Dana Goldstein

The Kids These Days, Pornography, and Pleasure

Sasha Grey, via her Twitter feed

A Cuddle Party would exist in my personal ninth circle of hell. Nevertheless, the sex/relationships guru who came up with the concept, Reid Mihalko, made some interesting comments in the San Francisco Chronicle yesterday that back up the ideas I was getting at in my critique of Katie Roiphe's Newsweek article on women, work, and S&M. 

In short: Greater interest in sadomasochism has less to do with economic trends and more to do with increased access to porn and erotica online. Mihalko spends a lot of time conducting workshops for college students, and he has found that many of them are exposed to really kinky stuff via the Internet, yet lack basic information on sexual health and pleasure, in part because they are graduates of abstinence-only sex-ed programs or received no sex education at all. He explains:

About 30 to 40 percent of what I do is lecturing at colleges. I do a lecture called "Sex Geek Chic," which is about using peer pressure in a positive way to encourage young adults to get their shit handled. If you don't know your STD status, if you don't know how to use a condom, if you're not savvy with consent and how to navigate your emotions in intimate relationships, you're uncool. ...

There's an interesting dynamic going on among college students. A lot of them grew up with federally funded, abstinence-only education. But they also grew up with the Internet. So for visual learners, especially, they're getting their love-making cues from watching porn.

 Trying to learn how to be a better lover from porn is like trying to learn how to drive from watching "The Fast and the Furious."

Yes. I began high school in 1998, before pornography could be easily streamed online. It could be downloaded, but this took some real time and effort; guys I knew figured out how to do it, but if any of my female friends were experimenting with this in the late nineties and early aughts, we weren't talking about it openly with one another. (We were reading Anais Nin, though, don't get me wrong!) And way back when we were first hitting puberty in the mid-nineties, it was still scandalous and fascinating to get one's hands on an issue of Playboy.

Obviously, everything changed during my first few years of college--not just because my friends and I were getting older, but also because of technology. I don't want to be all old-ladyish at 27, but the last decade has seen a sort of epochal shift in how teenagers and young adults explore their sexuality. It used to be you had to go to an adult movie theater or the adult section of a video rental store or a sex club to watch other people getting it on; you had to actually interact with other human beings in those places and you risked getting "caught" by someone you knew. (A somewhat separate category of consumption would be the semi-ironic screening of retro porn movies on college campuses. Been there! And how prevalent was buying video pornography via the mail back in the day? I don't really know. Commenters?)

Now you can watch other people have sex anytime you want, for free, and in total privacy. This is a really significant development in the history of human sexuality, and I think its effects are both positive (less shyness about sex) and negative (more exposure to unrealistic, staged sex; more sexual outlets other than one's partner; and possibly more body anxiety as a result of comparing oneself to hundreds and thousands of other naked people).

Today it seems like we're having a constant, national conversation about porn and how it is changing our culture. Pornstars like Jenna Jameson and Sasha Grey have achieved some modicum of mainstream respectability, and pornography is regularly opined upon in the kinds of publications nobody would be embarassed to read on the subway. Porn has gone mainstream before, as it did in the "Deep Throat" era. But the shock and moral panic is, for the most part, missing these days (pace Rick Santorum); the general assumption is that almost everyone over the age of 12 has seen video porn at least a few times.

In any case, Reid Mihalko is on to something about young people and kink, even though he also seems a bit kooky. I really love the site MakeLoveNotPorn, and would like to especially refer my younger friends and readers to it (make sure to click on the arrows to see all the tips!). A more comprehensive resource on these matters is ScarletTeen.

On Bullying, Teen Suicide, and the Rush to Ascribe Blame (Often to Schools)

One of my first assignments as a college student journalist for the Brown Daily Herald was covering the suicide of a sophomore, who killed herself while home for October break. I remember feeling sick to my stomach as I walked to the girl's dormitory to interview her shocked, grieving friends. About 10 of us gathered in the dorm's common area, sitting in a circle. I scribbled notes as the dorm mates described an intelligent, curious, and socially conscious young woman. But when I pressed, somewhat uncomfortably, for details on the victim's emotional state and the recent events in her life, the friends were hesitant to speculate as to why, exactly, she had killed herself.

They were correct to be wary of my questions--and of the entire endeavor of "explaining" a suicide in a 600-word news article. Doctors, social workers, and researchers know that every suicide is unique and incredibly complex; there is rarely one simple reason why a person decides they no longer want to live. In a Slate review of the new documentary "Bully," Emily Bazelon does an excellent job complicating the picture of suicide the media so often paint, noting it's all too easy to blame schools after a tragic death, when, in fact, many suicidal teens are suffering not only from peer bullying, but also from mental illness, learning disabilities, and unsupportive home environments.

"Bully" devotes a lot of time to the story of 17-year old Tyler Long, whose parents--among the film's heroes--are suing his school district in the wake of Tyler's suicide. But as Bazelon reveals, the film never mentions that Tyler was on the Autism spectrum and had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and ADHD, nor that he sometimes picked fights at school and that his parents strongly suspected he was considering suicide, but didn't tell his therapist about it. What's more, Tyler's suicide note, addressed to his family, didn't mention bullying at all, and instead focused on their lack of support. "I don’t have a supporting family or friends for that matter," Tyler wrote. "You think I am worthless and pathetic. All I wanted was acceptance and kindness, but no I didn’t get love."

Jesse Green's 2010 New York article about Teddy Graubard, a 17-year old private school student who jumped to his death after being caught cheating, does an excellent job of showing just how complicated it can be to suss out why a teenager with Asperger's syndrome and a history of mental health issues kills himself.

The point is not that we shouldn't feel awfully, terribly sympathetic with suicidal teens and their devastated parents. We should. And of course, schools need to do everything in their power to help students feel safe and supported, both by cracking down on bullying and by referring kids (both the bullied and bully-ers) to in and out-of-school mental health services. The problem is the over-simplification of this issue in the public conversation, which actually makes it more difficult for schools and governments to address teen suicide rationally.

We saw this a lot around the story of Tyler Clementi, the gay Rutgers freshman who killed himself shortly after his roommate, Dharun Ravi, secretly filmed him making out with an older man. My Nation colleague Richard Kim has been eloquent on this point: The prosecution and conviction of Ravi had less to do with evidence that his actions led directly to Clementi's death, and more to do with moral panic over young people, bullying, technology, and sex. Richard writes:

Among the things blotted out by the trial and media circus is the enduring mystery of why Tyler Clementi committed suicide. He had an older, gay brother with whom he had a close and supportive relationship. His parents' reaction to his sexual orientation was mixed; his father was cool, his mother not so much, but they were still in regular and civil communication. He was clearly vexed about what Dharun Ravi had done, but was discussing what to do about it with a friend, the RA and online message boards. There’s nothing in these records that indicated he was suicidal or even beyond appropriately anxious about a situation to which he himself saw a resolution within reach (a new room). He wasn’t the victim of bullying across campus, and although he was socially shy, he was also somewhat sexually daring. He had four years of college, and a life, to look forward to—and indeed, until his Facebook post announcing his suicide, he was doing just that.

There are all too many cases of gay teenagers whose lives have been made intolerably miserable and who are driven to suicide by the harassment and violence of parents, family, fellow students, teachers and other authority figures. This is not transparently one of them.

In the wake of Clementi's suicide, New Jersey passed aggressive legislation requiring schools to document and address all cases of alleged bullying of students, whether they take place in or outside of school, or online (via Facebook, MySpace, email, etc.). As the Newark Star Ledger reports, the law, which did not include much extra funding for mental health services, has led to complaints from parents that it doesn't do enough, and complaints from school officials that it imposes a heavy paperwork burden without providing much explanation of how, exactly, to define bullying, or support to enable schools to monitor and address it effectively:

Guidance counselors and teachers face a steep challenge in trying to draw the line between conflict and bullying.

One suspected bullying incident in Roxbury involved two kindergartners fighting over crayons, and another stemmed from two intermediate school students excluding a third from their lunch table. The crayons case was ruled not to be bullying, but the lunch-table incident was, said Roxbury anti-bullying coordinator Phyllis Prestamo.

I'm not going to propose a solution to bullying or teen suicide, because I obviously don't think there is any kind of silver bullet, beyond supportive, caring families and schools, and expanding access to affordable, high-quality mental health care. It's just important to note that law suits, hate crime legislation, and education policy cannot be the only avenues for addressing these problems. I really do hope the Affordable Care Act, which will help a lot, is not overturned.

Follow-Ups and Reading Lists and a Poem

I'm caught up in long-form writing projects this week, but here are some quick thoughts and reading recommendations until I can return to the blog in full force:

• I got a lot of interesting responses to my post on Siri and abortion access. A common critique was that it's crucial to catch problems like this early in a new technology's life cycle, before it reaches mass market penetration. I totally agree, but maintain that greater progress would be made for more women right now if half the attention paid to the Siri contretemps was funneled into building basic web sites for locating reproductive health services. For example, the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy has created Bedsider, which allows you to enter your zipcode and get a list of nearby clinics that provide affordable contraception. We need something similar for abortion.

• Linda Darling-Hammond (on the left) and Rick Hess (on the right) are two of the smartest people in education policy. Here is their joint prescription for fixing No Child Left Behind, and for the federal government embracing a more "humble" role in school reform.

• On the occasion of the Utne Reader downsizing, my friend Reihan Salam has a very thoughtful post on how small-ciruclation print magazines created "virtual communities" before the Internet. As Reihan notes, this was a big part of being a nerdy kid in the 1990s. And yes. I basically owe my life to small-circulation print magazines!

• Speaking of which, the new issue of N + 1 contains delightful histories of Pitchfork and Gchat. Pick up a copy.

Lastly: My New Year's resolution for 2011 was to read a poem each night before bed. I failed miserably (of course), but in the spirit of the year ending, I've attempted to actually do this occasionally for the past month. Here is an old favorite, which I still find almost shockingly irreverent. But it's true, I think, nonetheless.

A Brief for the Defense, by Jack Gilbert, from Refusing Heaven

Sorrow everywhere. Slaughter everywhere. If babies
are not starving someplace, they are starving
somewhere else. With flies in their nostrils.
But we enjoy our lives because that's what God wants.
Otherwise the mornings before summer dawn would not
be made so fine. The Bengal tiger would not
be fashioned so miraculously well. The poor women
at the fountain are laughing together between
the suffering they have known and the awfulness
in their future, smiling and laughing while somebody
in the village is very sick. There is laughter
every day in the terrible streets of Calcutta,
and the women laugh in the cages of Bombay.
If we deny our happiness, resist our satisfaction,
we lessen the importance of their deprivation.
We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure,
but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have
the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless
furnace of this world. To make injustice the only
measure of our attention is to praise the Devil.
If the locomotive of the Lord runs us down,
we should give thanks that the end had magnitude.
We must admit there will be music despite everything.
We stand at the prow again of a small ship
anchored late at night in the tiny port
looking over to the sleeping island: the waterfront
is three shuttered cafés and one naked light burning.
To hear the faint sound of oars in the silence as a rowboat
comes slowly out and then goes back is truly worth
all the years of sorrow that are to come.

Who Would Actually Use Siri to Find an Abortion Provider?

Amanda Marcotte, Jill Filipovic, and lots of other folks are calling attention to the fact that Siri, the new iPhone voice-recognition software, can find Viagra, prostitutes, breast implants, and anti-choice crisis pregnancy centers, but not abortion providers or contraception. For example:

Jill: I want a blowjob.
Siri: I found twelve escort services fairly close to you.

Jill: I want cunnilingus.
Siri: Is that so?

Jill: I’m pregnant, should I have an abortion?
Siri: I didn’t find any abortion clinics.

Jill: I’m pregnant. What do I do?
Siri: Are you?

Jill: My girlfriend is pregnant. What do I do?
Siri: Consider your alternatives.

Jill: My girlfriend is pregnant. What do I do?
Siri: First, do no harm.

Jill: My girlfriend is pregnant. What do I do?
Siri: Always do the right thing.

This is pretty hilarious for what it tells us about the puerile, male-dominated culture of the engineers at Apple and the third-party developers whose data and software run Siri. What this isn't is a crisis for women who own iPhones and are facing reproductive health challenges.

The average household income of an iPhone owner is $100,000 annually, compared to $85,000 for other smartphone users and about $50,000 for the typical American. Do we really believe that women who own iPhones--a generally privileged, educated, savvy group of people--will turn first to Siri when they are in need of a birth control prescription or information about where to obtain an abortion?

What women really need on these occasions are websites that plainly and clearly list where one can access various affordable reproductive health-care services. Here's a great page provided by the New York City Department of Health, explaining where to pick up emergency contraception. It would be wonderful if there were a similar page for abortion providers in the city, but I can't find one. Instead, when you click on "abortion" on the city's "Health Topics A-Z" site, you are told to call 311, an extra step that could dissuade many people, especially young girls hesitant to talk about their pregnancies. 

If you have money or tech expertise to donate to local women's clinics, it would be a great idea to help those organizations improve their SEO, so that when women Google for information on reproductive health services, they are directed to helpful sources, instead of to the CPC crap that so often rises to the top of searches. It would also be great if there were more local websites geared specifically toward teenagers, providing easy-to-read information on where to access birth control and abortion. 

In any case. Apple is embarrassed. It's sad and funny. But it's way more important to focus on basic web searches for this kind of information than it is to worry about Siri, a tool used by a very privileged and educated slice of the population.

The International Perspective on Teen Pregnancy

Each year when the national teen birth rate statistics are released by the CDC, the media get very excited. This year the birth rate is down to about thirty-four births per 1,000 girls aged 15 to 19, which Reutersattributes to the bad economy, better sex education and even cautionary TV shows like MTV’s Teen Mom.But just two years ago, when the teen birth rate rose slightly in twenty-six states, the media cited many of the very same factors: USA Today attributed that change to worse sex-education; pop-culture depictions of pregnant teens, such as the movi Juno; and celebrity teen moms, such as Bristol Palin and Jamie Lynn Spears.

I’d argue for spending less time peering at the year-to-year fluctuations in the teen birth rate and instead look at the big picture, which shows the United States has exponentially more teen moms than any other developed world nation.

*chart via the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy

We can only gesture toward the myriad factors causing this problem, but here are some likely ones: lack of knowledge about and access to affordable contraception (one in five sexually active teenage girls do not use any kind of birth control); lack of access to abortion-providers in 87 percent of American counties; increased immigration from nations where teen pregnancy is more the norm; and even high poverty rates that cause some girls to see motherhood as the only viable path to adulthood, since a college education and decent job are unavailable to them.

The good news is that the American teen birth rate has steadily decreased over the past seventy years, despite year-to-year ups and downs. The bottom line, though, is that the United States remains an outlier not only on the teen birth rate but on teen pregnancy and abortion, too, which occur far more often here than in European nations. Clearly, our hot-potato reproductive rights debate isn’t solving these problems, which is just one of many good reasons why we should ratchet down the politicization of this public health issue and take a common sense prevention approach, one that accepts that over 95 percent of Americans have premarital sex.

cross-posted at The Nation

 

Thoughts on My Trip to Mexico City and the Drug War

 

View of Mexico City from the home office of Ricardo Salinas, the retail/media/banking tycoon.

I spent the first half of this week in Mexico City, on a junket sponsored by Grupo Salinas. There's a lot of worry about Mexico's violence--and I have some of my own thoughts on the topic, below--but I didn't feel at all unsafe. Mexico City is an architecturally beautiful town with a lovely culture of late-night, outdoor dining and delicious street food. Swaths of the city reminded me of the immigrant neighborhoods of south Los Angeles, cut by smog and gridlock, but home to vibrant local business strips and cohesive communities. Indeed, Mexico's economy has been less hard-hit by the financial crisis than ours has.

Our group of writers and policy wonks met with a really interesting list of journalists and politicians, including three presidential candidates. My take on Mexico's upcoming election and the country's education challenges are over at The Nation in a new column; in short, I was surprised by just how similar the rhetoric on Mexican school reform sounds--there's a big focus on the excesses of the teachers' union, for example--even though Mexico is confronting an educational inequality crisis far more serious than our own, with the average Mexican dropping out after just eight years of formal schooling. 

So if you want to learn more about education in Mexico, click here.

More broadly, the trip left me all fired up to legalize drugs. About 45,000 Mexicans have been murdered since President Felipe Calderon escalated and militarized the drug war in 2006, with political, financial, and tactical support from the United States. The drug cartels are conducting terrible massacres, and intimidating and sometimes killing both professional and citizen journalists. 

All of this is happening despite the fact that "the war" has successfully led to the deaths and arrests of dozens of top drug lords. In their absence, some of the major trafficking cartels split into smaller, more agile organizations that can better resist detection. These small groups are now fighting among themselves, which has (of course) contributed to the increase in violence.

Why isn't the drug war working? Because it isn't addressing the demand side of the equation: Americans' unquenchable appetite for illegal cocaine and marijuana. The only way to decrease demand is to begin treating addiction primarily as a public health problem, not a criminal one--as Portugal has done--and to legalize the production and sale of less dangerous drugs, like pot, to tamp down on the violent narcotics black market.

Ending the drug war would also revitalize American inner city neighborhoods, where the existence of this underground economy disincentivizes education and work, and sends 17 percent of black men to prison. 

In July the Los Angeles Times' published a riveting four-part series about the regular Americans and Mexicans caught up in the massive Sinaloan drug cartel. I highly recommend it, and think it could win a Pulitzer: Read parts one, two, three, and four.

The "Policy" Books I Recommend Most Often

I've been asked a few times over the past year to recommend books for writers new to education or to social policy more broadly, and I thought it might be fun and useful to share this list on the blog. These are titles I turn back to constantly, both as references and as touchstones for my own thinking about education, public health, gender, race, and class. Interestingly, none of these books were written by policy wonks; rather, they are by journalists, sociologists, and historians with a strong grasp of how public policies operate in the real world. 

David Tyack and Larry Cuban, Tinkering Toward Utopia

There are many interesting histories of American education, but this is a history of American education reform--the cyclical churn of philanthropists', politicians', academics', and business leaders' attempts to improve our public schools. From test-driven instruction to merit pay to small schools, what goes around in American education history truly does come around again, often despite poor track records for students. Why do so many American education reforms fail? Because they are deployed with little understanding of how schools and teachers work on-the-ground, relying too much on visionary ideas and too little on the practical knowledge of experienced educators.  Tyack and Cuban's classic offers a bracing reminder that when it comes to policy-making, realism and humility are just as important as "innovation" and "big ideas"

Kathryn Edin and Maria Kefalas, Promises I Can Keep

Two sociologists report from inner-city Philadelphia on how low-income women approach relationships, sex, pregnancy, childbirth, and parenting, finding that across racial lines, many unmarried mothers want and even actively plan their pregnancies. In part this is because in communities in which higher education and decent jobs remain largely out of reach, motherhood is viewed as the key marker of adult womanhood. The book challenges the Bush administration's emphasis on promoting marriage among the poor, demonstrating that many welfare moms choose not to live with or marry their children's fathers because those men are unemployed, abusive, addicted, or otherwise unable to fulfill the basic responsibilities of family life. In other words, marriage promotion won't work unless it is accompanied by real anti-poverty, pro-jobs measures that help poor men become more attractive mates. But some of my own pro-choice talking points were also challenged by Promises, which depicts abortion as an afterthought to these women, many of whom oppose the procedure for moral and religious reasons and wouldn't seriously consider it as an alternative to bearing children they are hard-pressed to support. When it comes to birth control, most of the women in Promises do know how to access and use it, but often abandon the Pill or condoms as a way to prove commitment and love to their male partner. The book serves as a reminder that poor single moms, like the rest of us, base their decisions on a complex mix of well-reasoned costs and benefits and messy human emotions. 

Paul Tough, Whatever it Takes

This is magazine journalist Paul Tough's admiring account of the various programs within the Harlem Children's Zone. In addition to making a powerful case for an education reform agenda that combines in-school efforts with out-of-school supports around health, nutrition, and childcare, Tough cogently reviews 50 years worth of academic thinking on the causes and effects of poverty, including the latest evidence on how poverty impacts cognitive development during early childhood and even in the womb. Best of all, he does all of this while building a page-turning narrative around the real lives of Harlem parents and children.

Annette Lareau, Unequal Childhoods

A groundbreaking sociological study that defined two fundamentally different American parenting styles: "concerted cultivation," generally practiced by middle-class, affluent, and college-educated parents; and "natural growth," generally practiced by poor and working class parents. Both styles have benefits and drawbacks. More affluent kids are better at challenging authority and talking to strangers, and also benefit from more athletic and artistic enrichment. Working class kids have less sibling rivalry, less stress, and tend to enjoy closer ties within their extended families and neighborhoods. When it comes to academic success, however, the deck is stacked against kids raised by "natural growth" parents, who are less likely to know how to deploy a school's resources in their child's favor. This book reminds us how "formed" children are by their home lives before they ever enter a classroom--and what a difficult job teachers face in tailoring instruction to a classroom of students who may come from very different kinds of families. 

Donna Foote, Relentless Pursuit

If you read one book about Teach for America, this should be the one. Foote shadows a group of TFA recruits as they undergo trial by fire in Los Angeles public schools, demonstrating these young people's extraordinary commitment, but also the program's limited ability to overcome the lack of resources, professional development support, and competent administration within many inner city schools. Foote also reveals the sometimes strange group think behind TFA's missionary zeal, and the way in which some recruits simply find the program--and high-poverty teaching itself--impossible to balance with a normal personal life.

Rick Perry: "Cervical Cancer is a Horrible Way to Die"

He's right, but mandatory HPV vaccination has always been controversial on both the left and right--among feminists, immigrants' rights advocates, health care professionals, and conspiracy theorists. 

Over at The Nation, I try to untangle the debate.

Time for Obama Admin to Show Some Spine on Reproductive Health Care

Good news! An Institue of Medicine panel has recommended that, under health reform, insurance companies be required to provide women with co-pay-free birth control. 

Read: FREE birth control if you're already paying an insurance premium!

Here's the back story: The Affordable Care Act tasks the Department of Health and Human Services with defining a "coverage floor" -- a list of health services and drugs that insurance companies must cover without co-pays. HHS then asked the independent, non-profit IOM to recommend exactly which services be included in this category. Now, unsurprisingly, contraception has made the grade. The American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology and the National Business Group on Health already support co-pay-free birth control as among the most cost-effective preventive medical interventions available; 15.3 million American women use hormonal birth control, which is one of the most frequently-prescribed medications in the country. 

But as I reported last year for The Daily Beast, some of the same conservative culture war organizations that mobilized against health reform in 2009 by claiming it was a pro-abortion bill have severe concerns about providing American women with free prescription contraception. The Catholic Bishops et al are not going to sit back quietly and watch these policies become regulatory law.

Therefore, this is a great time for President Obama and HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to show more spine than they have in the past on reproductive health. They should make it clear that they will not stand for any politicization of this medically uncontroversial recommendation. 

I'd just like to remind the president of what he swore in 2007, in a speech to Planned Parenthood activists. "We should never be willing to consign a teenage girl to a lifetime of struggle because of a lack of access to birth control," he said, promising to fight for "equity in contraceptive coverage" and for a health-care system in which "access to affordable contraception is not just a privilege for the few but an option for all women."

I Thought Hell Would Freeze Over Before I Defended Michele Bachmann

But leave it to The Daily Caller to prove me wrong. 

Their piece about Bachmann's chronic migraine headaches--which they suggest should disqualify her from the presidency--is deeply ignorant and unfair. 

Jonathan Strong writes:

“She has terrible migraine headaches. And they put her out of commission for a day or more at a time. They come out of nowhere, and they’re unpredictable,” says an adviser to Bachmann who was involved in her 2010 congressional campaign. “They level her. They put her down. It’s actually sad. It’s very painful.”

Bachmann’s medical condition wouldn’t merit public attention, but for the fact she is running for president. Some close to Bachmann fear she won’t be equal to the stress of the campaign, much less the presidency itself.

“When she gets ‘em, frankly, she can’t function at all. It’s not like a little thing with a couple Advils. It’s bad,” the adviser says. “The migraines are so bad and so intense, she carries and takes all sorts of pills. Prevention pills. Pills during the migraine. Pills after the migraine, to keep them under control. She has to take these pills wherever she goes.”

If Bachmann is indeed suffering from migraines, I wonder if she is under the best neurological care. She is described as occassionally checking in to hospitals and urgent care centers to deal with the pain, which suggests a condition that has not been brought under control by the most aggressive treatment.

Migraines disproportionately affect women and are often talked about in a sexist way, with the implication being that women who suffer from migraines can't handle normal levels of stress. But there are other triggers, too, from alcohol to going too long between meals. The Daily Caller's Strong describes Bachmann as suffering from a migraine because of "complications with her flight schedule." As a lifelong migraine sufferer, I know that travel can be a trigger, not because of some hysterical response to stress, but because of lack of decent food and sleep. 

With all the medications out there today, most migraine sufferers are able to get the condition under control and go about their daily lives with a very high level of productivity.

Many famous, high-achieving people have been migraine sufferers, including Ulysses Grant and Thomas Jefferson. (At Appomattox in 1865, Grant reportedly had a migraine that miraculously lifted upon receiving a letter from Robert E. Lee arranging their first ceasefire meeting.) Among athletes, Dwyane Wade and Monica Seles are migraineurs; Seles missed just two matches due to migraine in her entire career, and Wade is well-known for practicing and playing through his pain. I could go on and on: Charles Darwin. Sigmeund Freud. Claude Monet. Virginia Woolf. 

Of course, the modern presidency is a uniquely stressful and fast-paced job. But modern medicine is also uniquely able to respond to chronic pain. 

I know from experience that a migraine can put a sufferer to bed, unable to work or socialize. But this should happen rarely if a person is under proper medical care. (And yes, Daily Caller, that means taking drugs. People in pain take drugs; this doesn't mean we're drug addicts or incompetents.) We've certainly had excellent presidents--Kennedy, FDR, Wilson--who've suffered from chronic medical conditions and even popped pills. There's no reason why migraines should be especially disqualifying. 

Anyhow, if you're looking for real reasons Bachmann shouldn't be president read this and this.