Noah and I wrote a book! The first chapter is here! You should go read it. [ [Manatee that says “just take things one step at a time, you are doing a great job.”] This is the sort of situation that calls for Calming Manatee! Gah. Freaking out on Twitter about how much everyone hates…
What About The Men: Chapter 1, Introduction and Principles
The first chapter of Noah Brand and Ozy Frantz’s provocative book What About The Men? explores feminism, gender performance, and why the “man box” is a bad fit.
Thoughts on “Creep”
Trigger warning for discussion of boundary violations, brief mention of rape. I am having Thoughts on the term “creepy.” Previous thoughts on the term creepy that I stand by can be found here, if you’re interested. My basic premises for this discussion are as follows: 1) If you’re creeped out by someone, LEAVE THE SITUATION…
Apparently Men Hate Vegetables, Part Sixtythousand
It’s time for my favorite absurd kyriarchal narrative: men hate vegetables! (I’m still amazed that this is a thing.) According to a study from the Journal of Consumer Research, people tend to equate meat and masculinity. (Unfortunately I do not have access to the original study, because the universe hates me.) In a number of experiments…
On Privilege
I think there’s an aspect of privilege that a lot of people haven’t really paid attention to: there are at least two kinds of it. I see some people in the social justice community saying things like, “cis people benefit from transphobia.” But the thing is, they really, really don’t. Everything cis people have that…
Romney Former Partner Sums Up Success Myth
Guys. Guys, look at this quote from Edward Conrad, Mitt Romney’s extremely wealthy former partner. “God didn’t create the universe so that talented people would be happy,” he said. “It’s not beautiful. It’s hard work. It’s responsibility and deadlines, working till 11 o’clock at night when you want to watch your baby and be with…
On Unsolicited Penis Pics
Others may be more important, or starker, or more common, but the gendered behavior I find most puzzling is the unsolicited genitalia picture. Seriously. There is a (small, but evident) group of men who think the single most attractive thing they can do is send a woman they barely know a picture of their erect…
Baby Fever
This article on the “biological clock” interested me (partially because it fulfilled my bias for “partially biological, partially cultural, we’re not sure how much of each” explanations for complex phenomena), so I decided to talk about some disconnected thoughts on it. The cultural idea of baby fever or the biological clock is that it is something…
22,000 Were Arrested For It, and It’s Perfectly Legal
Man, if you read one piece of badass investigative reporting today, read this. In 1983, cruising laws were overturned, on the logic that since consensual sodomy was legal in New York state, attempting to find a partner for consensual sodomy ought to be legal too. In 1993, a court overturned vagrancy and anti-loitering laws in…
Time To Yell At Silly People
Hat tip to Patches. If you like anime, check out his blog, What About The Waifuz? Oh, Lori, Lori, Lori. If you’re not familiar with Lori Gottleib, she is best known as the author of Marry Him, a book about how women ought to stop looking for Mr. Right and marry Mr. Good Enough. While I…
On Objectification
I don’t think there’s any word more commonly misunderstood in feminist discourse– both by feminists and non-feminists– than objectification. This annoys me, because it’s actually a really useful concept. Most important misunderstanding: objectification is not a synonym for attraction. Let me say that in shouty letters. OBJECTIFICATION IS NOT A SYNONYM FOR ATTRACTION. Feminists (at…
Open Thread, Steampunk Edition
This open thread has been brought to you by a gentleman in goggles.
Why Women Should Be Allowed To Take Their Shirts Off In Public
Trigger warning for mentions of rape, and NSFW warning for pictures of shirtless people. Occasionally, I ask people to explain things. My latest project has been asking people to explain why women can’t take their shirts off in public. Barring circular answers (“it’s obscene!” “it’s just not appropriate”) and irrelevancies (“hubba hubba”), the answers have…
Germany: Circumcision is “Bodily Harm”
(Hey, guys, today is National HIV Testing Day! If you’re sexually active outside of a long-term relationship that you’re certain is monogamous, you should get tested for STIs regularly. If you’re in the US, you can find a testing site here. Nagging over.) A German court has declared that penile circumcision for religious reasons is…
In Defense Of The Tone Argument
The tone argument is a really common thing discussed in Internet social justice. For those who don’t know what “the tone argument” is, this is a fairly typical definition: The tone argument is where you object to someone else’s argument based on its tone: it is too angry, too hateful, not calm enough, not nice enough,…
Links!
If you read one thing on this link roundup, read this. It’s by Natalie Reed and it’s very long, but it’s about science and skepticism and why they matter, and social justice and questioning whether it’s doing any good, and how sometimes anti-racism is really super racist, and basically it is all the thoughts I’ve…