxing-in-New-England history, pausing occasionally to dish out tepid compliments.

"Women are finding other women to box with them at major events. Most important say those in the boxing community, is that crowds are starting to enjoy women's bouts as part of the show, rather than an oddity.

"These girls even start to have a following," said William Hoar, executive director of New England Golden Gloves..."

It Is Not Done Well, But You Are Surprised To Find It Done At All.

Women Doth! Depression-Era Jujitsu

I asked for vintage Women Do, and the Internets do not disappoint. BoingBoing (who else?) has a couple of marvelous 1930s British newsreels on jujitsu for the womens.

The first video offers a primer in handling "the objectionable people one meets at certain places." In the second, a Kiera Knightley-esque virago calmly dismembers her burly sidekick. "And in this position it is quite easy for me to dislocate his wrrrrrist [CRACK!], elbow, ["Aaarp!"] and shoulder."

Thanks once again to the indefatigable Ryan for the tip.

Did Martha Get A Bum Deal?

While indulging in a little après-dinner Bernie Madoff-hating, I came across this: Mukesh Chatter at the MoneyAisle Blog points out that while Martha Stewart got deep-fried for a single stock tip, Madoff got away with it for years. Is it a girl thing, as one commenter suggests? Or was Martha just not spectacularly criminal enough to get away with it?

One is reminded of Sir John Harrington. "Treason doth never prosper: what's the reason? Why, if it prosper, none dare call it treason."

In case you were wondering: No, I am not going to comment on this, this or this. Why? Because by the time another single woman deliberately gives birth to a baseball team on top of the six she's already got, the goddamn sun will have burnt out. Call me lazy, but I don't think there's much useful social commentary to extract from an outlier about eight standard deviations to the right of the mean. Unless you're Jeff Jacoby looking for an excuse to whale away on Roe v. Wade some more.

(What is it called when you invoke the Paradox of the Heap facetiously? A Straw Heap? The point of the Heap is not to whine "But making subjective value judgments is haaaaaaard..." and walk away from it, Jeffers.)

I guess I did comment on it, then. Oops.

No One On The Corner Has Swagger Like M.I.A.

Surely by now you must have seen this video of the peerless M.I.A. performing onstage at the Grammys on her due date. No? Well, have at it. [Oops. Copyrighted! Well, here's a different video.]



XX Factor's Marjorie Valbrun believes Ms. Arulpragasam had best check herself before she wrecks herself.

"The imagery of a scantily-clad, or should I say scandalously-clad, pregnant young women dancing on stage with a bunch of male rappers whose rhymes sometimes debase women, was just too much for me. And don't even get me started on what this cringe-worthy antic might say to impressionable teenage girl fans."

In other words: You lose. You lose for being pregnant. You lose for associating with men. You lose for not covering your shamefully pregnant body enough. You lose for being insufficiently feminist. Did I mention you lose for being pregnant? Stupid woman--you're not people when you're pregnant.

See, this is the trouble with blogging. I think if Valbrun had walked away from the computer and had a cup of coffee, before firing off some asshaberdashery about how M.I.A. should have stayed at home in a prairie dress knitting booties and quivering in terror, she would have thought better of it.

I nominate M.I.A. for Ballsiest Motherfucker in Hip-Hop.

**UPDATE!** You're Not People When You're Pregnant Part II: Rachael Larimore agrees.

**UPDATE II!** The Grammys called. They want their video back. In its place, please enjoy a home movie of a baby dancing to Shakira's "Hips Don't Lie."