Technology/sex columnist
Violet Blue (
previously) has been
reporting from this year's Macworld trade fair for ZDNet; among her reportage was
a photograph of a woman sitting in a booth, labelled as "The Saddest Booth Babe In The World". Later it emerged that the woman in question was not, in fact, a booth babe (i.e., a model hired to smile, hand out flyers and appeal to the heterosexual male gaze) but rather an iOS developer presenting her products, hence her less-than-effervescent demeanour. Blue's
response was
somewhat evasive, suggesting that her (and, in her opinion, the average attendee's) expectation upon seeing a woman at a booth at a technology event would be that she would be there for decorative purposes.
posted by acb
on Feb 2, 2012 -
160 comments
The crime against women that no one understands "They would be 10 educated, professional women versus a demonstrated liar—a man who had pretended to be a doctor, a CIA employee, even an astronaut—whom a court-appointed psychologist would decide met the legal definition of a "sexually violent predator." And yet the most remarkable thing about both trials wasn't the way they exposed the alleged tactics of a serial date rapist. It was that despite the outrageousness of the accusations against Marsalis, the testimony of 10 women wasn't enough to get a single rape conviction against him. The verdicts in these cases would be far lighter than his accusers sought—and victims' advocates say the outcome reveals a disturbing truth about the justice system. Nationwide, despite all the legal advances of the past three decades, little has changed for women who report a date rape. Because in far too many instances, juries don't believe date rape exists."
posted by nooneyouknow
on Dec 14, 2011 -
253 comments
Leisure Suit Larry is a series of adventure games written by Al Lowe and published by Sierra from 1987 to 2009. The main character, whose full name is Larry Laffer, is a balding, dorky, double entendre-speaking, leisure suit-wearing (but still somewhat lovable) "loser" in his 40s. The games follow him as he spends much of his life trying (usually unsuccessfully) to seduce attractive women. [more inside]
posted by Trurl
on Dec 7, 2011 -
68 comments
Women journalists confront harassment, sexism when using social media You come to expect it, as a woman writer, particularly if you’re political. You come to expect the vitriol, the insults, the death threats. After a while, the emails and tweets and comments containing graphic fantasies of how and where and with what kitchen implements certain pseudonymous people would like to rape you cease to be shocking, and become merely a daily or weekly annoyance, something to phone your girlfriends about, seeking safety in hollow laughter.
posted by modernnomad
on Nov 22, 2011 -
39 comments
Nature, one of the most well known (and well cited) scientific journals, recently published a humor piece entitled
Womanspace. A senior editor of
Nature, Henry Gee,
commented last month on the article: "I'm amazed we haven't had any outraged comments about this story." Well, the outraged comments have arrived.
[more inside]
posted by demiurge
on Nov 17, 2011 -
88 comments
"Are you a lady? Then finally there’s a game for you! While too many games are pretending that ladies enjoy the same things as men, like shooting, building cities or exploring alien worlds, Lady Popular properly recognizes what it is that makes a true, strong, independent lady: shopping, hairstyles, and having a boyfriend."
John Walker of Rock Paper Shotgun gives a
no-holds-barred review (NSFW) of the game
Lady Popular.
posted by happyroach
on Oct 13, 2011 -
93 comments
Miss Representation is a
film by Jen Siebel Newsom about the images, representations and media constructions that shape American society in a harmful way for women. It explores the under-representation of women in positions of power and influence that result. Shorter trailer
here.
[more inside]
posted by cashman
on Oct 5, 2011 -
18 comments
"You know, I don't really know how else to explain how this makes me incredibly uncomfortable, but I'll just sort of lay it out that I was a single woman, you know, in a foreign country, at 4 AM, in a hotel elevator, with you, just you, and - don't invite me back to your hotel room right after I finish talking about how it creeps me out and makes me uncomfortable when men sexualize me in that manner..." Rebecca Watson, founder of
Skepchick, spoke in Dublin at the World Atheist Convention a month ago
(video). Afterwards,
in a video post (relevant part starts at about 2:30), she discussed an incident that occurred there.
She received some dismissive responses. PZ Myers is
supportive.
Richard Dawkins is
dismissive. Dawkins is
called out. PZ Myers
weighs in again. Dawkins
still doesn't get it.
[more inside]
posted by flex
on Jul 4, 2011 -
1266 comments
"From then on, the difference became clear. It’s the male band members who don’t take you seriously, and when you get upset with how you’re treated, ask you if you’re menstruating. It’s the promoters and planners who screw you, then call you a diva when you assert yourself. It’s the kids who don’t talk to you after your set, but talk to your male bandmates because they assume you’re only there for show. It’s the people who think you’re sleeping with the guitarist, the people who assume you’re queer, or the journalists who mention your weight in reviews. It’s every single time a producer has told me I can’t play guitar on my own record because “sweetie, you’re not a studio musician” or “sing it again, but naked.”
Mariel Loveland from
Candy Hearts and
Lauren Denitzio from
The Measure [SA] discuss sexism in modern punk rock. For further reading there's Jessica Hopper's classic essay
Emo: Where the Girls Aren’t.
Previously.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn
on Apr 18, 2011 -
39 comments
Professor Sheila Addison was fired from John F. Kennedy University for performing in a burlesque revue. Steven Stargardter, president of the university, said that her actions brought “public disrespect, contempt and ridicule to the university”, although she never publicized the show on campus, discussed it with students or identified her affiliation with JFK when she performed. Meanwhile, a male colleague in another department was performing at the same time in a one-man show in which he was partially nude, and he publicized his show on campus and invited students and colleagues. He was not disciplined.
posted by kyrademon
on Mar 16, 2011 -
132 comments
Microaggressions. This blog seeks to provide a visual representation of the everyday of “microaggressions.” Each event, observation and experience posted is not necessarily particularly striking in and of themselves. Often, they are never meant to hurt - acts done with little conscious awareness of their meanings and effects. Instead, their slow accumulation during a childhood and over a lifetime is in part what defines a marginalized experience, making explanation and communication with someone who does not share this identity particularly difficult. Social others are microaggressed hourly, daily, weekly, monthly.
posted by prefpara
on Jan 21, 2011 -
56 comments
In Germany, a Tradition Falls, and Women Rise. The half-day school system survived feudalism, the rise and demise of Hitler’s mother cult, the women’s movement of the 1970s and reunification with East Germany. Now, in the face of economic necessity, it is crumbling: one of the lowest birthrates in the world, the specter of labor shortages and slipping education standards have prompted a rethink.
posted by msalt
on Jan 20, 2010 -
94 comments
"
One might be tempted to say that the LFL is a startling critique of the homoerotic undertones that are rife within men’s American Football. Indeed American Football’s hyper-masculine qualities, its predilection for tight trousers, bottom patting and suggestive positional names (‘tight end’) have long made it an easy target for artists, theorists, critics, or anyone who is not American. Yet while to claim such satirical depths for the LFL would be disingenuous, what the LFL does achieve is equally subversive." Highbrow British art magazine
Frieze discovers the
Lingerie Football League.
Warning: pictures on both links are NSFW.
posted by WPW
on Jan 13, 2010 -
73 comments
Filament aims to be a
different kind of women's magazine. They plan to "cover a wide range of topics [but absolutely no beauty or diet articles] that inspire and engage , and [give women] gorgeous boys the way
[they] like to see them."
Their
first issue is out and featured a mix of articles, fiction, poetry and pics of shirtless boys. For their second issue, they want to include a pic of a man with erection, but their
printer bailed because the printer was afraid of a backlash. The magazine has also had issues with
distributors because many of them don't want to deal with a women's magazine with a man on the cover.
Via (NSFW)
Erotica Cover Watch (NSFW) which is a blog dedicated to ending the
preponderance of (naked) women on the covers of erotic books, and is trying to get more
men and couples on the covers.
posted by nooneyouknow
on Aug 13, 2009 -
82 comments
