January 23, 2017 • 11 mins
Wonder Woman's iconic themes of truth, matriarchy, and bondage reflect on her fascinating creator. Schools are suspending more students than ever, with lasting effects. Plus: Do smartphones really charge faster in airplane mode?
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to How Stuff Works. Now. I'm your host, Lauren Vogelbaum,
a researcher and writer. Here at How Stuff Works. Every week,
I'm bringing you three stories from our team about the
weird and wondrous advances we've seen in science, technology, and culture.
This week, schools in the United States are spending twice
(00:20):
as many students as in previous decades, and this type
of punishment may have lasting effects. Unrelated, we answer the
age old question do smartphones really charge faster in airplane mode?
But first, Christian Sager, co host of a podcast you
might have heard of called Stuff to Blow Your Mind,
takes us on a deep dive into the history behind
one of America's iconic fictional heroes, wonder Woman. Wasn't a
(00:49):
kind year to wonder Woman, especially considering it was her
seventy five birthday. In March, the Princess of the Amazons
made her big screen debut in the critically panned slow
fest Batman v. Superman Dawn of Justice. Then she was
awarded an honorary United Nations Ambassadorship for Women and Girls,
(01:09):
only to have it revoked two months into its planned
twelvemonth campaign. On the comic book side, the critically acclaimed
Legend of Wonder Woman series was canceled abruptly, and artist
Frank cho through a public fit when he couldn't draw
a Wonder Woman's underwear on a comic book cover. In
the wake of this no good, very bad year, it's
(01:30):
worth remembering there's a secret origin behind Wonder Woman, one
that only a few storytellers are willing to commemorate. Her creator,
William Moulton Marston, saw Wonder Woman comics as an educational
opportunity to teach readers about his beliefs. Controversial both at
the time and today. Much has been previously written on this,
(01:51):
but writer Jill Lapoor pulled all the pieces together in
her book The Secret History of Wonder Woman. Mars had
three main fixations he baked into Wonder Woman's d NA,
the detection of lies, a matriarchal uprising, and sexualized bondage. Firstly,
Marston is widely acknowledged as inventing the systolic blood pressure
(02:15):
test that was eventually developed into the LIE detector. The
gadget he put together wasn't much more than a stethoscope
and a blood pressure cuff, which is fairly basic compared
to the digital polygraphs forensic psychophysiologists utilized today. They operate
on the same principle, though, that being deceptive produces anxiety,
(02:36):
leading to physical changes in the human bodies blood pressure,
heart rate, respiration, and conductivity. But there's evidence that it
wasn't Marston who first came up with this idea. Instead,
his wife, Elizabeth Holloway, was the one who suggested it
after she noticed her blood pressure increase when she was upset. Regardless,
(02:57):
the lie detector's accuracy is as debatable now as it
was in nineteen twenty two when Marston tried to introduce
it into court cases. So Marston turned to fiction instead
and created Wonder Woman's Golden Lasso of Truth that forces
those in its thrall to reveal their deceptions. In addition
to marrying Holloway, Marston also partnered with his former student,
(03:21):
all Of Burne. The three lived together in polyamory, with
Marston fathering children with both women. Burn's aunt was feminist
Margaret Sanger, whose philosophies influenced Marston and subsequently the comic
books he wrote. He had already supported women's rights in
the Harvard Men's League for Women's Suffrage, but Marston also
(03:41):
worked as a lab assistant under Harvard psychologist Hugo Munstenberg,
who was known to oppose the right to vote for women.
This confluence led Marston to believe that women were superior
to men and would eventually run the world because they
were more trustworthy and less aggress of them men. In
a nineteen forty three essay, he wrote, women's strong qualities
(04:05):
have become despised because of their weak ones. The obvious
remedy is to create a feminine character with all the
strengths of a superman plus all the allure of a
good and beautiful woman. Marston's solution was the creation of
Wonder Woman, and he drew inspiration from Munstenberg when creating
the villain Doctor Psycho. Finally, remember earlier when I mentioned
(04:29):
Marston's interest in the suffrage movement. A crucial spark toward
that influence came when he witnessed suffragists chain themselves to
offense in protest. Chains were used symbolically within this movement
to signify women's emancipation from enslavement. This led to an
ongoing theme and Wonder Woman comics, where she was constantly
(04:52):
chained up by her enemies Marston's allegory for female liberation
through birth control. Sanger herself published a collection of letters
from women titled Motherhood in Bondage, describing the lack of
birth control as akin to slavery. Now, to be fair,
while Marston may have worked progressive themes like this into
(05:12):
his Wonder Woman's stories, there's still evidence that he suppressed
his first wife's career while taking credit for her ideas.
Hopefully this will be explored more in the upcoming biopic
Professor Marston and the Wonder Women. If not, We've always
got Galgado's second outing as Princess Diana in the summer
of as an opportunity to explore Marston's genesis for the heroine.
(05:37):
Here's hoping her seventy six year treats her a little
bit better than did next up, staff editor Eves Jeff
Coote and our freelance writer Julia Layton explore a troubling
trend in American public schools, stringent use of exclusionary punishments
like suspensions. US public schools suspended two point eight million students,
(06:03):
or about six percent of its student population during the
fourteen school year. That's about ten percent more than two
thousand numbers and more than double the suspension rates of
the nineteen seventies. Suspensions rose dramatically with the widespread adoption
of zero tolerance policies. In the nineteen nineties, schools mandated
suspension for any student bringing a weapon onto campus, amid
(06:25):
growing concern about crime and violence in schools. But according
to the u c l A Civil Rights Project, most
suspensions in the two thousand nine to ten school year
were for offenses like tardiness, disrupting class, and violating dress codes.
Many education experts thank suspension is a poor approach to
school discipline. It doesn't address the issues that may cause
(06:46):
the student's problematic behavior, especially when some students see it
as a holiday. But inefficacy may be the least of
school suspensions problems. An alarmingly vast body of research suggests
discipline and many US public schools could be ruining students lives.
The U S Department of Education reports that a student
who has suspended or it's spelled during preschool or elementary
(07:08):
school is up to ten times more likely to face
jail tom later in life. A twelve study out of
Johns Hopkins University found that a single suspension in ninth
grade doubles the student's risk of dropping out, a major
predictor for incarceration. Experts say exclusionary punishment is a main
entry point to the school to prison pipeline that carries
students away from school and into the criminal justice system.
(07:31):
The pipeline has a short version where schools involve law
enforcement in matters of school discipline. In twelve police arrested
nine students for in school offenses, But in the longer version,
suspension causes the students to fall behind, fail academically, face
embarrassment among peers, and continue to misbehave. The school issues
more suspensions, and the student finally drops out. Responding to
(07:54):
student misbehavior can be a subjective process, and zero tolerance
policies tend to be open to interpretation. School officials often
determine what is and isn't suspension worthy on a case
by case basis, and sometimes these decisions are controversial, like
when a first grader in Delaware was suspended for bringing
his cub scout camping utensil to class. Problems also arise
(08:16):
when officials apply zero tolerance policies arbitrarily and with racial bias.
In the US, black students are three times more likely
than white students to be suspended. Males, American Indians, Alaska Natives,
and disabled students are also overrepresented in a suspended population.
Yet suspensions often don't improve student behavior. Considering the failure
(08:37):
and discrimination of school suspension policies, more effective measures of
discipline are critical u s schools are trying to change
their ways. Many schools are trading rampant suspension for research
based discipline models. Some take the restorative justice approach, which
focuses on repairing the harm done through community cooperation, and
some limit police involvement in discipline. Also, Texas took disruption
(08:59):
of class office list of Class C misdemeanors. In overall,
the move to reform is showing results the two point
eight million suspensions, where actually it's reduction from the previous
school year. Finally, this week, staff editor Christopher Hassiotis and
(09:25):
our freelance writer Patrick Jake Tiger have some practical advice
for us regarding how we charge our smartphones. Admit it,
you're a heavy duty smartphone user, and that includes just
about everybody these days. Since the average Americans spends four
point seven hours each day gazing at and tapping that
little screen. So you know how agonizing it is to
(09:47):
tear yourself away from cat videos and plug your phone
into a charger to replenish the battery. After all, some
smartphones can take hours to fully charge, so listen. You
may have heard that you can reduce your separation anxiety
a bit by following one simple tip while charging, switch
your phone to airplane mode. The thinking is that the
phone won't spend energy trying to connect with the outside world,
(10:09):
thereby speeding up the charging process. So that's what you've heard.
But does it actually work. As it turns out, the
answer is yes. In fact, mobile provider Verizon actually recommends it.
The reason why the trick succeeds is that while your
phone is in its regular mode, it's continually trying to
signal cell towers and pinpoint your location. And even though
(10:29):
your phone most likely has assisted GPS, which calculates your
location coordinates using the cell phone network rather than satellites,
the function still burns up a lot of juice. That's
because the location finding stops your phone from going into
full on energy saving sleep mode. So when you switch
to airplane mode, you turn off reception of those radio
transmissions and as a result, your smartphone charges more quickly.
(10:52):
But don't get too hyped up, because it's not likely
to save you that much more time. When the website
c Net tested the proposition a few years ago, airplane
mode only shaved four minutes off of phones total charging
time in one trial and eleven minutes in another, a
fraction of the overall time. Still, if you're in a
pinch and just have a few minutes to charge, it
may help, and it certainly won't slow things down. That's
(11:18):
our show for this week. Thank you so much for
tuning in. Further thanks to our audio producer Dylan Fagin
and our editorial liaisons Alicon, Loudermilk and Christopher. Subscribe to
now now for more of the latest science news, and
send us links to anything you'd like to hear us cover,
plus a photo from your local women's march. You can
send us an email at now podcast at how stuff
(11:38):
works dot com, and of course, for lots more stories
like these, head on over to our home planet now
dot how stuff works dot com.
Welcome to How Stuff Works. Now. I'm your host, Lauren Vogelbaum,
a researcher and writer. Here at How Stuff Works. Every week,
I'm bringing you three stories from our team about the
weird and wondrous advances we've seen in science, technology, and culture.
This week, schools in the United States are spending twice
(00:20):
as many students as in previous decades, and this type
of punishment may have lasting effects. Unrelated, we answer the
age old question do smartphones really charge faster in airplane mode?
But first, Christian Sager, co host of a podcast you
might have heard of called Stuff to Blow Your Mind,
takes us on a deep dive into the history behind
one of America's iconic fictional heroes, wonder Woman. Wasn't a
(00:49):
kind year to wonder Woman, especially considering it was her
seventy five birthday. In March, the Princess of the Amazons
made her big screen debut in the critically panned slow
fest Batman v. Superman Dawn of Justice. Then she was
awarded an honorary United Nations Ambassadorship for Women and Girls,
(01:09):
only to have it revoked two months into its planned
twelvemonth campaign. On the comic book side, the critically acclaimed
Legend of Wonder Woman series was canceled abruptly, and artist
Frank cho through a public fit when he couldn't draw
a Wonder Woman's underwear on a comic book cover. In
the wake of this no good, very bad year, it's
(01:30):
worth remembering there's a secret origin behind Wonder Woman, one
that only a few storytellers are willing to commemorate. Her creator,
William Moulton Marston, saw Wonder Woman comics as an educational
opportunity to teach readers about his beliefs. Controversial both at
the time and today. Much has been previously written on this,
(01:51):
but writer Jill Lapoor pulled all the pieces together in
her book The Secret History of Wonder Woman. Mars had
three main fixations he baked into Wonder Woman's d NA,
the detection of lies, a matriarchal uprising, and sexualized bondage. Firstly,
Marston is widely acknowledged as inventing the systolic blood pressure
(02:15):
test that was eventually developed into the LIE detector. The
gadget he put together wasn't much more than a stethoscope
and a blood pressure cuff, which is fairly basic compared
to the digital polygraphs forensic psychophysiologists utilized today. They operate
on the same principle, though, that being deceptive produces anxiety,
(02:36):
leading to physical changes in the human bodies blood pressure,
heart rate, respiration, and conductivity. But there's evidence that it
wasn't Marston who first came up with this idea. Instead,
his wife, Elizabeth Holloway, was the one who suggested it
after she noticed her blood pressure increase when she was upset. Regardless,
(02:57):
the lie detector's accuracy is as debatable now as it
was in nineteen twenty two when Marston tried to introduce
it into court cases. So Marston turned to fiction instead
and created Wonder Woman's Golden Lasso of Truth that forces
those in its thrall to reveal their deceptions. In addition
to marrying Holloway, Marston also partnered with his former student,
(03:21):
all Of Burne. The three lived together in polyamory, with
Marston fathering children with both women. Burn's aunt was feminist
Margaret Sanger, whose philosophies influenced Marston and subsequently the comic
books he wrote. He had already supported women's rights in
the Harvard Men's League for Women's Suffrage, but Marston also
(03:41):
worked as a lab assistant under Harvard psychologist Hugo Munstenberg,
who was known to oppose the right to vote for women.
This confluence led Marston to believe that women were superior
to men and would eventually run the world because they
were more trustworthy and less aggress of them men. In
a nineteen forty three essay, he wrote, women's strong qualities
(04:05):
have become despised because of their weak ones. The obvious
remedy is to create a feminine character with all the
strengths of a superman plus all the allure of a
good and beautiful woman. Marston's solution was the creation of
Wonder Woman, and he drew inspiration from Munstenberg when creating
the villain Doctor Psycho. Finally, remember earlier when I mentioned
(04:29):
Marston's interest in the suffrage movement. A crucial spark toward
that influence came when he witnessed suffragists chain themselves to
offense in protest. Chains were used symbolically within this movement
to signify women's emancipation from enslavement. This led to an
ongoing theme and Wonder Woman comics, where she was constantly
(04:52):
chained up by her enemies Marston's allegory for female liberation
through birth control. Sanger herself published a collection of letters
from women titled Motherhood in Bondage, describing the lack of
birth control as akin to slavery. Now, to be fair,
while Marston may have worked progressive themes like this into
(05:12):
his Wonder Woman's stories, there's still evidence that he suppressed
his first wife's career while taking credit for her ideas.
Hopefully this will be explored more in the upcoming biopic
Professor Marston and the Wonder Women. If not, We've always
got Galgado's second outing as Princess Diana in the summer
of as an opportunity to explore Marston's genesis for the heroine.
(05:37):
Here's hoping her seventy six year treats her a little
bit better than did next up, staff editor Eves Jeff
Coote and our freelance writer Julia Layton explore a troubling
trend in American public schools, stringent use of exclusionary punishments
like suspensions. US public schools suspended two point eight million students,
(06:03):
or about six percent of its student population during the
fourteen school year. That's about ten percent more than two
thousand numbers and more than double the suspension rates of
the nineteen seventies. Suspensions rose dramatically with the widespread adoption
of zero tolerance policies. In the nineteen nineties, schools mandated
suspension for any student bringing a weapon onto campus, amid
(06:25):
growing concern about crime and violence in schools. But according
to the u c l A Civil Rights Project, most
suspensions in the two thousand nine to ten school year
were for offenses like tardiness, disrupting class, and violating dress codes.
Many education experts thank suspension is a poor approach to
school discipline. It doesn't address the issues that may cause
(06:46):
the student's problematic behavior, especially when some students see it
as a holiday. But inefficacy may be the least of
school suspensions problems. An alarmingly vast body of research suggests
discipline and many US public schools could be ruining students lives.
The U S Department of Education reports that a student
who has suspended or it's spelled during preschool or elementary
(07:08):
school is up to ten times more likely to face
jail tom later in life. A twelve study out of
Johns Hopkins University found that a single suspension in ninth
grade doubles the student's risk of dropping out, a major
predictor for incarceration. Experts say exclusionary punishment is a main
entry point to the school to prison pipeline that carries
students away from school and into the criminal justice system.
(07:31):
The pipeline has a short version where schools involve law
enforcement in matters of school discipline. In twelve police arrested
nine students for in school offenses, But in the longer version,
suspension causes the students to fall behind, fail academically, face
embarrassment among peers, and continue to misbehave. The school issues
more suspensions, and the student finally drops out. Responding to
(07:54):
student misbehavior can be a subjective process, and zero tolerance
policies tend to be open to interpretation. School officials often
determine what is and isn't suspension worthy on a case
by case basis, and sometimes these decisions are controversial, like
when a first grader in Delaware was suspended for bringing
his cub scout camping utensil to class. Problems also arise
(08:16):
when officials apply zero tolerance policies arbitrarily and with racial bias.
In the US, black students are three times more likely
than white students to be suspended. Males, American Indians, Alaska Natives,
and disabled students are also overrepresented in a suspended population.
Yet suspensions often don't improve student behavior. Considering the failure
(08:37):
and discrimination of school suspension policies, more effective measures of
discipline are critical u s schools are trying to change
their ways. Many schools are trading rampant suspension for research
based discipline models. Some take the restorative justice approach, which
focuses on repairing the harm done through community cooperation, and
some limit police involvement in discipline. Also, Texas took disruption
(08:59):
of class office list of Class C misdemeanors. In overall,
the move to reform is showing results the two point
eight million suspensions, where actually it's reduction from the previous
school year. Finally, this week, staff editor Christopher Hassiotis and
(09:25):
our freelance writer Patrick Jake Tiger have some practical advice
for us regarding how we charge our smartphones. Admit it,
you're a heavy duty smartphone user, and that includes just
about everybody these days. Since the average Americans spends four
point seven hours each day gazing at and tapping that
little screen. So you know how agonizing it is to
(09:47):
tear yourself away from cat videos and plug your phone
into a charger to replenish the battery. After all, some
smartphones can take hours to fully charge, so listen. You
may have heard that you can reduce your separation anxiety
a bit by following one simple tip while charging, switch
your phone to airplane mode. The thinking is that the
phone won't spend energy trying to connect with the outside world,
(10:09):
thereby speeding up the charging process. So that's what you've heard.
But does it actually work. As it turns out, the
answer is yes. In fact, mobile provider Verizon actually recommends it.
The reason why the trick succeeds is that while your
phone is in its regular mode, it's continually trying to
signal cell towers and pinpoint your location. And even though
(10:29):
your phone most likely has assisted GPS, which calculates your
location coordinates using the cell phone network rather than satellites,
the function still burns up a lot of juice. That's
because the location finding stops your phone from going into
full on energy saving sleep mode. So when you switch
to airplane mode, you turn off reception of those radio
transmissions and as a result, your smartphone charges more quickly.
(10:52):
But don't get too hyped up, because it's not likely
to save you that much more time. When the website
c Net tested the proposition a few years ago, airplane
mode only shaved four minutes off of phones total charging
time in one trial and eleven minutes in another, a
fraction of the overall time. Still, if you're in a
pinch and just have a few minutes to charge, it
may help, and it certainly won't slow things down. That's
(11:18):
our show for this week. Thank you so much for
tuning in. Further thanks to our audio producer Dylan Fagin
and our editorial liaisons Alicon, Loudermilk and Christopher. Subscribe to
now now for more of the latest science news, and
send us links to anything you'd like to hear us cover,
plus a photo from your local women's march. You can
send us an email at now podcast at how stuff
(11:38):
works dot com, and of course, for lots more stories
like these, head on over to our home planet now
dot how stuff works dot com.
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