Quickies

Skepchick Quickies 12.24

Amanda

Amanda works in healthcare, is a loudmouthed feminist, and proud supporter of the Oxford comma.

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14 Comments

  1. On the carols – after seeing an episode of Mock of the Week with Russell Howard’s randy take on ‘O Come All Ye Faithful’, I can’t listen to that song without doubling over in laughter. I’m sure there’s a filk out there on that one – or there should be.

  2. Re: The horsey thing. At first I was like WHUT. But then I did some research. Apparently male horses have been nominated before, and have won. In horse racing, the jockey doesn’t even really exist. It’s all about the horses, and they are considered great athletes. It’s a bit weird, but it isn’t singled out to just women.

    HOWEVER, I do think it was inappropriate to name TWO horses, when there are a ton of female athletes that could have been nominated.

  3. @marilove: Aha! Very interesting. I only went so far as to see what this year’s male nominee list looked like. Good to know that they’ve nominated horses of both genders before (as weird as that is).

    @BigHeathenMike: “You killed him with your penis?!” “It was self defense!”

  4. @Amanda: Yep! I do think they shouldn’t have named TWO horses, not when human women get the shaft so much in sports as it is, but I don’t think it was intentional sexism. And you know I’m the first one to scream sexism. ;)

  5. @Amanda: Oh! And apparently these are two female horses that have won against male horses, when generally female horses race against female horses. So it’s actually a great feat for them, and kind of cool when you think about it.

  6. I’ve seen the idea that male horses have won best athlete of the year in the past (usually it’s Secretariat), but I have not been able to find it. A horse has never won the AP Athlete of the Year for either gender, nor has a horse ever won the SI Sportsman of the Year. The only horse racing winner I can find is Steve Cauthen, a jockey, in 1977.

    But I will say as someone who follows sports closely, the idea of nominating horses is not exactly new. The last several years, anytime a horse has some success (usually winning the first two legs of the Triple Crown), people start floating him or her as “athlete of the year” which is what happened this year with the two female horses. It seems like it’s just the “in” thing to do. The reason male horses weren’t nominated this year is because it’s been a very down year in terms of having a male horse have success. A few years ago, it was Smarty Jones, more recently it was Big Brown. They both failed to win the third leg and everyone stopped talking about them. Had either of them won, there is a decent chance they would have been named Athlete of the Year. Maybe not AP or SI, but someone would have done it.

  7. @marilove: Only on skepchick can we find equine feminism! ;)

    @Amanda: I hear you on the horses, not a fan myself. I’m positive they’re hell-bent on rising up and taking over the Earth, and that zebras are Step One of their plan. I don’t trust an animal that also has a camouflaged version…

  8. “Patricia Brennan from Yale University is trying to encourage male Muscovy ducks to launch their ballistic penises into test tubes.”

    That’s got to be the best opening line to an article I’ve heard in weeks.

    “What do you do at Yale?”

    “Uhh.. well… scientific research.”

    “That must be cool.”

    “Well…”

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