- Why the best kids books are written in blood – The author of “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” on why it’s okay and important for young adult fiction to have dark themes.
- The sexual objectification spillover effect – “Even if a woman dresses modestly, to an extent, she is likely to be perceived more negatively (on average) just because other women are depicted sexually.”
- Sheep diagnoses woman with breast cancer – “Alfie Purl, a sheep who lives in England’s Cotswolds, is not the head-butting type. So when he went nuts and started bumping his owner in the chest one day, Turner “thought there must be something wrong with him.”” From redsky.
- Catholic University reverts to single-sex dorms because ladies can’t stop being slutty – The President of the university seems to think that single sex dorms will solve all sluttiness, binge drinking, and depression problems amongst the students.
The author from the first article is Sherman Alexie, who also wrote Reservation Blues, which is an amazing book that I highly recommend. One of the characters is based on real-life blues virtuoso Robert Johnson, who supposedly met the devil at a crossroads and sold his soul for the ability to play guitar.
One of my college professors told us that when she was a student at the same university, there was a peculiar regulation called the “Three Foot Rule”.
To guard against “inappropriate behavior”, if a male student and a female student were in the same dorm room at the same time, at least three of their four feet needed to be touching the floor at all times. This rule was rarely broken, because it was more fun to find entertaining ways to engage in “inappropriate behavior” while still following the rule to the letter.
(By “same university” I mean the same university where she was our professor, not the same university mentioned in the article.)
I hate to admit it in polite company, but, (through parental blackmail that would not interest you), I spent my first year of college at a “Christian University” which had male and female dorms. I could stand your hair on end with dozens of stories of ridiculous rules/behaviours, but the unsurprising fact I want to share is this: The school really showed the misogyny of religion in general by declaring that no one could be out of their dorms past 11:00, and then turning a blind eye to it in my dorm but actually locking the women in at 11:00 PM.
I can think of about 100 ways to have sex with three out of four feet on the floor. Rules like that are meant to give the appearance of effectiveness which not actually caring about results. It’s a lot like religion in general.
That should be “while not caring”. Fucking caffeine, how does it work?
That is wonderful.
The sexual objectification spillover article mentions “These studies are important because every time someone sees a sexualized image of a woman (which studies show are far more frequent than those of sexualized men), this likely is detrimental to how women are perceived.”
This suddenly made me think of the times when men are sexualized — namely the ads and magazine covers aimed at gay men. I even saw an AIDS awareness PSA in a store window the other day that had a picture of a shirtless dude arching his back. From the results of these studies, the gay rights movement might be shooting itself in the foot in its marketing campaigns.
A converse to this… what about the number of ads (and television shows) that show men as idiots? As being uninterested in raising their children, unable to follow directions, etc.?
The sheep story is ridiculous, every on knows that felines are far more effective at discovering disease.
After all; CATscan’s are far more effective than any old ovisualization.
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But ant PET scan can help.
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I am so sorry.
See now, if you wiminz would just stop waving your sezy parts all over the place we might allow you to sleep near us menz, plus you’re making the other chicks look bad too.
Maybe Catholic University should also provide mandatory uniforms. Y’know, those blouses and short, pleated skirts…not sexually encouraging at all.
I solve problems, Catholic University. Just give me a ring.
The comments on the CUA story were epic. I’m not sure a single one understood the point of it. Those that did were mostly concern trolls who complained about the style or attitude of the author, Margaret Hartmann.
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One point raised by one commenter was that feminists who are concerned about a women’s right to say “yes” (i.e. to make her own decisions about sex) is coming from a perspective of white, upper-class American privilege and that black feminists are much more concerned about a woman’s right to say “no”. This is a false dichotomy. The right to say “yes” and the right to say “no” are two sides of the same coin; you can’t have one without the other.
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No one except Hartmann questioned the data on which the president of CUA based his assertions and new policy. But the only source he cited is someone at Loyala Marymount, another Catholic University. The article points to possible selection bias in the statistics, but no commenter follows up on that.
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There are lots of complaints of Catholic bashing, straw men, arguments from final consequences, and just plain non sequiturs. The comments are a treasure trove of logical fallacies.
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(New Years resolution for 2012: Don’t read the comments.)
I think the article about female sexuality/intelligence sort of misses the mark. Any test that tries to gauge intelligence based on something like appearance is going to be wildly off for the simple reason that you can’t gauge intelligence based on physical appearance.
Even couching it in the realm of ‘perception’ misses the point. If a man thinks a woman is less intelligent because of what she is wearing, then that says a great deal more about the man than the woman. Anyone who would be willing to guess at the intelligence of a person based on something like that (especially if they wish to be taken seriously) is a moron.