equality
pharyngula | July 12, 2011Today, Greta Christina has weighed in.
Comments closed here, because I've put up with enough of the hysterical delusions of people offended by calm, nuanced, proportionate statements. It's like the responses to those mild bus signs like "You can be good without god" that leave some people profoundly and irrationally upset. We've now found an analog: "guys, don't do that."
Take it to Greta's place if you need to complain.
pharyngula | July 10, 2011They keep dragging me back in. I try to drop it, but my inbox is full of people still arguing this point, and it's getting ridiculous. The thing is, they keep throwing godawfully bad arguments at me, as if they're trying to hit me in the head with a brick enough times to make me stupid enough to believe them. It's not going to work. Here are a few of the worst of the bad arguments.
Let's stop the shouting that Richard Dawkins is some kind of raving misogynist. What's happened here is that he is at some remove from all of the details, and this issue got blown up by lunatics who felt their…
pharyngula | July 6, 2011There goes another dream. The department store has a very strict dress code for its employees.
Full makeup at all time: base, blusher, full eyes (not too heavy), lipstick, lip liner and gloss are worn at all time and maintained discreetly (please take into account the store display lighting which has a 'washing out' effect).
I don't even know how to do that! I could try, I suppose, but my only role models lead me to suspect I couldn't pull off the 'discreet' part.
Oh, wait…only the female employees have to cover up their natural hideousness with artificial cover-ups. I guess we men are just…
pharyngula | July 5, 2011I think we've reached the saturation point, so comments are closed on this article. However, I do think I need to link to Rebecca Watson's summary of her recent absurdist travails. Or if you'd rather, try reading Schrödinger's Rapist and be enlightened.
This time, though, really, go over there if you feel the need to comment.
It is interesting that it is the jerk chauvinist skeptics and atheists who have turned Ms Watson into an angry feminist. It's all your fault, bozos.
pharyngula | July 4, 2011Sadly, an Indian health minister has gone on record calling homosexuality a "disease".
For the Union health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad, men having sex with men (MSMs) is not only "unnatural" but also a "disease."
According to Azad, "this disease has come to India from foreign shores", and Indian society needs to be prepared to face it. Unfortunately, he said, the number of "such people" is increasing by the day.
All gay people are alien immigrants from Gaydonia, I guess, and no natives of the subcontinent could possibly be gay. Unless maybe they're from Pakistan.
I think we could make a…
pharyngula | July 3, 2011This is your last gasp on the topic of the proper way to make a sexual advance. I'm just going to wrap up a few dangling bits.
Jen has slammed Richard Dawkins for some comments here. I can confirm that those comments were actually from Richard Dawkins. I also have to say that I agree with Jen and disagree with Richard.
Richard did make the valid point that there are much more serious abuses of women's rights around the world, and the Islam is a particularly horrendous offender. Women have their genitals mutilated, are beaten by husbands without recourse to legal redress, are stoned to death…
pharyngula | July 3, 2011There are so many clueless comments in this thread that Old Man PZ, grizzled veteran of the sex wars, successful lothario who has managed to reproduce three times, and champion who successfully landed a Trophy Partner in an extremely long and happy relationship, feels like he needs to step in and give some friendly advice. So here you go, the short sweet simple Decent Human Beings' Guide to Getting Laid at Atheist Conferences.
The first thing you must know is that you haven't failed when the object of your desire says "no". That's a perfectly reasonable response, and even if you do everything…
pharyngula | June 26, 2011You know who is really unhappy about NY's gay marriage law? "Religious leaders", of course.
Religious leaders slammed the state's new gay marriage law on Saturday, vowing to ban politicians who supported the measure from any Catholic church and parochial school events.
The city's top Catholic clergy released strongly worded statements in the hours after the state Senate voted 33-29 to legalize gay unions.
Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio, of the diocese of Brooklyn, called on all Catholic schools to reject any honor bestowed upon them by Gov. Cuomo, who played a pivotal role in getting the bill…
pharyngula | June 24, 2011This weekend is the Twin Cities Pride Festival, and the city has lit up the 35W bridge to acknowledge it. Now where's Minnesota's gay marriage law?
pharyngula | June 24, 2011I don't think they do, but a few certainly do their best to taint the whole. Listen to this accidental recording of a pilot ranting about what he really thinks (warning: autoplay at that link): he's complaining that 11 of 12 flight attendants on his plane are gay, and the 12th is a granny; he complains about going to a bar and finding only one woman who is "doable"; he just goes on and on about hating gays, old people, and ugly people.
It's a repulsive look at how some people think. Or don't think.
pharyngula | June 23, 2011After the public scorn Scott Adams received in response to his appalling "pegs and holes" post that tried to play the self-pity card — Adams is so disadvantaged by being a man — he sent out an invitation to various magazines to engage in a public dialog.
I'd like to offer an opportunity to one of the writers at Salon, Huffington Post, Jezebel, Mediate, or Mediabistro. Allow me to interview you, by email, for this blog, on the topic of why you so vehemently disagree with your hallucination of my opinion. (Fair warning: It won't work out well for you.)
Salon took him up on it. It isn't working…
pharyngula | June 19, 2011Don't raise too loud a ruckus over this news, because I think she'll be cranky enough when she wakes up and reads about the Obedient Wives Club.
A new club in Indonesia that encourages women to be totally obedient to their husbands and focus on keeping them sexually satisfied has generated an outcry from some activists.
The Indonesian branch of the Obedient Wives Club, launched early this month in Malaysia, claims to have about 300 members in several cities. Group leader Gina Puspita said the club would offer its members a package of teachings including how to treat their husbands in bed…
pharyngula | June 17, 2011Yeah, you're all supposed to go antiquing, or to musical theater. How dare you intrude on manly events! Mainly because they're monitored by sanctimonious bigots.
So, two women go to a baseball game in Minneapolis, and a guard noticed that they kissed each other.
Taylor Campione and Kelsi Culpepper -- two lesbian women from Minneapolis -- were recently scolded by a Target Field security guard for what they call a "brief kiss."
After seeing the quick peck on the lips, the guard told the women that "we don't play grab ass here" and that they must "adhere to the 10 Commandments" while at the…
pharyngula | June 16, 2011Don't be surprised, though. It's only natural.
Now consider human males. No doubt you have noticed an alarming trend in the news. Powerful men have been behaving badly, e.g. tweeting, raping, cheating, and being offensive to just about everyone in the entire world. The current view of such things is that the men are to blame for their own bad behavior. That seems right. Obviously we shouldn't blame the victims. I think we all agree on that point. Blame and shame are society's tools for keeping things under control.
The part that interests me is that society is organized in such a way that…
pharyngula | June 15, 2011If you've ever read a comic book, you know the conventions: men must be immensely muscular, women must be full-breasted and wasp-waisted (and we're not even talking Rob Liefeld here). Furthermore, the superhero costume for women must expose as much skin as possible: bare midriff almost always, low cut top, and the buttocks must be exposed. So in addition to an unnatural physique, the women must strut about in costumes that would look revealing in a strip club.
Megan Rosalarian Gedris is turning that all around. She's redrawing comics featuring those slinky sexy women and putting the male…
pharyngula | June 14, 2011Oh, no. This is the first I hear of the Black Atheists of Atlanta, and what do I discover: they're pushing the same bigoted, homophobic nonsense that I'd expect to hear from a white Republican teabagger. It's a choice, it's unnatural, science has something called the "law of reproduction" that means homosexuality is unscientific, it is justified by tradition to exclude homosexuals. They do have one difference: they claim homosexuality is a wicked Greco-Roman nastiness that afflicts Western civilization, but isn't part of good African culture. Oh, and gay people in modern Africa are a product…
pharyngula | June 4, 2011Manal al-Sharif has been arrested for the crime of driving a car in Saudi Arabia while having a vagina. Sign the petition, watch the video, talk about it.
(Last edition of TET; Current totals: 12,492 entries with 1,393,155 comments.)
pharyngula | June 1, 2011Wait, you mean that's not the message I should take from this product?
I'm tempted to get one and hang it outside my office door, just to poke at all the mathematicians with offices on my hallway.
But then, I can afford to use it ironically. I haven't spent a lifetime having my abilities dismissed because of my sexual attractiveness.* It looks different when you view it that way.
*You must read that thread! When you see a comment that begins, "Gals, a little advice," you know you've hit the mother lode of mansplainin'.
pharyngula | May 28, 2011Read this horror story of a failed pregnancy.
I was taking an afternoon nap when the hemorrhaging started while my toddler napped in his room when I woke up to find blood gushing upward from my body. Though I didn't know it at the time, I was experiencing a placental abruption, a complication my doctor had told me was a possibility. My husband was at work, so I had to do my best to take care of me and my toddler on my own. I managed to get to the phone and make arrangements for both of my children before going to a Chicago hospital.
Everyone knew the pregnancy wasn't viable, that it couldn'…