I share a lot of links on Twitter and Facebook that I don’t blog about because I don’t have much to add. The reading list is a periodic feature where I share those links with my blog audience too. Of course, you’re still welcome to follow me on Twitter.

Around FtB

• Avoiding Ableist or Sexist Language Won’t Make Us Less Fun!–“As someone else admitted on the post thread ‘I call myself a bitch sometimes. Most times, others do the calling.'”
• On the Right to Evolve as a Music Band–“I love Metallica not in spite of the fact that they are a band with a fluid style, I love them because of it.”
• Religion a mental illness ? I say NO and this is why–“I would call it a SOCIAL illness.”
• I Interview a Groovy Atheist Running for Congress in Arizona–“Woods wants to be the one to replace that guy. And his campaign asked me to interview him because Woods wants to reach out to underrepresented voting blocks, including the secular, atheist, and humanist communities.”
• A place where the writers call themselves “free thinkers”–“But the missed point is the more important aspect, because it’s so typical (of the genre as well as of Reinhardt’s friends and colleagues).”
• The ghost in the Pokémon machine–“The myth has come to be known as ‘Lavender Town Syndrome’.”
• Wills without bigotry – protest against the Law Society–“You have no business in normalising discriminatory religious principles in the legal culture and practice of this country.”
• 4 questions for Anne Marie Waters and secularists voting UKIP–“UKIP’s latest manifesto, meanwhile, promised ‘Ofsted will be abolished’, opening potential floodgates to a tidal wave of religious malpractice.”
• Fat shaming is ugly and body shaming of any kind is disgusting.–“Do we really need another person telling us what we should look like, weigh, how to make our hair, what to wear, who to love, what the size of our tummies should be or what size our bank account should be before we are considered entitled to be free from stigmatization or be treated as human beings deserving of dignity and respect?”

The Wider Web

• “The Hatpin Peril” Terrorized Men Who Couldn’t Handle the 20th-Century Woman–“Instead of arguing with the suffragists, some detractors took a more subtle approach, objecting not to women’s changing roles but to their preferred mode of self-defense: the hatpin.”
• Share My Stuff–“Here’s what we need to remember – no matter what the Facebook algorithm that governs your news feed does, Facebook is a community. And a community supports each other.”
• 17 Lies we need to stop teaching girls about sex–“Blood usually comes from vaginal tissue tearing due to lack of lubrication and, ahem, inexperienced love making — not the hymen breaking.”
• ‘Gun enthusiasts’ threaten woman for selling a safer gun–“If we try to make a gun for police departments that only officers can fire and not people who might be attacking them, well now that takes some of the sport out of it, doesn’t it?”
• An Open Letter to a Struggling Friend–“It isn’t fair. In no way is it fair. However it is also the reality of the situation that your actions affect others, and if you want to be consistent with your values you have to start taking care of yourself.”
• The fear of being called ‘Islamophobic’–“Astonishingly, this ludicrous argument was enough to convince both the University of Illinois and the University of Michigan to cancel their screenings of the film.”
• G.H. Hardy and Mrs. Ellis–“Assume that this quality can be uniquely quantified, on some scale that covers all types and ranges of ‘math ability.’ Assume further that the resulting distribution is described by a bell curve, because why not.”
• Two Weeks On, 234 Abducted Nigerian Schoolgirls Are Still Missing–“The group’s name translates to ‘western education is sin.'”
• 7 Lies We Have to Stop Telling About African-American Girls–“There is a myth that African-American girls generally fare better than African-American boys — that they somehow have it easier.”
• Ian Cromwell is creating Music–“As a patron, you’ll get first access to created music, exclusive content that won’t be available elsewhere, and behind-the-scenes looks at what I’m doing thanks to your support.”
• Women Destroy Science Fiction! — Table of Contents–“Just one more month to go before we publish our Women Destroy Science Fiction! special issue. To whet your appetite for destruction, here’s the table of contents.”