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Dr. Steiner Returns to Oxford

Some academics may live in ivory towers and deal with abstractions – but not Dr. Linda Steiner.

While for the last 10 years she has been an adjunct professor of psychology at UW-Green Bay, she has also been grounded in the real world as a social psychologist. When she does diversity training, she brings to her work the experience of raising a bi-racial son, now an adult; when she works with victims of domestic abuse, she relates her own experience of being in an abusive relationship when she was a young woman before her present marriage.

Dr. Steiner holds both an MA and a Ph.D. in Applied Social Psychology and has a special interest in social justice. She deals with matters of sexism, racism, and other areas of human repression.

Readers of the Pulse are familiar with Dr. Steiner from the “Why Is It…?” columns she has written since May of 2008.

Perhaps it was this background, both professional and personal in matters of social justice, that gave Steiner an authority that has earned her a second invitation to speak at the Oxford Round Table Symposium at Oxford University in England this month.

Oxford conducts a series of symposiums each year, inviting 35 to 40 experts in various fields to send a prospectus to be reviewed by a panel for consideration.

“I’m a social psychologist,” Steiner said, “but others could be lawyers, economists – a diverse group, all dealing with a social policy issue.”

Steiner was first invited to speak in the July 2010 symposium on the subject “Women and Social Justice: A Persistent Dilemma.” Her presentation was entitled “The Mass Marketing of Inequality: Perpetuating Female Subservience One Schema at a Time,” the premise that stereotypes of femininity become neurologically conditioned as a result of media portrayals of women and girls. Her paper was published in Forum on Public Policy (December 2010).

Images that appear in children’s books, television commercials, and print advertisements depict females who (1) are “diminutive, weak, small, submissive;” (2) have “sex appeal as a primary directive;” and (3) “function in domestic servitude.”

One of many examples that Steiner referenced was a department store flyer advertising raincoats for small children. The cuts of the garments were identical, but the jackets for boys were designed to look like those worn by firemen, while the ones for girls were printed with kittens and butterflies.

Another was found in two parallel greeting cards. One was for a grandson, reminding him of the possibilities he faced in life as an athlete, a scientist, and such; the one for a granddaughter was pink and glittered, reminding her that she had beautiful eyes and a big smile.

“All human beings have male and female aspects,” Steiner said, “nurturing and assertive.” And while strides have been made since the 1970s in recognizing this fact, stereotypes are still perpetuated, especially through media.

On Steiner’s returning to Oxford for a symposium on the topic “Women’s Studies at the University Level,” she will contribute again to the discussion.

“They must have liked last year’s presentation,” she joked, “as they have made me the first presenter!”

Although many would characterize her as a feminist, Steiner is opposed to women’s studies programs and will make her argument in “Women’s Studies: Equal Representation or Academic Marginalization.”

“Women’s studies programs at the university level are a bad idea from a social psychology perspective,” she said. Humans tend to create in-groups and out-groups, and these classes, although well intended, place a value on physical differences. While women’s studies sprang from a “noble initiative” during the 1970s, the classes “reinforce that women are separate and distinct rather than integrating” them into social structures. For example, classes might be offered in general psychology (dealing with both men and women) and in the psychology of women; but no classes exist treating only the psychology of men.

Steiner believes that women’s studies classes (like “Black studies” classes), she said, tend to reinforce stereotypes rather than dispel them. When she teaches women’s studies classes, she notes that all of the students are female.

While the Oxford presentations culminate in formal academic papers, Steiner’s “Why Is It…?” columns in the Pulse are informal treatments of some of the same issues. She brings to these features not only an academic background, but also work experience in diversity, sensitivity, and organization training, workshops that she has conducted since 1989.

She is quick to point out that her column, even though she does take questions from readers, differs radically from the pithy responses offered by syndicated advice columnists (or, it might be added, Finnish Finishing School Mary Pat’s column in the Pulse).

At the start of her university social psychology classes, Steiner invites each student to write anonymously a question about social behavior, queries that she responds to during her lectures, and occasionally uses for one of her columns.

“Topics I address,” she said, “range through matters of interpersonal relationships, to personal issues of self-esteem, to global political issues.” Her answers to questions about human behavior are given “from a social psychological perspective.”

Unlike advice columnists she does not advise readers as to actions they should take (the exception she says, is the advice to women to end abusive relationships), but rather “to get people to do research and some thinking, and to consider agendas” of societal organizations that dictate human behavior.

One example of a societal influence can be illustrated by Dr. Steiner’s own experiences with her bi-racial son. When he was a little boy (he’s now 29), he came home from one of his first days of school and asked her, “Am I black or white?” He had never given the matter thought before that time, she said.

She sat down at a table with him and using paints, made a circle on paper that was red, a second that was blue, and asked him to identify the colors. Then she combined the two and asked him the color. “Purple,” he answered. “And that is you,” she explained.

Steiner has turned this experience with her son into a children’s story and is presently looking for a publisher.

Steiner is also interested in human behavior as it relates to that of animals. In 2006 she and her husband Jeremie Pascascio opened Plum Loco Animal Farm near Jacksonport.

“We are both avid animal lovers,” she said. It took them four years to build from the ground up the farm that now is home to 60 domestic animals.

Neighbors and colleagues in Illinois “thought we were crazy coming up here,” she said, “and called me Dr. Doolittle!” And as the property was situated on Plum Bottom Road, the Plum Loco name seemed a natural, she laughed.

The farm is not a petting zoo, she points out. And theirs is not a working farm; the animals are not ridden, milked, or eaten; they live out their lives in a safe, loving, permanent home.

The business relates to Steiner’s work as a social psychologist first from a personal perspective; the farm is healing and fulfilling for her as the unconditional love of the animals provides a refreshing alternative to the dark side of people that she often sees dealing with social injustices.

And because animals and humans are both social beings, the farm offers an opportunity for engaging interactions that people find educational.

“Families are surprised,” she said. “They expect a quick pet and feed,” but many experiences await them, including a child-sized play farm, a general store and low-tech toys. Also offered are a picnic space and seasonal activities. And she finds that the experience can be healing and fulfilling for visitors to the farm.

Dr. Linda Steiner’s columns are a regular feature in the Pulse, and can be found within the “Perspectives” section or online at http://www.ppulse.com. To learn more about her animals, visit Plum Loco Animal Farm at 4431 Plum Bottom Road from Memorial Day through October or online at http://www.plumlocoanimalfarm.com.