Salon.com > Lucy McKeon

When anti-violence backfires

Sat, 02 Jun 2012 15:00:00 +0000

Across America, black women are being disproportionately affected by domestic violence. Twenty-five percent of black women experience abuse from their intimate partner, according to the Violence Against Women Survey. And homicide by an intimate partner is the second leading cause of death for black women between the ages of 15 and 25. Interwoven between these statistics is the state-level violence experienced in marginalized communities. Policy decisions informed by societal discrimination based on race, class, gender and sexuality exacerbate a spiral of problems and growing social division.

This comes at a time when an increasingly conservative backlash threatens to deny protection for our country’s most vulnerable women. A bill recently passed in the House on a largely partisan vote was criticized by many House Democrats, some Republicans, and the White House for removing Senate-passed provisions extending protection to LGBT, Native American and undocumented immigrant women. And if the Violence Against Women Act is not reauthorized, millions of American women who don’t fit the obvious definition of a victim might be denied protection.

Partisan death jam

Sun, 06 May 2012 21:00:00 +0000

If you thought the debates over the debt ceiling last year – one of the most striking examples of political dysfunction and gridlock in recent memory -- were over, think again. Although Republicans agreed to a small raise and to put off discussion of the issue until after the upcoming 2012 elections, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told Fox, “We’ll be doing it all over” in 2013. Clearly, the partisan rupture that’s dividing Washington is not going to heal any time soon, but how did things get so dire to begin with?

When congressional scholars Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein say “It’s Even Worse Than It Looks” – the title of their book – they’re being serious (subtitle: “How the American Constitutional System Collided With the New Politics of Extremism”). Mann, the W. Averell Harriman chair and senior fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution, and Ornstein, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, began the Congress Project in the midst of the 1978 midterm campaign to track the institution as it evolved. What they’ve found since hasn’t been encouraging.

Working the coregasm

Tue, 27 Mar 2012 03:59:00 +0000

“At the end of yoga,” my friend whispers, inching closer, “something sort of … strange happens.” A quick glance around confirms that the good patrons of Starbucks are less interested in her confession than they are in the nearby screaming banshee baby.

“I usually sit with my feet together and my knees splayed,” she continues tentatively, “for one final stretch before I take shavasana.” I nod her on. So far, I follow. “Leaning over to bring my head down to my feet, as my breath regulates I feel a sort of … tingling and pulsating down (ahem) there. And … the feeling isn’t entirely unwelcome.” She exhales, as if a great weight has lifted. “But I mean, that’s pretty weird, right?”

Turns out it’s actually not. Exercise-induced female sexual pleasure has been the subject of casual discussion and un-researched speculation for years. Even sexologist Alfred Kinsey mentions the phenomenon in his "Sexual Behaviors in the Human Female" (1953). But until now, the experience was mostly anecdotal. Now, a study by Indiana University researchers offers scientific evidence that confirms confessions once incredulously traded in gym class locker rooms.

Redefining “wife material”

Mon, 26 Mar 2012 21:30:00 +0000

During a long train ride with an acquaintance, my female friend was recently paid the ultimate compliment. Comparing her to a woman he’s casually seeing, he looked deep into her eyes and said without irony, “but you, you’re wife material.”

I thought this antiquated expression had gone the way of “arm candy” and “trading up” as part of the second-wave agreement that likening your lady to something you consume or drive is just not cool anymore. But perhaps even in 2012, our “Mad Men”-fueled nostalgia-fest is making us long for an era of clear-cut sexist distinction, when wives were wives and mistresses, mistresses. The AMC show's fifth season premiere explored this dichotomy, as Don Draper’s secretary-turned-wife Megan bridged the divide separating working women from their marriageable counterparts.

These days, concerns like Megan's seem absurdly anachronistic, but they also raise a bigger question: In an age of increasing divorce rates and single ladies celebration, what does this wife material “compliment” really mean?

Multiculturalism works

Sat, 17 Mar 2012 19:00:00 +0000

“Multiculturalism” has become a loaded term over the last several years. Across the Western world, politicians have recently begun to attack the once widely admired concept, as mainstream conservative figures -- ranging from French President Nicolas Sarkozy to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Australian ex-Prime Minister John Howard and British Prime Minister David Cameron have all argued that the project of multiculturalism is a failure. It is, of course, difficult to bring people together while respecting their differences. In many countries, the tension between a national identity and individual cultures and beliefs can dangerously invite assimilation on the one hand, constant conflict on the other. But as the new book "Pax Ethnica: Where and How Diversity Succeeds" points out, it is, indeed, possible to make multiculturalism work.

Cruising the street view

Wed, 07 Mar 2012 04:59:00 +0000

Most people use Google Street View for practical purposes, whether to look at the façade of a building and discover how an old neighborhood has changed or to check out the looks of an one not yet visited. But a new blog has found a novel use for the Google application: checking out guys. For the last five months, Dudes From Views has been collecting images of men culled from Google Street View, with some concise commentary: "Smooth Ukranian"; "Triceps and biceps on Christopher Street."

But beyond just being a novel, tongue-in-cheek use of technology, "Dudes From Views" raises interesting questions about the subtle ground between what one might call voyeurism -- secretly taking pictures of attractive, half-naked people and posting them in a public space -- and public information. To get more insight into this Big Brother-meets-peepshow hybrid, Salon corresponded with the blog's creator, Brad, over email, about his method, issues of privacy and the Google gaze. Click above for a slide show of images from the site.

How did you come up with the idea for Dudes From Views?

Our nation of moaners

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 04:59:00 +0000

Every night in my building I’m treated to a concert of loud sex. Like clockwork, at 6:30, the soundtrack begins and “Ooh ooh ooh ooh!” rings out with the same rhythmic regularity and decibel level. Frequently – “Oh God!” – the Lord is called upon to listen too. And between the young heterosexual couple down the hall and the man who regularly visits my door to slip a miniature Bible under the crack, I sometimes feel like I’m living in a Baptist meetinghouse.

But why is it always the woman making all the noise? And is it an expression of pleasure, or something else? As it turns out, recent science offers some tantalizing hints.

Researchers Gayle Brewer of the University of Central Lancashire and Colin A. Hendrie of the University of Leeds wondered too. In a 2011 study on copulatory vocalization (i.e., sex noises), published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior, they asked a group of 71 sexually active, heterosexual women, ages 18 to 48, to answer a questionnaire about their vocalizations during sex and whether or not they correlated with orgasm. The answer most often was yes – but not with their own.

The coming medical revolution

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 23:00:00 +0000

The information at our everyday disposal is growing at a breathtaking rate. From the beginning of civilization to 2003, the world accumulated 1 billion gigabytes of data. Today, we create 1 trillion gigabytes every year. These advances have transformed the way we think about knowledge, communication and countless aspects of our everyday life -- and they have the potential to revolutionize the way we think about our own health.

In his new book, "The Creative Destruction of Medicine: How the Digital Revolution Will Create Better Health Care," Eric Topol, a former professor and researcher at the University of Michigan and Case Western University, and chief academic officer for Scripps Health, a nonprofit healthcare system based in San Diego, argues that the digital revolution can democratize our medical system. Topol demonstrates how the digital revolution can be used to change individual care and prevention, and even the economics of American healthcare. From cellphones that automatically collect medical data, to biosensors, advanced imaging, individualized prescriptions and gene-specific drugs, Topol's book leads readers through science-fiction-sounding scenarios that may soon be a reality.

The neuroscience of happiness

Sat, 28 Jan 2012 22:00:00 +0000

They say money can’t buy happiness. But can a better understanding of your brain? As recent breakthroughs in cognitive science break new ground in the study of consciousness -- and its relationship to the physical body -- the mysteries of the mind are rapidly becoming less mysterious. But does this mean we’ll soon be able to locate a formula for good cheer?

Shimon Edelman, a cognitive expert and professor of psychology at Cornell University, offers some insight in "The Happiness of Pursuit: What Neuroscience Can Teach Us About the Good Life." In his new book, Edelman walks the reader through the brain’s basic computational skills – its ability to compute information, perform statistical analysis and weigh value judgments in daily life – as a way to explain our relationship with happiness. Our capacity to retain memories and develop foresight allows us to plan for the future, says Edelman, by using a mental “personal space-time machine” that jumps between past, present and future. It’s through this process of motivation, perception, thinking, followed by motor movement, that we’re able not only to survive, but to feel happy. From Bayes’ theorem of probability to Shakespeare’s "Romeo and Juliet," Edelman offers a range of references and allegories to explain why a changing, growing self, constantly shaped by new experiences, is happier than the satisfaction any end goal can give us. It turns out the rewards we get for learning and understanding the workings of the world really make it the journey, not the destination, that matters most.