November 2008 Archives

I love me some nature documentaries. I just got done watching a three part series from the always informative BBC on the Galapagos Islands, called Galapagos. I must say, it wasn't the BBC's best work. The information was repetative, often disjointed, and not very well presented (in terms of script, not necessarily the narrator herself). It was beautifully filmed, thank goodness, but I was a little disappointed. That disappointed turned to shock and, yes, a little bit of dismay, during the third episode. There was a fairly long and pretty awesome land iguana fight, explained as two females fighting for prime nesting turf.

I'm fairly confident we've all seen a nature documentary or two, and know that fights are almost always explained with pretty grandiose verbage. I mean, they're brawling. And these two were really going at it, lots of neck biting and thrashing around. It was very exciting. Grandiose language was more than fitting for the scene. Except that it was described as a "cat fight"...CAT FIGHT?! Never in my fairly extensive repotoire of nature films and books have I heard a vicious territorial battle, bloody and everything, described as a "catfight". Except when talking about cats fighting. Actual cats. And then it's two words: "cat fight".

The term "catfight" is defined as fighting between two women. According to wiki (yeah yeah not a scholarly resource, but they've got a reasonable pulse on colloquial terminology), a catfight typically involves "scratching, hair pulling and shirt-shredding AS OPPOSED to punching or wrestling" (emphasis my own). So if there is actual wrestling and hitting (and, I assume, pointy toothed biting), it isn't a catfight. Referring to a territorial battle as a "catfight" delegitimizes the true violence and struggle such turf wars entail.

Yes, I'm nit-picking a bit. It was one word in three hours of programming. But sitcom vernacular has no place in an otherwise intelligent program. While I didn't think the script was great, nowhere else did the language veer off from scientific, traditional nature documentary discourse. Here's what I'm really getting at: Such word choice in a nature documentary is an indication of just how deep the roots of institutionalized sexism have spread. Now, as off-the-wall as the remark sounds, and I know it's a bit ridiculous, one can't deny how bizarre and out of place the narrator's/script writer's description of the fight was.

I was a bit distracted for the rest of the documentary by these thoughts, but also by an important and potentially lucrative realization: If only someone would pay me to find the often subtle traces of sexism in just about anything, I wouldn't have to worry about the stock market taking most of my grad school fund.

Since Post Post Fuck Fuck did a UTI song cover, I've uncovered more awesomeness. I know that other blogs here have a pick of the week. This might be mine

[youtube ZS9OCcq2t-k]

Although insurance coverage in the workplace is regulated by national law to provide equal coverage at the same price for both women and men, recent studies have revealed a massive gender disparity in private insurance coverage, which is regulated by state law.

Rates and coverage vary from state to state, but women in their 30s are paying as much as 49% more in premiums for coverage than their male counterparts! Their deductibles are also as much as 32% higher. Insurance companies have rationalized this massive inequity by saying that women aged 19-55 simply cost more than men to insure. Women, supposedly, use more health care, especially during child-bearing years. Which leads to another major point of contention: maternity care. Insurance big-wigs keep coming back to the issue of maternity care, which is a gender-specific health issue and extremely costly, which drives up insurance rates for women. If this is insurance companies' primary argument for increased rates, however, then when doesn't that disparity disappear for plans that do not include maternity care?

Company execs also argue that "claims experience shows that women use more health care services" in general. "They are more likely to visit doctors, to take prescription medications and to have certain chronic illnesses" (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/30/us/30insure.html?fta=y). My argument is this: doesn't preventative care, such as regular doctor's visits, actually end up saving insurance companies money in the long run? Isn't it better, both medically and economically, when precautions against major illnesses can be taken and early-detected illnesses are resolved with less intense, less expensive, and relatively short-term therapies?

As for the second part of that argument, that women are at a higher risk of developing certain chronic illnesses, that rhetoric doesn't work for racial health care discrimination and it shouldn't work for gender discrimination either. We do not tolerate (anymore) "rationale" that states that black people should pay more for insurance coverage because only they can have sickle cell anemia, a costly and chronic condition.

Perhaps more important is a discussion about what this says about the very basics of our nation's health care system. Why does health care always boil down to what is the cheapest? When discussing health insurance, the human factor seems to be all but absent. We no longer discuss good or effective health care. We do not talk about plans that work for individual needs or allow for high-quality medicine. We are reduced to talking about cost-effectiveness.

Yeah, yeah, I know. Capitalist economy means that everything boils down to money (insert Marxist analysis here), but rather than gripe about the theory of economics, of which the health care system is a part of, let's talk about people. Let's talk about our lives. Let's stop looking at people as series of numbers that identify their risk and cost analysis. Most importantly, gender is NOT a reason to provide sub-standard or more expensive health coverage.

Speaking of community violence, a 16 year old boy pleaded not guilty yesterday to rape. His "victim" [parentheses not to delegitimize claim, but because I don't like the word and its discursive implications] was a 15 year old classmate who came to his home, had a beer, and then experienced what sound like symptoms of rufies. Her friend was with her, both girls fell asleep at the house, and one was forced to have sex, "despite her repeated pleas for him to stop". The boy is a student at Mt. Baker High School. Since they are minors. no identities have been released.

[story from November 6th's Bellingham Herald, Pg A3]

The Good: Obama is the next president-elect! Washington now has doctor-assisted suicide! Michigan legalized medical marijuana! Another measure to define the moment of conception as the beginning of life also failed! South Dakota rejected a ban on abortions!

The Bad: Colorado passed a measure to end affirmative action. Dino Rossi is definitely going to ask for a recount (says me, not a credible news source). It is too close to call the results of a California proposition that would require parents of minors to be notified 48 hours before an abortion procedure. If that goes through, it will definitely go down to the Ugly.

The Ugly: It looks like California will pass a ban on same sex marriage, along with Arizona and Florida. It also looks like Arkansas voters will pass a ban on unmarried couples being able to adopt (a not so cleverly masked ban on gay couples adopting).

Really trying to focus on the Good right now, but kind of having a hard time because the Ugly is...really ugly, especially the Arkansas measure and the pending California measure. Can I ask, though...When did California turn into such a conservative state? Yes, they vote democratic, but I am shocked the two propositions to end gay marriage and require abortion notification are and might pass.