Sometime ago I was arguing on twitter about the number of women in the medical profession in the USSR. While I knew I was right (because I am always right), my opponent ridiculed my anecdotal references, like a number of female doctors I visited in my childhood, or a number of female students in my Dad’s medical school photo-album. I thought maybe a scientific-looking study would be more convincing.
Women had been 10% of doctors and dentists in 1913. They rose to 77% in 1950 (Tsentral’noe Statisticheskoe Upravlenie, 1969a: 103), but then declined to 72% in 1969, when they were also down to 55% among medical students, pointing to an equalized sex ratio in medicine a generation hence.
Although remuneration in the Soviet professions shows nothing remotely like the spread in the United States between the teacher at the bottom of the heap, the engineer somewhat better off, and the doctor way out in front, there is a differential there as well. The Soviet government, always economically pinched, has raised wages and salaries in a[264] manner to attract people into fields which would not otherwise be entered by enough candidates to meet the need. Engineering is the best enumerated. Law is the lowest paid of the professions in the Soviet Union, and in it women are precisely the same proportion (one-third) as in engineering,the highest paid. Women had been 5% of the lawyers in 1926. At present there are 2,500 women judges. So women are majorities in the two professions in the middle of the payscale – medicine and teaching minorities in the two at the extremes-engineering and law. However, the 1971-1975 Five-Year Plan provides sharp salary increases for the two professions of medicine and teaching. Those seeking signs of discrimination no matter what are faced with the fact that, in numbers as distinct from percentages, there are more women engineers than physicians, and more physicians than librarians. The 775,000 women engineers in the USSR (1969) is almost equal to the total number of engineers in the United States (870,000), of whom only 1% are women.
On this International Women’s Day I am posting some photos of the Soviet women at work and at play. Wishing the best to all my female readers, even those who thought they can prove me wrong.
Several billboards showed up along I35 from an organization seeking to promote hiring people with disabilities. I am not sure how effective their billboard investment will be, considering that relatively small amount of people who drive on the highway are in position to make hiring decisions. Nevertheless, I like their slogan “Think Beyond the Label” illustrated by an unfortunate white guy who is labeled “Rhythm Impaired”.
That made me think about other labels that are unfair like “white man can’t jump”, “white men don’t have a sense of rhythm” and “once you go black, you can’t go back”.
And God blessed them, and God said to them, Be fruitful, and multiply…
Genesis 1:28
Evolution is a great thing. In a world without evolution only beautiful people would be able to reproduce and the Earth would be populated with the clones of Fabio (or as someone admitted – John Edwards) and Julia Roberts. Enter an unfortunate side-effect of the looks-based-reproduction, namely a gradual lowering of the worldwide average IQ. Here is where the evolution came up with an ingenious solution of supplying the below-average-looking fat males with small genitalia with a an amazing tool-set for seducing beautiful women of their dreams who otherwise wouldn’t even grant such males a second look.
My non-existent love life automatically makes me an expert perfectly qualified to write the following article. If you are a good-looking male, with a perfect body and an award-winning penis, this is how far you should read. I am pretty sure you are starting to get a headache from all the big words I’ve used so far. You’ve won in the genetic lottery and your existence assures that all of the mankind doesn’t look like me. Thanks for being there for us, go do a few crunches or something.
We can now continue without that one douche-bag who just left. Males of many species have different ways of attracting the most beautiful and unavailable females; from peacock’s tails to the giant deer antlers, the natural world is full of examples of males getting what they want when otherwise they wouldn’t have any chance. Just like our smaller brothers we have some things we can use to inject our ugly but smart DNA into the human gene pool. These do not require any special effort, like exercise or diet; you probably already have some or all of them as you read this.
1. A foreign accent. Contrary to popular belief, a foreign accent is not a handicap. In the love game it’s probably one of the best assets you can have. Accents drive women crazy and sometimes just after a few words she will do anything to hear more of your randomly swapped v’s and w’s or, even better, a whole word in your native tongue.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6QUFqiJx9k
Few words of warning on the accents: two similar accents cancel each other out. If you are both from Australia, all the talk about shrimps and barbies will not turn her on. On the contrary, the other person’s accent becomes annoying and embarrassing. Another note of caution: if your accent makes you sound like Larry The Cable Guy, you better have his kind of money to be able to seduce the woman of your dreams unless it’s Nancy Grace.
2. Learn to cook something from scratch. To impress a woman you don’t need to be a Wolfgang Puck, you just need to be able to cook something she’ll like preferably without using any recipes you got from watching Semi-Homemade Cooking show on the Food Network. Whether it’s a steak, a hamburger, fried chicken or borscht, it’s the process and your skill that will fascinate her, so Shake’n’Bake wouldn’t do the trick. Cooking may also include baking or cocktail making. Anything that only you know how to make will get you closer to the target. However, don’t go too wild unless you know who you are dealing with; she may not appreciate your Coq Au Vin but may be pleasantly surprised with Chicken and Dumplings.
3. Get a pet, and by a pet I mean a cat. Dog will not allow you to leave for those romantic long weekends and will interfere with you enjoying your morning together. Other pets may be scary, disgusting, annoying or smelly. On the other hand, virtually every woman loves a cat, and will come back to your house repeatedly just to scratch your cat behind the ear. Placing a cat photo such as this anywhere in your dating profile pretty much guarantees you a constant stream of “icebreakers”.
4. Poetry. That’s right, a poem will make your woman’s heart melt. You don’t need to be Walt Whitman, start with something simple and romantic like:
Roses are red,
Violets are blue.
I am here naked.
Where the hell are you?
If you want to impress her even more, haiku is the way to go. I am at a disadvantage in this department since I can’t count syllables, but it doesn’t prevent me from faking it. Just make sure you always have three lines:
Writing haiku is hard,
but I try
for the hell of it.
5. Get some title or an achievement, for example you can become the Best Blogger ever or get a PhD in some obscure subject. Published works, books, photos in the local newspaper, sex tape, whatever it takes to pique her interest.
6. Impress her with your knowledge. Be careful not to bore her with a discussion on pros and cons of various Linux distributions, comic heroes and their superpowers, or some special maneuver you use to beat a game on X Box. Instead you can impress her by knowing the capital of New Hampshire, or pointing out the difference between a crocodile and an alligator.
To summarize, if you are short in all the wrong places, fat and ugly, not all is lost. Just use your accent, skills and pets to seduce the woman of your dreams and remember: it’s survival of the fittest, not necessarily better-looking.
Apple-picking time is here again and that means another trip South, this time to an exciting destination of Burlington, KS. Somehow, I have never realized that the Wolf Creek Nuclear Generating Station is located near Burlington, or even in Kansas, but the distinct-looking domed building is clearly visible while approaching the town on HWY 75. We had to cut our visit to Burlington short because we had plans for the evening and my camera’s battery was getting low, but I did manage to snap a few photos and resolved to come back to the area for a more detailed look.
At the first glance, Burlington the Coffey County seat – is not much different from the other rural county seats in Kansas like Garnett or Cottonwood Falls.
Similar-looking downtown, clean and in decent shape…
