Olivia

Olivia is a giant pile of nerd who tends to freak out about linguistic prescriptivism, gender roles, and discrimination against the mentally ill. By day she writes things for the Autism Society of Minnesota, and by night she writes things everywhere else. Check out her ongoing screeds against jerkbrains at www.taikonenfea.wordpress.com
  • Featured

    There Is Space For Quiet Activism

    The squeaky wheel gets the grease. Obviously. And when it comes to activism, being loud often makes change. After the recent incident with Bernie Sanders, and with a lot of the Black Lives Matter protests, I’ve been seeing a folks in activist movements talking about the way that change happens. I fully support these conversations, and furthermore I fully support…

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  • Skepticism

    Release The Scotsman: Responsible Use of Fallacies

    There’s a trend when it comes to talking to people about the negative elements of communities they’re involved in. When people don’t double down and simply deny that there are nasty folks in their community, they like to play the “well they’re not a REAL feminist/atheist/kinky person/purple people eater.” This is known as the No True Scotsman fallacy, and it’s…

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  • Activism

    Everything to Everyone

    As many of you might have noticed, last week was Convergence, the annual sci-fi and fantasy convention at which the Skepchicks run their own science/skepticism track. As per usual it was oodles of fun, and also as per usual it left many of us with lots to think about. One panel in particular struck me with how clearly it illustrated…

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  • Featured

    Can We Believe Women Now?

    If you’ll recall, last year there was a horrible incident in which Rolling Stone botched a piece about a gang rape at UVA. They issued a retraction after it came out that details in the story were incorrect and that they did not have enough evidence to support the story. After the retraction, many people felt the need to gloat…

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  • Skepticism

    Rachel Dolezal Roundup

    Over the last couple of weeks Rachel Dolezal has been taking up far too much real estate in the public mind. She has been labeled “transracial” and compared with Caitlyn Jenner, as well as used as a “gotcha” by those who oppose trans rights. As someone who is not black or trans I am not in a qualified position to…

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  • Featured

    To Catch The Man Attached To The Dick

    After Amy Schumer’s fantastic acceptance speech at the Glamour Awards last week, the internet has basically been on fire with ‘catch a dick’ love. One of these was Reina Gattuso’s article pointing out that the puzzle of being a woman today is that you simultaneously struggle to follow the rules of beauty to catch a dick while also being barraged…

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  • Activism

    Self Care for Activists

    Social justice can be exhausting. Especially in internetland where the battles never seem to stop, where threats and harassment are a constant, where exposure to assholes is a necessity, caring about things like feminism, race, GLBT rights, ableism, or any other form of oppression is a drain sometimes. Sure it’s part of the territory, but that doesn’t mean we just…

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  • Featured

    More on the Duggar Scandal, or Why People Are More Important Than Ideals

    Here on the Skepchick network, Mary has already covered the fact that Josh Duggar recently admitted to molesting his younger sisters as well as other children. She provided a comprehensive review of the hypocrisy of the situation, as well as some of the responses. There’s another lesson here, beyond “fundamentalist Christians are awful people who do awful things” though, and…

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