SORENSTAM SET TO TEE OFF AT THE COLONIAL, BUT WOMEN'S SPORTS STILL SUFFER -- While women's groups are quick to trumpet golfer Annika Sorenstam's invite to the Colonial, the May 22-25 leg of the PGA tour, as a triumph for female athletics, Temple assistant professor of kinesiology Emily Roper, an expert on female competitiveness, has her misgivings.
"It's unfortunate that Annika's playing with men in a men's tournament is getting more attention than if she were playing in a women's tournament," Roper says. "Some may see it as a victory that she has been included because, to many, playing against men is the highest level possible. This, obviously, is an incredibly sexist view. However, others would argue that her being asked to play with men may negate women's sport and particularly the other women she plays against." Roper hopes to temper expectations that Sorenstam's appearance--regardless of her finish--brings women's sports on a par with men's.
"I'm not so sure the American population, in general, is ready to accept women as athletes," says Roper. "How would people react to her defeating men? This is not only a question for men, but also for women. It is not as simple as only men having a problem with her defeating them, but women, too, often feel insecure."
THE MATRIX: A MASS OF MUNITIONS OR MODERN MORALITY TALE? -- As gravity-defying cyber punks Neo, Morpheus and Trinity return to the big screen in The Matrix Reloaded, the debate is raging over whether the franchise is cyber shoot-'em-up--or a cultural icon for the digital age that broaches the gamut of ?isms (feminism, Marxism, nihilism).
"Great films are deemed great by critics and the public in part because they seem to capture a particular cultural moment and be of their time. The Matrix represents its cultural moment," says Temple American studies professor Allison McCracken, who says the Matrix chronicle is a defining cultural vehicle on par with Star Wars and The Godfather. "The film is full of the high-tech know-how--computers, weapons, surveillance--that is dominating our culture, but it also offers its own critique of that world, asserting that such a world literally prevents any real human connection that is not mediated by a machine, by artificial intelligence."
There's "an intense polarization" about The Matrix, adds Barry Vacker, a professor of broadcasting, telecommunications and mass media. "People love it, hate it or don't get it." Vacker will be joined at Temple on Saturday, May 17, by William Irwin, editor of The Matrix and Philosophy, and Read Mercer Schuchardt, author of the introductory chapter in Taking the Red Pill: Science, Philosophy and Religion in The Matrix, to discuss--and debate--the film phenomenon.
"This event, Mapping the Matrix, will question whether The Matrix is a millennial masterpiece or postmodern pastiche, cerebral action film or intellectual poseur," says Vacker.
The symposium will run from 3 to 5 p.m. in Room 101 of the Tuttleman Learning Center, 13th St. and Montgomery Ave.
DOES NOT BEING A SOCCER MOM MAKE YOU A BAD PARENT? -- Mother's Day may provide a brief respite of breakfast in bed or brunch at a fancy restaurant, but for most moms life is a dizzying balancing act of housework, kids' activities and career. But as Temple sociology professor Annette Lareau points out in her upcoming book, Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race and Family Life, the amount of time and interest parents devote to many of their children's activities varies greatly according to social class.
"Class does make a difference in the lives and futures of American children," says Lareau, who groups parents into two categories that fall largely along class lines. "Middle-class parents, whether black or white, engage in a process of 'concerted cultivation' designed to draw out children's talents and skills," she says. "Working-class and poor families rely on 'the accomplishment of natural growth' in which a child's development unfolds spontaneously--as long as basic comfort, food, and shelter are provided."
While both parenting styles have benefits, Lareau warns that many institutions, particularly schools, have come to equate "concerted cultivation" with good parenting and "accomplishment of natural growth" with bad parenting. "Instead of making judgments, we need to understand these class differences and figure out how to provide appropriate support for all parents," says Lareau. Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race and Family Life will be published in the fall.
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