When life goes U-shaped
By Kate Lunau - Monday, October 11, 2010 - 0 Comments
Around the world, happiness dips in mid-life. But how Canadian boomers experience it may be very different.
Daniel Rousselot/Corbis
Everybody knows the stereotype: a person hits age 40 and trades in the minivan for a red convertible. Maybe they quit a high-paying job, leave a long-term spouse for a younger partner or obtain an unusual piercing. They’re the classic signs of a mid-life crisis, and the punchline for countless jokes.
But jokes and stereotypes aside, there’s some truth to the notion that our middle years can be tough ones: studies have found that happiness levels dip down at mid-life, and it seems to be affecting baby boomers (those born between 1946 and 1965) more than previous generations. In Canada and the U.S., the boomer experience can be starkly different: one survey found that, while middle-aged Canadians felt relatively in control of their lives, Americans were close to panic. There, boomers have contributed to a startling rise in the suicide rate. Still, a number of studies show that, after age 50, happiness levels begin to climb, a period many boomers are now entering. In the third and final instalment of a series examining the well-being of baby boomers, Maclean’s takes a look at the “mid-life crisis,” and how baby boomers—who make up nearly one-third of our population—may well redefine it.
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Role Reversal
By Andrew Potter - Friday, May 14, 2010 at 10:04 AM - 35 Comments
Remember back in the days when the differences between Alexander Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby…
Remember back in the days when the differences between Alexander Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby were as clear as the differences between communism and democracy? When only Crosby “seems to have grasped that intangible called victory while Ovechkin understands the spectacular far more than the simple”. When “If they have been first among equals, they are not that anymore”? When “Ovechkin, the older of the two, appears less mature than Crosby, less grounded, more individualistic.”
Funny that.
Sidney Crosby asked, declines offer to go to World Championships
Alex Ovechkin leads Russia past Slovakia at hockey worlds
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Would you please make up your minds?
By Andrew Coyne - Saturday, November 28, 2009 at 3:02 PM - 117 Comments
Jane Taber, in feminist mode:
It is striking to sit in the House of Commons during Question Period and watch how the big issues of the day are divvied up along gender lines.
Consider two of the significant stories of this fall – the H1N1 crisis and the allegations of torture of Afghan detainees. When it came to dealing with H1N1, women MPs asked the questions and the female Health Minister answered. This changed dramatically, however, when the story moved on to guns, war and torture. That’s when the guys took over. For the most part, the women sat quietly in their seats.
Quite. Silly old gender stereotypes. Imagine, in 2009, assigning portfolios according to outdated sex roles:
As a leading expert on women in politics, the University of Toronto’s Sylvia Bashevkin says this is not uncommon – women traditionally deal with the butter issues (social spending, health and the arts) and men with the gun issues.
“What cabinet positions women historically were offered were portfolios that were seen as a logical extensional of a traditional maternal role: health, education, welfare, culture,” Ms. Bashevkin said.
There is a gender bias, too, when the issue is the economy. The Finance Minister is male (and always has been in the federal government) and so are his opposition critics.
So we’re agreed: everyone thinks this is wrong. Everyone, that is, except … other feminists. Or sometimes even the same ones: when it suits them, they will invoke exactly the same stereotypes, only with a feminist twist — how women are more caring and compassionate, while men are confrontational and macho; how if women ran the world, there would be no more wars; how women lead in different ways, by consensus and relationship-building, while men win through brute force. You only have to Google the word “testosterone” to see how often this line of argument is invoked.
Indeed, you can see this same whip-sawing between equality-seeking and difference-invoking going on just in the course of Jane’s story:
Anita Neville, a Winnipeg MP and chair of the Liberal women’s caucus, doesn’t entirely buy in to the women-are-butter-men-are-guns theory…
“I think there tends to be some stereotyping of it, but I don’t think it’s universal,” Ms. Neville said.
She said that she has asked a question about torture in Afghanistan; she sits on the Commons Defence committee and has been to the special parliamentary committee examining the torture issue.
So gender is beside the point; men and women are on the same intellectual and moral plane, right? Uh, no:
Despite their numbers, Ms. Neville remains positive about the impact of women in the House. She said female MPs can play a big role behind the scenes. For example, she said that the Liberal women’s caucus pushed former prime minister Jean Chrétien to resist sending Canadian troops into Iraq.
Sigh. The boys wanted to play with their guns, until the nurturing, peaceloving Gaiawomen stayed their hands. Of course.
The only way to approach this subject is to accept that there is no logic or consistency to it whatever. Sex differences are irrelevant; sex differences are all-explanatory. Women are equals; women need special treatment. Don’t call me a waitress, I’m a waiter; I’m a Mistress of Arts, not a Master; my title is chairperson/chairwoman/chairman/chair. It’s utter chaos out there, and it’s not going to get any better.
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What your test scores don't say about you
By Rachel Mendleson - Wednesday, March 18, 2009 at 12:45 PM - 10 Comments
A new study finds negative stereotypes can mask people’s academic abilities
Consider the following scenario: university admissions officers have narrowed applications for the final place in an engineering program down to two. The candidates have similar credentials and identical test scores; the only difference is that one is a woman and the other is a man. Who should they choose?
The answer may come as a surprise. According to a paper slated for publication in Psychological Science, the fear of confirming negative stereotypes about the intellectual capacity of women in math and sciences likely led the female applicant to underperform. Though her test scores may be the same as those of her male counterpart, the woman has a “significant untapped potential,” says University of Waterloo professor Steven Spencer, who co-authored the study with Stanford University’s Greg Walton. Put simply, she’s the better choice.
