Fresh from the office of my supervisor who persists in gently giving me unsolicited advice, despite being neither older nor wiser, I’m struck by Rousseau’s tone (in his “Marriage”): “Extreme in all things, they [women] devote themselves to their play with greater zeal than boys. This is the second defect. This zeal must be kept …
Category: gender issues
Jan 05 2014
Snowmobiles Rule – Only in Canada. Pity.
Snowmobilers are often presented as enjoying the natural beauty of the North. Oh please. Not at the speeds they drive. Not while their exhaust pipes spew fumes into our air. And their engines roar at a volume that must be endured by everyone within five miles. And their tossed beer cans litter the forest until …
Dec 27 2013
What’s wrong with being a slut?
slut, n. Slovenly woman, slattern slovenly, a. Personally untidy or dirty, careless and lazy, or unmethodical slattern, n. Sluttish woman Not what my mother meant when she called me a slut. For whatever else I am, I am tidy, clean, careful, industrious, and methodical. Quite methodical. So just what did she mean? I don’t know. …
Dec 20 2013
Whereas very few boys grow up looking forward …
“Even if we don’t think of women wanting to BE married, we at least think of them as wanting to GET married. … Whereas very few boys grow up looking forward to the day that they’ll be a groom. There is no “American Groom” magazine. G. I. Joe does not have a little tux with …
Dec 18 2013
Let’s Talk about Sex
[This one’s a little old, as you can tell by the Salt-n-Pepa reference, but still relevant, I think. Sigh.] Disc jockeys generally come in two sexes: male and female. So what, you may think, sex doesn’t matter. Oh but it does, so sad to say. I used to deejay for weddings and other parties, and …
Dec 10 2013
Men’s Precision Teams
Have you ever wondered why, in the sport of figure skating, there are no men’s precision teams? Sure, precision skating requires attention to detail and a highly developed spatial sense. But both are surely male capabilities; in fact, aren’t they male superiorities? Isn’t that why (so we’re told) men dominate science and engineering? And of …
Dec 10 2013
Why Aren’t Women Funny?
Well, they are, of course. It’s just that many men don’t find them funny. Which is why many stand-up clubs (those managed by men) (that is, almost all of them) actually have a rule: only so many stand-ups on any given night can be women. Too many and they kill the night. But, of course, …
Dec 02 2013
The Provocation Defence – Condoning Testosterone Tantrums (and other masculinities)
According to the Canadian Criminal Code (and probably a lot of other criminal codes), murder can be reduced to manslaughter if the person was provoked. Provocation is defined as “a wrongful act or an insult that is of such a nature as to be sufficient to deprive an ordinary person of the power of self-control …
Dec 01 2013
First (and last) Contact
Women have a long tradition of being diplomats. “Historically… marriage has been the major alliance mechanism of every society, and little girls are trained for roles as intervillage family diplomats…the married woman straddles two kin networks, two villages, sometimes two cultures” (The Underside of History, Elise Boulding, p.53-54). Many women have decades of experience, settling …
Nov 22 2013
Testicular Battery and Tranquilizer Guns (what the world needs now is)
Given the relative vulnerability of men to sexual assault (all it takes to disable them is a swift forceful kick, or, at closer quarters, a good grab, pull, twist – almost anything, really) (whereas women have to be partially undressed and then immobilized), it’s surprising that we hear far more often about rape than – …
fiction
