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By Mina Xavier, January 31, 2009 12:18 am

Many thanks to Britt for sending me this article! David Hochman has made an astute observation in his online article this week for Women’s Health Magazine: men and women are different. For the uninformed, this is a major news break! For the rest of us it is simply the obvious presented on an unpolished spoon.

What’s my gripe, you ask? I do not suggest that men are disqualified to report gender observations, but I would prefer that they not do so in such a careless manner.  Contrary to any good writer’s better judgement, Hochman uses his own wife as an example of negative interaction.

At breakfast the other day, I made the mistake of opening my laptop when my wife felt like talking. I was happily trolling YouTube, but Ruth wanted to dish about how her friend’s nanny is becoming a total hoochie mama. “You’re fun this morning,” Ruth sniffed when she realized I wasn’t listening.

To attempt a recovery from this faux pas, he then takes a shot at himself as an unworthy mate who is trapped in the caveman biology of his gender and therefore a helpless hack.

As a female human, Ruth has a meatier frontal cortex than this grunting, monosyllabic husband of hers. That part of the brain is associated with complex functions–like language and decision making. Ruth also packs more power in parts of her limbic cortex, which stokes her feelings and her need to “share.” Finally, because guys tend to process nonverbal expressions less efficiently than women do, I was too slow to read Ruth’s facial cues telling me, “Laptop down and listen up, buddy boy.”

Ruth’s frontal cortex has nothing to do with her embittered response to his internet musings, nor does David’s gender handicap him to the point that he is incapable of simply pardoning his distraction and rejoining the table for a recap of what he missed. The episode itself illustrates something that both David and his editors seem to have missed: women assume that they are being ignored, get angry about it, and immediately punish the other side of the breakfast table for a lack of psychic talent. Men are less fixated on chatter and therefore forget its importance as a form of maintenance between mates.

By extension, we could be on the verge of solving such imponderables as why men leave the toilet seat up and women dig Josh Groban.

One study quoted in this article was that of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. MRI scans were used to discern the differences between how the sexes cope with stress. Feelings of anxiety trigger a “tend and befriend” response in the female limbic system. We negotiate, bargain, argue and even manipulate to resolve danger. In male test subjects, however, the prefrontal cortex flared dramatically in the classic “fight or flight” response. Men, reportedly, are more likely to react to threatening situations with defensive violence to protect themselves and their kin.

To take these differences and pit them against one another in a mutually uncomfortable confrontation is essentially what we saw acted out in the anecdote at the start of his article. But to observe that men and women are wired differently is like pointing out that dogs bark. Gender analysis like Hochman’s, based on legitimate research but drawing some rather simplistic conclusions about some very complicated issues, is part of the reason why we still have the Mars/Venus theory keeping us gridlocked in a DNA blame game. We are still ducking the responsibility to compromise in relating to the mysterious other sex.

Another equally valid point to be considered (one completely avoided by Hochman) with regards to this topic is the documented neurological differences between heterosexual and homosexual males and females. A clear example of responsible reporting on the subject came last year in an issue of Time Magazine, in which science correspondent Alice Park explored the question: are the brains of heterosexuals different from those of homosexual men and women?

“The big question has always been, if the brains of gay men are different, or feminized, as earlier research suggests,” says Dr. Eric Vilain, professor of human genetics at University of California Los Angeles, “then is it just limited to sexual preference or are there other regions that are gender atypical in gay males?”

The evidence surveyed in the studies was irrefutable. Researchers at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden provided valuable data in the study of human sexuality, even if it was narrowed to a study of the physical properties of the brain as an organ.

In heterosexual women, the two halves of the brain are more or less the same size. In heterosexual men, the right hemisphere is slightly larger. Scans of the brains of gay men in the study, however, showed that their hemispheres were relatively symmetrical, like those of straight women, while the brains of homosexual women were asymmetrical like those of straight men. The number of nerves connecting the two sides of the brains of gay men were also more like the number in heterosexual women than in straight men.

Additionally, I might have suggested that Hochman examine a separate factor altogether: social programming. In ignoring the nature-versus-nurture argument we miss the benefit of this dichotomy for its compelling challenge. We are neither permitted to write ourselves off for our biological makeup nor are we permitted to be careless in our assessments of social influence. The article only barely touches on this concept.

In historical and even modern societies, women are limited to a primarily verbal and social existence while men are limited to a mostly athletic and vocational existence, each defining themselves through their achievements and status therein. Occasionally these diverse tracks intersect rudely and result in a microcosm of culture shock — like any marital dispute — which will either break a relationship or strengthen it.

Less sophisticated minds might use it to make demeaning observations about their partners as fodder for writing internet articles that make them feel smart. For Ruth’s sake I hope that her husband’s preparation for this piece gave him insights into how he can bridge these gaps… and that she never reads it.

Throwing Josh Groban under the bus is not likely to bode well for future breakfast conversation.

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By Mina Xavier, January 26, 2009 3:28 pm

This number has called me several times over the last few days. Because I am a nosy little rube, I called them back just to see who this was. A woman with a heavy eastern accent named “Abigail” (yeah right) identified herself as a representative for University Opportunity Services. When I grilled her for how they got my cell number, she finally slipped and uttered the phrase “career site”.

I hit the roof. I had joined a few job search sites months ago for the sake of upgrading my then-impossible position.
One of them, Job.com, has a section where users are asked if they plan to increase their level of education.
They are VERY manipulative with this. The options read as though you are either interested in a degree “someday” or you are a deadbeat who doesn’t care about your future.

They prey on your insecurity about what employers will think of you, and then bombard you with advertisement screens for colleges.
Whether or not the job you were being teased with in the first place actually exists is impossible to know, since no one ever contacts you regarding your application or your resume. Users give their cell and home numbers so that prospective employers can contact them.  These calls are the final result.  They sell your information to these telemarketers.

THIS IS SLEAZY, AND I DO NOT LIKE IT.
I have had the same bombardment from Jobseeker, CareerBuilder, Monster, and so on down the line.
DO NOT use these sites to find a job. The number of complaints received by the FTC and the BBB are astounding.

INSTEAD: Go to a reputable classifieds site for YOUR region that is affilated with a real newspaper (like phillyburbs. com) and start looking there.

These telemarketers are under investigation by the FTC and you can help by posting your experiences and complaints to www. callercomplaints. com.

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By Mina Xavier, January 7, 2009 2:36 am

I got stuck watching Rock Of Love at a friend’s house the other night.

I had a difficult time keeping my food down.

First of all, I don’t care who the hell you think you are: you’re just a man and not a job interview.

Secondly, if you are willing to throw yourself into a cattle shoot of plastic mammaries and chemical tans just to audition to be some re-worked rock star’s trophy girlfriend, then you have just signed up for whatever mental abuse and strategic humiliation you get.

The distended skin of their chests barely kept itself from tearing under the strain of the unnatural orbs shoved underneath to the degree of looking grotesque. I actually thought that some of these girls were female impersonators. The high point was when a six foot tall Brazilian supermodel, disgusted with one of the show’s dozen blondes for dumping beer on her, started a hilarious catfight wherein she clocked her, smacked chips onto her face, and choked her. Immediately the other 23 girls were surrounding the melee in a flurry of legs, shouting, whining and beer. Primo entertainment.

The rejects from Rock Of Love get their own ridiculous reality circus, Charm School,  with Sharon Osborne. She forces them through a very bizarre sort of rehab good for its own laughs via high drama screaming matches over shampoo, stealing jewelry and spitting on one other. Scene of the century: uber-bimbo from hell Megan snerks a jab at Sharon about her family, resulting in instant retaliation. Before this Paris-wannabe knew it she was covered in Sharon’s drink and having her spray-tanned ass hauled off the set and onto the sidewalk … in a bikini.

I could get fanatical with the feminism whip but it’s pretty much pointless at this juncture. I used to be ferociously protective of other females. Now I just sit back and let kharma do its cleanup work. I don’t think I could stomach a guy who found that bullshit even remotely amusing or attractive.

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By Mina Xavier, December 15, 2008 9:55 pm

If you are easily grossed out, you may need to skip the rest of this.

Japanese adult novelty company Gigimo has unveiled a disturbing product that makes use of dissolvable lipids and colored fluid to simulate that famous bloody spotting of a true virgin’s first time: the broken hymen.

Pardon me as I shudder. Attempting to teach us something, they even give an explanatory list of reasons you might need their product and hype it up with hypothetical uses and the promise that no one but you will ever know that you are indeed a fake virgin.

It doesn’t surprise me that this product originated in Japan as the largest genre of pornography in their culture’s underbelly is school-girl oriented, from high school hentai to Sailor Moon to vending machines dispensing “used” school girl undies. While the demands on the female body are refreshingly non-surgical (no double-D implants or obsessively over-injected duck lips), the damage is equal, if not worse.

At some point in our future, the sultry mystery of real women could be as mythological as that of the Templars.

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By Mina Xavier, December 3, 2008 8:11 am

I will not waste my keystrokes trying to scandalize behemoth retailer Walmart for its glaring lack of foresight or concern for the safety of its employees or its customers. Nor will I engage in a bitter dissertation about the corporate distortion of a benign Christian tradition that has brought us to this point of shop-or-die economic Darwinism. I will instead simply let the facts speak for themselves.

Most of us have worked retail jobs that have made us feel about as appreciated as a toilet seat. Few of us have ever experienced the monumental failure of humanity that ended the life of 34 year old Jdimytai Damour. At a staggering six-foot-five, 270 pounds, Damour was not exactly an easy man to topple, yet on the morning of November 28th a crowd estimated at around 2,000 people surged the entrance to the Walmart where Damour worked and brought the large metal doors crashing down onto him.

“Those hundreds of people who did make their way into the store, literally had to step over or around him or unfortunately on him to get into the Wal-Mart store,” Police Commissioner Lawrence Mulvey said earlier this week.

There we have it. Even after their explosive entry into the storefront the crowd did not scatter in a panic, nor did they back away from the building with the obvious anticipation of law enforcement descending upon the chaos they had just created. They just marched on in, over the gates they had destroyed, and over the man trapped beneath them. This man was literally crushed to death.

In the aftermath of the incident every new fact that emerges seems worse than the last. Fourteen year old Alicio Sgro reported that her arm was broken by an enraged shopper forcing his way past her. A twenty-eight year old woman who was eight months pregnant was knocked to the floor in the surge. At last report, mother and baby are fine.

Jordan Hecht, the attorney representing the family of Damour, has filed suit in the state Supreme Court in Bronx, NY against the infamous corporate retailer. Also named in the suit was the Nassau County Police Department, who may very well be blameless; retailers in the shopping center were clearly instructed in the weeks prior to the incident that each store was responsible for its own security and crowd control.

No official store security was on-hand according to current reports and although there was a claim that barricades were in use, it would not seem that they were inside the doorway or effective in preventing access to it.

Peter Goodman, an economics writer for the New York Times, seems bent on portraying these stampeders as hapless victims in a terrifying scheme of corporate greed to take advantage of their dire financial circumstances.

They were engaging in early-morning shopping as contact sport. American business has long excelled at creating a sense of shortage amid abundance, an anxiety that one must act now or miss out. It seemed fitting then, in a tragic way, that the holiday season began with violence fueled by desperation; with a mob making a frantic reach for things they wanted badly, knowing they might go home empty-handed.

If we are expected to give this incident the pardon of “violence fueled by desperation”, then I will make the necessary counterpoint that we, as Americans, are only now being forced to learn what true desperation feels like. Our recent economic debacle has exposed a nationwide vulnerability that our poor have always known but the rest of us would rather suppress than confront. For the benefit of context, consider a vignette from the history of a nation known all too well for poverty and suppression.

On May 14, 1896 a crowd of over 300,000 Russian citizens gathered in Khodinka Field along the outskirts of Moscow for the coronation ceremony of Czar Nicholas II. To commemorate the event, the royal court had commissioned beautiful hand-enameled cups to be given away to gatherers. Also to be given away en masse was food and drink, but word (or rumor) spread quickly through the crowd that the supply was insufficient … triggering a stampede that ended in the crushing deaths of anywhere between several hundred to several thousand people, many of whom were simply desperate for food. In this unforeseen context, each cup was therefore known as a “Cup of Sorrows”. In researching the specifics for this report, I am amused by the irony that I got more matches for web pages selling the cups as top-dollar collectible antiques than pages giving reliable historical background on the incident that made them so valuable in the first place.

Goodman’s hyperbole of mindless desperado as an acceptable catalyst for this sort of grotesque social cannibalism, wherein we destroy strangers to fulfill our obligations to loved ones, is a misfire. I believe that the facts speak clearly to another, less palatable truth: people are bombarded with advertising for objects they could never afford. Tease them with the opportunity to lay hands on it, and they will sacrifice their time, their health, their reputations and their honor to get it. That single choice is what seperates victim from aggressor and puts the integrity of our entire culture on its back under the crush of blatant materialism.