Fresh from the office of my supervisor who persists in gently giving me unsolicited advice, despite being neither older nor wiser, I’m struck by Rousseau’s tone (in his “Marriage”): “Extreme in all things, they [women] devote themselves to their play with greater zeal than boys. This is the second defect. This zeal must be kept …
Category: gender issues
Dec 27
What’s wrong with being a slut?
slut, n. Slovenly woman, slattern
slovenly, a. Personally untidy or dirty, careless and lazy, or unmethodical
slattern, n. Sluttish woman
Not what my mother meant when she called me a slut. For whatever else I am, I am tidy, clean, careful, industrious, and methodical. Quite methodical. So just what did she mean? I don’t know. …
Dec 20
Whereas very few boys grow up looking forward …
“Even if we don’t think of women wanting to BE married, we at least think of them as wanting to GET married. … Whereas very few boys grow up looking forward to the day that they’ll be a groom. There is no “American Groom” magazine. G. I. Joe does not have a little tux with …
Dec 18
Let’s Talk about Sex
[This one’s a little old, as you can tell by the Salt-n-Pepa reference, but still relevant, I think. Sigh.]
Disc jockeys generally come in two sexes: male and female. So what, you may think, sex doesn’t matter. Oh but it does, so sad to say.
I used to deejay for weddings and other parties, and …
Dec 10
Men’s Precision Teams
Have you ever wondered why, in the sport of figure skating, there are no men’s precision teams?
Sure, precision skating requires attention to detail and a highly developed spatial sense. But both are surely male capabilities; in fact, aren’t they male superiorities? Isn’t that why (so we’re told) men dominate science and engineering?
And of …
Dec 01
First (and last) Contact
Women have a long tradition of being diplomats. “Historically… marriage has been the major alliance mechanism of every society, and little girls are trained for roles as intervillage family diplomats…the married woman straddles two kin networks, two villages, sometimes two cultures” (The Underside of History, Elise Boulding, p.53-54).
Many women have decades of experience, settling …
Nov 07
Swedish Cinemas using the Bechdel test!!
Check it out here!
[Hell Yeah, I’m a Feminist is a feminist blog, often radical feminist (radfem), always anti-gender and anti-sexism.]
Nov 01
What happens when men do the cooking and the baking?
Used to be women did the cooking and the baking. Then men starting getting into it. And in theory, I have no problem with that. In fact, I’m all for making everything gender-unaligned. But now that men are in the kitchen, suddenly it’s important. So important it’s being televised.
And my god, the drama! (And …
Oct 24
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, …
Oct 17
The Wife
The Good Wife, The Trophy Wife, The First Wives Club…why in the 21st century do women continue to be so frequently identified as wives? That is, identified in relation to men?
We don’t see a similar proliferation of tv shows and movies with “husband” in the title. The word is emasculating. It would be especially …
Books by Peg Tittle
Writing as Jass Richards
Writing as Chris Wind
