One of the best things about being a part of Stuff Mom Never Told You, without a doubt, is the mail that we receive from our listeners. And this week our listener mail took a turn for the wonderfully weird, as we’ve started receiving photographs of the beards, mustaches and the other forms of facial hair that defy description that our listeners sport. That’s because Wednesday’s podcast posed the question: What does facial hair say about men?

Boy, do I ever have some talking points for dull conversations now. When conversation lags with any man, bearded or not, I’m going to throw out some fun facts I learned about facial hair. As you may have heard on the podcast, I was particularly taken with the scholarly conclusions of one Michael John Pinfold, who wrote a paper entitled, “‘I’m sick of shaving every morning: or, The Cultural Implications of ‘Male’ Facial Presentation.” We’ve read many academic papers in the course of presenting Stuff Mom Never Told You, and this one just may be my favorite. May I present you a choice quote from Pinfold? Here we go:

What the world I have created, and in which I believe, is doing to me I shall also do to myself, and my face as I present it will say it all. I may be yearning for the myth of childhood, where my smooth face is caressed by women who love me, mothers who will nurture me, feed me; or I may wish to embrace the myth of masculinity, where power is accorded to me, where driving and drinking is my right, my loudmouth proclaiming a disappearing potency; either way I will never ignore the hair that grows on my face, but I will enter into a relationship with it which will allow it to speak for me – I acknowledge its presence and all it means.

There are so, so many more wonderful quotes in this article; I encourage you to check out the whole thing and then let us know: Is Pinfold full of hot air? Is he on to something? Does a man really “know what he intends within his ritual of facial grooming, but [have] no control over how that meaning will be received, except that it is received within the broad understandings of a culture dominated by patriarchy”? (I just had to get another quote in there.)

While I would have been happy spending the entire podcast reading aloud from Pinfold’s paper, Cristen (rightfully) insisted that we use some other sources:

• “Women prefer men with stubble for love, sex and marriage,” by Roger Dobson, the Telegraph
• “New generation of men in India shaving off mustaches,” by Emily Wax, Washington Post
• “The Beard Brigade,” by Carolyn Sayre, Time Magazine
• “One Thousand Beards,” by Allan Peterkin, 2001.
• “From Squalid Impropriety to Manly Respectability: The Revival of Beards, Moustaches and Martial Values in the 1850s in England” by Susan Walton, Nineteeth-Century Contexts, 2008.  (available via library database)

Monday’s podcast was a conversation about whether quotas increase women’s participation in politics. It was inspired by events taking place in India. In March, the upper house of Parliament passed a bill that would reserve one-third of elected seats at all levels of government for women. The bill has a long way to go before it’s signed into law, but Cristen and I wanted to investigate whether such a measure would really help women out. On the one hand, it makes sense that women have unique experiences that could lead to more just and equitable laws. On the other hand, it is a very strike against the principle of equal opportunity that we ask for? Do we want to win elections by virtue of being women? And what happens when women take office and don’t act like we’d expect them to act? So far, it seems that this experiment has mixed results in the real world. We’d love to hear what you think about this one.

Our sources for the political quotas episode:

• “More Nancy Pelosis, Please,” by Alexandra Starr, Foreign Policy
• “Uproar in India Over Female Lawmaker Quota,” by Lydia Polgreen, New York Times
• “Iraqi Women Are Seeking Greater Political Influence,” by John Leland and Riyadh Mohammed, New York Times
• “Using Quotas to Increase Women’s Political Representation,” by Drude Dahlerup, 2002.
• “Quotas as a ‘Fast Track’ to Equal Political Representation for Women: Why Scandinavia is no longer the model” by Drude Dahlerup and Lenita Freidenvall, 2003.
• “A Woman’s Place is in the Presidential Mansion,” by Alexandra Starr, Slate.

And that was our week in podcasts. Let us know your thoughts on these topics, and don’t forget to join in on the fun that is our Twitter and Facebook.