I Like Pink. I Like Princesses. I'm an Astrophysicist.

Deal with it.

This video has been getting lots of shares around Facebook, which is not surprising, given that I know a lot of ladies in science:

While I don't have problems with the product, I've been getting more and more prickly about the presentation. See, every time people try to talk up how awesome science is, they have a tendency to put down things like "pink" and "princesses." It makes things that are traditionally "feminine" into something that's bad, like there's something wrong with it. That the ideal state is "masculine." And that's pretty bad, too. And as someone who likes those things, it makes me feel like I'm not a "real" scientist.

I've always been traditionally "girly" and "prissy." As a baby, my mom would try to get me to play in the dirt. I didn't want to get dirty. When I had the ability to pick out my own clothing, it was strictly pink and skirts and dresses until 2nd grade, when I occasionally started to wear stirrup pants and bike shorts under giant, baggy t-shirts(it was the early 1990s; please don't mock my sartorial choices). I refused to wear jeans until I was 12 or 13. When people asked me my favorite color, I would say "Pink, blue is for boys." (I eventually grew out of that, and I wasn't getting that attitude at home, so clearly, there was some socialization going on.)

When it came to toys, maybe choices were less gendered than they are now, but when I was very young (pre-school age) all of the toys my parents had for me were gender-neutral. Legos, train sets, giant colored blocks, this set that you made towers with and then dropped marbles down the track (my mom LOOOOVED the noise that made!). I concede that it is entirely possible that my parents actively avoided the gendered toys, but I have to believe these items still exist for children. There were also toys like Lincoln logs and tesselation blocks, which I wanted so badly but never got. I really liked these toys, but I also really liked playing dress-up in my sparkliest, most princess-y outfits. My mom wouldn't buy me Barbie dolls, although family members did, so they weren't verboten. As I got older, I tended towards these more feminine toys. I had a lot of barbies and barbie accessories (including Disney princesses!), American Girl dolls, and one of my favorite games was Pretty Pretty Princesess.

Despite all these gendered toys that I preferred as I got older, I still managed to do science. We had elementary school science fairs, and my projects in 5th and 6th grade were pretty kick-ass. Ask me about my 6th grade project on the fat content in ice cream. I was doing extremely sophisticated sampling for a 6th grader. Even though I didn't play with "science" toys, my parents still encouraged me to keep up my interest in the subject, while simultaneously not keeping me from the more "girly" things that I enjoyed. I think that's what's missing from the discussion. Rather than discouraging girls from liking pink and princesses, we should let them know that it's ok to simultaneously like math and science. This requires parental guidance, but I'm guessing that the people who are buying their kids educational toys and who are interested in these issues are able to put that kind of effort in their parenting. There's really no need to put one thing down to build something else up. Just keep an open conversation with your kids about these issues, and they'll turn out fine. And if it turns out they like princesses AND science (or even just princesses), they'll know that there's nothing to be ashamed of.

Fuck Everything

Fuck Republicans. Fuck the Tea Party. Fuck rape culture. Fuck victim blaming. Fuck the patriarchy. Fuck misogyny. Fuck classism. Fuck racism. Fuck sexism. Fuck all of the other "isms." Fuck the little asshole football players in Steubenville and Maryville who get away with rape because they're local Gods. Fuck not taking "no" for an answer. Fuck the fact that the government shutdown is costing the people I care about their livelihood. And it's costing me mine.

I Don't Care About Your Food "Sensitivities"

Note: If you have food allergies that can cause death, this does not apply to you. This does not apply to you if you've gone to the doctor and had allergy tests and you have a real food allergy. I understand that those are nothing to fuck around with. This is for the morons that claim they have some sort of "sensitivity" that has no basis in reality.

Here's the thing--your food issues are just not that interesting to me, so stop posting about them on Facebook (and yes, I could just filter things, but this is my blog and I'll rant if I want to). I find that people with genuine allergies don't spend all that much time telling people about them. If it's germane, they'll bring it up, but they don't spend all their time on Facebook detailing the effects of their "sensitivities" on their bodies. If you're doing it at home, it's just as likely that the placebo effect is taking place. You think you'll feel better if you cut out gluten, and then lo and behold, you do! You must be allergic to gluten! And now you're going to tell EVERYONE about how gluten is the devil and if only they'd stop eating it they'd feel SOOOOOOO much better. Yeah...I think you're full of shit.

It's also insufferably boring. Like, don't you have ANYTHING else to talk about? Weather? Politics? No, we can only discuss you're crippling wheat allergy that gives you vague symptoms. You feel "fatigued." I'm so sure that's the gluten. Try getting more sleep and then get back to me. It causes "inflammation." What the fuck does that mean? No seriously, how can you tell if you're "inflammed?"

In conclusion, I don't give a fuck about your food issues. If you've cooked something interesting, by all means let Facebook know. I love cooking! I'd love to see what you made! But I don't care about how it affects your bowels, your knees, or your overall health. You're probably just making that up.

Proposition 37

As a scientist and a foodie, I am happy Proposition 37 failed. While I understand that the campaign against it was funded by Monsanto (a company with policies I would consider questionable, at best), it was not a good proposition. The argument for it was funded by an anti-vaccine nut, and the parallels are obvious. Study after study has shown that GMO foods are no different than "regular" food (and I put regular in quotes for a reason), however the argument says that just because we say something's safe now doesn't mean it's actually safe. Scientists don't speak in absolutes, which is frustrating to the public and leaves room for them to grab on and present a counterargument.

Now, what exactly is the difference between GMO food and what we consider "regular" food? a few dozen years. Much of the food we eat has been genetically modified in some way or another--that's what cross-breeding is. Why is your tomato uniformly red, rather than tasty? They were bred that way. Tomato breeders found that certain tomatoes turned red more uniformly, and genetically selected those. Those tomatoes have a genetic mutation that we've selected for. We also do the same thing with pest-resitant crops. In the early days of agriculture, our ancestors would notice that some crops just weren't tasty to bugs, and select for those. How is that different than finding a gene that makes our plants taste icky to bugs and inserting it straight in the DNA? It's the same process, just quicker. I'd rather that than ingest questionable amounts of chemical pesticides.

That's my scientific reasoning, but I'm also interested in food and the quality of my food, so I do understand why people are against Monsanto. Monoculture is highly damaging to the environment, and the way our food is treated is terrible. Unfortunately, there are too many people on this planet for everyone to eat organically and locally. And while you can argue about overpopulation and how the best way to handle it is, the reality is that right now we have 7 billion people to feed.

Mark Bittman and Michael Pollan argue that if only people knew what they eating and how bad it was for them they would shop solely at the farmer's market, eat only locally sourced, organic food, and spend time crafting home-cooked meals for the whole family to eat together. This is just not realistic for many people. It's hard for me, and I have the luxury of money and time. My farmer's market is on Thursday afternoon until sundown, and only runs from June until October. I have to plan ahead and leave work earlier than usual. In the summer, that's fine, since the sun sets late here in Boston. Come October, it's a no-go. For a person with a desk job, that might not work. And then there are the food deserts. Some people don't even have a reasonable grocery store, much less a farmer's market. Some people work two jobs and don't have time to cook. Yes, it might be cheaper in the long run to make home-cooked meals, but you don't account for the time it takes. That's time someone could be getting paid.

We need to seriously think about how we use our resources in the United States. If you really want to fight Monsanto, we need to entirely overhaul agribusiness. If we stop subsidizing corn and soy, food prices across the board will go up. The price of food in other countries is significantly higher in other countries than it is in the US, which I think many people here are unwilling to pay. Yes, let's educate people about food, but let's also make it easier for people to make good choices. Let's address the growing inequality between the rich and the poor so that everyone has the opportunity to eat in a sustainable manner. Let's all eat more vegetables and less meat to reduce the amount of greenhouse gasses produced. We need to change the way we think about how wasteful we are as a country, not just when it comes to food but in regards to everything. Do you need a new car every year? A new iPad? New clothes that you're going to toss after three months because they're no longer "in style"? Addressing these questions is hard, and won't be fixed by slapping a vague label on a can of spaghetti-o's.

Here are a couple of articles on the subject, if you're interested:
GMOs are OK
Why Activists Need to Stop Stoking Scientifically Baseless Fears About GMOs for Political Purposes

So, I fell off the wagon a bit, but I'm back. This week I plan to eat vegetarian all week, except for the remaining pizza that I made yesterday. I thought I was going to make it Wednesday or Thursday, but somehow didn't get around to it until Saturday, so I have two days worth left. It's got one chicken sausage on the whole thing, so I guess half a chicken sausage during the week is better than eating meat every day.

Also, this whole being an adult thing sort of sucks, but that's a post for another day.

Vaccines

I wrote this for facebook, but I thought I'd put it here, too.
I have three main issues with the vaccine "debate."
1. It compromises herd immunity, both delaying vaccines and outright refusing them. As Brokk said above, delaying vaccines leaves children vulnerable for a longer period of time. Some parents don't finish the scheduled course, leaving children open to contracting these diseases, as well as passing them along to others who can't be vaccinated for various health reasons.

2. It's based on faulty science. This is why I don't think it's unfair to lump delayed vaccine and anti-vaccine people into the same category. Additionally, delayed vaccination is a way for anti-vaccine people to move the goal posts. Jenny McCarthy originally started with the vaccine/autism link. When that was disproved, she went to delayed vaccination. The idea that babies' immune systems are overloaded with antigens is false. From the CDC: "From the time they are born, babies are exposed to thousands of germs and other antigens in the environment and their immune systems are readily able to respond to these large numbers of antigenic stimuli.  An infant’s immune system is more than ready to respond to the very small number of antigens in vaccines."
Many people don't want to vaccinate because of a gut feeling, or Andrew Wakefield's report on the connection between autism and vaccines (which he completely falsified), or they don't want to see their special snowflake child suffer from the pain of a shot the kid won't even remember, or vaccines aren't natural and being exposed to the actual disease provides better immunity. That would be like someone coming up to me and saying, "I know evidence falls pretty squarely in line with the big bang theory, but I don't believe it." Note this is not the same as going to the doctor and saying, I have these symptoms, I think they might be associated with xyz. I have not had issues with poor medical care and misdiagnosis, so it's hard for me to speak to that, but it's not the same thing. Discussion is fine, blatant disregard for science is where I draw the line.

3. There is an incredible amount of privilege inherent in even having a discussion about whether or not to vaccinate. The reason that we don't have diseases like polio in the US is because of concerted vaccination efforts. To not vaccinate (or delay vaccination) because everyone else is vaccinated is selfish and eventually destroys herd immunity. Diseases like whooping cough are on the rise because of this, and the people that get sick and die are not just those who chose not to get vaccinated. The elderly, babies, and individuals who CAN'T get vaccinated because their immune systems are compromised are also affected, and the ones more likely to die. In countries where vaccination isn't prevalent, these diseases still affect the general population, and these diseases are deadly.

I have had more vaccines than most people, since I have done a lot of international travel. I get a flu shot every year. For me, there is nothing to think about. When I take the T, I don't know if the baby next to me has been vaccinated. I don't know if the woman next to me is immunocompromised. Being vaccinated protects them. Being vaccinated protects my elderly grandparents. I hate getting shots. I refuse to get my blood drawn. But since vaccines aren't just for my health, I do it anyway.

Failure!

I utterly failed at reading the New Yorker. I read half a New Yorker, a bunch of trashy magazines, and I finished a book. So I did a lot of reading, but not that much of the New Yorker.

This week, I will eat healthy and exercise 20 min a day (at least). I will also try and get my apartment back on track, cleanliness wise. That's a lot to do.