Adults often have trouble understanding young children’s needs and inner lives—but paying closer attention to the way they experience the world can be valuable.
A new poll shows people still think the collection of their personal data is a bad thing—but they’re marginally more willing to support increased national-security surveillance.
In her latest piece, Olga cites a fascinating (and disappointing, for those who take our two X chromosomes with a dash of wit) piece of data: College students are more likely to use the word “funny” to describe their male professors than female ones.
You can clearly see the trend using this addictive interactive, created by Ben Schmidt, an assistant professor of history at Northeastern University. Schmidt compiled 14 million student reviews from the popular evaluation site RateMyProfessor.com. His tool allows you to quickly visualize the students’ use of any word or phrase, split by professors’ gender and by academic discipline. (He’s been interrogating the data in a number of other interesting ways and discussing its limitations on his blog.)
What other words are used unevenly across genders?
I had some intuitions, which were confirmed by a quick search: No matter the academic subject, words like “rude,” “condescending,” “shrill,” and “picky” were used more frequently to negatively describe female teachers, whereas men were more likely to be “arrogant,” or “egotistical.” And when it came to praise, students used words like “helpful,” “friendly,” “nice,” or “energetic” more often to describe women educators, while seeing men as “brilliant,” “smart,” or “genius.”
Of course, my own biases influenced my searches; though a few were reassuring: “inspiring,” “engaging,” and “fair” were used pretty evenly to describe men and women. Still, it was a little alarming to so easily find the results reinforcing existing discussions about the prevalence of gendered perceptions of intelligence within academia: Men are more likely to be seen as inherently gifted or talented, while women are more motherly, hard-working, or empathetic. This is particularly an issue in STEM fields, where inherent intellectual brilliance is typically seen as a requirement for success.
Philosopher, poet, and pond-dweller Henry David Thoreau occupies an esteemed place in America’s imagination and reading lists. But earlier this week, The New Yorker’s Kathryn Schulz wrote a scathing takedown of the writer, calling him “self-obsessed: narcissistic, fanatical about self-control,” sparking debate across the Internet. So far, my favorite characterization of Thoreau is “a genuine American weirdo,” written by Jedediah Purdy in a rebuttal to Schultz. One reader wrote in response: “I like some Thoreau. Lots of authors are dicks, just like artists of many types. Doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy their work.” Another reader:
I love Thoreau. What is piggish about living simply and deliberately, not taking more than you need, respecting individual rights, being anti-slavery and practicing Civil Disobedience? I think a lot of it comes down to extroverts being generally put off by anyone who dares to be an introvert.
Email your thoughts here. The Atlantic has a unique stake in this debate, since Thoreau was one of the earliest contributors to the magazine, publishing a number of essays here in the last years of his life. And if that experience is anything to go by, you probably wouldn’t have wanted to be his editor.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, one of The Atlantic’s founders, was also a buddy of Thoreau’s. (Emerson published a tribute to his friend, after his death, here.) As Ellery Sedgwick, the magazine’s eighth editor, writes in A History of The Atlantic Monthly, Emerson encouraged Thoreau to submit a narrative about life in the Maine woods. Among the casualties of the editing process was a single, not-especially-remarkable sentence.
But Thoreau, ever meticulous, was affronted to discover that deletion in the published version of his piece. He wrote an angry letter to the The Atlantic’s founding editor, James Russell Lowell, in June 1858:
I have just noticed that that sentence was, in a very mean and cowardly manner, omitted… I am not willing to be associated in any way, unnecessarily, with parties who will confess themselves so bigoted and timid as this implies. I could excuse a man who was afraid of an uplifted fist, but if one habitually manifests fear at the utterance of a single thought, I must think that his life is a kind of nightmare continued in broad daylight. It is hard to conceive of one so completely derivative. Is this the avowed character of the Atlantic Monthly?
Luckily, thanks in part to a new editor, James Thomas Fields, The Atlantic convinced Thoreau to publish several more essays in 1862, right before he passed away. Whatever you think about the man himself, these essays—many autumnal-themed—are lovely glimpses into Thoreau’s pastoral world. As he wrote in “Autumnal Tints,”
October is the month of painted leaves. Their rich glow now flashes round the world. As fruits and leaves and the day itself acquire a bright tint just before they fall, so the year near its setting. October is its sunset sky; November the later twilight.
Also see “Wild Apples,” a portrait of the tree that bears the “noblest of fruits”, and the famous essay “Walking,” in which Thoreau meditates on the virtues of a mind and body free to wander wherever they please.
When texting or using instant messaging, I often write “mmm” as shorthand for a sound of agreement (imagine me nodding, sagely, thinking “yes,” “totally,” “I’m on your wavelength”).
To my horror, a colleague recently told me that she’s been interpreting my “mmms” as ominous. While I thought I was being supportive (mmm implying “mhmm”), she thought I’d felt unsure (mmm implying “hmm”) because of a friend she has who used “mmm” this way a lot. It made me wonder, how many other people are misinterpreting my gestures of approval? And how many displays of caution have I brazenly pushed through, thinking the other person was on board?
To me this is an interesting example of the deeply personal relationship we all have with language.
Our words are supposed to be these universal communication symbols. Yet how we interpret language is also heavily influenced by individual experiences, which in turn feed back into the meaning of the symbol or word over time. Language is constantly redefined and re-appropriated by its users, but what determines the dominant interpretation, and how does one meaning win on a larger scale?
Obviously, these observations apply across all forms of language. But I find them most intriguing—and evident—when it comes to the language we use on the Internet; the vocabulary that starts to slip naturally from our fingertips and thumbs, laced with meanings that may be specific to us. Take “lol,” and other forms oflaughing on the internet, for example. (Apparently, “huh” is one of the closest things we have to a universal word; though I wonder whether this applies to the way we express it online.)
Should we be thinking more each other’s text-based “voice” or “accent,” at work or in our friendships? Perhaps my confusions with “mmm” proves that text-based communication is inherently laced with more ambiguity than face-to-face communication. But maybe these little quirks and misunderstandings preserve some of the same nuance and individuality that many claim we’re losing when we turn to our devices to connect.
