March 8 - March 14
“On the Times”
On the front page of Sunday’s New York Times (March 7, 2010) appears a picture of four lady Marines (Can a ‘lady’ be a Marine? Is that an oxymoron?) in fatigues, their hair pulled tight off their heads, listening intently to the do’s and don’ts of “cultural awareness:” Do show your ponytails. Do play with the children. Don’t let your interpreter hijack the conversation. Do gather as much information as you can. None are smiling. (Do Marines smile?) These four women, we are told, are members of the 40 member “female engagement team” headed to Afghanistan’s Helmand Province. Their mission: to win over rural Afghan women. Their significance: the changing face of the war; or, what the U.S. has learned after nine years in Afghanistan.
All 40 women volunteered for the team. Lady Marines, who make up 6% of the Corps, are not allowed to fight in combat units. The opportunity to leave desk jobs and kitchen duty and join male units in the field was “exciting” to the Lady M’s. While they won’t fight, Helmand Province is a dangerous place for anyone, particularly to those wearing an American uniform, so the Lady M’s will be carrying the smaller, lighter M-4 rifles rather than the standard M-16. Just in case.
Once they reach their targets, protocol requires that the Lady M’s met with the village elder and ask his permission to meet with the women, who are strictly off-limits to male Marines and are rarely even seen outside their home compounds. The teams will go two-by-two knocking on doors (sound familiar?) to gain entree in this hidden ‘no man’s land.’ Once inside, the Lady M’s are instructed to lay down their rifles, remove helmets and other battle gear, don the headscarf and sit down for tea with the women. They are to ask ‘basic’ questions: Who are the power brokers in the village? Where are the Taliban hiding? Who are making the bombs? The information gleened will be duly logged into a larger data base to be used by military intelligence. The Lady M’s are also instructed to gather information about the ‘social fabric’ of the village and problems the villagers might have. The military hopes this too will help win hearts and minds.
We are told that, for now, the Lady Marines remain apprehensive about the mission. The team commander, Captain Claire Henry, 27, said she’s worried about leading the team into harm’s way. But still, she hopes the team can win the trust of the women in Helmund Province. She is encouraged by one Afgan elder who invited the women into his home saying “Your men come to fight, but we know the women are here to help.”
I hope so. It seems a delicate mission--winning hearts and gathering intelligence. But I wonder, who is helping whom? And how?
“Neither Men Nor Mice”
From the Business Section comes advice on how women deal with the double standard on the job. You know the problem: If a guy barks out orders, he’s a leader, he’s in charge. If a women barks out orders, she’s a bitch. So, how do women stay strong and in control?
According to corporate trainer, Peggy Klaus, women have to realize that they work within a narrower band of acceptable behavior than men. Women can neither be a bull in a china shop nor a mouse in the corner. It’s not fair, says Klaus, but that’s the way it is.
A communication tune-up goes a long way to over-coming stereotypes in the workplace. The key is to communicate in ways that connect us to our better selves though a “compelling combination of warmth and strength.” This coupled with conveying messages in a specific and succinct way, using humor, direct eye contact and a firm voice. In other words, take the poor chap by hand, tell him how wonderful he is, acknowledge how hard he has worked, offer to help him with the assignment until he gets it right, remembering all the while how much he “hates to be wrong.”
In short, deliver the news so the guy “gets the message without wanting to get back at you.”
“Berkeley Place”
I watched the exciting conclusion to the BBC series, “Berkeley Place.” Set in 1902, the story revolves around three young nannies--Annie, Lydia and Mattie--who tend the children of three wealthy, aristocratic families, all neighbors on London’s prestigious Berkeley Place. The plot romps and rolls through a coronation, murder, tea parties, adultery, luncheons, intrigue, romance, seduction, a baby swoop, excursions, a shooting, a hanging and back-street brawls. As the nannies join the domestic circles of their respective households, they are inevitably drawn in. Not only are they drawn in, they come actors in their own right. All this leads Annie to exclaim in a moment of crisis: And I thought nothing was supposed to happen in the nursery!
In the end, things come right. At least, things come right as much as things can be made right. Master Hugh, the young lord of the manor who threatens Lydia, is put in his place. Mrs. Bronofski marches to the gallows to hang for a murder she did not commit--this to save Annie and her infant son. Mattie gets her fiance, Ned, cleared of murder charges only to see him march off to Africa with his regiment. Lydia engages the trust-worthy Mr. Fowler to learn her her “letters.”
If there’s a message to be gleaned from the series it is this: It’s up to the women of the household make things right. More to the point, it’s the lower class women, the servants who are more likely than their counterparts upstairs to keep the domestic sphere in order. This, because the upper class women enjoy the privileges that come from male rank. The higher the rank, the more the women act for, and in behalf of the system from which privilege accrues.
In a telling final scene, the aging nanny, Mrs. Collins falls into despair believing that her years of service in the household have come to naught--this when she discovers what a lout Master Hugh has become. Lydia revives her, reminds her of her position in the family, the senior woman, acting matriarch. Prompted by the younger woman, Nanny Collins marches downstairs and reprimands both the count and the countess, her blast falling hardest upon the count, whom she raised. Having been rebuked by a servant, the count could get angry. He could throw her out. Instead, he submits, and by doing so, acknowledges her power to make things right within the domestic sphere. In a gesture of submission, he bows his head and says in a sheepish, boyish voice, “Yes, Nanny.”
Nanny Collins’ aristocratic counterpart, a system enforcer who sells out her niece, Isabelle, allowing her to marry a man whom she knows to be a rake and a scoundrel, a bone fide ‘bounder,’ this she does to avoid a stain upon the family’s honor.
“Gynandromorphic”
This fresh in from NPR: An article in this month’s Nature magazine describes some “funny looking” chickens in Scotland that are changing ideas on sex. How’s that?
A professor in Glasgow received a call from an agricultural specialist who suggested that he, the professor, might want to come out and look at these funny looking chickens that appeared to be part male, part female. The professor wasn’t interest. Sexual anomalies in animals are not that unusual and all, easily explained. The specialist persisted and eventually the professor went round to have a look. Sure enough, he found that these funny looking chickens were part male and part female. But upon examination, he discovered that the cause of the anomaly was not what he expected.
Normally hormones determine sex. All fetuses, human included, come with gonads. A shot of testosterone sends male gonad reeling. It will become the testes. In the absence of the male hormone, the female gonad matures into the ripened ovary. In nearly all cases, sexual anomalies occur when one hormone or another goes array.
This not the case with the funny looking chickens. In this case, each chicken had two “normal” gonads, an ovary and a testes, each functioning properly. Thus, this was not the work of hormones.
What could it be? The only other determinate would be the cells themselves. Normally, hormones act upon the cells, telling them what to do or not do. In this case, it appears the cells decided their function. The determinant factor contained within the cell itself.
Scientists know that cells play a role, a minor role, in sex, hormones being by far the greater determinant. Scientists also know that the sex of many animal species can be determined by outside factors other an hormones. For example, the sex of sea turtles can be determined by the water temperature. These animals are labeled “gynandromorphic,” meaning an individual can become either male or female depending upon exterior circumstances. Another adaption of nature.
The funny looking chickens seem to be a different type of creature. The chickens are both female and male, their dual sex determined by their own cells. Gynandrochicks, if you will, displaying “gynandrochiphic” tendencies.
Whatever they are, these funny looking chickens from Scotland may cause scientists to revise their views of sex.
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