I recently spent some time at another blog (someone had linked to one of my posts and invited me to the discussion), and I discovered that several of the discussants conflated gender and sex. I was shocked. (And in fact, that possibility so didn’t occur to me that I continued the surreal discussion for some …
Category: feminism
Aug 22 2013
The Little Birdies
So I’m out walking today, and as I pass a neighbour tending his bird feeder, I wave. And the guy calls out to me “I’m feeding some seed to the little birdies!” The little birdies? What am I, twelve? No, I’m female. (I have a hard time believing that he would’ve said the same thing …
Aug 19 2013
Police urge riders to use caution after second sexual assault by fake taxi driver.
Right, that’ll work. Women should use caution. Okay, as long as we’re putting the responsibility on the women (sigh), how about a women-only taxi service? Anyone out there looking for a job? Someone with a BBA could prepare a business plan, someone else could prepare a Kickstarter proposal to get funding (I offer my editing …
Aug 16 2013
Sex and So You Think You Can Dance
When So You Think You Can Dance first started, they had one winner. In season 9, they decided to have two winners: one male and one female. I thought it was because they realized the odds were stacked in favour of male dancers since most of the viewers/voters were female (and, presumably, heterosexual) (and, presumably, …
Aug 10 2013
I’m not a feminist. Feminism is so over. We live in a post-feminist world.
It used to be that men pressured women to have sexual intercourse with them. And despite the fact that it meant risking years of unhappiness for us (unwanted pregnancy, unwanted children), for ten seconds of bliss or relief for them, we’d do it. How stupid was that? Of course, without the weight of the patriarchy, …
Jul 25 2013
Bare Breasts: Objections and Replies
[I wrote this piece back in the early 90s when Gwen Jacobs did her thing (yay, Gwen!), but apparently it all still needs to be said. A couple years ago, I was ‘spoken to’ by a neighbour for taking my shirt off on a hot summer day when I was out kayaking. Most amusingly, I …
Jun 22 2013
Every Man, Woman, and Child
There’s an interesting phrase. Man, woman, and child: those are my options, are they? Identifying oneself by one’s sex is a prerequisite for adulthood: if I don’t want to identify myself by my sex, as either a man or a woman, I’m left with identifying myself as a child. How interesting. Actually, it explains a …
May 27 2013
Why isn’t being a soldier more like being a mother?
Motherhood is unfair to women in a way fatherhood most definitely is not. Not only are there the physical risks (pregnancy and childbirth puts a woman at risk for nausea, fatigue, backaches, headaches, skin rashes, changes in her sense of smell and taste, chemical imbalances, high blood pressure, diabetes, anemia, embolism, changes in vision, stroke, …
May 19 2013
Why aren’t more men insulted by the low standards we set for them?
If he changes a diaper, he’s father of the year. If he cooks something, anything, he’s a chef. If he marries, but otherwise continues to live pretty much as he has to that point, he’s suddenly respectable. If he continues to pay a child’s ball game into adulthood, he gets paid a six figure salary. …
May 12 2013
Child Support Insurance – What an Intriguing Idea!!
“For guys who inexplicably want to do the thing that makes babies without wanting to support the inevitable babies, the obvious solution would be child support insurance — 0 to 18 plus college and professional school to say, age 30. They would have to sit down with their insurance agent and describe their sex lives …
fiction
