E is for Easter, and egg, and eat. Some of Courage’s favorite things. Recently, a friend wondered where my periodic Eat List blog posts had gone, and I responded that Courage was reformed, and was not eating so many interesting things. But I realized I was wrong, because I started noticing all the things he eats again. I had just gotten used to it. A sort of Stockholm syndrome thing. So here’s an extra large list of the many tasty items Courage has eaten. As usual, most of these things are not literally ingested. Many of them are merely tasted and then spit out, with or without damage. But from Courage’s point of view, eating is eating.

• Yogurt cups – 3 or 4 per week
• Orange slices, with peel
• Broccoli
• Piggy possum (his favorite stuffed animal)
• Striped kitty (second favorite stuffed animal)
• Half a mouse (provided by Simba the Cat)
• Live Eastern mole, Scalopus aquaticus, self-captured
• Christmas wrapping paper
• Papier mache Christmas ornaments
• Glass Christmas ornaments
• Cardboard packaging, Mega Bloks set #96071, Halo Floodgate
• Flood figure from Mega Bloks Halo Floodgate
• Ball point pen (approx 1 per month)
• Pencils (all of them, eventually)
• Baseball cap
• Mittens
• Fleece cap owned by guest (returned undamaged)
• Cat poop
• Live rabbit, self captured, (rescued but died of injuries later)
• LIVE RABID SKUNK, self-captured, (rejected as unpalatable)
• Small fuzzy ball cat toy
• Cat food (provided by finicky cats)
• Aluminum tuna can
• Wood-handled paring knife (found in garden, having been thrown out accidentally with veg trimmings)
• Boards from cedar back yard fence
• Plastic water bottles
• Candy wrappers
• Socks, freshly laundered, balled, paired
• Favorite stick, dirty, eaten on living room carpet
• Squirrel, found dead on neighborhood street
• Stuff he finds in holes he digs (unidentifiable)

Thanks for all of the book suggestions from my post Is my subgenre dead? earlier this week. I’ve populated my Goodreads list with a number of them. It’s telling, however, how many of the books suggested were 20+ years old, or didn’t really fit the criteria I set forth. In essence, sometimes I like to read genre fiction FOR women and BY women, and it’s something I have a hard time finding, particularly if I’m looking for science fiction or secondary world fantasy.

It’s not that I only want to read genre chicklit. I just want it to exist so I can read it sometimes, especially when I get into those cranky, difficult-to-satisfy reader moods. Gwenda Bond‘s suggestion of Sara Creasy’s novels, starting with Song of Scarabaeus, was spot-on, and in fact I had two of the books in the house. They were WFC freebies, but I hadn’t been very interested in them because based on the covers I mistook them for some kind of vampire fiction. (I know, never judge a book by its cover.) So I was delighted to find it was pretty much exactly what I’d been in the mood for.

I now have some theories about why it’s getting to be difficult to find the kind of genre lit that I gorged on back in the 1980′s. One of them is that that particular audience has been siphoned off to vampire fiction. Charlaine Harris’s Sookie Stackhouse series is a prime example. It’s bestselling, supernatural fiction written by a woman primarily for a female audience. It’s extremely popular, and it’s doing very well.

The only problem…if you’re squicked out by the very idea of romance with a dead person, it’s not very appealing. Listen, I don’t understand why so many people think death is sexy, or find the idea of a lover without a pulse compelling, and I am not judging. But if you don’t like that particular thing, it’s not like there’s some other series of books featuring women who save the world by riding dragons and destroying science fictional acid rain. It’s just not being done.

On another level, I kind of blame feminism. I like feminism. I identify proudly as a feminist. Feminism has achieved a lot, and I’ve benefited immeasurably in my life from the advances made in women’s rights. Feminism has advanced the interests of women, but often at the cost of interests and occupations once held by women. Case in point, women have fought for the right to have careers in business, and no one bats an eye anymore at a woman in the boardroom, but for a man it is still shameful to stay home and take care of children, and cook and clean.

I know men who have done it, but they get negative comments, and they get made fun of. Even well-intended friends will often ask a man who is a full-time stay-at-home Dad “How is the job search going?”

And the once-common occupation of full-time home maker, without kids? No one does that anymore. Every once in a while, a young woman will take on that vocation, not seeking a job because her husband has a good salary, and she faces the same kind of pressure as the stay-at-home dad. If there are no kids at home, then, in our society, there is nothing useful you could possibly be doing at home. (Note: I am not talking about people who want to write novels or start businesses or whatever. I’m talking about old school home makers.)

The bias against “women’s work,” can even appear within a workplace. Who cleans the break room kitchen? Who loads the dishwasher? Who cleans out the microwave? These discussions in the work place can be extremely politically loaded. Even some job-related tasks can take on a “women’s work” taint. Years ago, my husband worked in operations for an IT firm. Operations is all about keeping things running, cleaning up, taking care of others, and supporting the programmers so they can do their work. From a skills point of view, being an operator is just as challenging as being a programmer. But at that office, they joked that Operations got no respect, because it’s “women’s work.”

Getting back to reading material, we also have ghettoized women’s fiction. The stacks and stacks of Harlequin romances that some women love and read by the metric ton are  referred to as “smut,” a term demeaning the worth of the literature specifically because it is written for women. (Putatively it is for sexual content, but you’ll find just as much explicit sexual content in highly-respected literary fiction.) In mainstream literature, women’s fiction, aka “chick lit” is a very successful and popular category, but it still gets a condescending wink when it gets noticed (perhaps by being turned into a “chick flick”), and is not considered as important or substantial as “real” mainstream literature, which is not preoccupied by femmy stuff like falling in love.

In the genre of science fiction and fantasy, I see a trend for “strong female characters” in stories written for a general audience–neither male nor female. If there is romance, it tends to be downplayed, taking a back seat to the female character’s journey of independent self-actualization. On the one hand, this is great. We’re getting women into the literary equivalent of the business board room. On the other hand, it’s almost impossible to find any decent smut. Apparently, no one wants to be that writer.

A while back I read a very good secondary world fantasy novel with quite a charismatic romance sub plot, but, for me, it was rather spoiled by the main character’s assertion that should would never marry, and, therefore, refused to even consider any kind of long term relationship with the love interest. Unlike many books, where that sort of belief becomes one of many obstacles to a love interest, and you wonder how they’re going to overcome it, the message in this book was clear that there would be no resolution of the love story, no consummation of the relationship. For a subset of readers, that character may be very validating. But for me, and, I suspect, a majority of female readers, we’d like to see main character eventually hook up with her sweetie. Is that so wrong?

Then there’s this thing called the Bechdel Test, which has bothered me for a long time. The test asks whether there are two female characters in a film that talk to each other about something other than a man. It is putatively a quick and easy way to identify films that tokenize women, and for at least some types of films, you can certainly see that secondary female characters should have something to talk about other than the male leads of the story, and yet somehow don’t.

However, the broad application of the Bechdel Test, and application of it not only to film but to literature, tends to unfairly marginalize books that are primarily about a woman’s quest for a satisfying relationship with a man. Generally, one expects that every scene in a novel will forward the plot, and so in a book with romance as a primary or strong secondary plot, it is not unexpected that most of the conversations between female characters would revolve around men. In essence, the Bechdel test trivializes and marginalizes romance fiction.

I wonder how much of Jane Austen’s work would pass the Bechdel test.

Should a romance novelist insert a scene, somewhere, in her novel, specifically designed to make the book pass the Bechdel test in order to prove that the novel can pass the Bechdel test? Or is it possible that pursuit of love with a man does not automatically invalidate a “strong female character?”

Within the SFF genre, it seems pretty much expected that every book will pass the Bechdel test. Take home message: no smut allowed. Secondary message: if you are a woman who is interested in romance, and thinks and talks a lot about men, you are brainwashed by the patriarchy. (And in nerd culture, the “boy crazy” teen is often ruthlessly denigrated, even though in the real world it’s perfectly natural for girls to be obsessed with boys in adolescence. I think possibly over 90% of my conversations with girlfriends in high school were about boys, and I never even had an actual boyfriend.)

From the publishing industry side, I don’t know what is behind the dry up of the smutty-dragonriding sff subgenre, whether editors aren’t buying it, or writers aren’t writing. I can’t even speak authoritatively on this as a writer, because, even though I do enjoy a smutty genre romance, it’s not my strength as a writer. But, as a reader, I say bring back my smutty science fiction, featuring actual hunkish human love interests who produce actual human body heat. Also, some lasers, aliens, or necromancers would be nice, as opposed to zombies. I can’t take any more zombies.

Last night at dinner, I was trying to explain to Glen his soccer team assignment and schedule. “You start practice next Friday, and your first game is next Saturday. The name of the team is, uh…something that starts with an ‘S.’ Scoliosis? Scurvy?”

After some discussion, we decided the name of the team was the Scorpions, but we were kind of tickled by a team called the Scurvies, and we tried to think of disease names for the other. We came up with the Staphs instead of the Storm, the Worms instead of Wolfpack, the Fibroids for Firebolts, and so on.

It’s possible that writing about new cures for nasty diseases every day might be warping my brain a bit.

Small companies often try to stretch their budgets by doing their own PR, or sometimes hire people without enough experience at the job. Sometimes this works out. Sometimes it causes unnecessary headaches in dealing with the media. At times, it can even spoil opportunities for good free publicity. I’ve had experience working daily news and features, and there are some very common mistakes that are made over and over again that, at a minimum, make my job much harder. Some are obvious. Some may surprise you. In no particular order, I present them.

Not answering your phone or email when contacted by media. You may wrongly think that you can defer these communications to a time more convenient to you. Don’t. Experienced PR reps have voice mail messages that say, “If you are a reporter on deadline, call me on my cell at XXX-XXX-XXXX.” This is because they know that media opportunities sometimes come up quickly and vanish just as quickly, and they need to be available to take those calls. No, you don’t have to sit by your phone or abandon your lunch companions to call back within five minutes. But neither can you afford to wait until the end of your work day, or another day.

Deprioritizing media interaction. Very often I find myself waiting to interview my expert until he or she is “out of meetings” at the end of the day. Because I am a professional, I never point out that they are pretty much ruining my schedule, forcing me to write a rushed story, and forcing my editor to possibly hang around the office after quitting time to get the issue out on time. But that is what is happening. Sometimes meetings are unavoidable. Life is that way. But many times I get the feeling that I am being put off until the time alotted for the boss’s daily liesure web surfing and Facebook time. Studies show that a lot of otherwise productive time is wasted in pointless meetings, anyway, so consider maybe pushing back, rescheduling, or canceling a meeting so you can give a reporter optimal time to write AND fact check an article that is going to give you or your company very important exposure.

Putting out a press release and getting on a plane. A subcategory of “They’re in meetings all day,” is “They are traveling all day today, can we do this tomorrow?” The answer, in daily news, is no. You can’t do it tomorrow. If you have big news, plan your press release for a day when you can answer your phone. The smartest companies schedule a block of time, or the whole day, for media interviews. What you think will happen is that news outlets will wait until you are available to write their articles. What actually happens is they write the article without talking to you. You don’t want that.

Mistaking the media for part of your PR organization. Just because a media interview is an opportunity for free publicity doesn’t mean it follows the same rules as your internal publicity. Once you give that interview, you are on record and the reporter can write absolutely anything she wants. Draft review is something you can request, but it’s an extreme courtesy. Extreme. A reporter offering draft review is like a chef offering a personalized tour of the kitchen before serving you your meal. It’s not improper to ask, but once you get in the kitchen, you had better DAMN WELL not start making soup. Capiche? Same thing with a reporter’s draft. If you find an error, let them know. Do not, under any circumstance, attempt to edit for style or try to make it sound like one of your company press releases. Do not suffer any illusions that the reporter must wait for your approval or for a green light from your company’s lawyer. Most news outlets will turn you down flat if you request draft review, so don’t spoil it if you get the chance.

Not keeping your web site up to date. Once, after a misunderstanding involving factual material posted on a company web site, I was told that the company is not responsible for the accuracy of the web site. Um, well, yes it is. If you can’t keep your web site up to date, then take it down. Of course not having a web site in this day and age is even worse. So just keep it up to date. Make it someone’s job. You never know when a reporter might be looking at it and taking material for a story, or trying to find ideas for a new story.

Failing to put press releases on your site, or taking them down selectively later. I can’t tell you how common it is that a company puts a press release out on the wire, and then doesn’t post it on their web site. That is a mark of senility, my friends. Whoever is in charge of that decision should have their driver’s license revoked for public safety. I know it seems like a small thing, but when you’re gathering news and information from the internet, the extra mouse clicks it takes to track down a press release that you know is out there somewhere, as opposed to simply getting it directly from the company, is significant. And it leads to swearing.

Gray 10 pt type anywhere on your web site. I don’t know what is up with putting important scientific information in gray 10 pt type. Is that taught at some sleazy, offshore college of web design or something? Stop that, you’re killing my eyes. And don’t tell me how to resize or change the color on my web browser. If I were to do that with every offending web page, I would destroy my wrists from carpal tunnel. Just think about readability, ok?

Don’t sound bite your reporter to death. I occasionally come across the philosophy that one shouldn’t give too much technical information to a reporter because they will get it wrong. Think about that for a minute. If you REFUSE to explain a technical or scientific concept to a reporter in detail, how can she possibly get it RIGHT? You are pretty much guaranteeing mistakes. Furthermore, the scientific info you are protecting her from is usually posted somewhere on your web site, or published in a journal somewhere. You are just making more work for her and causing her to blaspheme against her god. I recently had a PR person apologize to me, after I had made a mistake and run a correction, for “information overload,” and she explained that’s why she advises her clients not to give out too much scientific information. That gave me despair deep in my soul. The mistake didn’t happen because of “information overload.” The mistake happened because I am human, and although my ability to receive, process, and regurgitate information is at this point pretty high, I do occasionally make mistakes. The best way to prevent mistakes is to respond to my query promptly, so I don’t have to rush my article. (Hey, isn’t it neat how all of this fits together?)

Distrust of the media. I understand that sometimes reporters get it wrong, or the article doesn’t turn out as flattering as you’d hoped, or whatever. But holing up and refusing to speak to the media, or doing so in a controlling, adversarial way is not going to make things any better. In writing feature articles, when I get the vibe that this is happening, I end the interview and cross you off my list. You need me more than I need you. In business and science, you don’t achieve solely based on merit. Getting into magazines and newspapers, especially in your field, will get you noticed, and being noticed will increase your chances of getting that next grant or wooing a venture capitalist. In contrast, losing you will cost me nothing but a little bit of time. I can find ten scientists to replace you who are ready and willing to to give an open and candid interview. Not too long ago, I saw a press release from a company I had experience with. I had the opportunity to pitch it as a story, but I recalled that CEO had tried to bully me, and I shrugged and let it go. Don’t be that company!

Too many phone calls. I fortunately haven’t received a lot of pitches by phone, but, dude, I’m on deadline all the time. Unless you are bleeding and need an ambulance, please don’t interrupt me. (Although, honestly, if you are bleeding and need an ambulance, you should probably call 911, but I don’t want to discourage anyone’s belief in my wisdom/healing powers.)

That’s it for now. Happy publicity!

I want to read a book, but I can’t find anything that interests me at the moment. Sometimes I’m game for anything. Different genres. Different types of characters. But right now, I want my comfort genre, and I’m coming up empty. Here is what I’m looking for:

1. Female protagonist

2. Female author (sometimes I’m willing to read a male authored female protagonist, but they always get it a little bit wrong)

3. Secondary love story

4. Actual science fiction, not slipstream, New Weird, steam punk, zombie fic, etc. (Historical sf would work in a pinch, but it never comes with the other requirements.)

5. Doesn’t suck. I realize this one is hard to define, but basically I mean very competent commercial-style writing that fulfills the promises made at the beginning of the story and doesn’t have gigantic plot holes or diverge into a political agenda halfway through or whatever.

I know I’m limiting the pool of possible books severely by stipulating science fiction. But even if you take that out, and expand the pool of possible books to fantasy and other sff subgenres, it’s still really hard to find female-centered fiction with a romance subplot. I guess I’m attached to that type of story because I read them by the truckload when I was a teen. Authors like Anne McCaffrey, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Sherri S. Tepper, etc. Now those authors are dead, or have moved on to other types of books, and who has stepped up to fill the gap? No one, apparently. It’s a little depressing, and I can’t help wondering are women writers pandering to male audiences? Are publishers giving up on female sf fans? Are they letting too much of their “women’s” science fiction get written by men? Is there even such a thing as “women’s” science fiction (or fantasy)?

I’m sure people will have lots of suggestions for me, possibly their own books. And that’s nice. Suggestions are welcome. But…most of those obscure midlist books that I’ve never heard of are obscure for a reason. They are not really that good. (Sorry sorry sorry.)

Like I said, sometimes I am up for anything, and am willing to experiment with different genres, different styles, books that don’t end the same way they begin, books that play with unusual ideas, etc., etc.

But sometimes I want a super-bestselling, hypercompetent author to drag me into a tightly written, engrossing, exciting book that I have to stay up until 3 AM to finish, without huge, obvious plot errors or a shitty, disappointing ending. (I’m looking at you, Hunger Games). I’m looking for a female George R. R. Martin, and as far as I can tell, she’s not out there.

It’s 2012. Why is all of the good stuff so full of testosterone, when women buy 68 percent of all books?

The Trayvon Martin tragedy has been an eye-opener to me. I’ve been pretty sympathetic in the past to anti-racist activists, but have mostly stayed on the sidelines. At times, I have even questioned the stridency of the rhetoric, wondering if it was really warranted in the case of something like an unintentionally stereotyped character depiction. I never expected, though, to see the same racist arguments trotted out when someone has literally died, and to find myself trying to talk sense to people who feel like their hurt feelings over the mere implication that they might be racists trump the death of a child. It makes me sick. So from here on out, I am hereby radicalized, and I apologize for every time I may have unintentionally defended one of these dickwads, in public, or in private, by suggesting a debate was getting impolite or out-of-hand. I now realize it is all part of the same fucked up pathology, and it needs its ass kicked even when the stakes don’t seem that high.

I think the most important thing that white people can do when racism is a subject of public discussion is to shut the hell up. Your white fantasy of the perfect colorblind society is wrong. Colorblindness and “treating everyone the same” is inherently racist, because it provides cover for a lot of sneaky, underhanded abuse. I even wrote on that theme in my story, “Midnight on Tabula” in the Dec. 2004 issue of Analog.

But for white folks who feel compelled to get into discussions about racism online, how can you avoid being called a racist? Well, I would recommend not saying racist stuff. The problem is that most people who are not white supremicists are dealing with unconscious racism, and when behavior is the result of an unconscious thought pattern, it’s really tough to identify it without help. Just about everyone suffers from unconscious racism. When I went to Vancouver, my realization that 60 percent of the population is Asian exposed some of my unconscious racism. I was then able to analyze and process it, and now I’m a slightly better person.

If you don’t want to be called a racist, here are a few simple rules you can follow, even if right now you can’t understand what they’re for. I was going to get all bloggy and explain each one, but I decided not to, because everyone needs to figure this stuff out on their own.

Don’t use the N-word. Just don’t.

Don’t complain about not being allowed to use the N-word.

Don’t say “I’m not a racist.”

Don’t explain why you’re not a racist.

If someone calls you a racist, use these words exactly, “I’m sorry I offended you. I won’t do it again.”

Do not vary from the script. Don’t insert the word “if” at any point.

Don’t explain to people of color why something is not racist.

Don’t explain racism to people of color.

Don’t tell anyone, ever, that they are being oversensitive.

Don’t deny or dismiss someone’s experiences just because they don’t match your own.

Don’t dominate the conversation. Listen twice as much as you speak.

Calling people out on racism is painful, unrewarding work. Don’t mistake it for someone’s hobby.

Don’t use phrases like “you people” or “that noise about racism” (example from recent kerfuffle). Always be respectful.

Be willing to learn and change.

Instead of arguing on the internet, go read some books about the civil rights movement.

Don’t make the conversation about you and your own hurt.

Don’t try to turn things around and say that calling out racism is itself racist. That’s bullshit.

Remember that if you oppose people who are protesting racism, you have just aligned yourself with White Supremicists and Neo-Nazis. Congratulations. Don’t like your new allies? Then make a better choice.

I’m sure I could think of lots more tips, but the key takeaway is that whenever you find yourself called a racist in any conversation, something has gone wrong. Either you have miscommunicated your position (it can happen), or the other person has identified certain attitudes that reflect some actual unconscious racism on your part, and they are doing you a favor by pointing it out. If you can’t own it, at least don’t torture people with ten thousand words of flailing about how you’re not a racist. Instead, get off the internet and do some reading and thinking about why you keep giving people the “wrong” impression.

The June 2012 issue of Analog, with my story “Titanium Soul,” arrived in my mailbox yesterday. It will probably be a month or so before it hits the news stands, but you can get it on Kindle immediately. I haven’t even received my contributor’s copies yet. I didn’t get an interior illustration on the story this time, but I like the cover illustration quite a bit. “Titanium Soul” is one of my favorite stories by me, so it has my endorsement as a story of me, recommended by me, for your enjoyment of me. That is all.

Last week my son’s school held its annual Mosaic Night. The theme is diversity, and each classroom chooses a theme and prepares an exhibit on the theme. Some of them are related directly to what we perceive as diversity issues, like disabilities, race, etc. Other rooms explore occupations, personality types, and more. My son’s room did “Nature,” which I believe was code for “Granola Crunchers.” Posters in the room included stuff like alternative diets, yoga, and ecology.

My favorite room was the Intravert/Extravert room. The class had prepared T-shirts. One said, “Extravert” and, smaller, “and we need alone time too.” The other said, “Introvert/and we can be leaders, too.” There was a quiz you could take to find out which shirt was right for you, but I didn’t need to take the quiz to know that the white Introvert T-shirt was the choice for me. (The Extravert shirt was black.)

Introversion is often confused with shyness or social anxiety, but these are not the same thing. I am a shy introvert, and I’ve dealt all my life with others’ demands that I should change or be different. Both are a part of who I am, and I would not change them if I could. But the shyness particularly has presented obstacles to accomplishing my goals, and I think there’s a lot of misunderstanding of it out there.

I’ve heard people say that extraverts “get energy” from others, and that introverts “get energy” from being alone. I’m very suspicious of any explanation of a medical or psychological phenomenon using the word “energy.” In my experience, it that leads to crystal stroking. It’s not very scientific.

To me, introversion is like this: There is a lot going on in my head. Running monologues. Essays, stories and blog posts partially drafted. Numbers, calculations, days, months, dollars. TV shows I’ve watched or want to watch. Books I’m reading. To do lists.  Any computer or book I have open in front of me becomes part of my interior world. All of you right now are inside my mind. It is a noisy place.

If I go out and socialize with friends, that’s even more noise. Conversations. Voices talking to me. Some people are boring and they talk for too long. Some people are fascinating and funny. And always in the background the running monologue, the blog posts, the TV shows, the dollars and calendars. It is extremely noisy.

As an introvert, I can only take high level stimulation for so long before I need some quiet time to recuperate.

I don’t know what it’s like to be an extravert. I actually think they probably have just as much going on inside, but in some way are able to tolerate or integrate it better, so the stimulation that comes with being around other people is comfortable. Possibly they even need some outside stimulation in order to feel normal, and have trouble fully relaxing when isolated. I believe introverts and extraverts need each other. We are all part of the mosaic of human society. (See what I did there?)

Writers are often introverts, and I imagine the reason is that writing is an essentially solitary activity, and we have a high tolerance for being alone. It’s not an absolute determinant, though, as obviously there are many extraverts who are very good and successful writers, too. It takes all kinds!

Shyness, on the other hand, is something else. At Mosaic Night, the information presented by the class said that shyness was “about fear of judgment.”

That feels so wrong to me, and so unfair, as if we could all just snap out of it if we could stop thinking wrong thoughts. What is going on with shyness or social anxiety is so much more primal than that. And, personally, I don’t see it in myself. I am not particularly worried about people judging or criticizing me, and yet I definitely deal with social anxiety.

I even know people much more outgoing than myself who have confessed to me terrible fear of judgment by their peers–at a level I can’t even understand. So I have to remind myself, “Sometimes people are really, really worried about judgment and criticism. Be gentle.”

To get past the shorthand for shyness, you have to dig deeper. Let’s talk about animals for a minute. I love animals. Shyness is a trait that is almost universal in wild animals. So much so, in fact, that it is pretty much the defining difference between a tame and wild animal.

In domesticated animals, shyness is a fault, and shy animals are culled to prevent the trait being passed to offspring. Shyness is genetic, but is it really a fault? Every elementary school teacher I ever had would say yes, but I have another theory.

You know another thing about shyness in animals? The more fearful or shy an animal is, the more curious it is. A fearful animal has to spend a lot of energy exploring its environment. It has to know what is safe and what is not safe. It can’t just walk into a room and plop down on the couch and take a nap. It must explore every object. Smell it, tap it, push it. Wait for loud noises, sudden movements. Advance, retreat, run away, come back, nose twitching. Only after thorough exploration could one attempt a nap on the couch. Shyness and curiosity are inextricably linked.

I have a cat, Simba, who is not the least bit shy or fearful. Simba is a great cat. Everybody loves Simba. There’s no question his lack of fear is appealing. He greets everyone like a friend. Guests at our house are in peril of having Simba leap on their shoulders. The bigger they are, the more Simba wants to jump on them.

Simba has been known to lie down for naps in the middle of the street, and wander into the homes of our neighbors. He is the life of every party. He’s a great dancer and a whiz at karoake.

However, Simba is also much more likely to be eaten by a coyote than our feral kitten, Athena. Oh, sure, we habituated her to humans and she’s a good pet. But Athena disappears in a flash if anything unusual happens, like a human walks into the room wearing a piece of clothing she’s never seen, or if she hears a noise. At the same time, she’s everywhere, and into everything. You can walk through a room and see her sleeping in a chair, and by the time you get upstairs to the bedroom, she is waiting for you, like she teleported. Nothing happens in the house that she doesn’t investigate.

Athena has survival skills, mostly because she is shy, cautious…wild.

Humans, too, are domesticated. Domesticated animals have a quality called neoteny. That means they look and act like juveniles for their whole lives. It makes them more playful and less fearful of threats. Humans also have the quality of neoteny. Compared to our great ape relatives, we resemble infants, and we retain juvenile traits (playfulness, sociability, etc.) into adulthood. Domesticating ourselves has been a successful strategy for our species, as there are now more than six billion of us on the planet. But just as with dogs, cats, or cattle, some individuals will be more domesticated than others.

Some of us are Simba. Some are Athena.

I am not nervous in social situations because I’m afraid of being judged. I am nervous because I am not fully tame.

Think about the primal human society. You might have a total of only a few hundred people in your band, and meeting strangers would be extremely rare. You might be called upon to socialize with strangers only a few times in a lifetime. Mostly, strangers are a threat.

In our modern world, we’re asked to interact with strangers all the time. Constantly. Even in my small city, there are strangers everywhere I go. Millions of years of evolution scream to me that it’s threatening. Twelve years of public schooling whisper that it’s fine and I’m broken because I can’t handle it. Guess which voice wins?

Maybe some humans have an adaptation to living in large communities and being exposed to thousands of strangers each day. Some of us definitely don’t.

(Remember, if I lived in a small hunter-gatherer band, there would be no exposure to strange people, and therefore nothing to identify me as “shy” in any way. I would be able to speak, sing, dance, sleep, relax, play, and do whatever I wanted with my group without experiencing social anxiety ever.)

Now, what can you do about shyness if it’s interfering with things you need to do? Some people will tell you to stop worrying about the judgment of others. That’s not totally useless advice. If you find you are worried about what other people think of you, then try to get a handle on that. Try to accept that some people will not like you, that some people will be critical, and get over it. Sure, that’s fine. Probably good advice for everyone, not just the terminally shy.

But the more successful strategy, in my experience, is desensitization. Baby step your way into comfort with the situations you will be facing. Take classes in public speaking, look for opportunities to deal with the situations that trigger your fight or flight reflex, and do it over and over. Eventually, it will go away. Like Athena kitteh, you will eventually decide that humans who wear bulky winter coats are just humans underneath, and you won’t have to run away in panic when they approach you.

It doesn’t happen overnight. These are deep-seated, primal responses. They don’t just go away. But over time you will be able to speak in public. You will be able to act or dance or sing–anything you want. You’ll recognize that the rush of adrenaline isn’t a flaw or a fault like your second grade teacher insisted. It just means you’re alive.

My twelve-year-old son devoured The Hunger Games and its sequels a long time ago. Where did he hear about them? From his friends. His twelve- and thirteen-year-old male friends. When the movie came out, he waited for it eagerly for weeks. “I can’t wait for Hunger Games!” he said. He and his friends talked about it at school, and made plans to see it. No doubt they are rehashing its awesomeness at school right this very minute.

After we saw the movies, I saw him engrossed in a book on his ereader. I glanced over to see what he was reading. The Hunger Games! Again!

Let’s lay to rest the myth that boys won’t read books about girls or watch movies about them. No, let’s drive a stake through its heart, disembowel it, cut its head off, cremate it, and then bury it.

Similar to other humans, boys like a good story. I suspect they care about the gender of the protagonist somewhat less than girls, actually, because they are not marginalized in our society and aren’t desperate for positive depictions of characters that somehow resemble themselves.

Sure, there could be some boys out there who won’t read books about girls. There are also some grown men out there that believe women shouldn’t be allowed to vote or have good jobs. Are we going to create entertainment for THEM? Are we going to relegate smart, capable, courageous female characters to perpetual Hermione Grangerdom? Are we going to let Hollywood take the Princess out of Princess of Mars?

I say no. Boys will read books about girls. Give them a chance.

This week John Scalzi published an essay on his web site by an anonymous doctor that was a call to action for physicians to protest laws in various states that require an ultrasound before an abortion through civil disobedience. I agree that these laws are bad policy and bad medicine, and I support physicians speaking out on this subject, and opposing the state’s attempt to legislate any type of one-size-fits-all patient care. No matter what side of the abortion debate you are on, you should oppose laws like this that usurp the doctor’s judgment and introduce all kinds of problems.

In mulling over the proposal, however, I’ve come up with some questions that I’ve not seen addressed in any of the discussions on the internet. Rather than trying to make a persuasive argument one way or another, I am writing this post in order to get the questions out there somewhere. These questions are mostly intended for physicians and/or malpractice attorneys. Since I am neither, I can come to no firm conclusions on my own.

Falsifying medical records is against all standards of medical ethics. People have asked why the doctor doesn’t come forward publicly with this proposition. It’s because any doctor caught falsifying records would lose her medical license at the very least. Publishing that manifesto with her real name and credentials attached could very well bring her under scrutiny and get her fired, all by itself, even without evidence that she’d actually carried out the actions she advocates.

Some parts of the essay strike me as naive. I don’t doubt that the essay was written by a doctor. I think John Scalzi has enough of a reputation for integrity that there’s no need to question that fact. However, if she were a gynecologist, I think he would have mentioned that specifically, so it’s probably accurate to assume this is not a physician with a regular clinical practice in the field of ob/gyn or an abortion provider.

For the uninitiated, in order to get a clear picture of a pregnancy earlier than about 14 weeks, it is necessary to insert the ultrasound probe into the vagina, rather than putting it on the abdomen, as is normally done in the second and third trimester. In early pregnancy, the uterus is tucked way down in the pelvis, where it can’t be visualized through the abdomen. The ultrasound probe lets you get a “close up” of the uterus.

Although the probe is pretty large, and, in fact, the technician will cover it with an actual condom, it is not jammed way up into the vagina. Generally, it’s not a painful or uncomfortable procedure, but it is invasive, and if you’re not used to it, or if you have a high threshold for modesty or other sensitivities, it can be extremely embarrassing. There is no question it is an invasive procedure.

In addition to visualizing the embryo and taking measurements, every transvaginal ultrasound I’ve ever had has surveyed my ovaries, as well. Ovarian cancer has no symptoms in its early stages, so pretty much the only way it can ever be diagnosed early is by taking a quick look during an ultrasound. My understanding is that the ovary check is standard-of-care.

Ultrasounds are almost always done by ultrasound technicians, not physicians, and having had a number of them in my life, I am having trouble understanding how a doctor or a technician could get away with entering false information images into the record. Ultrasound machines have their own dedicated computers and file formats. During the exam, the technician manipulates a pointer on the screen to take measurements, and then captures those measurements using the software. Typical measurements for a very early pregnancy would be the overall size of the embryo or crown-to-rump length. 

If the heart is beating (it begins around the sixth week of pregnancy, or a” real age” of 4 weeks), the machine will also record and document the heart rate. Typically several images are taken, not just one, and the information from the exam is entered into the patient record.

Falsifying this type of exam would take more than just a jpg downloaded from the internet. It would probably require putting together a sophisticated package including images in the format used by the machine, plus data files with all of the information captured by the machine.

Assuming all of that could be done, does this type of civil disobedience only have consequences for the physician? Or could the patient’s health be at risk?

Here is where I am asking for expert opinions or responses. Let me propose a couple of scenarios.

Scenario 1

A woman who is six weeks pregnant shows up in Dr. A’s office for her pre-abortion ultrasound. For whatever reason, Dr. A does the ultrasound personally, instead of having a technician perform it.

In the privacy of the exam room, Dr. A says, “Do you give your full consent, or are you having this procedure under protest because it is required for your abortion?

The patient answers, “I am having the procedure under protest. I have not given my full consent.”

Dr. A answers, “I won’t perform the procedure without your full consent, but I will help you fulfill the legal requirement for an ultrasound 24 hours prior to your abortion by falsely documenting that you had one and entering a standard image and data for a six-week pregnancy into your file.”

The doctor uploads the data from a flash drive, closes out the record, and sends the patient on her way.

The patient goes home, and instead of having the abortion, she has a meaningful conversation with her partner that lasts into the wee hours of the morning. By the end of it, they realize that they really do want to have the baby together, and the patient cancels her abortion. The next day, she schedules her first prenatal visit with an obstetrician, at the tenth week of pregnancy. During her conversation with the nurse to schedule the appointment, she says, “I’m having some cramping, is that normal?”

The nurse kicks it up to the ob/gyn, who opens up the patient’s medical record, sees the normal ultrasound image and normal data for a six-week pregnancy and says, “Yes, that’s fine. Tell her to put her feet up and drink plenty of fluids, and we’ll see her in four weeks.”

The patient follows her doctor’s instructions. However, a week later she experiences severe pain and collapses. Her partner calls an ambulance and she’s taken to the hospital where it is found that she’s had an ectopic pregnancy. In spite of all of their best efforts the doctors can’t save her. She dies.

Scenario 2

Same as scenario 1, except the patient miscarries naturally before she gets to her first prenatal appointment. The miscarriage is normal and uncomplicated, but the patient has bloating and cramps that continue to get worse rather than improving. (While she was pregnant, she thought these were just symptoms of pregnancy.) Another month passes before she decides she’d better see her gynecologist. At that appointment, the doctor finds masses on both her ovaries. Further tests reveal that the patient has stage IV metastatic ovarian cancer. Her oncologist, reviewing her medical records, sees that she had a transvaginal ultrasound less than two months prior that showed no abnormalities. How can that be? But wait, the metadata in the files shows the wrong date and wrong patient ID… It seems the scan was falsified and the doctor who did the ultrasound therefore missed a diagnosis of cancer, resulting in a two-month delay to lifesaving treatment. Unfortunately, the patient dies.

My Questions

Would either or both of these outcomes be considered malpractice? Would the doctor be able to offer as a defense that it was an act of civil disobedience? Granting that ultrasound was not medically necessary at the presentation of each hypothetical case, is the doctor still morally responsible to provide the standard of care, even if the patient asks her not to?

In other words, is it possible that having a fake ultrasound could be more harmful than having none at all?