2014 Winter Gender Assumptions
Farewell to Twisted Titles: A Final Send-off for California Magazine’s Punning Game
In 1991 two editors of this magazine, Russell Schoch and William Rodarmar, became intrigued by a wordplay game. So an announcement appeared in the September issue alerting readers to a new feature: Twisted Titles. “It goes like this: Take the title of a well-known book, movie, play, etc.; change just one letter; and then write […]
Veteran Reporter Diane Dwyer Shows That Those Who Can, Do—They Also Teach
In 1999, in one of the biggest media divorces of Bay Area history, NBC severed its 50-year affiliation with San Francisco station KRON and signed with a relatively unknown station in San Jose called KNTV, which changed its name to NBC Bay Area. As the new kid on the block, NBC Bay Area needed some […]
Full Cycle: Marking a Half Century With a Double Century
Stars filled the night sky as I pedaled up to Big Rock, a landmark on rural Lucas Valley Road in Marin County. As I got closer, the rock became a beacon, illuminated by a spotlight to inspire cyclists like me on the final leg of a marathon ride. I was 56 years old and gleefully […]
Trans Identity Meditation: Exploding the Notion that Anyone Is Simply Male or Female
When UC Berkeley Chancellor Nicholas Dirks held his first meeting with the campus LGBTQ Advisory Committee a little over a year ago, he began by introducing himself with his personal PGPs: he, him, and his. PGPs, for those who don’t know, are preferred gender pronouns. It was a young gay English professor (preferred PGPs: he, […]
What’s for Dinner? For These Urban Foragers in Berkeley, The Answer is Weeds
When Thomas Carlson and Philip Stark find a foot-tall dandelion growing out of the sidewalk on Hearst Street, it’s all they can do to contain their excitement. “Oh wow! Now that is robust!” Carlson exclaims. They won’t eat this one; it’s too close to cars and exhaust. But wow, just look at that beauty! Recently, […]
The Stay-at-Home Dilemma: Modern Dads Can Pay a Steep Price for Bonding with Baby
Daddy ain’t Mommy. This is demonstrable at the most elemental level: a distressed toddler. At least, that’s my personal experience. When I gaze into the eyes of my 2-year-old son, I get a variety of reactions, depending on his mood or passing whim: delight, deep affection, irritation, boredom. But when his mother looks at him, […]
What the Frack? Lack of Info on Fracking Fluid is “A Pervasive Regulatory Failure”
In the quest for natural gas, fracking companies may be pumping acutely toxic chemicals into the ground. Or maybe not. The problem is, no one knows. “It’s kind of the Wild West, in that you can manufacture what you want,” says Berkeley geochemist William Stringfellow about the industry practice of concocting hydraulic fracturing fluid, a […]
How to Train Your Robot: Now They Can Follow Human Demonstrations to Tie Knots
BRETT the robot is a knot-tying whiz; it can tie an overhand knot, square knot, figure 8, and hitch. Sure, there are robots out there that drive cars, detonate roadside bombs, and even collect rock samples from the surface of Mars, but what makes BRETT special is not what it can do, but how it […]
Fear Factor: In Business and Life, It May Separate Smart Luck from Dumb Luck
Taking big risks might actually keep you from succeeding. John Morgan is haunted by the prospect of failure. However, he tells his classroom of aspiring entrepreneurs, this fear might not be as unhealthy as your “clinical psychologist will tell you.” We may like to peg successful entrepreneurs as overconfident thrill seekers, but such thrill seekers […]
The Giving-Out Trees: Drought-Stressed Sequoias and Blue Oaks May Start to Vanish
Todd Dawson’s research has taken him to forests, savannas, and deserts all over the world. But his recent investigations close to the UC Berkeley campus have taken him to the edges where ecosystem types transition. The professor of Integrative Biology has found that the blue oaks (Quercus douglasii) at Berkeley’s Blue Oak Ranch Reserve near […]
Love, Life and Baseball: A Filmmaker Follows Little Leaguers from Oakland to Havana
There are men of vision, and there are men of vision about men of vision. This is a story about both kinds of men, and about a movie, and about kids, and baseball. If Hollywood were to make a movie about the movie, the opening scene would be in a blue-collar bar in Berkeley, two […]
Radicalizing Life Events: If I Was Truly Feminist, What Was I Doing About It?
From the moment I got engaged last year, everything I touched became fraught with meaning about my role in the world as a woman, wife, and future mother. Just a few of the questions that came up in the months surrounding the wedding: Would I circle around Dave seven times under the chuppah to signify […]
My Scarf, Myself, and You: Hijab Is About More, and Less, than Religious Expression
The tiny, default, unisex photo thumbnail haunted me for days.
What Stalled the Gender Revolution? Child Care That Costs More Than College Tuition
I am probably a familiar type to you. I went to college, got a master’s degree, started a career, married, and had my first child late, at 35. I was working as editor-in-chief of a fiction magazine called Zoetrope: All-Story when I became pregnant. The magazine, founded and published by Francis Ford Coppola, had long […]
Engendering Sons: Is It Doable—or Even Desirable—to Raise Gender-Neutral Children?
I grew up in Los Angeles in the 1960s and ’70s as the middle of three sisters—no brothers—and I took the “boy role.” I was athletic, did more of the outside chores (although we all had to weed the lawn), and wore pants in elementary school as soon as school rules changed allowing us to […]
The Book of Proverb: In a New Autobiography, the ‘Last of the Biblical Tackles’ Tells All
To say Proverb Jacobs has written his memoirs is a little like saying that Herman Melville wrote a story about a whale. That’s not to exaggerate the literary accomplishment, only to say that when it comes to sheer bulk, Jacobs’s humbly titled, self-published Autobiography of an Unknown Football Player makes even Moby-Dick look like small-fry. […]
Cracking the Code: Jennifer Doudna and Her Amazing Molecular Scissors
This Lilliputian virus-killing machine is transforming molecular biology research throughout the world.
The Politics of Consent: At UC Campuses, Why ‘No Means No’ Was No Longer Enough
In September, Governor Jerry Brown signed into law the Yes Means Yes rule, the first law in the nation to require California colleges to adopt an affirmative consent standard in sexual assault cases. The legislation is controversial, but advocates see it as an acknowledgment that a “rape culture” is prevalent on university campuses, and politicians […]
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