- Surly Amy and the charms of reason – Amy was interviewed for the Scientific American blog!
- Sea level rise: Extreme history, uncertain future – As usual, Greg Laden writes an interesting and informative article.
- For Indian women, teasing is no laughing matter – From Emily.
- Axe decides to go with another super sexist ad – From scribe999.
- Using “female” crash test dummies may help reduce injuries for women – “Anna Carlsson, a researcher for Chalmers, has designed a prototype for what is said to be the first crash test dummy in the world that represents “the average female.””
- Cute Animal Friday! Capuchin monkeys reject unequal pay. Aww, it’s a baby tree lobster! Mango and Milkshake, the kitten & puppy duo of unbelievable cuteness. Elvismorte sent that video in and volunteers with Kitten Rescue, the group that rescued those two. If you’re in the LA area and looking for a new pet, their contact info is below the video.
But, but the grape eating capuchin is a job creator! — sorry, couldn’t resist.
Amanda
Surly Amy did a great job with those science charms.
Amanda
Okay, I’m a guy and I’m offended by that Axe ad
Dito, and the comments under the article don’t help.
What, you mean you don’t see women as a walking pair of boobs?
I suppose if this was targeted to religious right-wingers, they would portray women as walking uteruses.
Any guy that solely sees women as a walking pair of boobs deserves a slap to the back of the head.
But that’s just my opinion.
Several billion slaps are required.
Wow, the Axe ad was very triggering. I don’t know why I watched it, Axe ads have been doing this to me since I was kid…
I’m sorry, that’s awful.
I read Amy’s post on Sci Am yesterday and when I read the title I was like “OMG is that THE Surly Amy!”
Well off topic but I have to talk about this somewhere. I kind of flamed an anti vaxxer today after she invalidated my experience with chicken pox that nearly killed me as a child. I don’t know if it was pregnancy hormones or what but what she wrote pissed me off. I had to go back and edit after I calmed down.
Can anyone write an article on mommy forums and websites? I see so much woo on them that it isn’t funny. I’d almost say that those are the worst places for spreading anti vax propoganda, psuedo science, and other woo. Big culprits include Babycenter, mothering, and circle of moms.
Yeah and sorry for the off topic ness. Anti vax propoganda is so triggering and it makes me terrified to vaccinate my baby that is due soon. (And I will vaccinate him, I just know that I will be freaking out when he gets the shot because of how forceful some anti vax women are.) I come here for sanity.
That Axe commercial is rather obnoxious isn’t it? And about as funny as a punch in the gut.
Take a look at this one for a “different” perspective ;-) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4Zd9kEIrMk
Yarro
Now why would that make me want to drink that? Seriously? Do they really think that’s appealing to most men, that we’re all just beasts inside or something?
That’s why I had “different” in “”. It’s basically the same flawed thinking as in the Axe commercial. But there is a twist. It’s taking the piss out of the short lived movement of men trying to get in touch with their inner cave man or some ridiculous shit like that. Suburban men, bare chested, with head bands, banging away at drums and chanting around a camp fire. Wicked Wild.
For a really, really, really, really, I mean really non-PC commercial, search for Amstel and the offside rule in soccer.
When they charged into the river, all I could think of was ferocious, razor-toothed lemmings.
Spoiler: For anyone who doesn’t get it, follow the link: lemmings are herbivores, related to gerbils and hamsters. And they don’t actually commit mass suicide.
I hope the article about harassment of Indian women brings out the fact that minority women experience unique challenges and harassment in the world.
I think it’s very cool here to blame only white men for problems, but to me that’s a pretty white-centric view. If you’ve ever part of a minority community with a strong identity you’d know that the women there not only face white discrimination but also the dynamics of sexism in their own communities. And it can be twice as worse because of that. As an Indian, I can tell you that Indian society is VERY patriarchal and sexism within it is especially brutal. It drives a lot of women to quiet despair and depression.
I think with the exception of Heina, the problems of minority women are often ignored on this blog (just look at these comments, all about the axe ad, no attention to the Indian women) and Skepchick should make it a priority to focus on that more. It’s pretty white centric now.
Good point. Without calling out those things we aren’t familiar with, we get complacent which is something we rail against about other issues.
What you are saying is equivalent to Dawkins’ “Dear Muslima …”. Curious nobody as noticed yet.
Nope not at all. Dawkins said “other women have it worse, so your issue is trivial, be quiet”.
I’m not trivializing the axe ad’s objectification, I am annoyed that nobody seemed to care that a whole subcontinent and even Indian women here are facing some very serious discrimination and harassment. And to me that’s kind of what white people tend to do, skip over minority issues that don’t affect them (kudos to Amanda for calling it out though).
Not that the Skepchicks don’t think minority women issues aren’t important (some of them are minorities), I just think that they don’t give them as much coverage as they should. And I think people should learn a little more about the unique challenges they face.
Heina’s done an outstanding job of that, but I’d love to see more of it done for other minority communities. I’m actually on the search for minority women currently who can write well thought out guest articles on the issues they face.
Sorry for taking a couple days to respond, I’ve been offline. But thanks for the constructive criticism. It’s definitely a topic that we want to cover more. Personally, I need to expand my usual blog reading, so any suggestions are welcome!
The story from India definately needs more attention.
I fear such situations may not be far off from occuring in the US. At least, that’s how it seems at times.
Interesting article on sea level.
Along similar notes, I saw that Romney revealed his energy plan. It focuses on natural gas, oil, and coal.
It pretty much confirmed my fears that this guy is an ass and is clueless towards climate data. But that’s probably no surprise…
Another item for today…It is now 20 years to the date that Hurricane Andrew struck South Florida.
I imagine some members here (aside from myself) recall that event.
Not that it matters to anyone here but the Axe commercial is actually anti-men. I found it funny anyway.
HERP DERP you don’t understand sexism, do you?
Yeah HERP DERP is right.
Could you please have Amy’s ceramics in the Skeptical Robot shop? I hate Etsy.
There are some awesome Skepchick and Mad Art Lab logo Surlies in the shop.
No it’s not. I was going to write a long comment but… no. It’s just not.
Great. My comment was supposed to be directed at anon skeptic. To both comments. because both are nonsense.
We both did the same thing. I think we should take that as a hint that “obnoxious skeptic” as I like to call him, is an idiot.
There. I said it. Now start calling me mean!!
Well, you are mean. It’s just that you are (usually*) mean to people who deserve it. :-)
[*] I vaguely recall an instance of you being mean to someone who didn’t deserve it. I even recall you apologizing when you discovered that you had misunderstood what they said. Fancy that!
I think the difference between what Dr Dr and Dawkins said is Dr Dr was adding to the discussion by pointing out further instances of problems that should be address, not minimizing and trivializing the usual issues that are discussed here. And also pointing out (implicitly) that privilege blindness can apply to anyone in a relatively privileged position, not just to old, straight, financially secure white guys in the first world.
I’d say it is anti-men, as well as anti-women, but as Marilove pointed out, “obnoxious skeptic” does not seem to understand what sexism is. Sexism is as anti-men as it is anti-women, even if men receive the bulk of the tangible benefits of sexism as a trade-off for restrictive, harmful gender roles. Pushing the message that men are stupid creatures who only think about sex and only see women as body parts–that that’s what real men are supposed to be–makes the world worse for both men and women. Not that he’s going to absorb or understand any of this at all.
Can you fucking stop it? JFC.
This is directed at OBNOXIOUS SKEPTIC.