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Link love: Parenting, SCIENCE, Boobs and Other Objects

This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American


I’ve accumulated a number of interesting readings over the last few weeks, most related in at least some way to ladybusiness, and I thought I would give my readers a chance to procrastinate too.

Parenting

  • PhD in Parenting: 4 Ways Parents Can Help Break Down Society’s Gender Assumptions. This is the fourth in a four-part series on society, gender and kids. Annie does a great job being thoughtful about where parents can intervene, and how to have a healthy perspective on what we can and cannot do about kids’ need to conform. As a parent to a four year old girl, I’ve got a bit of a post related to these topics brewing myself.

  • Geek Mom: Mayim Bialik, You Disappoint Me. Marziah explains what it means to be a role model, and the difference between passive, personal beliefs and pushing them on others. A post I hope Bialik reads before continuing to promote not vaccinating her children.


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Delight in science

Boobs

  • Big Think Blog: “Breast” Behavior: A Q&A with Katie Hinde. Kayt Sukel interviews brilliant lactation biologist Katie Hinde (I can say this because she is a friend and book co-editor, and also because it is true). Katie shares her perspective on the current breastfeeding Mommy Warz.

  • The Primate Diaries: Out of the Mouth of Babes. Eric Michael Johnson also covers this current topic, providing some comparative depth by looking at some of our primate relatives and their breastfeeding practices. Nathaniel Gold also made the fantastic chimpanzee Time cover.

Don’t look away (for two very different reasons)

  • Wine & Bowties: Where Children Sleep. Provocative, often jarring images of the conditions in which children across the world sleep.

  • Io9: The mouth of a child is a terrifying thing to behold. Am I weird that I found this picture fascinating? I can’t wait to show this to my kid, because she is really interested in teeth right now. Oh, before you click, I should tell you it’s the skull of a small child with part of the jaw cut away so you can see the adult teeth sitting on top of the baby teeth, ready to descend.

Feminism

I am Dr. Kate Clancy, Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. On top of being an academic, I am a mother, a wife, an athlete, a labor activist, a sister, and a daughter. My beautiful blog banner was made by Jacqueline Dillard. Context and variation together help us understand humans (and any other species) as complicated. But they also help to show us that biology is not immutable, that it does not define us from the moment of our birth. Rather, our environment pushes and pulls our genes into different reaction norms that help us predict behavior and physiology. But, as humans make our environments, we have the ability to change the very things that change us. We often have more control over our biology than we may think.

More by Kate Clancy