Archive: HIST17 Response 27 - Bypassing Cost-Prohibition

What factors accounted for the increase in prosperity following World War II?

Post-war prosperity can in a large part be attributed to the military-industrial complex. Government money apportioned for the war effort was immediately reapportioned for veterans' benefits following the closure of the conflict. Twenty billion dollars essentially went to "human advancement" by stimulating both education and social engineering (of the Levittown variety).

More important than the post-war spending was the pre-war spending, effects of which don't necessarily vanish because the war is done. Without the major investments by the War Production Board, companies such as Ford Motors would not have been able to expand the number of facilities available to them. Post-war, these facilities don't exactly disappear; they simply take on new functions.

The military-industrial complex is useful because it allows us to justify building big things on borrowed money, something which in peace-times the government is simply not allowed to do (congressional disapproval, negative public opinion, what have you). One of the reasons why the military-industrial complex is so feared is because it can give rise to false flag operations for the sake of the almighty investment portfolio.

Oddly enough, there is a parallel to be drawn between the Ford automobile and the Sherman tank. Levittown was brilliant in an almost villainous way for driving up demand for the automobile when demand for military vehicles had finally dropped. This kept demand for rubber, oil, and similar products constant throughout that era. In fact, in the post-war, it became almost a civic duty to one's country to own an automobile, something which in many respects continues today.

Archive: PSY1 Response 9 - Transgenderism

What are gender roles? How are gender and sex different? Summarize two theoretical approaches to the development of gender roles in children.

Being gender dysphoric is weird. I don't want to use the term transgender here simply because the fluctuations between transgenderism and androgyny make it hard to define myself as one or the other. If memory serves, my definitive "I don't want to be male" didn't occur until the seventh grade. Yes, the signs were present before that if one cared to look (interest in feminine clothing, feminine activities, an imaginary alter ego that was neither male nor female), but I didn't exactly understand what gender and sex were until I hit puberty, so make of that what you will. Even now though, there are aspects of masculinity which I desire to keep, to have alongside the feminine traits I have continued to pursue.

But enough about the indecision part of the equation; let's see if psychology can explain my childhood! If we look at things from a nature perspective, femininity is associated with a better grasp of language and emotion, and more serotonin receptors in the brain. While I've never had an MRI done, language has always been my best subject, and I was more prone to emotional stimulus as a child, which hints at more pre-natal estrogen exposure. There's also the digit ratio theory, but that's more of an urban myth.

From the nurture aspect comes the Social Learning Theory and the Gender Schema Theory. According to Social Learning Theory, I should have learned much about being masculine from my father and grandfather, who I spent a lot of time around growing up. That said, while I obtained my love of cars from my old man, I never picked up on his love for sports, fishing, hunting (I tried, okay?), or yardwork.

That just leaves the Gender Schema Theory, which insists that I should have picked up the differences between men and women simply by being around a lot of men and women. However, as I said in the opening paragraph, by the time I hit middle school I still hadn't figured that out. Most of the girls and guys in my neighborhood played together equally, doing the same kinds of activities. I could go on and on about all the things we did together and still not draw any semblance of a line between the two.

In summation, the two theories of early childhood gender development really do not apply to me at all. In all honesty, it could be that I never really developed a gender identity for myself, was forced to pick male, reacted poorly to being asked to choose, picked female because I thought it would be less terrible than the one picked for me, hated that one as well, and settled for both in the end because I realized that it didn't really matter in the scheme of things anyway.


Being gender dysphoric is weird.
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(Alright, so a little extra information: I was a little irritated with the textbook because their approach was to be as neutral on the subject as possible. They did not want to approach the idea that men and women had any inherent differences for fear of disrespecting political correctness, which meant that they didn't necessarily give a lot of information on the theories they were presenting. That's strike one.

Strike two is this notion that I need to rationalize my decisions for presenting as anything whatsoever, or that anyone really has to for that matter. It took my family four years after I came out to accept my gender identity as valid, because they insisted that I wasn't feminine enough to justify my wanting to be female. At the end of the day, I don't even care what a person calls me; I just want to feel as comfortable in my own body as I can. To me, femininity is where I derive my confidence from. It clicks with me, it helps me orient myself as a person, and that should be enough.)

Blog Update 2014-07-07

So I just wanted to announce that I'm planning a little update to the blog. Really, it's the addition of a new tag: Archives. What this is for is essays and articles I have written for the academic setting (high school, college, etc.). My student years have influenced me greatly, and I feel that it would do me well to share those musings with you all. A bit of closure, given how strenuous it's been. Where applicable, I'll include the prompt.

An example is below.
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History 17 - Post Civil War US History

Between WWI and WWII, explain how life changed for the American Citizen.

 The first quarter of the twentieth century America was in many ways dictated by one thing: alcohol. Alcohol became a major influence in cultural values, in the rise and fall of movements, and in the awareness of greater social ills.

While prohibition initiatives were present in the initial Progressive movements, World War I helped speed things along through the rationing of grain supplies. Arguments ranged from, "Shall the many have food or the few have drink?" to how inebriation weakened the fighting ability of the armed forces and their suppliers. This was perhaps the true catalyst which cemented the passage of the eighteenth amendment; without World War I, there might not have ever been as strong of a movement against alcohol.