The results of a poll posted on the travel website Real Holiday Reports have found that British women are considered the worst tourists, particularly in terms of their physical appearance. The study finds that British women are often loud, drunk, and fart in public, all qualities that are supposedly the preserve of men. Also mentioned are the fact …
The most recent development in the drama of attempting to determine whether or not men and women are paid different wages is the census’s recent finding that, among younger men and young, single, childless women, women are typically earning more than men. Fantastic news, right?! Well, don’t pull out your party pants yet. Tracy Clark-Flory on Salon.com explains why we should save the champagne for actual equality:
It does not mean that young women face no pay discrimination… We know that women make 80 cents on every dollar men make, and that the average woman in her 20s makes 90 cents on the dollar… What Chung [the president of the firm that conducted the analysis] and his colleagues have done is “isolate the segment where women have caught up with and exceeded men,” and that is young, single, childless women. (more…)
The NYT Picker, a blog devoted to goings-on in and about the New York Times, published an interesting piece this week regarding obituaries in the NYT. The NYT Picker reports that, in the month of August 2010, the NYT published 78 obituaries – and only six of them were for women. For the year to date, 698 obituaries had been published in the NYT thus far– 606 of them for men, 92 for women.
This is a totally bizarre statistic, considering that there are more women than men in the US population, and that population numbers of women and men are pretty much equal worldwide. But this extraordinary disparity between genders in newspaper obituary coverage has gone on for years – which is also bizarre, considering that the US granted full equality to women decades ago, and has seen women take more prominent roles in society ever since.
Obituaries go first and foremost to the famous – that’s a given. But the fact that the life stories of more famous men are being published in the NYT makes it clear that Western society is still dominated by a power structure that is, predominantly, male. This is also a bit of a given really– but women have been making valuable …
Anita Diamant, author of The Red Tent, among other things, wrote an article that ran in the Huffington Post describing her vehement opposition to her daughter’s tattoo. She describes the tattoo her daughter has:
My daughter has the Hebrew letters Chet, Zayin, Kuf on her right shoulder blade. This spells chazak, which means “strength.” She says, “I like this because it’s a word used when you finish reading one book of Torah and go to the next. It reminds me that we go from one thing to the next in strength.” She’s been planning this tattoo for nine years, since she was enrolled in a semester-long high school program. “Israel was a time of transition for me, and I feel like it reinforces that message of strength that is inside me forever and ever. “It’s more than just a tattoo,” she explains. “It’s a sense of pride, a display of who I am that you might not be able to tell by just looking at me.”
Well that sounds kind of cool to me, honestly. It’s something that clearly has meant a lot to her, and defines her core values in relation to her religion. What’s not to approve of, mom? Well, plenty:
Tattoos are a 21st-century industry, a fashion statement, and a fad. When I see women in their 50s and 60s with big ink on their shoulders or chests or ankles, I look away, embarrassed. It’s like they’re wearing tube tops — always a bad idea — only this is a mistake that stays with you to the grave. But tats on pretty young flesh make me wince, too. What will they look like in 50 years’ time …
According to Fox News, women’s groups are calling for President Obama to fire former Senator and current co-chair of a federal debt commission board, Alan Simpson, for hostile and sexist remarks made by Simpson in an e-mail to Ashley Carson, the executive director of the National Older Women’s League. Carson claims that Simpson’s language showed that he had a “negative attitude toward women and seniors.” The result of Simpson’s inflammatory language resulted in the following conference call:
Friday, four women’s groups and Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., said Simpson’s sexist attitude and misguided view of Social Security make him unsuited to inform decisions about America’s financial future.
So what exactly did Simpson say that was so inflammatory? That Carson should get back in the kitchen? That Carson didn’t know what she was talking about because she was a woman and/or a senior?
No, Simpson’s supposedly hateful and sexist comment compared Social Security to a “milk cow with 310 million tits.”
After sending the e-mail, Simpson then issued a jokey apology:
“Over the last 40 years, I have had my size 15 feet in my mouth a time or two. To quote my old friend and colleague, Senator Lloyd Bentsen, when I make a mistake, ‘It’s a doozy!”‘
The Washington Post is reporting that women in the UK are expected to bare disproportionate hardships as a result of government cuts in jobs and services, with some estimating that 72 percent of those affected will be women. This plan has even drawn criticism from the women’s minister, Theresa May, who believes the law may be unlawful due to its impact on women and other disadvantaged groups. While I was not in favor of the Conservatives winning the election, I was hopeful that the inclusion of the Liberals in the government would help to steer some decisions further to the left. It appears, however, to be quite the opposite.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer (equivalent to the United States’ Secretary of the Treasury), George Osborne, has called the new budget “fair and progressive,” yet it seems to be anything but. Before the election in April, David Cameron, the new Prime Minister, made cutting a large amount of government jobs the centerpiece of his campaign. In addition to being somewhat of a misplaced attack on the poor, this will also primarily hurt women, as they comprise nearly two thirds of all …
If you are hooking up with someone that readsMen’s Health magazine, be alarmed — very, very alarmed. And not just because their magazine is notoriously misogynistic but because — brace yourselves — they are now offering a list of ”33 Simple Sex Tips to Turn Her On.” And on a side note, is anyone else as perplexed as I am why they stopped at an odd number like 33? Were they too lazy to get to 35 or was it a lack of creativity? Regardless, the list is fantastic in a really horrible way. Their 33 “tips” are so completely:
1. Misogynistic
2. Ridiculous
3. Hilarious
This article may have been one of the most unintentionally side-splitting reads of my LIFE — iIt ranks right up there with the outdated Sex Ed. pamphlet I was given at age 11 by my polyester-pant-loving gym teacher. The one that warned of what the “sinful” masturbation habit can become and the evils of sleeping around. Yep. That guy.
I’m going to place the most asinine tips (which were tough to narrow because they were all pretty terrible) in the following categories:
Terribly Stupid Advice and Terribly Misogynistic advice. Let’s start with the stupid, shall we?
Topping off this list is Tip #1: Buy Her a Silk Thong
A gift of lingerie is clichéd, right? So twist it. Give it to her when you (seemingly) don’t expect sex right then and there. Pass it under the table at a restaurant and ask her to go to the ladies’ room and change into it. “It’s a little naughty, but she has a chance to play back,” says Joy Davidson, Ph.D., a relationship therapist in Seattle. Not recommended for a first date.
Really, Men’s Health, this is the tip you choose to open your ridiculous list with? Silk panties! First off, I am offended by your lack of out of the box thinking (no pun intended … OK, you caught me; pun intended) and more importantly, the stupidity behind this tip. Are we living in a poorly lit soft-core porn flick?
Sometimes you can’t write humor this good. Because sometimes the strippers in small towns actually go out to protest in bikinis outside of a church in Ohio, a hotbed of stripper controversy. Believe it! ABC reports:
The strippers, fueled by Cheetos and nicotine, are protesting a fundamentalist Christian church whose Bible-brandishing congregants have picketed the club where they work. The dancers roll up with signs carrying messages adapted from Scripture, such as “Do unto others as you would have done unto you,” to counter church members who for four years have photographed license plates of patrons and asked them if their mothers and wives know their whereabouts.
Sophie Watson, from Spennymoor, had her eyebrows tattooed and lip and eye liner applied. Her mother Joy said she gave permission for the treatment for her daughter, who competes in beauty pageants. …Ms Watson said she accepted what she had let her daughter do sounded shocking but said the changes were subtle. It is illegal for an artist to tattoo anyone under the age of 18 – but the make-up procedure is not technically classed as a tattoo. Although needles and an anaesthetic are used, it is classed as a cosmetic procedure and is not permanent because it fades after between two and five years.
One of the biggest problems with the feminist label is that it often becomes synonymous with “joyless harpy.” So let me start off this post by saying that when I heard Cee Lo’s song, “F**k You,” the “viral sensation” that, at the time of writing this, has climbed to nearly 3 million views in about a week, I loved it. I loved the incredibly simple all-text video with the crackling film reel look. I loved the classic sound.
But I’ve been mulling the song around in my head (I’ve probably listened to it around 8 or 9 times — it is, admittedly, very catchy), and at the risk of being the aforementioned “joyless harpie,” I have to say that both the song — and its popularity — concern me.
While I know that YouTube comment sections can often be as intellectual and fair-minded as public bathroom stall scribblings, here are a sampling of some of the comments on the video nonetheless:
Should I have kids, I always imagine that in thirty years’ time, my son and/or daughter will ask why, when I was their age, homosexuals couldn’t get married or why women didn’t make as much money as men in much the same way that I had to wrap my head around the concept of separate water fountains and “whites only” lunch counters. The kind of basic civil rights violations that seem comically outdated and illogical in retrospect, and yet were so hotly debated at the time.
But unfortunately, it doesn’t look like laughing off the ridiculousness of unequal pay is going to become a reality any time soon. In fact, according to a new study by the Chartered Management Institute, we might have to wait 57 more years. 57 more years of hearing that assertive women just seem mean in …
Cycling, here in the UK, can be a bit of a contentious issue. Whilst more and more of us are being encouraged to walk or cycle to work, those who refuse to ditch the car for a ‘greener’ way of traveling seem to have a bit of a problem with those on two wheels.
The problem is seemingly at its greatest in London, where traffic flow is massive and congestion is a recurrent problem. Those in a car, finding themselves stuck behind a cyclist and unable to overtake can often get, well, a little angry. Though our politicians are often seen out on their bikes, trying to set a good example (Boris, anyone?), it would seem the cyclist is a bit of a target for pedestrians and motorists alike.
Dawn Foster, a UK blogger and female cyclist has had, it would seem, her fair share of aggressive behavior from other road users whilst she’s been out on her bike. In a recent article in the UK’s Guardian, Dawn revealed that she’s had her top pulled down when stopped at traffic lights and, when struggling up a hill, been asked if she puts in as much effort in the bedroom. Hideous behavior from the perpetrators, but Dawn has found a great way of dealing with this type of conduct – naming and shaming the culprits on her blog, 101 Wankers.
Dawn describes the blog as ‘a catalogue of the insults and comments I get shouted at me whilst riding my bike, placed on a map to create a London Wankermap.’ I love this so much – succinct, precise – and funny.
9
