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), given the relative vulnerability of men to sexual assault, it’s surprising that …
Category: gender issues
Sep 18 2013
School Crossing Signs
You’ve seen the signs I mean – silhouette figures of two children about to cross the road: one boy, one girl. (How do we tell? One’s wearing a skirt.) (That’d be the girl.) (Really, do most girls still wear skirts to school?) So, yes, let’s emphasize sex. Boy and Girl. Ms. and Mr. Nothing else …
Sep 17 2013
Message to Amy Farrah Fowler: LEAVE HIM NOW.
(Thought I’d better post this one before the new season in case she DOES leave him!) Is anyone else really really disturbed by Amy Farrah Fowler’s character on The Big Bang Theory? She is so intelligent, has a Ph.D., is a neurobiologist, and yet she stays in a relationship with Sheldon Cooper, the most …
Sep 04 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, …
Aug 31 2013
Sex and Gender Conflated
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 …
Aug 26 2013
The Silence of Descartes and Bacon
Reading (again) (this time in Daly) about how during the Renaissance it was so inconceivable that women were knowledgeable, especially with regard to the human body, that when they cured various ailments, they were not lauded as competent physicians but accused of consorting with the devil; such ‘witches’ were tortured with eye-gougers, branding irons, spine-rollers, …
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 17 2013
Reporting What Women Do
What if, for just one year, the media reported 90% of the time what women are doing instead of, as is now the case, what men are doing? Not because what women do is better, or more newsworthy, but just to see how it would change our outlook, our world view. The news might be …
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, …
fiction
