The neat thing about television coverage of the Olympics is that women’s events are shown a lot. Often within close temporal proximity to men’s events. Comparison is inevitable. And interesting. Consider basketball. Men’s basketball isn’t even a sport anymore. The guys are simply too big. Give me a ball small enough to hold upside-down with …
Category: gender issues
Jun 14 2012
Games for Girls (Seriously? In 2012?)
Okay, so I went to bored.com, clicked on Games, then clicked on Girls. Mostly because I was irritated that there even was a separate section for Girls (and surprised there wasn’t a separate section for Blacks)—alongside Popular, Animations, Stickman, Shooting, Escape, Puzzle, Action, Skill, Walkthru’s, Mobile, and More. Why do girls need a separate section? …
Jun 04 2012
Combining Family and Career
People say that women can’t have, can’t combine, a family and a career, that it’s having family responsibilities that keeps them from advancement – the inability to work late or on weekends, the tendency to need time off to tend to kids… I’m not so sure. I’ve never had such competing obligations, and I don’t …
May 20 2012
Trust – the movie
I’m so bloody sick and tired of men who assume center stage is for them. The way the movie ends, and most of the way it plays out, it’s about the dad, about how he can’t deal with his failure to protect his daughter. Mom’s not quite so important, apparently, despite her greater empathy with …
May 07 2012
Walking Alone in a Park at Night
In a rape trial, that the woman was walking alone in a park at night has been considered relevant – presumably it’s a mitigating circumstance: the accused can be excused for thinking she wanted it if she was walking alone in a park at night. What!? Why? Why is it that a woman walking alone …
Apr 16 2012
Making Kids with AIDS
What has been glaringly absent in news stories about children with AIDS in Africa is comment about why there are so many children with AIDS. “We are going down,” a woman says, “Theft will go up, rape all over will be high. People – ” Wait a minute. Back up. “Rape all over will be …
Apr 10 2012
Grey’s Anatomy, Flashpoint, and Who knows how many others (I don’t – and this is why)
Why didn’t Bailey get the Chief of Surgery position? For the same reason Ed jokingly says to Greg, when he questions his rank, “Should I get you a dress?”—and they both laugh. Because in 2012 being a woman is (still) (STILL!) (STILL!) being subordinate. I love that on Grey’s Anatomy, so many main characters, surgeons every …
Apr 04 2012
Making Taxes Gender-Fair
Since men commit 90% of the crime, they should pay 90% of the tax that supports the judicial system. Prisons are expensive to build and maintain. As are prisoners – they don’t work while they’re in prison, so we have to support them. Then there’s the expense of the police forces and courts that get …
Mar 25 2012
The Soaps vs. The Game
While both ‘the soaps’ and ‘the game’ have been criticized as poor viewing choices, only the soaps have been dismissed as fluff. However, a close examination reveals that, in fact, the soaps have more heft than the game. In both cases,
Feb 19 2012
Boy Books
Boy books. You’re thinking The Boys’ Book of Trains and The Hardy Boys, right? I’m thinking most of the books I took in high school English. Consider Knowles’ A Separate Peace. Separate indeed. It’s set at a boys’ boarding school. The boys are obsessed with jumping out of a tree. This involves considerable risk of …
fiction
