IS THIS WHAT YOU WANT?

MERRY CHRISTMAS YOU FUCKERS

There’s a new petition making the rounds; one I signed quickly, although it left me profoundly discouraged. The editorial board of New Moon Girls , a magazine for young girls, is asking Target to stop color coding its toy aisles.  

NO.
FUCK YOU.

But what struck me as much as the grouping by color was the extremely rigid way the toy manufacturers had color coded the toys and their packages.  I hunted with very little success for red trucks, for dolls dressed in yellow or green outfits, for little cooking sets with bright colors rather than pastel pots and pans. Even in the one row near the store entrance that had several boxes of dolls on the same shelf with boxes of various toy machines–snow mobiles, rocket ships and airplanes—the stereotypical two colors proclaimed:  “GIRL!”  “BOY!”

My new 3DS is blue because I'm a fucking man
fuck you.
I only play MANLY fucking games, too.
Like gay Final Fantasy rhythm games.
FUCK YOU MANLY.

Interestingly, the aisles with books and games were far less color coded, at least at the Target store I visited. Book covers and game boxes did not, with the glaring exception of some very pink games, display the same degree of color coding found in the toy aisles. It appears more acceptable for girls and boys to, at least some of the time, read the same books or participate in the same games, than it is to play with any but the most gender stereotypical toys.
Yes, Target should try harder to mix up its toy aisles.

Oh yes please.
Make it impossible to find anything in the name of gender equality.
Oh, want some Hot Wheels?
Did you check next to the aspirin?
Barbie?
Think I saw them next to the batteries, I dunno.
You got me, man. I only work here. I'm not the person who invents where this bullshit goes.
Incidentally Pokemon cards are next to the Lays.

We should all sign the petition.  But  we also need to pressure toy manufacturers.  First order of business, more colors for everyone. A rigid two color code for toys, pink for girls, dark and black for boys undoubtedly simplifies manufacturing and store inventories.  It’s good for business.  It is not good for children.

I dunno. Let's ask the kids if they'd like some variety.
 What about more brightly colored cars and airplanes, or boy dolls as well as girl dolls? 

>Boy dolls
GI Joe.
Next issue, retard.

What about addressing the lack of girls playing with cars on the front of those packages or the absence of boys on the cooking sets?  What about more diversity in terms of racial background? Almost of the faces on the boxes I saw were white.  We all want affordable toys for our children, but surely there are ways to provide a wider range of choices for parents and children than those available in the toy aisles at Target.

God you're a twat.
Way to ruin a fucking holiday.
Hope you're happy, Whore of Babylon.
Christmas is cancelled because this twat isn't happy with the packaging.
The least important thing about the toy you're buying.
Sorry kids, Christmas is cancelled.
In fact, fuck your toys and fun, too. Someone might be offended.
Here's a nice gender neutral rock you can play with.

If any of us thought the battle for less gender stereotyped toys had been won, we were wrong. We’re a long way from fulfilling the 40 year old promise of the Marlo Thomas song, Free to be You and Me.  Our work must include renewed attention to the gendered messages that greet children and their parents every time they wander through a toy store.

I think I've been playing my 3DS too much. All this text looks vaguely 3D for a second then goes away.
Am I going insane?

It’s been almost two weeks since the elections. I am sleeping normally for the first time in months.  The money pouring into the campaigns of the some of the most extreme anti-woman, out of touch candidates astounded and scared me.  Could it make a difference?

THANK MOTHERFUCK YOU CAN SLEEP NORMAL.
Man I sure lost a lot of sleep over that election, too.
What if Obama doesn't win again?
OH NO!
Me on election day consisted of getting up late, getting a text from a bro asking if I wanted to vote, me responding I had nothing else going on so I might as well and HOLY SHIT WAS IT INTENSE.

On Sunday, I was enjoying a nice dinner with my family at a new local restaurant that actually features produce from local farmers’ markets.  All was good, until my 8-year-old daughter decided to ask our waitress, “Who are you going to vote for to be President of the United States?”  Too young to know that it’s not ‘polite’ to ask strangers about politics, she was surprised to hear the waitress reply, “I’m not going to vote.  I’m 28 years old, and I’ve never voted because I don’t know enough about the issues to vote.” 

Please don't give this woman a raft of shit. She's working a shitty service job.
Let her go in peace.

That answer stunned my daughter into confused silence because she’d watched the debates and had her own clear ideas about at least a few of the issues.  In the awkward silence, my 70 year-old dad (a pro-choice feminist) gently suggested to our waitress, “Well, you don’t have to know a lot about every issue to know who to vote for — even if you just know about where the candidates stand on one issue….”  At that point, I knew he was hinting strongly at Obama’s and Romney’s clear differences on the topic of women’s reproductive rights, and I did not want to go there — not with our waitress, in the middle of a family-friendly restaurant.

I hope everyone jizzed in your drink.
I had people like this when I worked at my shitty grocery store.
Please, lady, I don't give a shit about your crusade. I gotta stack these round apples into a perfect pyramid in 30 seconds or I get yelled at. Please stand aside and let the continuous abortion that is my job proceed as planned.
I have to sit here and listen patiently while you tell me about something I don't give a crap about just because I incidentally put your apples out?
Why?

In high school my father, an electrical engineer, tried hard to persuade me to think about studying engineering. It was the late 1950’s and his argument went something like this: “You do well in your science classes; you like them; there are very few women in engineering and the country needs more. It will be a profession where you can stand out. ‘Standing out’ in a field because I was different and doing something women didn’t do, was not especially appealing to my teenage self.

Ever consider being a housewife?
Because whatever building you build will fall one day but the douchebaggery you inject into future generations will proceed until the apocalypse. 
I mean you can be an engineer and do that but think about it for a second.

Classroom experiences reinforced my hesitations. Teachers said things like, ‘Well, how did this happen? Susan and Mary received the highest marks on the  physic’s  quiz. You guys better get focused, girls aren’t supposed to outrank you.” Or, “Good work, girls, sure you didn’t have the math book under your desks? Ha, ha, just joking…”  The message was clear; boys do well in science and math; girls don’t.

I hate giving tests.
I'm a substitute for Christ's sake. Now I'm giving this test and I don't even know what the fuck the subject is.
"DID I DO OKAY?"
Gee kid I dunno I don't actually speak French.
Looks good to me I guess.
Also if any of you cheat make sure you're halfway clever about it. If I see an open book under your desk I'll call you a moron.
If I see you checking the label on your Coke a little too intensely I'll let that one slide.
Maybe.

These discrepancies are often attributed to individual choice.  The list of ‘personal choice’ explanations is long—and loaded with stereotypical assumptions about women: Women don’t want to spend long hours in the lab; women prefer dealing with people not test tubes; science doesn’t fit with family responsibilities.

It doesn't.
Remember what I said before.
The disease you invent whatever vaccine for will one day evolve to be immune to the vaccine--
but the douchebaggery you inject into future generations endures.

Today, August 26th, is Women’s Equality Day.  For many not actively engaged in women’s issues, it’s merely another in a long list of little known ‘days’.

Hey man I don't have that day off (summer vacation wooo) so fuck it.

The authors were curious about why people in the US work more than those in Europe. They start with this: on average, people in the US work more than people in Europe—one study shows the difference is 30 percent more; other studies show how little vacation time, paid sick leave, or family leave that the US has relative to European countries—although the current recession may end up reducing these differences.

HURRAY!
OBAMA PLANNED ALL THIS IN ADVANCE!
WE ALL GET VACATIONS NOW!
I bet that's how she spins this.
Watch.
No
just bullshit about men and women--
who gives a fuck, goddamn?
Holy Christ.

Please go visit a tumblr that two of my students created.  It’s fantastic.  They’ve been a bit astonished at how much attention it’s gotten in the 30 hours its been online, but when you go over, you’ll see why:  it’s interesting, the photography is stunning, and the explanations of feminism are smart and clever.

Hooooly Christ.
Well looks like they gave up about 11 months ago with like 20 submissions. Guess they couldn't even find pussy sensitivity people lacking in shame enough to make one of these signs.

“Mom, I think I’d like to be a photographer,” my 10-year-old daughter, Maya, said recently.
“That would be very cool.”  Inside, I found myself thinking: I hope you can earn a living doing that.

I'm sure this is some sort of -ism.
Fucking
FUCKING LIBERAL ARTS HATER.
PLZ DIE CIS SCUM
Also who gives a shit what a 10 year old wants to be when they grow up?
I mean I know you're obligated to care but you don't have to make a thing over this.
When I was 10 I still wanted to be a robot.
Give her another few years for life to crush her sense of childlike wonder and she'll be on the same path to being a  miserable twat you are.
Don't worry.

Sometimes, I think it would do academic feminists good to read a little more about sex.

Big Big Love, Revised: A Sex and Relationships Guide for People of Size (and Those Who Love Them) by Hanne Blank (Celestial Arts 2011), recently released in its second edition, is written and marketed as a sex manual for fat people and their partners. 

Ohhh goodness.
Incidentally I got a lot (three entire people!) of positive reviews of that entry where I linked songs from Youtube in an attempt to make a soundtrack for the entry.
I know it's a little late to start doing that for this entry but I think this song is appropriate right now.

And as a sex manual, it’s quite good.  But the reason why I’m reviewing a sex manual on an academic feminist blog is that the book offers a perspective on fat sexuality that you’re unlikely to find in any academic text, and it’s a perspective worth reading.

I try never to think about fat sex, honestly.

The existence of a nuclear family is to a large extent dictated by nature. According to Aristotle (Politics, Book1 part 2) “there must be a union of those who cannot exist without each other; namely, of male and female, that the race may continue (and this is a union which is formed, not of deliberate purpose, but because, in common with other animals and with plants, mankind have a natural desire to leave behind them an image of themselves)”. 

If you think you're smarter than Aristotle I'm here to tell you you're mistaken.
Oh.
She didn't even reference Aristotle after this.
WELL THANKS FOR GETTING ME EXCITED.
This blog is a continuous disappointment.
How can a group of people ignore Zeus' mandate that we should try to be as awesome as we can be this hard?

Ask me five years ago and I’d have told you I’d be first in line to challenge gender stereotypes if ever I had kids myself.  I minored in feminist cultural studies! 

>minoring in feminist cultural studies
Wow it's like you don't want a job or something.

SCIENCE GRRL: Why I’m not worried about China

Uh---
Well, you must either be privy to information no one else is or you are deluuuuuuuusional.

Arne Duncan and I have often held differing opinions when it comes to our children’s education. Considering that he use to run the school system where my seven-year-old attends school, I have years of experience of yelling back at my radio hoping that Duncan hears my cries. In December the results from another international test to gauge where the world’s children rank were released. The USA did not get an A+. Duncan bemoaned our results in math, science and language and pointed towards China as a threat to our intellectual dominance.

But I’m really not that worried about China.

America didn't get an A+ but we do feel best about ourselves so therefore we're still #1.
USA! USA! USA!

No, I’m not happy that our kids had an average score. I’m not happy that we’re losing ground to other countries. What I really am worried about is that this news will fuel a new fervor to copy China’s method of educating our kids. And that’s the real bottom line isn’t it? How do we want to educate our children? What kind of children do we want to raise?

“Successful ones!” I hear you. But how do you define successful?

She's a Chinese spy. That's all there is to it.

The reality is that while China and other countries may be beating us out on standardized tests, the USA is still winning the overall education game. The number of Chinese students coming to the USA for graduate education continues to climb. They come here for the superior educational experience in all fields, including education theory. The USA is winning in terms of innovation and ideas. We may not be making a lot of widgets in this country, but we are overflowing with ideas on what to make, design and invent. I am though in favor of extending the school day, but not to cram in more studying at the expense of their imagination and well-being.

>Extending the school day.
No. It stays the length that it is and additionally I'd make Friday a half day.
I'd encourage more independent learning and actually bring back study skills and teaching them the lost art of patience.
The reality that China beats the US on international testing-- which is a measurement of knowledge before anything else--
is a fact. The belief that China will never beat the US in education is not important. What is important is the fact that China is positioning itself to overwhelm the US on most fronts that matter.
Kicking back and saying "yeah but we're the idea men so it's okay" is akin to handing the title of superpower to the Chinese.
We may be the idea men today but what about tomorrow or the next day or the day after that?
The US is too blinded by this instant gratification nonsense the TV is funneling down your throat and without fail the US population buys into it.
China might be a third world cesspit now but they have a booming population, a growing economy and an increasingly wealthy and educated middle class.
Don't be afraid of them today.
Be afraid of them tomorrow.
Or just keep eating McDonald's and watching TV. Whichever feels good now~
Man fuck this blog.