Recent Blog Posts
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Tempest in a cookie box
Because a seven year old transgender child tried to be involved in a Girl Scout troop in Colorado, a national campaign has been created to urge us to not to buy any cookies this year, and Girl Scouts themselves to not sell them. Yes, really: Three Girl Scout troops in Louisiana won’t be hawking Thin…
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On bumper stickers and “bumper stickers”
From The Washington Post: Looking to Avoid Aggressive Drivers? Check Those Bumpers: Watch out for cars with bumper stickers.That’s the surprising conclusion of a recent study by Colorado State University social psychologist William Szlemko. Drivers of cars with bumper stickers, window decals, personalized license plates and other “territorial markers” not only get mad when someone…
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What should the bus driver call you?
How would you feel if this man called you “babe”? Here’s a sticky one…or maybe not so sticky. Jo Walters writes in the Guardian about her experience of being called “babe” by a bus driver, and then her experience of how she has been viewed and treated following making a complaint about that: In the…
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I’m fine with this rubber spine o’ mine
Really? Because it looks like that…hurts. As a follow-up to this post, I feel compelled to share these: Cracked’s 5 Most Ridiculously Sexist Superhero Costumes, and R.K. Milholland’s Super Stupor! comic mocking such costumes and poses Comics are almost certainly the most sexist medium in geekdom. By that I do not mean that a)…
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Benevolent sexism
A lot of people seem to have a hard time identifying bigotry when it appears to flatter. After all, isn’t bigotry supposed to be about hating members of a certain group? Not really. It’s more about forming expectations about individual members of a group, based on a general assumption about the group as a whole.…
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Tony Perkins fears the crossing of light sabers
“Give yourself to the Dark Side…yes,your thoughts betray you.” From Opposing Views: On his daily radio broadcast, Family Research Council president Tony Perkins attacked the video game ‘Star Wars: The Old Republic’ for allowing same-sex relationships: “In a new Star Wars game, the biggest threat to the empire may be homosexual activists!” Stephen Reid of Bioware,…