Category Archives: Education
Willpower: Why You Need It and How to Maintain It
The Homunculus and Personhood Laws
The other day in my Physical Anthropology class, I was showing a video on genetics that I’d shown in prior semesters, but this time one portion of it struck me in a new way. I believe I have figured out some of the ‘reasoning’ used by those legislators who are pushing personhood bills which declare the zygote (fertilized egg) to be a person who is entitled to all the rights of an actual person.
In Medieval Christian Europe, there was little understanding of biological processes and even less effort made to rectify the situation. The views of the ancient Greeks, especially Aristotle, were taken as the ‘gospel truth’. Unfortunately, Aristotle and other Greeks, such as the physician Galen, did not understand the mechanisms of sexual reproduction in humans.
The ancient Greeks and, therefore, the Medieval Christians, believed that the man provided everything that was needed for a new human, except for a place to grow that new human. The woman was essentially just an incubator. Furthermore, they believed that a tiny person, the homunculus, lived in the head of the sperm. They knew nothing about the ovum/egg.
The man ejaculated this tiny person into the woman and about nine months later, the ‘incubator’ produced a baby. Other than providing a womb for growth, the baby did not belong to the woman. The baby was solely generated, and therefore owned, by the man. Of course, women were also owned (chattel) by men, further diminishing the female contribution to the baby.
As we have seen from the comments made by many of the personhood legislators, their understanding of biology and human reproduction has not progressed beyond that of the Medieval Christians. A belief in the homunculus, whether or not it is articulated, clearly underlies the concept of giving personhood to a zygote and the subsequent ball of cells. Anyone who believes in the homunculus must view a zygote as a miniature person. Following from this, their ‘logic’ leads them to wish to protect this miniature person.
Awarding full personhood rights to a zygote while ignoring the rights of the woman in whom the zygote exists also follows from the Medieval Christian view that women are just incubators who contribute nothing to the embryo/fetus. Since a pregnant woman is an incubator, she has no rights to do anything to the zygote/embryo/fetus. Only men can decide this for her since only men truly ‘generate’ offspring.
These same legislators want contraception/birth control outlawed because it prevents a man from generating more offspring. In their Medieval Christian view, any sperm that is prevented from implanting in the womb results in killing a person since the head of the sperm contains the homunculus. Life doesn’t begin at conception. Life begins in the sperm. Every sperm is a potential life because every sperm has a miniscule person residing in it. This would also explain why masturbation is a sin. Think of all the ‘lives’ that are being wasted/lost!
Since, in this Medieval Christian view, the man is the sole generator of life, and the woman merely an incubator, even rapists deserve to have rights to any resulting offspring. If a woman becomes pregnant despite being raped, then that embryo/fetus is meant to be born. Women (or even young girls impregnated by their fathers) must carry to term all results of sexual activity whether consensual or not. After the birth, the woman has fewer rights over the offspring than does the genitor (man), even if that individual is a rapist. After all, the offspring is more truly his than it is hers since her major role is as an incubator while he was the genitor.
The anti-contraception, anti-abortion, pro-personhood legislation now coursing through state legislatures can be understood if we realize that those pushing this legislation are operating under the Medieval Christian and Aristotlean view of human reproduction: the male is the genitor while the woman is the incubator. Their ‘knowledge’ is stuck in the 11th century. It is little wonder that those of us who live in the 21st century are shocked, amazed, and horrified by these legislators who have no understanding of human reproduction, but who are trying to control women and their reproduction.
International Human Rights Day
December 10, 2012 was the International Human Rights Day, a day that we remind ourselves that far too many individuals still lack basic human rights. There are 27 million men, women, and children laboring in slavery. Girls are too frequently denied an education and forced into early marriage when, instead, girls could be powerful forces of economic and political change.
International Human Rights will not be achieved until women have the same opportunities and rights as men; until we have gender equity. Women’s Rights are Human Rights.
One day each year to remind ourselves that everyone deserves human rights is not often enough. But it is a beginning.
International Day of the Girl
On October 11, 2012, we will celebrate the 1st International Day of the Girl. This past week (10/1/12 and 10/2/12), PBS aired a two-night, four-hour documentary entitled “Half the Sky” which highlighted the work being done to help girls in several different countries. This help includes escaping sex slavery, dealing with rape, obtaining an education, and improving healthcare. As stated on the Half the Sky Movement website, their goal is “Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide.” If you missed “Half the Sky” on PBS, you can view it online until October 8 (Part 1) and October 9 (Part 2).
Women and girls form 50% of the world’s population. Ignoring their needs imperils the future of us all. One of the biggest issues for girls is being forced into marriage when they are still children. This ends their education, increases the probability that they and their children will be and will remain in poverty, and also exacerbates healthcare issues. President Bill Clinton has called child marriage a form of slavery. Another website that gets to the heart of the issue on why education for girls matters is The Girl Effect.
I hope that you will celebrate the International Day of the Girl by making sure that the girls in your lives have the full range of education and opportunities that they need to become successful women.
Material Wealth Equals Intelligence? Part 1.5
After I published Part 1 of this essay, I heard from a friend who thought I was being too harsh in my treatment of the wealthy. She also stated that the best way for those in poverty to have a chance to demonstrate their abilities and intelligence, and to achieve monetary success, was for them to obtain a quality education. While this was not the point of Part 1, I do agree with her that a quality education is a key to ending poverty. Since the poor are unable to provide themselves with a quality education, the funds to provide this education must come from elsewhere. I see two options: philanthropy and/or taxes. Both options rely on the wealthy (or at least those who have incomes well above poverty levels). Therefore, if the relationship [>power = >possessions = >intelligence = >human] I describe is invalid, all of those with the most power and possessions would not consider the poor to be less worthy, less human, than themselves and would willingly provide the funds, whether via philanthropy or taxes, so that the poor could obtain the quality education they need to achieve monetary success.
As with every relationship, there are exceptions. As I mentioned to my friend, Sir Richard Branson, the billionaire founder of the Virgin Group, does invest his money to improve the lives of the poor. In addition, Branson is working to ensure that his businesses operate in a sustainable manner in order to lessen the burden to Earth’s biosphere. If all of those with great power and possessions/money would follow Branson’s lead, the relationship I describe would be invalid. But I suspect I will be waiting a long time.
PS. Happy Birthday Sir Richard and President Mandela! (July 18, 2012)
Material Wealth Equals Intelligence? Part 1
Recently, a supporter of Mitt Romney at one of his fundraisers equated poverty with poor education and, by implication, lower intelligence. “I just think if you’re lower income — one, you’re not as educated, two, they don’t understand how it works, they don’t understand how the systems work, they don’t understand the impact.” It seems pretty clear that this woman believes that her station in life, which is due to her wealth and the privileges her wealth can buy, makes her superior in all ways, including intelligence, to those without great wealth. Although this egregious attitude appears to be pretty typical of the 1%, they are not alone in equating material possessions/wealth to intelligence. This relationship, >material possesions = >intelligence, has been in effect for at least 5000 years, perhaps much longer.
For millions of years, our ancestors were foragers moving around their territory hunting animals and gathering other foodstuffs with which to sustain life. Since they were constantly on the move, minimizing material possessions was a necessity. Particularly rich foraging environments, such as along the Northwest Coast of North America, did allow foraging groups to settle down and accumulate some possessions, but large settlements did not begin to become widespread until after the domestication of plants and animals.
Once a group settled down, it was easy to accumulate possessions. The number of possessions increased when craft specialties developed. Each family no longer had to make everything it needed. Families could trade what they made for something different someone else made. Increasing population size and craft specialization led to the development of class structure and governing hierarchies. Those at the top now had the resources to obtain even more possessions that became status symbols. The ancient “1%” not only had the highest status and the most possessions, they had all the power. We can modify the relationship to read >power = >possessions = >intelligence. The belief in this relationship still holds sway many millenia later.
The result is that those in power, those having the most complex material culture (i.e. possessions) believe that this relationship is evidence that they are more intelligent than those lacking in possessions and power. Those at the bottom of the social hierarchy in agricultural or pastoral societies who possessed the least knew they were considered inferior in all ways to those at the top of the hierarchy. Enculturation in this society probably led them to believe this relationship of possessions and power to intelligence was true. However, there were others who possessed even less than they did: the foragers. The result was a disdain for the foraging lifestyle and a belief that foragers were inferior in intelligence to those who were not foragers. Foraging was deemed to be too similar to how animals lived. Foragers began to be seen by non-foragers as subhuman. Therefore, as with other animals, foragers could be killed with impunity and their territories taken by the ‘real’ humans to use more ‘productively’. This continues to happen in the Amazon, the forests of Southeast Asia, and anywhere else foraging populations struggle to survive.
If foragers, who have almost no possessions, are considered subhuman, then the poor, who have hardly more possessions, are themselves considered barely human. Only true humans can be considered intelligent, so foragers are unintelligent and the poor are at the lowest levels of human intelligence; if they were truly intelligent, they would have many possessions. Certainly, that is what the Romney supporter mentioned above appears to believe. We can modify again the relationship to read >power = >possessions = >intelligence = >human.
Perhaps that particular Romney supporter does not consciously think of herself as more human than those who are poorer than she is, but her statements and behavior, and that of those like her, implies that subconsciously, she does believe that those in the lower economic echelons are less human. Given a belief in the relationship of >power = >possessions =>intelligence = >human, it is not too surprising that those with that mindset do not want to pay more taxes that might go to government programs that would help lower-income individuals and families. Only true humans, those like themselves, are worthy of support.
NOTE: Read Part 1.5 and Part 2.
Is racism OK if the group is extinct?
Along with some of my physical anthropology students, I attended a public lecture on the Neanderthal genome given by one of the men who worked on the genome. An issue my students and I hoped the speaker would clarify is whether he considered Neanderthals a different species even though he admitted that EurAsians had some Neanderthal genes.
When one of my students asked about this, he stated that it was obvious they were a different species. “Look at my graph! It’s obvious!” However, it was not obvious. His graph compared the DNA (presumably nDNA rather than mtDNA, but he was unclear on this) of three Neanderthal females from the site of Vindija, Croatia, to the DNA of multiple individuals from different 21st century populations. There was a bit of a deviation of the Neanderthal lines from the non-Neanderthal lines, but the trend of the lines was the same. To further support his contention of different species, he said it was obvious from a comparison of the skulls of the two “species”. He then showed a comparison of a La Ferrassie Neanderthal with a current European skull. This same student said that differences were not obvious when comparing skulls from around the same time period that belonged to Neanderthal and so-called moderns. The speaker then began a jargon-dense explanation of a skull analysis technique that he felt proved his point. I let this slide because of the type of audience present, but I did e-mail the speaker after the talk. In that e-mail I noted that I’d been at conferences where one speaker using the technique he described ‘proved’ Neanderthals were a different species based on skull morphology, while the very next speaker, using the same technique and skulls, came to the conclusion that Neanderthals fell within modern human variation, and so were the same species as we are. He didn’t respond to this.
Back at the talk, another of my students asked the speaker how he could be so sure of his conclusions when he had only three samples and they all came from the same site; and, further, had not been compared to ‘moderns’ from the same time period. The speaker’s answer to this was not really clear, but seemed to be “Look at my graph! It’s obvious!” I also asked him about this in my e-mail. He responded that he saw no point in comparing to “moderns.” His comment: “We know that most of the DNA variation present within currently living humans dates back, on average, hundreds of thousands of years. Therefore, there is little to be learned from sequencing early modern humans. Nevertheless, this is being done anyway. In fact, there was a paper in Science last week
(http://www.sciencemag.org/content/336/6080/466.full) with DNA from several Neolithic humans. Unsurprisingly, they differ little from currently living humans.”
I replied that Neolithic humans lived thousands of years after Neanderthals (the time period in the article was about 5000 years ago) and were in the midst of one of the most severe selection events to affect humans due to the rise of contagious infectious disease among early agricultural populations, along with impaired nutrition due to restricted diets. As we are still living in this changed environment of infectious disease and poor nutrition, it is not too surprising that “they differ little from currently living humans.” Nor would it be surprising if they differed somewhat from Neanderthals, although that analysis was not done. However, the article does not really appear to support his point anyway. Four individuals were tested: three northern European hunter/gatherers and one farmer who appeared related to southern Europeans. What this article points to is that, as with the Neanderthal genome, a tiny sample is used to make huge generalizations.
To enforce his point during his talk that Neanderthals were a different species, he implied that they were stupider than ‘moderns’ by comparing Mousterian tools of 150,000 years ago to cave art of 30,000 years ago. In my e-mail, I reminded him of that fact that Neanderthals of 40,000 years ago were using Upper Paleolithic tools, and that the 10,000 years from 40,000 to 30,000 years ago is an extremely long time. My comments were:
“Think how much our culture has changed in the past 10,000 years. But even if you do not like that comparison, what about the Tasmanians who were isolated from the rest of the world for 10,000 years until found by Captain Tasman in the 1600s? When found, their material culture was hardly more complex than is true of chimpanzees. This, of course, says nothing about the complexity of the intangibles of their culture. Were Tasmanians less than human because they had so little? Certainly, many Europeans thought so since they willfully destroyed them. But I think you will agree that racism is not a good way to judge whether a group is truly human or not.”
His response to this: “I think it’s OK to be racist against Neandertals. It’s the least of the offenses we are guilty of committing against them. In seriousness, though, they are extinct.”
My response to him: “So you think it is OK to have racist views about extinct populations? Since the Tasmanians and Taino (among many other groups) are effectively extinct in the same sense that Neanderthals are extinct (i.e. their genes live on in current individuals, but their culture is gone), were (are) racist attitudes towards them OK? Isn’t it racism that was key to their extinction?” He did not respond to that e-mail. Perhaps he realized he had gone too far. Perhaps he was annoyed that I refused to accept his “obvious” evidence.
Contraception is a Key Women’s Right
I find it amazing and deeply disturbing that in the 21st century state legislatures in the United States are being inundated with bills (many of which have passed and been signed into law) that seek to restrict a woman’s right to control her own body and well-being. Without these rights, women will find it very difficult to partake fully in politics and in the economy. Perhaps that is exactly the goal of this type of legislation: to drive women back into the home where they are trapped by unwanted pregnancy and under the control of their spouse.
We know that the best way for women and children to escape poverty is for the women to have control of their reproduction. Being able to decide if and when she has children provides a woman with the opportunity for education, which allows her to find better-paying work. Wherever women have control of their reproduction, the birth rate has declined and economic well-being has improved. Why would legislatures in the United States wish to reverse this trend? The only reason I can think of is fear. Fear that women will gain too much power. Fear that men (particularly white men), will have less of a say in the future. Fear that they will lose control. Fear is repressive and destructive.
As a counterpoint to fear, Melinda Gates gave a great TED talk this month about the need for contraception. Granted, her talk primarily dealt with women in developing nations. But it is clear that what she says also relates to the current political climate in the United States. It will be quite ironic if NGOs such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation are able to bring reproductive freedom to women in other nations while here in the United States those same freedoms are being whittled away.
Half the Sky
We ignore women, their needs, their rights, their abilities, at the peril of our future. Their issues are not ‘women’s issues’, they are humanity’s issues. The attempts to marginalize and/or ignore women may well be major factors in why the world is in such trouble economically and politically. Gayle Tzemach Lemmon in her recent TED talk points out that women are marginalized in financing: they get micro-loans rather than entrepreneurial loans. Granted, a micro-loan is better than no loan, but her point is that when a woman creates a business it is viewed as less important and less economically valuable than when a man creates one. Treating women as ‘less than’ negatively affects all aspects of not only their lives, but their children’s lives, and, although the men generally do not recognize it, the lives of men, too. Simple reasoning makes this obvious: women make up half of humanity; or, as in the Chinese proverb that provided the title for Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn’s book Half the Sky, “Women hold up half the sky.”
As I write this, it is reported in the news that an Afghani women was strangled by her mother-in-law because she gave birth to a third daughter and not a son. Her husband also appears to have been involved in her murder. Sons are valued so much more than daughters that failure to give birth to one can lead to a woman’s death. A woman can destroy her family’s honor by being raped. The ‘solution’ is for her to marry her rapist, or to be put to death. Being jailed for being raped actually protects the woman from abuse and/or death. The girl’s hymen is no longer intact, so she no longer has value and has thus dishonored her family. As Kristof and WuDunn state, “The paradox of honor killings is that societies with the most rigid moral codes end up sanctioning behavior that is supremely immoral: murder.” (p. 82)
Young girls are ‘sold’ into marriages where they become virtual slaves. Choosing your own boyfriend can result in your death. These examples all involve Afghanis, but any culture that does not value woman equally with men will find ways to demean, mistreat, and abuse women. For instance, a judge in Canada (and he is not alone in this, as similar views have been expressed by judges in the United States) gave a mild (no jail time) sentence to a rapist because he, the judge, felt the woman had asked for it. These actions are done to keep women in their place, a place that is well below that of men.
Kristof and WuDunn have written a moving book highlighting the many, many ways women suffer from oppression throughout the world. But they have also written about the women who have fought back against oppression and who are making better lives for themselves and other women. For this to happen, the women must see themselves as valuable and as equal to men. Education is the key. Cultures that oppress women seek to deny girls access to education. But cultures can change. This is something that is too often ignored. Simply because it has ‘always’ been done this way does not mean that it always will be done that way. Holding back girls and women results in holding back the future. Clinging to the culture of the past not only marginalizes women, but marginalizes that culture in an interconnected and globalized world. Cultures can and do change. Education is the first, vital step.
Education gives girls knowledge and with knowledge they begin to realize that they should have a voice in their lives; a say in what happens to them. With knowledge comes the power to fight back against injustice. The first girls and women in their communities to come to this realization are very courageous. They frequently must endure great abuse and hardship. But they and their stories, as told by Kristof and WuDunn, serve as examples to other women and girls that change is possible, and change begins to happen.
Enmeshed with education are the healthcare needs of girls and women. Girls who do manage to attend grade school often disappear from school when they begin to menstruate because the schools lack the facilities the girls need during their period. A husband and brother in India realized just obtaining pads for menstruating girls and women was a problem, so he set out to solve this. Girls are also often forced into marriage at that time, which also ends their education. They need a way to manage their menstrual cycle and to obtain birth control so that they can continue their education. Denying birth control to girls and women because of religious reasons (as has been done with US foreign aid) in effect denies them a future of their own choice.
When a large percentage of women in a particular country are educated and enfranchised, their political power is harder to ignore. Issues that had been ignored, such as public health and children’s health, move to the political mainstream. When women become the majority in the government, massive cultural change is certain. In 1994, Rwanda was the scene of a bloody genocide. When peace was restored, a new government decreed that women had to hold at least 30% of the seats in all legislative bodies. Women now hold 56% of the seats in Parliament. Rwandan culture has changed dramatically. Rwanda is leap-frogging into the 21st century because the country realized that women are as valuable as men.
China has a long history of valuing sons more than daughters, so much so that with the one child policy and elective abortion, the country now has an unbalanced male/female ratio. However, the government now realizes that a better policy is to educate girls and women. When women are well-educated, they want to use their skills in the workplace. This delays marriage and child-bearing while also improving the economy. Parents now realize that daughters can be just as valuable as sons. A win-win for China: slowed population growth along with rapid growth in gross domestic product. India also sees the value of educating women. Bunker Roy created the Barefoot College which educates the poor to become technicians and engineers, among other occupations. According to Roy, men are untrainable. Instead, the Barefoot College trains grandmothers.
In the 21st century, women in all cultures must be equal participants in all aspects of life and business if we are to deal with the challenges the world will face. Corporations are discovering that those boards of directors with a higher percentage of women are significantly more profitable than those with the lowest number of women on their boards.
Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide should be read by anyone who cares about the future. The tales the authors have collected in their journeys around the world are moving, enlightening, and uplifting. While oppression is common and severe, it is possible for change to occur. The book concludes with a plan of action and a long list of things that the reader can do to contribute to the change that must occur. The website (linked to above) also provides opportunities for action. “Women are half the sky.” We cannot succeed in the 21st century without equality for all women and men.