How Feminism Hates Women?
Caveat: My posting of this article is not meant to imply my agreement with it. Via Owning Your Shit:
Okay, so let’s pretend we’re talking about me, and what we’re talking about is me crashing my car into another vehicle, killing the driver. The act of crashing my car into his and killing him is the actus reus, and let’s say that this fact is not in dispute. Once it has been established that I did indeed crash my car into another and kill the driver, an investigation will be done (I would hope!), and the attendant circumstances examined, and it will only then be determined whether I have committed a crime.
Let’s say I undergo a breath test and am found to be legally impaired. In this case, I will be found to have the mens rea of recklessness—I engaged in conduct a law-abiding person would have refrained from, and that conduct resulted in a…
The Success Myth And The Female Gaze
Noah Brand
Noah Brand, a mysterious figure with a very nice hat, tells of his greatest professional failure, explains his theory of “The Success Myth,” and introduces the idea of the female gaze, for the Good Men Project:
The masculine equivalent to what Naomi Wolf called The Beauty Myth is The Success Myth. In Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Marilyn Monroe said, “A man being rich is like a girl being pretty” and everyone nodded their head, recognizing and endorsing the sentiment. When a rich guy marries a slim young “trophy wife” we all nod our heads again, recognizing that, like it or not, this is a match of two high-value people, a conventionally-successful man and a conventionally-beautiful woman. It would take way too long to get into all the horrible things that arise out of these paired myths, from “gold-digger” stereotypes to men who kill themselves for being “failures”; for now let’s just…
Kids Show Cultural Gender Bias
Via ScienceDaily:
Talk about gender confusion! A recent study by University of Alberta researchers Elena Nicoladis and Cassandra Foursha-Stevenson in the Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology into whether speaking French influenced how children assigned gender to objects yielded some interesting observations. Nicoladis and Foursha-Stevenson found some differences between the unilingual English children and the bilingual French-English children they surveyed. Some of the more startling results from the Anglo crowd? Cows are boys. Cats and stars are girls.
Le culture or la culture: our bias
The researchers showed objects or images to the children participating in the study and asked them whether the objects seemed to be masculine or feminine in nature. While the unilingual children seemed to identify most objects as masculine, many younger bilingual children were willing to consider that, globally speaking, some objects could be feminine in nature even though, Nicoladis says, “their categorizations didn’t correspond very well to whether the objects were…
How Patriarchy and Rape Culture Hurt Men
Via the SAFER Blog:
I’ve often found myself trying to explain to people that rape culture and patriarchy aren’t just bad for women. If you draw attention to a form of violence that is primarily aimed at women by men, and a form of social oppression that is intended to provide men with dominance over women, a lot of people will think you must be hostile to men, or want to take something away from men. Nothing could be further from the truth. Patriarchy and rape culture are clearly more harmful to women, but they also cause men great harm, and I engage in anti-violence work to help men as much as I do to help women or anyone else. Here’s why:
The patriarchal “ideal” of male toughness and invulnerability creates the following problems for men:
- Men are often expected to endure hazardous conditions, with the attitude that any expression of fear is a sign…
A Browser Extension That Flips Gender
Danielle Sucher’s Jailbreak the Patriarchy is a Chrome extension that substitutes the word “women” for “men” and “he” for “she” and so on within all text. The results are thought provoking — toggle between a patriarchal and matriarchal online world with the click of a button:
Jailbreak the Patriarchy genderswaps the world for you. When it’s installed, everything you read in Chrome (except for gmail, so far) loads with pronouns and a reasonably thorough set of other gendered words swapped. For example: “he loved his mother very much” would read as “she loved her father very much”, “the patriarchy also hurts men” would read as “the matriarchy also hurts women”, that sort of thing.
This makes reading stuff on the internet a pretty fascinating and eye-opening experience, I must say. What would the world be like if we reversed the way we speak about women and men? Well, now you can find out!
The Golden Age Of Female Computer Programmers
Via the blog of software developers Fog Creek, a look at the forgotten history of women programmers, and the strange ways in which different work fields are labeled as “male” or female”:
Computer science has always been a male-dominated field, right? Wrong.
In 1987, 42% of the software developers in America were women. And 34% of the systems analysts in America were women. Women had started to flock to computer science in the mid-1960s, during the early days of computing, when men were already dominating other technical professions but had yet to dominate the world of computing. For about two decades, the percentages of women who earned Computer Science degrees rose steadily, peaking at 37% in 1984.
In fact, for a hot second back in the mid-sixties, computer programming was actually portrayed as women’s work by the mass media. Check out “The Computer Girls” from the April 1967 issue of Cosmopolitan magazine. It…
‘X’ Now A Gender Option In Australian Passports
A forward-thinking move, as the gender-ambiguous can now classify themselves as ‘X’. Still no “android” or “monkey-man” passport options, though. Associated Press reports:
Australian passports will now have three gender options – male, female and indeterminate – under new guidelines to remove discrimination against transgender and intersex people, the government said Thursday. Intersex people, who are biologically not entirely male or female, will be able to list their gender on passports as “X.”
Previously, gender was a choice of only male or female, and people were not allowed to change their gender on their passport without having had a sex-change operation. The U.S. dropped the surgery prerequisite for transgender people’s passports last year.
Any country that complies with the International Civil Aviation Organization’s specifications for machine-readable passports can choose to introduce a gender “X.”
“‘X’ is really quite important because there are people who are indeed genetically ambiguous and were probably arbitrarily assigned as one…
The Blood on Our Hands is the Blood of the Land
On misogyny, misopedia, racism, homophobia, anti-semitism and misogeoia, Julian Real writes:
My hands have blood on them, no matter how many times I wash them. The blood is from the Earth, and its inhabitants, human and nonhuman.
What does it mean to “hate the Earth”? Do heterosexual male batterers of women really hate women? Do child molesters love or hate children (are they pedophilic or misopedic)?
In conversation, I came across a critique of Derrick Jensen’s book Endgame (vol. 1), which I strongly recommend reading, along with Derrick’s other books, including vol. 2 of Endgame. The critic said they did not really believe people “hate the Earth” as Derrick claims.
This brought to mind many related matters: hatred of people of color by whites, hatred of women by men, hatred of children by adults, and hatred of the Earth by “civilised” humans.
What does it mean to “hate the Earth”? Is gross negligence, callous disregard, and active…
Allies Planned To Slip Hitler Female Sex Hormones
The British plotted to lace Hitler’s food with estrogen so as to turn him “feminine” or into a mustached transsexual or something. Because that would bring about peace. Lesson being, if it hadn’t ended when it did, World War II would have grown continually stranger and stranger. The Telegraph writes:
Some tried bombs to neutralize the Führer, others tried bullets. Now it has come to light that British spies looked at derailing the man behind the German war machine by giving him female sex hormones.
Agents planned to smuggle doses of oestrogen into his food to make him less aggressive and more like his docile younger sister Paula, who worked as a secretary.
Spies working for the British were close enough to Hitler to have access to his food, said Professor Brian Ford, who discovered the plot. He explained that oestrogen was chosen because it was tasteless and would have a slow and subtle…
Man Refused Medicaid For Breast Cancer Treatment Because Of Gender
Photo: MesserWoland (CC)
If you’re a man you can’t get breast cancer. False. If you’re a man you can’t get medicaid to cover treatment for breast cancer. True. International Business Times reports:
Raymond Johnson, 26, a construction worker who makes $9 an hour, was diagnosed with breast cancer about a month ago, after he checked himself into the emergency room because of a throbbing pain from a lump in his chest.
However, Johnson’s job of laying down tile does not make enough to pay for treatment, amounting in $10,000 worth of medical costs.
“We are again urging [Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services] to reconsider,” the South Carolina Department of Health and Human Services said in a statement. “It’s a very clear example of how overly rigid federal regulations don’t serve the interests of the people we’re supposed to be helping.”
The uninsured 26-year-old was reportedly stunned when doctors delivered his diagnosis – breast cancer –…
CA Legislature Passes Bill To Teach LGBT History In Schools
They say history is written by the winners, who will be writing the LGBT history curriculum? Via Reuters:
A bill to require California public schools to teach the historical accomplishments of gay men and lesbians passed the state Legislature on Tuesday in what supporters call a first for the nation.
Governor Jerry Brown, a Democrat, has not said publicly whether he supports the bill, which he has 12 days to sign or veto once it reaches his desk later this month. If he takes no action, the measure would become law automatically.
The bill gained final passage from the state Assembly on a vote of 49-25, without a single Republican supporting it. The measure cleared the state Senate in April.
California already requires public schools to teach the contributions made to society by women and by racial and ethnic groups that were historically discriminated against, such as blacks, Latinos and Native Americans.
Indian Parents Push For Surgical Procedure To Turn Children From Girls To Boys
Photo: Planemad (CC)
Oh the social questions this raises! How does this benefit/hurt the future generation? Should parents have the right to change a child’s sex? What psychological damage could occur? What if an adult learns that they had the procedure when they were young and want it reversed? The next twenty years may see a rise in the search for therapists. Hindustan Times reports:
Girls are being ‘converted’ into boys in Indore – by the hundreds every year – at ages where they cannot give their consent for this life-changing operation.
This shocking, unprecedented trend, catering to the fetish for a son, is unfolding at conservative Indore’s well-known clinics and hospitals on children who are 1-5 years old. The process being used to ‘produce’ a male child from a female is known as genitoplasty. Each surgery costs Rs 1.5 lakh.
Moreover, these children are pumped with hormonal treatment as part of the sex change…
Women Are Better At Everything
Really?!? Meredith Melnick explains for TIME:
Recently in the Wall Street Journal, MarketWatch columnist David Weidner noted that women “do almost everything better” than men — from politics to corporate management to investing.
Weidner cites a new study by Barclays Wealth and Ledbury Research, which found that women were more likely than men to make money in the market, mostly because they didn’t take as many risks. And why are they risk-averse? Because they’re not as overconfident as men, the study found.
The study’s findings backed up those of previous research on the topic: in a 2001 study [PDF] of 35,000 American households with an account at a discount brokerage, financial scholars Brad Barber and Terrance Odean found that women’s risk-adjusted returns beat men’s by 1% annually. A 2005 study by Merrill Lynch found that 35% of women held an investment too long, compared with 47% of men. More recently, in 2009, a study by…
Sweden Debuts Gender-Neutral Preschool
At best, a school model for the more-enlightened future, and at worst, an intriguing social experiment. Via Yahoo News:
At the “Egalia” preschool, staff avoid using words like “him” or “her” and address the 33 kids as “friends” rather than girls and boys.
From the color and placement of toys to the choice of books, every detail has been carefully planned to make sure the children don’t fall into gender stereotypes.
Egalia doesn’t deny the biological differences between boys and girls — the dolls the children play with are anatomically correct. What matters is that children understand that their biological differences “don’t mean boys and girls have different interests and abilities.”
The taxpayer-funded preschool which opened last year in the liberal Sodermalm district of Stockholm for kids aged 1 to 6 is among the most radical examples of Sweden’s efforts to engineer equality between the sexes from childhood onward. Breaking down gender roles is…
Madame Restell: The Wickedest Woman in New York
Madame Restell was a flamboyant 19th century abortionist whom history remembers as ”the wickedest woman in New York” —but had she been? Victorian Gothic takes a critical look:
The cover of The New York Illustrated Times for February 23rd, 1878 depicts the arrest of the notorious abortionist Ann Lohman, alias “Madame Restell,” by the moral crusader Anthony Comstock. Flanked by reporters and deputies, the statuesque crime-fighter is pictured with a search warrant in hand, which he reads to the lady villain in the attitude of a holy messenger, banishing evil by its sacred words. Comfortably situated amongst the opulent furnishings of her Fifth Avenue mansion, Madame Restell wears a cool, appraising expression, as if to say “Ah, Comstock, my nemesis—I have been expecting you.” Her right hand is clenched into a fist, which overlaps the womb of a veiled woman who weeps with shame in the background.
Dubbed the “wickedest woman in New…
Women Like Pink Because Of ‘Berry-Picking’ Past And Boys Like Green Because Of Their Hunting Ancestors
Do pinks and purples remind you of gathering berries? Do greens and blues remind you of hunting in the forest? Finding a reason other than cultural influence as to why genders seems to lean towards specific colors, scientists look to our past. Via Fiona Macrae at Daily Mail:
Girls really do prefer pink – and not just because it is pretty.
Scientists have shown that females are drawn to pinks and reds and men to blues and greens – and they believe the explanation lies our hunter-gatherer past.
As the gatherers of the operation, women’s brains became fine-tuned to the purples and reds of ripe fruits and berries.
The men, meanwhile, developed a preference for the clear blue skies that signaled good weather for hunting.
The theory comes from Chinese scientists who asked more than 350 students to study 11 colours for three minutes and then rank them in order of preference.
The students also underwent…
Why Do Girls Wear Pink?
No, it’s not an immutable law of nature. In the 1920s, retailers began encouraging pink (a strong color) for boys and blue (a dainty one) for girls, before the trend reversed after World War II. For centuries prior, both boys and girls wore white dresses.
In light of hysteria over a photograph in J. Crew’s new catalog depicting a mother painting her son’s toenails pink, Smithsonian Magazine explores how we got to this point:
For centuries, children wore dainty white dresses up to age 6. “What was once a matter of practicality—you dress your baby in white dresses and diapers; white cotton can be bleached—became a matter of ‘Oh my God, if I dress my baby in the wrong thing, they’ll grow up perverted,’ ” Paoletti says.
The march toward gender-specific clothes was neither linear nor rapid. Pink and blue arrived, along with other pastels, as colors for babies in the mid-19th century, yet the…
Are Women Developing Immunity to the Sexual Harassment ‘Virus’?
ScienceDaily reports:
Sexual harassment may have become so commonplace for women that they have built up resistance to harassing behavior they consider merely “bothersome,” suggests a provocative new study by Michigan State University researchers.This effect, said lead investigator Isis Settles, may be similar to the way people build up immunity to infection following exposure to a virus.
“When women view sexual harassment as bothersome, it doesn’t seem to be associated with distress,” said Settles, associate professor of psychology. “In some ways this suggests that sexual harassment is such a widespread problem that women have figured out ways to deal with it so it doesn’t interfere with their psychological well-being.”
For the study, which appears in the research journal Social Psychological and Personality Science, the researchers examined surveys of more than 6,000 women and men serving in all five branches of the U.S. military.
Sexual harassment was a problem for both sexes, the study found. More…
Why Is There Not More Male Nudity in Mainstream Films?
Stacie Adams writes on the Nervous Breakdown:
Today I bring you a subject that’s very close to my heart. And by heart I mean sex organs.
I’m a 31 year old heterosexual woman who is appalled by the lack of male nudity in movies. Tits and girl ass are legion in film, and that’s OK, I don’t mind it. But, in the interest of this equality I hear so much about, perhaps we can add some rock hard pectorals and v-shaped abdomens into the mix? Some chiseled male bums? A quick shot of the little guy?
Remember when action movies always had that scene of the anti-hero crying into his refrigerator, or gun, or eight ounce glass of whiskey over his dead dog, or kid, or wife? And remember how in these scenes said anti-hero would always be without pants and have an ass like Michelangelo’s David?
Well, those scenes were put there for…
