picking the shorts

With the Oscars ceremony just two days away, it's time once again to offer up some thoughts on the Academy Award-nominated films! This year I'm going to focus on the three categories of short films: live action, animated, and documentary. I've been increasingly drawn to the shorts in recent years, and I wish they could be given more exposure. That said, it's great to know there's been significant effort on the part of Shorts International, which coordinates licensing rights, to get the films onto as many movie screens as possible in the weeks before Oscar night. (They're also mostly available on iTunes and through various video-on-demand systems.) If you have a chance to check them out, do! If not, at least my picks should help you out in your Oscar pool...

LIVE ACTION SHORT SUBJECT

Should win: Tuba Atlantic When a curmudgeonly old Norwegian living on the rocky North Atlantic coast finds out he has only six days to live, he receives a visit from a "death angel," a young woman charged with seeing him through his final days. In the days that follow, she manages to coax from him the secret behind the mysterious giant tuba he's built next to his house. I loved this film for being at once quirky, funny, and tender. I hope it wins!

Will win: Time Freak The live action short subjects are always extremely varied: you have foreign films mixed with more home-grown material, and the topics range from super-dramatic to highly comedic or otherwise in-your-face. In recent years the Academy voters seem to have gone with more upbeat American pickings in this category. That would describe 2011's Time Freak, a cute film about a Brooklyn man who decides to use his time machine to relive events from his very recent past. I won't be completely surprised if the voters decide to go for something more dramatic this year, but I'm calling Time Freak as the favorite.

DOCUMENTARY SHORT SUBJECT

Should win: Saving Face In many ways, this short documentary is not easy to watch. It tells of the horrific trend in South Asia in which abusive men—often with the help of their families—maim women and girls with corrosive acid. It's impossible not to be affected by the damaged faces of some of the women shown in the film, but the point here is that this isn't some made up tale; these attacks have become an accepted part of the male-dominated cultures in which they occur. Stepping in to help is a Pakistani-born plastic surgeon who, like the rest of us, cannot fathom how such horror could be perpetuated in his home country. The film follows several of the victims he treats and documents new legal challenges to the penal codes for men accused in such attacks. As unlikely as it seems, there's a bright ending to Saving Face, which is eye-opening in more ways than one.

Will win: Saving Face This is a tough category this year. Much ado has been made about the Iraq War short Incident in New Baghdad, which details the now infamous 2007 helicopter shootings of unarmed civilians and two Reuters journalists through the eyes of one of the American soldiers on the ground, Ethan McCord. McCord has apparently received death threats for appearing in the film, in which he recounts his experience and expresses deep reservations about the Iraq mission and the American military in general. The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom is another powerful film about the complete destruction of one Japanese city in the wake of last year's tsunami disaster, and I wouldn't be surprised to see that one come away with the statuette. But the Academy seems to have a soft spot for "hopeful intervention" short docs, and this year's offering on that front is a great one, so I'm going with Saving Face.

ANIMATED SHORT SUBJECT

Should win: Wild Life I loved this rare bird of a film, which tells the story of a Briton who transplants himself to the Canadian frontier. The unusual duck-out-of-water story is supported by gorgeous animation, which comes off like a moving painting. Add to this the fact the protagonist's plight is compared throughout the film to that of a comet, and you've got a winner in my eyes.

Will win: The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore It's difficult to summarize this tale, which takes cues from both The Wizard of Oz and Fantasia. At its core, The Fantastic Flying Books... is a heartwarming story of a man in search of himself. The film reminds us all of the power of literature and of the tendency of fictional characters to enter our lives and become our friends. It's an imaginative piece that tugs at the heartstrings and is, in my view, the only real contender to take home the Oscar. ∞

my dear lego, you are part of the problem

Unless you’ve been living in a cave for the past two months, you probably know that the Lego Group has been under attack for introducing a new brand of modular toys aimed exclusively at girls. The LEGO Friends line has set off a firestorm of criticism from parents and feminists everywhere for its tired gender stereotypes, and for the fact that it fails to address LEGO’s real gender problem: the blatant boy-centered marketing strategy it’s relied upon for the past several decades.

If LEGO’s executives are to be believed, they really, truly care about girls and are simply dumbfounded as to why they haven’t been more successful in reaching them. In this post I list five concrete ways in which LEGO could shift their focus to be more inclusive of girls—and less bound by stereotypes—without losing boys in the process. But first, I highly recommend you watch the following videos from Feminist Frequency founder Anita Sarkeesian. These clips provide a helpful primer on what’s so frustrating about LEGO Friends, plus a brief history of how LEGO’s marketing has evolved into what it is today.




And now, I offer...

5 Ways To Make LEGO a More Girl-Friendly, Less Sexist Brand

1. Get some women on your management team.

I thought the recent announcement of Facebook’s all-male board of directors was bad...but at least I could take comfort in the fact that the company is managed by a highly visible female COO. So of course I was completely flabbergasted to find out that LEGO’s management team is all testosterone, all the time. Of the company’s 21 senior executive management positions, EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM is currently held by a man. [LEGO's board of directors is composed of six men, one woman.] And you wonder why LEGO hasn’t figured girls out?? Let’s fix this overwhelming leadership imbalance, guys. Pronto.

2. Produce sets that give girls and women leading roles.

So many of LEGO’s sets today are made in conjunction with a movie or other Hollywood media brand. It’s a win-win for Hollywood producers and LEGO alike. But how many of those brands star girls or women in the lead role? Star Wars? Toy Story? Pirates of the Caribbean? The Lord of the Rings (available in LEGO this summer)? Hermione Grainger is a major character from the Harry Potter series, and there were a fair number of female minifigs incorporated with those sets, so I’ll give them that one. But still, in almost every franchise that LEGO has partnered with, females are secondary or sidekick characters at best. To be sure, this heavy male slant in children’s programming is a problem with Hollywood as a whole, not just with the famed brick-makers. (For an in-depth look at how girls and women are marginalized, sexualized, and stereotyped in family films, check out these studies by the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media.) And yet, LEGO could go a long way toward increasing its girl-friendly cred by creating sets and minifigs that mirror movies and shows featuring prominent leading ladies—like Avatar, Dora the Explorer, Spy Kids, and The Hunger Games.

3. More female figs, please.

Let’s forget LEGO Friends for a moment. The core identifying character of the LEGO world is and will always remain the minifigure. Over the past couple of years I’ve spent a good amount of time sorting through minifig parts for various LEGO projects I’ve worked on. And it’s certainly nice to know that LEGO has way more female figs than it used to. But there’s been no doubt in my mind that the numbers aren’t close to being even. So I decided to do some counting...

In 2011’s The Cult of LEGO, authors John Baichtal and Joe Meno state that of 4,000 unique minifig designs produced since 1978, male-identified figs have outnumbered female-identified figs 18:1. Even I was a little surprised at this ratio, so I got in touch with Baichtal to inquire about his source. Long story short, while the sheer number of male figs produced probably vastly outweighs the number of females (since in some sets multiple copies are included of the same fig), I think the 18:1 ratio might be a little misleading.

One way to examine the gender balance of minifigs is to explore the stock of BrickLink.com, an independent LEGO marketplace. BrickLink hosts thousands of sellers worldwide and offers not only full minifigs but millions of individual parts representing models produced throughout LEGO’s history. Baichtal and Meno counted minifig models available on BrickLink, but I'd argue that this may not accurately measure the true minifig gender balance. For one thing, many figs could conceivably be any gender. One reason for this is that, if they don’t have hair, many minifigs come with some sort of hat or helmet that obscures the face. Even if not, plenty of figs have gender-neutral faces, hair, and torsos.

I myself decided to looked at the archive of minifig heads to measure how many male faces there are compared with female or neutral faces. While more than one fig model could have been made with the same face, I found it easier to separate faces into distinct genders. So, here’s a little chart with my findigs. The ratio isn’t as shocking as 18:1, but it's still skewed quite significantly toward male-specific parts: I counted four male heads for every two neutrals and every one female.

Full-sized version available here.
So how do kids acquire minifigs? These days, you can buy some of them individually...though individual figs are packaged so that, for all but the most dedicated LEGO fans, a buyer doesn’t know which one she’s getting until she opens the bag. This is fine if you want a surprise and frustrating if you want to buy the minifig you most identify with—or to not get duplicate figs if you buy more than one. More maddening is the fact that while the ratio is getting slightly better, the series in which individual minifigs are released continue to include significantly more male-specific figs than female-specific figs.

Really, though, sets have become the norm, so unless you shop through a specialty Web store like BrickLink, you’ll get whichever figs come in a set—and the reality is that those remain predominantly male-focused. To be sure, not everything LEGO’s done in this area is bad. For example, the City Community Minifigure Set features images of a female construction worker, a female EMT, and a female police officer, all careers that play against stereotype. I saw at least one space set in stores recently with a female astronaut. But here’s another big problem: Whenever there’s only one minifig included in a set, it’s invariably a male. Would it be so hard to include one extra part, a female head, and show the female version clearly on the box of every set? Or, if one extra part would break the bank, why not include a dual head, with a female face on one side and a male face on the other?

Finally, I’ll offer a quick word on LEGO Friends figures. My biggest beef with them is just their being completely separate and different from regular minifigs. I have a hard time believing that if LEGO made more/better female minifig options, and if they coupled them with awesome new sets, that they couldn’t capture the interest of girls and their parents. More on this in points 4 and 5.

4. Quit it with the stereotyping.

As mentioned above, there are plenty of gender-neutral torsos that can work for any minifig. Unfortunately, though, female-specific figs have tended to be decked out in stereotypical, overly feminine features.

My suggestion here? Less cleavage, less pink, fewer hearts, and less excess skin. Mind you, a little of any of these things is perfectly fine. But when such a large percentage of female-specific torsos includes one or more of these factors, it becomes a problem.

Which brings me to a related point. I cringed—and probably swore a little too loudly for a toy aisle—when I saw this scene in a big box store this past fall:

Et tu, LEGO?
When I was a kid, LEGOs were among my favorite toys. Of course, I had plenty of dolls, too, but I didn’t need my LEGOs to be pink or purple in order to enjoy using them. Nor did I need to be presented with stereotypically girly situations such as those in the LEGO Friends sets to be happy with my supply of bricks and minifigs. And while I’m generally fine with the fact that minifig designs have become more detailed—and thus more gendered—over the years, I feel that the way it’s been done has only helped reinforce, rather than break down, stereotypes. And that’s sad.

So I urge LEGO to take the lead on bucking this mode of thinking in which manufacturers feel like they have to offer separate boy/blue and girl/ pink versions for all of their products. It’s true, boys and girls may play slightly differently, but plenty of evidence shows that their tastes are shaped at an extremely young age by what’s around them...including the toys they see in ads, online, and in stores. Do we really want to teach our kids that girls and boys can’t play and build together? Or that they’re so different that they can’t possibly enjoy the same things?

5. Inspire.

Last but not least, if you want to focus on new, girl-empowering products, you’ve gotta provide plenty of inspiration. Why not focus more on sets that show girls doing inspirational, socially valued—dare I suggest cerebral—things? The characters could be scientists, engineers, CEOs, politicians, teachers, journalists, technology specialists, architects—the list goes on.

Model scientists (clockwise from top left): Astronaut Sandra Magnus; Physicist Lisa Randall; Primatologist Jane Goodall; Astronomer Jill Tartar; Oceanographer Sylvia Earle; Planetary scientist Carolyn Porco. Individual versions on my photostream.
Now, I have to give LEGO some credit here: The Friends line does include sets for an invention workshop and a vet’s office. But why do these all have to be bathed in pink, purple and other stereotypically girly pastel colors? And why do the more cerebral types of situations have to be the exception rather than the norm?

At the end of the day, it’s certainly possible LEGO will make money off of their new initiative. And I do wish them well, as they will always hold a special place in my heart. But my call would be to drop LEGO Friends as a distinct “girl only” product and to add some meat to the offered sets. More specifically, I would encourage LEGO to reinterpret Friends in a way that incorporates gender-neutral colors and normal female—and male—minifigs. And then make more sets that include girls in inspiring careers or situations. The fact is, in just a few short years, the company has morphed from childhood favorite to ubiquitous mega-player in today’s toy sector. I believe that with LEGO’s success comes a special responsibility to set an example on gender issues such as these. ∞

Pink bricks photo courtesy of Sandra Høj.

idiocracy, interrupted

Today, the Internet is protesting a House bill called the Stop Online Piracy Act, which is purportedly aimed at wiping out online piracy but which, as written, would actually open the government and certain private parties to completely altering the way the Internet, digital commerce, and digital citizenship work. For a non-lawyer, I know a fair amount about this particular bill, what it actually says and doesn't say, thanks to my having family with intimate knowledge of both Internet and intellectual property law. It all started two months ago, when I received a phone call from said family. It was a distress call the likes of which I hadn't heard in quite some time. The fam was lamenting the fact that these two pieces of legislation, SOPA and PIPA, were flying through Congress with bipartisan support, and they were absolutely insane and ridiculous, and there was nothing anyone could do about it. "SOPA?" I asked, honestly not sure whether he was talking about a new law governing cleansing products. "What the hell is that?"

He then told me all about it, and I got hot and bothered, to the point of wanting to do something. So I tweeted. And he doesn't tweet, but he talked to people. And as is wont to happen, those people talked to other people. It seemed clear that from the community of those who had figured it out, a discussion would need to grow—and fast—were there any shot at stopping this thing. So it was awesome to see that it did begin to grow, in ways little and not-so-little.

Before long, I found myself watching hours and hours of the House Judiciary Committee's SOPA markup, which...is not like me at all. Let's face it: Much as I care about American politics, C-Span is pretty much where I draw the line. But to quote my friends from down South, hooeeeey boy! Was that an eye-opener. Washington Post commentator Alexandra Petri likened it to waking up from a nightmare only to realize the nightmare is real. Right-o. See, I've known for a long time that things in Congress are bad. But this was embarrassing. I listened for about eight hours, and the quickie version goes like this: The vast majority of the folks voting on this thing don't have a clue about what they're voting on. They huff and haw and bandy about words they think make sense but which, in fact, make no sense at all.

Which is kind of what you'd expect if every member of Congress were somehow Sarah Palin. But of course, and very thankfully, this is not (I think) the case. So what's really the problem, it would seem, can be summed up in two words: Lobbying. Money.

Taking a step back, we have to agree that here's a situation where almost everyone is on the same side: Foreign thieves stealing American goods is bad! We should stop them! Yet the bills were written not by people who carefully weighed all the factors and players in this game and crafted a plan of attack that would get to the core of the problem while protecting other American interests. Nope, the bills were (as is the norm these days) written by people who pay Congressfolk to vote the way they want them to vote. In this case, that would be Hollywood and other Big Content Providers who feel the need to stop at nothing to try to save their dying business models—even if it means spending over $2.5 million in legalized bribery or screwing with the First Amendment along the way.

The truly weird thing about this case, though, has been the bipartisan nature of it. You wouldn't bat an eyelash if it were all Republicans, since they like to slide crazy stuff through Congress ALL. THE. TIME. (I’ll spare you the links, but trust me on this one.) Usually, there are Democrats to push back. This time, however, the hot-shot movie producers and such who pony up big cash for the Dems each November are the ones trying to slip this legislation through—and they’ve paid off both sides of the aisle. The approach seemed to work pretty well until the tech sector and intellectual property experts started asking questions. And that brings me to the other weird thing about this case: Early on, the opposing side wasn't even allowed to be at the table! Yup, you heard me. In the lone hearing on the bill, only one representative of the Internet community was asked to speak, and it was clear she was only invited to serve as a punching bag. It recalls days of yore when, with 10-year-old index fingers firmly planted inside our own ears, we would yell, "Nya nya nya nya, I can't hear you!"

So back to last month's markup. There was a point in the day in which it seemed like reason was going to prevail: Democrats and Republicans alike began to come out of the woodwork, admitting they were playing with fire to support a bill that they themselves had no real understanding of. Sadly, that didn't last long, and suggested fixes after suggested fixes were voted down. But it was almost Christmas, and the few reps who'd brought their A-games were refusing to back down, so a vote to move the bill out of committee was finally delayed until the new year.

And that brings us into the here and now... In fact, it recently started to look like the not-so-friendly fire might be history. Over the weekend, statements emanated from the White House intimating strongly that President Obama would veto any bills with workings similar to the current SOPA and PIPA. Representative Eric Cantor was later reported to be dropping action on SOPA if there was no consensus, which got the blogosphere rejoicing—a bit prematurely—over the bill's death. So here we are, just a few days later, and a significant chunk of the Internet is blacking out in protest and in solidarity with the cause. The truth of the matter is that there is still serious work to be done in the way of killing these bills. But, how cool is it to know that there are tens of thousands of tweeters out there who now sport anti-SOPA badges? That everyone who trots on over to Wikipedia today to look up Elton John's birthday is gonna at the very least now have heard of SOPA and PIPA and the efforts to prevent them from becoming law? That you can get your own "I fought SOPA and all I got was this stupid t-shirt"? It's true, we haven't won the battle yet. But I'm impressed as hell that we've all rallied the troops enough to fight another day. ∞

Update: Hooray! SOPA and PIPA have officially been shelved just two days after the blackouts. The issue is sure to be revisited soon, but score one for democracy in action.

noel, noel

So I'm now in my fourth year of releasing a holiday music mix. (For your listening pleasure, please to check out the 2010, 2009, and 2007 playlists, plus a nice little GeekDad review dating back to last winter.) As in years past, I've included something for everyone... folk, alternative, indie pop, electronic, a cappella, soul, classic rock, and whatever you wanna call Beck's 7-minute spoken-word foray into the Jewish traditions ("spin around and around like a dreidel; kind of science that puts you back in the cradle"). For good measure, I even threw in a poignant protest song from the talented Brett Dennen, who I'm sure would encourage us to #OccupyChristmas. Oh, and please note that the last song is very much NSFW... Happy holidays, everyone! &infin

Cambridge Xmas mix | Listen on Spotify | YouTube Playlist
Merry Christmas, Baby (Please Don't Die) - Crocodiles & Dum Dum Girls
Joy To the World - Future of Forestry
Hazy Shade of Winter - The Bangles
Santa Claus Go Straight to the Ghetto - James Brown
Valley Winter Song - Fountains of Wayne
The Little Drum Machine Boy - Beck
Coventry Carol - Sonos
Silent Night - Boys II Men
Lux Aurumque - Eric Whitacre
The Atheist Christmas Carol - Vienna Teng
Christmas in Prison - John Prine
Christmas Day (I Wish I Was Surfing) - Emmy the Great & Tim Wheeler
The Holidays Are Here (And We're Still At War) - Brett Dennen
Little Drummer Boy / Silent Night / Auld Lang Syne - Jimi Hendrix
Did I Make You Cry on Christmas Day? (Well, You Deserved It!) - Sufjan Stevens
Have Yourself a Bitter Little Christmas - David Ford
A Christmas Duel - The Hives & Cyndi Lauper

ladies and gentlemen we are floating in space

Love all things cosmic? Love exploring the musical universe? Behold my newest project: Astrotunes. A different spacey song every day or two, from artists distinguished and obscure. ∞

Image: DJ cat by buckeye

best manicure ever

Via IrrationalFantasy

interweb shoutout: take back halloween!

Welcome to late October, the time of year when folks begin to seriously consider their Halloween duds. Halloween is one of my favorite holidays, but as I've noted previously here on Annals of Spacetime, there's one thing about it that irks me to no end: the part where women and girls often have a hard time finding non-slutty, non-sexist costumes.

Enter my new favorite project, Take Back Halloween! Launched in 2010, the site offers concrete ideas and instructions for making costumes of notable historical and mythological women.

"This is not your typical Halloween costume thing,” says Suzanne Scoggins of the Real History Project, which sponsors the site. “We’re pushing back against the rule that women have to dress up as sex kittens. That shouldn’t be the only option for Halloween, much less a requirement. We’re trying to reclaim some space for a different vision of the holiday, where women can use Halloween to explore history and celebrate their heritage."

So, want to go as a notable scientist this year? Try dressing as physicist Lise Meitner (above, left) or computer science pioneer Ada Lovelace (above, center). If ruling nations is more your thing, you can be Jezebel, former queen of Israel; Hatshepsut (above, right), the Egyptian pharaoh; or Himiko, the first recorded ruler of Japan. Prefer to be a glamorous star of song or stage? Turn yourself into Diana Ross, Audrey Hepburn, or Josephine Baker! There are also designs for women's suffrage champion Susan B. Anthony; artist Frida Kahlo; Greek goddess Demeter; and lots more. One thing I really love about the offerings—and there are about 60 costume ideas currently available—is that they include impressive female figures from all over the world. Case in point: Ix Chel (below), a Mayan goddess of the moon, medicine, water and weaving. Nicknamed the "Lady of the Rainbow," she was apparently known for wearing bold, bright colors, jaguar pelts, and a coiled snake on her head. Sign me up!

If there's one down side to the site it's that it currently only offers instructions rather than an opportunity to purchase actual costumes. It would of course be wonderful if someone took this idea and ran with it as a business venture... In the meantime, if you don't have the sewing gene but would like to have one of the Take Back Halloween costumes made for you, I suggest joining Etsy and posting a request for the costume through Etsy's custom order team. How it works: Buyers post requests for custom-made items, and sellers contact buyers with proposals for making those requests come to life. You have to jump through a few hoops to be able to leave a request comment, but I tried it recently and it does work quite well.

Anyway, a ginormous thank you to the folks at Take Back Halloween for getting this idea out there...you've just made Halloween a whole lot cooler! ∞

lady laureates, revisited

Curt Rice, Vice President for R&D at the University of Tromsø in Norway, has a smart post on his blog today regarding the Nobel Peace Prize committee's embarrassing track record for recognizing women. As I noted recently, the number of all-time female Peace Prize laureates jumped up from 12 to 15 this year—that's an increase of 25 percent with just one award! Unfortunately it still means that 85 percent of Peace Prize recipients have been male. As Rice rightly asks, does this mean that only 85 percent of men have done valuable work for peace?

In one sense, it's laudable that the Nobel Peace Prize committee appears to be trying to make up for past omissions by giving three women the prize in one year. At the same time, it's hard to disagree with Rice's assertion that in so doing, the committee devalues the impact of the award, not only because it forces three people to share the prize money but because this award seems to throw together three women working in three different arenas just for the sake of numbers. Peace Prizes have been split before, but that's only happened when awardees were co-recipients with organizations or when they were working together toward the same specific goal. One might counter the notion that this year's three-way-split is unfair by arguing that giving the prize to three unrelated people—regardless of gender—spreads the wealth, if not literally then figuratively, by drawing attention to three causes rather than just one. And I have no doubt that if you ask any of this year's recipients they'd say they're thrilled simply to be awarded, jointly or no. But Rice's point here is a valid and important one: The vast majority of the time, individual men have taken home the gold and the glory, so lumping three women together under the banner of advancing women's struggle for peace makes it seem like the work of each individual recipient isn't worthy of the award on its own.

Rice further suggests that to improve the situation, the Nobel Peace Prize committee might consider adding a quota system by which they force themselves to award women a certain percentage of prizes from year to year. The idea of gender quotas may be controversial, but it's one I've come to favor in recent years, not necessarily in the realm of international awards but in response to the deplorable percentage of women we see in government, particularly here in the United States. To wit, according to the fascinating quotaProject, a database of quotas for women in government around the world, countries as diverse as Albania, Honduras, Rwanda, and Sweden have achieved success in implementing gender quotas in some part of their election structure. And as Rice points out, "Research shows that gender balance enhances quality. Quotas have not reduced the quality of corporate Boards, and there is no reason to expect they will reduce the quality of Peace Prize recipients, either."

Of course, for me this discussion only begs the question, Why stop at the Peace Prize? As I've written previously, the total number of Nobel Prizes awarded to women has been nothing short of pitiful. At the top of this post you'll see the latest version of the chart I created showing all female Nobel Laureates. To date, women have still only received 8 percent of all Nobels given to individuals. You think 15 percent of Peace Prizes going to women is bad? Try 11 percent for literature; 5 percent for physiology or medicine; 2 percent for chemistry; 1 percent for physics; and 1 percent for the Prize for Economic Sciences.

Admittedly, the candidate pool of women for some of the science prizes is, at least for now, smaller than for the peace prize; in the areas of physics and chemistry in particular, there have simply been significantly fewer women than men producing paradigm-shifting research. But that doesn't mean they don't exist and couldn't be expressly sought out for recognition now and again. Furthermore, the numbers argument doesn't really fly for an area like literature; there are plenty of deserving female authors out there. So the question is: If the Nobel organizers begin to consider whether to actively consider gender in rewarding seminal work in the field of peace then shouldn't they do the same for the other awards? To be sure, each Nobel and the Prize in Economic Sciences is awarded by a different committee, using different rules, but for the sake of argument I'll suggest this rule change should be considered wholesale.

My vote would be to give the various committees a probationary period of 10 years or so to self-correct, but then after that, if no significant improvement in female representation is seen, then yes, some sort of weighted quota system should be implemented. Of course, it's certainly possible that this issue will someday be moot—one look at the winners of this year's Google Science Fair has to bring hope for that. But the Nobels are in many ways an important tool for promoting continued excellence in science and the humanities, and there's no reason the world shouldn't hear the message now that women are just as capable and valued as are men in the Nobel disciplines. ∞