Salon.com > Mandy Van Deven

When “sexual fundamentalism” conquered Capitol Hill

Wed, 26 Sep 2012 22:08:00 +0000

  During the 2008 presidential election, historian and political commentator Nancy Cohen became interested in how sex has changed American politics. She was so intrigued by the gender issues that surfaced around Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin that she began working on what would become "Delirium: The Politics of Sex in America." The book is a meticulously researched political history of the Democratic self-destruction and Republican stealth that has allowed many of the gains of the sexual revolution to be lost.

Secrets of the sperm bank

Sun, 25 Sep 2011 17:01:00 +0000

Since the economic downturn, a growing number of Americans have begun making money off their bodies. Since the recession began, the number of aspiring sperm and egg donors has surged dramatically in the United States. In 2009, some sperm banks saw a 15 to 20 percent increase in applicants, while, in 2008, egg agencies reported a similar rise -- including, at one company, a 40 percent increase in wannabe egg providers. At a time when other industries are collapsing, the sex cell business seems to be doing well for itself. But what is it actually selling?

"Sex Cells," a new book by Rene Almeling, an assistant professor of sociology at Yale University, pulls back the curtain on the egg and sperm market. She looks at the ways our cultural assumptions about gender roles influence not only the egg and sperm donation industry but also the people within it. As it turns out, egg and sperm donors have remarkably different experiences of the process. "Sex Cells" explains how this unique industry shapes the way we think about gender and parenthood.

Why we can never escape our siblings

Sat, 10 Sep 2011 22:01:00 +0000

Sometimes a family tragedy can expose bonds you didn't know existed. That's what happened with my younger sister and me. Although just 11 months apart, we could not have been more different: I rebelled as hard as she conformed, and if you met us at a party ... well, that would never have happened, because we never went to the same parties. If we hadn't been forced to spend summers together with our dad after our parents' divorce, my sister and I would have spent scarcely any time together at all. Then my mom was diagnosed with Stage IV lung cancer and given less than a year to live. Suddenly, for the first time in our lives, my sister and I were not only inseparable but totally in sync.

Some patterns came naturally, since they were holdovers from when we were kids. Negotiating household chores was a breeze. I agreed to wash the dishes if she would dry and put them away. The next night, we swapped duties. Other moments of synchronicity caught us by surprise, like realizing we both avoid dealing with our emotions by taking on more responsibility. During the nine months my mother fought a losing battle for her life, she found joy in watching her daughters put aside their childhood differences and learn to appreciate each other as adults.

Why won’t America embrace the left?

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 21:01:00 +0000

What has the left really accomplished over the past two centuries? FDR's New Deal remains one of the great American success stories. In the '60s, leftist politics created a massive countercultural movement -- and sexual and feminist revolutions. The civil rights movement transformed both American society and the American soul. But, if you compare the accomplishments of the American left to those of other parts of the world, like Western Europe, its record is remarkably dismal, with a surprising lack of real political and social impact.

At least, that's the main takeaway from "American Dreamers," a new book by Michael Kazin, professor of history at Georgetown University, which covers nearly 200 years of struggle for civil rights, sexual equality and radical rebellion. His book explores the way the national conversation has been changed by union organizers, gay rights activists and feminists. He also writes about how their techniques have now been adopted by the Tea Party movement. From Michael Moore to "Wall-E," he argues that, although the left has been successful at transforming American culture, when it comes to practical change, it's been woefully unsuccessful.

How we became a nation of cutters

Fri, 19 Aug 2011 01:01:00 +0000

When you're a teen girl with a grotesque scar in the center of your wrist, people tend to make assumptions about how it got there. Although mine actually came from an accident with a piece of broken glass, I was ashamed of the questions -- "You really tried to do it, didn't you?" That is, until I realized my scar might have cachet. If dangerously cool celebrities like Johnny Depp and Drew Barrymore cut themselves, maybe my own wound marked my own outsider mystique.

Every generation of angst-filled teens comes up with new and scandalous ways to cope with adolescence. My mother had blue jeans and rock 'n' roll. I had riot grrrl and self-injury. The shocking revelations of self-harm from young stars had the power to transform physical indications of suffering into trendy status symbols, at least among the kids I hung out with who dyed their hair blue and listened to Nine Inch Nails. So, during high school I simply didn’t tell anyone that my gruesome gash wasn't self-inflicted. (My mom didn’t tell her friends she preferred Patsy Cline to the Rolling Stones either.)

When youth culture stood up to tyranny

Tue, 09 Aug 2011 00:30:00 +0000

Young people throughout the Arab world are in a state of rebellion. In the past two years, the world has seen Muslim youth help overthrow authoritarian presidents in Egypt and Tunisia, and challenge the suspicious ballot results of an Iranian election. In a break from the region's often-violent past, the anger and frustration of this new generation of revolutionaries has been expressed in surprising ways. Some young Muslims are using humor, hip-hop and peaceful demonstrations to protest tyrannical leaders and Muslim extremists who brutalize their countrymen and demonize the Islamic faith.

In "Rock the Casbah," veteran journalist Robin Wright highlights the artistic and political work of numerous counter-jihadis and explains why she believes the current rebellions in the Middle East are distinctly different from earlier ones. Using Internet tools like Facebook and Twitter, youth have been able to expand the reach of their nonviolent messages for widespread social, cultural and political change. They are mobilizing their peers online and in the streets in places as distinct as Syria, Palestine and Yemen.

Salon spoke to Wright about the historical precedents for the counter-jihad generation, the changing meaning of martyrdom and the power of the pink hijab.

D.B. Cooper, a uniquely American hero

Wed, 03 Aug 2011 00:29:00 +0000

The legend of D.B. Cooper is a curiously enduring one. On the day before Thanksgiving in 1971, a man calling himself Dan Cooper boarded a plane in Portland, Ore., and after a drink and a cigarette, slipped a note to the flight attendant saying he had a bomb and was hijacking the plane. Within a few hours, he parachuted out of a Boeing 727 with $200,000 of ransom money and was never heard from again.

Even after 40 years, the FBI hasn't been able to pinpoint his real identity -- until, possibly, this week. The FBI claims to have a new lead in the case: A retired police officer suggesting the real D.B. Cooper died in a car crash in the Pacific Northwest 10 years ago. (So far an attempt to match the man's fingerprints, obtained from an old guitar strap, to Cooper's has proved unsuccessful.)

It's no small feat to hijack a plane and elude capture for decades, but what's more astounding is the iconic status D.B. Cooper has gained ever since. Perhaps it's because, as a nation of rugged individualists (or so we like to think), Americans are drawn to stories of rebels who stick it to the man. Or perhaps we just like a good mystery.

The science behind disgust

Sun, 24 Jul 2011 17:01:00 +0000

We all have things that disgust us irrationally, whether it be cockroaches or chitterlings or cotton balls. For me, it's fruit soda. It started when I was 3; my mom offered me a can of Sunkist after inner ear surgery. Still woozy from the anesthesia, I gulped it down, and by the time we made it to the cashier, all of it managed to come back up. Although it is nearly 30 years later, just the smell of this "fun, sun and the beach" drink is enough to turn my stomach.

But what, exactly, happens when we feel disgust? As Daniel Kelly, an assistant professor of philosophy at Purdue University, explains in his new book, "Yuck!: The Nature and Moral Significance of Disgust," it's not just a physical sensation, it's a powerful emotional warning sign. Although disgust initially helped keep us away from rotting food and contagious disease, the defense mechanism changed over time to effect the distance we keep from one another. When allowed to play a role in the creation of social policy, Kelly argues, disgust might actually cause more harm than good.

Our new era of identity politics

Mon, 11 Jul 2011 11:45:00 +0000

Will we ever see the end of identity politics? In 2004, headlines heralded the end of race as we know it. Since Barack Obama was elected in the United States, much has been made of our new, supposedly post-racial society. But in recent years, we've also seen the rise of a new form of right-wing identity politics led by conservatives like Glenn Beck and neo-feminist Sarah Palin. The truth is -- as Beck's claims of "reverse racism," the vehemence of the birthers, and the continued movement against gay marriage prove -- the politics of identity are still as important as ever.

In "Who Are We – And Should It Matter in the 21st Century?" Guardian columnist Gary Younge argues that, instead of pretending that we're all the same, we should embrace the value of difference. As he looks at everything from the "wise Latina" backlash during the confirmation hearings of Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor to "The American Directory of Certified Uncle Toms," a controversial book arguing that W.E.B. DuBois wasn’t sufficiently "black," Younge encourages readers to recognize the continuing importance of who we are in a rapidly globalized world. The dream of a uniform human race isn't plausible, he believes, or even ideal.

Could flogging solve our prison crisis?

Mon, 20 Jun 2011 12:01:00 +0000

America's prison system is in a state of crisis. Since the declaration of a war on drugs 40 years ago, our country has amassed the largest prison population the world has ever seen. Overcrowding and unconstitutional conditions have gotten so bad that one of the worst offenders, California, was recently ordered by the U.S. Supreme Court to either transfer 33,000 people to other jurisdictions or simply let them go. Now former police officer turned criminal justice professor Peter Moskos has devised a modest proposal that, he argues, could solve the problem of our congested prisons overnight: give prisoners the option of being flogged instead of being imprisoned.

Moskos makes a compelling 154-page argument in flogging’s favor. He points out that since physical brutality is already a part of prison life -- for example, 1 in 20 prisoners report having been sexually assaulted by other inmates or staff in the past year -- and corporal punishment is a much faster and cheaper method of retribution, prison may actually be the more inhumane and less fiscally responsible option. Although his outrageous idea may conjure up unsavory reminders of U.S. slavery, by the end of "In Defense of Flogging," Moskos might just have you convinced.

Are the world’s women disappearing?

Sun, 12 Jun 2011 18:01:00 +0000

What would our world be like if it contained far fewer women? It may seem like the stuff of post-apocalyptic fiction, but according to journalist Mara Hvistendahl, the author of "Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys Over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men," truth is coming closer to fiction. According to Hvistendahl, a science writer and correspondent for Science magazine, the world is currently experiencing a demographic shift that is tilting our population in favor of men.

The main source of her concern is the fact that a growing number of parents in various parts of the world have been using ultrasound technology to determine the sex of their fetus and, in a disturbing number of cases, terminating females. Based on personal anecdotes and research from fields as disparate as demography, sociology, economics and genetics, Hvistendahl speculates about what this means for everything from bride buying and sex trafficking to male violence, and why it might be causing global unrest.

Salon spoke with Hvistendahl about our overpopulation fears, what this trend means for abortion and America's own curious sex selection trend.