O Scuttle, All Ye Faithful

Pizza rat meets my favourite holiday tradition in this week's post.

Nov 22, 2023

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As yulephiles gathered for the Christmas lights switch-on in my town last week, I couldn’t help but wonder…had the time come for me to activate my own festive traditions? In the seconds it took for a tired leaf to give out and fall to the ground from a tree outside my window, I decided that it was. And so, Just Like That, I lit a candle and declared it the start of one of my favourite holiday customs…my annual Sex and the City season 1-6 re-watch. Who’s joining?

Welcome to Quality Sheet! This week’s post is as short and sweet as a candied yam. That’s an authorized Thanksgiving dish, right?

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Let’s start with a poem!

Roses are red,

water is wet,

diverse teams improve business outcomes.

But as of 2022, women make up just 20% of board members globally, according to Deloitte. Research from Professors Margarethe Wiersema and Marie Louise Mors demonstrates how women on boards improve decision-making at a firm’s top level.

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Our human ancestors may not have sat by the fire making gratitude lists, but giving thanks is a practice that has likely helped us evolve, researchers tell the AP’s Maddie Burakoff: “This give and take — this is very, very primal and very important to a cooperative society.”

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“Lorenz’s overarching argument is that online influencers and creators have never been understood for what they truly are—entrepreneurs.” On the rise of the creator economy, from 90s blogs to social media influencers and the proliferation of personal brands on sites like this one, Substack, in The Nation’s review of Taylor Lorenz’s book Extremely Online.

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Austin, Texas, just became the latest city to get rid of minimum parking requirements, a policy that asks building projects to allocate a certain amount of land use for car parking. Abolishing the need for these spaces could solve major problems in communities across the U.S., by creating more space for housing and cutting reliance on cars, Grist’s Siri Chilukuri writes.

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“Loneliness…is an existential hazard, something to which human beings are always vulnerable—and not just when they are alone.” Loneliness is rampant this time of year and can be a complex feeling that’s not always remedied by physical company. Associate professor Kaitlyn Creasy articulates perfectly that feeling of being loved, yet lonely.

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Is parental instinct innate, or is it developed? There is an increasing understanding that “maternal instinct” is not inherent or unique to mothers. As journalist and author Chelsea Conaboy writes: “The notion that the capacity for caregiving is wholly innate and automatic, as well as distinctly female, is a lie. It leaves women feeling broken when, in their first days of motherhood, they experience something else…And it leaves so many other kinds of parents out of the story.” Postpartum attentiveness and protection can be developed by any parent who spends enough time with their newborn. Researchers Molly Dickens and Kate Mangino shed light on the brain changes that occur in fathers when they spend quality time with their new baby, and how policies like generous and paid paternity leave can help this along. “If we want to see greater gender equality, we need to not just focus on women’s participation in the professional world—we need to encourage more men to participate in the caregiving world,” they explain in the Harvard Business Review.

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How I love Pizza Rat, the patron saint of hedonists. Here’s a must-read on the ability of rodents to have imaginations, much like humans do. By Bloomberg’s F.D. Flam.

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