Go Where? Sex, Gender, and Toilets
Women’s and men’s washrooms: we encounter them nearly every time we venture into public space. To many people the separation of the two, and the signs used to distinguish them, may seem innocuous and necessary. Trans people know that this is not the case, and that public battles have been waged over who is allowed to use which washroom. As such, washroom signs are very telling of the way societies construct gender. I present here for your perusal, a typology and analysis of various washroom signs. [Editor: After the jump because there are dozens of them... which is why Marissa's post is so awesome...] The Universal Male One of the ideas that supports patriarchy is the notion that a man can be representative of all humanity, or “mankind”, while a woman could only be representative of other women. Washroom signs illustrate this idea by depicting the male figure simply, and the female as some kind of elaboration on the male figure. Women also sprout tentacles from their heads Opposite Sexes
Creating the All-Terrain Human
Come winter, when most elite ultrarunners keep running, Jornet puts away his trail-running shoes for six months and takes up ski-mountaineering racing, which basically amounts to running up and around large mountains on alpine skis. In this sport too, Jornet reigns supreme: he has been the overall World Cup champion three of the last four winters. So what’s next when you’re 25 and every one of the races on the wish list you drew up as a youngster has been won and crossed out? You dream up a new challenge. Last year Jornet began what he calls the Summits of My Life project , a four-year effort to set speed records climbing and descending some of the world’s most well known peaks, from the Matterhorn this summer to Mount Everest in 2015. But bigger challenges bring bigger risks. Chamonix, France, is a resort town wedged into a narrow valley at the foot of Mont Blanc, just over an hour’s drive southeast of Geneva. Don’t you sweat? Even among top athletes, Jornet is an outlier.
102 Spectacular Nonfiction Stories from 2012 | Byliner Anthologies
Each year, I track the most exceptional stories I encounter while assembling my twice-weekly newsletter, The Best of Journalism, as well as acting as an editor-at-large for Byliner. These projects afford me the opportunity to read as much impressive nonfiction journalism as any single person possibly can. The result is my annual Best of Journalism List, now in its fifth year. If you’re feeling nostalgic, here’s the 2011 edition. There are, of course, worthy pieces of writing and reporting that escaped my attention in 2012, but I can assure you that all of the 102 stories listed below deserve wider attention—as do the authors of these stories. The featured bylines are linked to the authors’ Byliner writer pages, which makes it easy to discover and read more of their excellent work. In the spirit of full disclosure, I’ll also note that I’m a staff writer at The Atlantic (where my colleagues neither saw nor influenced this list) and have done my best to remain objective. No. 1 No. 2 No. 3
short stories at east of the web
A game of Scrabble has serious consequences. - Length: 4 pages - Age Rating: PG - Genre: Crime, Humor A semi-barbaric king devises a semi-barabaric (but entirely fair) method of criminal trial involving two doors, a beautiful lady and a very hungry tiger. - Length: 7 pages - Genre: Fiction, Humor ‘Bloody hell!’ - Genre: Humor Looking round he saw an old woman dragging a bucket across the floor and holding a mop. - Length: 3 pages Henry pours more coal onto the hearth as a gust of wind rattles through the cracked window frame. - Length: 14 pages - Genre: Horror ulissa Ye relished all the comfortable little routines and quietude defining her part-time job at The Bookery, downtown’s last small, locally-owned bookstore. - Length: 8 pages - Age Rating: U The forest looked ethereal in the light from the moon overhead. - Length: 15 pages - Age Rating: 18 Corporal Earnest Goodheart is crouched in a ditch on the edge of an orchard between Dunkirk and De Panne. - Genre: Fiction - Length: 20 pages
Five Words
One Sentence - True stories, told in one sentence.
Short Short Fiction Contest Winners 2011 - Aspens 78 Word Fiction Contest Winners
Jonnie Miles via Getty Images This fall, in partnership with Colum McCann and the Aspen Writers' Foundation, we held a short fiction contest. Very short: Entries had to be exactly 78 words long. The winner, chosen from 4,300 entries, is Nate Ochs, a 33-year-old smoke jumper from South Dakota. His story and the nine other finalists are reprinted below. "How the Blood Moves in Winter" By Nate Ochs If you buy Marv a scotch he'll tell you he hasn't slept with her in a dozen years. MORE ABOUT THE WRITER: Nate Ochs hasn't written a word for 10 years — since it left him frustrated as a 20-something bartender in New Orleans. "Letters in War Time" By CJ Hauser Back then you knew which girls had husbands in the war because when you kissed them they tasted of envelope glue. Marjorie said, I can't. How could she resist a flat-footed fool like myself? She couldn't behind the gazebo. Then he came home to a ticker-tape parade. Marjorie doesn't answer any of my letters. "Simmering" By Sheila Redling "Baby Envy"
