This is the lounge. You can discuss anything you want, but you will do it kindly. I told you I was going to steal that image.
Status: Heavily Moderated; Previous thread
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
In what way? It’s not like I’m not aware of any of the problems likely to be discussed. I tend somewhat to avoid threads other than the Lounge because they tend to contain:
1) people who suck
2) people fighting against people who suck wielding a brush that’s far too broad not to be upsetting in spite of what I know intellectually about the issues
3) people who seem to be congenitally incapable of not assuming bad faith on my part and have free rein, unlike in the Lounge (see #1, at least as far as I’m concerned)
rq
Well, I sort of just went to the boss’ boss and told him I was really unhappy with all the things that were being said about me by people who should really know better. His first words in response were “Yeah, we knew this guy was a huge problem. He drove off like three other women from the department.” So, had I had any interest in suing them, I would’ve been pretty well set to get them good for it. Instead, they used one of our many, many training meetings for sexual harassment awareness. At first I was self-conscious that they would all blame me for having to sit through it, but I got over that pretty quickly. And incidental to the timing, the main offender got shit-canned. So it all worked out eventually.
It takes a lot of working up to it to call people out in person, at least for me. Don’t beat yourself up for taking your time. It’s especially hard when you don’t have back up, as I often don’t. And getting those looks, like you’re from Mars because you said, I don’t know, that “slut” isn’t an okay thing to call someone. I totally feel you on that. I’m glad you feel like it’s getting easier to withstand the onslaught of silencing from the world, though. : )
Esteleth
You must be sooo proud!
Thank goo’ness for Page 2.
Esteleth:
Woah! Name-checked by TF and now Twitter-hate?! You have arrived!
Not sure if I should offer congrats or condolences…
Esteleth
Your worth is increasing by the tweet. ;)
+++
Also, should not have read that post or entered that thread. Dis.gust.ed.
rq,
This is a huge compliment, but I really don’t deserve to be in that sentence.
I just caught that it was a compliment to me, too. : ) Thanks, rq, but I bite my tongue more often than not, I think.
I had a thought a few days ago that was sort of an epiphany for me. If you don’t want to read a feminist screed, feel free to skip. At NYE, my male cousins-in-law were giving me a lot of grief for saying I preferred to be called a firefighter to being called a fireman. They wouldn’t listen when I tried to explain that if that was the only way I was subjected to erasure and sexism, then it wouldn’t be a big deal. Wouldnt listen when I tried to explain I don’t think someone is horrible for slipping up and correcting themselves or trying to change their language habits. It’s the adamantly defensive reaction to being told “Ahem, I’m not a man” that is problematic.
Anyhow, after a while it died down. Then, a female cousin made a quip about the town allowing a woman to be a fireman. She condescendingly tried to backpedal by saying how great she thinks it is that I volunteer, etc etc. While I was inevitably rehashing the event later, it occurred to me that her experience of sexism and mine are pretty different in no small part because of our occupations. She’s a fifth grade teacher. (Non-USians, that’s about 10-11 year olds). Her field is woman-dominated.* Law is very male dominated, and firefighting is even worse. So when she performs femininity in the way she has been socialized to do, she is rewarded in her career. Caring for children, showing empathy, nurturing, etc. All things that are Approved™. When I show empathy or concern or compassion, I get told that I’m not cut out for the practice of law, or that I should only do one type of it that’s not adversarial or I need to just go rest a minute and let the men finish up with the Jaws of Life.
All this combined with her willful oblivion to everyday iniquities, and she has no idea where I’m coming from.
Oh, and her husband actually resorted to “Well, I can’t please everyone, so why should I try?” crap at one point. I said “You know very well why, because it’s the right thing to do.”
*Not that this is an advantage to her in every way, obviously, those fields are less well paid.
Thus ends the jumbled, not-so-articulate stream of consciousness of the frustrated feminazi.
Esteleth you’re a celebrity now! Woo!
… completely off any other topic anywhere ever… my wife apparently has norovirus, is highly contagious, and I’m currently hiding from her and her disease. I was considering tying her down, and then I looked up “norovirus” and realized it had nothing to do with zombies.
chigau
how come?
Joe
Oh no. Hope BossNurse feels better soon.
Improbable Joe
One of the joys of being a nurse!
First in line for exposure to whatever new disease comes along.
Have some virtual chicken broth for BossNurse to sip slowly.
Portia
Page 2 is good because once the comment count goes over about 400, it takes *forever* for my netbook to refresh a page.
Oooooh, gotcha.
Improbable Joe @508: My best to your wife. I picked up norovirus on an Australian cruise over two months ago and still have flare-ups every two weeks. (Less and less, but still there.)
Make sure she drinks a lot and stays hydrated (I’m sure you know this). I could only eat saltines for a couple of days the first time. Then only mashed potatoes the second. I think each person knows what it is that sounds palatable for themselves when you have that illness. I kept stupidly trying cheese because I love cheese, but, yeah, don’t eat cheese when you’re stomach sick. Nothing good can come of it.
HI there
Thanks everybody, your support is really appreciated.
My friends were over for dinner (we’d planned to make goose and it was delicious) and that was good.
What I would never have guessed is how hard this hits my sister. I would only have described her and mum close on a global scale. Dad is completely besides himself and gran understands enough to know that there’s something seriously wrong so she cries and constantly fears to be left alone.
theophontes
No problem. I enjoyed your pic, actually.
Although I’m worried about the “when in doubt, add more booze” that is sometimes employed around here, I haven’t turned Mormon.
Joe
Best wishes for BossNurse
*sends coke and pretzels*
Best cure ever.
Joe:
Best wishes to BossNurse.
It’s a good thing you like being in the kitchen because you may be fixing lots of soup for her.
Congratulations!!!!! to Yubal – here’s wishing continued good health to all involved.
.
Giliell, shit. I’m so sorry. I can only imagine it will be very hard – though it sounds like you’re taking the right approach with your kids (something along those lines seemed to be right with the Spawn, who were still very young when my parents died). I hope it doesn’t come to that for a long long time; I think you’re wise to be prepared, though.
.
Ow, Joe – best wishes to BossNurse; look after her (of course you will).
.
I can’t keep up. Reading you all avidly, nonetheless. Portia, virtual go-you! clenched tentacles to you, and a kick in the arse to your stupid male in-law cousins.
Improbable Joe
I hope she recovers quick! Take good care of her; she may be taking care of you next!
Portia
What can I say? That sounds like a lot of bullshit to put up with. The fact that you do, well… I find that impressive. I work in a predominantly female field of forensic science (at least hereabouts), so I rarely have to put up with anything that might be considered condescending – we carry our own boxes, thank you very much (and I think most people would rather not touch our evidence boxes, because you never know what’s in them…). It sounds like you’re doing a fine job of it, and I tip my hat to you.
Beatrice
How’s the new job going this week? :) And yes, you deserve to be on that list. Definitely.
Thanks, opposablethumbs : )
and thanks rq. The support I get here in invaluable in fighting the self-doubt about my feelings and opinions. I spend most of the time immediately after an encounter with a lout feeling like a shrew who no one will be able to stand if I don’t shut up soon. : / I appreciate the moral support :)
I somehow missed before that you work in forensic science. Cool beans. Do you get as many people as I do making references to TV shows and asking if it’s really like that??? ;)
I second the notion that Beatrice belongs on a list of people composed entirely of quantum awesome sauce.
Turns out, Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield has been tweeting some fantastic pictures from the space station. A nice break from other nastiness around.
(Yes, I’ve heard the joke about astronomical roaming charges on his cell phone…)
Portia:
No lout are you.
Nor a shrew too.
Thanks Tony : ) *hugs*
Giliell, I’m so sorry you’re going through with your mom what you have been for quite some time. The whole situation now is terrible, for your whole family. I come from a long line of alcoholics and I know how that is. I’ve been quite the raging alcoholic myself. Now I’m just an alcoholic.
Having been born into a family of addicts, I was an addict fairly young. In my youth I was adamantly against cigarettes, booze or drugs but then it became a social thing to do. But I, being an addict, can’t stop when I’ve started. I simply cannot stop. I would love to be able to say “no” after a few and carry on but I have to keep going. I know it’s ruined a lot of things in my life but I can’t help it.
Two years ago I had a doctor house call and he spoke English (so nice for me–I still don’t know many Russian words for illnesses). He was there because of my inflamed throat but he did a thorough check and informed me that my liver was enlarged. I really freaked out and stopped drinking altogether. Well, except for when I “have to”. Russian culture kind of goads on the drinking and I have done my best to resist but I am an alcoholic so I give in sometimes. I also have huge anxiety problems and don’t like being social so a nip helps me relax, except I can’t stop at a nip. Clonazepam also really helps me but because I have a history of alcohol abuse I can’t get benzos. So I use alcohol.
What I want to say is: sometimes people really can’t help it. I didn’t want to hurt the people I’ve hurt by being a drunk but I couldn’t stop myself. There is something in my brain that needs more more more (it was the same with meth). I’m not saying this applies to your mom, and I’m sorry if I’m compounding a problem. I’m trying to suggest that she may not want at all to do this. I’m thinking it’s not malicious.
My father is a major alcoholic and he gloats in it and used to often call me when he was plowed (I haven’t seen him since I was 23–I’m now 47) so some people really do not care but I wanted to offer my experience. I don’t know if it helps.
Speaking as a former partner of an alcoholic…
Fucking…
rq:
Thanks for that link. Those images he tweeted were totes beautiful.
Azkyroth, okay, tell me how to turn off my brain (in regards to craving alcohol). That would really help me. And probably make you millions of dollars.
…how does that follow from what I posted?
Okay. I was doing my best at interpreting your cryptic message? Send me a decoder ring.
The “fucking” was in response to the formatting error. The “…and…?” was a deliberately restrained response to having memories dredged up of my ex’s apparent conviction that because, allegedly, she didn’t have malicious INTENT, that was supposed to somehow make everyone not upset about the CONSEQUENCES of her actions.
I really don’t understand how “it’s not MALICIOUS” is supposed to make anything better. Can you explain? :/
Hey folks, I’ll pass on the well-wished… and chicken soup is already started in a pot. In an emergency soup situation, you can always get one of those rotisserie chickens from the grocery store and boil the hell out of it. :)
Giliell: my very best wishes to you and your family right now.
Mmmm grocery store rotisserie chicken….so tasty, so versatile.
Krasnaya Koshka
I know she doesn’t want to this. Who’d want to die like that.
I understand how addiction works.
And I understand that it takes you to the absolute outer limit before change can happen and that limit is different for everybody. And that situations are differnt for everybody, that resources are different for everybody.
I talked one day with my therapist about that button to push, that straw that would break the camel’s back, that one thing that would finally be enough and it would flip the switch and it would allow her to seek help.
And that day I also talked about the fact that I can’t push the button or add the straw and that there’s a very real risk that her body will run out of health before that point is reached.
And I guess that’s what happened.
I don’t think she’s malicious, I don’t think she ever wanted to hurt us, but hell she did. And her addiction hurt us, and this hurts us and I’m shaking my fist at an empty sky because it’s damn unfair.
We watched that slow-motion trainwreck over the last two years. We knew that there was a break in that fucking train but we knew we couldn’t operate it. We knew there would be a point of no return, when it would be too late to pull the brake, but we didn’t know where that was and all our shouting from the sideline went unheeded.
No, she’s not malicious, she didn’t want this to happen, but we damn well didn’t choose to be in this.
This. Except I wasn’t watching, I was UNDER it, and my daughter’s still way too near the tracks.
Giliell:
Hugs and sympathies
joe:add my wellwishes for Bossnurse.
portia:I remeber when I was a lad, I got to visit Lyons with my father. There were people ther who just had roadside rotisserries loaded with chickens that they sold to passersby. It was lovely.
Rotisserie chicken: yes! I often wonder whether, if you’re going to eat chickens, it might be better to get rotisserie ones if you are concerned about your carbon footprint (yeah yeah, it might take you down to 500 per-capita earths from 501, or some other “it’s really pretty marginal” number; as I say, it’s a wondering).
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Regarding the post above, I don’t see why you’d want to boil an already roasted chicken though! Well, I boil the carcass after the meat is gone to make stock, but I didn’t get the impression that’s what was being considered.
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Still, if I brine and roast my own chicken (I shoot to do 2 at once, as the extra effort on top of doing just the one isn’t all that much), it comes out more moist, so if I’m serving guests, that’s what I’d do. Except that if I was serving guests I wouldn’t make chicken, I’d barbecue a small turkey, unless it was thanksgiving, and I’d barbecue or roast a large turkey (though not as large as this year, at least not on the barbecue), except if I was serving guests I’d probably do salmon or a lamb rack or prime rib. Unless chicken was specifically requested.
Stupi bloody phone.
I don’t. I can’t please everyone, so I try to pleae the people who aren’t assholes.
Ha! That’s a great answer. It’s such a damn weak cop out in the face of a simple request to listen when a marginalized person has told you you’ve said something hurtful.
Azkyroth,
I thought I already did explain. Alcoholics don’t CHOOSE to be alcoholics. We would very much like to not be alcoholics, actually. You do know there’s a horrible societal stigma on being an addict, right? You can over-eat yourself to 450 lbs and also land your health in trouble. It’s a compulsion, one that you can’t control. You absolutely know it’s fucking up your health and growing concern in ones who love you but you cannot stop. Your brain thinks “I need just a drop”. Constantly. It’s a nightmare, honestly.
My whole life I’ve been in the hospital exactly three times. They were for addiction-related issues. It’s my only disease.
The whole shaming of alcoholics makes it much nicer to keep on being drunk. When you’re sober you hear about how awful you were when you were drunk and when you’re drunk you don’t care. It’s a coping strategy. A horribly poor one, of course. One that no one uses unless they are alcoholics.
I know you have a really hard time now with a drunken ex but if maybe alcoholics weren’t so shamed and unable to get help (“let them go home from the hospital in their pissed on/vomited on clothes”) this would improve.
When I went to the Nut Hut in 2003 all I heard was shaming of drinking. No way of dealing with that burning brain fixation of “Just a little bit”. I left (after six weeks of Post-Hospital-Therapy) with my brain craving a drink. I am high anxiety usually and even the hospital gave me nothing except “imagine a small bubble in a boiling pot, imagine you are that bubble….” Seriously, wtf?
And I’m not saying you shouldn’t be upset about the CONSEQUENCES, I’m just saying it’s not always in someone’s control.
I’m going to go to bed dreaming of rotisserie chicken. Mmmm….
Giliell
Best of luck to you. None of this can be easy, and I hope… well, I’m not sure what – the best possible, I suppose. *hugs*
Night rq
Giliell @ 534, and you’re absolutely right.
My point is there is a huge shaming of alcoholics (especially female alcoholics) that makes it so difficult for people like your mom, and people like my grandma, to get help. It’s not a shameful thing. It’s just a thing. It’s a disease, like any other.
You definitely don’t deserve this. Your children don’t deserve to potentially lose their Oma over this; plus, her and her husband (!). The whole thing is terribly sad and my heart goes out to you. I’m sorry if I minimized in any way. I certainly didn’t mean to.
Cannabinaceae,
Yeah, I’m boiling the chicken for soup, my wife is sick. I pulled the bigger chunks of meat off, I’m cooking the carcass for a bit, and then I’m going to drain it, cool it, skim it, and soup it.
Addendum to my 543: People like me. All I was offered was AA. It’s so god-drenched I went twice and couldn’t hack it. “If you don’t believe in god, think of your higher power.” I don’t have a higher power. This was in San Francisco. Langley Porter. A very high-falutin’ Nut Hut.
Ugh. FUCK AA. Seriously. I suspect it’s done worse than no good for my ex, given the number of times I’ve had lines from the program literature brandished at me.
Improbable Joe,
That’s essentially what I do for my survival food when I’m doing chicken. I buy the chicken, tear the meat off until I have a meaty carcass, then make stock from that, and use half the stock and half the meat for a 5-quart “glop”. “Glop” being the end result of adding whatever veggies and starch (e.g. barley, pasta, tortilla chips, etc.) I have or feel inclined to get ahold of. I freeze the rest of the meat and stock, and get a whole ‘nother glop out of it.
I almost always include a pound of chopped spinach, and keep 3 or so different glops in rotation. Uusually some pork or beef chili; sometimes I go all out and do an actual “dish” like gumbo or split pea soup.
My basic aim is to use the meat (which I like) as a vehicle for the veggies (which I generally don’t like*). I vary the meat and the meat preparation method, or (as mentioned) make a named “dish” so as to avoid menu fatigue.
*I love roasted cauliflower and roasted asparagus. Delicata or carnival or sweet dumpling squash I also find awesome, whether simply split in half, wrapped in plastic, and nuked, or actually roasted. I have a nutmeg grinder. While the mentioned squashes absolutely don’t need augmentation, there’s nothing quite like an already delectable (when naked) squash, split and slathered with butter and brown sugar, roasted, with a fresh grind or two of nutmeg over the top just before serving.
Threadrupt.
Some of you probably remember that I’m a former Mo (LDS).
I haven’t gone to church willingly outside of family events (baby blessings, funerals, mission farewells and homecomings, etc.) since about 2004. I’m not surprised, exactly, about how easily the “church” part of my life fell away into subconsciousness, but there are times that I forget I was ever a member – and I was raised in that religion, from squalling newborn to confused college student.
I keep remembering things that I heard in church as a kid. Things that niggled at me, things that outright bothered me, but nothing for which I could put a reason. I wasn’t even active in any kind of atheist or skeptic “community” until I started reading Pharyngula, and fell in with you lot. I never even visited the ExMo sites (there are lots), because I had internalized the idea that apostates hated the church and spread lies about it and wanted to tear it down – and here I was, not realizing that I was also an apostate.
One of the things I remembered today came from a Testimony Meeting I attended long ago when I was still living at home with my parents. Testimony Meetings, for those of you who aren’t familiar with Mormonism, are meetings where people are supposed to feel inspired by the Holy Ghost to get up and share their “testimony” – basically, their belief in the church. These happen the first Sunday of every month. Also, it requires fasting, which I always hated. It was supposed to make me more in tune with the Holy Ghost, but it always only ended up making me hungry.
As you can imagine, these consisted of “Look what I did, I’m so holy” to “Look what happened to me and I’m still so holy” and “Look at this hobby horse I insist upon riding every time I get the opportunity to speak and oh aren’t I holy”.
Occasionally, the flavor would switch from “I’m so holy” to “I’m so wretched, God is great and I am nothing”. Those weren’t any better.
Today, though, I remembered one man getting up to speak. I was pretty young, and I didn’t understand at the time what he was really saying. But it was basically a rant about how there are women “out there” who consciously and deliberately seduce LDS men, for the sole purpose of leading them away from the church and/or getting them excommunicated. This man said that it hadn’t happened to him (suuuuuuuuure), but he knew men who had been led astray by whores of Babylon. Because of this, he would never allow himself to be alone with any woman that was not his wife. He proved this by relating a story – he was driving home from work. It was pouring rain outside, and he noticed a neighbor of his walking without an umbrella. She was also on her way home from work.
And he didn’t give her a ride. Because she was a woman, and because he wouldn’t allow himself to be alone with any woman that was not his wife. So he let her walk the miles home in the rain.
What an asshole.
Azkyroth,
Not to belittle your own family’s experience with AA, but it has really helped my brother (who, starting in high school, followed the whole life of crime thing with meth, booze, property crimes, jail, etc.) whose mileage evidently varies. Still, I never recommend AA to anybody, and I’m fine with people disrespecting them.
AA only increased my anxiety and hostility. Actually, the first time I ran into it was in Langley Porter in a group therapy session and I said, “I don’t believe in this god thing.” I was ushered out and got to read peacefully alone in my four person room. I read Patricia Highsmith’s “The Glass Cell” instead. (It was in my room.)
The next time I had to go to a church (with all gay people, like me) but I had to stand up and talk about myself. This was before I was holding 1000 people conferences for work so I freaked out. It was only maybe 100 people. Again, I said I don’t believe in god and I had the microphone yanked away from me.
Azkyroth, it’s all platitudes. And platitudes are hugely annoying.
Cannabinaceae,
If not for my wife, I’d probably eat that way too. She’s a bit more finicky about food, and doesn’t always like everything touching let alone mixed together. As it is, since I cook too much and I’m usually the one who eats the leftovers, things get transformed 2-3 times at least. Potato soup might get leftover sausage, and then clams, and then green chiles. The soup I’m making tonight will probably get a handful of diced zucchini when I reheat it tomorrow. I’ve got a mess of frozen spicy meatballs in marinara that will probably become some sort of chili down the line.
I’m not judging here… can someone try to explain to me the food not touching thing? It’s so very foreign to me I do not get it. I had an ex-gf who didn’t like food touching but she could never explain what it was.
Mythbri, when I was a young child I was sent to the Mormon church quite near our house, alone. My paternal grandparents were Mormon and they wanted me to be Mormon. My mom was not happy about it so she didn’t go with me. (My father was always at work and I never saw him until I was about 11–besides holidays, of course.) I bailed out quite early.
When I was a teen, I was asked to be a special counselor at Camp LoMia. “Special” meaning I was not fully Mormon but I could perhaps be persuaded. The LDS church was literally across the street from my high school and all my friends were Mormon.
I recall the Testimony Meeting at the camp. I was quite disappointed that my lesbian Mormon friends said nothing about their gfs and so I got up to leave. (I had exactly two Mormon lesbian friends and we would go to lesbian bars every weekend and I knew their gfs.) They went on (crying, by the way–I think you’re supposed to cry in Testimony) about how they’d sinned and how maybe GAWD could help them. This is why I got up to leave. But I was ushered back into my seat.
They’re now my friends on FB but they’re still quite weird about GAWD. (And they sought me out.)
Congratulations, to you, Mythbri, for getting out of that. I know it’s not easy.
I think the food-not-touching thing may be a manifestation of the “contagion-avoidance” instinct gone awry or amped up too much. Perhaps potentiated by former experience of something usually enjoyed, but “ruined” by contact with something not enjoyed. With my niece (8 yo), simply mentioning the word “onion” before dinner where some dish might (but doesn’t) contain hidden onions, is enough to put her off that dish.
I myself have essentially the opposite instinct. When eating meals with separable dishes and side orders, I generally cycle through taking bites of everything separately, and combining two things, three things, in the same bite. Sometimes a particular combination really gets me and I find myself going into automatic face stuffing mode for that combination. Otherwise,I generally try to pace things so that all the components disappear from the plate at about the same rate.
Except the steak. I always save a few bites for a satisfying meat cleanse.
Holy shit. I. Must. Be. Protected. To. The. Point. I. Am. Completely. Invisible.
Stupid fuckwitted coward.
Caine:
I said it there and I’ll repeat it here. You are wonderful.
Anyone want a slightly-used cold? ‘Cause I’m so, so tired of this one.
Last night sucked on steroids.
:( :( :( :( :( :(
–
*waving* at Happiestsadist. Welcome back.
–
morgan, are we on *hugging* terms? If so, have one.
–
I read that Lucas wanted a “used” look for Star Wars; and presumably all the grubby tech we see there is the handed-down, much-patched tech that was shiny-and-bright in the prequels.
–
yubal, welcome to your new hatchling!
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Irregular. And I had massive trouble with those Centauri crests.
On the other hand, Vir finger-wiggling and smiling at Morden’s en-piked head was awesome.
–
Beatrice:
The fuck you don’t – and don’t you dare argue with me.
OOO I liked b5 ^.^ Wasn’t perfect though and I could have done without the earth gov assassination conspiracy stuff.
Ogvorbis:
Thank you. You have no idea how much that means to me. I just read your post there and I’ll give that right back to you – you are wonderful. You are patient and yet brook no bullshit and you speak out about yourself and what happened to you. I love you, Og. (Yep, warts and all.)
Giliell
Okay, so think how the person feels who is causing you so much pain. I mean, for me, especially when I was actually having relationships when I was a meth addict it was not a simple choice of “your loved ones” or “your addiction”. It was MY addiction is uncontrollable. There is nothing anyone outside can do for me. I am not choosing one or the other. I have no choice. THAT is what addiction is. There’s no reasoning. Yes, I could see how I was hurting people but I could not STOP myself.
There are so many conversations here about not using able-ist and sexist and homophobic and racist language, but being an addict is an affliction. It is a disease.
Caine,
I suggest you buy an ankle brace… one of these days you’re going to put your foot deep in some moron’s ass, and it is going to get stuck, and without the brace you’re going to break your ankle for sure. :)
Do you really think I haven’t?
QFT…Reminds me about time for a film festival….
Azkyroth, no, I don’t. I definitely think you have.
I don’t have a big problem with food touching, I can eat whatever, but I would slightly prefer for each dish to stay separate until I eat it.
But I do this too if the combination is good, and I don’t think this is incompatible with an aversion to food touching on the plate. The “important” thing is that it all stays separate until it is deliberately combined for a bite.
This is plausible. It may instead be a more general need-for-order, cognitively satisfying for its own sake like need-for-closure is.
OTOH, some dishes really are better (to most palates) when they’re kept separate, because the distinct textures are lost (and sometimes get gross) when they mix for too long. Learning this several times may cause a person to develop general heuristic that it is just preferable to keep all foods separate — no contagion-avoidance or need-for-order necessary.
I find switching focus and switching between tasks to generally be cognitively taxing, so this may be a contributing factor. I tend to separate things out and eat one category of thing at a time, without a conscious effort otherwise.
IJoe:
Hah! I’ll take your suggestion on board. :D
…maybe closer to “emotionally taxing” than cognitively. It’s like there’s a flywheel in my brain that has to be spun up to function at full capacity, and it’s very disconcerting to have to stop it suddenly, or to be in a sort of elevated “switching gears” state for extended periods.
I’ve just done a quick re-read of the Matt thread (to make sure I didn’t miss anything the first time) and I must say that I don’t ‘feel sorry’ for anyone except jacksul.
It fucking sucks to be an addict and to have hurt so many people. I lost two girlfriends to my meth addiction and one to my alcoholism. This is why I generally try to stay alone. (BTW, cold turkey I quit meth after eight years of daily use on March 31st, 2000. This is not a great achievement because I never ever bought meth for myself. I was always granted it by my friends so we could play video games until the wee hours. I paid for it but I never went and got it. I’m an asshole. I simply moved and had no more supply.)
I am now going to curl up next to my gf and re-think my life.
Ok this all makes sense. I guess it must be some leftover thing for me with the ex (long ago ex). She would freak the fuck out when some foods touched. Almost some sort of visceral reaction to it.
She stocked a lot of those plastic / paper plates with separate chambers and did not like eating out anywhere with “flat” plates.
We didn’t date long, for many reasons. I hope she’s doing well.
Chigau (570)
How is it that, in my head, the words “Bless his heart” sounded clearly at the end of your comment?
athyco #573
Yes. I’m glad you heard it.
Portia:
I’m so glad you spoke up! My sister-in-law (not the one who can’t keep secrets) and I talk so often about the crap she goes through at the fire house and on scenes. And she hates being called a fireman.
One of her pet peeves is that she has to walk this line between being firm and yet not coming off as a nag or a feminazi. If she speaks up and demands respect, she gets punished in subtle and not-so-subtle ways (like, hey, a locker full of shaving cream when she goes to get her gear for a call). But if she doesn’t, they keep doing the shit and she doesn’t get any respect anyway.
She and my brother went through training together twelve years ago and joined the fire company at the same time. She actually has more certifications and CE credits than he does, and because of the nature of her job, she’s able to attend more calls. But he got made a lieutenant, and then captain, and now assistant three. She’s never even been nominated for even the lowest office or allowed to be incident command, though firefighters with less time in the company, less certs, and fewer scene hours have.
Oh, but certainly there’s no sexism; she’s just over-reacting…
—
Improbable Joe:
Oh no! Hope she recovers quickly. *offers chicken broth, ginger ale, and saltines for BossNurse. Disinfectant wipes and surgical mask for you*
—
Giliell:
My father and I were not close even on the global scale, but his impending death hit me very hard. I think because I realized there was no hope he would ever change.
Keeping you and your family in my thoughts.
—
Rev. BDC:
My oldest can’t tolerate separately-cooked foods touching, because he says it changes the flavor of both for the worse. If the various items are cooked together, that’s okay because it’s become one dish.
Krasnaya:
You’ve shared much with us. You’ve opened up the book of your life and granted us a glimpse. Thank you.
Please know, you are not an asshole. I have seen nothing from you that bears any resemblance to True Assholery (see any feminism related thread here for examples).
Socjo-gen:
I haven’t heard of ginger ale being offered up when sick. Hmmm.
I’ve often heard of ginger ale (especially flat) for stomach troubles, nausea in particular.
Flat ginger ale is better.
and not icy-cold
We used to use 7-up when sick. When nauseated, we’d use coke syrup. I don’t even know if pharmacies still sell that.
I think ginger-ale and crystallized ginger are supposed to help stomach issues.
Anecdotally I’ll vouch for ginger ale.
Tony:
Ginger ale is the one of the few things I can keep down when I have any kind of stomach problem. It has to be room temperature, though.
Lemon and ginger tea (cooled to room temp) works as well, but I don’t like the taste as much.
Good evening friends. About ginger for tummy troubles. I have taken capsules of ginger powder to ward off seasickness. Is this woo? I don’t know. It worked for me and now I have to go do some research.
Socio-gen, something something, I was reading up on the thread and so wanted to chime in with/for Portia, but I thought it was way too late. You’re now my role model for “nuh uh, not late in the Lounge!”
Portia,
Seems that I’ve had an intersection of your realization! I completed EMT training in 1980 and pulled volunteer rotation (6 pm to 6 am) on Wednesdays and Saturdays at the fire station. I’d finished my training in mid-May so that through the entire summer, I was doing everything the guys did. But I was an non-tenured middle school teacher. Once the next school year began, my principal asked why I was always a half hour early at school on Thursday mornings. I told him proudly. He demanded that I quit. It was unseemly, you know. I told him that I could drop Saturdays and just stay Wednesday nights in the station when the married couple were in the other bunkroom. I could do days when I wasn’t in school. No. It was quit volunteering as an EMT or be fired, and he had the contacts to check behind me if I didn’t.
It so does my heart good to know you’re a firefighter.
It’s funny, growing up, I didn’t like ginger ale. My parents would occassionally buy Canada Dry and I wouldn’t touch the stuff. Fast forward 20 or so years and I reached in the refrigerator one day and poured a glass of it (E loves the stuff) and now I quite enjoy it. In fact, I like vodka, ginger ale with a splash of cranberry.
You mean you haven’t gotten sick because you take ginger?
it may not be woo but it sure reeks of it.
This is the sort of time where I appreciate the command decision my wife and I made long ago, to always live in decent-sized houses rather than small apartments even though it is just the two of us. There are two bathrooms, two beds, and plenty of places for me to hide from her and her zombie poop virus.
Lots of Gatorade and green tea for her, lots of hiding in my office for me… good times, right?
@Krasnaya Koshka
Yup, crying during Testimony is an unspoken almost requirement, it seems. Are your friends still members, or have they given it up?
The worst part about leaving is the whole family angle, for sure. I’m straight, so I know my experience was nothing like your friends’ when/if they decided to leave, but damn. My family isn’t thrilled about my decision.
my bad, SEAsickness.
I have no idea.
*must read more carefully
grumble
@morgan:
I love the words “I don’t know.”
Especially when followed by “I need to read up on that.”
Please share your findings :)
This NIH link gives some info on their analysis of the data. Might be a good starting place for those who want to look deeper into the issue. For what it’s with its cautiously positive about some uses of ginger. http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/druginfo/natural/961.htmlhttp://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/druginfo/natural/961.html
Will do, Tony. What works and what does not in the realm of “herbs and spices” is a complex arena. Several lifetimes ago I managed a health food store (1970’s) and it broke my heart to see the number of mostly sad folks who came in looking for miracles. I’ll let you know what I find out.
When was the last time I told all you good people that I love you? :-)
Hello! I have just had lovely noms of a prawn (shrimp) salad with chilli-lime mayo.
I am a bit threadrupt but have quickly skimmed.
Big hugs to Giliell.
Yay for all the awesome people in the Dillahunty thread. I stopped by yesterday but haven’t returned to see what happened.
As to ginger, it’s commonly recommended for nausea and IIRC there is some evidence favouring it over placebo, but it’s not firmly established. Mythbusters did a thing on ways to prevent motion sickness, and ginger worked – but on an unblinded N of 1, so that’s hardly conclusive.
athyco:
Glad I can be a role model for something! :) I’m almost always late to the conversation, but I can’t resist chiming in.
This is just awful!
—
Joe:
Excellent planning!
Ouch, I just snorted tea out of my nose! I am so stealing that for the next time I have a gastrointestinal nightmare.
Speaking of zombies:
Romero’s slow moving zombies
or
Danny Boyle’s running zombies
Personally, I prefer Romero, but that is due more to my exposure to those movies. I think Boyle zombies are more frightening.
Have you seen this?
http://freethoughtblogs.com/singham/2013/01/03/gay-scientists-isolate-gene-for-christianity
Socio-gen
Yes. Being assertive versus being a doormat. It’s a constant problem, just in life, but it’s even harder in a machismo-fueled environment like a fire house.
Locker full of shaving cream?! I know people play pranks, but that seems dangerous to me. We play pranks, but no one fucks with anyone’s gear. Your gear is your life! And fast response is other people’s lives…I can’t imagine screwing with someone at that level. Unbelievable. So sorry she has to deal with that bullshit.
Of course not! Because men are objective, and women are whiners! That’s really awfully unfair for her. I’m not nearly as accomplished as she is in the field; it’s really admirable that she has done so much in the face of such pervasive sexism. Being called a fireman is really among the most trivial of the sexist offenses a woman can face in a fire station, but it’s pretty annoying.
morgan
Anecdotally, I can attest that ground ginger into hot water is wonderful for a sore throat. It has been said many times that ginger is good for tummy problems. Good luck. I’m interested in your findings as well.
athyco
It’s never too late in the Lounge! (If there’s really a chance someone won’t remember what you’re responding to, you can always reference their earlier comment by number). : )
I appreciate your sharing your experiences, that is really shitty! I can’t believe you were forced to quit doing something you really enjoyed doing and took pride in for such a stupid reason. Especially something that takes so much work to accomplish.
That means a lot to me, thank you.
There have been times where I was denied training opportunities because the rumor mill prevented a male officer from going along with me. Because, ya know, our bits go together so clearly a day-long class in a town 45 minutes away would result in our bits going together. The worst part is that that guy is one of the few who actually looks out for me in a nice-uncle kind of way. But he sort of avoids me now because the aforementioned sexual harasser spread rumors about us sleeping together. That’s also a peril of small town living though.
Joe
Extra space is awesome for sure. I hate most of the cartoons the kids watch on the weekends at SO’s and there’s not a lot of room to get away from it. Glad you are walled off though. Zombie poop virus sounds like No Fun™.
Krasnaya Koshka
Hugs for you if you want them. I’m sorry you’ve had so many struggles. I’ve witnessed a lot of alcoholism. It’s always sad.
Giliell
Extra periodic hugs for you as you want them.
Tony
I love Ginger Ale. It is one of my favorite things. When I was sick as a kid, my mom went with 7-up (which was a huge treat because she was very into healthy eating) and I don’t know if it really helped or if it was just a yummy treat to make us feel better. I drink ginger ale when I’m sick now but I still don’t know if it’s the former or the latter or both. : ) And I don’t care. It’s Magic Sky Juice. I always get it on airplanes.
Tony:
Romero zombies FTW.
In hindsight, from the safety of our couches and chairs and barstools in 2013, we can look back on the Romero zombies and say “Oh, that’s not scary, how did the world get taken over by slow-moving zombies? That’s STUPID!” But think back to the original movies, and remember that Romero basically invented the entire zombie genre from whole cloth. Nobody knew what these things were, but they look like your neighbor and Bob from work, and your mom and your little sister. And they are going to get you, Barbara… and worse, they are going to make you one of them. No rest for you once they kill you either… oh no, you’re going to get up and shamble around too, maybe forever!
Also, I like ginger ale… with and without a splash of gin.
They already take over the roads here for as much as 6 hours a day. O.o
AA is a Bad Thing.
Addiction
May well be a disease. I’m not sure. But I’m tired of hearing addiction used as an excuse for bad behavior and stupid choices. I heard it all the time from my abuser — “I was drunk and didn’t know what I was doing,” “I blacked out*,” and the like, after EVERY… incident. And if he wasn’t blowing that smoke up my ass, it was always MY fault.
*I got that particular excuse several times, even when he was dead sober.
What you describe sounds less like addiction and more like self-medicating for an undiagnosed or untreated mental illness. You mentioned having issues with anxiety upthread; I suggest seeing a psychiatrist and a talk therapist, get your head sorted out, get yourself properly dx-ed and medicated (if needed), and the urges should go away. From personal experience, redirecting the compulsion (read: doing something else and keeping yourself busy until the urges pass) can help a lot. Also, um… there are good non-barbiturate anti-anxiety meds available. A good therapist and psychiatrist will work with you to find medications (or other solutions) that won’t fuck you up further. Best of luck to you.
Giliell
Shit. I wish I could give you a million and one *headbonks*.
ginger is awesome for upset tummies! Which reminds me, I need to get more ginger tea. *adds to list*
“threadrupt” — I keep seeing this word. What does it mean?
And as for the Dillahunty thread… I couldn’t even. I tried to read it, got somewhere near comment #90-something, and had to quit. I was starting to feel ragey and stabby.
Portia:
Your magic sky juice link gives me a 404 error message. And I was all ready to learn what magic sky juice is…
WMDKitty:
Aaaw, you missed my cowardly protector being called an assclam in smegmarmalade sauce. *pretend sad face*
Threadrupt is akin to bankrupt – someone who hasn’t kept up with the thread, so doesn’t have a clue as to what’s going on with everyone.
Retry at Magic Sky Juice
http://theoatmeal.com/blog/beverage_options
WMDkitty
threadrupt…. disrupting the current train of discussion in the thread with a new topic/discussion?
If you think the comments are bad on the Dillahunty thread I had a look at the comments at Michael Nugents new post on the thunderf00t video that was hard to try to read (article very good comments full of ick). Alas I don’t think thunder’s supporters will change over this. I did see sallystrange over there doing a good job though.
http://www.michaelnugent.com/2013/01/03/thunderf00t%E2%80%99s-inflammatory-video-of-misleading-personal-attacks-on-atheist-feminists-is-not-helpful/
Nerd of readhead Just cause I’ve been curious is that one of the hippo’s from fantasia as your pic?
I’m still mystified as to how the people who are in charge of ensuring that nothing else that tastes better than “violently, ragingly mediocre” gets served on airplanes keep missing ginger ale. O.o
Random question (that really isn’t one, I guess): Do you think that if I join the podcast tomorrow and say that my remarks as so memorably quoted by TF00t were badly phrased and reiterate my position more clearly, that the haters would suddenly grow consciences and stop attacking women, Paul Elam would apologize for everything, and I’d get a pony?
Yeah, I don’t think so either.
Second question: despite that, do you think I should anyway?
nth’ing anecdata of ginger for tummy troubles and sore throat and sniffles and generally making me happy. Ginger root in stir fry, ginger ale, ginger root boiled with lemon for tea. Also pickled ginger on top of sushi. ♥
Aaand I went back to finish reading the Dillahunty thread.
Why do I do this to myself?
??
I cannot see any comments whatsoever on Nugent’s post.
And I tried with two different browsers.
Dear sweet massively well intentioned WMD Kitty. You are blessed with the opportunity to grow and learn.
To quote you:
“What you describe sounds less like addiction and more like self-medicating for an undiagnosed or untreated mental illness. You mentioned having issues with anxiety upthread; I suggest seeing a psychiatrist and a talk therapist, get your head sorted out, get yourself properly dx-ed and medicated (if needed), and the urges should go away. From personal experience, redirecting the compulsion (read: doing something else and keeping yourself busy until the urges pass) can help a lot. Also, um… there are good non-barbiturate anti-anxiety meds available. A good therapist and psychiatrist will work with you to find medications (or other solutions) that won’t fuck you up further. Best of luck to you.”
Your advice is sweetly insulting. I know, it is not meant to be so. But just stop fucking giving advice. EVERY SINGLE ONE OF US WHO HAVE DEALT WITH ALL OF THIS HAVE ALREADY PURSUED YOUR SUGGESTIONS. AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN OVER SEVERAL DECADES.
Just don’t try to give advice, please.
And again, once again, I’m going to bed and I hope things won’t feel so raw tomorrow.
Esteleth
Right, theres some stupid bug over there I think he mentioned it, its only showing comments after you comment. Sorry I probably should have mentioned it >.< my bad.
WMDKitty:
Next, take a stiff drink with you.
Aargh!
That should have read:
“Next time, take a stiff drink with you.”
I do not own a smartphone.
Tis a dumbphone.
All the more reason for me to comment then, I guess.
I have now discovered the “brilliance” of Caveman73, Owlglass, and Jacksul.
My face is like O___O;
Fuck me, I’m now compelled to read through. I’m going to hate myself for this… not that there’s anything new with that.
Esteleth #606
Do the podcast wearing a cheap, self-made Thunderfoot mask.
i.e. find an online image, print it on 8 1/2 by 11, punch eye-holes and a mouth-hole, masking tape it to your head.
morgan:
In the future, responses ofvthat nature are best suited to the Thunderdome. I take no issue with the content, I just wish to kerp the Lounge as the relaxed social gathering. Please and thanks.
My dog truly believes that he should sleep as close to me as possible
Between me and mrs. BDC
With his heads on my chest
Pushing me and my naked ass off the side into the cold
Wouldn’t be so bad if he didn’t weight almost as much as mrs BDC short about 15 lbs.
And I am henceforth know as the Queer King of Tpyos!
Oh, Christ on a stick!
*BIGHUGS* for Caine!
*pawbumps* for all the awesome folks who were like, “RAWR, NO” to the not-so-awesome dipshits on that thread!
Iz workout time for me, back later.
Anyone reading on an iPad have issues with FTB randomly showing the mobile site and being hard to get it to go back to the normal site and stick?
chigau:
What did Esteleth do that you would think up such punishment? /s
A Thunderf00t mask. I shudder in my booties and snuggy.
And if WMDKitty chooses to respond to morgan, do it in the Thunderdome.
WMDKitty:
No, no. Don’t focus on the stupid and the malevolence – focus on all the awesome that is The Horde™.
Morgan, if you’re going to hang in the lounge, best get used to one thing immediately: advice giving is habitual in the lounge. You’ll get it by the fucktonne, whether you wished for it or not. Also, while any given advice or suggestions may not be applicable to your situation, it could well be applicable to someone else, whether that person is active or lurking.
In the future, if you wish to yell anymore at someone, whether that’s WMDKitty or me, or anyone else, do your yelling in The Angry Dome, and provide a link here.
chigau:
That was an excellent video! I snickered the whole way through.
—
Portia:
Yes, and, of course, in a volunteer setting where these are the people who control the votes and decide who runs on what rigs? Even harder.
They did move her gear to the next locker over, but still — seconds count and she had to waste valuable time finding it while they yukked it up and told her she ought to stay behind to clean up the mess.
Ugh. This is common in our county as well. My SIL finally got to do some training down at the state fire academy last year because my brother could attend at the same time. The fire company wouldn’t pay for her to go alone because — OMG — she’d be surrounded by men who weren’t her husband.
I think the worst for her is the fact that when she expresses a desire to stand for an officer’s position, she always gets the “But what if you have a kid?” bullshit, that no one asked my brother before nominating him. As she said, no one looked at the chief and his two heart attacks and asked “Gee, what if your heart stops working on another scene?”
—
Caine:
Now, I have to go read that thread.
—
Esteleth:
I don’t know that it would do any good (with the haters), but if you want to, I say go for it.
—
Rev. BDC:
I’m having the same problem with my laptop, usually when going from the Lounge to the main page. Once I click on a headline, or if I go from another thread to the main page, it’s fine.
WMDKitty:
Aaw, thanks. Piece o’ work, isn’t he?
Tony
If Esteleth ‘disguises’ herself as Tfoot using a paper mask, do you think his followers could tell the difference?
She could confuzzel them.
Rev: not just iPad. I have the same problem on my Android phone. Also finding the return to top doesn’t always work.
When is blogroll and stuff going back on right side????!!
Yeah, but I really lack the ability to speak with a British accent. I can do a hilariously bad over-the-top Cockney, but that’s about it.
Ok good, not just me. I can share in the annoyance.
I think the point here is that morgan felt that WMDKitty was condesplaining. With some justification, frankly.
This is exactly the sort of abuse of lounge rules I dread. If natural reactions to condesplaining are going to be chastised and condesplaining itself isn’t, and so forth, it’ll slowly kill everything that makes the Lounge worthwhile.
morgan
You’re being mean for no reason. Believe it or not, I have experience in this area. It has been MY experience that most “addictions” are nothing more than self-medication, and that when the underlying issues are treated, the “addiction” goes away.
It is NOT “naive” to suggest actually doing something instead of sitting back, shrugging, and going “can’t do anything about it, addicts have no choice”. I am pointing out that, YES, YOU HAVE A CHOICE. You can CHOOSE to keep drinking and drugging, OR you can CHOOSE to get proper medical care, including psychiatric support, and get to the root of the problem, thereby allowing you to treat the addiction. I want people to get the help they need. In what world is it a Bad Thing to suggest someone get healthy?
The model of “addict as victim” only keeps people from actually dealing with their issues. It allows you to say, “I am not responsible for myself or my actions because alcohol.” It’s a fucking cop-out. It keeps addicts in their “disease”, and ensures a steady stream of sheep to the 12-Step Cult, all sanctioned by the injustice system.
If you want to cling to your “disease” and your “victim” status, I won’t stop you. Just don’t go getting upset when people point out the blindingly obvious.
Aaand I should have refreshed before posting.
Bad Kitty. I’ll be in the corner.
*hugs&chocolate* for Giliell. I’m sorry.
Unwelcome not-surprises are still unwelcome.
–
Son is now divorced. I am sad, but resigned.
–
Caine, if you don’t mind my asking, what are we supposed to be protecting you from? You strike me as being more than capable to your own defense! Your immense pile of eviscerated troll corpses speaks for itself!
Well, that and the way you’ve used their polished skulls as paving elements….
–
SomethingsomethingNiceGuy™…maybe I need a linky….
–
And Pteryxx is back!
:)
–
Shit. I’m gonna have to find this Dilla-thingy thread, am’t I?
–
Azkyroth:
Yes, I got that. That does not mean Morgan is free to tell WMDkitty to stop giving out advice. She can certainly tell WMDkitty that she doesn’t want any advice directed at her and she’s free to tell her she doesn’t find it useful in the least.
It’s not abuse of the rules or anything else. I note, as usual, you did not bother to scold Tony or Chigau for also telling Morgan to take such things to Thunderdome. I’m pretty sick and fucking tired of you taking every single fucking opportunity to be a complete asshole to me. So, how about you do me a favour and either distribute your criticisms in a fair manner or just do the easiest thing and pretend I’m not here.
I’m kind of glad I went back to the Dillahunty thread, because Horde=Amazing. And now I understand why Caine is a delicate little flower… of EVILLLL. Excellent work.
And now, addiction is hard. It’s probably most helpful to stick to “in my experience” stories and try not to overgeneralise. Not all addicts are the same. Krasnaya Koshka, Gilliel’s mother, Azkyroth’s ex, Natalie Reed, and my uncle are all totally different people.
Not every addict is lucky enough to have the resources to do something about it, whether those resources are financial, social or personal. Some genuinely struggle with it; others succumb. Some addicts are highly destructive of others, and the best you can do is get away to a safe distance from them.
Azkyroth:
I think the need for a relaxing, relatively stress free, safe social area is a great thing. As we have seen in the past, minor disagreements or significant ones can disrupt the atmosphere of this space. I don’t think simply sliding over to the ‘Dome is asking for too much given the number of people posting here who enjoy a strife free zone.
Cicely:
From what I’ve been able to gather, I’m to be protected from having my feelings hurt, because I might have been raped. Shhhhhhhhhh, we can’t talk about it, we can’t!!1!OMGWTFBBQ
It’s this thread: http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2013/01/02/matt-dillahunty-being-all-reasonable-and-stuff/ – do a Ctrl + f for jacksul and go from there. There’s also a critter going by owlglass – those posts are best quickly skimmed to avoid brain cells jumping ship in droves.
Alethea:
That response has left me completely gobsmacked. I still don’t know what he thinks will happen if rape and assault and harassment is discussed. Does he think I’m going to sob myself to sleep? Kill myself? I don’t know. I do know I’m not terribly impressed by being thought of like his religious granny. Geez.
Trying to catch back up, not doing very well. In no particular order:
firefighters
Damn, those stories are depressing. In addition to the obvious, which is bad enough, apparently these dipshits are doing this stuff (shaving cream in the locker etc. )when they’re supposed to be out fighting goddamn fires. Great sense of priorities there.
AA
Is useless at best; no study has ever shown them to have a better success rate than no treatment at all, and there’s collateral damage to boot in the form of jesus bullshit and similar. That is to say that, as far as can be determined, anyone who was ‘helped’ by AA would have probably done about as well if they hadn’t gone at all.
I still haven’t read the Dillahunty thread, or the next five after that. I seem to be falling farther and farther behind these days. Granted, I’ve been doing a lot more work and a lot less websurfing recently, and there’s been stuff occupying my time at home which precludes internetting, but I’m trying. I’ve got an assistant at work again, though, so that ‘l free up some time.
It was quite bizarre. I’m imagining it a bit like “Don’t mention the war!” – a funnier person than me could make a good sketch of it. Also, if you are any kind of Granny, it’s a Weatherwax.
Also FWIW I kept reading jacksul as jackal or jacksie.
Caine
I actually suggested that WMDKitty respond to morgan in the Thunderdome.
I am unsure of what Azkyroth is concerned about but it’s late and I’m tired.
but
if you have a moment:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2013/01/03/i-think-youtube-culture-really-has-gone-pathological/comment-page-1/#comment-527625
I’ve sent an alert but another couldn’t hurt.
Alethea:
Ayup. I imagine Mr. Nice Guy didn’t know what hit him. :D
Chigau, I caught his latest act, sending an alert now.
@ Giliell
‘:D
@ Tony
That picture was in the newspaper today. They apparently cannot take things further because the fins are “on private property”. (Yeah, WTF!)
There is a dried seafood street in my neighbourhood. One of the shops is specialised in sharks’ fins. But one cannot see inside and needs to be buzzed in. Warnings about taking pictures too. In the old days, they used to dry them on the streets. At the very least the merchants are being back-footed by all the flack they are getting.
Joe, please convey my sympathies to BossNurse. Been there, done that, barfed all over the tee shirt.
–
I don’t like my foods touching. I have no rational explanation for it. I also tend to eat all of one thing before going on to the next. No rational explanation for that, either.
–
Caine—that Ctrl+f thing is a-freakin’-mazing. I wish I thought for a minute that I’d be able remember it for next time!
Perhaps a post-it…if I can manage not to lose it….
–
theophontes
I have had “shark fin” soup in Canadian Chinese restaurants.
I cannot tell a shark’s fin from a shark’s anus.
Those people tossing away the non-fin shark-bits are missing out on a HUGE foreign market.
They just keep on coming. They never stop. The Stupid™ is coming to get Barbara, it’s coming to get us all.
*This thread.
Cicely:
I’ll remind you. :D
Yeah, Caine; that D is only the latest in the line of special cupcake shaped snowflakes.
I mean, damn, woman would make as much as men if only they stayed on the job and stopped dropping out to raise children.
Duh.
Janine:
Yeah, I saw that the Magical shit sandwich of logic and reason explained that unequal pay was because of those wimmin dropping out of work to raise the children. I guess that makes it perfectly okay for prospective employers continuing to discriminate against young women on the basis that they might get knocked up.
I’m going to bed.
And because I don’t pay attention, I am going to read some Joanna Russ.
RIP April 29, 2011.
I’m sitting in bed and Amelia is under the fleece throw, on my lap, getting tummy scritchies and chewing on my fingers.
Caine
give Amelia extra scritchies from me.
…uh, you were the most recent person who replied in the fashion I was address. I didn’t mean anything personal by quoting your statements and not the others; I simply figured it’d be redundant. :/ (I have no recollection of the previous instances you allude to, but I would assume something similar was going on there.)
I don’t dispute the initial premise, but very broadly, letting what has been in some cases unthinking rudeness of a not-“angry” confrontational fashion or 2) a transgressive behavior cloaked in “Cargo-Cult Civility” pass unchallenged and then either chiding someone who reacts to it with honest anger for doing so, or aggressively “refusing to take sides”, carries an implicit endorsement or legitimization of the initial offending behavior and, in the worst case, alienates people reacting to what they have every reason to feel was an attack, merely a slightly subtler one. Surely we understand why this is a problem?
Also, Morgan’s response here was pretty mild, objectively.
Chigau, done. She’s happily rolling about and laughing, I’m sure.
Bed time, for me, my cold and a fuckton of decongestants.
“If I should drown before I wake….”
–
D came back. He clarified his statement about about hope a rapist would be convicted by a victim’s statement; that is what feminists are working towards. And what of the men who are falsely accused when it is like that?
I think D stands for dumb.
I am getting my letters confused, it is B. And B is short for bunkum.
Janine:
Yes, I saw. The mythical Feminist Rape Law™. Oooga Booga, men, the wimmin are a comin’ for your balls!
Jesus. Considering that VAWA just got slid across the table to conveniently fall in the circular file, I don’t think we’re getting that “law” into place any time soon.
Joe – I hope BossNurse feels better soon.
Pteryxx – You’re back! I’ve missed you. *pouncehug*
michaeld:
My thoughts exactly.
Caine – You are awesome. And never give up your weapons. ♥
Krasnaya Koshka *hugs*
cicely
*pouncehug* Does this mean you have lost your D&D (and Scrabble) playing daughter-in-law? If so, that is very sad. Also, get well soon. [It’s a good thing diseases can’t be transferred via a *pouncehug.*]
A scare: my mother suddenly found out she could not get out of her bed without feeling dizzy, nauseous and having double vision. At the moment she has spent two nights at the hospital for observation, and the doctor thinks it might have been a minor infarction in the brain with no serious long term effects. That was a serious relief.
I’m 36 and don’t want to accept the fact that my parents are mortal.
But Caine, if one can imagine a fear, one must make one’s foe account for it.
Hekuni Cat:
Never. ♥
Weed Monkey, I’m glad your mum is alright.
Janine:
So it would seem. For someone who keeps claiming they aren’t fearful, he’s got one helluva list of scary shit the wimmin are gonna do.
He is now demanding that I address his fear.
*eyeroll*
Janine:
There is no addressing that nonsense because it’s nonsense. Fortunately, these days, we have some pretty darn sophisticated forensics. This makes a fear of being imprisoned for a rape you didn’t commit fairly easy to avoid*. You just have to not rape anyone.
Not 100% guaranteed, nothing is.
To be fair, there are some pervasive problems with forensics as practiced. Ed Brayton’s posted about them on occasion. Doesn’t change the overall point, though, and applies as much to false negatives as false positives, I’d think. :/
Caine
Me too. Thanks.
It’s OK folks. We can all relax. We’re now assured that “our” goals are “worthy”, but we need to be on the lookout for “PC policing”, “slippery slope” and all that.
Hope you’re all pleased with these enthusiastic accolades. I was thrilled to bits. /sort of
(Truthfully? I think I detect a hint of a rumour of a possibility that someone just might have made a teensy tiny error somewhere in the previous posts. Too hard to see behind the fog of fuckwittery, but it might emerge if it survives this episode. I’m not laying down any money on that anyway.)
mildlymagnificent, yes, all that terrible PC baggage, just a weighing down feminism. Why do those bitches have to get all hysterical when you call ’em bitches? See, PC baggage, man.
rq,
Well, I’m replying to you in the morning so that tells you something. :)
Thankfully, “they” realized that I can’t do any of my mentor’s regular work, so I’m helping a colleague with some little jobs or doing nothing/reading some manuals/reading pharyngula.
I believe this will change next week when the mentor is back. I’m hoping I will get to do something and learn something. At least the time will pass more quickly. Not to mention the whole training for which they have me here on these peanuts of a paycheck.
I want to learn.
—–
re. : food touching on the plate
What sgbm said in #566
Long time Pharyngulites:
Are there any threads that just won’t die? The feminist experiment thread seems to keep attracting new (and woefully inept) challengers, which made me curious.
Weed Monkey:
I dearly hope your mother recovers from whatever ails her quickly.
It used to happen more often on the SB Pharyngula, not so much since the change to FTB, methinks.
In other news, it was 42C/107F here today(still is 40 at 723pm now), I didnt sleep one minute, and have to work all night now…
*grumble*
Caine @661:
::suddenly the shoop clutches his balls, afraid the feminazis are looking for ingredients for their soup::
Keep away. I have holy water, crosses and PEAS.
Speaking of thrilled to bits, it’s about half past 6 and the local temperature has now been below 40C for an hour or so. But no sign of the cool change we were promised.
Just as well I didn’t post this when I left it sitting in the open window. It’s back up to 42 now. The thrills are now shattered remnants. Tomorrow I’m out looking for an air conditioner that a) doesn’t sound like a plane taking off in the living room b) uses less power than 6 ovens. Though I have to get the appliances for the new kitchen first. Whoopee! (We’ve ordered it based on the mortgage-the-rest-of-your-life funds, but I could live another 30 years if I follow family tradition. The kitchen here would be older than I am now by that time. And the mortgage is only 10 years anyway.)
mythbri @548,
Such a perfect summation of but one aspect of religion is not to be bettered.
(Molly comment)
Good morning!
First of all, if I may, even my earliest impressions of Caine are far from fragile. And xir best weapons have been a razour-sharp mind, loaded with experience, attached to a set of fingers with a keyboard. *bows low*
Krasnaya Koshka
Thank you for sharing your battle with alcoholism. It’s insight I value, but which probably won’t help me much – in the sense that it’s the Husband’s father who has alcohol issues (see: Christmas), and he won’t face them, and while he may care, it doesn’t show too much to his children (skipping Christmas, seeing a woman they strongly disapprove of**, etc.). On my side of the family is a pervasive social sort of alcoholism (where no social event may pass without the consumption of alcohol!). On Husband’s side, it’s a bit harder, due to the Latvian culture, which (since about ooooh 1941) has been heavily steeped in Russian culture, and now it’s hard to tell whether the masculinity=DRINK MORE is a previously Latvian trait, or a borrowed Russian one permeating society (probably a mixture of both, since the two go waay back). And it shows, sometimes, like when he told me I ruined his New Year’s because I asked him to drive (being generally exhausted from a mixture of things, going to a place where I don’t always feel comfortable, and having to sit around being the only one cold-sober and waiting for the moment we can leave and then trying to collect Husband and all three kids with everyone protesting ‘just a bit longer!’ just didn’t make me think Happy New Year to myself at all), which meant he couldn’t keep up in the drinks department with his two friends. The evening wasn’t a total waste, but… It’s little things like that (and yes, I know I’m not the perfect, abstaining, non-ulteriorly-motivated wife), and this is Husband actively understanding that his family has a problem with alcohol, but (I think) blind to how deep the culture is entrenched in this idea that you have to drink if you want to be socially accepted.
I also don’t know where someone like Husband’s father could possibly go to get help, but I know the fact that all his friends would question his reasons for not drinking any longer would drive him right back to it in no time at all. Anyway, that’s all a bit disconnected, but… *sigh* Thanks for sharing, is what I mean.
**I have to say that while I understand their upset, I also believe that he is allowed to see whomever he wants at whatever point in time he wants. It doesn’t mean his kids have to like it, or have to like the woman, but they certainly can’t try to force him to change.
firefighters
Wow. Socio-gen, that sounds like a terrible fire-fighting experience – honestly? more certifications, more cred, more time, and still no promotion? Has she ever asked why (do I want to know)? I believe she deserves at least a few steps up – would it help if she asked? In the sense that maybe the management doesn’t believe she wants any promotions because she’s a woman, and everyone knows women just don’t want to be promoted enough. I would hate for her to remain so knowledgeable yet unacknowledged.
Yep, I love that there are active, capable, and perfectly ordinary women firefighters out there, and damn anyone who says it’s just for the quotas (if it would be, they wouldn’t go on for further training; if it would be, the women would get promoted from time to time, because you know, quotas…). Echhh…
forensics
It’s not always easy to get the right kind of evidence in rape cases. I don’t know how many cases I’ve seen where, from the description, it’s clear that a rape has occurred, but extracting the DNA evidence is difficult to impossible or just non-existent. No, it’s not like having splashes of all kinds of bodily fluids all over one’s clothing. Even if all kinds of swabs have been taken very soon after the event, there’s no guarantee that you’ll find any evidence in the most incriminating locations. BUT I speak for this little backwater of a European country, where a thing like a rape-kit has not yet been invented or approved by the government, so it’s probably different elsewhere. But forensic evidence isn’t always cut-and-dried, which is why it’s even more important not to shame victims, but to listen to them (and yes, to listen to the other side, but honestly, the victim most of all), and to mete out appropriate punishment to rapists.
(TRIGGER WARNING: Incestuous father rapes 14-year-old daughter repeatedly since about age 9, admits to it, gets two years, daughter visits dad in jail, social services determine she’s not psychologically damaged enough to be kept apart from him… Yeah, that’s the ticket. Other case: man previously convicted of child rape gets out after three years, a few months later kidnaps 13-year-old girl, who is found raped and murdered a few km from her home; on the way to search the car, I hear the inspectors/detectives complaining the whole way about the idiot system that let the guy out and how he probably will only serve a bare minimum of time this time around, as well.)
+++
Wow, all of that got long and ranty and it’s only morning. Apologies. Need more tea.
John:
I seem to vaguely recall these Mollies you speak of. Like a distant memory.
Tony, true. But it’s a contender for it, IMNSHO.
rq:
Caine does not mind being gendered.
Sometimes I forget who does and doesn’t. I can think of 2 Lounge participants who prefer gender anonymity. Then there are people who I am unsure of, so I use non gendered pronouns (as is the case for michaeld, earlier tonight).
Go to the office number 218, she tells me.
After finally finding the right part of this maze, look at that! There is 218, in which there is no person by the name I am looking for, there is 218A and ranging from 218/1 to 218/12.
I find the person who sent me there in the first place and she is all surprised how I couldn’t find it. (it was /6 I needed, by the way)
*facepalm*
Tony
One day, I’ll get it right.
One day.
Beatrice
Like how here, when I went for my job interview, I had to find building 72b. Well, there was 72, then 72a, then 72c… and 72b was after the next intersection.
Good luck! ;)
Hello All!
I was just catching up on the Matt Dillahunty thread and I must second a bow to The Horde for their collective AWESOMENESS.
Also, thanks to Athyco’s story, I now understand without a doubt what smegmarmalade means.
: D : D : D : D
I’m sorry, Weed Monkey. I hope it works out.
ON fights in the lounge – I’m perfectly fine with spats or what have you that just go one or two exchanges. After all, everybody says things thoughtlessly once in awhile, or is grumpy, or it hits just that particular topic that is upsetting. It’s when it starts stretching out with lots of back and forth, and more especially when other people then start lining up on one side or the other that it ought to go to Thunderdome. A quick “here’s what I think you should do” followed by an exasperated “get bent” doesn’t seem to me to violate lounge behavior, especially if it’s then followed by a “Sorry, I didn’t mean to be a snot” and a “Thanks, I’m just a little touchy about that subject”.
Krasnaya Koshka and WMD KItty
I left you a reply at the Thunderdome
Caine
Well, I noticed how my nice and polite reply rendered me completely invisible, too.
But it’s a brilliant strategy: let’s just ignore all victims so they don’t get hurt by talking about things that might prevent sexual assault and we’ll never have to deal with the issue again.
ginger
The main thing about ginger is that it’s fucking awesome.
esteleth
Well, I’d say your chances are best for getting a pony.
Weed Monkey
Glad your mum is better
(((hugs)))
Something nice
Giliell’s Goose Stuffing
For a 10lbs bird:
4 apples (not too sweet ones)
2 Brezeln (or breakfast rolls)
garlic
onion
thyme
cumin
grated peel of 1 orange
freshly ground ginger
4 eggs
liver of the goose
salt
pepper
Chop everything, stuff bird.
Giliell,
Words to live by…
Louis
Giliell
And then… eat raw?
I don’t know how to cook a goose, although I’ve done duck and turkey several times each. Want to try it, though (but I have a cranberry-apple stuffing planned out, although this looks good!). How long and at what temperatures do you cook your goose until it is fully cooked?
+++
Also, yes. ginger all-out rocks, and has apparently some anti-nausea properties, according to woo. From personal experience, I can say it does wonders for colds (as tea with honey and/or cranberries) and general illness, as well as upset stomach (in the form of ginger ale).
Ginger is ok. Cannot touch gaaaaaaarrrrrlllliiiiic.
Garlic has a completely different niche from ginger in my house, so they’re fully compatible and go well together without infringing on each other’s territory. That being said, if I had to chose, I am Team Garlic.
Rq,
Goose tip:
Use a VERY deep roasting tin. Geese are very fatty birds.
Something my (now much older and wiser restaurateur) father discovered in his youth when cooking several geese for Christmas dinner and the fat spilled over and caught fire on the flame in the gas oven, setting quite a large fire in the restaurant kitchen. It was his first, and last, commercial Christmas goose effort.
I believe Norty Werdz were used at the time, and large amounts of damp kitchen cloths met their makers.
Louis
Louis
What a show for Christmas. Lumps of coal for everyone!
Also, I know all about fatty birds. The first duck nearly did us in, too, and that in an electric oven and all… (I thought I’d be ok with a shallow pan and no rack.) But if goose cooks similar to duck, then I believe I can cook the best possible goose ever cooked by me.
rq
Ehm, first I fried it, then I roasted it for 3.5 h at 80° and when I noticed that it was taking too much time I turned up the heat to 200°. The breast was a bit dry…
You can also drain off some of the fat during cooking, but don’t pour it away. The fat can be used to roast potatoes – totally delish.
Also, use a trivet. If you don’t have one, put some carrots, onions and celery chopped into large chunks and place the goose on that.
Giliell
Fried how?
The way I did duck was pour boiling water over it, then give it something like 20 minutes at 220, then about 3 hrs at 180. (I’m assuming you meant 180 when you wrote 80…) Would that work for a goose as well?
Matt Penfold
I’ve heard wonderful things about goose and duck fat, especially in combination with potatoes.
Goose can be treated like duck pretty much. Prepare in the same way, cook in the same way but keep in mind geese are bigger and will take a bit longer to cook. And like with duck, it is better to slightly undercook than overcook. Depending on size, cook for 3 – 3.5 hours. To prevent the breast meat drying out, cover with foil and only uncover for the last 30-40 mins.
rq
No, I meant 80°. I’m a big fan of slow cooking, but I should have started in the morning already.
I fried it on the oven in something like this and then put that in the oven.
+++
So Sam Harris must really like the taste of his foot in his mouth
Gun-nuttery sprinkled with his usual casual racism.
Decided to try to catch up on the feminism-experiment thread (1000+ comments? really?). Need this about ten times. (Warning: kitty cuteness!)
[off-topic/new topic]
Ooooooooooooooh deeeeeeeeeeearrrrr… I think we’re about to buy a house, and that makes me freakin’ terrified, because, you know, house. Mortgage. House. House! Mortgage. Bills. HOUSE!
We’ve been planning and hoping to find the best possible outcome for a while, and it suddenly appeared in the New Year, and now it’s like – *smash* decision time! And all of a sudden I have all these doubts about the house or our abilities to pay or whatever… Eeeeeeecccchhhhhhhh… Ehhh?
I’m a bit nervous and scared about the whole prospect. Because money and banks. But house! Ehhhh… What do I do?
Canadian geese are very useful birds, apart from the human-goose culinary aspect.
We have a bioinvasion of Spanish snails in Scandinavia (“killer snails” we call them because they are like locusts to the gardens) and Canadian geese are the only animals willing to eat the critters.
.
I wonder what DNA hybrids we could make, starting with Canadian geese? They are pretty aggressive. Pit bull geese for protection? Improved goats that eat absolutely everything, guard your house, and fly south for winter?
But then, who guards your house in winter?
Holy hell people are obsessed.
birgerjohansson
You get the killer Spanish snails, too? I say combine them with the geese and let them eat themselves…
Ginger and garlic. Reminds me one of the daughters used to make a tea which she claimed was good for a cold. A peeled clove of garlic, couple of slices of fresh ginger, + some other aromatic thing, all steeped in a pot of green (or white) tea. Drink after 5 or so minutes with apparent relish.
You may think it strange, but I never tried it myself.
Giliell
The extreme cold of canadian winters along with an influx of polar bears from the north makes home defense in the winter a non issue as no one wants to go outside to begin with.
d’aww, thanks for welcomes, Hekuni Cat and cicely. Dunno just *how* back I am with the comment threads being so huge here and so much to catch up on, but I’ll pop in and out. (I just couldn’t resist tangling with B over there at the expense of adulting in meatspace, heh heh heh)
I thought I had arrived the other day.
Nope!
@ElevatorGATE has started tweeting at me. And the tweets I’m getting have shifted from “lol ur stoopid” to “go suck [racial slur] cock, bitch.”
^_^
At this rate, I’ll be on to blatant death threats on Tuesday.
I made an important discovery today! Camped out next to the coffee stand was a group of nurses with clipboards, sphygmomanometers, and lancets. They informed me that in exchange for them telling me my height, weight, belly circumference, cholesterol (HDL, LDL, triglycerides), blood sugar, blood pressure, and heart rate, that they would give me $125.
I paused and asked what the catch was.
Apparently there wasn’t one. So I got a form with numbers on it, a band-aid for my be-lanceted fingertip, $125, and a flier for the fitness center. Go me?
Esteleth,
Cool.
The unexpected $125, not the threats that you can look forward to. Those suck.
I could have done without the ZOMG UR BMI IS 26 stuff, but hey. Given that every other data point was within the healthy range, they had to concede that maybe my slightly-high-BMI wasn’t much of a problem.
*grumble* I want to get my W-2! I want to file my taxes! I want to receive the $1800 refund that I know I’m getting! I want to spend that damn money! *shakes fist at HR*
Yes, that’s what it is. And about how I would look in tutu…
Isn’t BMI shit since it doesn’t take into account muscle mass vs. fat?
Rather.
Also, it is not designed to measure individuals, but populations. Critiquing an individual’s BMI is analagous to me walking up to you and saying, “Beatrice, the average American woman is 165.1 centimeters tall. Are you 165.1 centimeters tall? No? SHAME ON YOU. MAYBE YOU SHOULD HAVE PAINFUL SURGERY ON YOUR LEGS.”
The “ideal” BMI of a population is in the 18-25 range. The BMI of a population drifting out of that range is in fact a matter of concern. But it is a matter of concern in the same way that the life expectancy of a population dropping below 65 is a matter of concern.
That and AFAIK the factor of 2 in the denominator hasn’t been experimentally proven to be the right factor.
(Last I heard, which actually may be hearsay, it should be ~2.7)
ginger
is quite good for nausea/upset stomach IME. We tend to keep some dried, sweetened ginger around for that purpose. I have also had very good luck on that score with Aloe Vera juice. The taste leaves something to be desired, but it does seem to help settle our stomachs.
Esteleth
Boo for twitter trolls. I too want my W-2. I don’t think I’m getting as much back as you are, but I’m getting at least a few hundred, and I need that money, dammit.
I also am chronically annoyed by people who look at BMI alone as though it meant something. In combination with high body fat percentages, high BMI statistically correlates with higher rates of certain health problems, but the thing is that anyone who’s got a high enough body fat percentage to fall in that category will pretty much inevitably also have a high BMI, so really it BMI means pretty much shit on an individual level. It’s useful as a statistical tool on the population level (which, incidentally, is why it was created in the first place)
I’m late to the party, but I’m definitely on the ginger-is-great-wave.
For a cold, my recommendation is some good slices of ginger in a standard longdrink glass, half a lime (squeeze it till it hollers nuncle, then drop it in) a good wallop of honey and for either your first or your last of the day: A shot of the spirit of your choice (Barbados rhum for me please). Fill with hot water and let it infuse a bit before drinking. Chew some of the ginger if you don’t find it too spicy.
I guess that’s what happens when I get don’t refresh before I post.
Also, I like duck, but goose is a bit rich for me.
Now that you’ve mentioned it, I don’t even know how tall I am. Definitely under 165cm. (No! Not the stretching machine!!)
The reason I’m getting so much back is that my employer automatically withholds taxes from my paycheck. Why they withhold so much I do not know, but they do. So if I weren’t getting withholding, I would owe federal taxes to the tune of ~$1500 (probably somewhat less, because I have deductions I can claim). But because of the withholding, I have, paycheck by paycheck, paid over twice as much as I owe. Hence the refund.
BMI in an individual, taken in combination with belly circumference (which is in fact an indicator), muscle/fat ratio, and all that can be a somewhat useful diagnostic.
But seriously. In the past 10 years, my BMI has gone from nearly 30 (athlete), to 15 (cancer patient), to nearly 30 again (cancer survivor trying to learn entirely new eating habits and how to manage a completely changed metabolism) to 26 (cancer survivor getting the hang of these new eating habit and metabolism). The middle two states are in fact concerning. But simply saying “You don’t weigh enough!” and “You weigh too much!” would not have been exactly helpful.
nerd Ah ok I kept having the feeling I’d seen it before.
Ugh. Head colds suck. My sinuses feel as if an elephant has moved in.
++
I can’t believe the “why you hate feminism” thread is still going.
— —
cicely:
Condolences on your son’s divorce.
—
Alethea:
Same here. Caine’s “assclam in smegmarmalade sauce” was excellent, but I want “we are legion, motherfucker, and we won’t be silenced” on a T-shirt.
—
Dalillama:
Well, it’s a volunteer fire company in a small town. There are maybe 20 ambulance calls a week, and usually two-three fire calls a month (which can be a motor vehicle accident, fire, tree/wires down, traffic control, manpower for an ambulance call, etc. Less than 10 actual fires per year.
Unfortunately, that leaves a lot of free time for “pranks” by whoever’s assigned at the station (1st-due rig driver) and/or whatever buddies of his stop by to hang out.
—
Weed Monkey:
Glad your mom is okay!
—
mildlymagnificent:
Oh. Well…good? I feel better now that we have approval. *snort*
—
rq:
The problem is that officer positions are filled by voting. There are two kinds of voters — social members (townspeople who pay for annual coverage) who choose from a list of nominees, top three vote-getters for each position (if there are three) go on the ballot for the active members (the people who actually fight the fires and whatnot). To get on the SM ballot, you have to be nominated by someone who isn’t related to you and who’s been an active member for more than 3 years.
My brother can’t nominate her and, although she’s told lots of people she wants to stand for officer spots, the ones who could won’t because “what if you get pregnant?” I think there’s also fear of the ribbing/mocking they’d get from the others if they did, plus the rumor mill would instantly accuse her of having an affair with whoever nominates her.
It would be a lot easier in a paid fire district because promotions are merit-based, instead she’s got to deal with small-town insularity and politics.
+++
Eep! A house!
—
birgerjohansson:
My younger son has a phobia about geese, which is understandable, having been bitten in a most delicate area by one when he was 9. It’s wrong of me, I know, but I still laugh remembering my strapping big guy in his corrections uniform trying to herd his grandmother and I to safety because there were geese in the parking lot of Cracker Barrel. (I don’t laugh around him, of course, because I feel the same way about large dogs I don’t know.)
—
Esteleth:
And yet they tell us women are just over-sensitive harpies who are making it all up….
+++
Hey, it’s $125 dollars! Ignore the BMI* and enjoy the cash!
*Useless number that doesn’t mean diddly and doesn’t take into account differing body types or muscle mass. (Or, as I read further, what everyone else said.)
To WMDKitty and everyone else I bleated at last night, I apologize. My rant was inappropriate, uncalled for and damn rude. I’m sorry.
Socio-gen
Well, there goes that idea right out the window (really? voting in firemen?). I suppose it makes some sort of sense if you’re trying to fill a leadership role and want to be sure most of the people behind you really will be behind you, but seriously, such a system is so easy to fuck up…
And yes, eep… It’s like… Well, what if it’s the wrong house? But as it happens, things are moving forward nicely. Rather quickly, and in a sense suddenly, which I will keep repeating because I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed rather suddenly, but we’re arranging our finances in a beneficial fashion so hopefully the first two months won’t leave us feeling broke and unable to make payments. I’m terribly nervous about the whole thing. In a good way, I think.
And may I offer a cup of ginger tea with fresh cranberries and honey?
Beatrice
Officially I’m 160cm, but I’ve been told I’m actually shorter than that, so it’s the rack for me, too. We can be rack-buddies!
Nerd
If you can pirouette like those hippos, you can wear a tutu anytime you like!
Socio-gen
DOUBLE EEP – I suppose technically they’re voting in firemen but I was thinking firefighters all along!! Sorry!
Socio-Gen
You mentioned finding her locker filled with shaving cream when she went to respond to a call. I don’t care when they put it there, the fact that they were fucking around and trying to work with a reduced crew (telling her to stay behind and clean up) is enough that they should be bounced from the crew for good. I realize that the pool of trained volunteers is small enough that that’s probably not an option, but fuck, this is people’s lives we’re talking about.
Socio-gen:
And still no reply that doesn’t amount to:
1: A non-reply to the OP
2: I hate feminism because of [strawman]/[(a distortion of) a specific subset]
3: I hate feminism because of [insufficient research]
4: [libertarian arsehattery]
(Or did I miss some replies?)
rq:
You can be a firefighter without being voted in (as long as you’ve completed training) but you can’t hold leadership positions. As with all small town things, “it ain’t what you know, it’s who you know.” And, yes, it makes it really easy to keep some people out or keep certain people in.
Mmm…that tea sounds delicious!
++
*checks the converter again*
I’m 157.5cm, so I guess it’s the rack for me as well.
Still painful as hell (or so I hear) but probably more effective:
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/002965.htm
Slashdot: Why Girls Do Better At School I bet you can’t guess what’s going on in the comments…
First comment, sexist, modded up to “Insightful”. Here’s a snip:
Later in fact-check free world:
And they answer their own rhetorical fact-free question with “Why yes! Of course that’s it! You paragon of verisimilitude! How I long to have you inside me!”
I’m 167cm but I’m shrinking as I age.
Socio-gen
That’s what I meant re: firefighters. Sorry for the unclarity.
Gnumann+
Even taking all that into account, it’s surprising it’s still so alive, and not tapering off. I guess none of the new commenters bother reading the old ones, because from what I could gather, it was all the same arguments ad nauseum.
Well, chigau, when you cross the 165.1cm threshold, let us know and we’ll open up a slot on the rack for you, to keep you in shape. Because prevention.
The MRAs are not exactly famous for doing their homework. Kinda works as a selection process I guess.I was cured when I was forced to do some for one (if we accept anecdotes).
*shudder*
Gnumann+
I’d prefer a peer-reviewed scientific journal article, but with a sample size of 1, I don’t expect anyone will be willing to publish, so I’ll take it. ;)
It’s remarkable what some actual reading on a subject can do to the mind.
Dalillama:
Oh, agreed!! And yeah, the pool of volunteers is so ridiculously small (and that’s true everywhere). There are 30 active firefighters in their department, and at any given time, only half of that is available to respond when the tones drop. So, they know they can get away with just about anything.
And, of course, it’s cultural. Very, very few people inside or outside the fire company see anything wrong with what they did (and do). “It’s a joke, it didn’t hurt anything, gotta toughen up if you’re going to act like a man, oughta be grateful they even let you in, blah blah blah.”
—
Gnumann:
I think you covered it pretty well. Straw-feminism is quite popular.
I see the latest candidate is totally against feminism because VICTIM STATEMENT=CONVICTION and WIFE!
*shudder* Thanks, Beatrice. Personally, given my proportions, I’d prefer a slightly longer torso – just under the ribcage would be nice. Someone forgot to leave a bigger space between my lower ribs and my hipbones, so squashed hourglass it is (wearing pants with a high-ish waist makes me sag all over the front). Maybe you can take it out of my shoulder breadth somehow…
throwaway:
Color me surprised…not.
—
rq:
No worries! I didn’t refresh so I hadn’t seen your correction.
Socio-gen,
I despise pranks. It looks to me that most are either harmful or humiliating.
—-
rq,
That was Gnumann’s link, I just quoted it for shudders.
rq
House! Hooray! Hugs for the scariness. I totally get that. I have almost $200K in student loans but the idea of a car or house loan somehow scares me more. Which is weird, because one of those three is not dischargeable in bankruptcy, and the other two are…
Socio-gen
That’s a rather ridiculously stringent protection against nepotism. If there’s voting, the nominations should be taken from whoever. Weird and insular, indeed. My department allows voting on officers only by those who are active members of the FD. I shudder to think the politics that would play out if the whole damn town were more involved in the politics that they already are.
`-`-`-`
Re: toughen up and act like a man. Yes. I have gotten that response to the mildest complaint to a family member about nasty sexual comments made in my presence. It’s another case of “women must adjust and change because boys will be boys!” It’s sickening to me that no one considers that maybe the MEN should perchance reflect on themselves or suppress their nasty thoughts and keep that shit to themselves.
`-`-`-`-`-`
Your story about your son’s fear of geese gave me a smile as well, after a sympathetic shudder at the source of the fear! I was chased by but not caught by emus and one particularly nasty rooster as a kid, and aggressive birds still make me a little leery.
Dalillama
Seriously.
Caine@666
I lost the thread of who this was referencing, but in the same vein you have to read baal’s comment over at Ed’s place. Just wildly over the top fearful.
Ah, back to the rack then I guess.
Sawing off the spinal column might have some bad side-effects…
FUCKETY FUCK FUCK. Rape by impersonation isn’t rape if victim isn’t married
Oh, if only she’d had an owner! *puke*
dontpanic:
Broken link :(
Did you mean this one
Socio-gen
…I’ll be over here in the corner weeping.
And legal bullshit like that is exactly the reason rapists rape. Because they can. They know they can.
Gnumann+, yes. Sorry for the borked link.
Seriously, as I followed up, how does that person ever leave the house? The comments in Ed’s thread weren’t actually that vicious. A bit more strenuous that usual, but milder than most anything here. And “baal” honestly thinks that those people if placed in a room with him (I’ll guess on pronoun) and given knives would actually cut him? The only way I can wrap my head around that comment is by treating it as a massive case of projection.
Socio-gen. Yeah, saw that elsewhere last night. Rage-quit the RSS reader. Even now just thinking about it raises my heart rate to the point I can physically sense it.
*headscratch*
From Cracked:
http://www.cracked.com/article_20136_5-medical-breakthroughs-that-make-life-shockingly-easy_p2.html
but the research is here:
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00213-012-2657-5
Beatrice:
Agreed. Pranks are harmful to the person being pranked.
—
Portia:
Well, it came about because, in the old days, there were many more volunteers and one family kept nominating their members for all the positions and thus dominated the leadership. After five years of this working to elect the chief with diagnosed dementia, the bylaws were changed.
Unfortunately, with fewer volunteers and in a small town, it now means certain people aren’t able to nominate anyone.
++
And they know they can get away with it because of shit like this:
House Republicans kill bill targeting rapists
—
dontpanic:
I know what you mean. My blood pressure does some not-good things after reading stuff like this.
Giliell:
Yes, I think Mr. Nice Guy only noticed a wealth of “fucks” aimed in his direction and ran off screaming. I do believe he has issues.
Socio-gen:
You know, I think I do too.
Re: SAFER Act. How can they deny they are a party of rape apologists and enablers? I want to scream.
Socio-gen
…
What to say? I’m glad I’m owned? EW. I just…
…
Portia
Exactly – why can’t people think about the boys and maybe teach them to be sensitive to the feelings of others? Oh right, they’re boys and will never have feelings of their own, so mean pranks and all other kinds of name-calling and bullshit is acceptable. And if you’re a woman among men, well then, learn to act like the animals they are!
Sheesh.
Oh student loans. I’m so glad I never had one of those (even though I studied in Canada – but I was just lucky because I was lucky) and that Husband has paid off his (compared to elsewhere in the world, tuition fees in this country are extraordinarily low). But I think the difference is that house = something the bank can take away or foreclose or whatever they call it, and you invest everything into it (by ‘everything’ I mean you live in it and probably don’t have a spare apartment elsewhere, for just in cases). So it’s a huge psychological difference in that sense. Also, aren’t home-owners supposed to be responsible in all kinds of ways? I certainly don’t feel like it… Oh hey, same with parents, and oh, look…
Gnumann+
After further research over dinner (that is, none), I have also concluded that only the rack will do for me. Oh well! Just another victim of the average status quo…
I just found out goodwill pays people with disabilities pennies per hour. Super sad face. Damn damn double damn. And it’s totally legal, apparently.
That was one expenditure I had never felt bad about, unlike most others in my life that come witih some guilt.
Socio-gen:
Okay, that whole interpretation of the opinion is suspect. You can read the whole thing, but I’ll cite the valid section.
tl;dr: The prosecution and the court fucked up and the jury convicted under a set of circumstances that did not apply; as such, the requirement is that the case be retried under the correct circumstances, and even the appeals court thinks this will be successful.
(The second part of the opinion even states that the defendant’s second grounds for appeal were invalid. They’re only sending it back on the strict grounds of conviction for the wrong crime.)
I was just reading the ‘I think youtube culture really has gone pathological’ thread and had an epiphanal moment that I wanted to share, but thought it was too off-topic there, so here I am.
Folks were discussing radical feminism, and debating the usefulness, or not, of the terms ‘man’ and ‘woman’, and it occurred to me that I’ve never been comfortable when people have called me a ‘man’. When I was younger, I thought it was because I wasn’t old enough, and it just felt weird. But I’m 52 now, so that doesn’t work anymore, and hasn’t for a long time.
I know I’m showing both a lack of knowledge and thought about both myself and feminism when I admit that I’ve never really thought this through before. It’s the word ‘man’ that is, and always has been, the problem for me. Too many of the attributes associated with it are not anything like me at all, and I refuse to be associated with it. But in the past, I always figured it was the only option for me. The comments in the thread made me realize, duh, that I don’t need any other option than ‘human’.
I guess I’ve always known this without thinking about it, but now I’ve been thinking about how I view others. I have never accepted the word for myself, but I automatically put others in the boxes of man and woman, and I need to be more careful about that. People are who they are, and should not only be free to choose how to define themselves; they should be taught that they can.
I know this is level 101 stuff for many folks, but it was a great learning moment for me, thanks to you thoughtful people here.
Paul K
I found this profoundly beautiful. To the point of very misty eyes. Thank you!
Hey, it’s that guy!
Baal also characterized my suggestion that certain media personalities and/or their supporters (I think – it was a while ago and I don’t remember what the exact issue was) be “locked in a room full of flavored light sockets” as a “threat of violence” in the comments somewhere on JT’s blog.
This takes the cake, though:
I pointed out that it was a bit odd for him to call me violent based on snarky internet comments and his response is worth quoting in its entirety:
*facepalm*
Gnumann+ #757
*blushes*
Thank you for all the thought-provoking, and emotion-provoking, things you write.
Paul:
You have this a little bit wrong, Paul. We were talking about the social constructs of masculinity and femininity. This isn’t the same thing as the terms man and woman. The social constructs are complex and run very deep. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, I’m reading Manhood in America: A Cultural History right now. The particular way concepts of masculinity and femininity have been built and sculpted affect everything. They affect how children are raised, how relationships are defined, the workplace, our own notions of self-worth and so on. It’s misleading to distill this down to the words man and woman.
Your own discomfort with the word man doesn’t have anything to do with that particular word as a biological descriptor, it has to do with you being uncomfortable with the current construct of masculinity.
This. Though it’s also important not to fall into the trap of thinking in “gender-blind” terms and glossing over both others’ self-identification and the crap they have to deal with because of the people who DO put everyone in boxes.
Paul K
Thank you for that post.
Yeah, Caine, I knew I was oversimplifying in my description. Sorry about that! What you write is true, and I guess I was not clear: I did not mean to say that I was uncomfortable with the word as ‘a biological descriptor’, but, just as you say, ‘with the current construct of masculinity’.
Azkyroth
Someone has read all your posts from the last year? !!
Azkyroth;
Exactly. People should be able to choose how they define themselves, and that is how we should accept them.
Caine:
I’ve been meaning to ask you:
Is it a “buy” or a “lend”?
I haven’t read any Kimmel before – is there something else I should read first?
[stating the obvious]
man≠male≠masculine
woman≠female≠feminine
[/stating the obvious]
Caine, #760:
One positive thing I’ve seen in the twenty+ years I’ve worked in childcare is that kids are not as indoctrinated into ‘proper’ roles as much as they used to be. At least in my little part of reality (I know it’s just anecdotal) kids no longer care much about what boys and girls are ‘supposed’ to do. And they form friendships without ridicule. Things were not like that when I was a kid.
And if kids, or their parents, do try to push others into their idea of ‘proper’, I’m all over that.
Gnumann:
I bought my copy from B&N. It’s not available in e-format. Esteleth mentioned she found a copy at the university library. (It’s classed as a textbook, so I don’t know about availability in regular libraries.)
Don’t know. Cyranothe2nd recommended it on the *first* page of the ‘experiment feminism’ thread. I’m finding it fascinating reading, with no need for a prerequisite.
Thanks, everyone, for continuing to challenge me! I’m off to work with those kids now.
chigau (違う), 767:
[stating the obvious]
Obvious here, but apparently impossible for some to even wrap their heads around.
[stating the obvious]
Paul:
Not as much, no. However, that’s usually down to an insane level of work on the part of parents. Just ask Giliell or any of the other parents of young children here just how damn hard it is to keep toxic femininity and masculinity concepts out of their kid’s heads.
Azkyroth:
WTF was that crap that baal wrote?
I may need to read it again, because it just isn’t processing at the moment.
I can probably get it from the library at work if I want to, the question is more if it seems like a book I might want to have around for reference…
I just had a thought, arising out of this comment, especially the point
What if – and this in no way makes up for the wage gap, but would be its own kind of wonderful – if the difference between the woman’s pay and the man’s pay is made up to her (that is, paid our to her, including corrections for such things as inflation) at said retirement party? And, childless and free, she can enjoy her retirement without worrying about her pension?
I now realize I’m forgetting all about child-ful women (including myself), so this is definitely a flaw in my plan. Maybe the salaries of child-ful women can be equalized to those of men for the reason of having kids – having that work to do being an important part of raising properly educated adults functional in society (would be nice to be paid for it). Or something.
Now I’m being unfair to stay-at-home fathers. So, I propose, that their salaries are also lowered then re-raised to the original equal level, first – to dock them for raising children, and second – to pay them for said raising of kids.
***None of this post should be taken particularly seriously. Mostly just all kinds of random thinking going on, and nerves, because house.
Err, how should I take this? :/
It’s kinda like this only a lot more condescending and finger-waggy.
Azkyroth
I’m not sure. In the case of baal, probably not a particularly good thing…
Gnumann:
If you’re going to go by me, reference. My highlighter has been getting a work out.
Azkyroth
Someone has read all your posts from the last year
[and kept careful tally of your attitudes and tone (probably on a spread-sheet (with graphs))]? !!
Thanks Caine. I will take that advice.
Ah.
[rant to follow; ignore if you wish]
Also, I’m nearing the end of the feminism thread (yet again) and I have realized that famous B sounds a lot like the Husband… We recently had a conversation about women’s choices and lack thereof, especially women in science (the focus of our conversation). I pointed out that all co-ed groups of scientists I’d seen promoted from this country were 2:2 (so equal in number) but with both women working the administrative half of the projects and both men working the research/technical aspect. Almost exclusively (physics, chemistry definitely). He said Well, maybe women realize they’re better at the administrative stuff. Maybe they chose to be there. I answered, What about society’s pressure? When you’ve been told from childhood that women don’t do math, that women don’t think creatively, that women do well in inter-personal aspects (like administrative tasks), how much of a choice do you think you have?
It might all sound terrible, because he always brings up how men also face discrimination, but it’s a tough haul ahead. I make sure not to belittle his male discrimination (he insists he’d love to stay at home with all the kids, if only my job paid me more), while trying to convince him of the idea that women do have it worse (“Oh, but you can’t equate the situation of women in Muslim countries with the situation of women here! That’s not the same thing!”) in general, and that feminism will also solve a lot of men’s issues, too.
Meh. He seems to be convinceable, since he does no reading and relies on me to do any and all research (which is another thing with this country – what’s with the stigma of men enjoying reading and doing a lot of reading???), so… All I have to oppose is his uninformed opinion. Easy, right?
[/rant]
Sorry. I’m awfully ranty tonight. Please ignore, if desired.
So…
My wife is better. Exhausted but better. Still banned from work until Monday, but I guess that’s good? I’m used to having the house to myself and my whole schedule is out of whack. I hardly know when to nap now! Seriously though, when my wife is home I do nothing and I guess she thinks I never do anything… I like to do stuff when no one is watching, mostly because I sort of change tasks every 30-45 minutes and I think it probably looks funny from the outside and it makes me self-conscious.
Weed Monkey: Hope your mom is OK.
I’ve come to grips with my mother’s mortality, since she’s been guilt tripping me with “I’m not going to be around forever” since forever. At some point I realized that she was probably younger than I am now when she started, and she was just an evil abusive person to be threatening her children with imminent orphanhood.
NO FIGHTING IN THE LOUNGE, DAMMIT!
…My dog’s name is Ginger. She doesn’t help at all with sickness, but she does try to crawl on top of/inside you when you’re sick.
cooking goose/duck: I made a duck for Thanksgiving, it is now officially my favorite kind of bird. If goose comes out like a bigger duck, I’m sold!
rq: Good luck buying a house! Make sure you have as many bathrooms as you can possibly afford. One of the keys to my happy marriage is having a bathroom of my very own. :) Speaking of which… somewhere in the garage, in one of the few remaining unpacked boxes, is my bottle of Bvlgari Aqva Pour Homme. At $80 a bottle, “poor homey” is right!
Esteleth: You’re REALLY famous now! And YAY cash!
…not touching BMI with a 10′ pole. Or anti-feminists either. Going to have a beer instead. I got a $50 GameStop gift card for Xmas and I figured I would go down there and buy a strategy guide. Instead, I got ALL the strategy guides. They were like 60-70% off. Woo! Now I can start to not suck hind teat.
chigau:
It would be hilarious if there were such a graph.
For some reason, I think it would be entertaining to see.
Joe:
Make sure you stay away from those violent video games. You know how much influence they have on our minds…
/brought to you by Snark, Inc.
Oh, ferchrissake. Dan Sarewitz has done it again–written something so stupid that you just can’t believe he really believes this shit.
Sarewitz puts his unique spin on the Rethuglican war on science: Now he wants affirmative action for Republican Scientists.
http://www.nature.com/news/science-must-be-seen-to-bridge-the-political-divide-1.12119
Seriously, you can’t make this shit up!
rq:
It sounds like you are making headway with your husband bit by bit. That’s a good thing. Completely overhauling your awareness of the world isn’t likely to happen overnight. It takes a chip in the armor here, a crack in the rose colored glasses there, a rip in the walls of privilege over yonder, and buckets of empathy.
IJoe:
For the oldsters who remember a certain TET conversation…See!
a_ray #786
Dan Sarewitz also seems to be confusing cause and effect.
Maybe the Scientists became Democrats to save their own lives.
and I’d like to see a few citations for this:
a_ray:
Science is partisan? Sarewitz says so. It must be true! So we can have Republican science. Libertarian science. Democratic science. Green party science. Jeez, what happens when there is conflict?
Caine… do I even want to know?
IJoe:
It was a discussion on names. I have a particular dislike of ‘Ginger’ as a name (for people), as it’s not a name, it’s a descriptor and about 3/4s of all dogs are named ‘Ginger’. This is how it goes:
My legal name is Virginia Alice. I was supposed to be Joseph Robert and apparently my mother wasn’t up to the Herculean task of considering the idea that I might not be male. So…
Great grandmother is Alice Ann.
Grandmother is Virginia Mae.
Mother is Alice Ann.
I am Virginia Alice.
My grandmother already had ‘Ginny’, and my mother already had ‘Ali’, so I got stuck with ‘Ginger’. As you might imagine, I don’t care for it much.
OK
GinCaine, I’ll keep that in mind. :)MY Ginger was almost “Gingie” named after someone we know, but we thought that would be wrong.
I’m glad I wasn’t born ten years later.
My name could have been Rainbow Moonbeam.
Somebody scold Moxie
}:)
Too bad it was before the mighty Tim gave us the gospel on that word
Tony
I certainly hope there’s progress. Otherwise, it’s not worth the effort. :)
…thinking about Baal’s stuff, I think the most fucked up part of it is that he seems to think that justice SHOULD have a price, that people who stand up for what’s right SHOULD suffer for it. What the fuck is that all about?
Improbable Joe:
Glad the BossNurse is feeling better.
—
chigau:
Tell me about it. I was born in 1969. My mother wanted to name me “January Joy.” (This was while she was still in her hippie phase.) My father wanted a feminized version of his names –“Harriet Leonora.” Then they came up with Guinevere Yvonne. (My dad was a huge fan of Yvonne Craig, who played Batgirl.)
Thankfully, the Guinevere ended up Anglicized into a fairly-popular name, though Yvonne stuck as my second name.
Improbable Joe
As for the bathrooms, it’s currently one and one in-progress, so end result: 2. That being said, after some (mildly) extensive work, it’ll be 9 rooms plus a basement. This is the Five-Year Plan, at any rate, and as long as paying the bank leaves enough to actually do some work in that time.
It’s just scary, because house. First one.
I was supposed to be Joseph Robert and apparently my mother wasn’t up to the Herculean task of considering the idea that I might not be male.
No Josephine Roberta?
I had the opposite problem when pregnant: we had several possible girl names but no boy names that we liked. Critter cooperated by having two X chromosomes so never had to come up with a good boy’s name. (Still have a spare girl’s name.)
Dianne:
Nope. This was a serious “oh fuck, didn’t consider that” moment. My father wanted to name me Mildred, after his mother, which led to the brilliant “No! we have to name her after my mother” which resulted in the mess I got.
Note: I would have been fine with Mildred. I would have simply shortened it to Dred.
I used to not be a fan of Mildred as a name but I’d love that idea.
Of course, I’d want to hit anyone that would call me “Mildy”. Ugh. Or Mild.
YEAH, BABY!
(I’m assuming that “this country” is the good ol’ USA.)
Is this an actual thing?
I’m a dude living in Califor-nye-A and I don’t recommend staying in my house during an earthquake – falling books could kill ya.
It has always seemed to me that voluntary illiteracy was a gender-neutral phenomenon.
moarscienceplz:
I don’t know about that. I think the concept of masculinity in the U.S. is firmly on the ‘men don’t read’ side of things. There’s a sense that to do much reading about a wide range of subjects (rather than necessary reading for some reason) is academic, therefor getting into effeminate territory.
I’m a native Southern Californian, but I’ve been living in ND for 20 years now. You certainly see the ‘men don’t read! (not books, anyway)’ construct here. Friends, acquaintances and co-workers are always giving my husband the hairy eyeball when he starts talking about a book he’s recently read. They just can’t figure out why he’d do that voluntarily. So, they assume it’s me. I must nag him into doing that, eh? They happily consider him pussy-whipped* on that score, which he doesn’t much care about, thankfully.
*Yep, I know – a whole discussion in and of itself.
This has fucking well been a recurring theme in the bullying I’ve experienced.
Chigau,
The last time Sarewitz spewed stupid all over the Internet, he was prophesying the downfall of science due to creeping “systematic error”. The man is a walking cautionary tale of what happens when you send stupid to college!
chigau
I went to school with a Moksha Rainbowlight
Caine 806
That’s been my experience as well. My fondness for books got me pigeonholed into ‘nerd and therefore not a real dood’ pretty early on. Since I’ve never been very fond of d00d culture, that sat pretty well with me. (ok, except for the elements of those toxic masculinities that carry over into geeky subcultures). This isn’t meant as a ‘poor me’ or anything, just adding my anecdata.
Azkyroth:
I wish I could say that’s surprising. I really do. I’ll also add that I saw plenty of this bias when I was living in SoCal. It’s very widespread and I think those men who do read a lot tend to have had the benefit of being raised in a household where reading for pleasure was considered to be the norm.
@805
Nope, not the USofA. Europe. Men don’t read here. Women are expected to. It’s a quiet activity. Men are for tractor driving.
But I’ve just discovered that men don’t read globally, so yay for that! :P And yet women get complimented off-hand for being well-read and self-educating…
Caine,
I have a colleague who married a jock turned bidness major. Nice guy, but there are a lot of things he doesn’t get–like why my friend, who is an introvert needs to be alone when she is working on some code. I suggested a book.
My friend said, “Last time I gave him a book to read, he only made ti through 2 pages before his finger got tired.”
And yes, they are still married.
I’ve lived in Los Angeles County all my life, and anti-intellectualism as a whole is definitely a part of perceived masculinity for at least a portion of the population. This includes reading. I see it less nowadays than when I was a kid, but it’s still there.
Hmmmm… I’m asking this here because I don’t want an argument, so if this is by necessity going to cause an argument just pretend I’m not here…
Masculinity/femininity, maleness/femaleness, manhood/womanhood. Which parts are real, which are “inborn” and which are cultural, which parts are pure nonsense, and how does one reconcile their answers with the existence and experience of trans men and trans women?
Caine,
Wow, just wow.
Even my extremely right-wing BIL was happily showing off the two Bill O’Reilly books he got for Yule/Saturnalia (Ok, HE’d call it Christmas.)
As an addendum to my 809, I’ve spent my life in the Pacific NW of the U.S, so it’s not just California.
Perhaps someone should design a stick-throwing machine? >.>
Richard:
This ^ right here. Being anti-intellectual as part of being seen as a man started very early in this country. It was part and parcel of the ‘Heroic Artisan’ construct, which, when that died, got sucked into the ‘self-made man’ construct. Anti-intellectualism is a major component of masculinity.
Hee hee! AND HIS LIPS!
I guess living in Silicon Valley really is different from the rest of the state.
Today is Chris Clarke’s birthday.
moarscienceplz:
To an extent, because you have a concentration of professionals who need to read to stay current in their fields. You’re in a little knot of ‘higher eds’. However, I’m willing to bet that even in Silicon Valley, you’re surrounded by “men don’t read!” types. You’re simply not noticing or they are outside of your circle.
Anti-intellectualism and masculinity:
Some people say a man is made outta mud
A poor man’s made outta muscle and blood
Muscle and blood and skin and bones
A mind that’s a-weak and a back that’s strong
Yup. deep roots.
Note: I would have been fine with Mildred. I would have simply shortened it to Dred.
As in the Dred Pirate Caine, Fleur du Mal? It could work.
Well, then Maryann it is!
LOL @ Josh!
Caine
Well, I hang out a lot in my local Barnes & Noble, which is in a mid-to-lower middle class neighborhood, and I’d say the sex ratio there is pretty close to 50/50. A lot of them are Asian families, so maybe that’s part of the explanation, but a lot of them are hispanic, too.
IJoe:
Don’t want much, do you? ;) It’s important to understand that masculinity and femininity are constructs. Constructed concepts which are adopted by a culture and end up society wide. These constructs do differ from culture to culture, which conveniently shows that they are, indeed, constructs.
When you stop trying to stuff people into these constructs, people tend to do things they simply enjoy, go into careers which interest them, etc. There are concrete examples of how difficult these constructs still make such actions, such as women going into the field of engineering. It’s an incredibly hostile climate for women, because men in the engineering field consider it to be one of the last bastions of what the workplace is supposed to be – masculine, a place where homosocial bonding and competition can take place.
When it comes to transgendered people, the traditional constructs of femininity and masculinity are used to justify transphobia.
Dianne:
Aye, why not?
moarscienceplz:
So do I. I’d say the split I see at the B&N in Bismarck is more around 70/30, women to men. Of course, if you wish to count the men hanging in front of the endless magazine racks…
or Marianne.
No, no Mary/Mari anything. Remember, I was in private Catholic school during the ’60s. I was *surrounded* by Marys.
“homosocial”
I’ve needed this word for a long time.
Thanks, Caine.
All the nuns were Sister Mary _____. No. Massive statue of Mary to the side of the church altar. Scapulars with Mary on. “Say 10 Hail Marys for confession”. No Mary.
Chigau:
You’re welcome. I got it from Manhood in America.
That doesn’t seem to be such a big draw here. Our “hangers” are generally teens either using the free Wi-Fi (for homework, the clerks tell me) or they’re reading manga.
moarscienceplz:
That would be a regional difference. Magazines seem to be an exception to the ‘men don’t read!’ rule.
generally re:
and similar…
I dare hope that MLP carries on long enough, just another couple of years, that in 2040 my old-ass self starts seeing freshly minted young PhDs with names like Rainbow Sparkle and Moonbeam Joy. (And that some, but definitely not all, of them will be women.) ;>
Even the having-of-words for “woman” and “man” is cultural. Not to say that biological differences don’t exist — but we don’t have words for all the biological differences that exist (relating to sex or anything else).
Caine:
I want it all AND without arguing. I guess my question is that if masculine/feminine are merely constructs, and often harmful constructs at that, then I still don’t get where transgendered people fit in. Are you saying that they are drawn so strongly to a construct… and that road doesn’t make sense because then gay and bisexual transgendered people sort of ruins that idea.
What I guess I’m asking is whether or not there’s any such thing as inherent maleness/femaleness, or at least spectrums of those things, that exist apart from social constructs of masculinity/femininity and such?
Regarding anti-reading.
In the late 1790s, when I was in middle school in western Maryland, one of my classmates got kicked out of his house, when he was in 6th grade, because he brought a book home. About 6 weeks later he was allowed to return home. Luckily, there were about 30 families, just in that town, that were relatives.
I got branded a nerd/homosexual when I got to that school because I was reading. I think I was reading Dune.
Apparently, at least for some people.
IJoe, I’m still learning when it comes to transgender peoples, so I don’t think I’m the best person to address those specific questions. I’ll just sit here with you and wait until someone more knowledgeable in this area shows up.
Ogvorbis:
:shuts gaping mouth:
Woah. That’s unbearably harsh. And wrong. So very fucking wrong.
And Boy just found this . Yes, a buntacle.
Yes, Boy is odd.
Right now, he is listening to Korean pop music.
Weird shit.
Ogvorbis:
I have Octobunny!
Improbable Joe:
Yes: one’s physiology (for the vast bulk of people).
(We are mammals!)
Cute yet scary octobunneh ^.^
Well, his granddaddy made it all the way through life, as a successful farmer, and he never read anything. Not even the bible. He listened to it, but never read it. His dad had two books in the house — TV Guide and the bible. And he never read either one (his wife would read the TV Guide to him and the preacher read the bible to him). And he was a very good, very successful ex-stock car driver turned mechanic. Dad was real mad that his son was trying to show him up (read that as making dad look stupid) by bringing home a book.
Ogvorbis:
Ah, the Heroic Artisan vein of masculinity, then. Yep, it was (and is) virulently anti-intellectual.
These are tricky waters if you don’t want a potential mild shouting-match. Before I write this I would like to underscore that I write this to be as neutral as possible. This includes including some views I don’t agree with, and that a lot of other people here don’t agree with. I hope I succeed.
The relatively safe place to start: Sex versus gender.
A person’s sex is their biological sexual characteristics. Usually either male or female, but there are persons with mixed sexual characteristics (they usually don’t conform to the old hemaphrodite myth though).
A persons gender is their sexual identity. This may or may not correspond to their biological sex. Gender is a social construct. Western cultures traditionally have either male or female as options, but there are other cultures with other genders.
The extent to which sex determines gender is contested. Also, the extent to which sex determines behaviour is (hotly) contested. Hard science on this is extremly difficult to get right. This being the lounge I suggest we don’t expand on this.
And I’ll have to take Caines approach on fitting in transgendered people. Especially in a lounge-friendly text.
If you decide you want a more in-depth explanation with the whys and wherefores more explained, I don’t think we should do it in the lounge. And you’d better prepare for at least a mild, good-natured ruckus.
Just signed Wife up for a paper Wireless catalog. And found this. Bacon blanket!
If the above was true, this would not follow:
trans people’s sexual orientation would not mean gender is not a construct; no more than cis people’s sexual orientation would.
I’m a gay cis man. Why do I call myself a man? In my case, because decades ago I was told I was a boy; it’s an identity I’ve learned. Now, if I had grown up in a world where laypeople did not use sex or gender terminology, I think I’d probably nevertheless be sexually interested in one unnamed biological group and not another.
Yeah… maybe I’m asking too much from the Lounge. I guess my point is that I have a hard time reconciling the idea of “social construct” with the stated experience of transgendered people. Since I accept the stated experience of transgendered people (not to mention my own experience), that sort of makes the “social construct” parts a little more complex.
Yeah, I’m a little confused as to what IJoe is getting at. I’m bisexual and I’m more comfortable with gender fluidity, however, I was raised a girl, so there ya go. Is it worth noting that I fought seriously feminine things, such as dresses, fiercely? That I was a ‘tomboy’ growing up? A ‘tomboy’ with hair down to her knees?
See, I don’t find much use in the constructs, I think they do a great deal of harm.
re: men reading
The reason it came to mind is because I like to buy a science magazine that is (ostensibly) marketed for mid-30s educated men. It’s got great articles in it and fantastic photos (ok, I buy it for the photos! NOT.). And I commented to the Husband that it’s strange how on the questions/comments page, out of about 15 comments, only 2 came from men, in a magazine (ostensibly) for men. And he said that’s because men don’t read. Which was a shock to me, because growing up in Canada, all my brothers were/are avid readers and I knew quite a few boy-readers, who were not looked down on, and even had a great deal of respect (even some who went on to become English majors and the like – yes, anecdote =/= evidence). So I thought about it, and while it seems to be socially ok for men here to read men’s magazines (of the FHM or Playboy or do-it-yourself-building type), I really can’t picture too many of them reading anything else – no novels, no science-y magazines, nothing just for the sake of reading. Most books that get translated are aimed at women (Twilight, 50 Shades).
It might have something to do with the state of literature and how it is historically perceived in the country (literature = High Art, where, if your point isn’t obscure or difficult to understand, it’s not art) and also the fact that it isn’t easily accessible because it’s not something you do for fun, it’s something you do because you must. Reading is supposed to be a very intellectual activity.**
I’ve tried to read the Latvian classics, and frankly, they’re… slow, boring, too flowery, and way too deeply nature-philosophical. I can’t name any new authors, because the ones that make it to some sort of popularity are government-funded or backed by the Ministry of Culture beause they’re Deep and High Art. I prefer my fiction in English, and my fact, too, because a lot of ‘fact’ books here are actually deep into the woo pile. Also, books translated into Latvian don’t always work well. (50 Shades of Grey, Harry Potter and the Twilight series seem to be exceptions. That being said, the translated literature field seems to be expanding lately, but they still pick every mainstream, accepted books, and anything off the beaten track is difficult to access.)
**While men are allowed to be intellectual, it should be a minority, because the worth of a man lies in his mechanical/technical skills and his ability to drink and fight. A stereotype receding somewhat, but slowly – it’s still not commonplace for men to read for fun. At the same time, women (who are supposed to be well-read) aren’t prime intellectual material, because women. You know how we are.
I get that… I’m composing something but it’s going to take a while. 853 was what I could say off the top of my head.
Improbable Joe, are you familiar with The Genderbread Person?
Ogvorbis, Caine
Yeah, the virulent anti-intellectual vein of Heroic Artisan Masculinity. You seem to have summed up my ideas much better.
Must be the beer.
Perhaps there’s a natural predisposition (of varying intensity) to identify with and imitate one biological sex’s specific behaviors and traits vs. the other, but what is being imitated is culturally constructed?
Imma wait on SG.
Well, yeah. It’s Dune! Sandworms – how much more Freudian can you get? (J/K!)
Never mind, I’m going to walk away from this one…
Anyone got an onion ring recipe?
Anyway. I’ll wait for SGBM’s post, here or elsewhere, because I’m curious about the whole gender thing, too. I’ve always wanted to pin all of it down to social construct, but… But.
I’ll have a clearer mind in the morning.
*hugs*, a stack of beer, and best wishes for all those who need ’em! Good night!
IJoe, as I understand it – and, for the record, I am cis and comfortable describing myself as a woman – there are three facets:
(1) Sex. This is what is in your pants and DNA. Terms: man, woman.
(2) Gender identity. This is what is in your head. This is a psychological state related to who you feel that you are inside. Terms: female, male.
(3) Gender role. This comes from society. This is the societal messages that are subsequently internalized that dictate what is and is not the conduct associated with a given set of statuses from facets (1) and (2). Terms: masculine, feminine.
The majority of the population has a line that connects their sex to their gender identity. They can be said to be “cisgendered.”
A transgendered person (this is my understanding, I freely accept correction) is a person who has a conflict between facets (1) and (2) of their identity.
Radical feminism seeks to undo the third facet by smashing together the masculine and feminine roles and make all of the relevant roles freely available to all people, regardless of who they are.
TERF (trans-excluding radical feminism) is a subset of radical feminism that does not distinguish between facets (2) and (3), referring to both with the single term, “gender” (occasionally derisively spelled “jendah”). TERFs believe that with gender roles abolished, gender identity will follow and society will be left with a single class, “people.” There is a significant thread of sex-essentialism (i.e. a man IS x, a woman IS y) running through TERFism.
TFRF (trans-friendly radical feminism) is the contrary subset of radical feminism that does distinguish between gender identity and gender roles. TFRFs believe that with gender roles abolished, gender identity will remain in some form, but will probably look somewhat different (the “baggage” of gender roles having been stripped away), and that society will be left with two classes, “male people” and “female people,” but that the differences between the two classes will be recognized as being substantially less than the differences inside the classes. TFRFism tends to be dismissive of sex essentialism.
Both TERFs and TFRFs believe that in the revolutionized society, that sex differences will continue, and will still be important, but will be less important than new distinctions (for example, a triad of parent-of-dependent-child, parent-of-independent-child, nonparent roles).
Whups, I didn’t see that SGBM was drafting something. :)
I look forward to reading what he has to say.
*too good a straight line*
Take a onion bell, and pull on the clapper.
*no, I won’t quit my day job*
Yeah, me too. I guess why this issue is such a surprise to me might come down to my age. I’m 53, and there were a ton of books aimed at boys when I was one. Tom Swift, Jr., The Hardy Boys, ‘Brains’ Benton (a boy nerd scientist/detective).
Don’t get me wrong, I grew up in a very small town and there were PLENTY of Jocks, and also sons of farmers and ranchers who thought that books were simply a handy source for making spitballs, but I never got the feeling that books were “girly stuff”. But maybe things are different nowadays.
Nerd…
Nah, it wasn’t that bad. Needs a little polishing up, but for an off-hand bit of snarkery it was a fair attempt. :)
IJoe:
No, don’t do that and please, I’m begging, don’t start the recipe stuff again. You asked important questions and people are more than willing to answer and discuss.
Esteleth @865, you left out (4) erotic attraction, but otherwise I think you’ve laid it out informatively.
—
As an aside, were it not for Pharyngula, I’d not have given these matters much thought, but I’ve refined my understanding over the years here.
(Because I like to argue, but I also like to be right)
So we are all anticipating strange gods’ upcoming thoughts on the matter.
****
Related to this subject, if the socially created gender roles are eliminated, would cisgender necessarily disappear too? If _cis_ refers to one’s biological sex matching their gender identity and gender identities are social constructions, then eliminating those constructions would eliminate the need for terms like _cis_ or _trans_…right?
(I am still trying to understand all of this too, so if the boat isn’t too full, I will join Caine and Joe)
Tony,
… and the pressure in ON!
I was not discussing the sexual orientation axis, but yes. There is a fourth facet.
I also blurred the fact that there are people of all of the facets, who fit into neither set: the intersexed are intermediary along facet (1), for example.
Tony, I addressed that in my @865, if you like. :)
Caine
I’ve got an onion and a gallon of oil and BossNurse is expecting me to do something with them in the next 90 minutes or so. An onion ring recipe would be pretty useful right now. The conversation will likely survive without me, and likely will do better without my input.
Haha! All this is just a response to just one sentence from Joe. But I guess I’ll put it out there and start reading what others have said:
+++++
So,
I think there are some trans people for whom we can say this is not accurate. The easiest data to point to is when trans identity coincides with what can be understood as an intersex condition in which the brain is more like most men’s brains or most women’s brains. This can result in a person being told “you are a [boy/man or girl/woman]” but thinking to themself, and maybe eventually expressing to others, “but I feel like a [girl/woman or boy/man].”
How does this result? AFAICT, this is not yet known to science. I once saw a commenter claim, without any supporting evidence, that the brain actually “keeps track” of being male or female. I think this simple notion is absurd, because there is no biological need for the brain to keep track of such, thus no reason to think such a module would have evolved (I’m not being overly adaptationist here; there’s no proposed spandrel either). I suspect the truth will be much more complex and intriguing.
But it doesn’t need to mean they’re being drawn to “masculinity” or “femininity.” A transman may prefer things which are socially gendered as feminine, or may have no particular preference either way; a transwoman may prefer things which are socially gendered as masculine, or may have no particular preference either way.
Note this doesn’t mean all trans people have intersex brains; I doubt they do. This is just one condition which has been studied a little bit and so is relatively easy to speak about.
In my view, masculine/feminine are mostly harmful constructs, but male/female is a biological thing. And like most biological concepts, male/female is a bit messy round the edges. I’d be fairly happy to go with the penis/vagina as the basic distinguishing factor, as long as that were understood to be an approximation and to include people who feel that they ought to have that kind of genitalia even if they physically have the other. (That understanding usually isn’t the case, so normally one needs to make more effort to specifically include trans people.)
I don’t find Joe’s question so hard to get: if we go full-on social constructivist, then why would anyone want to change sex? It’s not like it matters: girls should be free to climb trees and boys to play with dolls without having to have hormones and surgery! Isn’t changing sex just reinforcing the gender binary, and thus deeply anti-feminist?
This is partly where the transphobia of the old-school radfems comes from – coupled with the fact that most 70s/80s transwomen were heavily into performing femininity to patriarchal standards. (Not all, and not all by choice, of course.)
The problem here is the conflating of social femininity with physical femaleness (& masculinity/maleness) – gender & sex. And perhaps undervaluing the importance of the physical to people’s sense of bodily well-being. But it makes sense as a question, if you’re not used to picking these apart.
PS
No, because of (2) in Esteleth’s above.
EEEEEEWWWWWWWWW!
IJoe:
epicurious.com – there are half a fucking ton of recipe sites. There’s an excellent chance I might learn something here, so pardon my desire to do that rather than have to scroll past 150 food posts.
Do what you will.
Oohh, this sounds like a shut the fuck up and listen moment. I’ll be here sipping grog and making the Redhead’s dinner.
Alethea, related to the pronounced gender performance by transwomen is the fact that the powers that be – the ones whose signatures are required for access to hormones, surgery, and new ID documents – demanded (and still demand) it.
Stories of authorities refusing to sign off on a transwoman’s transition because she appeared at an appointment wearing pants are typical of this mentality – she wasn’t wearing a skirt, so therefore she wasn’t really a woman, because women wear skirts. Similar language surrounds makeup, hair styling, and other aspect of performative gender. Stories of transwomen being required to strip naked, and only getting her new ID when some random straight man scrutinizing her body feels a tingle in his loins are not as common as they once were, but they still exist. A transwoman not only had to be properly feminine, she had to be straight (i.e. male attracted), she had to have and want a “female” job, etc.
Given that background, transwomen performing an over-the-top femininity seems a bit more understandable.
Hmm, I think Alethea is closest to my current (as I’m still thinking these things over) thoughts. I don’t have a problem with gender identity or how one is most comfortable with ones body. I do have problems with gender roles which I think are mostly harmful. Related, I don’t think there’s right/wrong good/bad way to express ones gender.
Joe:
Recipe will be on Thunderdome momentarily.
I, too, am learning.
Caine,
That was exactly the sort of furious, pissed-off response I was hoping to avoid.
Esteleth:
Fuck. Well, that answers for a lot. Thanks, Esteleth.
Some brain cells express sex-steroid receptors; that’s all that’s required to “keep track”.
Your claim is that there is no advantage in matching gonadal sex to anything about the brain?
John:
You like to be right?
Pshaw! Like anyone will buy that :)
****
Joe:
I think Caine is correct. This is an important and interesting topic. It is entirely possible we can kindly discuss this in the Lounge. It’s not like the rules say we cannot discuss heavy subject matter.
Huh…I just realized that this area is the only one at Pharyngula where one should be mindful of tone.
****
Btw, I got a new/second job today. The resort I am currently at isn’t busy in the winter, so I am making no money (last paycheck for two weeks was $287). A family owned (both types of family) tex mex style restaurant called Cactus Flower is opening at the end of January on the Boardwalk on Pensacola Beach. The other location in town does very well and has lots of good word of mouth. They have 6 other stores which have been around long enough that they have staying power. Though this is winter, Pensacola Beach has a lot of people living on and around it, many of which are anticipating this restaurant opening. We have several seafood places, but not much else for variety. The owners are going to let me run the bar, make my own schedule, and pay me $8/hour on top of the money I will make in tips. I dearly hope this will be the beginning of a financial turn around for me. I have debtors calling and some stuff in collections. I cannot tell any of them when I can make a payment when I am struggling to pay rent. So…fingers crossed.
To try and expand a bit on Esteleth and John Morales: To eliminate gender roles does not mean to eliminate gender identities. It certainly makes them less important (generally thought of as a good thing in feminist circles), but not disappear. People will still notice that some people have bits poking out where others don’t, and that’s still going to be something you form some kind of identity from. Maybe not more important than blue eyes versus brown is today, but there will be something there in som form. The elimination if gender roles mean that there won’t be a pressure towards certain behaviours (for example walking in shoes that damage your back and makes you incapable of running from a threat) based on those bits.
There will also probably still be people who feel that their bits doesn’t match their own sense of self(ie trans people). Though, hopefully, without rigidly defined gender roles that won’t be a hardship like it is all too often today (see for example Esteleths example).
Regarding this (paraphrase):
(1) Sex. Terms: man, woman.(2) Gender identity. Terms: female, male.
(3) Gender role. Terms: masculine, feminine.
Problem is most people use those terms interchangeably (and mostly not incorrectly according to ordinary language) and have only an inchoate concept of these three conceptual axes; they become confused when entering a discussion where they’re used to refer to those aspects specifically.
(Fine conceptual granularity leads to jargon)
Yay! for the job, Tony. Tentacles crossed for you.
@883 Esteleth
Perfect examples of what I mean by there shouldn’t be a proper way to express ones gender.
Sorry folks. I started to have what felt like the start of a panic attack at the thought of getting into a knock-down argument. I didn’t mean to suggest that no one else could or should discuss the topic, just that I’m personally… well, “afraid of getting yelled at” is pretty much the size of it.
Let’s talk about the finger and the moon.
The existence of mammary glands is an inherent biological fact.
The use of the word “femaleness” to refer to this, or to other biological facts, is contingent, not inherent. We do not necessarily need to conceptualize categories of “femaleness” or “maleness” at all.
Chas,
You’ve not grokked me, but after I posted, I did think I could have been clearer. Let me try that now.
What I meant to express was: I’ve seen it said that the brain keeps track of the information “this brain is female” or “this brain is male”, at a level that is either conscious or is available to be called upon by consciousness, and this is why a person has a gender identity.
I’ll leave it at this: I thought you knew me better. At least console me by saying you were surprised.
Caine:
Thank you!
****
John:
Much appreciated on the terminology. I have read about gender identity, but I still cannot completely grasp what it means. Hell, I cannot even articulate my confusion right. Perhaps if there were concrete examples of gender identity and gender roles, I could understand better. What does it mean to be male? What qualities does ‘masculine’ embody? Where and how do male and masculine differ?
Not only that, Morales, but because the majority of the population doesn’t feel a conflict along their sex/gender identity/gender role triad, they dont fully grasp that these are different things.
ॐ,
I raise you one Sapir-Whorf to your finger-moon: Where the norm is sexual dimorphism, it can be convenient to refer to the properties characteristic of each form with a single noun, and the moment it ceases to be a circumlocution and becomes a term such as “femaleness”, it becomes a de-facto category in normal language, and in turn affects the conceptual space of people thinking in that language.
I seem to remember previous posters (Cerberus?) suggesting strongly that an innate sense of a male or female body being appropriate was founded in proprioception, in the brain’s mental map of what the body consisted of and where things were. Anyone have any more information on that?
*continues reading*
Given that infants have been recorded displaying distress when they find that they have or do not have a penis (and newly verbal children expressing that this presence/absence is wrong, even if they cannot fully articulate why), I’d give that theory some credence, Azkyroth.
Tony,
There are informative links here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transitioned#Transgender.2C_transsexual.2C_and_intersex_communities
@Esteleth: indeed, I am aware of that myself. Thanks for filling it out, though. Much was elided in that little “not all by choice” line.
John: I would not disagree, but that is not inherent; it remains contingent upon the existence of incentives which make the terminology convenient enough (and the relative lack of counter-incentives against such terminology — counter-incentives which could be constructed if sufficiently desired).
Hell, isn’t that what we’re doing right now?
But if that’s true, that’s “keeping track of body parts” not “keeping track of ‘being male’ or ‘being female'”.
SG:
Yes, that’s what the brain does. It has a map of where all the bits are supposed to be, whether they are there or not.
Ah, no, that is “my brain says that I am female, which means I should not have a penis, but I do” response.
A baby boy playing with his penis because it is there, or because he’s discovered that it feels nice when he rubs it, is quite different from a different child attempting to tear off their penis, because it does not belong.
I do not entirely like this. I rather prefer the simpler one
(1) Sex. Terms: man, woman. (adj. female, male.)
(2) Gender role. Terms: masculine, feminine.
Sex and gender identity can be the same thing as far as I’m concerned. I am not going to say that a transwoman is not a woman because her external biology is male. I don’t even think it’s right using “biological sex”, because your brain is part of your biology. (Much as the Vulcans among us may prefer otherwise.)
It would then be nice, while I’m being utopian to adopt at least one more sex category. Other, NA, mu, or maybe neither/both. Anything to increase the flexibility.
It would explain why certain anatomy feels appropriate, even if it’s not what’s actually there. It wouldn’t so much affect gender identity, though, except in socially mediated ways.
Does not follow.
I do not dispute that it is possible for the brain to expect to have certain body parts which are not there, and not expect to have body parts which are.
This is not identical to the brain keeping track of ‘being male’ or ‘being female’, which proprioception does not require.
Of course. I’m not sure what I said which gave you the impression I’d disagree with this.
Tony:
The specific contents are negotiable and culture-specific.
Identity deals with the individual’s sense of self (in this case based on a trait- the individuals experienced gender).
Roles deals with society’s expectations (always based on one or more traits, in this case the indivduals perceived gender.
So the difference between the male and the masculine I would say is the difference between internal experience and external expectations.
Example (partly charicature): I identify as male. As I am cis I’m usually also perceived as male. So there is no conflict of category between indentity and role based on gender. However, society expects that since I’m male I should like football and porno and books about war. I’m not too partial towards any of them, and they don’t figure strongly in my concept of maleness/masculinity.
This conflict can be resolved in a number of ways. I can try to renegotiate the masculine role to not include a fondness for those things(usually very difficult, but possible), I can fake it(leads to internal conflict), I can try to adopt another role (in this case, since there is a dualism – be perceived as feminine – leads yet again to internal conflict) or I can try to eliminate or minimise the importance of the role (in this case: adopt the radfem agenda).
That negotiation is a possibility is the reason both for local variance and variance over time. For instance before approximately 1940, the colour red and shades of it were seen in Europe as a royal and masculine colour, It was almost unthinkable to dress a girl in a shade of that colour – which includes pink. Little girls were usually dressed in baby blue.
Somewhere around WWII this flipped, and the result can be seen in sickly magenta and little girls bedrooms everywhere.
ॐ,
Well, yes. But there they are, in all their historical glory and with all its associated baggage (e.g. literature). :|
(It’s a done deal, one has to deal)
—
But I note making new terms or changing old ones (e.g. transgender, gay) is quite possible, if the last century is anything to go by.
There’s no unassailable fortress. :)
This, I agree with.
Erm. Sorry, SGBM, I think we were talking past each other.
A person’s psychological state, their comprehension of their gender identity, produces a map of “this is what my body should look like.” This includes a proprioception map. If one’s body fails to match, this produces a dissonance, and a dysphoria.
I wonder if there’s a point in drawing a distinction between “gender presentation” and “gender roles.” And a way to do so consistently. It would make a lot of sense of my own feelings, actually.
Bah! Too late it seems, maybe I ought to sleep now.
should read:
Somewhere around WWII this flipped, and the result can be seen in sickly magenta in toy stores and little girls bedrooms everywhere.
I believe that color thing came up in the ev-psych podcast. But yes, until about sixty years ago blue was a “female” color.
Tony (and others in the gender discussion since I’m dipping my oar in)
To expand on What Esteleth and others have been saying::
Sex
Has multiple possible meanings, but the most relevant one for this discussion is genitalia/gonads. Most people will develop one of penis+testes or vagina+uterus+ovaries. The latter is usually accompanied by breasts after puberty, and the former is usually not. Most people who have a penis have XY chromosomes. Most people who have a vagina have XX chromosomes. None of these things are absolutes, however. Generally speaking, people with penises are called boys/men, and people with vaginas are called girls/women.
gender identity
May be related to proprioception/body awareness in some fashion; usually the same as sex, above. In cases where it is not, this commonly manifests as a desire for some or all of the physical charateristics associated with another sex.
Examples would include a transman who looks in the mirror and thinks ‘ There should be a beard there. And what the hell are those things sticking out of my chest?’ (This is a paraphrase from conversations I’ve had with my husband, who is a trans man). A trans woman might have the opposite thoughts, for instance.
Gender Roles
Social constructs which attach certain social behaviors and characteristics to a particular sex. All culture that I’m aware of have created at least two such roles, one for men and one for women. Some cultures have others as well, into which they pigeonhole trans* and queer people. Examples from our culture would include “Men fix cars, love sports, and don’t talk about their feelings’ and ‘Women are homemakers, concerned with cleaning, cooking, and fashion.’ Just because a trans man wants to have a male body (see sex, above), that doesn’t mean he knows or cares about cars, or that he wants to play football, or whatever. Just because a cis man likes cooking and fashion doesn’t mean he’s really a transwoman, etc. However, these roles are strongly embedded enough in our culture that deviating from them will tend to get you socially (and sometimes physically) slapped down, much to the detriment of all the people who don’t conform for whatever reason.
sexual orientation
Generally relates to a mixture of sex and gender identity. There is sometimes some confusion engendered by deliberate performances of gender role, but AFAICT its mostly about gender identity. That is to say that straight men are usually attracted to both cis and trans women (although there’s a big problem due to cultural tropes that tend to cause them to lash out violently if they discover this fact), but not attracted to trans men. The confusion can occur with cases like drag queens, who are usually male in both sex and gender identity, but deliberately perform an exaggerated version of femininity. Straight men are often attracted to drag queens until they discover that the person wearing the dress is really a man (And I know the tropes about trans women being ‘really a man’; I’m not going into that right now, though, because I have a time limit.
Azkyroth
I seem to remember previous posters (Cerberus?) suggesting strongly that an innate sense of a male or female body being appropriate was founded in proprioception, in the brain’s mental map of what the body consisted of and where things were. Anyone have any more information on that?
Fascinating. I wonder if this could also account for a number of Furries reporting that they can feel their tail/ears/wings/other non-human appendages?
Gender identity is the one I always have trouble wrapping my head around, because to a degree that depends weakly on the exact description, it is usually described in terms that have very little resonance with my actual experiences, in a way that’s often hard to talk about. >.>
Dalillama:
This also highlights just how much of ‘femininity’ is in the trappings, rather than the person. So much of what people find themselves attracted to [in another person] has to do with the constructs of femininity and masculinity, rather than the person under all those trappings.
[meta]
Dalillama, I think you’re opening but not closing your tags.
*lightbulb*
Is that possibly related to how people who are comfortably partnered feel safe not performing some aspect of gender?
Trying again:
Offering support for a human “mating dance” that ends once the selection is complete?
Okay, this is what I think is probably wrong, because it’s unevidenced and functionally unnecessary for gender identity to develop before proprioception:
To expand on my #911 and #914:
Proprioception is a very low-level function of the brain. It’s reasonable to expect all vertebrates have it, indeed hard to imagine how they’d function without it.
There’s no reason to expect it to rely on high-level abstractions corresponding to language or proto-linguistic categorizations. Probably we should expect it not to rely on such, since it’s so low-level.
So, nobody should doubt that a tomcat experiences proprioception telling him where his penis is. This also suggests the possibility that another cat with a different brain experiences proprioception telling them that their penis is wrong, misplaced, or something like that. But in no case is there reason to suppose that this corresponds to the cat keeping track of the information “I am male” or “I am female”.
And there’s no reason to suppose that the human brain, unlike all other animal brains, has need to keep track of such information. Nor is there any proposal of why this module would have developed.
Attempting to expand on what Azkyroth said at #910:
If proprioception comes first, because it’s so low-level, then this would account for later development of gender identity. A small child knows that their body feels wrong, and then upon seeing a different body or hearing it described, they find that their mental model of that other body feels more right. I.e. they basically know what body parts their brain expects to have, and when they later learn [people of that sex] have [those body parts] they then understand “I am a [person of that sex]” or “I am supposed to be a [person of that sex]”.
personally I think so *cough* and I think it’s because proprioception is to some degree flexible; humans learn to extend their mental maps to include familiar manipulatable tools, like pencils, scalpels, hockey sticks, and cars. It makes sense that imagination and nonphysical components of identity could extend it also – imagination alone has been proven to function a lot like actual practice of physical tasks. No idea how much *measurable* change in proprioceptive mapping happens with furries, or whether any of it’s inborn (I’d guess not but who knows).
Esteleth:
I can’t speak to others, but yes, that’s applicable to me.
Well (just thinking aloud here, there’s certainly one sanction less if you don’t conform to role. And negotiations with a concrete (and hopefully loving) partner is a lot easier than negotiations with an unknown future partner.
When you get the role of partner, the role of gender becomes less important. And while role expectations for society at large is still there – you got an ally if you manage to negotiate away the aspect of gender with your partner. It might even become important for you not to perform to the larger socitial role is you share a deviance from that role with your partner.
This is more or less what I’m thinking. Initially it could be sort of a “WEIRD GROWTH”/”WHERE IS MY” response, the same as with, say, an amputation or a tumor, and later it develops a deeper meaning through cultural channels?
Hmm. Maybe.
(If only newborns could talk!)
I am not sure, but possibly.
Not for the same reason. It’s pretty obvious why humans would have brains expecting their genitalia to be of the other sex — because human embryos develop into sexed bodies.
Human embryos do not develop into anthropomorphic foxes, and so there won’t be an innate expectation of such. If a person thinks every day about what it would be like to have a tail, then perhaps they might train a portion of their brain to account for this automatically. But it would be learned, not innate.
*By all accounts, this is an extremely small subset of the furry population.
Going out on a really thin branched of far-fetched speculation from a position of ignorance:
Humans evolved from creatures with tails. Could there be some sort of individual atavism?
Gnumann,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tail#Human_tails
(not just cultural)
But no such thing as vestigial wings. ;)
Esteleth:
I don’t understand what you mean by ‘perform some aspect of gender’
Tony @937, going to a girls’ party.
(That’s for girls!)
I’ve wondered about that. Smacks of evo psych but eh. Anyone for a Kickstarter for proprioception testing of furries? <_<
I'm also curious just how far imagination alone can take proprioception mapping. No way does furryness compare to gender dysphoria – but I've also read about claiming a strap-on as a cyborg penis to ease some lower-intensity need for the shape of one. (and experimented with similar… *coughs more*)
Tony:
Does all the cooking. Does all the housework. Does the budget/bills. Does all the social hosting and other social obligations. Etc.
And as long as I’m embarrassing myself off-topic here, I’ll add that my critter-shape ‘map’ includes talons, which human lineage hasn’t had for longer than tails. *shrug*
I know, but I wasn’t thinking of this. More of the other end (ie the brain), sort of a “brain memory” of a tail. (If I come of like a babbeling idiot here, it’s because I got no idea at all what I’m really talking about at all, just a vague flight of fancy).
“Could”, but, note Pteryxx’s point about learned proprioception of hockey sticks, and if WMDKitty is characterizing them right, then we’re not just talking about reported tails, but also stuff like wings, and pointy ears on top of the head. “Learned by imagination” seems to account for all, without anything far-fetched, and so is favored by Ockham’s razor.
(If this comment seems late, it is, I was looking for a word I never found.)
The stereotype of married women adopting shorter, lower-maintenance hairstyles might be a good concrete example?
Not fully fulfilling the societally-prescribed role of gender. For example, a woman not wearing makeup or doing her hair.
The couple who wear sweatpants and don’t shave around each other.
Oh!
Ok.
Now I see that my parents blurred the lines between genders when raising me and my sister. I was taught how to cook, clean, handle the bills and other traditionally feminine (right word?) Duties. At the same time, I had little to no interest in sports and never developed a comptetitive streak (though not for lack of effort on the part of my dad).
Tony
Hooraaaay for new job!!!
`-`-`-`-
Regarding terminology. I thought that man/woman was a term for describing gender identity. Otherwise “transwoman/transman” wouldn’t really make a lot of sense, would it? Similarly, I thought that male/female was the term describing XX or XY (for most people who have one or the other gene combo).
Couples may also perform societally-contraindicated gender roles for each other… such as trying on bras or pantyhose, vs. practicing shaving one’s face. (I was going to say ‘the other gender role’ but I know some lesbian and gay couples mess with gender expression play also.)
Azkyroth:
I did not know that was a stereotype. Interesting.
****
Thanks, all, for the concrete examples.
pteryxx
You, too?
SGBM
I have no doubt that the brain is quite capable of creating such an illusion. The brain is a complex and amazing thing!
Buuuuut… I’ve had a lifetime of wondering just where the hell my tail and ears are — I can feel them, but they’re not there! I’ve come to accept that I have a human body, and I do enjoy the perks that come with (thumbs! language! brainpower!), but it still bothers me to no end that my tail is missing and my ears are inefficiently glued to the side of my head. And I still have to concentrate on acting within the commonly accepted parameters of human behavior, such as not growling at people.
ॐ,
Psychosomatic?
WMDKitty, that sounds like it could result from taking pretend-animal play very seriously as a child, no? Maybe you were very good at it.
Pteryxx, you are not embarrassing yourself.
John, no, it’s a word about when a hypothesis accounts for more of what it might be expected to account for than another hypothesis does.
I think it starts with “co”
Wow. This has become very interesting, and I don’t really have much to contribute, other than that i think sex and gender are kind of orthogonal, and important to understand as separate things. Sexuality and attraction are another axis. I have to read the thread again before I will have anything useful to say, because I am relatively unexposed to this in meatspace (not sure if that really makes a difference) though I have a trans* aquaintance, but he and I haven talked in years.
Actually, I don’t think I will have anything to say after I read again. I think this is a stfu and listen time. Thanks for the discussion. Please keep it going for uneducated folks like me.
I Joe: thanks for the question.
We were raised with animals, animal representations, and anthropomorphized animal characters though, right? Some of my critter traits go back to pre-language days, too, but how the heck could there be any innate mechanism accounting for such?
And while I’d jump at the chance to have animal-like body modifications if the biotech existed, I still don’t buy that any furries feel the level of intolerable dysphoria that having the wrong sex of body can cause. In my n=1 they’re roughly equal so I couldn’t say.
Tony:
Of course it is. Hair is a major marker of femininity. Long hair in particular. This is getting better, as there isn’t an automatic assumption of “dyke!” with short hair on a woman anymore, but there’s still a fair amount of that going around.
I don’t bother with make-up much at all, and haven’t done for decades. I can be so relaxed about that because I am partnered up.
sgbm: I gather that when most kids go through a dinosaur-fan phase, as I did, they imagine riding them or interacting with them or pretending to be one as a game, not literally living their lives as one. Most furries say they’ve experienced a very high degree of animal affinity from early childhood, or as long as they can remember. I don’t see a good way to parse out nature from culture in this, and it’s a huge topic… why do so many cultures have part-animal characters in the first place, for instance. But as best I can remember, I played as animals because that’s what felt right to do, and the focus and skill grew from that. I don’t feel particularly like a human, I never have, and from my POV it’s a very similar sensation to feeling of no particular gender.
I do hope *somebody* does some furry research one of these days.
That would make quite a bit of sense to me, particularly because it leaves things open for cultures which have third genders. Your sense of your body doesn’t match up with the physicality of it, therefore you know you’re a niizh manidoowag, or a hijra, or a waria, because this is how your culture describes your experience. I do wonder if I would have ended up identifying as a trans man if I hadn’t been aware of non-binary identities very early in life. But at a young age I knew that “neither/both” was an option.
To be slightly oblique: Pteryxx, do you think it’s true some people believe they’re abandoned aliens?
Seconding MikeG.
This is an area I’ve just started educating myself about, and there’s still much I don’t understand, but this discussion has made things much clearer and helped me connect some of the dots in my reading.
If you read the women’s magazines and what they say in order to “keep your man,” a lot of what they say is the importance of continuing to perform gender.
Because once he realizes that you’re a person, he’ll leave you, or something, I guess.
But, but, but, … isn’t a lot of this discussion about “roles” really about the rigidity and enforcement of rigidity in those roles and expectations.
I’ve had several friends report their difficulties with their children while spending some time in America. Enforcement of expectations seems much more something or other?? heavy-handed maybe, in the US compared to Australia. I’ve got a terrific photo of my younger daughter with her two bestest friends at her childcare centre. They’d had a free go at the dressing up box, so there were two 3 year old girls fantastically draped with flowers and scarves and slopping around in high heeled cast off shoes either side of a 3 year old boy with a beaming smile sporting the prized bride’s veil. We all thought they were cute. But a friend who received a call from her child’s American daycare centre heard a shocked voice asking if she knew that her 3 year old had turned up in a dress!!! Her slightly snarky response was simply to check that it was the pink one because he’d been told that the blue one was dirty and had to be washed.
Others have reported similar incidents – some of which are about a very un-Australian prudishness about little kids being naked. (Though I suppose the more recent stuff about paedophiles everywhere has changed this.) We don’t see it so often nowadays because of skin cancer protection, but it’s always been treated as perfectly acceptable for littlies to strip off and just get in the water at the beach or a pool. Americans seem(ed) to be a bit shocked by this.
Caerie:
I didn’t know it at a young enough age, as I was kept from my father and his family. By the time I was 10 and knew for certain* that I had very definite feelings towards other girls, I had found out about two spirits and wasn’t as nearly anxed out as I might have been over it.
*As in, “wow, I’ve had these feelings for 4 or 5 years now, guess they aren’t going away.”
Hey, it does happen : p
Or perhaps more conspitorically: Once you realise you don’t have to perform femininty, you stop buying women’s mags.
(The ones in my neck of the woods at least are fairly toxic)
Esteleth:
Right, because what attracted said man in the first place was how you used and worked the trappings of gender and if you relax that in favour of simply being who you are, you run the risk of losing them because you aren’t wrapping yourself in the same trappings anymore.
I seem to “try” unconsciously to turn my ears, and I feel like there’s a fundamental dissonance when they don’t move – they should move! Is that movement in our evolutionary history? Even if it is, at this point I think it’d be far too complicated to figure out causes. Maybe I’ve just spent too much time around dogs and cats…
:)
JM, I don’t trust your question. At best I’m pretty damn sure people can work themselves into believing just about anything. Or thinking they believe just about anything, if you’re trying something fancy with what “true” and “believe” mean here. But I’m uncomfortable enough talking about furry identity in a gender discussion, especially when gender conformity’s been enforced through brainwashing and nonconsensual medicine. I don’t want to even get started comparing someone who believes they’re an alien with someone who believes they’ve been cured of teh gay.
Gnumann:
Again, this seems to be rather dependent on one having a partner who is happy with the person you are, and not the trappings. People who aren’t partnered and wish to be and those people who think and feel the trappings are essential to maintaining a relationship will keep buying into that crap, no matter how toxic.
The same goes for someone who is brought up to believe in traditional gender roles and expectations. People can believe in that shit, hard. They’ll stick with it their whole lives. The “traditional femininity/masculinity” gurus always pop up and they always find followers. Remember my mentioning Marabel Morgan in the other thread? There’s an example. Another one is the more recent The Rules. Basically the same claptrap in a new cover. “Women, be womanly!”
Fuck, I just remembered a long ago conversation with my ex. He told me he’d like it if I were more feminine.
Caine:
I have no specific recollection of when I learned about two spirits and all the possibilities. I assume I must have just absorbed it through osmosis at some point. In my case, I’d settled pretty happily into being in relationships with women and then, lo and behold, the AFAB person I’d fallen in love with came out as trans and began his transition.
It’s been at turns amusing and hurtful how this one little change has altered how many so-called friends view me.
Well, there doubtless are men who would leave a woman the instant she stops “taking care of herself.”
Because they’re sexist asshats.
I broke a 2 year old heart, quite unwittingly, when I did the sensible parent thing and explained the reality that she would grow up to be just like all the people she knew – so, no, she wouldn’t be flying around like Astroboy when she got just a bit bigger. She, in turn, conveyed this distressing news to her younger sister when the time came.
But both of ours were very imaginative. It never occurred to me that they were putting themselves quite so powerfully into these tv fantasies – I thought it was very like the stories they made up to include themselves in the books we read or to get their toys to do stuff.
Speaking of sexism, I just got my fire department ID for the year. It says FIREFIGHTER on it. I am toying with the idea of posting a pic to facebook and tagging the male cousins in it who goaded me about calling me a fireman. Just for the lulz.
Caerie:
That has to be eye-opening, to say the very least.
So has species identity. (I’m not a furry, but I see no reason to draw a sharp line between “what makes a man” and “what makes a human.” I think the isms are closely linked.)
***
? (Granted, I haven’t read this yet.)
SC
Well, there are muscles that move the ears around, although not very much, so I wouldn’t rule it out.
Caine
I was raised in a household where there was very little pressure to conform to gender expectations, and no homophobic BS that I can recall, so when I started having feelings for other guys too, I pretty much took it in stride. Similarly, my lack of ‘masculine’ behaviorism was never a problem at home, although my sister and I used to joke about how much more ‘manly ‘than me she was’ I realize that a lot of people have very different circumstances, though.
Caerie
I’ve seen that happen, and indeed gotten a limited amount of it myself, although not as much I suspect because a) everyone knew I was bi already, and b) L was already out as trans when we started dating.
SC:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-Spirit
I’ve wondered about a potential partner leaving me in the future if I ever decide to not work out as much as I do. I currently enjoy it for the health benefits and-I cannot lie-I like getting compliments (I think this is tied into my insecurity about my appearance; it’s an affirmation that I am a nice looking guy when I get compliments since I still wrestle with thinking I am unattractive; hell, part of the reason I stripped years ago was bc I mistakenly thought if enough people expressed attraction to me, that would mean I wasn’t ugly….needless to say, it didn’t work in the slightest). It seems a moot point for the foreseeable future, but I have thought of it.
Sorry for stepping away, I have discovered another “funny gif with captions” tumblr.
Tony:
Tom & Lorenzo talked about that once – saying they went through a muscle-y man phase, and yeah, the six pack looked great and all, but it was *serious hard work*, so they dropped it and decided to be happily a bit on the paunchy side. :D
Hmmm, another thought related to gender–
There are activities that are considered masculine or feminine. Are there any that aren’t gendered? Or that cross both genders (is that asking the same thing)?
I’m learning so much here! I know I could go and do research on much of this elsewhere, but the back-and-forth between caring and careful people is so much more rewarding.
Caine, way back at 771:
I’m 52, but I have an eleven-year-old son. It’s helped that I’m also partnered up with someone where neither of us care to fit standard roles. There have been many times when our kid has forgotten the sex of one of his friends when telling us about some incident. Calling a girl he or or a boy she. Kids he’s known since pre-school. If we correct him, he doesn’t really care. He’ll just say ‘whatever.’
So I just gave my best friend’s daughter The Magic of Reality.*
They already read the section on where the first humans came from (yes, it’s sexist). Her immediate responses: First, “So there aren’t any grown-ups.” She gets the great chain of life. That’s an insightful six year old. Second, she’s distressed because she doesn’t have a picture of “her fish” – her fish ancestor. Unbearably cute. Now we need a children’s version of Shubin’s book….
*Shut up. :) I don’t think I said I wasn’t buying anything by Dawkins, and even if I did… it’s a book.
Tony:
Eating?
Nope, that’s all too often gendered too.
Thanks!
Shitting?
SG:
Bingo! I think you got the one for sure non-gendered activity.
Hmmmm…
Walking gets gendered.
Hell, even sleeping gets gendered. I apparently sleep and snore like a man.
Breathing, maybe?
Cooking and eating are ridiculously gendered.
JAL:
Yes, it does. Pretty much everything does.
Music!!
I realise some people will think some instruments are inappropriate for some children, but by and large music skills and performance are equally valued. Which may be ‘not at all’ in some groups.
angering
I don’t know. I’ve heard comments of surprise, maybe ‘joking’ but expressed just the same, when a woman left an unpleasant smell in the bathroom. Ladies, even your shit better smell like flowers!
On second thought, I think the Charmin Ultra Strong toilet paper was advertised as being specifically for the male cartoon bear.
Rev. BDC:
Um…what? Could you clarify? Expand? Something?
One of the greatest Miles (Well, Wayne Shorter) songs + George Benson
*the adult male cartoon bear.