Links - 25th January 2013

"I am against using death as a punishment. I am also against using it as a reward." - Stanislaw J. Lec

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More parents share the workload when mom learns to let go - "Equality is gaining ground at homes across the USA, but the move toward parity leaves some mothers in a quandary; they're ready to share the workload with their partners, but to do that, they'll also have to come to terms with the loss of hierarchy at home... "For women who insist they have the gold standard around parenting and housework, men just tend to walk away," says Joshua Coleman, a clinical psychologist in San Francisco and Oakland. "They feel their own ideas about how the house should look or … how the children should be raised aren't given equal share"... The study of 1,023 couples from 20 large cities in the USA found mothers were protective of their caregiving and educational engagement with the child but were less so for playtime activities that "were not considered threats to the mother's caregiving identity"... fathers were more involved in daily care of infants when they received active encouragement from the wife or partner. "This study provides perhaps the best evidence to date that the phenomenon of maternal gatekeeping exists and that, under some conditions, it may have the potential to affect fathering behavior"
This ties in with maternal gatekeeping - one reason women spend more time than men in childcare is because they want to (or even actively prevent the men from doing so), not patriarchal oppression. A similar principle would apply to housework

Female Computer Scientist to Women: "Stop Making Excuses, Step It Up, Go For It" - "There have been recent calls to give more women a chance within tech; there are calls [presumably to men] to take women more seriously and to work harder at recruiting and attracting women into tech in order to overcome systemic bias in the “system”. I take issue with these approaches and perspectives firstly because I find them patronizing and secondly because I think the call to action is directed at the wrong place... Stop making excuses and get on with it. All the men I know are looking out for women to join their teams"

What 'clinically proven' means for a beauty product - "Of more than a dozen researchers and dermatologists contacted about the quality of this study, only Schalock agreed to comment. Dr. Tobias W. Fischer, a dermatologist at the University Lubeck in Germany, offered this rationale for why he didn't: "I don't give interviews, criticizing other researchers' work, even if industrial""

The Datsun and the Shoe Tree - "What's my point? I don't actually have one--but opening my columns with strings of clichéd cultural juxtapositions really cuts down my workload. You see, since the Cold War ended, we've gone from superpowers to spreadsheets, Pershings to Pentiums, the Berlin Wall to suburban sprawl, olive trees to Lexuses. Are you ready? Because the whole world is changing. Unless you are one of the eight-tenths of humanity who at this moment are either hungry, illiterate, or field-stripping an AK-47, in which case I'll get back to you in some future column"

Sex Boosts Brain Growth, Study Suggests | Rat Sex

108-year-old Wook weaves ‘magic’ to keep younger hubby - "The traditional massage is what is keeping her 23rd husband Mohd Noor Che Musa, 38, glued to her side. “I will massage him when he starts to talk about younger women. This will dissuade him from thinking about them”... She said it was the same massage that she used to keep all her previous 22 husbands remain true to her until their death... Apart from giving her husband regular massage, Wook also keeps him happy by cooking him delicious food. She also avoids nagging her husband as she believes hen-pecking could lead to cracks in a marriage."
Maybe it's the same massage that sent her previous 22 husbands to their deaths. Assuming she first got married at 16 and had no breaks in between, each husband lasted about 4 years.

Women With Arthritis More Likely Than Men To Stop Working - "women may be more likely to leave employment, while men may be more likely to remain working and report negative experiences"
Especially given the fact that more men are in jobs requiring physical exertion, this gives us more ideas about reasons for the gender-wage gap

Non-Linear Career Strategies: Off Ramping/Career Breaks - "35% of women graduates from the Stanford Graduate School of Business had a career break of at least one year, and 64% said it was for family reasons... The Off Ramps and On Ramps nationally representative study showed that:
* 37% of women off ramp (leave the workforce) for a period of time
* 58% take a more “scenic” route including part-time positions."
Again, more reasons for the gender-wage gap: non-family related reasons for career breaks; information on men taking career breaks is even sparser, though

Singapore This Morning: Indian Expat? Sorry, a different price for you sir/mdm « Leona's Blog - "The New Paper has weighed in on the alleged arrogance and snobbishness of Indian expats in Singapore, first brought to our awareness by former beauty queen Shobna Sukumar. Her comments have drawn a flood of responses from despatch riders to the casual reader who mostly agree with her. This reminds me of a conversation I had with my printer at Bras Basah complex who told me, to my surprise, that Indian expats are charged a premium over everyone else because “they are simply so nasty, picky and petty.”"

Indian Business Market – Unreasonable Demands Of Client « AGCSS Knowledge Portal - "All of us look for quality, but when it comes to price, we forget quality and make price as the basis for concluding a deal. Similar is the case with Indian business market... Indian businesses have developed a tendency of compromising on almost every request made by a customer. Some of the reasons for such a situation are fierce competition in the market place and strong bargaining power of the customers. Fear of losing potential work forces a company to do almost everything a client requests for (in some cases unjustifiable demands). There is nothing wrong in securing work with reasonable demands from a client, but catering unreasonable demands of any client may destroy the ethical values and reputation of an organization... It is important to remember that once a compromise has been made by a company, almost every other customer will expect same level of submissiveness on the part of the company... extending services without considering the impact on the organization and employees may result in adverse consequences such as employee dissatisfaction and attrition... Management of any company should remember that while customer is the king, there are various other stakeholders to which the company is accountable"

Even Grandma had premarital sex, survey finds - "More than nine out of 10 Americans, men and women alike, have had premarital sex, according to a new study. The high rates extend even to women born in the 1940s, challenging perceptions that people were more chaste in the past. “This is reality-check research,” said the study’s author, Lawrence Finer. “Premarital sex is normal behavior for the vast majority of Americans, and has been for decades.”"

P&G Plays Kindergarten Catch-Up With Unilever in Vietnam - "A kindergarten opened on June 1 in Minh Phuong, a village about 50 miles from Hanoi. It looks like many schools in developing countries: cinder block walls painted mustard and tile floors. There’s something unique about the classrooms. Each has a silver-colored plaque near its door emblazoned with names rarely found in a textbook: “Gillette Be Your Best,” “Pampers Golden Sleep,” and “Pantene Shine.”"

Lazy people innovate

Man suffers excruciating headaches every time he watches porn - "The man was advised to take a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory agent combination - 400 milligrams of ibuprofen and 500 mg of paracetamol, commonly used for the relief of headaches and other minor aches - half an hour before watching pornography"

Breast implant for girl aged 12 - "One breast has not developed. On one side she has an A cup and on the other a D cup. She has a problem that she is very upset about"

Singapore Notes: When More Is Less - "Madam Tan the 66 year old cleaner is not so easily fooled. If she accepts the $50 increase offered by her employer, her rent will go up from $26 to $111, " I'm thankful that the authorities are giving this increase but I'll be $35 worse off ". Thanks, but no thanks, is a familiar refrain when it comes to this government's "financial assistance" schemes... The other idiocy from same MP claims that the way forward for the 69,000 cleaners in Singapore to improve their lot is through skills upgrading. Er, how does one upgrade a cleaning task? Install expensive robotic cleaning devices so Madam Tan can push a button instead of pushing a mop? Enough of the idiotic suggestions, Prof Hui of the Lee Kuan yew School of Public Policy nails it on the head when he surmises: "The cut-off for Workfare is $1,700, it's an implicit recognition that you need a lot more than $800 to survive. We can't talk about increasing productivity for them - we're underpaying them under current conditions." Finally, someone that talks sense. Unfortunately he's also an economist like Lim Chong Yan, and his views will similarly be ignored."

ninjagirls.sg - "a group of Japanese bloggers landed here with a mission to discover good food & latest fashion in Singapore"

Man jailed 8 months for breaking cabby's middle finger - "A cabby who tried to take pictures of a motorist showing him the middle finger had his own broken by his angry subject."

Gyrating For Jesus: A Pow-Ka-Leow Guide To Sun Ho’s Greatest “Hits” | syntaxfree - "Out of the clusterfuck of nonsequiturs that make up this song, the biggest one may be why the hell a Singaporean is calling herself “Geisha” to sing a song about how much “we” in “China” love to dutty wine. Perhaps Sun hit her head after being slain in the Spirit one day and it affected her geographical knowledge... Pages more could be written to deconstruct the multiple levels of epic fail in Sun Ho’s US music career, but there’s only so much torture I can take and I’m pretty much already at the point of uttering “Eloi, eloi, lama sabachthani?”"

Durian Info - "Durian Information - A Durian Blog Devoted To The King of Fruit"

Hi Guys, So we've... - "We get an email stating that we need to pay SPH $535.00 per story about Jaime(my superstar wifey) and our Successful business Twelve cupcakes. Oh And there's also a $214 fee for investigating us...huh?!?!?!?! So all in all we owe them about $3k...??? FOR sharing it on social media and our own website... So...Where's the mutual benefit here? They write about us...We help spread the word about the article...they get more readers and readership...Everyone happy...no? SPH then writes us to say we need to pay!!! Did you know? Biz owners are not allowed to share stories about themselves on their websites unless they pay... Stalls/cafes etc ...cant photocopy and then put it at their stalls or sign boards for people to see...Unless they pay..."