I finished a novel by J. D. Robb the other day and also happened to read the back inside cover blurb: “Nora Roberts is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of more than one hundred novels. She is also the author of the bestselling futuristic suspense series written under the pen name J. D. …
Category: gender issues
May 08 2011
What’s so funny about a man getting pregnant?
I recently read The Fourth Procedure by Stanley Pottinger, in which, during a surgical procedure, a man is given a uterus containing a fertilized egg. He is enraged when he finds out, afraid that if it becomes public knowledge he’ll be a laughingstock. Turns out he’s right. But I don’t get it. What’s so funny …
Jan 27 2011
The Pill for Men
‘Outrageous!’ That was the word used way back in ’85 in response to the expectation that men take a contraceptive that had a side-effect of reduced sex drive. Hello. Let me tell you about the contraceptive pill for women. Side-effects include headaches, nausea, weight gain, mood changes, yeast infections, loss of vision, high blood pressure, …
Jan 25 2011
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.
Dec 26 2010
Why Do Men Spit? (and women don’t)
Why do men spit? (And women don’t.) I mean, is it physiological? Do males produce a larger amount of saliva? Even so, why the need to spit it out? Why not just swallow it? Would that remind them of swallowing semen? Which is female, effeminate, gay? (I’ll ignore for the moment the assumption that all, …
Dec 07 2010
Christmas Elves
Generally speaking, I don’t do Christmas. At all. But when I see an ad in the classifieds for “Three female elves to work in a mall during the Christmas season”, well, I have to say something. And the first thing I have to say is, I don’t think they’re going to find any – male …
Nov 18 2010
Short Men
I recently watched, with horrified amusement, a tv program about short men who choose to undergo excruciatingly painful surgical procedures (which basically involve breaking their legs and then keeping the bones slightly apart while they mend) in order to become a few inches taller. Asked why they would choose to undergo such a drastic, and …
Nov 07 2010
An End to War
At one time, bank tellers and secretaries had a certain prestige – the time when such positions were held by men. Schoolteachers used to be schoolmasters – before women entered the classroom. People who boast that many doctors in Russia are women fail to mention that doctoring in Russia, well, someone’s gotta do it. The …
Oct 31 2010
Hunting
Well, it’s autumn. That time of year when the breeze gets brisk, the leaves start to fall, and good men from all walks of life wear something besides blue, brown, grey, and black: they wear orange. Hunter orange. Yes this is the time of year when good men from all walks of life go into …
Oct 25 2010
Sex and Salespeople
Given that the people who use washers, dryers, ovens, dishwashers, and the like are usually female, I find it puzzling that the people who sell these items are usually male. Especially because it’s inconsistent with the rest of the sales world, in which men tend to sell things men use, such as hardware and men’s …
fiction
