Jun 07
From the NYT: Can the word “gay” still be used as an insult? Not according to an appellate court in Albany, which last week issued a ruling that in its judicial effect stripped the word “gay” of any derogatory connotation. It is now no longer considered slanderous in the State of New York to falsely …
Jun 05
From the Atlantic: Though it’s hardly shocking or novel that men are overrepresented in media and punditry, it’s horrifying how true that is even for issues that primarily concern women, as this graph shows (larger version here). On abortion, eight out of every 10 commentators are male. It’s only slightly better for birth control. 4th …
Jun 05
From the Washington Post: DC Comics announced on Friday that Green Lantern, a superhero staple for decades, is gay. (And all of this time, my money was on Wonder Woman or Aquaman.) When bigotry falls, it often falls fast — gay marriage, Barack Obama as the first gay president and now popular superheroes like Green …
May 31
Kiana Hayeri grew up in Tehran, where the country’s morality police restricted her public behavior. She left in 2005 when she was 17 and moved to Toronto, where she studied photography at Ryerson University. Ms. Hayeri returned to Iran in 2010 to explore the dual lives of many young women who are expected to behave …
May 24
As it has grown increasingly difficult to find a steady full-time job with benefits, more men are reaching for a chance at the American dream in female-dominated occupations. Read the full story here. Wearing brick-red scrubs and chatting in Spanish, Miguel Alquicira settled a tiny girl into an adult-size dental chair and soothed her through …
May 24
From the NYT Magazine comes this feature on midwives. Ina May Gaskin, the original home-birth evangelist, is finally winning converts in the mainstream. Gaskin, a longtime critic of American maternity care, is perhaps the most prominent figure in the crusade to expand access to, and to legalize, midwife-assisted homebirth. Although she practices without a medical …
May 21
Kathryn wanted pants. And short hair. Then trucks and swords. Her parents, Jean and Stephen, were fine with their toddler’s embrace of all things boy. They’ve both been school teachers and coaches in Maryland and are pretty immune to the quirky stuff that kids do. Kathryn didn’t even want to be around other little girls, …
May 18
Yankee Candle Company has decided to follow the fragrance industry’s formula for marketing to men: Change the packaging color and name of your product, say it’s Manly and boom! — dude customers galore. At least that seems to be what they hope will happen with their new line of “Man Candles” (yes that is the …
May 14
How the ‘war on women’ quashed feminist stereotypes When Phyllis Schlafly is forced to concede that not all feminists are ugly, it’s clear that something has gone awry on the right. Sure enough, in April, Schlafly, a conservative crusader who has been peddling stereotypes of women’s activists as physically and socially unappealing for decades, thought …
May 09
This is probably not the news most fathers want to hear. Testosterone, that most male of hormones, takes a dive after a man becomes a parent. And the more he gets involved in caring for his children — changing diapers, jiggling the boy or girl on his knee, reading “Goodnight Moon” for the umpteenth time …