Suicides and "The Policy"

For those of you who aren't aware, the LDS church instituted a policy regarding LGBT families back in November. One of the major criticisms of this policy is it could potentially increase the suicide rate of LGBT Mormons. And recently, some numbers have been thrown around about the number of LGBT Mormon suicides since the policy was instituted.  I haven't fact-checked these, but as of January 23, the numbers I've seen were around 32.

I don't understand the policy, and I don't particularly want to defend it, but I do believe in statistics. The number of suicides alone is not enough to say that the policy has caused any change in suicidal behavior. We need to compare to the number of LGBT Mormons who would have done the same if there were no new policy announced.

We can't actually know what would have happened, but we can estimate it.  Ideally, we'd have data on LDS LGBT suicides rates, but I couldn't find anything quantitative.  So let's assume that most of these cases are Americans, and the average suicide rate in the US is 0.0211% per year, or 0.00451% of the population in the same 78 day period. The church reports around 6,466,267 members in the United States. This means that, if Mormons are typical in their suicide rate (which they seem not to be), there should be around 285 Mormon suicides in that same time period. Around 3.4% of the adult population identify as LGBT, so that takes the estimate down to about 10 suicides.

All these numbers come from Wikipedia, so I'm using questionable sources, but I didn't want to put too much time into this. But with this very loose estimate of suicide rate, it seems there would be a tragic increase—a 220% increase.  That seems a little too large to be believable to me.

We could mirror stats on Jewish LGBT youth to help account for the fact that LGBT folks in religious communities are more likely to attempt suicide.  Along these lines, if we assume there are 219,853 LGBT Mormons and that they are four times more likely to commit suicide than national average, that would put our estimate closer to 40 suicides in the same time range—this would mean that there was actually a decrease in the suicide rate since the policy was enacted.  This may not be as surprising as it sounds, since there was significant backlash against the policy, so LGBT Mormons may have actually received a surge of support from friends and family.

The point I'm trying to make is that it is very, very difficult to make any causal attributions in this case (or in general).  Suicide is incredibly sad regardless of cause, and I also mourn that any person could feel rejected by their religion.  We must take steps to help prevent suicide, and we must be loving and welcoming members of our respective communities.  But part of knowing what steps to take is to get real data on what's happening, not just jumping to the worst conclusions.  Big changes require strong evidence.  And probably lots of hugs in the meanwhile.

on lady tech events

I recently had a colleague ask me about women in tech events, and I wanted to adapt my response into a blog post.

Women in tech events and long-term mentoring can be very fulfilling, especially when the audience is narrow enough. That said, I'm always hesitant about female tech mentoring because it seems like there is so very much of it, both soliciting mentors and mentees, so it's easy to commit to more than you actually want to do.

It's important that every individual takes a step back asks themselves: How much time do I want to dedicate to networking and mentorship? What kinds of interactions are most valuable to me? (What have I enjoyed about other events I attended?) Plan the big picture first, and then use that as a roadmap to make the smaller choices.

In the end, these are personal choices about you and your career. For me, going to WiML every year is enough. But other people might want more support or networking. Still others might not care at all about things like this—again, this is totally personal. It also varies depending on where you are in your career, because our needs and preferences evolve with time.

As a one-off, these kind of things won't make or break you, but it's the aggregate of multiple events over your career. If you're not certain about a particular event, it might be worth going, just to see how fulfilling these kinds of events are to you, so you can make informed choices going forward.

WiML 2014 workshop

Yesterday was the culmination of many months of planning for the annual Women in Machine Learning workshop.  I think it will easily be my favorite part of being up in Montreal for the duration of NIPS 2014.

We had an amazing program; our invited speakers were Carla Brodley, Tina Eliassi-Rad, Diane Hu, and Claudia Perlich with Finale Doshi-Velez giving our opening remarks.  Our student oral presentations were thought provoking, and the breadth of our poster session was immense.  Corporate sponsors sent great representatives, and the round table mentoring session enabled some amazing discussions.  I feel like I can through positive adjectives at basically any aspect of the event, from our volunteers to the food.

I loved working with my fellow organizers Marzyeh Ghassemi, Sarah Brown, and Jessica Thompson.  It was an amazing experience and I'm very glad to have had this opportunity.

Thanks to @kmkinnaird for her photography!

having it all

What is "having it all"?  This is typically understood to mean being a women with children and a happy family life while also having a successful career.

Not only does this phrasing focus the life-balance discussion on privileged women (ignoring those struggling with multiple jobs, etc.), it also isolates women as distinct from men.  There are sacrifices no matter who you are and what choices you make, but we don't talk about men having it all or not.  As far as I can tell, no man or woman is perfect at everything.

We want each individual or family to be able to choose to balance their life or lives as they see fit.  We want them to be able to choose their family structure, domestic responsibilities, social obligations, career paths, and hobbies.  Just like we budget money between housing, food, clothing, and any number of things, each individual budgets their time and efforts.

Having it all is a useless metric, not to mention that it's incredibly ambiguous.  No matter your choice, using this terminology can appear as a judgement to those who allocate their time and efforts differently, which is basically everyone else.

Excommunication of Mormon Activists

Two prominent Mormons are facing the possibility of excommunication.

I'm saddened, but not terribly surprised.  Kate Kelly, one of the members facing church discipline, is the founder of Ordain Women.  While I'd love to see women get ordained, either to the traditional patriarchal priesthood or to a separate matriarchal one, there's a huge problem with Ordain Women: it seeks female ordination regardless of God's will.

I'm happy advocating for the Prophet to seek answers on questions and for the Apostles to consider these issues, but at the end of the day, they lead the church.  No matter how I feel about the issue personally, I cannot receive revelation for the entire church. Promoting a substantial change unconditionally, like ordaining women, is not respecting the authority of the Prophet to speak for God.  We can suggest, discuss, and critique, but we must respect that authority, or else the entire premise of the church collapses.

The irony is that it's exactly this Priesthood authority that the Ordain Women movement seeks.  I think the request is reasonable, and worth, say, a church-wide fast.  It's a really important issue, and deserving of attention, but it cannot be demanded.  We need to have faith in our leaders, not just in the religious sense, but also in a human sense.  We need to hope that they're trying their best and want to guide us to the more perfect world we seek.

The biggest problem is that even the name of Ordain Women is a demand, or could be framed as such.  The start of their mission statement:

The fundamental tenets of Mormonism support gender equality: God is male and female, father and mother, and all of us can progress to be like them someday. Priesthood, we are taught, is essential to this process. Ordain Women believes women must be ordained in order for our faith to reflect the equity and expansiveness of these teachings.

Perhaps I am too docile, but I think a softer approach would be more impactful. I believe that the earthly ordination of women could be very good, but I do not believe it is the only way to work towards gender equality, nor do I believe that it is unquestionably God's will.

Having worked in the temple and performed priesthood ordinances (the only place where in our church women do), I can say that those experiences are certainly special.  I can say that we need more female leadership and that there are some cultural practices that should be changed.  But while I can say what I think and feel, I must acknowledge that in my limited scope of experience, I cannot say what is right for the whole church.

So, I'm not surprised that Kate Kelly is facing excommunication; even from my sympathetic perspective, I feel that the Ordain Women movement is too sure of its initiatives, as any movement needs to be.  I'm saddened that the church didn't use this as an opportunity to discuss the issues, and took a more cowardly approach, but I hope that those involved on all sides can take the time to be introspective rather than defensive so that they can take advantage of the true purpose of church disciplinary counsels: to help us acknowledge our failings and become better people.

I've focused on Kate Kelly and Ordain Women, because I know less about John Dehlin and his Mormon Stories Podcasts.  I'm imagining that the "cause for concern" in his case is LGBT rights, but I haven't researched it thoroughly.

I am hoping that this results in a fruitful exchange between the church and its more liberal members about how to express concerns and suggest ideas.  Currently, our only recourse is to either limit ourselves to local impact or go incredibly public online.  There needs to be a way to faithfully express concerns in a way that it doesn't get stuck either at a local level or in a traffic jam to the top.

forgiving vs. condoning

Elder Holland's General Conference talk in April struck me with the following passage.

At the zenith of His mortal ministry, Jesus said, “Love one another, as I have loved you.” [John 15:12] To make certain they understood exactly what kind of love that was, He said, “If ye love me, keep my commandments” [John 14:15] and “whosoever … shall break one of [the] least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be … the least in the kingdom of heaven.” [Matthew 5:19]  Christlike love is the greatest need we have on this planet in part because righteousness was always supposed to accompany it. So if love is to be our watchword, as it must be, then by the word of Him who is love personified, we must forsake transgression and any hint of advocacy for it in others.  Jesus clearly understood what many in our modern culture seem to forget: that there is a crucial difference between the commandment to forgive sin (which He had an infinite capacity to do) and the warning against condoning it (which He never ever did even once).

I have often supported or encouraged in others things that I would not accept for myself. Sometimes I feel like this is okay, and sometimes it falls into "condoning sin."

Let's start with a softball example: pierced ears. Paul taught that the body is a temple (among lots of other crazy stuff), and the LDS church has discouraged piercings and tattoos, with the exception that it's okay for women to have one earring in each ear.  I don't have any piercings, nor do I want any, but I have no problem buying earrings for people, or complimenting earrings.  Honestly, I think non-traditional piercings and tattoos can also be very tasteful.  Simply put, I'm condoning things that I wouldn't accept for myself.  But the things I'm condoning aren't really a sin, I just have a weird thing against body modification for myself.  It's one of the thing I'm compulsive about: I can't even draw on myself with pen and not be scrubbing it off within a few minutes.

Alright, so the easy stuff is over; let's move right on over to the difficult and sensitive issues: gay marriage and sex outside of marriage.  I'm supportive of gay marriage rights. I'm also supportive of my friends who have sex outside of marriage.  But should I be?  I have no idea.  I don't really know what is sinful and what isn't—this is the crux of the problem.  On some level I just don't care about the details of personal choices my friends are making.  Mostly, I don't want them to feel judged constantly whenever they talk about their partner and I want to keep being their friends.  If I don't say anything supportive, they might very well presume I'm stewing in religious judgement, which I'm not.  For me, it really is as simple as the pierced ears example: I'm not going to do it myself, but I think other people can be happy with different choices.

For less complicated issues, I might think that people could be happier with alternative choices.  If they asked my advice, I'd probably guide them according to my personal morals.  But on socially charged topics, it's really hard to disentangle the "sin" from the "sinner."  If a dear friend is gay, how can you possibly tell them in love that you disapprove of them having any kind of romantic relationship?  Are you just supposed to let it sit there awkwardly?

I can't forgive friends for certain things (like being gay) because there is nothing to forgive.  They haven't wronged me in any way and it's not my place to pass judgement. For this same reason I cannot condone or condemn their actions.  I trust people to choose the best path for themselves.  I will give advice when asked and will try to be supportive of them as individuals.  If I am guilty of condoning sin, it is because I think everyone should have the choice to determine for themselves what qualifies as sin.  I'm certainly still figuring it out for myself.

While I seem to be dismissing Elder Holland's remarks, I still am rolling them around in my mind and heart.  In particular, there are certainly times that I fake approval of other people's choices (trivial or otherwise) because I'm a people-pleaser.  The real thing that I've internalized from his comments is to stop that behavior; I should just be honest about my reactions to things.  If I don't like the way that skirt looks, I shouldn't say I do and encourage my friend to buy it because she likes it.  If I don't think a particular couple should move in together, I shouldn't fake my support because I'm worried that they'll think I'm being judgmental otherwise.  I should have confidence in my opinions and stop trying to say what other people want to hear.

needing a mother and a father

While it feels like gay marriage is well accepted by most American society, official LDS doctrine does not tolerate it.  A common argument against gay marriage is that having both a mother and a father is best for children; they "need" one parent of each gender.  If that's true, then mothers and fathers play truly different parts, and that gender roles are a real and important aspect to the parenting triangle.

Obviously, the LDS church is pro-gender roles, advocating them in teaching children and in the general structure of the family.  But the roles are not well defined: in the eight-thousand-plus word chapter on teaching gender roles, roles are defined as mother/wife and father/husband, and then implied elsewhere along the lines of "each child is learning how to be male or female and about what being male or female means about their relationships with others."  Nur?

In the family proclamation, we're given a sliver of insight as to what they actually mean: men are responsible for providing and presiding and women are primarily to nurture, but that men and women should be equal partners as parents.  This has been picked apart from every perspective, but it's still pretty opaque.

The message I'm getting is that gender identity is important, even if we really have no idea what accompanies gender.  And this brings me back to my original point: if gender defines very little about a person's personality and parenting style, then why is having both genders represented in parents important?

Admittedly, it would be harder for a girl to have two male parents, or vice versa, because there would be social and biological questions that may be more difficult for an opposite-gender parent to answer. Harder, but certainly not impossible.

The irony here is that in the LDS church, we only really have father figures, or male spiritual role models: Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ.  There are stories about more men and women, but we're supposed to become like these two figures.  We're not supposed to be like Mary the mother of Christ.  I mean, we are, but only in as much as she is like Christ.  And we're not supposed to try to be like the only-whispered-about Heavenly Mother, since we have no idea what to emulate.

You can't have it both ways.  Either you need both parents, especially for spiritual guidance, or else gender in parents doesn't matter.  Either we have a Heavenly Mother and Her role is clearly defined (preferably with an accompanying Matriarchal Priesthood), or gay marriage is okay.  Which one is it?

An addendum: I didn't talk about single parenting, which is another situation that the LDS church doesn't handle as well as it could.  No matter the doctrine of the church, alternative family structures need to be more welcome, which is a job for the members and not the hierarchy.

gender identity in young children

After nwc watched this documentary on Josie, a transgender child, we started talking about transgenderism in young kids.  I have no problem with people transitioning to the opposite gender, but with children it is a bit more complicated.  Certainly some children really do feel like they are in the wrong body, but there are others for whom it might be a phase or influenced unduly by environment. How are parents to know?  How can the children even understand their own wants and needs and the long-term implications?

Parents have a responsibility to provide a structured environment in which to teach their children.  It's their responsibility to say no often.  But on transgenderism, how are they to know if they are just being indulgent or if they're helping their child embrace their true identity?  There are no easy answers.

For me, the essence of this problem is restrictive gender roles.  Heterosexual boys can like pink.  But, even in modern western society, boys who like pink are usually expected to be gay or transexual, which makes very little sense.  Girls have it a little easier, as tomboyishness is more socially appropriate, but get too macho and middler schoolers will start calling you a lesbian, even if your behavior has nothing to do with your sexuality.  Children are making decisions based on the signals of gender, instead of the more hidden implications of sex, which are different.

Regardless of a child's gender identity, I think it's important to protect children from gender stereotypes as much as possible.  This means choosing media with the right gender messages, talking about gender, and providing plenty of gender-neutral toys (e.g., puzzles, model animals, blocks).  We need to stop emphasizing things like how pretty girls are and how emotionally removed boys are.  Even for cis-gender children, these expectations can be damaging.

If we stop swallowing gender stereotypes hook-line-and-sinker, transgenderism in children becomes less of an issue, because it would carry less baggage.  A kid could say something like: I like dinosaurs, ballet, and chocolate muffins; I have long hair, and I'm a boy.  Gah, that's starting to sound eerily like the I'm a Mormon campaign.

the lady doth protest too much: a response

My mom sent me a snippet of this article, which was quoted in the WSJ last week. She was all, "I don't agree, but I thought you might want to see this..."  Right she was...it got my blood boiling.

The “women in tech” experiment has been a disaster. [...] It all comes down to one, dirty little secret. Whisper it. The tech industry is not sexist.

Tech isn't sexist?  Most individuals I've met in tech aren't sexist, but some are, just like in any industry. It's harder to see when you're not the recipient of the bias, but it certainly exists.  Additionally, I have my own sexist moments, so how could others who have not thought as long and hard about women in tech not have sexists moments?

Okay, so assume tech doesn't have any more sexist individuals than any other industry.  There is still an huge issue that Yiannopoulos doesn't even consider: that the culture is sexist.

That's right.  A culture that encourages starting work at 10am, taking long lunch breaks, and playing pinball mid-day means that you basically spend all day at the office.  Why is that sexist?  Because there's pressure from (some of) the rest of society for women to have kids, clean house, and be home to make dinner.  I'm not saying women should feel pressure to do those things, and so our general society's culture can be fixed too.  But it should be a lot easier to change the beneficent tech industry to be more flexible rather than the other way around.

For each of the four industry jobs I've had, my daily start and end times have been earlier than the average employee.  I was usually one of the few who cooked their own dinner, let alone packed the occasional lunch.  The stereotypical mother and wife norms clash with the norms of tech employees.  A lot of women want jobs where they can do homework with their kids, go out to a bar to meet someone after work, or hang out with friends not related to work.

So when our Mr. Yiannopoulos might actually be right when he says things like the following.

Of course, the number of women in tech will never be the same as the number of men, because most women simply don’t want to do these sorts of jobs.

He might be right not because women aren't good at tech, but because the culture is insular and demanding, and many women (via nurture or nature) want to do stuff outside of work.  But, even if he is right, I want him to prove it, because it's ludicrous for anyone to pull a statement like that out of nowhere.  I'm doing my best not to degrade into a fit of profanity.

There are a lot of reasons for fewer women in tech, and the answer to many of them is to break the stereotypes that perpetuate the issues, which isn't just about fixing the numbers in schools and watching it propagate, as Yiannopoulos naïvely suggests. Women need role models and other women at the top to both show that it can be done and to help make the policies so that it can be done with greater ease.

The article isn't all bad; in fact the most interesting point is that underrepresented racial minorities and socio-economic groups deserve more air time, which is very true.  That doesn't mean that women deserve less, though.  If anything, women are even more underrepresented in those groups.  By evening out the playing field for all women, it also helps other minority groups, not to mention roughly half of the population.

In addition, the minorities that are most underrepresented, in my opinion, share many stereotypes in common with those for women: being family-focused is an easy example. By making the tech industry more appealing for one category of minority, we're widening the door for everyone.

white male boards and white male commenters

Just read this article on the breakdown of the boards of directors in tech. The article is great, but some of the comments are really distressing.

Not having women on the board is an issue of innovation? Since when did women innovate? People need to get used to hearing non-PC but completely accurate assessments. Companies don't perform based on 'wishful thinking'.

Wow.  Since when do women innovate?  Uh...since men started innovating?  Perhaps they don't have as long of a history in industry, but that doesn't mean they don't innovate.  The problems are that 1) far fewer women have the training necessary and 2) being on a board requires being pushy enough to move up the chain, which most women aren't comfortable doing, either because it's not culturally acceptable or because they care more about their personal lives.  And we shouldn't get used to non-PC statements of this variety because these are all cultural issues that have solutions. Addressing them starts with identifying a problem. Well, problem identified.  (Hint: part of it's you, bucko.)

Another doozy:

Let's hire based on race and gender instead of qualifications because people who can't get hired on qualification are moaning! Great idea for those who are moaning but horrible idea for people actually running the business.

Nobody said we should hire more women that aren't qualified.  Nor are we saying the the problem needs to be fixed RIGHT NOW.  It's a matter of understanding the causes and then addressing the cultural factors that impact this imbalance.  Until we do address the underlying issue, it's important to take just a little time to consider candidates outside the usual mold, but still qualified.  They exist, but it's harder to find them, so it takes effort.

The reason why this is important?  Because you care about equal opportunity, not for those that are qualified, but for future generations.  People need role models, and if there are no women on your board, what does that say to your female employees?  What does that say about your company to women students?  It says: don't bother trying to climb the ranks because you won't get there.  We need to say please try, so that we have a better candidate pool.

We have the opportunity to craft our society for the future.  We can either say: well, that's the way its; suck it up.  Or we can say: that's not the way I'd like it to be; here's how we can change it.  Saying that this is just the way to world works is equivalent to stating that women and other minorities deserve these inequalities, not for cultural reasons, but because of their inherent lack of ability.  Or that you're okay with the inequalities (often because they benefit you).

Next steps to fix these issues: trying a little harder to find qualified minority higher-ups, creating or improving family friendly initiatives for both genders, and developing mentorship programs for students and lower ranked employees to increase retention.  We know these things already, it's just about taking the time to help them play out in order to reap the rewards.

P.S. I like white male people!  My husband is and most of my wonderful mentors are/have been white males. You are instrumental in making these changes happen, so thank you!  ♥

seeking Mormon women in Computer Science

There was a lunch presentation at work recently by Mary Fernandez, CEO of MentorNet. She talked about connecting students with mentors in STEM fields, focusing on women and ethnic minority groups, who have fewer role models. This got me thinking (again) about Mormon women in STEM fields, specifically computer science.

I ran some really rough numbers based on the number of PhDs in computer science in the United States and the number of Mormons. Uniformly sampled, there should be a non-trivial number of Mormon women with PhDs in computer science--on the order of tens to low hundreds. But have I met a single one? No. Have I heard of a single one? No. Does BYU's faculty have any?  No. On the U of U's CS faculty listing, three out of 67, or 4.5% of the faculty are female.  But even still, one does not simply email women faculty at Utah-based schools and ask them if A) they are Mormon or B) they'd like to give me life advice.  I have some social skills.

I've known plenty of Mormon women who have gotten a Bachelors or Masters in STEM fields, or PhDs in Social Sciences or Humanities. I appreciate the camaraderie of both of those genres of similarity, but it'd also be really nice to have someone who I could talk to about the particular situation of being a Mormon woman in a STEM PhD.

But why is the particular combination of Mormon and STEM PhD important?  These two cultures are the strongest external pressures on my big life decisions, and have largely conflicting objectives. 

Mormon culture says I should be having my second child by now (let alone a first), that my husband's career should be getting priority, and if I do pursue higher education or have a job, I should only do around my children's schedule--once my children are in school is ideal.  I want to talk about how when I meet other Mormons, male or female, they usually ask me about what I do only after they have asked me about what my husband does, if at all.  And they pretty much never ask my husband about what I do.

On the flip side, I want to talk about the pressures of academia, and not in an abstract sense.  I want to talk about the technical details about what I'm doing and have them understand.  I want to talk about what I should do after my PhD program beyond the general categories of industry and academia--I want advice on particular institutions and people.  I want to talk about being female in a male-dominated field and how that impacts the way I perceive things and the way people perceive me.

Putting it all together, I want to talk about how I feel when my male academic colleagues and female Mormon colleagues are having kids.  I want to have kids, but I feel that I can't right now, or I'll risk falling behind.  There needs to be substantial planning for it to work, which doesn't feel fair.  I want to talk about no matter how strong my ego is, sometimes I think that I'm just not smart enough, but don't want to admit it because I need to be an example to other women, both at church and in CS.

It's actually not that important for me to have a female Mormon CS or even STEM mentor, since I have all sorts of wonderful support: my husband, my parents, my advisor, my mentor at work, my colleagues at school and work, and select friends from church.  Perhaps I've just been adding modifiers until I get such a tiny subset of people that I can complain that I haven't run into any.  That said, it never feels bad to know that you're not alone.

Regardless, if you are or know of other LDS women in CS or STEM fields that are looking to connect with similar folks, please let me know!  That is, unless they kvetch as much as I do.

morality in a governed society, emotional premises, and same-sex marriage

Government inherently imposes morality on its society.  Laws define what is morally acceptable and unacceptable, and the enforcement of those laws in turn constrains society to the particular aspects of morality manifest in said laws.

A democratic society should theoretically have laws that represent the morality of its population.  Things get a little trickier with representative democracies like the United States.  While the United States has a complicated and nuanced system of government, I think we all agree that its laws should be supported by a large portion, if not the majority of its population.

So, for the sake of simplicity, let's presume that this idea (that a democratic society should have laws that represent the morality of its population) holds for all democracies, direct or representative.  The people vote for laws and policies, or elect individuals to govern, such that the resulting government matches their own values as closely as possible.

To recap: anything relating to the governance of a society is a moral issue.  This includes the definition of rights.  The problem with moral issues is there is no right answer, except through consensus--that's just the way we work.  A philosophy is only as good as its strength in obtaining adherents.

You see, moral issues, while the can be argued logically, are predicated on some premises, which, when you get to the core of things, have an emotional basis.   A good debater can construct an argument to prove anything given the right set of premises.  That same debater can also dismantle any argument if allowed to disregard or redefine the premises.

So what does this all mean?  Let's consider an example: the laws and rights pertaining to marriage, which seems to be such a popular topic these days.  Some people have the emotional premise that marriage should only exists between and man and a woman.  Other people have different emotional premises that lead to the conclusions that marriage should be able to occur between any two willing adults.  There are also folks who think marriage shouldn't exist as a government construct, based on the premise that government should be minimal.  There are many more variations in opinion and other complicated aspects like rights outside of marriage, but I'll leave itemizing all the permutations and complexities to you.

How do we decide what to do as a society in the US? We vote, courts make decisions, laws are passed.  In the case of courts, judges have a set of legal premises in addition to their own options. Again, it's a complicated system, and in the case of same-sex marriage, there are strong opinions in either side.

I believe that same-sex marriage will be legalized eventually, since the primary purpose of modern marriage is individual fulfillment.  (There are more personal premises and opinions related to whether or not that should be the case.) The question is whether it will happen at the state level or the federal level.  In general, I'm more in favor of state level laws, but there are tricky questions regarding recognizing marriage from other states.

What I really wanted to drive home is that when people make arguments that seem totally illogical to you, it's probably because they have a different set of emotional premises.  (Though it's entirely possible that they have faulty logic.)  I've read many articles about how there are no good arguments against gay marriage.  Of course there aren't if you don't share your opponents' premises!  Opposing same-sex marriage is hard in particular because there is no argument: the opinion is the premise.  Proponents, on the other hand, can dig for deeper premises relating to equality, and thus make more compelling arguments.

harnessing the power of educated stay-at-home moms

A few weeks ago, I was having a discussion with a colleague whose wife is extremely well-educated but stays at home with their two kids.  This is a quite common story, with many stay-at-home moms having bachelors from prestigious colleges all the way to moms with PhDs.  I'm sure it happens with blokes too, but it is much more common route for women.

We then talked about how hard it is to find part-time work.  In 2010, I was pre-grad school doing research part time (so my schedule was super flexible), and I couldn't find a second part-time gig that worked and was worth it.  It's just hard.

So we came up with a startup idea: basically a high-end Amazon Mechanical Turk for connecting people with part-time work.  It would have to be less sketchy than craigslist jobs, and on a per-task basis.  The idea is that employers could break tasks down into small chunks--1 hour, 15 minutes, etc., have a deadline, and a minimum skill level in certain areas.  Individuals could accomplish tasks, "level up," and make money.  In addition to skills, you could have an optional review process to accept a task or request a redo/edits before payment.  There could bonuses for doing N tasks for a company, or doing a certain number of variations on the same task, accomplishing a task early, or for doing an excellent job.

This would require re-imaging how tasks are assigned and reviewed in the work environment, but I'd like to hope that it wouldn't be too hard.  What would be good candidates for this?  There'd be many boring tasks, certainly.  Data entry, ugh.  But writing summaries could be fun, as could be tagging photos and participating in user studies. If I were a user of this system, I could write web-scraping scripts for folks, do web development, or accomplish other small programming tasks.

There could be a competition component for some things, like the various logo/website design sites out there.  For example, a company could judge from the first three submissions and accept one or none.

Regardless of the details, there should be a web service like this, that pays more and has harder, more skilled-based tasks than AMT.  This wouldn't help just SAHMs, but it would be good for the unemployed or partially-employed, in general.  As for the companies?  I don't think they'd mind getting more work done.

the things I didn't write about

It's been a while since I posed anything.  I got stuck on my diatribe about digital barbarism, and then a bunch of stuff happened, personal and otherwise.

In the personal arena, I attended NIPS, drowned in coursework, and was elected garden coordinator for our apartment community.

Then there was the hullabaloo about Mormon women wearing pants.  I participated in a cowardly manner by wearing my baggy skirt-like harem/jeanie/Aladdin pants.

Locally, Sandy has still displaced way too many people, and we're still working on gutting homes so mold can be prevented before they start to rebuild.

And then Newton.  I cried several days in a row.  I know that there are worse things abroad and to some degree it's selfish to focus on how terrible it was when other equally bad things get very little attention.  But it felt more personal; it's a two-and-a-half hour drive from where I live and the states are all so close culturally, it felt like it could have been my own town.  An emotional reaction, rather than a logical one, I know, but I'm not a robot.  A lot of people are suffering, in Newtown and elsewhere, and they have my prayers.

Middlesex

I just finished reading Middlesex, which a very sweet friend of mine thought was about Middlesex the county next to ours.  It is most certainly not.

It was a great read, and I plowed through the end, but I can't put my finger on what held it back from being excellent.  Perhaps it was all of the explicit talk about sexuality.  I can be prudish at times, but that's not what it was.  I think it was that the narrator just talked about it too much, and like any topic that's overdone, it gets old.

I wanted less talk of sex and more talk of gender.  Why did the narrator make the choice she/he did?  I wanted more on what mannerisms were hard and easy in the transition.  What were the harder and easier parts of playing each gender?  I wanted to know more about the struggle of familial acceptance. In the end, I felt like I only knew 3/4 of the narrator. Some intrigue is good, of course, but I was left too hungry.

the pace of change

For those of you who aren't LDS or otherwise haven't heard, this Saturday the church president a policy change: men can now serve missions starting at age 18 (used to be 19), and women can now serve missions starting at 19 (used to be 21).

Everyone's buzzing about it.  Young women are super stoked about the possibilities, some older women are excited but a little bitter that the change was only made recently.  I'm personally excited to see the next generations of girls, possibly even my own daughters, grow up thinking that a mission is a serious possibility, not just something to be done if you don't get married in college and don't know what to do with your life.  (I'm not saying that was the actual reason for most women missionaries, but it was a common perception.)

I think this is a great step toward equalizing men and women in the church.  While it isn't perfect equal (women can still only serve 18 months as opposed to men's 24, and there's still the 18/19 discrepancy), it's a much, much better policy.

It's got me think about the pace of change, though.  At the press conference after the announcement, when asked why weren't the ages set to be equal for men and women, Elder Holland responded "one miracle at a time." N pointed out the quote from Winterbuzz on FMH, that sums up the skeptical view pretty well (which I share):

While I am happy that this change makes so many people happy, I can’t help but wonder that if this is the most we can expect from modern day prophets in the way of revelation, that’s sort of depressing, isn’t it? We must be so spiritually hungry that even the smallest shift in policy seems heaven sent.

Each generation experiences the church's policies and politics differently.  My parents experienced the policy change that African descendants could receive the priesthood, but also the anti-ERA push.  The next generation, like Joanna Brooks, experienced the September Six in the heat of their coming into real adulthood.  My generation experienced Prop 8 in that same heat, and now we have this policy change to add to the list of experiences.

Just looking at the list, it seems like we're focusing on smaller and smaller changes or policies.  This makes sense, because--never mind, I'm not going to go into detail on the parallels between policy changes and simulated annealing.  You can make them yourself, if you care enough.

Anyway, I hope to see more equalizing progress.  That's all.

LOTR lego

I just saw an ad for the new LOTR lego sets (warning, there's sound), and I'm furious. Well, as furious as I can be about Legos. Lego bends over backwards to say it wants to attract more girls, and the result is the grossly overfeminine Friends sets. But now, when they have a easy way to create something that everyone would love, they totally miss it.

How? No Galadriel. No Arwen. No Rivendell. No Lothorian. No Shire. No Grey Havens. Nothing remotely green. Instead of bringing in beautiful architecture and lush settings, they opt to focus on the war bits. Remind me, why is middle earth worth saving? Oh right. Because it's beautiful.

Recall Sam's quotes in the ROTK movie: Do you remember the Shire, Mr. Frodo? It'll be spring soon. And the orchards will be in blossom. And the birds will be nesting in the hazel thicket. And they'll be sowing the summer barley in the lower fields... and eating the first of the strawberries with cream. Do you remember the taste of strawberries?

And TTT:
Frodo: What are we holding onto, Sam?

Sam: That there's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo... and it's worth fighting for.

So why don't they reflect that in their sets? Is it because it's hard?  C'mon Lego.  Give us a huge Lothlorian with buildings in trees and fountains.  You could make a whole series out of that alone.

transgenderism

As a preface, I respect transgender and transexual folks.  It's a rough world, and it takes guts to redefine yourself like that.

But I don't like the term "transgender."  Identifying as transgender means you are accepting gender roles.  Men are one way, and women are another.  It means that if you are one sex, you identify with the roles associated with the other.  The thing is, I don't believe people should feel like something is wrong because they don't associate with their accepted gender roles.  (By that logic, I would totally be bigender.)  Instead, I think that gender roles should be eliminated or adapted to be made more inclusive.  People shouldn't feel broken for being themselves.

Identifying as transexual, on the other hand, is more of a physical matter.  You feel like you're in the wrong body.  I can't speak to that, and this post isn't really covering it, though the two are obviously closely intertwined.

The reason I bring this up is this post on growing up transgender in the LDS church.  I identified with lots of the gender issues the author covered.  Gender roles are huge in the LDS church.  Women and men are separated by the clothes they wear, the domestic and familial roles they're supposed to perform, and their roles in ordinances and other community endeavors.  When you're eight, boys get a blue book and girls get a pink/brown book.  Then, as soon as you're twelve, you're expected to spend an hour (Sunday services) or more (weeknight activities) each week in classes specifically for your gender.  Boys get the priesthood and girls don't.  Missions, callings, Temple.  Gender, gender, gender.

As a kid, I came home upset or crying many-a-time because I was too boyish.  Mostly, I wanted to do well in school (especially math) and have a career eventually (heaven forbid).  But, I also wanted to climb trees and play with plastic dinosaurs.  I didn't want to have my eyebrows plucked by other teenagers, plan my wedding, or babysit.  The thought crossed my mind that I should have been a boy, but I pushed it aside.  I like who I am, I told myself, I'm not the one that needs to change.  They need to change their expectations.

Gender roles should not make people feel broken.  They should not make them feel sad or limited.  So before I propose a genderless society, why is gender useful?  Are there instances where gender roles improve people or societies?  If so, I want to know.

Dave-to-Girl ratio

I was reading about Etsy's latest grant for women, and stumbled on the term "Dave-to-Girl ratio."  It's an old joke, but I laughed, and then realized that the Dave-to-Girl ratio for my research group was 2:1 (I count either Dave or David).  For the faculty in my department? 1:2.  The ratio is much better for the department as a whole, though.  What's the Dave-to-Girl ratio where you work?

Oh, and I just heard two IT guys out in the hall...one says to the other, "What about this one, Dave?"

teaching young women

A bit ago, I was asked to help out with a YW class. I didn't end up doing it (out of town), but it got me looking at the teaching manual and I wanted to share some thoughts.

Looking through the list of lessons, the section on "Fulfilling Women’s Divine Roles" seems like it has the most questionable material, though it has a lot of good stuff too. The idea of having "divine potential" in a spiritual sense instead of a gender-roles-sense is great, but they can't help but sneak gender roles.  Also, requiring priesthood approval to have a guest teacher is silly:

"Invite an exemplary sister (preferably one who has married in the temple and has a family), who has been approved by priesthood advisers, to speak to the young women about the joy of being a woman."

"Finding Joy Now" is a wonderful lesson--life doesn't start at marriage or motherhood. The lesson entitled "Homemaking" seems an odd fit for this section, since I typically associate homemaking with housekeeping++. They've apparently co-opted the term "homemaking" and tried to put a spiritual spin on it:

Explain that homemaking involves a wide variety of activities, all of them important. Of great importance, of course, is keeping a house clean and taking care of the physical needs of the family members. However, there is another important side to homemaking, as Sister Belle S. Spafford, a former general president of the Relief Society, points out:

“Homemaking, as I view it, falls into two major divisions: homemaking and housekeeping. Homemaking takes into account the spiritual values: love, peace, tranquility, harmony among family members, security. It makes of a place of residence a spot to which family members can retire from a confused and troubled world and find understanding and rejuvenation. Its character is quietness; it evidences good taste, culture, and refinement. Men, women, and children alike have their individual contributions to make to good home and family life, and each shares in its benefits.

“Housekeeping involves the work of keeping a house clean, orderly, and well managed. This includes financial management, failure in which often becomes a source of family friction.”

I won't go into how silly it is to divide something into two things: itself and something else.  I also think that putting this in the series "Fulfilling Women’s Divine Roles" just begs a few questions: Do men have no divine responsibility to keep their house clean?  How about to bring spiritual values into the home?  Why do we keep bringing gender into these things?

Lesson 8, "Attitudes about Our Divine Roles" is interesting.  The objective is that "Each young woman will develop a positive attitude about her divine roles of wife and mother."  After all that beating around the bush, they finally let the cat out of the bag: wife and mother are the divine roles, the potential we want them to reach.   For starters, I think have issue with the idea of having a spiritual role defined by my gender, no matter what it is.  I think being married is a blast, and I look forward to being a mother, and I think that it's good for teenagers to seriously consider these possibilities.  But.

But three things: 1) emphasizing marriage and children too much in a culture can lead to social and emotional hardship when folks don't "fulfill their potential," 2) the way marriage/mothering is taught tends to be to the exclusion of other wonderful things for women (I'm not saying that that's how the manual is written, but often times that's the lesson the girls end up learning), and 3) there is not nearly as much analogous discussion of marriage and fathering for boys.  As an example of numero dos:

Point out that the worldly view of women’s roles is false partly because it is selfcentered. It focuses so much on a woman’s rights to receive that it almost ignores her opportunities to give.

I agree that it's good not to be self-centered and that it's better to focus on giving, but just to clarify, what are the worldly views of women's roles?  Last I check, most of the world agreed with the idea that women should be primarily wives and mothers.  An increasingly large portion is equalist, saying that men and women should have just as much opportunity to work, stay at home, become educated, and have families.  (Yay!)  And a very, very small sliver is women's-rights-greedy to the degradation of men.  Tossing out this last category, how is the "worldly view" bad?  Because more people are starting to think that there aren't women's roles?  That it emphasizes that women are people?  (Also wik: stop with the true/false binary.)

I can also pick apart the lesson on the value of education:

“There are impelling reasons for our sisters to plan toward employment. … We want them to obtain all the education and vocational training possible before marriage. If they become widowed or divorced and need to work, we want them to have dignified and rewarding employment. If a sister does not marry, she has every right to engage in a profession that allows her to magnify her talents and gifts.”

Three things: 1) not so much with education and training after marriage?  2) Why is education either a contingency plan or a boon in teaching your own kids?  3) I don't have the right to engage in a profession if I marry?  Or do I just have to pick one that doesn't magnify my gifts and talents?

But.  But.  But.  There are lots of great things in many of these lessons.  I've just highlighted a few of the increasingly infrequent things that rub me the wrong way.  And they aren't less frequent because I'm getting softer.  I think there's been huge progress for women, both globally and within the Mormon context.  I think it's important to make note of the things that still need to be fixed, but it's equally import to acknowledge the great things about where we are now.  I didn't do the latter in this post because it's both easier and more interesting to discuss areas that require improvement.