1. John Goodman’s health policy blog
2. "Sworn Virgins": Albanian women pledge eternal virginity for the right to live as a man. Tell me again what do Albanian men get out of this deal?
3. Frans de Waal responds on bonobos; NSFW!
4. Richard’s rules for restaurant-driven revitalization
5. The economist as serial plagiarist
I’m sure that was a hilarious joke, Tyler, but really? Does every action need to be examined to find out what men can get out of it?
How about this — Albanian women give up a normal and healthy life with fewer rights to have a different and difficult life with more rights. And the fact that they have to do this to get that is worth fighting by everyone.
Emily, I think the question is this — Since men are apparently the ones restricting the rights of Albanian women to begin with, why is it that pledges of virginity get the men to loosen up?
If we translate “refusing women the access to certain jobs” as “creating a price ceiling on the labor market”, it is natural to get a labor shortage. Perhaps that labor shortage is small enough that the marginal benefit of giving one woman a job is greater than the marginal cost (one less partner).
When Harry Met Sally.
Tyler’s question, while I think it was somewhat tongue in cheek, does point out the interesting contradiction that the men, who presumably are the ones imposing the inequality on women seem to be giving up their power for no apparent reason.
I think realistically it is a way to purpetuate female inequality. If there was absolutely no route to equality, there might be a lot more social discord.
The “sworn virgin” route allows the men to say, well, if you really want to be equal, you have that choice, while making the choice so bad that most women won’t take it.
There will, of course, be those whose drive to obtain equality is great enough to take the offer, but men still do not lose out completely, because if THOSE women did not have any route to equality, they are also the ones who would have been most likely to forment discord among the other women.
In other societies, these women would have been the trailblazers who knocked down social barriers both for themselves, and the other women around them. By allowing these would be “trailblazers” such an unpalatable option, the trailblazers get equality and are thus pacified, but no appreciable numbers of other women are able to follow after them.
The other possibility is that at least some of the sex discrimination is purpetuated by the women as much as the men. For instance, a man’s wife might have a huge problem with him going off into the fields to work or to trade in the village if there were other women working with him. If the other women were sworn virgins who dress and act like men, the wives might not have such a problem with it.
Whatever happened to attempting a historicized understanding of concepts we might not decode so easily by virtue of what we know culturally and socially?
The sworn virgins perform gender in an idiosyncratic way and instead of seeing it via modern lenses, we need to understand it in the right setting and context. Why would a teenage female in the 1700′s decide to take on a male and maled identity? What would be the dictating factor of such a gendered metamorphosis?
In many cases such decisions were made out of a fundamental wish for survival.
Again, context, historical context, might be a good thing to espouse once in a while.
“Serial plagiarist” s/b “Con-man”.
Oh, that John Goodman. Much less interesting.
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