(You Are Enough by Sleeping At Last)
Well, aside from my recent obsession with Sleeping At Last (a band from WHEATON, but the other Wheaton.....in Illinios; it was such a bittersweet moment to find that out) I have been lucky enough at work to be watching the mating habits of mice. To be frank my dear audience-whoever you crazy kids are- I have been watching mouse porn, approximately 16 hours of it in fact. Why would anyone want to do such a thing? Well, to ensure that no extraneous factors are responsible for the change in behavior of the offspring. In order to blame our hypothesis entirely on genetics, it's aaallll thanks to the padres.
I think what has bothered me most about this task is the fact that all of the female mice have not been happy to receive the....affections of a male mouse. For the most part the female mice are quite hardy and unafraid of saying no vocally and physically (I'm only assuming that the mice squeaks mean "no," I am not claiming to be some sort of mice squeaking specialist/interpreter) but eventually the male is able to dominate and mount the female for a few seconds at least. I understand the issues of being anthropomorphic but recently there has been an increased focus and number of conversations surrounding feminism, rape, and violence against women; so I couldn't help but wonder how this was ethical. And maybe I'm making something out of nothing, right? Obviously Terence, my supervisor, had gotten approval from the animal ethics committee, so I wasn't really questioning his moral judgment but that of the science committee that has approved his experiments. Yeah, okay, I am questioning Terence's ethics and probably Annabel's as well (I dunno if I've mentioned Annabel before but she's a wonderful person and superb scientist)! But why not? I'm a somewhat independent thinker, and slightly confrontational so it's been something that has been at the back of my mind the entire week.
There are female mice that are considerably more "receptive" to male mice, so why not use those mice? I assume there's a proper explanation but haven't asked Terence... And if we are willing to put animals in such a position I guess I can't surprised that there are a number of women around the world in a similar situation. Just this week I was talking to someone recently about how a women is dressed can make her more...accessible to a rapist. Basically, the less clothes you wear, the easier it would be potentially to take advantage of the situation. I don't entirely agree with that idea but I can see where it's coming from. I still believe that it doesn't matter what you wear, you could be completely naked or you could be wearing special underwear under a mountain of clothes and still be just as likely to be targeted by a rapist. I wonder if we had spent as much time focusing on the rapists themselves than what the victims were doing, where they were, what they were wearing, what they were consuming, what they looked like, and how they were to blame, by now we would have a better understanding of how to prevent rapists from raping rather than how to prevent victims from being victims. It's also a predominant idea that rape is sexual when, in fact, it's about power and control. I would like to thank Planned Parenthood for successfully teaching me that lesson.
I know it's a stretch but I was curious if the situation were different, if women's rights were taken more seriously and the idea of rape punished without as much question, victim-blaming, and scrutiny, would the science community find the situation with the non-receptive females ethical? Or would it be harder to make mice pairings because we would have to find more receptive mice females? Mmmm, I'm not sure how much it would change if it would change at all. But it's a question!
Well, we're moving on from this cheery topic to the culling and dissection of mice (and how great a segue way does that song make, eh?)! I attempted to kill a mice but I couldn't do it quite right....the mouse was fine! I didn't hurt it but Terence had to kill it instead. However, I did get to cut open the mouse! That was really fun actually, I cut open the skull and took out the poor mouse's li'l brain AND I got to see its heart, lungs, kidneys, adrenal glands and more. I'm not entirely confident I could've done it without Terence there though, it was my first time dissecting anything other than a chick embryo.
Apart from that I've just been walkin' around Melbourne and getting ready for my trips! All the trips I'm going on in about 10 days! I cannot WAIT to go to some beaches and enjoy some winter sun. I'm sure I'll be taking tons of pictures to share on this blog, so keep your eyes out for'em! Just to fill you guys in I'm planning on snorkeling and seeing some koalas in Cairns were it should be around 70 degrees F during the day (that's about 20 degrees celsius) and in Sydney I will be going to the opera house and meandering through the city. I'll let you know of any other trips I might be planning as well... ;)
Just wanted to mention the most wonderful Erin for having hosted a li'l slumber party and allowed for me to go to bed at about 10 p.m. I understand and appreciate the will power it took not to judge/stop me from retiring at such an early hour.
I leave you with:
(Jules and Monty by Tufts Uni! A more modern take on Romeo and Juliet....it was pretty good but the ending could've gone better)
and
(Tonight With You by Savannah Outen and Josh Golden, the video is super cheesey but the song's alrigght. Just close your eyes...or do something else haha:)
And if I haven't told you recently I MISS ALL YOUR FACES. Even if I saw it yesterday or two months ago, I miss it.
Love,
Syd
