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
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
"Over the past few decades, 160 million women have vanished from East and South Asia — or, to be more accurate, they were never born at all. Throughout the region, the practice of sex selection — prenatal sex screening followed by selective termination of pregnancies — has yielded a generation packed with boys. From a normal level of 105 boys to 100 girls, the ratio has shifted to 120, 150, and, in some cases, nearly 200 boys born for every 100 girls. In some countries, like South Korea, ratios spiked and are now returning to normal. But sex selection is on the rise in Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East." American journalist Mara Hvistendahl's new book: "
Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys Over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men," examines and tries to predict the actual and potential effects of unequal sex ratios on men, women and the social economies of the affected regions, including the recent spike in sex trafficking and bride-buying across Asia.
More.
[more inside]
posted by zarq
on Jun 10, 2011 -
65 comments
By helping other people look happy, Facebook is making us sad. The human habit of overestimating other people's happiness is nothing new, of course. Jordan points to a quote by Montesquieu: "If we only wanted to be happy it would be easy; but we want to be happier than other people, which is almost always difficult, since we think them happier than they are." But social networking may be making this tendency worse. Jordan's research doesn't look at Facebook explicitly, but if his conclusions are correct, it follows that the site would have a special power to make us sadder and lonelier. By showcasing the most witty, joyful, bullet-pointed versions of people's lives, and inviting constant comparisons in which we tend to see ourselves as the losers, Facebook appears to exploit an Achilles' heel of human nature. And women—an especially unhappy bunch of late—may be especially vulnerable to keeping up with what they imagine is the happiness of the Joneses.
posted by jason's_planet
on Jan 29, 2011 -
106 comments
The End of Men , in The Atlantic. An article about the rise of women (now over 50% of the U.S. workforce), and implications of the attendant changes for both women and men.
[more inside]
posted by marble
on Jun 10, 2010 -
161 comments
Is a Woman's MBA Worth Less? $4,600.
That's how much less women made than men in their first post-MBA jobs, according to research by Nancy Carter and Christine Silva of Catalyst. And it's not because women tend to start at lower positions than men — though they do start at lower positions than men, on average, that's a separate problem. The research controls for job level and industry. What's more, the salary lines aren't parallel; men's salaries start higher, then rise faster. The gap widens over time, even after controlling for factors like having children or differing aspiration levels.
The pay just isn't equal.
posted by infini
on May 8, 2010 -
96 comments
A great
Rant About Women by Clay Shirky: (Women)
"are bad at behaving like self-promoting narcissists, anti-social obsessives, or pompous blowhards, even a little bit, even temporarily, even when it would be in their best interests to do so." [more inside]
posted by bru
on Jan 16, 2010 -
167 comments
"
Women and children, first," is a familiar cultural refrain, with its popular roots in the gallant sacrifice made by the male contingent aboard the doomed
Titanic. Their sacrifice has inspired
poetry,
sculpture,
male social clubs, and, of course,
cinema. Yet, this sacrifice of near-mythic scale
was in some respects a myth, with
survival statistics skewing well in favor of men of higher social and economic class than children (and, to a lesser extent, women) of lower status.
posted by Blazecock Pileon
on Aug 25, 2008 -
70 comments
A recent poll (PDF) asked for reactions to the same model dressed in two different ways: in a plain shirt with her hair down, and in a blue head scarf of the style of some Islamic women. Perhaps understandably, the survey respondents felt the scarfed image was more traditional and more religious. But some of the other perceptions are less obviously predictable. (via
crooked timber)
posted by Rumple
on Jan 29, 2008 -
45 comments
Recently an opinion writer for
The Age, Catherine Deveny unleashed a firestorm of sorts when she wrote an article entitled '
Why Do Some Wives Still Change Their Names?'. The reaction to her article (from both men and women) was strong; so much so that in a recent follow up article entitled
'I Don't Give A Stuff What You Do. I'm Paid To Write What I Think' , she jokingly wrote that it had had the effect of reducing her readership to three. But when an article penned by a professional comedian employs such pointed rhetoric along the lines of "
Insecure or conservative or stupid women are bowing to the wishes of their husbands", can she truly claim surprise at the level of vitriol her article generated or is this simply a case of an opinion writer trying to get opinions?
posted by Second Account For Making Jokey Comments
on Sep 19, 2007 -
98 comments
"Ben Barres's work is much better than his sister's," one scientist remarked to another. The only problem is that Ben Barres and his “sister” Barbara Barres were the same person. An FTM transsexual offers a
unique view of the impact of gender discrimination in science, having seen it from both sides. Despite the fact that recent studies have shown that a woman has to be
2.5 times as productive to be judged as scientifically competant as a man in the sciences, many still argue that there is actually
a level playing field, a source of
some frustration for many women in the field. (For a somewhat easier to read and referenced response to the Physics Today letters, check out Evalyn Gates’ reply at the end.)
posted by kyrademon
on Jan 10, 2007 -
87 comments
Single-Sex Education When WNYC's
Leonard Lopate Show decided to
discuss (audio) the Summer's gender brouhaha, an interesting thing happened. The guest expected to support gender difference interpretations, Dr. Sax, and the guest expected to discuss structural challenges to women in the sciences, Dr. Bell, agreed on one solution: single-sex education. As the AP noted last summer,
single-sex public education is up. Though some
object on the basis that
separate is never equal, Dr. Sax's organization claims both
boys and
girls see definite results. And even if you don't agree with Dr. Sax's reasoning, he says
the studies are on his side. After all, girls schools have given us awesome ladies like Rosa Parks, Sally Ride, and me.
posted by dame
on Feb 9, 2005 -
115 comments
Iron Women, Foxy Ladies- A collection of propaganda posters depicting the ideal, but contradictory, roles for Chinese women in the nation. Even if you're not interested in the politics, the evolution of style and form in the artwork is fascinating to examine.
posted by headspace
on Aug 31, 2004 -
6 comments
From the
Liberation Journal, Gregory Flanagan's "Libercratic"
[?] Website:
Misogyny on TV; Feminazi Propaganda:
Portrayals of amazon freaks denigrate and pervert females, attack feminine identity and incite in men a lust for sexual violence...
#4. Charlie's Angels (80s) ... Among the many barbaric and obscene shows, one featured women playing tackle football.
#18. Buffy, The Vampire Slayer (90s) ... the idiotic vampires are just the excuse--their real enemy is femininity.
#25. Xena: Warrior Princess (90s) ... Extreme, obscene violence that provokes in men an overwhelming, obsessive lust to rape and slaughter these bitches.
See also:
Misogyny in the Movies, etc etc.
They're
out there, folks. This man needs his ass kicked by a "girly girl" martial artist. Or maybe that's secretly what he wants?
(Site hosted and LOTSA POPUPS by directNIC.com. For shame, dierctNIC!)
posted by Shane
on Feb 26, 2004 -
18 comments
Sworn virgins. "A sworn virgin is called such because she swears—takes a vow under the law of the
Kanun—to become a man. From the day she takes this vow (which is sometimes at a very early age), she becomes a man: she dresses like one, acts like one, walks like one, works like one, talks like one, and her family and community treat her as one. She is referred to as he. He will never marry and will remain celibate all of his life." If you find this stuff intriguing, by all means read Alice Munro's great short story "The Albanian Virgin" (from
Open Secrets, 1994); you might also want to check out
A Dictionary of Albanian Religion, Mythology, and Folk Culture, where there's much more cultural weirdness, and Edith Durham's classic
High Albania (online
here), from which I first learned of these mannish gals. Oh, and there's a
movie!
posted by languagehat
on Jan 30, 2004 -
15 comments
The Century Project (not suitable for work) 'is a series of nude photographs
accompanied by highly personal and moving statements by women whose lives span 100 years. The words and pictures combine to form a powerful statement about body image, society's portrayal of women in the media, sexuality, pornography, and women's health issues. For some, this is pretty controversial stuff...yet the simple fact that women have invited me (a man) to exhibit and speak in Churches (3 times!) and on the campuses of Colleges and Universities, by itself speaks volumes about the way in which Century has been received, and what it's value has been ... '
'Life is at its fullest at 94.' - Mary.
posted by plep
on Apr 6, 2003 -
23 comments
According to
scientists who study sex we can toss some common misconceptions: there is no battle of the sexes; the Mars and Venus book is misleading; extreme body builders are not sexy; breast size isnt always sexy; men and women cheat equally; the notion of man "spreading his seed" is a cultural invention; thin is not sexy. All thanks to our caveman brain.
posted by stbalbach
on Aug 28, 2002 -
61 comments
