Women-blaming still fun: study

As I gear up for yet-another holiday season of not-so-casual glances at my flat belly and the two-drink minimum question of "so, when are you two having kids?" perhaps I'm being a bit oversensitive to the media's almost hysterical preoccupation with motherhood. 

All I want to do is read the paper in peace while I rub the sleep out of my eyes and mainline coffee, learning perhaps about a bit of technology or the latest dinosaur bone or how we're all going to die from this week's latest Ebola virus.  So I gotta ask - is it absolutely necessary to pepper the science section with a blatant misrepresentation of the results of studies?

This morning, gearing up for a familiar battlefield of estrogen-trapping pseudoscience, I was drawn to the headline "Mother's love may alter genes: study"

"And what fresh hell will this bring? "I sighed, and clicked the link, fully expecting "proof" that the children of stay-at-home-mothers are immune to AIDS or that handmade Hallowe'en costumes protect against tooth decay.

But it was nothing so exciting, merely the old "nature-verses-nurture" chestnut with a dash of mommy drive-by thrown in:

You are what you eat.

And who you hang out with, and the weather and the way your mother raised you, say gene researchers at McGill University.

Contrary to popular belief, recent research at McGill helps to prove your DNA alone does not determine who you are, says Michael Meaney, a neuro-biologist at the university.

WHAT?  You mean, in order to be a real human being, I've got to LEARN STUFF?  God dammit!  Here I was thinking that I was born with an innate understanding of Jacobean revenge tragedy, passed down through the family genome.  Man!  Now I've got a whole lot more work to do! 

But hey, at least author Dene Moore managed to twist the knife a little bit with endorsing the idea that women hold the sole responsibility for nurturing humankind.  Thanks, Dene!  There I was getting all uppity, forgetting my birthright and all, like gender was a construct or something! 

Aren't I just the luckiest thing, now that you've managed to turn my whole outlook around by amplifying this teeny tiny part of the study and then belying its truth in your misleading headline?

Researchers have mapped the billions of building blocks that make up human DNA and it seems every day they isolate another gene linked to specific characteristics or illness.

But scientists have known for some time that it is the chemical coating on the surface of genes that determines which genes in the cell will be activated and which will not.

Diet, maternal nurturing and even the weather can trigger changes to that chemical coating on the surface without changing the genetic code within.

You know what, Dene? I think you're right: nobody would ever read an article with a headline like "Study proves weather influences behaviour" or "Nature AND nurture work in tandem, scientists report", since neither one offers that popular misogynist tang that stays so crunchy in milk. 

Bah humbug.  It's not even December yet and I already know there isn't enough rummy eggnog in the world to get me through the holidays smoothly.  Maybe I should just stuff my laptop under my shirt and mime giving birth to my thesis.

Comments

[Steph]

Next study: Blame Mom: Poor mothering destroys chemical coating on genes.

And I have to say (despite the pronatalist pressure of family gatherings), I dislike the metaphor of a thesis as giving birth.

Thesis, many years of work culminating in a defense which is really no big deal and a lunch with beer. End result: you become credentialed as a person of superior intellect and expertise.

Birth, nine months of gestation where you can pretty much do nothing if you choose culminating in many hours of pain and the expulsion of bodily substances, bringing about the birth of a person who requires you for every human need (though they're pretty cute). End result: despite superior intellect and expertise you discover that humans are still animals.

Just saying.

[Philoillogica]

Touché.

[Jeannie]

I also read this article with a great deal of annoyance -- is it actually NEWS that parents influence their kids? I'm pregnant right now, and I've started boycotting articles such as this ... as if I needed yet another thing to worry about, from keeping this child healthy to what the heck will happen to a career I've so carefully built.

But as I was reading this to my partner (father of said child) he commented that it was really pretty misanthropic as well, since it suggests really that he's pretty frickin' useless as far as raising a child; he'll have no effect on him or her. Which he considered pretty offensive.

In any case, a pretty sad case of journalism. But at least NP provides some sad amusement to our days. Offense for all!