Those Humorless Feminists
Thus Spake Zuska
Category archives for Those Humorless Feminists
Rules For Media Coverage of Feminists
Posted by Zuska on May 8, 2009 The most excellent Dr. Isis has launched her most excellent Letters to Our Daughters project. Isis tells us The inspiration for my Letters to Our Daughters Project comes from my hope that we can recreate our family tree here, creating a forum where the mothers and aunts in our fields (which I hope to not…
Why Mama Bear’s Porridge Is Too Cold
Posted by Zuska on May 5, 2009 Over at Uncertain Principles, Chad frets about committing physics heresy via a reading of Goldilocks and the Three Bears to his young offspring. The story may convey a useful moral message, but it’s way off base on the physics. After all, the Papa Bear, being the biggest, presumably has the largest bowl of porridge. Here,…
Tiny Shiny Keys and Gendered Language
Posted by Zuska on April 7, 2009 Yesterday I was listening to Morning Edition on NPR and caught this very intriguing segment, Shakespeare Had Roses All Wrong. Would you describe a bridge as fragile, elegant, beautiful, peaceful, slender, pretty? Or as strong, dangerous, long, sturdy, big, towering? Lera Boroditsky, an assistant psychology professor at Stanford University, found that it depends – for…
Why Can’t Women Do Anything Great?
Posted by Zuska on March 24, 2009 Yeah, I should be asleep, restoring strength for spending another day with mom. But I’m catching up on email and blogs and preparing for the upcoming Diversity in Science Carnival WHICH YOU SHOULD TOTALLY BE WRITING SOMETHING FOR – GET BUSY, NOW! And in the course of all that I read this post by Stephanie…
When Women Get Together Outside The Kitchen, It Must Be To Plot Against Men
Posted by Zuska on February 20, 2009 I love Ursula K. le Guin’s the Earthsea series, and recently finished reading the final novel, The Other Wind. Those who are familiar with the Earthsea books will know that among other topics, le Guin explores traditional gender roles, their change, and men’s disparagement of women’s power. Towards the end of The Other Wind, one…
Just a Reminder
Posted by Zuska on April 7, 2008 Some things have recently led me to think it might be a good time to post the following reminders on this blog: 1. The legitimacy of feminist theory as a field of intellectual endeavor or feminism as a useful guide to action and public policy is not something that is up for debate on this…
Another Perspective On Delineating Funny/Not-Funny
Posted by Zuska on January 30, 2008 The Philadelphia Inquirer has an interesting article today about the “issue of cultural sensitivity…in the world of comedy”. Comedy: When The Laughing Stops looks at how comedians struggle with knowing where to draw the line – and when to go ahead and cross that line. Some people fear that when comics don’t delineate boundaries, it…
It Helps To Speak The Language When You’re Thinking About Gender
Posted by Zuska on October 29, 2007 When I was a postdoctoral student my supervisor sent me for three or four days to what we participants called “cancer camp”. It was a mini-course on the histopathbiology of cancer. We learned to interpret pathology slides, how to look at them, read them, identify cancer in all its various forms and stages. We were…
A Bit of Feminist Humor
Posted by Zuska on August 3, 2007 Thanks to B. Cohen for sending me this link to an installment of McSweeney’s Annals of Science. Oh, the mighty struggle of sperm to fertilize egg! That’s just good readin’. You’ll want to scroll on down and read about electrovibratory massage as well. You may recall I mentioned an essay by Rachel Maines in the…
Math Confuses Princess: I Read It In Seed
Posted by Zuska on July 9, 2007 One of the perks of being a Scienceblogger is getting a free subscription to Seed Magazine. Last week, issue 11 August 2007 arrived, and I happily began sampling its good stuff. There’s a new feature this month called “Incubator” that tries to “capture the multifacted nature of science itself – from the minutia of the…