The Guy's Guide to Being a Feminist Ally in Video Gaming One of the things I hear whenever I write about misogyny in video games is that there’s a silent majority of male gamers who are uncomfortable with the vicious sexism some of their counterparts deploy against women (and frankly, against men, too). Women aren’t alone in feeling hopeless, or like there’s no effective way to change either the behavior of individuals or the culture that leaves space for the harassment of women. So I hopped on Twitter yesterday and asked men who play video games, and who push back against sexist behavior when they see it, what kinds of arguments they’ve found to be effective. Dozens of you responded, with a lot of terrific advice. So if you’ve ever wanted to call out sexism in video games but weren’t sure how to start the conversation or how to make sure it would be productive, here’s the collective wisdom of the internet. –Take the high ground—but don’t sound superior: “SOMETIMES IT ABOUT STARTING FROM PLACE GIVING RESPECT EVEN IF RESPECT UNDESERVED?”
After banning the burqa, French lawmakers target floral dresses | Les blogs An embarassing spectacle took hold of the French parliament on Tuesday when a Socialist government minister turned up to work in a floral dress. Rightwing lawmakers raised their eyebrows and hooted as minister of territories and housing, Cécile Duflot, took to the podium to speak about an architecture project. Centrist MP Jean-Christophe Fromantin called on the hecklers to pipe down and listen up, allowing Duflot to address the house. “Ladies and gentlemen,” she began, adding “obviously more gentlemen than ladies…”. The reaction could have gone two ways in France, where the nasty 2011 Dominique Strauss-Kahn affair was initially received with more amusement than ire, and ogling or getting ogled at work comes as part of the job. Reassuringly, the majority of French twitterers took pity on Duflot, denouncing the MPs as a “bunch of sexist imbeciles” who “can’t see beyond their testosterone levels”. Not surprisingly, the “sexist imbeciles” in question denied any wrongdoing. Trouser ban
The Wage Gap Series, so far I have to admit, my economics background is compleatly self taught, so the technichal details are a little above me. On the other hand, every thing I have learned, especially in the labor market is that the cionventional wisdom in economic circles, (where most of the apologists for the wage gap seem to come from) is based on theories that have no real ties to reality. Until recently I was an occasional lurker on your blog. I have the pleasure of being married to a very strong woman who is intolerant in the extream of the sorts of issues that you discuss, so while I recognize them intellectually as extreamly important, I am inselated from dealing with the on a day to day basis, and so I have devoted my energies to reading about issues that more directly affect me and my family. I admire your work, and your dedication to it. while I have not felt the need to post comments, for the reasons enumerated above, I have become a much more regular reader here, BECUASE of this series. Thank you. Jim
The rise of enlightened sexism - The Scavenger 5 Ways Modern Men Are Trained to Hate Women Photos.com I don't know what it's like to be a woman, so it's not easy for me to describe what it's like to be a man, because I don't know what you're using for context. I'm going to do my best: Did you ever watch old cartoons where a character is starving on a desert island, and when another character approaches, he's so hungry that he imagines the other character as a talking piece of food? Via TV TropesThird panel omitted due to graphic content. It's like that for most men, most of the time. Right now I'm reading a book from mega-selling fantasy author George R. "When she went to the stables, she wore faded sandsilk pants and woven grass sandals. That's written from the woman's point of view. Do you see what I'm getting at? Photos.comWe also assume you have the taste of a pimp. Go look at a city skyline. All those wars we fight? It's all about you. Photos.comNope. This is really the heart of it, right here. Which brings us back to where we started. Via Wikipedia Via Caglecartoons.com
Fuck You, Men's Rights Activists Alright, I totally agree here (as a man) with your description of these reprehensible people. Fuck MRAs. They're reprehensible shits who hate women, and tacitly or actively endorse violence against women, and clearly have some incredible emotional issues they must contend with. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. I'm not sure any of those qualify as men's activists under the definition given here, but in the sense that they advocate for the rights of men, they might, and they probably shouldn't be subject to this sort of vitriol. Yeah, but fuck MRA's who fit under the definition given here.
Feminism Imgur Album Clothing sizes getting bigger: Why our sizing system makes no sense Illustration by Mark Alan Stamaty. If you are like me, you may have had the following deflating experience: After confidently selecting a pair of jeans in your size from the rack, you find yourself alone in a tiny dressing room, desperately in need of heavy machinery to get them onto your body, wondering why, oh, why clothing sizes don’t make sense. Julia Felsenthal is an assistant at Slate. Follow Cheer up! The federal government did take a stab at it in the early 1940s. The ready-to-wear sizing system that existed prior to the ‘40s was first developed for menswear. The only problem? In an attempt to resolve this problem, the Works Progress Administration gave two statisticians, Ruth O’Brien and William Shelton, a grant to conduct a nationwide survey of women’s measurements. Sadly, the data didn’t cooperate. “It was pretty impressive, what they did,” says sizing scholar Lynn Boorady, noting that they devised something like 27 different sizes. There is something to this.
Trickle-Down Feminism Trickle-Down Feminism Artwork by Imp Kerr If you read what is popularly known as the feminist press, you’ll notice a focus on the “glass ceiling” that excludes much else. While we debate the travails of some of the world’s most privileged women, most women are up against the wall. This is where most women spend their time, not atop the Googleplex. The stakes are clear. And yet for much of mainstream feminist discourse, it’s as if the economy hasn’t shifted, or as if there’s nothing about it worth examining from the standpoint of gender. The brave new economy being rebuilt in the wake of the financial meltdown is being built on low-wage service work, as manufacturing’s decline has accelerated and construction ground to a halt. Women may be overrepresented in the growing sectors of the economy, but those sectors pay poverty wages. “All work is gendered. Women may be overrepresented in the growing sectors of the economy, but those sectors pay poverty wages. But the divide persists.
Measuring Trends in Leisure: The Allocation of Time Over Five Decades + Author Affiliations Abstract In this paper, we use five decades of time-use surveys to document trends in the allocation of time within the United States. We find that a dramatic increase in leisure time lies behind the relatively stable number of market hours worked between 1965 and 2003. Specifically, using a variety of definitions for leisure, we show that leisure for men increased by roughly six to nine hours per week (driven by a decline in market work hours) and for women by roughly four to eight hours per week (driven by a decline in home production work hours). © 2007 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Nine Reasons Women Don’t Edit Wikipedia (in their own words) « Sue Gardner's Blog The New York Times piece on Wikipedia’s gender gap has given rise to dozens of great online conversations about why so few women edit Wikipedia. I’ve been reading ALL of it, because I believe we need to understand the origins of our gender gap before we can solve it. And the people talking –on science sites and in online communities and on historian’s blogs– are exactly the ones we should be listening to, because they’re all basically one degree of separation from us already, just by virtue of caring enough to talk about the problem. So below is a bunch of comments, culled from discussions on many different sites — people talking about experiences on Wikipedia that make them not want to edit. Please note I’ve only included quotes from women, and I’ve aimed to limit the selections to first-person stories more than general speculation and theorizing. 1) Some women don’t edit Wikipedia because the editing interface isn’t sufficiently user-friendly.