Fetus is just a funny word

Well, I can already see that my social anxiety is going to be a hindrance to the whole posting-stuff-for-public-scrutiny aspect of blogging. It's taking me way too long to think of a title for this first post. Like anyone cares what the title of this post is. Yeah, yeah, I could say some self-effacing crap at this point like, "that's assuming anyone even reads my blogs," but I'm going to force at least a few of my friends and relatives to read it. And now that I've drawn attention to how long it's taking me to think of a title for this post, that's making me realize that it's going to be worse when the title of this post is lame. Great.

I like this font, though. So I got that goin' for me...

I've started this blog mainly to muse about things that happen at work. I'm a psychology professor at a small liberal arts school. It seems like there isn't a day that goes by that a student doesn't do something to amuse and/or annoy me to the point that I want to share the story with others. As is true with most blogs, these stories may only resonate with me but I'm going to put them out there anyway. So, without further ado...

I was grading exams last night from my Intro Psych class. One of the short-answer questions was "What is womb envy?" If you're not familiar with the term, it was pretty much Karen Horney's response to Freud's idea of penis envy. She was annoyed, and rightfully so, with his suggestion that women were inferior to men because they didn't have penises so she suggested it was really men who were envious of women. She suggested that man's historical shit treatment of woman comes from his envy of her ability to have children. Okay, so now that you know the right answer to the question... a student responded: "Womb envy is when the fetus becomes kind of attached to being in the mother's womb and does not want to come out." I want to believe he was trying to be funny because he didn't know the answer, but scarily enough that could have been a sincere attempt at a right answer.

Btw, "Horney" is pronounced "Horn-eye." Imagine all the chuckles when I put her name up on the power point slide before pronouncing it aloud.