Andrea Dworkin, who died today, never claimed that all heterosexual sex is rape. statements that Dworkin makes about the meaning of intercourse are routinely misinterpreted as statements made in propia voce [in her own voice] when in fact they are statements of the meaning attributed to intercourse by male supremacist culture and enforced by the [...]
This ad, by French clothing company, Marithe et François Girbaud has caused a big stir in Europe: It wasn’t just that it was based on Leonardo’s famous painting: But that it featured a half naked man. I think historian Jo Guldi is probably correct when he says that this is probably not the real offense [...]
For years I would bike or drive up Broad Street to classes at Temple. On the way I would always pass the Blue Horizon, but I never went in. I don’t mind boxing in the movies, but I don’t think I could stomach it live. But now I don’t need to, because what goes on [...]
Around the web: Who the heck is Kurban Said? Every Calvin and Hobbes (via Incoming Signals) Fascinating Occupations Seven Mistakes Superheroines Make Why malpractice insurance premiums have gone up recently. They Shoot Journalists, Don’t They? France: Passengers to face trial for preventing a violent deportation (via Obsidian Wings) {roundup, kurbian said, calvin and hobbs, flickr, [...]
I find myself hesitant to write this post because it touches on two issues that are often harped upon in the Western press when writing about India: the caste system and the status of Indian women. These are both important issues that deserve attention, but the way they are usually discussed in the West is [...]
David Gergen is the director of the Center for Public Leadership in the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He has served in the White House as an adviser to presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Clinton. The following is taken from an interview he did with Rolling Stone, along with Ruy Teixeira and Peter [...]
I didn’t know the full story: Well over a decade ago she was a PR rep for “Coors,” called into action to repair the damage caused by one of the most successful boycotts in U.S. history and don’t you forget it for a nanosecond! The Coors family is, as the say, to the right of [...]
Two posts over at LanguageLog discuss research showing that “gaydar,” or the ability to detect who is gay and who is straight (in this case using only information conveyed by speech) is a real, observable phenomena. In one study, listeners were able to get some information about speakers’ sexual orientation from neutral laboratory-setting readings of [...]
Amy Fisher, AKA “the Long Island Lolita,” has a new book: If I Knew Then. Here is a snippet from the AP news story: Fisher speaks candidly in the book about her teenage tryst with car mechanic Joey Buttafuoco and the events that led her to his wife’s doorstep in May 1992, where she shot [...]
[Yang Huanyi] China’s last inheritress of the mysterious Nushu language, probably the world’s only female-specific language, died at her central China home earlier this week. She was in her 90s. More information on Nushu, including some corrections to common mistakes (such as the claim that no men were able to read the script), and links [...]