issue 11// volume 44

It’s cold outside

> New polls show a rise in winter weather anxieties

Jillian McMullen
Staff Writer

 

Statistics Canada recently published
new research showing that 8g per cent of
Vancouverites are fearful of cold weather,
up from last year’s figure of 55 per cent.

The federal statistical office was
tasked with determining how the
country was confronting climate change
as a whole. The survey results showed
an increase of concern for erratic
storms across all provinces, with most
participants listing a fear of violent
hurricanes. However, researchers noticed
a particular concern that was unique to
the Metro Vancouver area: A fear of snow.

The Other Press got in contact
with Mike Fibonacci, one of the main
statisticians working on the survey,
to ask him why Vancouver’s numbers
stood out. He explained that most
residents were unsure what to do
when confronted with cold weather.

“[In the survey] many Vancouver

residents listed a fear that frozen
precipitate threatens their West Coast
lifestyle, and forces the cancellation
of weekend hiking trips, along with
halting their Sunday brunches.”

When asked what might explain
the sharp rise, Fibonacci stated that
last year’s particularly irregular winter
precipitated many of these anxieties.

“Yes, it seems as though, unlike
literally everywhere else in the country,
Vancouverites don’t seem to understand
why snow would fall in the region at all.
For many, 2016 was a rough year, and
the heavy snowfall was just another
slap in the face for many residences,”
he said. “Most who live in Vancouver
have been exclusively told that ‘Tt just
rains here, and the phrase had become
a sort of tongue-in-cheek joke among
the residents. This joke seems to have
hoodwinked many of those residents
into believing it only rains here.”

Michelle Tougee, Kitsilano resident,
felt her expectations have been misled
by the city’s image. “I just don’t get it.

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Like, yeah, Canada’s cold, but this is

Vancouver. Snow shouldn't happen here.”
The city of Vancouver has organized

an open panel to address these

concerns about the upcoming winter

season. There, residents can meet with

municipal officials to discuss what to

Research suggests women envy
moustaches, not penises

> UBC study builds on Freud's theory of female psychology

Jake Wray
News Editor

 

“Her self-love is mortified by the
comparison with the boy’s far superior
equipment.” — Sigmund Freud, 1933

Oz of Sigmund Freud’s most
controversial and discredited
theories might have some truth to it.

As part of his overall theory about
the psycho-sexual development of pre-
adolescent girls, Freud postulated that
girls are deeply affected at an early age
by the realization that they do not have
penises. He theorized that girls have
an innate desire to have heterosexual
intercourse with their mothers, and
that they are unable to do so without
a penis, so they envy boys and men
(including their father) for having
penises. This envy, according to Freud,
is held subconsciously for the rest
of a woman's life, and influences her
personality. The penis envy theory has
been criticized as heteronormative,
misogynistic, and patriarchal.

Freud’s psycho-sexual theories
lack empirical proof and, until now,
have been more a matter of philosophy
than science. In early 2014, a group of
researchers at UBC set out to change
that by starting a scientific study to
verify the penis envoy theory. What
they found took them by surprise.

“We anticipated that our research
would show Freud’s theory to be
completely baseless,” said Karen Green,
UBC psychology research fellow and lead
author of the study. “Instead, we found
his envy framework mostly sound, except
it was centered on the wrong object.”

Using re-purposed Iranian copper
mind plugs and state-of-the-art brain
imaging software, researchers tapped

directly into the brains of 2458 female
test subjects to view what the subjects
were subconsciously thinking. The
researchers found that most of the
test subjects did not want to have
intercourse with their mothers when
they were children, as Freud suggested,
but instead simply wanted to impress
their mothers. Consequently, the test
subjects did not envy men’s penises—
they envied men’s moustaches.

Green and her team then
conducted an additional experiment
which found moustaches are innately
impressive to adult women.

“There was already a wealth of
scientific evidence telling us that women
don't find penises impressive,” Green said.
“Despite the obvious glory of moustaches,
there was no empirical evidence
indicating how women felt about them.”

A primary group of female test
subjects were exposed to a man with
a real moustache, a placebo group of
test subjects was exposed to that man
with a fake moustache, and a control
group of test subjects was exposed
to the same man clean-shaven. Post-
exposure questionnaires filled out by all
participants showed that many women
in the primary and placebo groups
experienced elevated moods and an
increased libido after the encounter, even
if they claimed to not like moustaches.
The control group experienced little
or no elevation of mood or libido.

“The implications of this
research are vast,” said Deepthi Arora,
a psychology professor at McGill
University who also runs a private
practice. “I’m ashamed to admit that
I have counselled numerous female
patients with slight moustaches, and I
encouraged all of them to shave or wax.

Tom Churchill, a barber who
has owned a shop in Vancouver's

>

East Side neighbourhood since 1963,
said the study confirms something
he had already observed.

“I’ve been doing this for 50 years, and
moustaches have easily been the most
common fixation among both men and

 

humour // no. 23

   
 
   
   
  

do about the “winter problem,” and

work together to develop ways with

the city to halt the season’s approach.
The meeting will convene

at 8 p.m. at Vancouver City Hall

on Thursday, November 23.

women,” he said. “Some women ask me if
I can give them a moustache. I tell them
‘Lady, I just cut hair—I don't grow it!”

Photo by Analyn Cuarto

Illustration by Cara Seccafien