Health Insurance. Again.

Reading this post at Her Every Cent Counts I find myself so glad I now have a new job and don't have to worry about my old crappy health insurance (very similar to her current situation):

Although a few weeks ago I had a very, very painful period and pre-period period, and felt little alien slugs were attacking my innerds, I opted to avoid spending $200 on another ultrasound that would likely end with the words "take tylenol." Instead, I figured it made sense to schedule my annual pap with the doc, and then to ask her what was wrong with me then, or at least inquire as to what could be wrong with me given my symptoms, and go from there.

Continue reading about other adventures in crappy health insurance coverage.

Choices (?)

Judith Warner also contemplates women's "choices":

Mothers, with their glorious array of post-feminist lifestyle options, have long been seen as something else. They’re individuals, making choices, responsible for the fallout of those choices even if, in point of fact, those choices were made for them by a weak economy, the unaffordability of child care or an inflexible workplace. They don’t need “government handouts” like quality child care, flextime, sick days, family leave and top-notch afterschool programs, because they’ve made their proud choices and, by golly (unless they’re whiners), they’re going to go it alone.

Books Critiquing America Series: Get to Work

Linda Hirshman: Get to Work…And Get a Life, Before its Too Late

Leaving all kindness aside, Hirshman tells women to get serious about work, and get serious about staying in the workplace, children and marriage be damned. She has rules, and a plan, and at only 100 pages, she is brief and to the point: mothers, get a life.

I have blogged before about the feminist movement giving women choices, but this book makes me doubt that women really have any choice at all. It seems that more educated women are deciding to leave the workplace and stay home with their kids, which sells themselves short and also deprives the public sphere of her talents, which are, increasingly, padded by Ivy League educations. Sure, mothers will argue, but we are doing the greatest job of all! Raising the future generation! To that Hirshman says, nope, you’re not, actually. You are benefiting the narrowest aspect of society: your own family. And you are showing them that womens work outside of the home isn’t valued as much as men’s work, which is why dad works, and mom stays home.

Hirshman discusses “choice feminism,” and how it’s not helping anyone. By claiming a choice, this keeps anyone from criticizing the woman’s decision to stay home, because it is her personal choice. But given the high taxes placed on a working woman’s salary, the high cost of child care, family-unfriendly work environments, and the general social “norm” that a woman is supposed to be at home taking care of her family, what choice does she have?

Hirshman doesn’t let you use any excuse. But childcare in this country is just so terrible, you may say (and you’re right), so unless it gets better you have to stay home. Hirshman argues that this is backwards, and in fact, women have to stay in the workplace in order to really get any change done. By opting out, they aren’t going to make anything change. By letting men continue to hold the highest ranks in corporations and government, childcare legislation won’t be changed, and neither will the high tax rate placed on married workingwomen as opposed to the one placed on single workingwomen.

Just as this book gets really depressing, Hirshman offers some rules for women to be taken seriously:
Rule #1: Don’t study art. A liberal education will sometimes lead to wandering, and never taking work seriously, which leads to Rule #2…
Take Work Seriously. When you take work seriously, they will take you seriously at work, which will lead to promotions and greater power not only in the workplace, but better purchasing power in the marketplace. This way, women can’t use the excuse of “but I don’t make enough money” for it to make sense that they stay home while their husbands work.
Rule #3: Don’t Draw the Short Straw at the Dining Room Table: “Women bid down in the workplace and then they wind up doing the housework.” Why are the women the first to offer to stay home?
Rule #4: Use Reproductive Blackmail: Just have one kid. After one, studies have shown that the pressure on families grows too strong, and studies have shown that’s the time when women will opt-out.

Although I think that Hirshman makes some good points, it just rang true that the women who criticize other women for staying home are usually women with high profile, satisfying jobs, like professional writers. She doesn’t give many practical options for the majority of working moms, and really goes after women who stay at home. I don’t know if Hirshman has any kids, but if she does, being able to do most of her work from home and being well off probably helps her more than it hurts her.

So, what about the rest of us? For those of us women that commute to work and enjoy their jobs, even if we aren’t saving lives, are there any practical options if we want to keep working? Most workplaces aren’t known for being family-friendly, so other options are day care or having a family member or nanny watch your children everyday. Or, according to Hirshman, women can stick it out in the work place and change all the policies that make us feel as though staying home is the only way to raise happy, healthy children. I don’t know about you, but that seems like a daunting task to me, and one that may take several generations to have any effect. Will it be worth it then?

It seems the easiest option would be to never get married or have children. Then, women won’t be taxed at a higher rate, won’t have to yell at their husbands for never cleaning up a damn thing, and won’t have to be criticized whether they stay home or keep working. But then, I suppose, nothing would ever change.

Read:
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Jilted Bride Sues

In Florida, a woman sued her ex-fiance for breaking their engagement. She won:

During the three-day trial, Shell testified that she quit a job paying $81,000 a year in Pensacola, Fla., to move back to Gainesville and be with Gibbs after he proposed in October 2006. In December he left a note in the couple’s bathroom expressing second thoughts about the marriage, and he broke off the engagement for good in March 2007. Shell, who now makes $31,000 a year working for North Georgia College & State University, sued the following June.

The jury figured out how much money she would have made if she had stayed at the higher paying job, then included benefits and a bonus to come up with the award amount.

I think this is pretty ridiculous, and the defense attorney has a point saying that this may lead the way for frivolous law suits. I'm confused as to how this is really a breach of contract. Sure, they agreed to marry, but things changed. Does this mean now ex-husbands and wives can be sued? What about if your high school boyfriend says he will love you forever, then breaks up with you?

I'm sure the woman in this case was upset and angry over the ended engagement, but making him pay because she left the higher paying job doesn't seem right to me. I'm sure he didn't propose with the intention of ending things in the future, so how come she gets all that money?

Ground Zero

I work in the World Financial Center. Those are the buildings surrounding the site where they are building the new World Trade Center, or what was previously referred to as Ground Zero. I walk around it every day. And every day, there are hundreds of tourists. They are impossible to miss, with their shorts, sneakers, and cameras around their necks. They have their family members stand in front of one of the ten foot high gates surrounding the construction zone, and snap photos. Everyone is smiling. I never can understand why these people are here now. It's not Ground Zero anymore, in fact, it's just one really huge, incredibly messy construction zone. It's filled with vans, ramps, dump trucks, yellow hard hats, orange vests, cement and dirt. Nothing there really resembles anything, not buildings in early stages, nor a scene where thousands of people died.

I don't know if these people come to New York just to see the construction, or if they were here already and decided to stop by. But the truth is, it doesn't resemble what it used to be at all. They wouldn't stop at any of the other hundreds of construction sites in New York, would they? Why this one, when there are no remnants of what happened, and when they obviously weren't even here when it did happen?

Some days I walk by and don't even take notice of the people flashing their cameras, and some days it bothers me all the way home. Would it really be much different if I were to travel to a foreign country and want to visit a site where something terrible once happened? Probably not. I might be just as intrigued. But there is something that feels very strange about people taking pictures there, especially now that it's just construction. None of the original buildings are left, no recovery operations are still underway. I guess it's hard for me to understand, but one thing I do know is that these people sure do get in my way when I'm trying to catch a train, and that's enough to get me pissed.

In Recent News

This past Friday, I very much enjoyed Judith Warner's column on how John McCain says he's all for women's rights, but he actually votes against the issues he says he's for:

McCain has opposed legislation aimed at helping women sue in cases of pay discrimination on the grounds that it could make businesses vulnerable to frivolous lawsuits. He criticized Barack Obama’s latest woman-friendly proposals — guaranteed sick days and more family leave — as “big-government” extravagances. He has voted to restrict women’s access not just to abortion but to birth control and affordable prenatal health care, and — though his own memory failed him in recalling this last week — he voted against legislation that would have required insurance companies to include contraceptives as part of their prescription drug coverage.

What excuse is there, in 2008, for a politician who pretends to be a great friend to women while continuing to block any possible legislative changes that might actually improve women’s lives?

In other news, children don't make people happier:

The most recent comprehensive study on the emotional state of those with kids shows us that the term "bundle of joy" may not be the most accurate way to describe our offspring. "Parents experience lower levels of emotional well-being, less frequent positive emotions and more frequent negative emotions than their childless peers," says Florida State University's Robin Simon, a sociology professor who's conducted several recent parenting studies, the most thorough of which came out in 2005 and looked at data gathered from 13,000 Americans by the National Survey of Families and Households. "In fact, no group of parents—married, single, step or even empty nest—reported significantly greater emotional well-being than people who never had children. It's such a counterintuitive finding because we have these cultural beliefs that children are the key to happiness and a healthy life, and they're not."

Shocking, considering the cultural pressures that imply that without children, people can't lead a completely fulfilling life. Another shocker is the cost of having a child: anywhere from $134,000 to $278,000 by the time they turn 17. That's not including college costs, which could add a significant amount. For one child. Quite a price tag.

"McContradiction"

The New Republic posted an article titled "McContradiction," about the impossibility and contradictions of many of McCain's proposals:

The candidate wants to stand for "leadership, courage, and choices." Yet he also want to be both a supply-sider and a deficit-hawk. He wants to transform our health care system and Social Security without adding any money to either and without anybody getting hurt. He wants to be a tightwad on spending who doesn't cut any spending anybody cares about. These are impossible policies to explain, because the policies themselves are impossible. No wonder he ends up talking out of both sides of his mouth.

Gas Prices

I am sick of hearing about gas prices. It's on the news everyday, even though it has really ceased to be news. Cable news networks have the national gas price average permanently plastered on the screen. USA Today lists it on the front page everyday. And it's always the same: it's high, and it's only going to get higher.

Maybe I'm not as distraught over high gas prices as most because I have a very fuel efficient car, and because I take the train to work. I only spend about $65 a month on gas. Regardless, $4 a gallon is not that high. For years we got away with cheap gas while other countries were paying much more by the liter. We took advantage of that, purchasing our SUVs, extending suburban sprawl and making our commutes longer, taking sporadic trips to the grocery store where we stocked up on food without even considering the prices. Remember those days? Well, think of them fondly because they are over.

So, what can be done? Gas is not expensive enough yet to make buying a hybrid economical (it will take a few years to the make up the cost, even with the best hybrids). So people are in somewhat of a limbo. I've read several stories of people starting to devote a part of their backyards to gardens, cutting down on their trips to the grocery store and consumption of food flown thousands of miles. But these stories are few and far between. It will take a bona fide revolution to get us off our oil addiction. It won't be until people cannot afford to turn on their cars that communities will be make closer together, with stores, libraries and schools all within walking distance. It will take a few million people eating off their land to make a big enough dent in our gas consumption. It will take very large scale measure, which we were are nowhere near accomplishing.

So for now, we'll just have to deal with it. We may have to make some serious sacrifices to afford our gas bill, but honestly, we had it coming.

Will Smith Just May Be The Coolest Man In America

I mean, seriously.

Today's News

Hey, you know how most people think that men don't have a "biological clock" while women start to fret in their late twenties that their ovaries are becoming useless? Well, turns out that men do have somewhat of a biological clock:

In a study of over 12,000 couples, French researchers found that "the chance of a successful pregnancy falls when the man is aged over 35" and is "significantly lower if he is over 40." A recent L.A. Times story also notes, "At least 20% of infertility cases are due solely to male factors such as low sperm count, and in 40% to 50% of cases, male factors contribute."

In other completely unrelated news, I have noticed lately that some gas stations charge more when you use a credit card. My only thoughts on this topic were that they were just trying to screw you as much as they possibly can, but USA Today reports that recently, gas stations now have to pay more in processing fees whenever a customer uses a credit card:

As gas prices have jumped, station owners' profit margins have shrunk because they now must pay higher fees to credit card companies to process payments. Those fees are so high, says the National Association of Convenience Stores, that they've slashed already slim profit margins and made it hard for stations to make money on gas sales.

I guess we're all just trying to get by.

The Evolution of Sarcasm

Can sarcasm be an evolutionary survival skill? Maybe or maybe not, but this picture sure is hilarious:

It's also easy to imagine how sarcasm might be selected over time as evolutionarily crucial. Imagine two ancient humans running across the savannah with a hungry lion in pursuit. One guy says to the other, "Are we having fun yet?" and the other just looks blank and stops to figure out what in the world his pal meant by that remark. End of friendship, end of one guy's contribution to the future of the human gene pool.

Thanks to Ms.Informed for bringing this to my attention.

Choose Your Choice

There is an article in this month's Atlantic that tackles the Mommy Wars. For those not familiar, the mommy wars compose of two sides: stay at home mothers and working mothers. Those who choose to Opt In vs Opt Out (the link I just provided, by the way, goes to Lisa Belkin's article on the opt out revolution, which, even though it was written in 2003, is still causing arguments among the sides of the mommy wars). Blogging Mommies vs Wall Street Journal readers. The wars have raged on, with blame being thrown in every direction: feminism, capitalism, media, government, Republicans and Democrats have all gotten their share of the heat from either side. personally, I am surprised that such a huge deal is made about whether moms work or not. I always find myself surprised when I come across yet another book telling women to stay at home or work, and the social/moral/economical/psychological implications of each choice.

However, as surprised as I might be upon coming across this literature, I always read it. Every article. I've jotted down the books to read later, and have analyzed each article. Why? Because as a 20 something working woman and someone who plans to have a family eventually, I wonder how moms make the choices they do, and I guess I should prepare myself for the looks I'll get from women no matter which choice I choose. The latest in this genre is Sandra Tsing Loh's "I Choose My Choice!" (taken from Charlotte in SATC when she tries to defend her choice to stay home during her first marriage). A main point made in the article is that the women who think that all women should work generally have sociallly relevant, satisfying jobs where they can make their own hours or have flexible schedules. Mainly, writers, journalists, pundits, bloggers, and professors:

Many of them can set their own hours, choose their own workspace, get paid for thinking about issues that interest them, and, as a bonus, get to feel, by virtue of their career, important in the world. The professor admits that his own job in “university teaching is by and large divorced from the normal discipline of everyday life in the marketplace. It bears only the faintest resemblance to most work in the real world.” In other words, for the “occupational elite” (as Gilbert calls this group), unlike for most people, going to work is not a drag.

As for the rest of the working female population that work 9-5 in a cubicle with bad lighting and a long commute, studies have found that they prefer to spend time with their children rather than clients, coworkers and bosses. Well, duh.

Employed women expressed a higher degree of enjoyment for shopping, preparing food, taking care of their children, and doing housework than for working at their jobs—an activity that was ranked at the next-to-lowest level of enjoyment, just above commuting to work.

Loh points out the economical standpoint at well:

However, while the economy benefits, for working-class families with young children, so much of a second income is eaten up by child care and taxes and other costs related to holding down a job that, after purchasing the microwave...and the de rigueur DVD player, the second wage earner might as well have stayed at home. Gilbert concludes, then, that financial need is not the force behind women’s shift in the past 50 years from work in the home to work in the market­place; rather, it is the desires of those who have made out like bandits in this new order, the tiny minority (3.5 percent in 2003) of women who earn $75,000 or more. Members of this occupational elite have created a host of cultural norms by which their far less privileged sisters—who, again, make up the vast majority of working women—feel they must abide. For Hirsh­man’s doctors, lawyers, judges, and professors, work has been terrific, so it’s no wonder they’ve advocated social change, imposing on society between the 1960s and the mid-1990s “new expectations about modern life, self-fulfillment, and the joys of work outside the home.”

So we can now add rich women to that list of people who pressure all other women to work rather than stay home.

As I've stated before, I believe one of the greatest achievements of feminism was that it gave women choices when it comes to this topic. Why are either stay at home mothers or working mothers attacked for their choice by other women? Can't either choice be regarded for what it is: a personal choice, rather than examined and disseminated by both genders, political parties, but most of all, other women? Why can't we realized how great it is that women (not all, as some need to work) can choose their choice? Shouldn't we support each other rather than blame each other? Ah, but that's a topic for a different post entirely.