The Chronikler

Hating the ‘world’s smartest woman’

By Khaled Diab

Linda De Win is clever, competitive and middle-aged – would Belgians respect her TV victories if only she were male too?

12 January 2009

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Labouring under a false premise

By Khaled Diab

Barring men from the delivery room will not make giving birth any easier. In fact, it is a case of throwing out the father with the bathwater.

14 December 2009

Iskander, shortly after his birth.

Saturday 28 November was the best birthday I have ever had. The sight of our son, Iskander, breathing his first, after a long and taxing journey for both mother and child, has to count as the single most emotional and moving moment of my life.

The memory of his cries mixing with our tears is one neither my wife nor I are ever likely to forget. But this magical moment, this three-way bonding experience, this blind date with our new life partner is apparently one I shouldn't have savoured, according to French obstetrician Michel Odent, who is against what he bizarrely derides as the "masculinisation of the birth environment".

The eminent obstetrician even links the rising number of emergency caesarean sections to the presence of fathers in the delivery room. While this, at first sight, appears to be a troubling side effect of our modern lifestyle choices, I find it does not stand up to scrutiny. Pregnancy and birth are complex biological processes and so linking a rise in C-sections to the possible inhibition of oxytocin, also known as the "love hormone", caused by the presence of a nervous male strikes me as somewhat tenuous.

If this were true, then one would expect fewer emergency C-sections in societies where men are barred or discouraged from attending the birth. But this does not appear to be the case. C-sections, including emergency ones, are on the rise not just in rich, liberal societies, but across the globe, including in China (where men are generally not welcome in the delivery room), Iran (where some husbands have only just been allowed to attend), Saudi Arabia and India.

And what about all those other factors? Surely, one of the reasons why more caesareans are performed is largely thanks to the massive advances in medical technology that have transformed what was once a potentially lethal intervention for the mother to a relatively low-risk life-saver.

In addition, not only can doctors better monitor what goes on during labour for danger signals and react rapidly when they are exhibited, the medical community is rightly averse to putting the lives of the mother or child at undue risk. Also, the increasing levels of obesity are making natural births more difficult, while the growing stature and head size of babies has not really been matched by pelvic size.

My wife was forced to undergo an emergency C-section, but the reason for it had little to do with my presence. It was due to pre-eclampsia and foetal distress caused by a loosening of the placenta, leading our baby's heart rate to fluctuate dangerously, reaching worrying lows.

Had we not been there for each other, the endless, agonising crawl of the clock as the surgeon on weekend call dashed to my wife's aid would have been unbearable torture – Katleen, alone, hearing Iskander's weakening heartbeats and me, outside, wearing away the floor with my apprehension. Instead, we gave each other strength and took it in turns to offer reassurance when one of our spirits flagged.

My presence in the operating theatre was also useful. Katleen, whose anxiety for the baby had completely eclipsed any possible concerns about her own wellbeing, as she admitted to me later, was somewhat reassured by the fact that I could see what the surgeons were doing and could communicate that everything was going okay to her with my eyes.

I was also able to hold the fort while the surgeons performed the more laborious post-op procedures. Instead of our newborn son spending that time in an impersonal neo-natal unit with minimal human contact, I held him to my bare chest to give him some of that essential, reassuring skin contact he needed at the start of his life. In return, he gave me one of the most extraordinary feelings I've ever experienced. When his mother was ready to take him to her breast, the moment was overwhelming for her and for me, out of both joy and relief.

Although Odent may be wrong to link the presence of men in the delivery room with the rising rate of emergency C-sections, he does have a point when he says that nervous dads are a hindrance.

This column appeared in The Guardian Unlimited’s Comment is Free section on 12 December 2009. Read the related discussion.

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Stilettos: career boosters for the down at heel?

By Zandra Culliford

Just because I want to wear high heels to work, that doesn’t make me a brainless bimbo.

21 September 2009

The biggest news from last week’s Trades Union Congress in Liverpool struck a chord with the nation’s workers. Well, half of them at least.

A call for fair and transparent pay, perhaps? Or maybe support for affordable, convenient childcare? Nope. The hot topic of conversation amongst the unionistas was high heels in the workplace, with a motion tabled describing them as demeaning to women and demanding that no one be forced to wear them.

Aside from the issue of whether the role of trade unions should be to discuss what we put on our feet, this does beg the question of why we wear high heels in the first place.

To simply make us taller? If that’s the case, then why was Nicole Kidman so thrilled to dig her heels out after her divorce from Tom Cruise given that lack of stature clearly wasn’t the problem?

To attract the opposite sex, then? According to my male colleagues, the sound of heels on floor is more of an irritant than an aphrodisiac. Truth is, some of us just like wearing them. Whether the choice is for aesthetic, power or height reasons, there’s just something irresistible about the perfect pair.

Of course, high heels in the workplace aren’t just an issue for women. Comedian Eddie Izzard became known for his stand up in stilettos and the French President Nicolas Sarkozy would be, if not lost, then certainly shorter without his stacked heels.

Historically, the high heel is thought to have been developed for men and for a practical purpose – to prevent feet slipping out of stirrups when riding. Kings and queens alike then popularised the style for fashion purposes. Over time, though, they became almost exclusively the preserve of women and branded a tool of male oppression.

Some feminists have argued that women are held back and objectified when they choose to cripple themselves in a pair of wedges, stilettos or kitten heels. The transfer of this debate into the workplace is one that goes further than footwear.

The fact is that women have a wider variety of sartorial choices in general each morning before they head off to work. Even in offices where suits and ties aren’t required, men are likely to stick to the traditional trousers-shirt/t-shirt combo, teamed with a pair of unexciting, and almost invariably, flat shoes. Short of turning up topless, they’re unlikely to be accused of being sexually provocative, whatever they wear.

For women, a slightly low-cut blouse or skirt above the knee, on the other hand, can lead to disapproving (or worse, lecherous) looks and aspersions cast on a woman’s character.

Some have called for a work ‘uniform’ for women to become the norm, to make them as bland-looking as their male colleagues. Personally, I don’t think that such a move would make any difference. Women can, and do, customise their uniforms at the first possible opportunity.

When I was at school, it was amazing how many combinations of our conservative, ‘appropriate’ uniform could be seen in the halls. Prim, knee-length skirts were hitched up to crotch height, shirt buttons mysteriously came undone, and interpretations of ‘mid-height’ heels were liberal, to say the least.

But as grown-ups should we know better? Are we demeaned by putting on a pair of heels to go to the office? It is less than a hundred years since women were given the right to do most jobs, let alone to make choices about what to wear when we get there. Are we therefore undermining our right to employment equality by turning up in a pair of stilettos?

As far as I’m concerned, my right to wear six-inch heels is based on the same grounds as my right not to have to cover up in a burqa or to walk the streets without fear of being raped. I can do this because I believe that men are intelligent enough to realise that, just because they can see my ankles, I don’t necessarily want to sleep with them. Just as wearing high heels doesn’t make me a brainless bimbo.

With women’s continuing lack of complete equality in the workplace still a sticking point, is the answer to force women into Crocs? Of course not.

The height of my shoe has no more bearing on my ability to do my job than does the colour of my skin or my sexual preferences. By tabling motions on this issue, the Trades Union Congress does nothing more than reinforce stereotypes and draw attention to irrelevant differences between the sexes. If it wants true workplace equality in the shoe stakes, however, perhaps the answer, instead of getting women out of heels, is to get more men into them…

This article is published with the author's permission. © Zandra Culliford. All rights reserved.

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In the name of equality

By Khaled Diab

Society is becoming more equal but our surnames – borrowed from fathers and husbands – lag behind. Is there a fairer system?

November 2008

According to Arabic naming practices, my name reveals a fair bit about my family history. In fact, a casual observer can trace my ancestry back three generations – not to mention the n^th generation in which the original Diab lived. However, this only applies to my male ancestors. My name keeps a discreet silence when it comes to my female forebears.

In Europe, middle names are generally chosen and, so, often reveal little about intermediate ancestors (unless they are the names of grandparents). Nevertheless, names here still carry the patriarchal seal of the male founder of the family.

It is still common practice, at least in Anglo-Saxon society, for women to adopt their husbands’ surnames. And a wife’s identity can be so subsumed by her husband’s that she takes on his full name, especially in official correspondences or more traditional ceremonies.

Luckily for my wife and I, given our belief in equality, this is not the practice either in Belgium or Egypt, where a woman keeps her maiden name. I don’t know if this is a sign of greater equality in this particular aspect, an accident of history, or simply reflects a different patriarchal emphasis, i.e. that of a woman’s father rather than her husband.

Nevertheless, children still take on their father’s name. Of course, the practice may have originated partly for practical reasons – my wife speculates that it may have started off as a simple acknowledgement of paternity, a way for a man to say to society that I recognise this child as mine, too, and the way for a woman to ensure that he does his share of the caring.

Nevertheless, I find this inherently unfair to the mother. Because I am a Diab, that means I am labelled and pigeon-holed in society’s consciousness as belonging to my father’s family but not my mother’s.

Where is the mother acknowledged in all this? Barack Obama illustrates this conundrum well. Although his father had little role in raising him, the president elect bears his name – whereas his mother and her family get little acknowledgment, in his name, for their far greater role.

Personally, I have previously toyed with the idea of taking on my mother’s surname, Khattab, at least informally, in order to acknowledge the greater role she has played in my upbringing and my closer affinity to her family.

Intriguingly, there is a tribe in Indonesia in which, contrary to most of humanity, children’s family names follow the matriarchal line. In fact, with a population of up to 7 million, the Minangkabau are the largest group of people to use a matronymic naming system. And it is not only names that are passed down along the mother’s line – property, too, is matrilineal. Men’s role is to handle affairs of state and religion.

It will probably surprise many to learn that the Minangkabau are ardent Muslims. However, they have striven to preserve their native matriarchal culture and strike a balance between it and Islam’s more patriarchal worldview. And this women-friendly society, which reveres the importance of learning, has not done at all badly for itself, over-represented as it is in Indonesia’s professional classes and top government offices. Unsurprisingly, the country’s first female minister was a Minang.

That said, replacing patronymic names with matronymic ones is still not an ideal solution, since they replace one inequality with another. My wife and I have mused over how children could be named in a way that would be fair to both parents. There’s the option of merging family names.

But, here in Belgium, that’s no longer possible – apparently it creates confusion regarding people’s identity – while, in Egypt, the bureaucracy is so rigid as to rule out such flexibility. Besides, given their profusion among the aristocracy, double-barrelled names carry a certain pomposity that can be lived without.

Another option is to give alternate children alternate surnames. The drawbacks are that you need to have at least two kids and, ideally, an even number of sprogs. It would also prove confusing to outsiders, particularly the authorities, in terms of ascertaining parent-child and child-child relations – which could actually be rather entertaining.

It seems there is no easy way to make naming practices egalitarian (i.e. both patronymic and matronymic) without each of us being given a name as along as the Channel Tunnel. But is showing lineage really that important, at least when we become adults? Perhaps the only truly fair solution is to let everyone invent or choose their own surname when they come of age. That way, we’ll be celebrating the individual and sending out a message that family is a private affair.

This column appeared in The Guardian Unlimited’s Comment is Free section on 16 November 2008. Read the related discussion.

This is an archive piece that was migrated to this website from Diabolic Digest

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A brief history of brainy women

By Khaled Diab

Where does Gail Trimble fit in the brainy women’s hall of fame?

February 2009

Some men define themselves by which part of the female anatomy they prefer: breasts, legs, arse, etc. Personally, I’m more a brains and face kind of guy. I’ve always been attracted to intelligent women with beautiful facial features, and my wife ticks those boxes for me.

Gail Trimble, the grand boffin of University Challenge who seemed to have a Google implant in her brain, has ventured into relatively uncharted territory for brainy women: she has become a media sensation. Not only have her lightening reflexes and her supercomputer brainpower won her a legion of admiring fans, she has even become something of a sex icon, complete with an offer to pose for a lads’ magazine – which goes to prove that there are lads out there who appreciate brains and not just ‘booty’.

However, not everyone was impressed, with some bloggers and tabloids railing against her for being “smug” and “superior”. Shockingly, the Daily Mash reported that, despite the protective shelter of the body of Christ (Corpus Christi), Trimble was to be burnt as a witch, apparently because she recites “the periodic table backwards in Aramaic while dancing naked in a circle with a murder of gigantic, two-headed crows”.

Of course, that’s far-fetched satire today, but this fate was a real occupational hazard for some of the brainiest women of yesteryear. Take Hypatia of Alexandria, who has the dual distinction of being the first and last great female philosopher of the classical era.

The Hellenic polymath must have been well pleased with herself when she became the first woman to head Alexandria’s Platonist school and, in that great Greek philosophical tradition, donning her scholar’s robes, she toured the town engaging in public debate and interpreting the works of other philosophers.

However, trouble was a-brewing for Hypatia. Although she was well-admired across the Hellenic world, she had amassed powerful enemies in the nascent Church, especially in the shape of Alexandria’s bishop Cyril. Eventually, her “pagan” ideas and gender were to cost her her life as an angry Christian mob waylaid her chariot and brutally murdered her. It is ironic that the first notable female scholar of the Greek tradition also became the last.

Hypatia is one of numerous brainy women through the ages whom I have become familiar with as part of a fascinating project – at least for me – I am co-operating on which explores the contribution women have made to science over the centuries.

Based on the women I have researched, a certain pattern is discernible in their quest for success and recognition: they often had to become honorary men, they were forced into marginal areas of learning (which ironically often put them at the cutting edge of new knowledge), and they quite literally felt compelled to be second to nun in their morality, foreswearing carnal pleasures and embracing chastity.

Hypatia, for instance, reportedly rejected a suitor by showing him her menstrual rags (tampons to us), claiming that this showed there was “nothing beautiful” about carnal desires.

Of course, it wasn’t all black and white. For instance, the German philosopher, physician and composer Hildegard von Bingen, who was saintly in her ways although she never quite became a saint, was an abbess and, hence, a virgin, yet she was possibly the first European to have described the female orgasm (albeit in medieval terms).

In order to advance her career, Hildegard quite literally needed divine intervention: the visions she claimed to experience helped her to get around the medieval Church’s restrictions on women preaching and practising philosophy and the sciences. Of course, I use the term ‘science’ here loosely.

Although she was at the cutting-edge of learning for her time, the bulk of her work could only be described as superstition. For instance, a remedy she proposes for a hangover in one of her medical works involves dunking a bitch in water and drinking the resulting murky liquid. If any readers feel brave enough to try this, please report back on your findings.

Starting in the 19^th century, things started to get decidedly better for women, although they still had to swim against a tide of prejudice. Believe it or not but the world’s first computer geek was not a bespectacled, socially inept male teenager, but an English aristocrat of the female persuasion.

Ada Lovelace, the only legitimate daughter of Lord Byron who never met her erratic father, was a mathematical whiz-kid and the mother of all computer nerds. She is credited with having written the world’s first ‘computer programme’ for Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine (the ‘first computer’). Babbage called her his “enchantress of numbers”.

In the 20^th century, women played pivotal roles in many of the newest areas of physics and chemistry. The most legendary is probably the Marie Curie, the only woman to win two Nobel prizes.

Despite advances in the status of women, however, some did not get the recognition they deserved. Rosalind Franklin is a prime example: her images of DNA were essential to the cracking of its now famous double-helix structure, but she did not receive a Nobel prize for it. Even James Watson, despite his dodgy views on race, agreed that she should have also got one. Unfortunately, Nobels are not awarded posthumously.

Even today, the glass ceiling is still around to a certain degree, but it is far smaller and more permeable and, at least in principle, it does not exist anymore.

This column appeared in The Guardian Unlimited’s Comment is Free section on 28 February 2009. Read the related discussion.

This is an archive piece that was migrated to this website from Diabolic Digest

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