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The Aftermath of Cosby's Admission? That's Rape Culture.

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The Aftermath of Cosby's Admission? That's Rape Culture.

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The Aftermath Of Cosby’s Admission? That’s Rape Culture.

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The Aftermath Of Cosby’s Admission? That’s Rape Culture.

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The Goal of Bathroom Bills Is to Criminalize Being Trans

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The Goal of Bathroom Bills Is to Criminalize Being Trans

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This week, Tennessee residents are facing two bills in the state legislature that are equally dangerous. The first was just rejected Tuesday in a narrow victory for young Tennesseans facing what our friends at Tennessee Transgender PAC call the "Transgender Student Bathroom Harassment Act." Like many other attempts to legislate public spaces across the country, this bill ( Senate Bill 2387 and House Bill 2414) would have required students in public schools -- including public colleges and universities -- to use restrooms and locker rooms that are assigned based on the sex as shown on one's original birth certificate. This focus on "original" birth certificate is important, and is as ridiculous as it is dangerous -- it is a direct attempt to wipe trans folks out of existence, even if they have been able to legally alter their birth certificate to reflect their true gender identity.

Another bill is still pending in the legislature ( Senate Bill 2275 and House Bill 2600) that specifically defines the terms "husband" and "wife" on all government documents as directly correlated to "male" and "female," respectively, as one's sex appears on an "original" birth certificate. While this might seem a bit in the weeds, what this bill tried to do is trying to do is to remove the possibility for transgender Tennesseans to legally change their birth certificates in order to enter into a heterosexual marriage. And if you read between the lines just a little bit, you'll see that this bill's ultimate goal is to legislate transgender Tennesseans out of existence altogether.

When these types of bills are discussed, the dialogue generally revolves around student privacy, burdens on school districts and administrators, and the increased threat of bullying and harassment of transgender students. However, this bill in Tennessee -- just like the one in South Dakota and 10 other states -- is about much more than bullying and bathrooms. These bills are intended to criminalize trans youth instead of creating a space that is safe and that allows trans students to thrive in school.

If these bills become law, students who do not comply will face more than just harassment and bullying from fellow classmates. The real goal of these bills is to make it nearly impossible to identify as transgender, whether as a young person or as an adult, or -- if someone is able to defy the odds and to come out as trans -- these bills will make simply identifying as transgender a crime. In the specific case of the anti-trans bathroom bills that we saw arise last year and multiply this year, the consequences for children who refuse to lie about or deny who they are could be suspension or expulsion, sending more of our kids -- particularly LGBTQ youth of color -- into the school-to-prison pipeline and into a criminal "justice" system that is actively seeking to write them out of existence.

And this is where the leaders of LGBTQ organizations have gotten it wrong. Time after time, state after state, bill after bill, organizations are leveraging resources to defeat these bills -- engaging in an ongoing game of Whack-a-Mole. And engaging in this game means that we, as a movement, are not engaging in an effort to set our own agenda for LGBTQ liberation. For years, LGBTQ organizational leaders have set their sights on marriage equality as the dominant agenda item that "we" were all fighting for. And now that marriage equality is the law of the land, there is no answer to the question "What's next?"

Right-wing culture warriors are furious at losing the federal marriage equality fight after last year's Obergefell v. Hodges ruling, and are stinging from the loss of public favor for their position. By the time of the Supreme Court's decision, a majority of Americans were in favor of gay marriage. Public opinion is much less settled on transgender issues, however, and rightwing leaders have found a powerful tool to attack LGBTQ rights -- weaponizing transphobia as a lever to move their agenda. And while many in the LGBTQ community, the progressive movement, and even the political "middle" celebrated the win for marriage equality, the backlash to that victory has been swift and has targeted those who are the most vulnerable in our community -- trans folks, especially trans youth.

Just as the so-called religious freedom bills are about more than just the right to refuse service because of a "genuinely held religious belief," these anti-trans bathroom bills are about much more than keeping bathrooms binary. These bills are about policing the life, love, and identity of our community and further criminalizing any life that falls outside of white, cis, Christian heteronormativity. To be more clear, these "bathroom bills" are an attempt to lock up trans people when all other attempts to write trans people out of existence have failed. Rather than focusing on protecting those who are most vulnerable, these bills are an attempt to police gender identities in schools and in our communities -- which leaves us asking, "Which lives are we protecting, and from what?"

If we begin with the central truth that these bills are an attempt to destroy trans people and trans lives, then our organizing must be different. It is not sufficient to run television ads or to lobby lawmakers -- we must organize as if our lives depend on it because, in fact, our lives do depend on it. We should be organizing from that truth, rather than treating this like any other political campaign. Whether it's in Tennessee or North Carolina or any of the tens of other states where these bills are being introduced, we need you.

If you're interested in joining in a different kind of organizing, one that centers this truth, join us by signing up at www.getequal.org.
ROBIN RIDLEY is an organizer with Tennessee Transgender Journey Project, dedicated to protecting the rights of transgender people in Tennessee. ANGELA PEOPLES is codirector of GetEqual, a national grassroots organizing network focused on LGBTQ liberation.

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The Goal of 'Bathroom Bills' Is to Criminalize Being Trans

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We can't take these attempts to demonize trans lives lightly, say members of GetEqual.

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Comics Are Still Failing Their Female Characters and Creators

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Comics Are Still Failing Their Female Characters and Creators

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Comic books are, and always have been, a male-dominated industry. When comic books first emerged in the early 20th century, they catered to girls and boys, with over 90% of kids in the 1940s reading comics regardless of gender. Early comic book creators, however, were almost exclusively male, and by the '60s, the comic book industry had become heavily skewed toward comics marketed to boys and young men. With profits coming from a mostly male audience, publishers prioritized stories by and about men, and the cycle continued. This pattern led to a faulty assumption that still persists today--the myth that only men enjoy and buy comic books.

Almost a century later in 2024, gender equality has grown in almost every industry, but comic books are still lagging behind, with male characters and creators still heavily dominating the medium. For women of color and people who identify as non-binary, representation is even worse. The world's population is approximately half male and half female. No gender has an inherent advantage in writing or creating visual art. Comic book writers and artists of every gender, race, and sexual orientation exist. However, whether a particular artist's voice reaches people is largely in the hands of publishers.

Publishers make the final decision about who is writing a particular comic and which comic characters are being featured in new publications. As a result, publishers, particularly Marvel and DC, which dominate the comic book industry, can choose which stories are being told and whose voices are being heard. Publishers have a choice of whether to perpetuate the cycle of male-dominated content being marketed to male-dominated audiences or make changes that create a more inclusive industry for creators and readers. Publishers can and should be doing better.

Why Does Representation Matter?

Some readers may be asking, why does representation matter? To begin with, everyone enjoys stories about characters that remind them of themselves. The more people can see themselves reflected in the world of a story, the more they can immerse themselves in the story. When women read stories that focus primarily on men, it can feel like there is no place for women in the story, or at least none that is desirable. When stories glorify male heroes but relegate female characters to the background, it sends a message to female readers that they are not valued. When comics focus primarily on men, it discourages women from enjoying (and financially supporting) the medium and helps perpetuate the biases already in place in the industry. This hurts female fans and publishers, who could be tapping into a massive but neglected market.

In addition to allowing readers to imagine themselves in the world of the story, representation matters because it builds empathy and understanding among people from different backgrounds. By reading stories about people with different experiences, readers gain a greater understanding of what it is like to exist in different circumstances. If men are only exposed to stories that glorify other men, it gives the erroneous impression that only men are capable of the feats depicted in those stories and minimizes the impact and contribution of women. When women are relegated to support roles rather than experiencing their own heroic journeys, it creates the impression that women are only capable of support roles, which builds gender bias in real-world interactions as well. Increasing empathy and compassion for different people helps reduce violence and conflict in the real world, which is inarguably a good thing.

Perhaps the simplest answer to why representation matters, however, is that diverse characters tend to make a story better. It's bad storytelling when the characters in a story are all the same. No one is interested in repeatedly hearing the same story from the same perspective. Including characters from various backgrounds and lived experiences in a fictional world makes the narrative framework richer and more complete. The real world is full of a diverse range of people. If that diversity isn't present in a story, then that story loses its depth and sense of reality.

The Numbers Tell a Grim Story About Gender Equality in Comic Books

To determine the current state of gender representation in comic books, it's necessary to look at the numbers. Marvel, DC, and Image (which publishes creator-owned comics) are the three largest comic book publishers. According to ICv2, these three publishers make up 71.4% of the comic book market, with the remainder consisting of smaller independent publishers who each represent less than 5% of the market. In April 2024, Marvel released 64 new comic book issues, DC released 41, and Image released 44. Across all three publishers, male characters and creators dominated new comic book releases.

Marvel Comics Places Most of its Women on Teams

Marvel Comics presents itself as being ahead of the curve in representation, with female heroes appearing in many of its early titles like The Fantastic Four, The Avengers, and X-Men. Marvel featured the first gay kiss and the first gay marriage. Half of the creators announced on the new main X-Men titles are women. Despite its inclusive marketing, Marvel actually had the worst numbers when it came to April 2024's new comics. 54.7% of Marvel's April 2024 titles featured male characters or all-male teams, versus 7.8% featuring female characters or teams. The remaining 37.5% focused on mixed-gender teams or story anthologies (where most of Marvel's female heroes appear). Among the writer and artist credits in its April titles, 88.5% of creator credits were male, and only 11.5% were female.

Marvel has an incredible cast of female characters who could easily headline their own comic book. Wasp is an original member of the Avengers and actually named the team. She is one of the most accomplished people in the Marvel Comics universe. But unlike her male teammates Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor, she doesn't have her own book (though writer Al Ewing has been doing an admirable job promoting the character through several limited series). Storm is arguably more powerful and more interesting than her former co-leader of the X-Men Wolverine, yet he appears in several titles while she has been relegated to group casts. Other female characters like Black Widow or Scarlet Witch, who have previously headlined their own titles, have recently been paired up with male characters in their latest comics, presumably because Marvel believes male characters will help the comics sell better.

One bright side for Marvel's comic book line-up is their use of diverse teams in their comics. Arguably, a mixed-gender group is the most equitable representation possible (assuming that both male and female characters are given equal treatment on the page). Marvel's hero teams also feature more people of color than their competitors, another group struggling for representation in comics. By promoting women and other under-represented groups in popular team books like X-Men or Avengers, Marvel has been able to tell stories that appeal to a broader audience and express diverse viewpoints. The fact that Marvel is publishing seven times as many comics featuring solo male heroes versus female ones is still a big issue. Marvel's lack of female creators is also dismaying, given that they had the worst proportion among their competition.

DC Relies Heavily on a Few Male Heroes

DC relies very heavily on its most famous heroes, Batman and Superman, to drive sales, which has led to a high percentage of its comics being focused on male characters. In recent years, they have done slightly better than Marvel at promoting female creators and characters. In April 2024, for DC's new comics, 65.8% of titles focused on male characters, while 17.1% focused on female ones. The remaining 17.1% were mixed-gender teams or anthologies. DC had more female-forward books than Marvel but fewer books about teams, which provide opportunities to showcase female characters who don't have their own title. DC's writer and artist credits for April 2024 were also slightly better than Marvel's, with 83.2% male creators versus 16.8% female creators. DC's female representation relied heavily on colorists (who typically get less credit than pencilers), particularly prolific colorist Jordie Bellaire, who was featured in multiple issues.

The biggest challenge for DC regarding gender equality is its reliance on a few very popular characters instead of a more diverse mix of teams. Most of DC's best-selling titles feature either Batman or Superman. As a result, DC publishes many comics starring these male heroes. DC could leverage the popularity of Batman to promote related female characters like Batgirl or Batwoman, perhaps even taking a page from Marvel's book and including them on a team with Batman himself. Unlike her male counterparts, Wonder Woman is often compared to Batman and Superman, but she only has one ongoing title. If supported by marketing efforts, Wonder Woman has the potential to anchor a suite of titles much like DC's male heroes. However, DC's biggest area for improvement concerns women of color, who are almost completely absent from DC's comics.

One area where DC has done better than Marvel or Image is in its use of female creators. None of the major publishers are anywhere near gender parity in this respect, but DC had the highest percentage of women working on its books as writers or artists. This representation undoubtedly contributes to the incredible quality of many of DC's female-lead titles. Birds of Prey, Poison Ivy, and Harley Quinn all feature female leads and writers; all three titles are excellent. By increasing its use of female creators, even on books with male leads, DC can tell stories from a new perspective that puts a fresh spin on classic but perhaps overused characters like Batman.

Image Comics, which publishes creator-owned work, adds an interesting dimension to the gender numbers. Because creator-owned comics are not restricted by existing worlds and characters like Marvel and DC, there are limitless possibilities for the stories that could be told and the people who could be telling them. This difference didn't have a big effect on Image's April 2024 creators, who, at 87.9% male versus 12.1% female, are still better than Marvel but lagging behind DC slightly. However, Image is way ahead of the Big Two in terms of characters. Among Image's April 2024 new comics, 31.8% starred male characters, 25% starred female characters, and 43.2% followed mixed-gender casts or anthologies. Apparently, when given the freedom to do so, creators, regardless of gender, write nearly as many stories about women as men. Marvel and DC should take note.

Image has, by far, the best representation when it comes to the characters in the stories it is publishing compared to Marvel and DC. In April 2024, nearly as many comics featuring female leads were published as those featuring male leads. Many of Image's most successful titles, like Saga or Monstress, lean heavily towards female characters and employ female creators. Image also published many comics featuring mixed-gender group casts, giving female characters even more time on the page. Other comic book publishers should definitely take a page from Image's playbook in this respect.

Where Image fell short, however, was in the diversity of its creators. Many of the comics published by Image come from well-established writers and artists. Because most comic book creators have historically been men, male creators tend to have the most experience in the industry. When considering a pitch for a new comic series, publishers naturally rely on the breadth of the creators' experience. Therefore, male creators have an inherent advantage based on their ability to refer to prior work, while female creators often struggle just to get a foot in the door. Image can improve in this area by approving more titles from female creators. Image can also encourage experienced male creators to work with women on independent comics. Saga and Love Everlasting are just two examples of incredible Image Comics titles created by male and female creators working together.

Publishers Have the Power to Reduce Gender Inequality Both On and Off the Page

Many of the systems within the comic book industry that promote gender disparity are cyclical, and the people who can change these patterns are publishers. Focusing on male-dominated stories leads to a primarily male audience, which leads to the impression that only men are interested in comic books. Publishers, therefore, continue targeting male audiences with male-focused stories, and the cycle continues. A similar issue exists with creators. Male creators have always dominated the industry, which means that most experienced comic book creators are men. That greater experience makes it easier for those male creators to get additional jobs or successfully pitch new titles to creator-owned publishers based on their past work.

Because the systems within the comic book industry that perpetuate its domination by male characters and creators are self-reinforcing, change will not occur without intentional action. The people with the greatest ability to create meaningful change within the industry are publishers, particularly Marvel and DC. The Bog Two determines which characters are featured in monthly comic book series and which writers and artists are working on those books. They also control which books are the most heavily marketed and promoted. Indie comic publishers similarly decide which comics to publish and which creators to work with. By promoting a diverse range of characters and creators, publishers can guide the industry towards a more unbiased standard by increasing equality in representation.

When publishers don't consider the diversity of their creators and titles, they can unintentionally exclude a major portion of their potential audience. For example, the new creator-owned publishing imprint Ghost Machine (which publishes through Image Comics) launched its first three titles in April 2024. Only one of Ghost Machine's 11 creators is female. None of their launch titles featured prominent female characters or even mentioned any in their descriptions. None of the books used any female creators. While likely unintentional, this lopsided representation occurs when an overwhelmingly male group of decision-makers hasn't considered the diversity of the stories they publish. The fledgling publisher could have released literally anything for their debut but perpetuated industry stereotypes and alienated some potential readers (though it is worth noting that Ghost Machine has some titles that include female characters in its previews of future offerings).

Creators and Fans Can Exert Pressure to Change the Industry

Publishers have the most power to change gender imbalances within the comic book industry. Still, creators and readers can also encourage a more inclusive entertainment landscape. Both fans and creators can communicate with publishers and tell them that inclusive storytelling matters to them. Let publishers know there is a market for stories by and about women. The more people encourage publishers to do better, the more incentive they will have to increase the diversity of the titles they produce.

Concerning creators, when pitching new comics or storylines to publishers, creators can choose to increase the diversity of the comics they are writing and illustrating. Consider whether a white male character needs to be white or male, for example. Even if a comic is about a male hero, could their boss or coworker be female? What about their rival or their best friend? Creators can also choose to work alongside people who have a different perspective than they do. Tom King is one established comic book writer who is doing a great job of this. In King's ongoing independent comics, Love Everlasting and Helen of Wyndhorn, the stories focus heavily on female characters and issues facing women. He has chosen to work on both titles with incredible female artists who can give feedback on how the female characters are presented. Thanks in part to including a diverse range of characters, Love Everlasting and Helen of Wyndhorn are among the best indie comics available today.

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Comics Are Still Failing Their Female Characters and Creators

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Marvel and DC have progressed over the years, but a recent look at their current publishing slate highlights a problem that needs to be addressed.

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There's a scene from Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994) in which the title character, played by Jim Carrey, is so disgusted with himself that he pukes in the toilet twice and has to empty an entire tube of toothpaste to brush his teeth. He then takes off all his clothes, puts them in a trash can, and burns them, before getting into the shower and weeping as the camera pans out. It's a clear parody of scenes in dramas involving women who take showers after being sexually assaulted.

The traumatic event that caused this reaction? The discovery that Lois Einhorn, a female police detective played by Sean Young - who had just kissed Ace in a previous scene - is the same person as Ray Finkel, a man Ace suspects of kidnapping the Miami Dolphins' mascot Snowflake and quarterback Dan Marino. The knowledge that Ace has kissed "a man" sends him into a shamed panic spiral. And when Ace reveals Einhorn's former identity by forcibly exposing the bulge in her underwear to practically her entire police department at the end of the movie, all the men retch as Ace's "real" woman love interest Melissa (Courteney Cox) observes in puzzlement.

More than two decades later, Ace Ventura comes across as blatantly transmisogynist (a term the author Julia Serano coined to specify the intersection of transphobia and misogyny that trans women too often deal with). Lois ceases to be a full-fledged human being as soon as she's revealed to be trans, so she can be subjected to such cruelties as having her body forcibly exposed for public display without consequence. Lois's humiliation itself is the butt of the joke - and the men's disgust centers the movie's attempt at ick-factor body humor.

On the surface, there isn't much comparison between Ace Ventura's explicit transphobia and the in-bad-taste but certainly tamer jokes in two comedies that opened recently: Zoolander 2 and Deadpool. In a reprise of their roles as preening male supermodel Derek Zoolander and his sidekick Hansel, Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson have been supplanted as the most popular models on the planet by the nonbinary, agender model All (Benedict Cumberbatch). In Deadpool, Ryan Reynolds plays the pansexual title character prone to bawdy jokes about queer people.

But threading a line from comedies of the early '90s to those that feature transgender themes today reveals that even though there has been steady progress in humanizing trans characters, harmful stereotypes still plague trans women and gender-nonconforming characters. Transfeminine people are nearly always presented as villains and objects of derision or disgust, especially in comparison to conventionally attractive cisgender love interests.

The last 25 years of evolving transgender themes in mainstream comedy also demonstrate the projections and fears of the cisgender men both behind and in front of the camera. Trans characters - particularly trans women - are often inserted into a comedy's narrative to fulfill a gross-out shock factor ("Lol! I can't believe a 'normal' man got tricked into sleeping with a disgusting, 'abnormal' she-male!" is the audience reaction these filmmakers are going for). The audience is also supposed to laugh because a man has been "deceived" by these women, and straight male viewers can take comfort since the humiliation is not their own. The way trans characters are used and abused exemplifies the lengths heterosexual cisgender men will go to demonize trans women in order to deny them womanhood, as well as reaffirm their own desperately fragile masculinity.

The '90s, When Trans Women Were Disgusting Villains

If Ace Ventura marked the full-fledged incorporation of transphobia into movie comedies, then Soapdish (1991) was an essential precursor. In that movie, a scheming Montana Moorehead (Cathy Moriarty) tries to topple Celeste Talbert (Sally Field), as the star of the soap opera The Sun Also Sets, by seducing producer David Seton Barnes (Robert Downey Jr.). After a series of twists and turns involving David and Montana conniving to give Celeste more and more absurd and unsympathetic scenes to act out so the show's fans would reject her, it's brought to light that Montana used to be Milton Moorehead; cast and crew react in horror and wonderment, while Montana runs from the set in shame.

Though the transgender-woman-as-villain trope in American movie comedies did not originate with Soapdish - that dubious honor arguably belongs to the roundly panned film adaptation of Gore Vidal's novel Myra Breckinridge (1970) - the '90s comedy demonstrated the trope's effectiveness as a modern plot device. Montana's "transgender reveal" is a shocking and absurd twist that elucidates her deceitful nature; if she lied about being trans, then she's a liar at heart. David, who'd slept with her, attempts to control his retching reaction, as he excuses himself from the set to presumably vomit.

By the time Ace Ventura and Jim Carrey's over-the-top antics rolled around in 1994, the forced exposure of a character's trans status was amplified by using the outlines of her genitals. In between Soapdish and Ace Ventura was the much-talked-about drama The Crying Game (1992), which became a cause célèbre when, during what feels like a gritty drama involving the love affair between a man and a woman, the woman is shown to have a penis and the man pukes in the bathroom.

Ace Ventura is an overt comedic take on this revelation, as was Naked Gun 33 ⅓ (1994) from the same year. In that movie, police detective Frank Drebin (Leslie Nielsen) has an ongoing flirtation with the villain's girlfriend and accomplice Tanya Peters (Anna Nicole Smith), who attempts to seduce him several times during the movie. Near the end of the film, the two find themselves alone in a dressing room at the Academy Awards, when Tanya undresses in silhouette and her shadow gives away her penis. Frank reacts in utter disgust, and ends up puking inside a tuba for laughs.

One of the major indicators of trans women's villainy in these movies: They did not disclose their trans status. The fact that they're killers, blackmailers, or terrorists is intertwined with them "hiding" their male past, though the humiliating revelation that they're trans is typically treated as more shocking and important than the crimes they've committed. The exposure of these women becomes synonymous with "catching" them; there's no meaningful difference made between finding out a woman is trans and discovering that she's a criminal.

In the end, movies that depict trans women as deceitful, disgusting villains divulge more about the cisgender male psyche than they do about transgender women (after all, the filmmakers and writers who imagined these characters are overwhelmingly cisgender men). The trans-woman-as-villain plot device represents men's fear of being duped into sacrificing their heterosexual male privilege by deigning to sleep with a person they consider to be a man.

Seen in this way, the puking reaction to trans revelation in these movies is not really borne of disgust at the women themselves, who are played by conventionally-attractive cisgender actresses - rather, the disgust is borne of men's self-loathing for continuing to be attracted to these women.

2000-2015: When Trans Women Were Obstacles for Weak Men

Since the '90s, male-focused comedies have had a fascinating, almost obsessive preoccupation with transgender women, in movies like Dude Where's My Car? (2000), The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005), and The Hangover Part 2 (2011), not to mention a plethora of TV comedies and movies with one-off gags at trans women's expense, most notably in Ted 2 (2015). The message in these movies and shows is almost always that trans women are revolting and less than human.

Dude Where's My Car? explicitly uses the trans woman-as-criminal trope, when Jesse and Chester (Ashton Kutcher and Seann William Scott), two teenage stoner dudes, wake up not knowing where their car is, and find themselves at a strip joint called the Kitty Kat Club. There they meet Tania (Teressa Tunney), a stripper who gave Jesse a lap dance the night before that he doesn't end up remembering. Tania turns out to be a transgender thief who gave the guys a suitcase full of cash for safekeeping and wants it back.

There are the standard gags, inherited from '90s comedies, of Tania demonstrating the bulge in her underwear to come out as trans - at least she's empowered enough to do it herself, rather than being outed against her will. Typically, Jesse reacts by retching. Tania also speaks in a low, masculine voice whenever she demands her money from Jesse and Chester, and an artificially feminine one when she doesn't want people to know she's trans. Tania's voice (dubbed, since she's played by a cis woman) is meant to once again underline the connection between "deceiving" other people and her criminal behavior.

Later movies of the 2000s have shied away from this trans woman as deceiver trope, replacing it instead with another method for distancing "normal" men from transgender attraction. In The 40-Year-Old Virgin, the virgin man in question, Andy (Steve Carell) gets set up with a transgender sex worker whom he rejects. Later, Andy confronts his friends about the incident, in a scene rife with transphobic jokes, designed to depict the trans woman as inhuman and disgusting.

Part of the joke is that Andy's friend Jay (Romany Malco), who hired the sex worker, couldn't tell she was trans despite the obvious signs. It's curious that in a bro comedy genre dominated by white men (none of the previous movies discussed so far have any prominent male minority characters), it's now the black guy who can't tell an "obvious" trans woman apart from a cis woman. It seems as though the white male director (Judd Apatow) and screenwriters (Apatow and Carell) were hesitant to have a white man play the part of a trans-attracted male.

Of course, the other part of the joke is the vulgarity of Andy's description - how he seems eager to denigrate the trans woman's identity in the harshest words possible. The joke can be funny only if the audience, like the characters in the movie, refuses to treat the trans woman as a person. But we're supposed to empathize with Andy's plight and root for him to get properly laid, even if he's this weird guy who's 40 and hasn't had sex. Andy finally succeeds when he ends up with a "normal" woman and has old-fashioned heterosexual sex by the end of the movie.

This contrast between the type of guy who ends up with a trans woman and the one who doesn't is even more stark in The Hangover Part II, when the wimpy Stu (Ed Helms) is about to get married in Thailand and invites the debonair Phil (Bradley Cooper) to join him. When they end up getting drugged and blacking out, they retrace their steps and find out that Stu ended up having sex with a transgender bar girl the previous night, when they visit her dressing room at a club.

"Hey, you're in Bangkok sweetie," the bar girl begins, "There's a reason they don't call it Bangcunt." She turns around to reveal her penis, and both Stu and Andy reel. The comedy in the rest of the scene comes from the woman detailing Stu's exploits with her, including how much he enjoyed having sex with her and the fact that he was the bottom in their encounter. The soft, unmanly Stu flails and cries in misery while the type-A, macho Phil visibly tries to keep himself from puking, recalling the reaction of many men before him. Phil acts as the comforting, normative presence for the audience - the one straight guy viewers are supposed to identify with - in contrast to the inadequate Stu, who can now add an accidental attraction to trans women to his list of faults.

Phil's solution to Stu's distress is even more telling. "I promise you, no one's going to ever find out about this," Phil says when Stu asks him what he should do. And when Stu replies that he can't prevent himself from knowing he's had sex with a trans woman and enjoyed it, Phil consoles him further by saying: "You just forget. It goes away."

This is the lesson these comedies want us to learn: Men should forget about their attractions to trans women or, if they can't, at least not acknowledge their existence. To me, it's clear that the revulsion expressed in these movies is simply a symptom of how much straight men are privately attracted to what they publicly reject. If the prevalence of transgender porn and the number of well-known men who've been caught cavorting with trans women are any indication, then the transgender comedy in these movies says more about male fetish (especially for preoperative trans women) than it does about trans women themselves. It doesn't matter if their experiences are pleasurable or that the trans women they interact with are actual human beings with individual qualities - societal taboo prevents these male characters from acknowledging trans humanity, because doing so would compromise their precious heteromasculinity.

Now: Permitting Transphobia By Co-Opting LGBT Identity

This is where we come to Deadpool and Zoolander 2, two movies that seem to account for previous history as well as the recent conversations about trans people. They've arrived at a time when trans visibility and political power have grown in Hollywood, especially over the past year with the advent of Caitlyn Jenner, and the continued success of Laverne Cox and other trans actors, as well as shows like Transparent and Sense8. We seem to have arrived at an era where blatantly dehumanizing depictions of trans people run enough risk of deterring a mainstream audience that filmmakers and writers are careful to avoid them explicitly.

Both Zoolander 2 and Deadpool take aim at less obvious and more indirect targets. A petition to boycott Zoolander had already garnered almost 25,000 signatures immediately after the trailer came out, mainly on the basis that the gender non-binary character All is played by a cisgender man, Benedict Cumberbatch. As the petitioner Sarah Rose wrote, All is portrayed as "an over-the-top, cartoonish mockery of androgyne/trans/non-binary individuals."

The problem is not just that All is over-the-top, as so many portrayals of minorities in these mainstream movies are, but the specific ways that All is made fun of, as well as the surrounding depictions of queer people in the movie. Already, the entire premise of the Zoolander movies is to make fun of male models for having qualities traditionally associated with women - namely vanity and appearance-consciousness. In Zoolander 2, Derek Zoolander and his sidekick Hansel are brought out of retirement to supposedly headline a big-time fashion show. But after a decade out of the limelight, they find that they're out of touch with the current fashion world. At the fashion show, they're introduced to the agender model All, who has supplanted them as the most sought-after model in the world.

Upon meeting All, Hansel first asks whether All has "a hot dog or a bun," then specifies, "Do you have a wiener or a vaginer?" The movie happily mocks Hansel for being out-of-touch with current culture for any number of reasons, but not for asking about a trans person's genitals, or basing his judgment of a person's gender on them. He later shouts, "Definitely a hot dog!" after All dresses as a gargoyle and whips Zoolander and Hansel with their tail. This scene once again brings back the trope of trans femme as villain.

Since the movie makes fun of All by saying that All is marrying "hermself," it treats the possibility of non-binary gender identification as obviously absurd, trivializing the concerns of an increasingly important segment of the transgender community. There's also the head-scratching appearance of Kiefer Sutherland as a man who's been impregnated by Hansel, who in his time off has been a part of a group relationship that includes people of various fetishes as well as a goat. In the world of Zoolander 2, transgender people blend flatly together with polyamorists, sado-masochists, and people who practice beastiality, because they're all just part of the same joke.

But what isn't a joke is the attraction between Zoolander and the hot cisgender woman Valentina (Penelope Cruz). She's in charge of solving crimes against fashion, and helps Zoolander find his long-lost son, another symbol of his sympathetic normalcy despite his unorthodox behavior. The two of them end up together in a celebration of heterosexuality, and Zoolander's male-model eccentricities are redeemed by both fatherhood and traditional straight attraction.

This reverence for cisgender heterosexual coupling is something Zoolander 2 and Deadpool have in common, even though both director Tim Miller and actor Ryan Reynolds describe the titular character as pansexual. At the beginning of the movie, Wade Wilson is just an ordinary Special Forces veteran who works as mercenary in New York and falls in love with sex worker Vanessa Carlysle (Morena Baccarin). After Wade gets diagnosed with terminal cancer, he decides to join a secret program that promises to cure him and give him special powers. He's subjected to a series of tortures that artificially brings out his inborn genetic mutation; he transforms into Deadpool, a mutant with super-healing powers.

Deadpool allows itself a great deal of license to make fun of the LGBT community, in large part because it presents Deadpool as part of that community - a knowing, pansexual New Yorker who isn't uptight about established gender and sexuality norms. When he and his best friend joke about giving each other blow jobs, or when he yells "Teabag!" after sitting on top of a villain after vanquishing him, his jokes are presented as progressive in-group humor, rather than an outsider making fun of queer people.

Yet no actual same-gender action happens in the film (except in an easy-to-miss animation as part of the credits). The one relationship treated seriously is the love between Deadpool and his ideal soulmate-esque cis woman girlfriend, Vanessa. The one hint of queerness between them - when Vanessa pegs Deadpool in a montage of humorous sex scenarios - is played for comedy. Since the devotion between the two forms the serious heart of the movie, queer attraction is presented as humorous, trivial, and fleeting, while overarching heterosexual love is forever.

But more regressive than the appropriations of queerness such as Wade's gratingly fey intonation, or his campy love of musicals as evidenced by his RENT shirt and Bernadette Peters purse, is the movie's treatment of women: trans, lesbian, and cisgender. One of the villains in the movie is Angel Dust (Gina Carano), a super-strong, buff woman who is part of a group that subjects Deadpool to a series of tortures, and ends up plotting to enslave him. Upon first meeting Angel Dust, Deadpool says, "Aren't you a little strong for a lady? I'm calling wang." And later, as another villain Ajax leaves the room, Wade says, "Oh come on, you're going to leave me all alone here with less-angry Rosie O'Donnell?" The original trailer has this moment as "Jose Canseco" instead of "Rosie O'Donnell," which, according to Entertainment Weekly, is one of several options the director Tim Miller considered, including "Louise Ferrigno."

Again, the trope of the villainous trans or butch woman who is really "a man dressed as a woman" comes into play, which is insulting both to trans and cis women. Whether Angel Dust is transgender or cisgender isn't addressed in the movie, but either way, it presents trans women or cis women with muscular body types as evil, while the conventionally beautiful woman, Vanessa, is painted as good almost to the point of sacredness.

Deadpool's biggest problem is not necessarily that it treats LGBT people as punchlines - many movies do that - but that it does so while trying to pretend to be politically progressive at the same time, circumventing the antipathy of a general public that has over the last 25 years become a little less tolerant of blatant anti-LGBT humor. Both the movie and the character are happy to dangle Ryan Reynolds as fleeting gaybait, in order to excuse the actual ways it represents such tired stereotypes as hypersexed queer men, references to gay sex acts as ways to humiliate men, and depicting women who are not cisnormatively attractive as evil compared to conventionally hot women. Despite its makers touting the title character's pansexuality, and at least one outlet calling the movie progressive, Deadpool trades on well-worn anti-LGBT tropes, repackaged to be palatable to mainstream audiences.

In one sense, trans people in Hollywood movies are better-off now than we were 25 years ago. Male characters in such movies (at least for now), no longer puke at the mere discovery of someone's trans identity. But in another sense, the more things change the more things stay the same. Trans people continue to be jokey plot devices, rather than full-fledged human beings. This may not change until trans people themselves have the opportunity to write and direct blockbuster Hollywood comedies in the future - maybe ones that depict how hilarious it is when cisgender men publicly revile trans women, but often privately go to absurd lengths to try to sleep with them. There's a scenario, so common in life yet unrepresented in mainstream movies, that is truly ripe for comedy.

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There's a scene from Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994) in which the title character, played by Jim Carrey, is so disgusted with himself that he pukes in the toilet twice and has to empty an entire tube of toothpaste to brush his teeth.

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Male Body Positivity: Redefining Masculinity Standards | Rock & Art

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Explore the impact of body positivity on men. Learn about challenges, media influence, and strategies for embracing diverse male body types.

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How much do Americans Really Know about Women's Chances for Success?

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How much do Americans Really Know about Women's Chances for Success?

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“If as feminists, we believe that gender is socially constructed and used to create inequality, our political goal must be to move to a post-gender society” (Risman, 2004; 2009). Due to the alarming nature of these claims, in this report we ask: “How informed are Americans about women’s achievements and opportunities?”

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Masculinity can be defined on your own terms. Here's how to start.

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Let's do a little experiment: Close your eyes and think of the manliest guy you can. Chances are he's physically strong, successful at nearly everything he does, laughs in the face of fear and danger, and doesn't succumb to his emotions.

These traits can all be found inside the "man box," a concept popularized by educator and activist Paul Kivel and the Oakland Men's Project in the 1980s - and explored in a 2017 study of young men's perceptions of masculinity in the U.S., U.K. and Mexico. The "man box" refers to the strict expectations boys learn they must adopt in their behavior, aspirations and perspective to be considered a "real man."

Just as competitiveness is often seen as more masculine than compassion, or "thinking for yourself" is seen as more macho than seeking advice, American boys are taught that certain behaviors make you more manly - and others make you seem more feminine and "weak."

But that interpretation of masculinity isn't universal across cultures. And by encouraging boys to repress natural emotions and measure themselves against an arbitrary standard, society limits the way masculine folks believe they can move through the world. In reality, the "man box" is a myth that breeds insecurity. Being a man has nothing to do with how strong you are, how much money you make, or how attractive you are.

Life Kit spoke with educators and authors about the ways that harmful and limiting expectations of masculinity can warp our identities - and be perpetuated by all of us. Here are some tips for how you or the masculine people in your life can begin to redefine masculinity on your own terms.

Grapple with your values

The first step for coming to a healthy understanding of masculinity? Make sure you aren't forgoing your own values in favor of fitting in.

That 2017 study of men ages 18 to 30 found that 59% of respondents agreed that men "should act strong even if they feel scared or nervous inside." Young American men who strongly identified with "traditional" masculine values were nearly 4 times as likely to have held back from doing something to avoid appearing girly or gay - and 2.4 times more likely to have had recent suicidal thoughts.

The elephant in the room, though, is that a lot of men aren't comfortable questioning the confines of the "man box" for fear that it puts their own masculinity into question. That aversion has another name.

"That's about fragile masculinity, right?" says journalist and author Thomas Page McBee, who's reported extensively about masculinity. "It's about feeling so insecure and so unsure and so anxious about your place in the world that even asking a question about it is threatening to you and everyone around you."

Wrestle with your values however you see fit: Make a list, go see a therapist, or confide in a friend. This is mostly internal work, but it also has to do with encouraging your friends to question their own assumptions and making space for people to explore their identities.

Notice when anger is replacing other emotions

Masculinity is, in many ways, a performance - and emotional suppression is at the center of the act. Frederick Joseph, an activist and bestselling author of books like The Black Friendand Patriarchy Blues: Reflections on Manhood, says much of that programming happens at an early age.

"You oftentimes see parents or people in general telling ... boys you shouldn't cry. Why is that? Crying is a natural emotion," says Joseph. "So let's say you scrape your knee. Instead of crying, now you're getting angry ..., let's say you do poorly on a test. Instead of navigating how you feel truly about it, you're tapping into anger."

Anger supplanting other emotions like fear, grief, or frustration is something that came up again and again reporting this story. If you find yourself constantly feeling angry or you're eager to throw a punch when you might be able to talk it out, try sitting with your anger for a moment. Interrogate whether there's another emotion - like sadness, frustration or fear - underneath.

Try to meet people where they're at

Studies suggest the stigma around mental health makes men hesitant to seek help or open up about their feelings. And sometimes, that hesitancy can turn into defensiveness. Plenty of us have had moments where we swear we're fine when we aren't.

So if you're seeking to have some tough conversations with the men or boys in your life, don't be deterred by any walls they might put up. People need to feel safe in order to open up, and will be far less likely to self-reflect or hear you out if they feel attacked. Try to focus the conversation on the damage their behavior is causing rather than personal flaws.

Jesus "Chucho" Ruiz Vai Sevoi - Eudeve (Opata) Tlamanalcah is a facilitator for A Call to Men, a nonprofit promoting healthier manhood through trainings and educational resources. In Ruiz's experience, helping young men and boys understand the constraints the "man box" places on their emotions takes some salesmanship.

"A lot of the initial pushback is like, 'How is this going to keep me safe? Because I hear you, but if I do those things, I'm going to get made fun of or I'm going to be bullied," says Ruiz.

"Make it relatable and bring it back to just health and healing and how that's also connected to liberation - the freedom of not having to perform all the time," says Ruiz.

Rethink your role models - and potential to be one

Looking up to somebody is a natural thing to do. But part of embodying your own values is making sure that your role models do, too.

There are countless "alpha male" influencers who are idolized by young men and boys around the world, proselytizing about what it means to be a "real man." But their authority is often built on flimsy ground.

It's important to remember that we all have the opportunity to model the masculinity we want to see more of in the world.

"The first sort of half of that is about reflection in my opinion and investigation and noticing your own behavior and making different choices," says McBee.

"And then maybe once you do that organically, I really think that the next steps are about what grows out of that."
The audio portion of this episode was produced by Andee Tagle and edited by Meghan Keane. The digital story was edited by Danielle Nett. Our visuals editor is Beck Harlan. We'd love to hear from you. Leave us a voicemail at 202-216-9823, or email us at LifeKit@npr.org. You can sign up for our newsletter here.

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Masculinity doesn't have to be restrictive. Here's how to redefine it for yourself : Life Kit

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Let's do a little experiment: Close your eyes and think of the manliest guy you can. Chances are he's physically strong, successful at nearly everything he does, laughs in the face of fear and danger, and doesn't succumb to his emotions.

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"In eras and places throughout history, men have worn just as much makeup as women. Then, at some point, and for some reason, they stopped. Since then, particularly in the western world, makeup has really only been a thing for women, actors, TV personalities, and pop or rock stars. Over the last couple of years, however, that trend has shifted. Today, men are wearing makeup more and more. This is why. "

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In eras and places throughout history, men have worn just as much makeup as women. Then, at some point, and for some reason, they stopped. Since then, particularly in the western world, makeup has really only been a thing for women, actors, TV personalities, and pop or rock stars. Over the last couple of years, however, that trend has shifted. Today, men are wearing makeup more and more. This is why.

Men Are Wearing Makeup

You may have noticed recently that some of the most popular makeup brands have come out with makeup lines for men. Perhaps you've even seen new brands marketed specifically towards guys. This is because men are wearing makeup, and companies see the potential in a relatively untapped and growing market. ( 1)

A Brief History of Makeup

The thing is, this isn't the first time men have worn makeup. The ancient Egyptians wore eyeliner. In the 18th century, both the British and the French put white powder on their faces, among other things. The difference here is that both sexes wore more or less the same makeup. (1)

Wearing makeup regularly for women didn't become popular until the 1920s. As people began moving more into cities and dating moved from home to out on the town, there was greater pressure for a woman to be deemed attractive. They were the ones with the money, so if they wanted a fun night out or a dinner at a fancy restaurant, they had to attract a man to take them. Women started wearing makeup to achieve this, and quickly makeup became a "women's thing." (1)

Lisa Wade, a sociology professor at Occidental College and the author of the textbook Gender: Ideas, Interactions, Institutions, explains how, economically, this doesn't make sense. Technically if a company were to market to both men and women, they have double the earning potential. In this instance, however, "gender ideology" was more important than profit. (1)

"Gender is all about maintaining the idea that men and women are different," she explains further. "Anything that we do that undermines distinction is a real threat to male superiority." (1)

In today's society, however, that table seems to be turning quicker and quicker, and more men are starting to wear makeup.

Why Men Are Wearing Makeup

There are many reasons why more men are wearing makeup. TV broadcasters and celebrities have been doing it for years, for many of the same reasons as women ( 2):

It makes your skin look even

Makeup can make you look younger

It covers up blemishes and accentuates positive attributes

Pop Culture Influence

Makeup for men began gaining steam as shows like RuPaul's Drag Race, and Queer Eye became popular. Drag Race shows men doing incredible things with makeup to turn themselves into drop-dead-gorgeous drag queens. Queer Eye shows stylist and beautician Johnathan VanNess teaching people - including straight men - about skincare and how to use beauty products to positively boost confidence and self-esteem. (1)

Gender Fluidity

In recent years, " toxic masculinity" has very much come under fire as being, of course, toxic. As the lines between what is "male" and what is " female" are being blurred, more and more men are finding the freedom to explore things that have been traditionally seen as " for women. " (1)

This includes fashion, general grooming, and, of course, makeup. Generation Z is at the forefront of this change. They are more open and gender-fluid than any other generation before them. (1)

"They're now rethinking what masculinity means, what it means to be a guy, and painting your face or using skincare doesn't make you any less men," says David Yi, founder of the men's beauty site Very Good Light. (1)

More Pressure

For decades, immense pressure has fallen on women always to look perfect and youthful. Flawless skin, perfect hair, perfect body - everything. Over the last few years, this pressure has been increasing for men. (2)

More men are having aesthetic treatments done and are beginning to take a vested interest in skincare products. (1) They see the benefits of taking care of their skin, and fewer and fewer men feel uncomfortable using and admitting that they use concealers to even out their skin tone or hide a pimple or two. (2)

Men's Makeup Brands

Even though there's no reason why men can't use " women's" makeup, there are many makeup brands marketed specifically toward men. These brands take a slightly more "masculine " approach to their design and advertising to make men feel more comfortable buying their products. (2)

Some brands include (2):

What some of these brands are realizing, though, is that they need this rough and tough appearance less and less. As the world progresses and more people seek to rid the world of toxic masculinity, men are caring less and less about whether or not their makeup and skincare products look " manly." (2)

Concern For The Politics of Makeup

Some women don't like makeup, saying that it puts unrealistic expectations on women's beauty standards. It reiterates the idea that women have to alter their appearance to be considered beautiful or attractive to society - that they aren't good enough just as they are. Instead, they are unofficially forced to spend hundreds if not thousands of dollars a year to be deemed acceptable and worthy by the outside world. (1)

Other women see it as empowering and as a way to express themselves and highlight the things they like about themselves.

Will Men Feel The Same Pressures?

These same concerns are now on the rise for men. As makeup for men becomes normalized, will they have the same pressures? Will men begin to feel that they aren't good enough just as they are? Or will makeup become more empowering, as it has for many men who have used it to express their gender identity and value themselves more? (1, 2)

Joel Stein addresses this in his article about his foray into makeup.

"At some point during this intricate process, it occurred to me that for 49 years, I'd never really studied my face. But now that I was really looking at myself and my flaws, they were all I could think about. Suddenly, my face looked like a planet with craters, valleys, volcanoes, coronas, and veins of ore," he wrote.

Maybe I could spackle over it? I smeared yellow under my eyes to cover up the thick blue vein I'd never seen and green around my nose to hide the Clintonian red hollows. I took out a concealer stick and dabbed a scratch on my neck I don't remember getting, and some red thing that wasn't a pimple but also wasn't not a pimple. I was older than I thought. Now I couldn't get all these thoughts about my face out of my head. One application of concealer and I instantly understood feminism." (2)

Should Men Wear Makeup?

'Should men wear makeup?' has the same answer to the question 'should women wear makeup': If they want to, then yes! If they don't, then, of course, they don't have to. This is a much easier feat to achieve for men, as they haven't had the years of being told by marketing brands that they aren't good enough without it.

Makeup also can mean whatever the individual user wants. It could be bold brows and lips, sparkles and a smokey eye, and highlight brightening the cheekbone. It could also simply mean applying some concealer to hide the bags under your eyes from lack of sleep.

Perhaps men wearing makeup will open up more doors for women to feel they have more freedom to choose, as well.
Keep Reading: More Women Embrace Facial Hair To Show Beards Aren't Just Men's Affairs
Sources

1. "What the rise of men's makeup means for masculinity." Vox. Anna North. September 24, 2018.

2. "More Men Are Wearing Makeup. And Now I See Why." La Mag. Joel Stein. September 4, 2020.

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Why More And More Men Are Wearing Makeup Today

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In eras and places throughout history, men have worn just as much makeup as women. Then, at some point, and for some reason, they stopped. Since then, particularly in the western world, makeup has really only been a thing for women, actors, TV personalities, and pop or rock stars.

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Jordan Peterson, Custodian of the Patriarchy

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Jordan Peterson, Custodian of the Patriarchy

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Not all people believe that women and men should be equal. Here is a view from that perspective. "He says there’s a crisis in masculinity. Why won’t women — all these wives and witches — just behave?"

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TORONTO - Jordan Peterson fills huge lecture halls and tells his audiences there's no shame in looking backward to a model of how the world should be arranged. Look back to the 1950s, he says - and back even further. He tells his audiences that they are smart. He is bringing them knowledge, yes, but it is knowledge that they already know and feel in their bones. He casts this as ancient wisdom, delivered through religious allegories and fairy tales which contain truth, he says, that modern society has forgotten.

Most of his ideas stem from a gnawing anxiety around gender. "The masculine spirit is under assault," he told me. "It's obvious."

In Mr. Peterson's world, order is masculine. Chaos is feminine. And if an overdose of femininity is our new poison, Mr. Peterson knows the cure. Hence his new book's subtitle: "An Antidote to Chaos."

"We have to rediscover the eternal values and then live them out," he says.

Mr. Peterson, 55, a University of Toronto psychology professor turned YouTube philosopher turned mystical father figure, has emerged as an influential thought leader. The messages he delivers range from hoary self-help empowerment talk (clean your room, stand up straight) to the more retrograde and political (a society run as a patriarchy makes sense and stems mostly from men's competence; the notion of white privilege is a farce). He is the stately looking, pedigreed voice for a group of culture warriors who are working diligently to undermine mainstream and liberal efforts to promote equality.

He is also very successful. His book, "12 Rules for Life," which was published in January, has sold more than 1.1 million copies. Thanks to his YouTube channel, he makes more than $80,000 a month just on donations. Hundreds of thousands of people have taken his online personality tests and self-improvement writing exercises. The media covers him relentlessly.

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For two days in May, Mr. Peterson gives me a view of his life. He shows me his home, lets me listen in on business calls and a Skype session with a fan, and follow him backstage during a speaking engagement at the Queen Elizabeth Theater. He does not smile. He has a weathered, gaunt face and big furrowed eyebrows. He has written about dogs being closest in behavior to humans, but there is something extremely feline about him. He always wears a suit. "I am a very serious person," he often says.

Wherever he goes, he speaks in sermons about the inevitability of who we must be. "You know you can say, 'Well isn't it unfortunate that chaos is represented by the feminine' - well, it might be unfortunate, but it doesn't matter because that is how it's represented. It's been represented like that forever. And there are reasons for it. You can't change it. It's not possible. This is underneath everything. If you change those basic categories, people wouldn't be human anymore. They'd be something else. They'd be transhuman or something. We wouldn't be able to talk to these new creatures."

Why Men Murder

Mr. Peterson's home is a carefully curated house of horror. He has filled it with a sprawl of art that covers the walls from floor to ceiling. Most of it is communist propaganda from the Soviet Union (execution scenes, soldiers looking noble) - a constant reminder, he says, of atrocities and oppression. He wants to feel their imprisonment, though he lives here on a quiet residential street in Toronto and is quite free.

"Marxism is resurgent," Mr. Peterson says, looking ashen and stricken.

I say it seems unnecessarily stressful to live like this. He tells me life is stressful.

He tucks his legs under him as he talks, curled in a dark leather seat. He has been padding around softly in socks. He looks down while he talks and makes fleeting, suspicious eye contact.

He quit his private practice last year and is on an early sabbatical from the University of Toronto. He dragged the school into controversy in 2016 by opposing a Canadian bill that he believed would compel him to use a student's preferred pronouns.

"I am not going to be a mouthpiece for language that I detest, and that's that," he said during a debate at the University of Toronto.

Mr. Peterson, who grew up in Fairview, Canada, a small town in northern Alberta, spent his career teaching psychology at Harvard and then at the University of Toronto, all while running a clinical practice.

The lesson most patients need to hear, he says, is "grow the hell up, accept some responsibility, live an honorable life."

"We just haven't talked about that in any compelling way in three generations," he says. "Probably since the beginning of the '60s."

Why did he decide to engage in politics at all? He says a couple years ago he had three clients in his private practice "pushed out of a state of mental health by left-wing bullies in their workplace." I ask for an example, and he sighs.

He says one patient had to be part of a long email chain over whether the term "flip chart" could be used in the workplace, since the word "flip" is a pejorative for Filipino.

"She had a radical-left boss who was really concerned with equality and equality of outcome and all these things and diversity and inclusivity and all these buzzwords and she was subjected to - she sent me the email chain, 30 emails about whether or not the word flip chart was acceptable," Mr. Peterson says.

Credit Mark Sommerfeld for The New York Times

So he was radicalized, he says, because the "radical left" wants to eliminate hierarchies, which he says are the natural order of the world. In his book he illustrates this idea with the social behavior of lobsters. He chose lobsters because they have hierarchies and are a very ancient species, and are also invertebrates with serotonin. This lobster hierarchy has become a rallying cry for his fans; they put images of the crustacean on T-shirts and mugs.

The left, he believes, refuses to admit that men might be in charge because they are better at it. "The people who hold that our culture is an oppressive patriarchy, they don't want to admit that the current hierarchy might be predicated on competence," he said.

Mr. Peterson illustrates his arguments with copious references to ancient myths - bringing up stories of witches, biblical allegories and ancient traditions. I ask why these old stories should guide us today.

"It makes sense that a witch lives in a swamp. Yeah," he says. "Why?"

It's a hard one.

"Right. That's right. You don't know. It's because those things hang together at a very deep level. Right. Yeah. And it makes sense that an old king lives in a desiccated tower."

But witches don't exist, and they don't live in swamps, I say.

"Yeah, they do. They do exist. They just don't exist the way you think they exist. They certainly exist. You may say well dragons don't exist. It's, like, yes they do - the category predator and the category dragon are the same category. It absolutely exists. It's a superordinate category. It exists absolutely more than anything else. In fact, it really exists. What exists is not obvious. You say, 'Well, there's no such thing as witches.' Yeah, I know what you mean, but that isn't what you think when you go see a movie about them. You can't help but fall into these categories. There's no escape from them."

Recently, a young man named Alek Minassian drove through Toronto trying to kill people with his van. Ten were killed, and he has been charged with first-degree murder for their deaths, and with attempted murder for 16 people who were injured. Mr. Minassian declared himself to be part of a misogynist group whose members call themselves incels. The term is short for "involuntary celibates," though the group has evolved into a male supremacist movement made up of people - some celibate, some not - who believe that women should be treated as sexual objects with few rights. Some believe in forced "sexual redistribution," in which a governing body would intervene in women's lives to force them into sexual relationships.

Violent attacks are what happens when men do not have partners, Mr. Peterson says, and society needs to work to make sure those men are married.

"He was angry at God because women were rejecting him," Mr. Peterson says of the Toronto killer. "The cure for that is enforced monogamy. That's actually why monogamy emerges."

Mr. Peterson does not pause when he says this. Enforced monogamy is, to him, simply a rational solution. Otherwise women will all only go for the most high-status men, he explains, and that couldn't make either gender happy in the end.

"Half the men fail," he says, meaning that they don't procreate. "And no one cares about the men who fail."

I laugh, because it is absurd.

"You're laughing about them," he says, giving me a disappointed look. "That's because you're female."

But aside from interventions that would redistribute sex, Mr. Peterson is staunchly against what he calls "equality of outcomes," or efforts to equalize society. He usually calls them pathological or evil.

He agrees that this is inconsistent. But preventing hordes of single men from violence, he believes, is necessary for the stability of society. Enforced monogamy helps neutralize that.

In situations where there is too much mate choice, "a small percentage of the guys have hyper-access to women, and so they don't form relationships with women," he said. "And the women hate that."

Helping Men Out, One at a Time

Mr. Peterson is a celebrity in the men's rights community, a loose collection of activists who feel men have been subjugated or betrayed by social progress. Some of these supporters pay $200 a month for a 45-minute Skype conversation with Mr. Peterson to discuss their problems. (Mr. Peterson says this service has since been discontinued.)

Before he leads me to his office to sit in on one of these appointments, Mr. Peterson shows me around the third floor of his home, which is filled with carvings made by Charles Joseph, a Kwakwaka'wakw artist.

Over his bed is a painting celebrating electrification in the Soviet Union. On the wall across from it is a hyper-realistic painting of two nude women with swords. His bedspread is familiar: It's the same image as his Twitter avatar, a dark geometric design based on a piece of art he made out of foam core in 1985 that he called "The Meaning of Music." He says it's "an attempt to portray in image what music means." He has had it made into a rug as well.

Mr. Peterson's office has objects scattered and strewn throughout: There is a hat from a gulag, some steampunk masks he thought were cool, stacks of papers and cords, and a Kermit puppet his sister sent him because his fans joke that his voice, high and hoarse, sounds like the Muppet. Mr. Peterson stresses the importance of cleanliness, but honestly his office is a mess.

For the Skype call, he wears a sharp blazer and button-down, but he sits shoeless and cross-legged. He knows where the frame cuts off.

The caller, Trevor Alexander Nestor, is a young white man: bearded, unemployed, at a friend's house. He later posted the audio on his own Patreon.

"I'm really hoping that somebody is going to recognize my talent," Mr. Nestor says.

Mr. Nestor says he recently wrote a paper on how testosterone levels and sperm count are dropping. He argues sociocultural transformations are probably making men less virile, and Mr. Peterson nods along.

At one point in the discussion, Mr. Peterson, who had been relatively quiet, becomes heated on the topic of women who find marriage oppressive.

"So I don't know who these people think marriages are oppressing," he says. "I read Betty Friedan's book because I was very curious about it, and it's so whiny, it's just enough to drive a modern person mad to listen to these suburban housewives from the late '50s ensconced in their comfortable secure lives complaining about the fact that they're bored because they don't have enough opportunity. It's like, Jesus get a hobby. For Christ's sake, you - you - "

Mr. Nestor says he was an engineering student at the University of California, Berkeley, but decided to transfer after feeling overcome by the liberal dogma when he took theater classes for his humanities requirement.

"They were teaching in classrooms things like Martin Luther King Jr. would have supported violent rebellion, and marriage is an institution that is designed to control the sexuality of women," he says.

Mr. Peterson has a verbal tic where he makes a sound like m-hmm, a guttural forceful noise to signify agreement barked in two distinct beats; his mouth stays closed.

"I've talked to a few young women, and they have told me they do wish that they could be housewives," Mr. Nestor says. "But what they've said to me is that they feel as though if they were to pursue that, other people would look down on them."

"I've had lots of women tell me that," Mr. Peterson says. "Women will never admit that publicly." Women are likely to prioritize their children over their work, he says, especially "conscientious and agreeable women."

When Mr. Peterson talks about good women - the sort a man would want to marry - he often uses these words: conscientious and agreeable.

Mr. Nestor feels anxious, and Mr. Peterson says he should. "My primary focus has been to not be homeless," Mr. Nestor says.

"You don't have a future and you don't have a job and no bloody wonder you're anxious," Mr. Peterson says. "That just means you're sane."

Male Performance

Jacob Logan, 18, from Alliston, Ontario, was first in line for Mr. Peterson's talk on Thursday, May 3 at the Queen Elizabeth Theater. He had arrived 12 hours early, wearing a shirt with lobsters stacked upon each other. He also had 100 name tags to hand out on which he had scrawled the name "Bucko." It's a nickname Mr. Peterson sometimes uses for his fans.

"Whenever I listen to him, it's like he's telling me something I already knew," Mr. Logan says. "Learning is remembering."

When Mr. Peterson comes down the line shaking hands, the crowd cheers in a way that is not normal for a book tour. He is wearing a new three-piece suit, shiny and brown with wide lapels with a decorative silver flourish.

It is evocative of imagery from a hundred years ago. That's the point. His speech too is from another era - stilted, with old-timey phrases, a hypnotic rhythm. It's a vocal tactic he came to only recently. Videos from a few years ago have him speaking and dressing in a more modern way.

I ask him about the retro clothes and phrases. He calls it his prairie populism.

"That's what happens when you rescue your father from the belly of the whale," he says. "You rediscover your tradition."

Inside among the crowd was Sue Bone, 66, a retired flight attendant from Halifax.

Ms. Bone loved her flight attendant job until she began to find it dehumanizing and corporate. Her friend told her the airlines were now run by "angry gay queens," she says. She found Mr. Peterson. She feels he understands the danger of these strange new social forces.

"He's waking us up in the West," she says.

The People Who Have Found Their Leader

"You're a divine locus of consciousness," Mr. Peterson tells the crowd of 1,200 or so people.

He looks down as he walks. He paces. He pleads - he often sounds frustrated, like you've just said something absurd and he's trying to correct you without raising his voice. He speaks for over an hour without any notes. He runs his hands over his face when it's all too much. He cries often.

"We love you!" a woman screams from the back of the house

Those with V.I.P. tickets get to shake his hand and take a picture. Many tell him something as they stand, waiting for the flash: "You made me have a religious experience"; "we got back in our faith because of you"; "this is another wedding you can take credit for."

Mr. Peterson's response is often, "How's that working out for you?"

Around midnight, there is still a group outside, lingering and talking.

Lion Arar, 22, a theater student in Montreal, says Mr. Peterson's discussion of gender brought him back to religion.

"It made sense in a primordial way when he breaks down Adam and Eve, the snake and chaos," Mr. Arar says. "Eve made Adam self-conscious. Women make men self-conscious because they're the ultimate judge. I was like, 'Wow this is really true.'"

The changes in his life include starting to clean his room. "My mom's been nagging me for years, but I've never done it until Dr. Peterson," he says.

"You organize one shelf, you do that, just incremental challenges," he says. "That makes you realize, 'O.K., this is how I grow up.'"

Andrew McVicar, 45, a waiter, says it was good to hear someone finally talk about how hierarchies were okay. He says current politics are pushing for everyone to be the same, promoting women and minorities into unearned positions.

"It's forced diversity, it's saying you must have X percent of A-B-C," he says. "How about, look at yourself?"

Jeffrey Rouillard, 21, from Montreal and also studying theater, says he was drawn to Mr. Peterson after watching a prominent female journalist grill him.

"How many times have I been in a situation where I had been set up to be the bad guy?" Mr. Rouillard asks. "Listening to Dr. Peterson, I got a grasp of myself. It's things I already knew, but now I know how to process the thought."

Agreeing, Mr. Arar gave off the same guttural m-hmm that Mr. Peterson does.

The Horror of Women

To Naureen Shameem, who works at the Association for Women's Rights in Development, which is based in Canada, Mr. Peterson's philosophies are part of a bigger global backlash to gender equality progress.

"It's an old story, really," she said. "In a lot of nationalistic projects, women's bodies and sexualities become important sites of focus and control."

"Jordan's exposed something that's been festering for a long time," says Justin Trottier, 35, the co-founder of the men's rights organizations Canadian Association for Equality and Canadian Centre for Men and Families. "Jordan's forced people to pay attention."

Mr. Trottier made headlines when his group called the anti-manspreading subway initiatives sexist. Their musty space hosts events in which men discuss the prejudices they perceive against them. One of their group's main goals is "waking the police up" to female-perpetrated domestic violence, Mr. Trottier says.

Now, "there's more acceptance of what we're trying to do," he says.

There are now regular Jordan Peterson discussion groups. The one in Toronto meets once a week at a restaurant called Hemingway's and is run by Chris Shepherd, who used to be a professional pickup artist who coached men on how to get laid fast at a club but is now a dating coach.

Mr. Shepherd first encountered Mr. Peterson in a viral video of the professor getting yelled at by campus activists. Watching the stoic professor take on righteous liberal anger touched Mr. Shepherd.

"Campus censorship has been a problem when I was at university too," he says at Hemingway's one recent afternoon.

I ask for an example.

"One law professor said something like, 'You young ladies should get married and start families,' and he got fired," Mr. Shepherd says. "The message was just you'll have a happier life if you get married instead of focusing on your career."

"Certainly not a firing offense," he says. Except, for now, it is.

Correction:

Nellie Bowles covers tech and internet culture. Follow her on Twitter:@nelliebowles

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Jordan Peterson, Custodian of the Patriarchy

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TORONTO - Jordan Peterson fills huge lecture halls and tells his audiences there's no shame in looking backward to a model of how the world should be arranged. Look back to the 1950s, he says - and back even further. He tells his audiences that they are smart.

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A Cultural History of Feminine Nouns Turned Into Insults

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A Cultural History of Feminine Nouns Turned Into Insults

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'Slut' and 'hussy' used to have tame meanings. Then, like so many other feminine nouns, they came to mean 'prostitute'

Credit: samdiesel/Getty Images

If you want to insult a woman, call her a prostitute. If you want to insult a man, call him a woman.

Nearly every word the English language offers to describe a woman has, at some point during its lifespan, been colored some shade of obscene. The main piece of evidence for this tendency toward women's linguistic disparagement appears when you examine certain matched pairs of gendered words. Compare, for example, "sir"and "madam": 300 years ago, both were used as formal terms of address. But with time, madamevolved to mean a conceited or precocious girl, then a kept mistress or prostitute, and then, finally, a woman who manages a brothel. All that excitement while the meaning of sirjust stuck where it was.

A similar thing happened with "master"and "mistress": These terms came to English by way of Old French, and initially, both words indicated a person in a position of authority. Only the feminine term was contaminated over the decades to mean a sexually promiscuous woman with whom a married man, as linguist Muriel Schulz puts it, "habitually fornicates." Meanwhile, mastercontinues to describe a dude in charge of something, like a household or an animal (or a sexual submissive, if we're talking BDSM). Mastercan also indicate a person who has conquered a difficult skill, like karate or cooking. Tell me: Is there a wildly entertaining television competition show called MistressChef? No, there is not. (I would definitely watch that, though.)

Two types of semantic change can alter a word's meaning over time: Pejorationis where a word starts out with a neutral or positive meaning and eventually devolves to mean something negative. The opposite is called amelioration. Feminine works usually go down the former route, while masculine works often go down the latter.

In some instances, the process of pejoration rebrands a feminine word as an insult-not for women, but for men. Take the words "buddy"and "sissy": Today, we might use sissyto describe a weak or overly effeminate man, while buddyis a synonym for a close pal. We don't think of these words as being related, but in the beginning, buddyand sissywere abbreviations of the words "brother"and "sister." Over the years, the masculine term ameliorated, while the feminine term went the other way, flushing down the semantic toilet until it plunked onto its current meaning: a man who is weak and pathetic, just like a woman. Linguists have actually determined that the majority of insults for men sprout from references to femininity, either from allusions to women themselves or to stereotypically feminine men: wimp, candy-ass, motherfucker.

The word "pussy"is analogous to sissy, in that it's a feminine word that was gradually reduced to an insult-not for women, but for men. Scholars aren't 100% sure of pussy's beginnings, but one theory is that it comes from an Old Norse word meaning "pouch" or "pocket." There's also an Oxford English Dictionary entry from the 16th century that defines the term as a girl or woman who bears similar qualities to a cat, like affability and coyness. By the 1600s, the word had surfaced as a metaphor for both a cat and a vagina. It wasn't used to describe men until the early 20th century, when writers began associating it with tame, unaggressive males.

Few traditionally masculine terms have undergone pejoration like sissy, pussy, madam, or mistress. "Dick"is really the only prominent example - this word started as an innocent nickname for men named Richard; by Shakespeare's time, it was extended to mean a generalized everyman (like a "Joe Shmoe"); in the late 19th century, it evolved to describe a penis (which we can likely attribute to British military slang - those dirty boys); and in the 1960s, it grew to refer to a thoughtless or contemptible person. Dick, however, is an outlier. Lad, fellow, prince, squire, and butlerare just a handful of other pejoration-worthy masculine words that have been spared.

Do feminine terms ever ameliorate? They do, but it's often because women actively reclaim them. But finding more instances like buddy, wherein a masculine term gains a more positive status over time, is an easier task. An Old English version of the word "knight," for example, simply meant young boy or servant before ameliorating to describe a gallant nobleman. The word "stud"graduated from a term for a male breeding animal to a slang phrase for a hot, manly dude. Even the word "dude"itself has elevated in status since the late 19th century, when it was used as an insult to describe an affected, foppish man. Today, dudeis one of the most beloved words in the English language.

The word is so contentious now that you'd never guess it came from the comparatively wholesome Middle English term slutte, which meant merely an "untidy" woman.

But back to all those wacky insults for women. Because it's so fun to talk about and such charming fodder for cocktail party conversation, I want to talk about the history of a few more of the many insults for or about women that used to mean something neutral or positive - a term of endearment, even - but at some point transitioned to mean something unflattering (and usually sexual).

Let's start with the word "hussy." Originally, this term was nothing but a shorter, sweeter version of the Old English husewif, which meant female head of household and is an early cognate of the modern word "housewife." Around the 17th century, the word came to describe a rude, "rustic" woman; then it became a general insult for women of any kind. Eventually, it narrowed to mean a lewd, brazen woman or prostitute.

The word "tart"went down a similar road. Once used to describe a small pie or pastry, the term soon became an innocent term of endearment for women, then specified to mean a sexually desirable woman, and by the late 19th century, it had descended to a female of immoral character or prostitute (which, of course, despite common rationale, are not the same thing).

Even the word "slut"used to mean something relatively innocent. The word is so contentious now that you'd never guess it came from the comparatively wholesome Middle English term slutte, which meant merely an "untidy" woman. The word was sometimes even used for men. (In 1386, Chaucer labeled one slovenly male character as "sluttish.") Soon enough, though, the word extended to mean an immoral, sexually loose woman or prostitute.

Cruder still, we have "bitch." Linguists postulate that this word derived from the ancient Sanskrit word bhagas, meaning "genitals," then later found its way (in various forms) into Latin, French, and Old English, eventually coming to refer to a creature with exposed genitals, aka an animal. After that, the word narrowed to female animal, and within a few centuries, we landed on female dog. The first shift in meaning from beast to human wasn't recorded until around 1400 AD, when bitchsurfaced in writing to describe a promiscuous woman or prostitute (still one of its primary meanings in British English). From there, the word evolved to describe a sort of weakling or servant ("Go fetch me my tea, bitch"); a stuck-up, mean, unpleasant woman; and, finally, a verb meaning "to complain." ("There are so many English words to bitch about, aren't there?")

And yet, out of all these etymological allegories, my favorite has to be the story of "cunt." What is largely considered the English language's most offensive term for women didn't actually start as an insult at all. Cunt's roots are also up for debate, but most sources agree they can be traced back to the Proto-Indo-European word sound "cu," which indicated femininity. (This same "cu" is also related to the modern words "cow"and "queen.") The Latin term cuneus, meaning "wedge," is also connected to cunt, as is the Old Dutch word kunte, which gives the word its dramatic final T. For centuries, cuntwas used to refer to women's external genitalia without any negative nuances whatsoever, but like so many other terms referencing femaleness, it didn't stay that way.

Spiritually, reading all about these words' pejoration is a bit of a bummer, but empirically, the patterns say something important about our culture's gender standards at large. When English speakers want to insult a woman, they compare her to one of a few things: a food (tart), an animal (bitch), or a sex worker (slut). That we have used language to systematically reduce women to edible, nonhuman, and sexual entities for so many years is no coincidence. In English, our negative terms for women necessarily mirror the status of women in Western society at large.

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A Cultural History of Feminine Nouns Turned Into Insults

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'Slut' and 'hussy' used to have tame meanings. Then, like so many other feminine nouns, they came to mean 'prostitute' If you want to insult a woman, call her a prostitute. If you want to insult a man, call him a woman.

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Eight words that reveal the sexism at the heart of the English language

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Eight words that reveal the sexism at the heart of the English language

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Linguists call it collocation: the likelihood of two words occurring together. If I say "pop", your mental rolodex will begin whirring away, coming up with candidates for what might follow. "Music", "song" or "star", are highly likely. "Sensation" or "diva" a little less so. "Snorkel" very unlikely indeed.

What do you think of when I say the word "rabid"? One option, according to the dictionary publisher Oxford Dictionaries, is "feminist". The publisher has been criticised for a sexist bias in its illustrations of how certain words are used. "Nagging" is followed by "wife". "Grating" and "shrill" appear in sentences describing women's voices, not men's.

One of the points of Oxford Dictionaries, part of Oxford University Press (OUP), is to show how words are used in the real world. And that is their response to allegations of sexism. "The example sentences we use are taken from a huge variety of different sources and do not represent the views or opinions of Oxford University Press," they said in a statement.

In other words, it's not the dictionary that's sexist, it's the English-speaking world. Why choose "feminist" over, say, "rightwinger", "communist" or "fan", though? As if not quite convinced by its own explanation, the OUP is now "reviewing the example sentence for 'rabid' to ensure that it reflects current usage".

That can only be a good thing. But a word of warning: it might not deliver the answer you'd hope for. Perhaps "rabid" is collocated with "feminist" more often than with those other words (if the data the OUP uses includes online discussions, I wouldn't be surprised if this was the case). Sexist assumptions find their way into speech and writing for the simple reason that society is still sexist.

Language, as the medium through which we conduct almost all relationships, public and private, bears the precise imprint of our cultural attitudes. The history of language, then, is like a fossil record of how those attitudes have evolved, or how stubbornly they have stayed the same.

When it comes to women, the message is a depressing one. The denigration of half of the population has embedded itself in the language in ways you may not even be aware of. Often this takes the form of "pejoration": when the meaning of the word "gets worse" over time. Linguists have long observed that words referring to women undergo this process more often than those referring to men. Here are eight examples:

Mistress

The female equivalent of "master", and thus, "a woman having control or authority" - in particular one who employs servants or attendants. It came into English with this meaning from French after the Norman conquest. From the 17th century onwards, it was used to mean "a woman other than his wife with whom a man has a long-lasting sexual relationship".

Hussy

This once neutral term meant the female head of a household. Hussy is a contraction of 13th-century husewif - a word cognate with modern "housewife". From the 17th century onwards, however, it began to mean "a disreputable woman of improper behaviour". That's now its only meaning.

Madam

The female equivalent of "sir", a woman of high rank, is still used in formal contexts as a mode of address. From the late 18th century it was also used to mean "a conceited or precocious girl or young woman; a hussy, a minx", alternatively, a kept mistress or prostitute, and finally, from the late 19th century, the female manager of a brothel.

Governess

From the 15th century onwards, "a woman who holds or exercises authority over a place, institution, or group of people". Compare it with "governor". Over time it drastically narrowed in scope and fell in status, coming to mean "a woman responsible for the care, supervision, or direction of a person, typically a child or young lady".

Spinster

This occupational term originally meant simply someone, usually a woman but possibly a man, who spun yarn or thread. Since a woman without a husband might have to rely on spinning as a source of income, the term became associated with unmarried women, eventually becoming the legal way to refer to one. The more loaded use of it to refer to "a woman still unmarried; esp. one beyond the usual age for marriage, an old maid" begins in the early 18th century.

Courtesan

One of the most dramatic shifts in meaning, from the female equivalent of "courtier" - someone who attends the court of a monarch - to a form of prostitute, which is now its only meaning.

Wench

A 13th-century word meaning a female infant or a young unmarried woman quickly acquired negative connotations: from the late 14th century, in Langland and Chaucer it is used to mean "a wanton woman; a mistress".

Tart

Collins dictionary says that this is a 19th-century contraction of "sweetheart", a term of endearment, particularly to women. From 1887, however, it is attested as meaning "a female of immoral character; a prostitute".

Thinking about the male equivalents of some of these words throws their sexism into sharp relief. Master for mistress; sir for madam; governor for governess; bachelor for spinster; courtier for courtesan - whereas the male list speaks of power and high status, the female list has a very different set of connotations. These are of either subordinate status or sexual service to men. The crucial thing to remember is that at one time, they were simply equivalents.

These eight words show how social conditions leave their mark on the language. The process of pejoration may take place below the level of consciousness, but in historical perspective, the direction of travel is obvious. Have the achievements of the feminist movement percolated down through the many layers of our language? The Oxford Dictionaries controversy suggests not. Can the words we use to describe women avoid the fate of hussy, mistress and courtesan? There's hope, but only time will tell.

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Eight words that reveal the sexism at the heart of the English language | David Shariatmadari

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Linguists call it collocation: the likelihood of two words occurring together. If I say "pop", your mental rolodex will begin whirring away, coming up with candidates for what might follow. "Music", "song" or "star", are highly likely. "Sensation" or "diva" a little less so. "Snorkel" very unlikely indeed.

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Jimmy Carter Says the World's Biggest Problem Is Its Treatment of Women and Girls

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Jimmy Carter Says the World's Biggest Problem Is Its Treatment of Women and Girls

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Former president Jimmy Carter has changed his mind about the world's greatest problem, he told graduates during his commencement speech at Liberty University on Saturday.

Nearly 20 years ago, Carter said in a speech that he believed the biggest global issue was income inequality. And although income inequality has worsened in much of the world since then, he now believes the biggest challenge the world faces today is gender inequality.

"I think now it's a human rights problem, and it is the discrimination against women and girls in the world," Carter said during his address at the university in Lynchburg, Virginia.
Take Action: Sexist Laws Have No Place in 2018. Agree? Tell Governments to Act
The former president touched on issues from female infanticide to sex and human trafficking to the astounding number of sexual abuse incidents within the US military (Carter cited 16,000 cases a year, though according to recent data, the number of reports filed last year was closer to 6,700).

This isn't the first time Carter has spoken out about this issue. In a 2015 TED Talk, Carter pointed to the mistreatment of women and girls as the most serious global human rights abuse. He discussed how harmful cultural attitudes, many stemming from interpretations of religious texts, are often the root of the problem, and he also shed light on forms of gender-based violence, including honor killings and female genital mutilation - which has affected more than 200 million girls and women alive today, according to the World Health Organization.
Read more: Gender Bias Kills 239,000 Girls in India Every Year, Study Finds
Until the stubborn attitudes that perpetuate gender discrimination change, the world cannot advance, and what Carter had previously thought was the world's greatest challenge - income inequality and poverty - cannot be solved.

More than 130 million girls are out of school, according to UNESCO and over 650 million girls and women alive today were married as children, according to Girls Not Brides. Many of them live in poverty and in communities where girls are seen as a financial and social burden, rather than potentially valuable members of their communities. This means they may be pulled out of school to collect water, care for their family, or to free up funds to prioritize opportunities for male family members.

As a result, millions of girls miss out on a chance to realize their full potential and are made dependent on others, trapping them in the poverty cycle.

Carter's commencement speech on Saturday helped highlight these issues, and underscored the need to reevaluate how the world treats half its population.

Global Citizen campaigns in support of the Global Goals, including for gender equality and the advancement of women's rights. You can take action here to empower girls and women around the world.

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Jimmy Carter Says the World's Biggest Problem Is Its Treatment of Women and Girls

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Former president Jimmy Carter has changed his mind about the world's greatest problem, he told graduates during his commencement speech at Liberty University on Saturday. Nearly 20 years ago, Carter said in a speech that he believed the biggest global issue was income inequality.

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What the Failed All-Female Spacewalk Tells Us About Office Temperature

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What the Failed All-Female Spacewalk Tells Us About Office Temperature

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In a for-men, by-men world, the little things still really do hurt women.

By Marisa Porges

Dr. Porges is the head of the all-girls Baldwin School and flew jets in the United States Navy.

Image

Credit Credit Laura Breiling

Over the past few weeks, NASA has been celebrating a pending milestone: the first-ever all-female spacewalk (just in time for Women's History Month, even!). It wasn't until Monday, just a few days before this week's planned mission to have two women step into space to install powerful batteries on the International Space Station's solar panels, that the crew realized the highly publicized plan had a major problem.

There weren't enough spacesuits that fit the female astronauts. We will not be celebrating an all-female spacewalk this week, after all.

The news brought back a vivid memory from when I served aboard an aircraft carrier about a decade ago, flying jets for the Navy. It was the time when a maintenance chief casually asked me to sign a seemingly innocuous paper, which, upon closer inspection, was in fact a form saying that I understood that the ejection seat on my jet was not designed for someone of my height and weight. I wasn't close to the size of an average man, so there was an increased risk of major injury if I used the safety equipment for its stated emergency purpose. By signing, I agreed to waive the Navy's liability were something to happen to me if it malfunctioned.

After two years of my flying jets for the military, it was as if someone suddenly noticed that my 5-foot-2-inch female frame wasn't what the men who built the plane, designed the safety gear and tested the emergency procedures had in mind. Ironically, the biggest systemic barriers to my pursuing a naval career - including the Navy's policy regarding women flying in combat - had been lifted years before. But the physical legacies of an era when men made decisions with other men in mind persisted.

Judging from the NASA news, this is still true.

It's an important reminder that while we often focus on major systemic issues facing working women - problems like gender-based wage gaps, family leave policies, career pipelines for women in underrepresented fields - the "little things" really do matter. Things like the lack of adequate lactation rooms in most office buildings, antiquated office dress codes that require women to wear high heels to work and the size of safety gear available for female astronauts.

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Christina Hammock Koch is scheduled to do her spacewalk on Friday. Originally, she was to be accompanied by another female astronaut. Credit Kirill Kudryavtsev/Agence France-Presse - Getty Images

In my current role, leading an all-girls school, I know that these seemingly small things make a big difference in how our next generation imagines their futures. My students are well aware of the institutional barriers they are likely to face, particularly if they follow a passion for computer science or engineering, want to become an entrepreneur or pursue any of the various professions in which women are still greatly underrepresented. They know that they will be held to a different standard, their style of leadership may be questioned, and gender norms will make it that much harder to juggle family and work. They understand what obstacles to expect and are ready for what's to come.

But we less frequently and effectively prepare them for the little stuff. Like the fact that the temperature setting in most workplaces is calibrated to men's metabolic rates, so women are often uncomfortably cold, especially when the air-conditioning kicks in. Or that until recently, even the White House did not have enough lactation rooms for the moms who wanted to work there. These are unfortunate realities that shouldn't be ignored. Not simply because if we don't shine a spotlight on the issues, things will never change, but also because our girls need to understand and be prepared for the world that awaits them.

This week's news from NASA reminds us why it's so critical to talk honestly about the lasting legacies of a gender-biased era - the "little" things that will affect the daily lives and careers of women for decades to come. When we don't, it turns out that even the world's best rocket scientists can forget that spacesuits were originally designed and built for men. Our girls - tomorrow's astronauts - deserve better than that.

Marisa Porges is head of school at the Baldwin School in Bryn Mawr, Pa., and author of the forthcoming book "What Girls Need."
The Times is committed to publishing Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. a diversity of letters to the editor. We'd like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here's our email: letters@nytimes.com.

Correction:

An earlier version of a picture caption accompanying this article incorrectly stated that Christina Hammock Koch's spacewalk had been canceled. Her spacewalk is scheduled for Friday.

A version of this article appears in print on , Section A, Page 27 of the New York edition with the headline: The Legacies of a Gender-Biased Era. Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe

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Opinion | What the Failed All-Female Spacewalk Tells Us About Office Temperature

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In a for-men, by-men world, the little things still really do hurt women. By Marisa Porges Dr. Porges is the head of the all-girls Baldwin School and flew jets in the United States Navy. Over the past few weeks, NASA has been celebrating a pending milestone: the first-ever all-female spacewalk (just in time for Women's History Month, even!).

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Women Are Sharing Their Disturbing Experiences With Unwanted Advances From Men

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Women Are Sharing Their Disturbing Experiences With Unwanted Advances From Men

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Women Are Sharing Their Disturbing Experiences With Unwanted Advances From Men

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Women are sharing their experiences of receiving unsolicited advances from men

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If you’ve ever had to pretend to have a boyfriend or husband to get out of an uncomfortable or threatening situation, then you’ll know that it can be a terrifying and isolating experience.But, you’re not alone and these responses to Jameela Jamil’s tweets are proof of that. SEE ALSO: This code word will help you when you feel unsafe on a dateThe star of The Good Place tweeted that she was shopping with a friend when a man made advances at her. She told him she had a boyfriend and thanked him, but the situation quickly escalated into one of harassment. > Was out at the shops with my friend. Man ogles me. Man then approaches me to give me his number. I explain I have a boyfriend but thank him for the offer. Man then threatens my career, saying I better remember that I rejected him. And then Shouts at me that I’m low class... ‍♀️> > -- Jameela Jamil (@jameelajamil) March 24, 2019Jamil tweeted about the time she said no to a man when she was 19 years old and he assaulted her. “Being a woman is truly, constantly scary,” she added. > I once said no thank you to man when I was 19 and didn’t have an excuse... and he punched me in the face. After that whether or not I have a boyfriend, I say I do. Being a woman is truly, constantly scary. It’s like existing on thin ice. https://t.co/cw1BCc9XUB> > -- Jameela Jamil (@jameelajamil) March 24, 2019Women began sharing their experiences of similar instances. > throwback to the guy who insisted that me having a girlfriend wasn’t a good enough excuse not to date him because “girls don’t count” and managed to get all my contact info except my address and harass me from multiple accounts for months. now I say I have a boyfriend, too.> > -- Steph (@ValaBlack) March 24, 2019> I work as a server. I will say I am married to which the most common response is, “So?”. The more cavalier say” I’m not jealous.” I am a paunchy, middle age woman who is wondering when I will be old enough that this crap will stop.> > -- Natalie (@snat1998) March 24, 2019> I got out of service work years ago mostly bc of crap like this, which didn’t stop when I got married. Couldn’t take it anymore. Sorry it’s still going on! (From one paunchy middle aged woman to another)> > -- Sami Feminist Killjoy Lee (@divasamilee) March 25, 2019> was in a bar once.Guy approached me aggressively wouldnt back off. one of my guy friends had to say back off this is my wife.aggressor said I don’t see rings on your fingers! My guy friend threatens violence. FinallyAsshole leaves. Fun part:9yrs later I actually married my friend> > -- Amanda Moresco Von Lumm (@mandy_moresco) March 25, 2019> When I was serving, I had a decoy engagement ring. It’s gross how often “no” wasn’t good enough, but “I’m engaged” was. It’s even grosser how often “I’m engaged” WASN’T good enough. > > -- Elle Young (@elle_yung) March 24, 2019> I got called a lesbian and told I was probably on my period when I rejected a guy his friend also spat a chip at me ‍♀️ and this this awesome girl came out of nowhere and started shouting at them. Not how I expected the end of my night out to go > > -- Kennise Darlsson (@kennydarlsson) March 24, 2019> I’ve had men online first approach me as “how is your husband?” And then when I’m alarmed and say “I don’t have a husband” they use that as “ok it’s go time, she’s not legally bound to another guy!”> > -- Steph Lorenzo ️‍ (@StephLorenzo) March 25, 2019> A man once stopped me on the way to the bathroom at a work event and said “I’m looking for a date”, I replied “can’t help you” and tried to keep walking, he grabbed my left wrist, pointed at my (empty) ring finger and said “looks like you can”. > > -- April Muller (@findapril) March 25, 2019Horrifying, to say the very least. WATCH: Women are still underrepresented in tech. Here’s what Facebook has to say about it.

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Hasbro and Ogilvy Created a Simple, Lovely Ad About Why Boys Should Play With Dolls

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Hasbro and Ogilvy Created a Simple, Lovely Ad About Why Boys Should Play With Dolls

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We may not have realized it at the time, but the toys we used to play with often doubled as tools of gendered socialization.

It's actually a little funny when you take a moment to think about it: We-children and adults alike-have long allowed heaps of plastic, bolts and rubber to dictate how we're "supposed" to exercise our imaginations, limiting boys to liking race cars and robots while dolls were left to the girls as maternal training.

It can seem like such a small thing at that time, but the attitudes that lead to the idea that "boys can't play with dolls" and other weirdly narrow assertions are contagious and can endure through generations. Kids are impressionable, after all.

Thankfully, a new campaign from Ogilvy Brazil aims to do away with the notion that dolls are reserved for a single gender. "We All Can Take Care" features a 60-second spot that shows boys readily playing with the Baby Alive doll by Hasbro.

Among the heap of popular toys (including subtle cameos from Mr. Potato Head and a resting Transformer), the boys can be seen playing cooperatively with the baby doll through nurturing moments of "care." Scenes that include changing the doll's diaper or pretending to be doctors reflect some of the developmental benefits that come with playing with dolls during adolescence, according to educator and author Maria Angela Barbato.

"It leads to emotional development, new ways of interacting and learning what respect is all about," she says in a statement about the campaign launch. "The advice I would give to parents is: let your children play."

"Our challenge is to show that both girls and boys can learn a lot from playing with dolls," adds Kellen Silverio, marketing director for Hasbro in Brazil. "This is a free-spirited, playful gesture that nurtures love and that counts for much in helping children growing up to become human beings who care for one another."

What stands out most about Ogilvy's approach to the subject-one that is still considered progressive in today's cultural climate-is the ad's casual framing. The idea of boys playing with dolls is not presented as a social experiment or otherwise deemed an anomaly, but a reminder that this is just how children play without the intervention of societal constraints.

Instead of outlining all of the reasons that boys should play with dolls, Ogilvy and Hasbro pose the simple question, "Why not?"

CREDITS:
Agency: Ogilvy Brazil
Campaign: We All Can Take Care
Product Baby Alive
Client: Hasbro
Chief Executive: Fernando Musa
Chief Creative Officer: Félix del Valle
Executive Creative Director: Márcio Fritzen
Associate Creative Director: Mathias Almeida, Teco Cipriano
Art Director: Teco Cipriano, Gabriella Pimentel, Thomaz Maksud
Copywriter: Mathias Almeida, Ygor Silva, Guilherme Rio
Producers: Fabiano Beraldo, Paty Silveira, Hellen Gazetta
Account: Denise Caruso, Felipe Obara, Renata Flores
Planning: Thais Frazão, Cleber Almeida, Mariana Crepaldi, Tu Moon
Media: André Gramorelli, Adeildo Souza, Danielle Conti, Stefanie Gambier, Vitoria Soares, Agnes Han
Ogilvy Content Studio: Gustavo Otto, Thiago Frias, Rayra Janau, Leonardo Araujo, Thiago Bancaro, Maria Eduarda Neves, Giovanne Formis, Ana Beatriz Almeida, Natalia Antunes, Fernando Badô
Video Editor: Deydson Rocha
Client Approval: Kellen Silverio, Vanessa Giangiacomo

Production House: Corazon Filmes
Director: Will Mazzola
Executive Director: Igor Ferreira
Executive Producer: Renato Chabuh
Account: Marcia Branco, Mary Lacoleta, Maria Eugênia
Photography: Ted Abel
Team Corazon: Júlia Kannebley, Danielle Oliveira, Juliana Sigolo, Fe Bley, Mariana Becker, Lucas Aires
Pos Production/Motion: Matheus Scatolini, Hub Vfx

Sound Production: Shuffle Audio
Team Shuffle: Alexandre Marcondes, Henrique Ruiz Nicolau, Chico Castellano

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Hasbro and Ogilvy Created a Simple, Lovely Ad About Why Boys Should Play With Dolls

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We may not have realized it at the time, but the toys we used to play with often doubled as tools of gendered socialization.

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Raising Boys With a Broader Definition of Masculinity

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Raising Boys With a Broader Definition of Masculinity

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A psychologist explains how a strong relationship with a parent or teacher can help boys be their true selves, even when those selves don't fit within narrow cultural norms.

Cohen / Ostrow / Getty

In recent years, some of society's gender norms have begun to stretch and soften, while others cling fast. For many young boys, there continues to be a very small space that they can occupy to be considered traditionally "masculine," and that small space can be restricting, forcing boys to lose what doesn't fit inside it.

In his new book, How to Raise a Boy, Michael Reichert calls that space the "man box." Reichert is a psychologist who specializes in boys and men, and the founding director of the Center for the Study of Boys' and Girls' Lives at the University of Pennsylvania. His book is written as a guide to parents who want to create more space for their boys to express themselves. The key, he writes is "a relationship in which a boy can tell that he matters ... A young man's self confidence is not accidental or serendipitous but derives from experiences of being accurately understood, loved, and supported."

I spoke with Reichert about how parents, teachers, and other adults can strengthen their relationships with boys, even when those boys act out, and in so doing help them create a broader expression of masculinity for themselves. An edited and condensed transcript of our conversation follows.

Julie Beck: You write that "boys' first disconnection is from themselves." What do you mean by that?

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Michael Reichert: I use a quote in my book from a George Orwell story called "Shooting an Elephant." He is a colonial policeman in Burma being asked to kill an elephant running amok in a village, and he is expected to do it without any show of hesitation or regret. The sentence he used to describe what that policeman experienced was: "He wears a mask, and his face grows to fit it."
Read more: One mother imagining a better boyhood
Requiring boys to differentiate what they show the world and what they feel inside happens really young. I have a two-and-a-half-year-old grandson who is already learning what's okay to show and what he has to keep to himself. A boy grows into that mask to the point where the mask becomes how he thinks of himself. He becomes cut off from his heart.

The first component of emotional intelligence is emotional awareness. But the rules of society mean that boys have to censor what they express, and sometimes the only way to do that is to convince yourself that you're not feeling what you're feeling. To become numb and detached. And if I've cut myself off from my own feelings, I'm going to be less perceptive about what you're feeling, which means I'm going to behave in a relationship with less skill and deftness.

Beck: These norms of masculinity have been entrenched in the culture for so long that it seems unlikely they would go completely away within a generation. But in the book, you're saying that positive relationships with parents or other mentors can be kind of a safe harbor for boys from all the madness swirling around out there, even if we can't get rid of the madness entirely. How does that work in practice?

Reichert: I think you're at the heart of it. I would say it a little differently: There are lots of signs that these cultural norms are shifting. I think this generation of boys is having a different experience and responding to a different set of opportunities than any prior generation. I teach this course in emotional literacy at a boys' high school and I've been teaching it for 25 years. From what it was like when we started to what it's like now is a sea change. There used to be a lot of resistance, particularly on the part of the guys who subscribed more fully to the masculine norms-athletes, leaders. Now we have football players and actors and student leaders voluntarily coming to [the class] during their lunchtime. The present generation of boys understands and accepts their need to be savvy with their emotional lives.

The power of a strong relationship with an ally like a mother, father, or teacher is that it strengthens the boy's core sense of who he is and therefore empowers him to resist the pressures of a culture that is trying to fit him into a box. Boys are picking these messages up. Sometimes they're being pulled in a direction that is unhealthy. For a boy to resist the pull of a peer culture trying to get him to go along with, for example, sexually objectifying girls and women-it helps to have a relational anchor. Someone really rooting him to a sense that he's known and loved.

Beck: You have two sons- what was on your mind when they were born and you were looking forward to raising them? Were you already having some of these concerns about boyhood at that time?

Reichert: I was. Back in the late '70s and '80s I was beginning to connect with the men's movement in the country. I was quite conscious of the fact that whatever was going on in male development wasn't working. I had a fundamental commitment with my first son to prioritize attachment parenting. It was important to me and my wife to make sure he had the strongest relationship with both his mom and his dad that we could manage. We spent a lot of special time with him, did a lot of strengthening of his emotional voice, making sure he expressed what he needed to. We wanted a boy who had his own mind, who was picking up that who he was mattered to us, that we were going to get to know him rather than merely requiring him to fit into what we expected a boy to be.

Beck: How do you think that went? Your sons are adults now, right?

Reichert: I think both of my sons benefited from that kind of parenting. They still have really strong connections with both of us. And they evidence a strong capacity to love other people and to establish intimate relationships. My son is the father of a two-and-a-half-year-old boy and he is a wonderful father. When my grandson says Daddy, the way he says the word, you can just tell it's coming from his heart. It resonates with real connection and delight.

Beck: Were there ever moments when your kids were growing up where you felt yourself falling into some of traps you'd hoped to avoid? How did you work past them?

Reichert: Yeah, all the time. Ideas that I was unconscious of that resided in the back of my mind would pop out in these odd moments. One story is: My son had an early experience with bullying and got chased from the playground. I initially tried to build his self-confidence by sending him back to the playground to stand up for himself, and not settle for being driven from something he loved to do. One day when he came back home from the playground, defeated once again, I simply said, "You can't come in. You have to go back and figure this out." And he had a huge emotional reaction. I wouldn't let him retreat, I didn't offer him safe harbor, I was making him go back and contend with these mean boys.
Read more: The problem with the term "toxic masculinity"
On a conscious level, I was thinking, You're doing the right thing; you're teaching him to stand up for himself; you're saying he doesn't have to let a defeat define his possibilities. But I realized, when I reflected, that I was actually coming from a place where I was scared for him. I had these dire imaginings of a young man who was not going to be able to fend for himself in the dog-eat-dog world of boys' peer culture. I was essentially trying to toughen my son up by passing along a lesson I had learned, and that my father had learned, and probably his father before him. Unconsciously, I was passing along a narrow vision that was about fitting into the peer culture rather than transcending it.

Beck: Once boys get to school, there is a lot more about their lives that parents can't control, and friends are one of those things. Obviously kids' friends can be a positive or negative influence on them regardless of gender, but do you think that works in a different way for boys than for girls?

Reichert: Friendship is a critical influence on what boys are learning about cultural norms and permission to be yourself. Because of the way children are separated by gender beginning in elementary school, boys' first friendships are often with other boys. They learn to practice skills of sharing and intimacy and connection with other boys well before they do it with girls. And we know from research that boys' friendships can be rich and deep and life-sustaining. Boys will say, "Without my friends I think I'd die."

So there's a very positive side to male friendships that unfortunately becomes harder to maintain as boys get older and pick up cultural messages that they shouldn't be close to another boy because of homophobia. A lot of boys lose their friends in later adolescence, to their detriment. I know a lot of adult men who don't have any friends at all.

But the downside of male friendships is really important to keep in mind, too. Norms that boys pick up in the peer group become a part of their normal. Whether it's substance use or misogyny or risk-taking, I think that hypermasculine peer-group norms can be a danger, particularly if the young man doesn't have some kind of mentor or parental figure grounding him in a connection, serving as a moral compass, almost.

Beck: In the book, you talk about how a bad reaction when boys act up or test authority can make them even more disconnected from their caretakers. What's a bad way to react, and what would a better way be?

Reichert: I'll speak first about schools. Boys in classroom settings are more willing to misbehave, to be defiant and disruptive, if they're not into the lesson, and girls in those classroom settings tend to be quieter or more willing to go along. And most discipline-detention, suspensions, expulsions-most of those are directed towards boys. When a boy is rejecting a teacher or challenging their authority, what the teacher feels is very negative. Instead of remembering that the boy is a child and the adult's job is to cultivate a connection with the boy, what teachers often do instead is suppress the boy; they exercise force and power for punishment.

This is also true of parents. I have an awful lot of parents who seem to shut down or withdraw. I had a mom tell me today that her son is saying to her, "You're just so annoying, Mom," now that he's 12 years old. The mom begins to question herself: Am I annoying? What's wrong with the way I'm approaching my son? Maybe I just don't get boys. That kind of self-questioning causes parents to withdraw and even to give up-to come to believe that what the boy needs isn't connection, or at least not connection with me; maybe he needs his friends or he needs his coach. The outcome of that is the boy winds up alone.

What I've been training teachers to understand is that absent a relational connection, a boy is going to be disengaged from learning. If you notice that a relationship has become weakened or broken between you and a student, your job as the relationship manager is to repair the breakdown. That job falls to the adult, not the child.

So when it comes to parents, I reiterate the same thing. You have the goods, you have what that boy needs. If he seems to be pushing you away at every turn, or critiquing your parenting, your job is not to buy it. You are not required to be perfect, but your job is to keep reaching for your son even when he's not giving you any indication you're on the right track. When a boy is misbehaving in some way, your job is to intervene, not for the sake of suppressing his misbehavior or punishing him, but to require him to face whatever emotional energy might be driving him off course.

I know a lot of boys who push against their parents because they know that their parents' unconditional love means they can afford to display how angry or scared they feel with something else in their lives. They can't take it out against their teacher or peer group but they can show their parent.

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first component of emotional intelligence

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Raising Boys With a Broader Definition of Masculinity

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A psychologist explains how a strong relationship with a parent or teacher can help boys be their true selves, even when those selves don't fit within narrow cultural norms. In recent years, some of society's gender norms have begun to stretch and soften, while others cling fast.

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Nurse fails in London Marathon record bid 'because she wore trousers'

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Nurse fails in London Marathon record bid 'because she wore trousers'

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An NHS nurse was told her marathon world record attempt would only count if she completed the famous London race wearing a skirt.

Jessica Anderson, who works at the Royal London Hospital, wanted to be the quickest woman to complete a 26.2 mile race dressed as a nurse.

But, despite crossing the finish line in 3.08:22 last Sunday, Guinness World Records (GWR) told Ms Anderson her attempt would not count because she was wearing scrubs with trousers.

GWR rules stipulated that a nurse's uniform must include: a blue or white dress, a pinafore apron, and a traditional nurse's cap.

Officials told Ms Anderson that scrubs are too close to the fancy dress requirements for a doctor's uniform.

Speaking to magazine Runner's World, the senior sister called the rules "outdated", and said: "I was quite taken aback when I read that they'd rejected my application.

"Some of the nurses I work with do wear dresses, but mostly we wear scrubs or a tunic and trousers."

GWR has since pledged to look into their costume policy.

It said in a statement on Saturday: "Inclusiveness and respect are values that Guinness World Records holds extremely dear, and while we always need to ensure we can differentiate between categories, it is quite clear that this record title is long overdue a review, which we will conduct as a priority in the coming days."

Ms Anderson, who raised more than £2,200 for Barts Health NHS Trust, hopes GWR will stop "reinforcing old gender stereotypes".

She added: "I'm sure Guinness World Records don't intend to cause offence, but it would be nice if they decided to revise their criteria." The official world record for a woman running a marathon in a nurse's uniform is held by Sarah Dudgeon, who set a time of 3:08:54 in 2015.

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nurse fails in london marathon record bid 'because she wore trousers'

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Nurse fails in London Marathon record bid 'because she wore trousers'

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An NHS nurse was told her marathon world record attempt would only count if she completed the famous London race wearing a skirt. Jessica Anderson, who works at the Royal London Hospital, wanted to be the quickest woman to complete a 26.2 mile race dressed as a nurse.

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Men Invented ‘Likability.’ Guess Who Benefits.

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Men Invented ‘Likability.’ Guess Who Benefits.

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Image

Credit Credit Selman Design

Opinion
It was pushed by Madison Avenue and preached by self-help gurus. Then it entered politics.

Credit Credit Selman Design

By Claire Bond Potter

If the supposedly unlikable Hillary Clinton didn't break the highest, hardest glass ceiling in 2016, she made enough cracks in it to encourage others to try again: Six women are competing for the Democratic nomination today. But guess what? We don't seem to like them either.

As Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar and others jumped into the race, each seemed to affirm the new power of women in 2019, a power that was born when President Trump was sworn into office, exploded during #MeToo and came into its own during the 2018 midterms.

But no female candidate has yet led the polls. The men keep joining - Michael Bennet this week, Joe Biden the last - and keep garnering glowing press coverage. Although Mr. Biden fumbled two previous presidential bids, we are told he has " crossover appeal"; Bernie Sanders has been admired by this newspaper as " immune to intimidation"; and Pete Buttigieg, who would be the first openly gay man nominated for president, is " very authentic." By contrast Ms. Harris is " hard to define"; Ms. Klobuchar is " mean"; and Ms. Warren is a " wonky professor" who - you guessed it - is " not likable enough." Seeing comments like this, Mrs. Clinton said wryly in January, "really takes me back."

Likability: It is nebulous, arbitrary and meaningless, yet inescapable - and female politicians seem to be particularly burdened with it even when they win and especially when they run for president.

The idea that we should like our politicians predates women's suffrage, let alone women in politics. Pushed by Madison Avenue and preached by self-help gurus, likability is a standard that history shows us was created and sold by men. The bad news is that means it's a tricky fit for women. The good news is that what was invented once can be reinvented.

Likability seems to have emerged as an important personality trait in the late 19th century, when it became closely associated with male business success. Before this, people liked or disliked one another, of course, but it wasn't until after the Civil War, when middle-class men began to see virtue and character as essential to personal advancement, that success in business required projecting likability.

Businessmen joined service associations like the Knights of Columbus (founded in 1882) and Rotary International (1905), and male friendship - men being liked, and liking other men - became a key element for attaining civic leadership. Popular authors like Horatio Alger promoted "likability" as a way of making one's virtue visible, and thus paving the road to prosperity. The shoeshine boy Ragged Dick, the hero of one Alger novel, does good deeds that cause strangers to warm to him and give him a leg up. Describing Dick as "frank and straightforward, manly and self-reliant," Alger hoped his readers would "like him as I do."

By the 20th century, the advertising and public relations experts of Madison Avenue specialized in making products likable too, by associating them with figures - the actor Robert Montgomery or the aviator Amelia Earhart, for instance - they believed consumers already had an attachment to. The point was to generate a sense of connection that felt "real," even if the consumer might suspect that the feeling of liking the product had been created by a well-orchestrated jingle, billboard or print ad.

Americans were also taught that being likable was a quality that could be cultivated as a means to get ahead. In 1936, Dale Carnegie's "How to Win Friends and Influence People" warned that those who tried too hard to be liked would fail: Theodore Roosevelt's naturally friendly greetings to everyone he passed, regardless of status, Carnegie noted, had made it impossible not to like him, but Henrietta G., now the "best liked" counselor at her office, had been isolated until she learned to stop bragging. (Though looking back, we have to wonder: Would Henry G. have needed to hide his accomplishments?)

As presidential candidates put advertising experts in charge of national campaigns, perhaps it was inevitable that likability would jump explicitly to politics. In 1952, some of the first televised election ads sought to highlight Dwight Eisenhower's likability. The advertising executive Rosser Reeves put Eisenhower in controlled settings where his optimism, self-confidence, humor and nonpartisanship could be emphasized over his political inexperience and what Reeves viewed as his "inept" speaking style. The animator Roy Disney was commissioned to make a cartoon spot with a catchy jingle: "Ike for President," the song repeated, cutting to Uncle Sam leading a parade down the streets. "You like Ike, I like Ike, everybody likes Ike," the chorus sang as Eisenhower's smiling cartoon face passed.

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Credit Selman Design

Television heightened the need to project likability, to sell candidates to voters, as the journalist Joe McGinniss wrote, "like toothpaste." In "The Selling of the President 1968," McGinniss chronicled how Richard Nixon, suffering from a likability deficit, hired a young media consultant named Roger Ailes, who created televised "conversations" with ordinary voters as visual proof that Nixon liked them and they liked him. In the next decades, as a compelling television presence became critical to likability, Ronald Reagan, Sonny Bono, Jesse Ventura, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Al Franken parlayed successful entertainment careers into elected office.

By the time Hillary Clinton opened her 2008 campaign for president, Bill Clinton had answered questions about "boxers or briefs" while grinning on MTV; the " folksy Texas rogue " George W. Bush had defeated an "insincere brown-noser," Al Gore; and the importance of being likable in politics seemed so entrenched that Mrs. Clinton kicked things off with a "likability tour."

But as Dale Carnegie might have told her, if there is anything worse than being unlikable, it is wanting too badly to be liked. Even as her young Senate colleague and rival for the nomination, Barack Obama, was dazzling crowds, Mrs. Clinton struggled to shed a reputation as untrustworthy and remote, perhaps not coincidentally, and couldn't stop herself from voicing her own ambivalence about likability as a qualification for office. "I think it's good to have a likable president," she said. "But if I remember right, many people said they wanted to have a beer with George W. Bush. Maybe they should've left it at that."

By then, yet another wave of marketing authorities were preaching about the importance of likability to leadership - Tim Sanders's "Likability Factor," published in 2005, promised that by accentuating the best aspects of their personalities executives could learn to be effective leaders, while in 2012 Rohit Bhargava's "Likeonomics" revealed that likability was critical to establishing an emotional connection to others. Whether voters went to the polls at all, he wrote, "has everything to do with how likable a candidate is." The likability juggernaut, in politics and in the larger culture, seemed unstoppable.

That Mrs. Clinton lost the nomination in 2008, to a political virtuoso but still a virtual novice, seemed for some illustrative of the troubled relationship between gender and likability in politics. But then she lost in 2016. That voters could see Donald Trump's rambling and bullying as authenticity seemed proof for many that the likability game was permanently rigged in favor of men.

And in many ways it is.

Likability is associated with an emotional connection between candidate and voter that makes a politician worthy of trust. And yet because that connection is forged almost exclusively through the conduit of mass media, it can never be really about the candidate but only voters' fantasies about how a politician they can never know ought to be. That women are disadvantaged by a dynamic that emphasizes fantasies over real achievements should perhaps come as no surprise: Popular fantasies about women, sadly, still don't tend to feature intelligence, expertise and toughness at the negotiating table.

Yet if the history of likability in America tells us how important it has become, particularly to politics, it also teaches us there is nothing immutable about a concept that was created and refined by men from Horatio Alger to Dale Carnegie to Roger Ailes. Women haven't benefited much from the likability standard as it stands. But to recognize that it's an invention is to dream that they could.

What would it mean if we could reinvent what it is that makes a candidate "likable"? What if women no longer tried to fit a standard that was never meant for them and instead, we focused on redefining what likability might look like: not someone you want to get a beer with, but, say, someone you can trust to do the work?

The overwhelming success of female candidates in the 2018 midterms is a sign that this might already be happening. It was, for many people, a turn to a new kind of member of Congress - female, of color - who could be trusted in the face of a White House that can't seem to get its facts straight and a president who had proclaimed Washington to be a swamp only to put his boots on and wade right in. If Americans can learn to like and trust women in Congress in record numbers, maybe they can learn to trust women as presidential candidates too - and maybe even like them.

Claire Bond Potter is a professor of history at the New School and the executive editor of Public Seminar.
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Opinion | Men Invented 'Likability.' Guess Who Benefits.

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Opinion It was pushed by Madison Avenue and preached by self-help gurus. Then it entered politics. Credit Credit Selman Design By Claire Bond Potter If the supposedly unlikable Hillary Clinton didn't break the highest, hardest glass ceiling in 2016, she made enough cracks in it to encourage others to try again: Six women are competing for the Democratic nomination today.

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Black women and the fight for abortion rights: How this brochure sparked the movement for reproductive freedom

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Black women and the fight for abortion rights: How this brochure sparked the movement for reproductive freedom

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Planned Parenthood sponsored production of the 250,000 "We Remember" pamphlets in the summer of 1989. The statement, written by former Ms. editor Marcia Gillespie, connected the lack of reproductive freedom to other forms of oppression suffered by the African-American community until that moment such as slavery, Jim Crow laws and voting disenfranchisement.

Ultimately Ross says she thought, no matter their history, black women needed to have access to reproductive freedom and justice.

"The feminist in me said we deserve abortion rights whether we had ever been enslaved or not," she said. "It's our human right."

The brochure was the first part of a series of signature campaigns in the late 1980s-early 1990s in which black women and women of color used their voices to impact public policy and raise awareness around sexism and racism. In 1991, black scholars gathered signatures from 1,600 black women and took out an advertisement in the New York Times in support of Anita Hill, who faced scrutiny for testifying in judiciary hearings against Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, whom she accused of sexual harassment.

Then came the full-page ad, "Black Women on Health Care Reform," which was signed by 836 black women including novelist Alice Walker and political activist Angela Davis and published in the Washington Post and Roll Call in August 1994, according to the book Reproductive Justice. The printing was organized by the 16 black women who launched the reproductive justice movement to address the intersection of social justice and reproductive health in June 1994.

The collective, which called itself the Women of African Descent for Reproductive Justice, was responding to the Clinton administration's proposed 1993 Health Security Act, which did not address reproductive issues that disproportionately harmed black women, such as poverty, intimate partner violence, infant mortality and morbidity, environmental issues and HIV/AIDS.

To further push their message, the WADRJ and the Women of Color Partnership Program of the Religious Coalition of Reproductive Choice also republished "We Remember" with 29 more signatures from black women in 1994. The second iteration of the brochure is also tied to the founding of the reproductive justice movement, Toni Bond Leonard, who was part of organizing the reissue, explained.

"We were still fighting for black women to be able to discuss abortion and also to be trusted as moral agents with the capacity to make decisions about our bodies," Bond said.

Because mainstream pro-choice organizations traditionally didn't speak out on the racism black women faced, an experience that impacted their reproductive health, they weren't satisfied with those spaces representing them either.

"It enabled us to center ourselves and talk about our lived experiences in ways that the reproductive health and reproductive rights movement didn't allow us to do, and so what you had was basically black women and other women of color create their own movement," Bond said.

Bond and Ross stood on the shoulders of black women before them who sought access to family planning services and abortion whether it was accessible to them or whether it was something they took into their own hands. For instance, late surgeon and Tennessee legislator Dr. Dorothy Lavinia Brown introduced a bill in 1967 - which didn't pass - to legalize abortion caused by rape or incest. In 1965, women of color were most likely to die from illegal abortions, according to Abortion Wars: A Half Century of Struggle, 1950-2000. During slavery, black women had little power over their reproductive health, but used other methods to end pregnancies at their own will. According to Ross, much of their knowledge on carrying out abortions was from African communities from where these women descended and which pre-dated slavery.

There are multiple reasons why black women sought abortions throughout history, reasons that should not have ever been policed, according to the "We Remember" document.

"We understand why African-American women risked their lives then, and why they seek safe legal abortion now," the statement read. "It's been a matter of survival. Hunger and homelessness. Inadequate housing and income to properly provide for themselves and their children. Family instability. Rape. Incest. Abuse. Too young, too old, too sick, too tired. Emotional, physical, mental, economic, social - the reasons for not carrying a pregnancy to term are endless and varied, personal, urgent, and private."

In the years since "We Remember," black women, especially those who are low-income, navigate similar obstacles. The Hyde Amendment of 1976 continues to block millions of people who receive Medicaid, many of whom are disproportionately young and black, from receiving public assistance for abortion access. Those women have to pay the cost out of pocket, which could cost up to $950, according to Planned Parenthood.

Today, there are multiple organizations and high-profile individuals using their platform to support these women. For instance, the National Network of Abortion Funds, which is made up of 70 member organizations, works to remove financial barriers to accessing abortion. Of the 150,000 calls the member funds received, they are able to support 29,000 with their resources each year.

Yamani Hernandez, executive director of the National Network of Abortion Funds, said that 50 percent of callers to the network are black, making the group a core of the network's constituency.

"We know in this country there are racial and economic injustices intertwined with reproductive health, and so it's hard to pull apart the two because black women are hit hardest by all the health disparities," Hernandez said. Currently the organization's mission is to grow consistent support for each of its membership funds, which are primarily run by volunteers.

"We're working to be able to meet the need because we haven't been able to meet it in a so-called friendlier political climate," Hernandez said. "So we know in a more hostile climate, the work is even more important."

On Friday, the Georgia Senate passed House Bill 481, also known as the Living Infants Fairness and Equality (LIFE) Act. According to the bill, physicians can not perform abortions if the fetus has a human heartbeat. On Thursday, Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant signed a bill that also banned abortions, in most circumstances, if a human heartbeat is detected.

Reproductive health advocates and politicians who are pro-choice are fighting to protect Roe v. Wade. On March 12, presidential candidate Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) with Sens. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) and Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), introduced the EACH Woman Act, to overturn the Hyde Amendment and legalize abortions under federal insurance plans. New York passed protections for abortion rights in January, joining states that already had public protections in place including California, Connecticut and Maryland. Still, 20 states may ban abortion if the ruling is overturned.

Black women continue to stand up and use their platforms to impact public policy in states where publicly funded procedures are only allowed in the case of rape, incest or life endangerment. During her gubernatorial campaign, Stacey Abrams was set on preventing further restrictions to abortion services in Georgia, and wanted to expand Medicaid and access to adequate health care in underserved areas. In Pennsylvania, where publicly funded abortions are also restricted, New Voices for Reproductive Freedom founder La'Tasha D. Mayes marked the 46th year of Roe v. Wade by calling out the Pennsylvania government for not covering abortions under Medicaid.

Although the majority of African-American adults support the right to choose, there are still many who oppose abortions and make their views very public. For instance, last July, the National Black Pro-Life Coalition put up a billboard in a predominantly black neighborhood in Dallas that read, "Abortion is not health care. It hurts women and murders their babies."

In September, the Afiya Center, a reproductive justice organization centering black women in Dallas, criticized the coalition's billboard for creating stigma around black women seeking abortions. The Afiya Center bought its own billboard to respond, which stated, "Black women take care of their families by taking care of themselves. Abortion is self-care."

"It's cliche to think of self-care as ladies who lunch and spa," Marsha Jones, executive director of the Afiya Center, wrote in an op-ed for the Dallas Times. "In a reproductive-justice framework, self-care is the radical notion that black women give themselves permission to honor their lives and control their own destinies."

It's evident the work to destigmatize conversations and impact public policy on abortion and the full spectrum of reproductive freedom is not done. "We Remember" serves as a reminder for Renee Bracey Sherman, public affairs manager at the National Network of Abortion Funds: Black women's voices and stories deserve to be heard and their choices respected.

Bracey Sherman said: "We're going to keep doing this until we actually get to see true reproductive justice realized."
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Black women and the fight for abortion rights: How this brochure sparked the movement for reproductive justice

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Planned Parenthood sponsored production of the 250,000 "We Remember" pamphlets in the summer of 1989. The statement, written by former Ms. editor Marcia Gillespie, connected the lack of reproductive freedom to other forms of oppression suffered by the African-American community until that moment such as slavery, Jim Crow laws and voting disenfranchisement.

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Iranian lawyer who defended women’s right to remove hijab gets 38 years, 148 lashes

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Iranian lawyer who defended women’s right to remove hijab gets 38 years, 148 lashes

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(Facebook/@NasrinSotoudehOfficial)

After two trials described by Amnesty International as " grossly unfair ," Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh has been sentenced to a total of 38 years in prison and 148 lashes.

Sotoudeh, who has dedicated her life to defending Iranian women prosecuted for removing their hijabs in public, has been in the crosshairs of Iran's theocratic government for years. In 2010, she was convicted of conspiring to harm state security and served half of a six-year sentence. Then, in June of last year, she was rearrested on an array of dubious charges. Tried in secret, details of her ordeal have often come via her husband, Reza Khandan, who wrote of her new, much harsher sentence on his Facebook page on Monday.

Sotoudeh was ultimately charged with seven crimes and given the maximum sentence for all of them. Five additional years were added from a 2016 case in which she was convicted in absentia. The total 38-year sentence was severe even by Iranian standards - a country often accused of human rights abuses, particularly involving women. Observers say it may signal a newly hardline approach to political dissent. Last week, a radical cleric linked to mass executions in the 1980s was appointed head of the Islamic Republic's judiciary .

Critics from around the world decried the outcome of Sotoudeh's case. Amnesty International said it was harshest sentence documented against a human rights defender in Iran in recent memory. Hadi Ghaemi, the executive director of the New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran, told CBS News it exposed "the insecurity the regime has to any peaceful challenge."

The same day Sotoudeh was sentenced, the UN investigator on human rights in Iran held up her case as a sign of the country's increasingly brutal oppression of those who defend the rights of women. "Worrying patterns of intimidation, arrest, prosecution, and ill-treatment of human rights defenders, lawyers, and labor rights activists signal an increasingly severe state response," he said.
Read more at the Guardian . Related In a secret trial, Iran convicts lawyer who defended women who removed their hijabs Shots fired as crowd tries to prevent arrest by Iranian morality police of woman in 'improper' hijab 'Everyone is beautiful in their own ways,' says first hijab-wearing Miss England finalist

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Iranian lawyer who defended women's right to remove hijab gets 38 years, 148 lashes

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(Facebook/@NasrinSotoudehOfficial) After two trials described by Amnesty International as " grossly unfair ," Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh has been sentenced to a total of 38 years in prison and 148 lashes. Sotoudeh, who has dedicated her life to defending Iranian women prosecuted for removing their hijabs in public, has been in the crosshairs of Iran's theocratic government for years.

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Azerbaijan police are trying to 'hunt' transgender people through internet

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Azerbaijan police are trying to 'hunt' transgender people through internet

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BREAKING: Reports indicate at least 14 gay and transgender people have been randomly detained in the last 24 hours

Brutality of Azerbaijan police in September 2017 | Photo: Aziz Karimov / supplied

Azerbaijan police in the country's capital Baku are reportedly rounding up gay and transgender people and detaining them.

According to reports from unnamed LGBTI people in Baku, the random arrests started last night (1 April). Police later took the detainees to the Binagadi District Police Department.

One report claims police are trying to 'hunt' transgender people via the internet. Police allegedly deceived a transgender sex worker, inviting them to a hotel to provide sex services.

Upon the trans person's arrival to the meeting place, 'they pulled out handcuffs' and took the trans person to the police station, according to local activists.

A source told Gay Star News the number of detained people is already at 14.

'I just got information that they were sentenced for 30 days of detention,' the source revealed.

They then added: 'We call on [the] EU, Council of Europe and UN Independent Experts to react immediately to avoid these numbers to increase.'

The reason for the detention is unknown. Although reports detail authorities fined some of the detainees under Article 510 of the Code on Administrative Offenses (minor hooliganism).

More information to follow.

Azerbaijan: History of human rights abuses

Similar reports of authorities in Azerbaijan randomly detaining LGBTI people emerged in September 2017.

Eyewitness reports at the time claimed authorities detained LGBTI people, beat, verbally abused and forced medical examinations on transgender people. Some reports even suggest authorities shaved the hair of transgender women.

One gay man told how authorities beat, electrocuted and detained him for nine days.

The man - known only as Xeyal - said authorities beat with a baton on the head, knees, and arms, as well as electric shocks to his head and body more than 30 times.

They also tortured Xeyal into revealing names of former sexual partners, as well as forced him to sign documents without reading them.

Azerbaijan is actually getting worse when it comes to LGBTI rights.

A ranking of 141 countries around the world found social attitudes to LGBTI people in Azerbaijan are declining, making it the worst performing country.

Although same-sex sexual activity is technically legal, Azerbaijan lags behind in anti-discrimination laws, parenting rights for same-sex couples, transgender rights and same-sex marriage.

See also:
Iceland tops list of fastest growing countries for LGBT acceptance Azerbaijan is the worst place to be LGBTI in Europe and here's why These are the most political Prides to look forward to in 2019

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Azerbaijan police are trying to 'hunt' transgender people through internet

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BREAKING: Reports indicate at least 14 gay and transgender people have been randomly detained in the last 24 hours Brutality of Azerbaijan police in September 2017 | Photo: Aziz Karimov / supplied Azerbaijan police in the country's capital Baku are reportedly rounding up gay and transgender people and detaining them.

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Men's cuddling group aims to redefine masculinity and heal trauma

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Men's cuddling group aims to redefine masculinity and heal trauma

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Their chosen method of healing? Cuddles.

It may seem odd, but members of the Men's Therapeutic Cuddle Group say the practice has helped them cope with everything from childhood sexual abuse to the loss of family members when they were young.

The two-year-old group draws men from various backgrounds: a 37-year-old Mormon who works as an airport gate agent, a 57-year-old married father of three, a 62-year-old retiree. There is a range of sexual orientations.

At a time when traditional ideas of manhood are facing scrutiny and such terms as toxic masculinity are becoming more widely known through the #MeToo movement, the group aims to provide new ways for men to express themselves.

"So often, we're taught that to be an emotional stoic is the mark of manhood," said Scott Turner, a 46-year-old interior designer and cofounder of the group. "If you show any emotional weakness or vulnerability, that's a failure to your title of a man."

But "if we expect men to be emotionally sensitive to the needs of others, they first need to be able to build an emotional vocabulary," he said.

Part of that involves learning that physical touch extends beyond aggression or sex. Platonic affection can be a doorway to emotional closeness.

"It's not the ends of what we're doing," Turner said. "It's part of a larger toolbox of healing."

Unlike professional cuddling services, which are gaining popularity in cities across the United States, the group charges no fees and members are not required to undergo training.

Although the meet-ups are not open to the public (members must be interviewed and approved).

" Study: Georgia men less healthy than women

A group demonstration

At the beginning of the session, everyone agreed not to engage in sexual touch and to ask for consent before each action. They gathered in a huddle and breathed meditatively.

The cuddling started with men pairing up to do "the motorcycle hold," in which one man sits with his back against another man's chest, as if they were riding together on a motorcycle. Some massaged their partner's shoulders or hands, while others stroked the other person's beard. Many closed their eyes as the room fell into silence. After 15 minutes, they switched to a new partner.

For the second half of the session, the men cuddled as one large group in what they call a "puppy pile." Men lay with their heads in one another's laps, chatted and joked.

It's meant to be a space where men feel safe sharing their innermost thoughts, said Kevin Eitzenberger, 57, who founded the group with Turner. That can be challenging in other areas of their lives, where they're expected to be "the strong provider."

In the group, "they learn it's OK to be a little fractured," Eitzenberger said.

" Here's how many pushups men should be able to do to avoid heart attacks, study suggests

The importance of vulnerability

As a child, TJ McDonnell was molested by a neighbor. He didn't tell anyone, ashamed he'd done something wrong. For years, he kept his distance from others.

"I never connected with people very well, even my siblings," said McDonnell, now 62 and living in Montgomery County.

Getting therapy and attending a support group helped, but McDonnell credits the men's cuddling group for teaching him that emotional intimacy and physical touch aren't always abusive.

"It allowed me to experience what good friendships are, what brothers are," he said.

Another member, Ryan Hancock, has become like a son to McDonnell. Hancock's children even call McDonnell grandpa.

"These types of groups can be healthy and helpful for men and women," said Chris Liang, a licensed psychologist and associate professor of counseling psychology at Lehigh University.

Liang researches the effect of masculinity on health and was part of a board that helped the American Psychological Association formulate new guidelines on working with boys and men.

The guidelines highlight ways in which traditional views of masculinity _ such as men are tough and never cry _ harm their emotional and physical health. Studies show that men who strongly believe in masculine norms are less likely to get preventive health care, more likely to drink heavily and use tobacco, and more likely to hold negative attitudes toward seeking mental-health services.

Many men never learn healthy ways to deal with stress, Liang said. Then, it can emerge in harmful ways.

According to the APA, men commit 90 percent of homicides in the U.S. and represent 77 percent of homicide victims. They're also more than three times as likely as women to die by suicide, and their life expectancy is nearly five years shorter, largely because of both violence and the health impact of stress.

Liang hopes that such groups as the cuddling meet-up can help men move beyond one restrictive definition of masculinity. Although those with more serious concerns may want to seek therapy, he said, "if this is something that's more comfortable for men ... then it can do a whole lot of good."

A growing movement

When Kevin Eitzenberger was 11, his 7-year-old brother died. Growing up, Eitzenberger didn't spend much time with his father. The two had little in common.

Both experiences left Eitzenberger without a role model to show him what it meant to be a man.

"It led me to believe I was less than," he said. "That I wasn't manly."

In 2008, he discovered a group called the ManKind Project (MKP), which would help him overcome that feeling.

Founded about 30 years ago, MKP is a nonprofit focused on building male community through more than 900 men's support groups in dozens of countries.

"We want men to come in and figure out what their ideal of manhood is," said Boysen Hodgson, communications director of MKP in the U.S. "It's not something that can be imposed or prescribed to you."

The group doesn't focus on cuddling, but it does promote the idea of being open and vulnerable with other men.

"Asking for affection, asking for time, asking for help from other men is scary," Hodgson said. "But it's a very important skill for men to learn."

Studies published in 2010 and 2014 found that participating in MKP programming improved men's psychological well-being for up to two years.

For Eitzenberger, MKP helped him realize that wanting a connection with other men and seeking their acceptance was OK. It led him to start the cuddling group.

Now he receives about two requests a week from people looking to join the meet-up.

A man among men

At the cuddling group demonstration, Ryan Hancock absentmindedly touched TJ McDonnell's ear. Later, McDonnell squeezed in between Turner and Eitzenberger lying on the floor, calling himself "the cream in the cookie."

In this setting, touch was no more notable than asking about someone's day.

Some men teared up as they discussed their regrets as fathers. Others were playful.

At the end of the session, the group huddled and took turns completing the phrase, "As a man among men, I feel ..."

"Grateful to be with all of you," Turner said.

"Worthy of connection," Hancock said.

McDonnell, going last, said, "Loved, accepted, and included."

" 5 questions every man in his 40s should ask his doctor

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Men's cuddling group aims to redefine masculinity and heal trauma

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Their chosen method of healing? Cuddles. It may seem odd, but members of the Men's Therapeutic Cuddle Group say the practice has helped them cope with everything from childhood sexual abuse to the loss of family members when they were young.

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'If I Can't Have You Girls, I Will Destroy You': The Rise Of Incel Subculture

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'If I Can't Have You Girls, I Will Destroy You': The Rise Of Incel Subculture

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In 2014, a 22-year-old virgin from Santa Barbara, California made a series of disturbing YouTube videos.

He filmed sunsets and walks in the park while he chatted about his inability to make friends and speak to girls. He told the camera he was "rotting in loneliness" and referred to his virginity as an "injustice." He uploaded videos with titles like, "Why do girls hate me so much?" and "Life is so unfair because girls don't want me."

"For the last eight years of my life, since I hit puberty, I've been forced to endure an existence of loneliness, rejection, and unfulfilled desires, all because girls have never been attracted to me," it began.

"I don't know why you girls aren't attracted to me but I will punish you all for it."

These call themselves " incels"- short for "involuntarily celibate" - and their presence was then largely confined to message boards on Reddit, 4chan, and the dark web.

"Incel[s] [are] men who would like to be in sexual relationships, have girlfriends, and so forth, but feel that modern society has made it such that women won't date them - it's impossible for them to get dates," explained Heidi Beirich, director of the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center, whose work focuses on various forms of extremism.
There have been other attacks inspired by incel culture.
That all changed in 2018 when Alek Minassian, a 25-year-old Canadian man, rammed a van into a crowd of pedestrians in Toronto, killing 10 people. Eight of his victims were women. Some falsely speculated ISIS were responsible, especially given the method of the attack and the frequency of other such vehicular attacks in the U.S. and Europe at the time.

"The Incel Rebellion has already begun!" Minassian posted. "We will overthrow all the Chads and Stacys! All hail the Supreme Gentleman Elliot Rodger!"

Minassian's cryptic post glorifying Rodger thrust incel subculture and its lexicon - including words and phrases like "Chad,""Stacy,""femoid,""normie," and "redpilling" - into the mainstream.

"[Incels are] very hostile to good-looking women, who they refer to as 'Stacys,' and to good-looking men who they tend to refer to as 'Chads,' who they think are taking all the sexual oxygen out of the room," Beirich added. "They feel that they've been left out, they're extremely angry towards women, and in some cases, like the van attack in Toronto - Alek Minassian - some of these incidents turn to violence."

Some members of the incel community praised Minassian in the same way they applauded Rodger's vicious killings years earlier: with glee.

Another user posted, "I have one celebratory beer for every victim that turns out to be a young woman between 18-35."

Just months after Minassian's rampage, disgraced substitute teacher Scott Paul Beierle gunned down two women and injured five others at a Tallahassee, Florida yoga studio. BuzzFeed News first reported that Beierle's social media activity included a torrent of sexist YouTube videos and other evidence that he identified as an incel. Beierle had a history of harassing women, and like Minassian, idolized Rodger, according to Newsweek.

And on January 20, police in Provo, Utah arrested 27-year-old Christopher Wayne Cleary on terrorism charges after he reportedly posted about going on a shooting spree because he was a virgin.

"All I wanted was a girlfriend, not 1000 ... not a bunch of hoes," Cleary wrote in the now-deleted post, according to a statement given to Oxygen.com by the Provo Police. "I've never had a girlfriend before and I'm still a virgin, this is why I'm planning on shooting up a public place soon and being the next mass shooter cause I'm ready to die and all the girls the turned me down is going to make it right by killing as many girls as I see."

According to the police statement, Cleary was already on probation in Colorado for felony stalking and threatening women.

Experts are now concerned that incel subculture could inspire future attacks and spawn tomorrow's mass murderers. Misogynistically motivated crimes - and sexist mass murderers - aren't a new phenomenon. In 1980, for example, Marc Lépine, shot 14 women to death at an engineering college in Montreal, Quebec. Before opening fire with a semi-automatic rifle he shouted, "I hate feminists!"

But Minassian's attack was significant for another reason: It marked the first major example of domestic terrorism committed in the name of a particular group organized around extreme misogynism.

"Violent misogyny has a very long history," said Chris Messerole, a fellow at Center for Middle East Policy at the Brooking Institute, whose research focuses on countering violent extremism.

"But it's almost always as a part of a broader ideology," he added. "It's very rarely at the center of an ideology. An example would be jihadist groups, who many of, are also blatantly misogynist and sexist. What's different about the incel movement is that it's a movement defined, and organized, and coordinated around the misogynistic violence itself. And that's something that's new and that we haven't seen before.

Incels use violent language regularly, too.

Indeed, incels - many of whom have limited social skills, low self-esteem, and a heightened sense of entitlement - have constructed an entire online ecosystem. They troll message boards, anonymously dehumanize women in chat rooms, and often use a distinct vocabulary to reinforce their sense of belonging. They call women "cum dumpsters," use derogatory acronyms like "AWALT" (which stands for "all women are like that"), and swap rape fantasies.

In rarer cases, incels talk about killing women, other men, and sometimes, themselves.

Toxic masculinity, Tollman said, often drives this type of violent rhetoric.

"Masculinity is a psychological process," she explained. " It's [the] messages that we all get about how boys are supposed to be - and not be. And the things they're supposed to be are things that are usually associated with power."

How do incels defend themselves?

But Kalerthon Demetro - who goes by the pseudonym Jack Peterson - is a former chatroom administrator of incels.me and a self-professed spokesperson for the subculture who believes that not all incels are hateful or sadistic.

"A lot of the guys who join these kinds of websites, they experience a lot bullying in school, but more specifically, bullying by girls," Peterson told Oxygen.com. "That's what happened to me and that's what happened to a lot of people in the incel community."

Peterson, who widely disavowed the Toronto van attacks, thinks the incel phenomenon has been mischaracterized. He believes the vast majority of incels use social media as an outlet and support system for the loneliness they feel, rather than as a vehicle for hate. He also said that incels who use online platforms to debase women are speaking ironically and are predominantly harmless.

"Most of the media tends to focus on the violent, misogynistic aspects," he added. "I feel like that's kind of a small, vocal minority in the group. There's a certain percentage of it that probably is genuine. But in my opinion, the majority of that stuff is people kind of venting using extremely dark humor."

Peterson, who left the incel community after members turned on him for his comments to the media, noted there was an uptick in violent rhetoric on incel forums in the aftermath of the Toronto van attack.

"I think people wanted to shock the many journalists who were coming to the website," he explained.
What's the origin of the term "incel?"
Incidentally, the meaning of the word 'incel' hasn't always been used to describe misogynists, sexually frustrated men, and mass murderers like Rodger, Minassian, or Beierle.

"[Incel] originally meant someone, of any gender or orientation, who would like to be dating, having sex, or in a relationship, but has not done so for a long time," said Alana , a Canadian woman and management consultant who first coined the term in the 1990s, and who asked Oxygen.com to not use her full-name.

"The term was meant for people who remain virgins well into adulthood, but also applies to people who have had sex at some point but still have great difficulty finding a partner," she added.

"There was a gradual shift of the online incel forums, from all genders and orientations, to exclusively male heterosexuals," she explained. "There was also a shift from mutual self-help to overcome loneliness, into mutual reinforcement of hatred of women."

Can the rise of incel culture be stopped?

Despite claims, often by incels themselves, that their misogynism on social media is ironic, shouldn't be taken seriously, or is just a form of "venting," experts like Messerole believe it's this toxic rhetoric that's turned incel message boards into a potential breeding ground for mass murderers and domestic terrorists.

"There's this small sliver of folks who have a propensity to violence, and they see that support that the movement overall has, and they view that as license and moral sanction to actually justify and carry out their violence. That's what happened with Elliot Rodger, that's what happened with Alek Minassian, and that's why it's so important to isolate and counter the movement and the rhetoric within this movement," Messerole said.

"If there's no broader community that espouses the same views as them, they're much, much, much less likely to carry out an actual attack."

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'If I Can't Have You Girls, I Will Destroy You': The Rise Of Incel Subculture

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In 2014, a 22-year-old virgin from Santa Barbara, California made a series of disturbing YouTube videos. He filmed sunsets and walks in the park while he chatted about his inability to make friends and speak to girls. He told the camera he was "rotting in loneliness" and referred to his virginity as an "injustice."

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After a Japanese medical school stopped rigging exam scores, women outperformed men

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After a Japanese medical school stopped rigging exam scores, women outperformed men

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Last year, news that a Tokyo university had for over a decade doctored the test scores of female applicants so they could admit more men sent shockwaves through Japan and around the world. Now the rigging has stopped, women are doing better than men.

Tokyo Medical University had for years condoned the rigging of test scores as officials believed that once women got married and had children they would be unable to fulfill their emergency shifts at hospitals. One anonymous official of the school described it as " a necessary evil." A third-party panel investigating the test-rigging later said that the manipulation of test scores resulted in the rejection of 69 applicants who had passed the tests in the past two years, including 55 women.

For the 2019 school year, 20.2% of female applicants passed the entrance exam, compared to 19.8% for male applicants, according Japan Times, citing figures (paywall) released by the school on Monday (May 20). In 2018, the acceptance rate for women was 2.9% and 9% for men. The school explained that the huge jump in acceptance levels for both genders was because of wider exam reforms implemented after the school appointed its first-ever female president (paywall) in November. The Asahi Shimbun paper, citing its own survey of medical school entrance exam results, said the share of women who passed was 4.5 percentage points higher than the rate for men.

Tokyo Medical School was not the only university that had engaged in the practice. The Asahi newspaper's own survey found that fairer exams at other medical schools also led to a narrowing in the gap in acceptance rates between male and female applicants in 2019, based on results from 78 universities. The survey found that men were accepted at a rate of about 1.1 times more than women, compared to 1.2 times a year ago.

Juntendo University, a private university in Tokyo, said in December that its medical school had wrongly failed 165 people who sat entrance examinations in 2017 and 2018-an error that affected mostly women but also men who were retaking the test. The university said it rigged test scores because women were more mature compared with their male peers and had better communication skills, and so tended to perform better in the interview portion of the application process. Therefore it needed to adjust the scores to compensate for the male applicants' shortcomings. It also said it didn't have enough student housing for female medical students.

Japan has the lowest proportion of female doctors among the wealthy nations of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, accounting for only 21% of doctors in the country.

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After a Japanese medical school stopped rigging exam scores, women outperformed men

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Last year, news that a Tokyo university had for over a decade doctored the test scores of female applicants so they could admit more men sent shockwaves through Japan and around the world. Now the rigging has stopped, women are doing better than men.

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'What Are We Saying?': Billy Porter Calls Out the Misogyny in Fearing a Man Wearing a Dress

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'What Are We Saying?': Billy Porter Calls Out the Misogyny in Fearing a Man Wearing a Dress

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"As artists, we get to be a part of changing," Billy Porter told the women of The View on Friday morning. "With me, the clothes have a statement; the clothes mean something, I want to open up conversations."

Porter has certainly helped open up a few-specifically when it comes to challenging gender-specific dressing on the red carpet. Whether in a cape, a suit, a gown or some blend of all of the above, Porter does what he wants, gender norms be damned.

But as he broke it down for The View 's panel of hosts, for those averse to seeing a man in a dress, there's an underlying issue we're likely not discussing.

"Women wearing pants is not a problem-anymore ... because pants are strong, they're considered powerful, they are associated with the patriarchy," Porter said. "However, when a man wears a dress, very often, people are disgusted. So what does that say? What are we saying?"

"They hate women," answered Joy Behar.

"Thank you! I'm done doing that; I'm done with that," exclaimed Porter, who went on to explain that his experience wearing drag in Kinky Boots was one of the most grounding experiences of his life.

"I'm not going back," he later added.

The day of the 2019 Oscars, thousands of men-who I'm presuming live in their parents' basements and ...
Read more Read

And Porter's right; even in an increasingly progressive world (well, to an extent), men who adopt traditionally "feminine" mannerisms or clothing are often considered weak, perverse or inferior-which speaks volumes about how we feel about women. But as Porter points out, it's also really no one's damned business.

"I'm a man who wants to wear a dress, and when I want to wear one, I'm gonna," he said. "And I'll look gorgeous in it!"

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'What Are We Saying?': Billy Porter Calls Out the Misogyny in Fearing a Man Wearing a Dress

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"As artists, we get to be a part of changing," Billy Porter told the women of The View on Friday morning. "With me, the clothes have a statement; the clothes mean something, I want to open up conversations." Porter has certainly helped open up a few-specifically when it comes to challenging gender-specific dressing on the red carpet.

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‘Transgender’ removed from World Health Organization’s list of mental disorders

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‘Transgender’ removed from World Health Organization’s list of mental disorders

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'Transgender' removed from World Health Organization's list of mental disorders

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We use cookies to understand how you use our site and to improve your experience. This includes personalizing content and advertising. For more information on how we use cookies consult our revised Privacy Policy and Terms of Service.

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The Poverty Rate Would Be Cut in Half If Women Received Equal Pay

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The Poverty Rate Would Be Cut in Half If Women Received Equal Pay

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The Poverty Rate Would Be Cut in Half If Women Received Equal Pay

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When you have young children, it seems paychecks often don't stretch far enough to cover the costs of daily living.Diapers.Doctor's bills.Groceries.Another new pair of shoes for the child who won't stop growing.But for many families in the United States, making ends meet often isn't possible at the ...

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MY FEET, MY BUSINESS: YUMI ISHIKAWA AND THE HIGH-HEELED REBELLION

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MY FEET, MY BUSINESS: YUMI ISHIKAWA AND THE HIGH-HEELED REBELLION

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There's a kernel of contrarianism that fuels some of the best social movements. Movements that, if history is any judge, have traditionally begun when one, or some, people get to " enough," or maybe " too much, " and put their feet down. In the instance of Japan's Yumi Ishikawa, 32, that moment came, almost literally, with an online meditation on the business case for requiring Japanese women to wear high-heeled shoes, footwear that helps little with professional jobs that don't involve "entertainment."

"This is a problem that many women believed was a personal issue because [wearing high heels] is generally seen as good etiquette," said Ishikawa, an actress, part-time worker and writer, at a news conference Monday in Tokyo. She spoke just after she had submitted a labor ministry petition with 18,856 signatures, women mostly, signed on to ban dress codes that require women to wear high heels at work.

It put a finer point on her frustrations with her part-time funeral parlor gig where, yes, she had to wear high heels because, presumably, dead people care about such things.

Calling it gender-based workplace discrimination - men can, unsurprisingly, wear whatever footwear they choose - Ishikawa kicked off the #KuToo movement, a portmanteau of Japanese words for shoes ( kutsu) and pain ( kutsuu),and #MeToo. And she kicked it off in a thoroughly modern way: complaining about it on Twitter. The complaint quickly drew notice, getting 67,000 likes and 30,000 retweets, as it put a finer point on her frustrations with her part-time funeral parlor gig where, yes, she had to wear high heels because, presumably, dead people care about such things.

"We were also repeatedly told how difficult enacting a law to counter gender harassment and discrimination can be," Ishikawa said. But, she noted, "I believe this is an urgent issue." The demand was similar to that of 150,000 people who signed a petition in the U.K. to outlaw workplace requirements on high-heeled footwear after Nicola Thorp, a temp worker, was sent home without pay for a high-heeled refusal. The year? 2016. The law? Unchanged.

There have been continual flickers of workplace weirdness around non-work-performance issues that disproportionately fall on women. In 2010, Melissa Nelson, a 33-year-old Iowa dental assistant, was fired by her dentist boss of 10 years for being too attractive. She sued. And she lost. Debrahlee Lorenzana, 33, was fired by Citibank in New York City for being too sexy. She sued. Her lawsuit was dismissed. And 32-year-old Dilek Edwards, a yoga instructor, was fired by her employer for similar grounds. She sued. And the judge presiding on her case ruled against her, though an appeals judge in New York ruled in Edwards' favor.

"If your job is to sit behind a desk for 10 hours a day," says Chikako Sagawa, a former high-tech employee, "how could shoes possibly make a difference?" Sagawa, an ex-pat who left Japan to design, curiously enough, shoes in Spain, blames longstanding cultural mores. "So that tells me that it's less about shoes and more about supporting a status quo." The status quo was not created by women but is likely to be framed by them if Ishikawa has her way.

"Ideally we'd like a new law," Ishikawa told reporters. "I'd like social perceptions to change so that women wearing formal flat shoes becomes standard." And if it doesn't become standard, then at least flats should be one of the options available to women in a workplace that probably has many more serious issues to contend with.

On the flipside, if you're wondering how long men could get away with choosing to wear high heels in the workplace, there are a few people ahead of you - specifically designer Francesco Russo, who last year launched a stiletto line for both women and men. "I think it's in our duty as people to produce product to respond to the world," he told Vogue. And how'd the line do? It was so popular that it's now become a standard part of his brand.

Because? Well, because it's probably nice to have choices. It would also be nice if an epidemic of mind-your-own-business-itis were to take the business world by storm. "It is hard enough to do a hard job," Sagawa says, "without worrying about what you're going to wear on your feet to work."

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My Feet, My Business: Yumi Ishikawa and the High-Heeled Rebellion

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There's a kernel of contrarianism that fuels some of the best social movements. Movements that, if history is any judge, have traditionally begun when one, or some, people get to " enough," or maybe " too much, " and put their feet down.

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Why Women, but Not Men, Are Judged for a Messy House

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Why Women, but Not Men, Are Judged for a Messy House

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Why Women, but Not Men, Are Judged for a Messy House (Published 2019)

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They’re still held to a higher social standard, which explains why they’re doing so much housework, studies show.

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Teenage Girl Suspended For Not Considering Boys’ ‘Hormones’ While Wearing Knee-Torn Jeans

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Teenage Girl Suspended For Not Considering Boys’ ‘Hormones’ While Wearing Knee-Torn Jeans

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A Female Student Was Suspended for Wearing Jeans That Exposed Her Knee

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“Did he pull the boys out who were wearing shorts? They have TWO knees showing?”

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The sexism behind the ‘controversy’ over the U.S. women’s soccer team’s 13 goals

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The sexism behind the ‘controversy’ over the U.S. women’s soccer team’s 13 goals

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The sexism behind the controversy over the US womens socer teams 13 goals

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Maasi Woman That Has Saved Over 17,000 Girls From FGM Speaks Out

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Maasi Woman That Has Saved Over 17,000 Girls From FGM Speaks Out

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Maasi Woman That Has Saved Over 17,000 Girls From FGM Speaks Out

When Nice Leng'ete and her 10-year-old woke up the morning of their cutting ceremony, they immediately knew they didn't want to go through that themselves. They took the cold shower that is meant to serve as an anesthesia, and they slipped out of their Kenyan village and ran through the bush to their aunt's house that was 40 miles away.
They had seen and heard other girls in their village, and they had even seen some of them faint and lose their lives.

However, the girls were found a week later, threatened, and maltreated. They were also told that they would not be real women if they did not get cut, and they would not be able to get married and would bring shame to the family.

Leng'ete wanted to run away once again, but her sister refused because she was afraid of the consequences. Leng'ete then told her grandfather, a respected elderly person, that she would keep running and even become a street child if they insisted she gets cut.

The grandfather finally relented and told the village to let her remain as she was, even though she would be considered a coward.

Leng'ete was determined that nothing will stop her from getting her education and helping girls in a similar position.
She eventually connected with Amref Health Africa, an organization that supports community-based health initiatives and started a journey toward educating the community away from the FGM rituals.
She has since helped more than 17,000 girls and saved them from FGM through community education and the creation of alternative rites of passage.

Legn'ete shared her story on the main stage at the Women Deliver conference in Vancouver last week, and the audience sat in reverent silence.
Some of the women in the crowd came from regions where the procedure is common, and some from countries where the practice is seen as barbaric.

Leng'ete then explained how she was able to change her community's FGM rituals.

The deck was stacked against Leng'ete in numerous ways, and we all know it's not easy to change a culture.
She told Health that women are not even allowed to talk in front of men in the community she comes from, and they are not allowed to address men. It took her three years for them just to accept her, because she was a woman.

The key word, however, is patience. It's about giving them time, and taking it slow.

Even though, there are millions of girls around the world still at risk of FGM.

Even though the origins of the procedure are unclear, it has been present for centuries in various countries. The practice has become a heinous symbol of patriarchal control for many, and tradition and cultural identity have outweighed education in the countries where it is still practiced.

Thanks to activists like Leng'ete, that's changing, and she says that the key is to educate people about how harmful the practice is and let them create alternative rituals to mark the coming-of-age.

Watch her tell her story at minute 12:13:

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Maasi Woman That Has Saved Over 17,000 Girls From FGM Speaks Out

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Maasi Woman That Has Saved Over 17,000 Girls From FGM Speaks Out When Nice Leng'ete and her 10-year-old woke up the morning of their cutting ceremony, they immediately knew they didn't want to go through that themselves.

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Masculinity is a trap – which is why more men should wear skirts

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Masculinity is a trap – which is why more men should wear skirts

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Billy Porter is a singer, actor and man of fashion. He is also a man who isn't afraid to wear a skirt. Porter wore a tuxedo dress to this year's Oscars and rocked a very fabulous, very pink, uterus-inspired suit-gown to the Tony awards.

Not everyone can pull off an upcycled velvet curtain, but it is a shame more dudes don't try. As Porter told Stephen Colbert during an appearance on The Late Show, men's clothing norms are mired in misogyny. "Women wearing pants is powerful," the 49-year-old said. "It's strong, everybody accepts it and it's associated with the patriarchy." However, "the minute a man puts on a dress, it's disgusting, so what are you saying? Men are strong, women are disgusting? I'm not doing that any more ... If I feel like wearing a dress, I'm gonna wear one!"

It is sad that so many men are petrified about seeming effeminate. It is sad that it is not socially acceptable for men to experiment with fashion in the same way women can. Happily, however, things are changing gradually. No one looks twice at a guy with a man-bun or a man-bag any more; male makeup is a growing industry; and male rompers were a thing for a while.

While men in dresses are still considered noteworthy, guys such as Porter are sashaying into the mainstream. The rapper Young Thug is fond of skirts and the actor Jaden Smith frequently and unapologetically dons dresses. "If I Wanna Wear A Dress, Then I Will, And That Will Set The New Wave," Smith wrote on Twitter last year. Meanwhile London fashion week featured so many men breezing along in gender-fluid fashion that GQ proclaimed: " 2019 is the year men will start wearing skirts." I certainly hope so. Masculinity is a straitjacket; it is high time more men broke free.

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Masculinity is a trap - which is why more men should wear skirts | Arwa Mahdawi

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Clothes traditionally worn by women are becoming part of the mainstream of men's fashion and helping break the straitjacket of prescribed roles, writes Arwa Mahdawi

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John Moore/Getty Images
Eric Trump recently suggested that when his father, Donald Trump, bragged about grabbing women's genitals without consent, it was an example of " two alpha guys in a thing."

In addition to shedding some light on how Trump's son views his father and manhood, it's also interesting because "alpha males" aren't actually a thing.

As the writer Saladin Ahmed pointed out, the concept of "alpha male" wolves that assert dominance over their pack through aggression comes from a debunked model of lupine social groups.

David Mech introduced the idea of the alpha to describe behavior observed in captive animals. Alphas, he wrote in his 1970 book "The Wolf: Ecology and Behavior of an Endangered Species," win control of their packs in violent fights with other males.

But, as he outlined in a 1999 paper, he's since rejected that idea in light of research into the behavior of wolves in the wild.

In nature, Mech writes, wolves split off from their packs when they mature, and seek out opposite-sex companions with whom to form new packs. The male and female co-dominate the new pack for a much simpler, more peaceful reason: They're the parents of all the pups.

Mech writes on his website (with the lovely title Wolf News and Info) that his original book is "currently still in print, despite my numerous pleas to the publisher to stop publishing it."

Another Twitter user, Mike Westphal, pointed out another paper on the misuse of the phrase "alpha males" to describe breeding roosters.

In the 2003 book " Sexual Selections: What We Can and Can't Learn about Sex from Animals," the biologist Marlene Zuk points out that social groups of hens do have "pecking orders." That is, hierarchies among the females with dominance asserted through pecking.

But roosters are not part of those social groups, Zuk writes, and the idea that the top hen is somehow an "alpha male" bizarrely misgenders the dominant bird.

All of which is to say: Humans who enjoy the idea of "alpha males" might want to keep in mind that there isn't really any such thing. And to the extent the term has any meaning at all, it describes the behavior of captive, lonely creatures.

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Eric Trump recently suggested that when his father, Donald Trump, bragged about grabbing women's genitals without consent, it was an example of " two alpha guys in a thing." In addition to shedding some light on how Trump's son views his father and manhood, it's also interesting because "alpha males" aren't actually a thing.

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Maternal Instinct Isn’t Real, but the Myth Makes Parenting Harder

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Maternal Instinct Isn’t Real, but the Myth Makes Parenting Harder

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Maternal Instinct Isn't Real. Stop Pretending It Is.

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Every chance she gets, Jennifer approaches she doesn't know who look like they're struggling with parenting and whispers, "I hate being a mother." The mothers always look shocked at first. Then, quietly and gratefully, most agree. "It's weird how societal pressure works," says Jennifer, a mother of two and university professor in New Hampshire.

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Gender inequity costs the United States $2 trillion in lost GDP

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Gender inequity costs the United States $2 trillion in lost GDP

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In the United States today, the top richest 400 Americans own more wealth than the bottom 60%. That is about 150 million people. We haven't seen this type of wealth concentration since the 1920s, right before the Great Depression.

For most people, wealth equals security. But for the affluent, wealth equals political power and political power influences laws that keep the rich wealthy.

To add fuel to the fire, look no further than the current state of gender equity. Since 2017, we've seen the number of female CEOs in the Fortune 500 drop by 14%. We've also added 47 years to the time to gender equality (globally) and seven years to the time to gender equity in North America. And since 2015, 70% of states have either stood still or moved backward in gender equity.

All of this is happening despite the fact that women continue to attain 57% of bachelor's degrees and higher. Since educational attainment is the key ingredient in closing the gender gap, it shows that women are doing their part.

What does wealth equality have to do with gender equity?

Let's return to that list of the richest 400 Americans. Only 57 people on the list (14%) are women. Yet, women are 51% of the population and 47% of our labor force. There is a distinctive 37-point gap. Globally, we have a 38-point gap. Women are 50% of the world's population and represent just 12% of the richest people. In other words, women are underrepresented among high-income earners and overrepresented among low-income earners.

The overrepresentation imbalance

Women are overrepresented among low-income earners. Why is this the case?

For one, women dominate low-paid occupations. They are tracked into pink-collar jobs such as nursing, teaching, cleaning, and human resources. These jobs typically pay less than jobs in industries that are male dominated. In 2014, 44.4% of employed women in the U.S. were clustered in just 20 occupational categories, of which the average annual earnings were $38,779.

Compounded by this fact is that oftentimes women are trapped in these pink-collar jobs, as well. Referred to as " the pink ghetto," pink-collar workers suffer from a lack of career opportunities and career paths.

And consider this: Women are 62% of minimum wage workers and only 5% of Fortune 500 CEOs. This is a huge discrepancy.

The underrepresentation imbalance

Women are underrepresented among the rich because we have a leaky talent pipeline, and it's women who are falling out of it.

We know that men are promoted at a 21% higher rate than women during critical early-career stages. White men account for 72% of corporate leadership at 16 of the Fortune 500 companies. Even in female-dominated industries such as healthcare, women make up the bottom rungs of the ladder.

Sales departments have the second-largest gender gap in their leadership of any corporate function, which partially explains the leaky talent pipeline. In 2015, 90% of new CEOs had sales experience and 100% of them were men. Women are underrepresented in these lucrative sales positions that often lead to the C-suite. In fact, the percentage of women in frontline sales management has remained flat for more than 10 years.

The consequences of wealth and gender imbalances

Gender equity affects the affluent, because when women get left behind, everybody-from low-income to high-income-gets left behind. Our society is paying a high price to maintain gender inequity. By digging into the data, we find that gender inequity costs the United States $2 trillion in lost GDP.

The data further reveal how we can unlock that $2 trillion economic potential.

Increased gender equity = increased revenue

Pipeline conducted a study -comprising 4,161 companies across 29 countries-and concluded that for every 10% increase in gender equity toward parity, there was a 1%-2% increase in revenue. That's just good business sense.

Increased female leadership = increased return on equity

Investors would be wise to consider the number of women in management before making a decision with their pocketbooks. According to Credit Suisse research, having women in senior management leads to a 19% higher return on equity as well as 9% higher dividend payments.

Increased gender equity = increased sales force productivity

Companies depend on their sales teams to bring in revenue. No sales team, no business. What's interesting is that companies could double their revenue by having more gender-diverse sales teams. Research found that companies with a 45% or greater gender-diverse sales force report higher sales revenue and higher profitability.

By closing the gender equity gap, we have the potential to add $2 trillion to domestic GDP and $12 trillion to global GDP. Our economy, our labor force, and the people who rely on our labor force all stand to benefit from an accomplishment such as that.

Increased gender equity can lead to fair wealth distribution

When we have a 37-point gap in the voices bending ears in the halls of power, we have a problem. Don't forget that we still have a 27-point gap in Congress. More affluent women mean more women contributing their voices to the political issues shaping our society.

By closing the gap and increasing female representation in our legislative bodies, we can begin to craft sound policy solutions that lead to better economies.

We are paying for people no matter what. The good news is that we have a choice. We can choose how we pay for them. Let's take the view of investing in our labor force-now and in the future-to ensure we expand the economic pie for all.

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Gender inequity costs the United States $2 trillion in lost GDP

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In the United States today, the top richest 400 Americans own more wealth than the bottom 60%. That is about 150 million people. We haven't seen this type of wealth concentration since the 1920s, right before the Great Depression. For most people, wealth equals security.

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"What Is Gender" - Presented by NYC Human Rights and Honest Accomplice Theater

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"What Is Gender" - Presented by NYC Human Rights and Honest Accomplice Theater

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Comic Shows Why Boys Develop Sexism From Early Age By Interactions With Adults

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Comic Shows Why Boys Develop Sexism From Early Age By Interactions With Adults

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What happens in childhood can matter for a lifetime, so it is very important for everyone involved in raising a child, including parents, teachers, and other people, to try their best and raise a mindful human being.

They play a huge role in a kid's socialization, development, and overall growing up.

However, as we've seen it countless times, it's pretty easy to mess things up. What's more important, though, is to recognize the mistakes you've made and improve.
Damian Alexander is an artist that recently created a comic which points out one really specific area that he thinks people should pay more attention too.

It's about boys adoring female role models, and he brilliantly explains the problem of boys developing sexism early on.

Check out his comic below:

Credit: Instagram

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Comic Shows Why Boys Develop Sexism From Early Age By Interactions With Adults

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What happens in childhood can matter for a lifetime, so it is very important for everyone involved in raising a child, including parents, teachers, and other people, to try their best and raise a mindful human being. They play a huge role in a kid's socialization, development, and overall growing up.

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Pose actor Billy Porter on wearing dresses

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Pose actor Billy Porter on wearing dresses

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Pose actor Billy Porter on wearing dresses

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"If I'm over here wearing a dress, why does it matter?" asks Pose star, Billy Porter. http://bit.ly/32gNIZz

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7 Weird Examples Of How Women Pay More Than Men For The Same Products

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7 Weird Examples Of How Women Pay More Than Men For The Same Products

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The pink tax ― an adorable name for an insidious practice ― is something women deal with on a daily basis. You probably know that ladies pay more than men for a host of products and services, from razors to dry cleaning. In fact, it's estimated that women pay an extra $1,300 per year for essentially the exact same products as men.

What's surprising is how the pink tax extends to other random products that don't seem to have any business being gendered. For example, as one Twitter user found, these women's laxatives apparently cost more than the regular kind.

Was this a fluke, or are women really charged extra for the privilege of pooing with ease? It turns out, they sure are.

The reason? A special (pink) "comfort coating" that protects our extra-sensitive stomachs. Because, you know, periods and stuff. However, the active ingredients are the same.

So I continued combing the aisles of my local drug and department stores, as well as the internet at large, to find out if there were any other strange instances of a pink tax being imposed on seemingly gender-neutral products.

There were. Here are a few of the strangest examples.

Earplugs

Take these women's earplugs. A search of the Walgreens website turns up the non-women's version of these store-brand earplugs, which cost significantly less at $4.59 despite having the same noise reduction rating and containing two extra pairs.

What exactly makes these earplugs specifically for women? Is it the color alone, or do they feature a smaller design that better fits our delicate ear-holes? And if that's the case, shouldn't they cost less?

Hotel Kits

Though it seems these items are no longer carried in stores, Ace Hardware was stocking "his" and "hers" personal care kits for hotel patrons. Of course, the kits featured traditional gendered coloring, and the pink "hers" version cost $2.40 more. They contained the exact same items.

Calculators

Here's another blatant example of a literal pink tax. Both of these calculators are exactly the same ― the only difference is the color. Even the manufacturer's suggested retail price is listed as $8.99 for both versions. Yet the black calculator is regularly priced at an affordable $6.99 while the pink version is "on sale" for $7.99.

Ankle Support

Both of these ankle support wraps by Life Brand offer the same promise: "Helps provide support for mild sprains or strains." Yet the "slimfit" women's version - which assumes all women have slim ankles and that no men do - is a whopping $9 more expensive. Shouldn't a "slimmer" product mean there's less of it, and therefore cost less?

Kids' Bike Helmets

Not even children are spared the pink tax. These two Paw Patrol bike helmets, both designed for toddlers ages 3 to 5 and featuring nearly identical artwork, are priced quite differently depending on gender .

Boys And Girls Clothes

And it gets worse... @GapKids why is the "girls" version £2 more expensive in store? "The future is equal" unless you're a girl, then you have to pay more. #pinktax (bizarrely the same in Euros and on the website?) pic.twitter.com/Rlwd04yCjA
- LetClothesBeClothes (@letclothesbe) June 28, 2019

This particularly embarrassing example comes from across the pond. U.K.-based organization Let Clothes Be Clothes, which calls on retailers to stop using outdated gender stereotypes in children's clothing and marketing, posted these two versions of the same shirt from Gap Kids.

The shirts, which have "The Future Is Equal" emblazoned in bold font, are actually priced differently in pounds for the boy and girl versions (though the cost is the same in euros).

To find out if this was simply a mistake, I searched the U.S. version of the Gap website for the shirt. In the "Boys" shopping section of the site, the shirt can be found with an original price of $19.99, while the "Girls" section displays a slightly different ― and yes, pink ― version for an original price of $24.95.

The Pink Tax Extends Far Beyond Retail

Unfortunately, these are just a few of the many ways women are charged more than men for the same exact products. And from a financial perspective, they're not nearly as devastating as the examples that exist beyond the drug store.

One study found that the initial offers made by car dealers to white women were about $200 more than those to white men. Black women were quoted $400 more than white men, on average. The Consumer Federation of America found that contrary to popular belief, women are also more likely to pay higher car insurance rates despite the fact that men are more likely to engage in risky driving habits, drive under the influence and die in auto accidents, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

This pricing problem is compounded by the fact that though the gender wage gap is slowly decreasing, women still only earn 80.5 cents for every dollar a man earns. Pay discrimination is far worse for women of color; black women will have to wait until 2119 for the wage gap to close, while Latinas have to wait until 2224.

So what can you do? Unfortunately, the pink tax is probably not going anywhere soon. In the meantime, women will have to be especially conscious consumers and look for brands and retailers that price their products fairly.

sexism discrimination gender equality shopping pink tax

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sexism discrimination gender equality shopping pink tax

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7 Weird Examples Of How Women Pay More Than Men For The Same Products

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The pink tax ― an adorable name for an insidious practice ― is something women deal with on a daily basis. You probably know that ladies pay more than men for a host of products and services, from razors to dry cleaning.

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Anderson Cooper CNN The 'Sissy Boy" Experiment Uncovering The Truth-Part 2

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Therapy to change 'feminine' boy created a troubled man, family says..
AC360º" examines a shocking "experimental therapy" designed to make feminine boys more masculine. See what one family says was the devastating result in a special report, "The Sissy Boy Experiment."

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The ''Sissy'' boy experiment: a documentary by CNN

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9-Year-Old's 'My Little Pony' Backpack Banned by School

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9-Year-Old's 'My Little Pony' Backpack Banned by School

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9-Year-Old's 'My Little Pony' Backpack Banned by School | Good Morning America | ABC News

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Iranian lawyer who defended women’s right to remove hijab gets 38 years, 148 lashes

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Iranian lawyer who defended women’s right to remove hijab gets 38 years, 148 lashes

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(Facebook/@NasrinSotoudehOfficial)

After two trials described by Amnesty International as " grossly unfair ," Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh has been sentenced to a total of 38 years in prison and 148 lashes.

Sotoudeh, who has dedicated her life to defending Iranian women prosecuted for removing their hijabs in public, has been in the crosshairs of Iran's theocratic government for years. In 2010, she was convicted of conspiring to harm state security and served half of a six-year sentence. Then, in June of last year, she was rearrested on an array of dubious charges. Tried in secret, details of her ordeal have often come via her husband, Reza Khandan, who wrote of her new, much harsher sentence on his Facebook page on Monday.

Sotoudeh was ultimately charged with seven crimes and given the maximum sentence for all of them. Five additional years were added from a 2016 case in which she was convicted in absentia. The total 38-year sentence was severe even by Iranian standards - a country often accused of human rights abuses, particularly involving women. Observers say it may signal a newly hardline approach to political dissent. Last week, a radical cleric linked to mass executions in the 1980s was appointed head of the Islamic Republic's judiciary .

Critics from around the world decried the outcome of Sotoudeh's case. Amnesty International said it was harshest sentence documented against a human rights defender in Iran in recent memory. Hadi Ghaemi, the executive director of the New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran, told CBS News it exposed "the insecurity the regime has to any peaceful challenge."

The same day Sotoudeh was sentenced, the UN investigator on human rights in Iran held up her case as a sign of the country's increasingly brutal oppression of those who defend the rights of women. "Worrying patterns of intimidation, arrest, prosecution, and ill-treatment of human rights defenders, lawyers, and labor rights activists signal an increasingly severe state response," he said.
Read more at the Guardian . Related In a secret trial, Iran convicts lawyer who defended women who removed their hijabs Shots fired as crowd tries to prevent arrest by Iranian morality police of woman in 'improper' hijab 'Everyone is beautiful in their own ways,' says first hijab-wearing Miss England finalist

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Iranian lawyer who defended women's right to remove hijab gets 38 years, 148 lashes

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(Facebook/@NasrinSotoudehOfficial) After two trials described by Amnesty International as " grossly unfair ," Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh has been sentenced to a total of 38 years in prison and 148 lashes. Sotoudeh, who has dedicated her life to defending Iranian women prosecuted for removing their hijabs in public, has been in the crosshairs of Iran's theocratic government for years.

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Testosterone limits for female athletes not backed by science, say academics

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Testosterone limits for female athletes not backed by science, say academics

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Proposed regulations on testosterone levels in women's athletics have been criticised by academics who say they are not backed by scientific evidence and risk opening a pandora's box on genetic advantages in sport.

The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) put forward new regulations which could require some female athletes to lower their testosterone level. However the introduction of these regulations is currently on ice while the courts decide on a legal challenge brought by the South African athlete Caster Semenya, a female 800 metre Olympic gold medallist. A ruling is expected within days.

Two academics argue that the IAAF regulations are based on the idea that testosterone levels are the prime indicator of biological sex and of how well an athlete will perform - something they say goes against medical and scientific evidence.

The IAAF regulations stipulate that female athletes with circulating testosterone levels of 5nmol/L or higher, and whose bodies respond to such sex hormones, must lower their testosterone levels to compete in women's track events from 400m to 1 mile.

Dr Sheree Bekker and Dr Cara Tannenbaum, writing in the BMJ, said there was no valid test for determining whether someone was insensitive to testosterone, and physical genital examinations required by the IAAF regulations were "an invasion of personal privacy".

"Men usually have higher levels of testosterone in the blood than women, but not always, since hormone levels in the blood depend on a lot of different factors such as age, health conditions, other medications, menstrual cycle and stress," said Bekker, an applied health scientist at the University of Bath.

"Based on these circumstances, there can be overlap between blood levels of testosterone in some men and women, and especially athletes," she said, adding that many factors - including access to training and funding - all contribute to who becomes a winning athlete.

Bekker and Tannenbaum argued there were no clear lines in the sand about what a "male" or "female" level of testosterone was, pointing to one study in which 74 of 446 male athletes had testosterone levels below the "normal male" lower limit of 8.4 nmol/L while 32 of 234 female athletes had levels above the upper "normal female" limit of 2.7 nmol/L. Eleven female athletes had levels over 8 nmol/L.

"What we are seeing is the policing of women's bodies, problematically framed as fairness or protecting other women," said Bekker. "We don't need to be protected from women just as men in sport aren't protected from other men."

Bekker said focusing on natural levels of testosterone in women raised further issues. "This is about natural testosterone levels. Are we going to go to a point where we are banning people who are tall from playing basketball or swimmers with long arms? Those are also natural advantages," she said.

While Semenya's challenge and the article by Bekker and Cara Tannenbaum are focused on the matter of women with differences in sex development - such as intersex athletes - the proposed IAAF regulations also have implications for trans athletes.

Debate around trans athletes' participation in women's sport is a heated one: the athletes Kelly Holmes, Paula Radcliffe and Sharron Davies recently said they were going to write to the International Olympic Committee requesting more research into whether transgender athletes are at an advantage. Radcliffe previously said trans women being able to compete in women's events made "a mockery of the definitions of male and female sports categories".

In response to the article by Bekker and Tannenbaum, the IAAF said: "The 5 nmol/L limit used in the IAAF regulations is not 'arbitrary'. Rather, it is based on a comprehensive survey of all reliable reported data, which established that female athletes with ovaries will usually have testosterone in the range 0.06 to 1.68 nmol/L, and will not get anywhere near 5 nmol/L; whereas athletes with the DSDs (differences in sexual development) covered by the IAAF regulations will have testosterone levels in the normal male range (7.7 to 29.4 nmol/L) or above."

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Testosterone limits for female athletes not backed by science, say academics

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Proposed regulations on testosterone levels in women's athletics have been criticised by academics who say they are not backed by scientific evidence and risk opening a pandora's box on genetic advantages in sport. The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) put forward new regulations which could require some female athletes to lower their testosterone level.

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These seven shocking stats show just how unequal the world is for women

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These seven shocking stats show just how unequal the world is for women

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There is still a long way to go for global equality.

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These seven shocking stats show just how unequal the world is for women

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15 Things All Straight People Do That 2/3 Of Gay People Are Still Afraid To

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15 Things All Straight People Do That 2/3 Of Gay People Are Still Afraid To

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15 Things All Straight People Do That 2/3 Of Gay People Are Still Afraid To

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It's 2019 and this is very much still a thing.

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Fed-Up Female Animators Fight Back Against Sexual Harassment Like Only They Can in This Video

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Fed-Up Female Animators Fight Back Against Sexual Harassment Like Only They Can in This Video

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Samantha Bee knows we've talked a lot about the #MeToo movement. That's why, rather than have a panel or interview of talking heads, she gave us a great animated video about the sexual harassment faced by female animators who have been trying to break into the industry. These badass, "fed the fuck up," self-described geeky women took on Chris Savino, an animator who'd worked with both Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network who was accused of sexual harassment, and wound up emerging victorious. Check out the video below.

What's so moving about this story is that it doesn't end tragically. The allegations weren't ignored. Savino didn't immediately get to launch a comeback tour. These women were able to enact actual change that could help other women avoid being harassed in the same way that they were. In a sea of Louis C.K.s, it's nice to know that, sometimes, actions have actual consequences.

More importantly, the video emphasizes the power of women working together. These women all shared their stories and helped each other fight back. Cheyenne Curtis, the first woman to speak against Savino, says, "There's, like, this sword that's stuck in the ground, and I'm trying to lift it and I can't. And then a bunch of hands come in and they helped, helping me wield that sword."

Women helping other women take down a serial predator? That's the kind of story we need to hear nowadays. These women deserve all the respect in the world, and I hope they keep on doing their inspirational work, and that more women will continue to feel empowered to speak up and push back against the powerful men who have hurt them.
Want more stories like this? Become a subscriber and support the site! -The Mary Sue has a strict comment policy that forbids, but is not limited to, personal insults toward anyone, hate speech, and trolling.-

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Fed-Up Female Animators Fight Back Against Sexual Harassment Like Only They Can in This Video

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Samantha Bee knows we've talked a lot about the #MeToo movement. That's why, rather than have a panel or interview of talking heads, she gave us a great animated video about the sexual harassment faced by female animators who have been trying to break into the industry.

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Adidas Announces Bonus Payout for FIFA Women's World Cup Winners Equal to Male Counterparts

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Adidas Announces Bonus Payout for FIFA Women's World Cup Winners Equal to Male Counterparts

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Adidas announces equal pay for FIFA Women's World Cup

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Teen Girls Are Abusing Their Boyfriends Without Even Knowing It, And You Might Be Doing It Too

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Teen Girls Are Abusing Their Boyfriends Without Even Knowing It, And You Might Be Doing It Too

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Teen Girls Are Abusing Their Boyfriends Without Even Knowing It, And You Might Be Doing It Too

A Tumblr user has called out the hypocrisy of girls who think that what they are doing, and especially among kids, is not abuse.
Take a look at the post yourself:

Some of the items you will find on the list are common sense, but some of them are a little bit controversial. Many people actually do them regularly, but the post author wants them to stop.

It might not be illegal or physically abusive, but it can be a form of abuse on its own that people try to make someone feel bigger or stronger.

Maybe they fit your definition of "abuse", maybe they don't, but predatory behaviour needs to stop!

Two big issues in any relationship are respecting privacy and boundaries. When those lines are crossed, trust goes out of the window. But when the person who crosses the line has the power, it can easily lead to abuse.

There are many instances of emotional abuse, but people don't usually get called out on those. So, the author sent a message to all the boys who might be suffering, and to the girls that might find themselves doing anything on the list.

People took the post and used it for good, even if it's not the most popular thing to talk about.

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Teen Girls Are Abusing Their Boyfriends Without Even Knowing It, And You Might Be Doing It Too

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Teen Girls Are Abusing Their Boyfriends Without Even Knowing It, And You Might Be Doing It Too A Tumblr user has called out the hypocrisy of girls who think that what they are doing, and especially among kids, is not abuse.

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DISCOVERY THAT RAPE CHARGES DROPPED DUE TO VICTIMS APPEARANCE SPARKS OUTRAGE IN ITALY

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DISCOVERY THAT RAPE CHARGES DROPPED DUE TO VICTIMS APPEARANCE SPARKS OUTRAGE IN ITALY

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Italy (Greed) - It appears that even in the era of the "Me Too" movement, women have once again succumbed to the
power of the Patriarchy and become agents of their own oppression.

Three female judges in Italy have overturned a rape conviction on the grounds that the victim couldn't have been raped because she was deemed "too masculine."

Despite the hospital, who treated the victim, affirming that the injuries were consistent with rape, and even, in fact, that the victim had received 14 stitches to her vagina as a result of her injuries, the three female judges nonetheless determined she couldn't have been raped because one of her rapists had saved her number in his phone under the name "Viking" alongside her picture.

As if men aren't raped. As if the elderly aren't raped, as if the deformed, disabled, transgender people
aren't raped. The three female judges seem to have not learned that rape is not about sexual gratification, it is about power.

Oggi ad #Ancona flashmob #siamotuttiVikingo contro la sentenza della Corte di Appello che ha assolto due stupratori perché la vittima sarebbe troppo mascolina #vergogna #indignate #bastaviolenzasulledonne pic.twitter.com/65IHZJtdDf

- stefynews (@StefaniaBenatti) March 11, 2019

Furthermore, the three female judges also questioned the victims credibility as they believed she had been the one who "organized the 'exuberant' evening." It is devastating to see such a clear example of victim blaming coming from three woman judges.

The rape occurred in the Italian city of Ancona, notable for its large Peruvian community. Both the victim and her rapists are of Peruvian descent. The victim eventually returned to Peru to stay with her mother as she felt she was being treated as the accused.

The discovery has sparked outrage and protests outside of the court by defenders of Women's rights in Ancona.

#Flashmob Corte di Appello #Ancona tutti insieme per esprimere indignazione per sentenza, annullata da Cassazione, di assoluzione per due giovani condannati in primo grado per violenza sessuale, con motivazione che vittima fosse troppo mascolina #indignate #siamotuttivichinghi pic.twitter.com/4qdDpkgUR2

- Cisl Marche (@cislmarche) March 11, 2019

Oggi 200, domani 10 mila. Non scherzate con la rabbia delle donne (e degli uomini che le sostengono). @MarchePride #sentenza #vergogna #Ancona #stupro pic.twitter.com/UWPK2kgnxM

- Rebel Network (@RebelNtwk) March 11, 2019

Thankfully, the Italian supreme court annulled the appeal verdict and ordered a retrial. The case will now be reheard from scratch at a court in Perugia on a date to be announced.

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Discovery That Rape Charges Dropped Due to Victims Appearance Sparks Outrage in Italy

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Italy (Greed) - It appears that even in the era of the "Me Too" movement, women have once again succumbed to the power of the Patriarchy and become agents of their own oppression. Three female judges in Italy have overturned a rape conviction on the grounds that the victim couldn't have been raped because she was deemed "too masculine."

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Women Share Harrowing And Heartbreaking Stories About Hiding Their Periods At Work

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Women Share Harrowing And Heartbreaking Stories About Hiding Their Periods At Work

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"If men got their period, we wouldn't even be having this conversation."

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What Women Want Now is a program by HuffPost and her sister sites dedicated to creating content about the issues and stories that matter most to women. Read more here. Join the conversation with #WhatWomenWantNow.

The road to the period revolution is lined with pads. And tampons. When they're available, that is.

Having a job and having a period are two realities for many people, and the experiences come with trials and tribulations ― especially when they happen at the same time.

There's the feeling of walking to a bathroom with a tampon hidden in your sleeve, the nightmarish process of crumpling up a wad of toilet paper to use as makeshift protection in a pinch and the agony of dealing with cramps in a workplace that lacks empathy.

In an effort to facilitate an open and honest conversation about the state of having a period at work looks like today, HuffPost heard dozens of stories from women ― some heartbreaking, some hilarious ― that make it apparent that, despite some instances of accessibility and openness about menstruation, there is still a long way to go.

Dealing With Mental (And Physical) Period Pain At The Office

Jenn, 42, works for a bank in an environment she described as "your typical old-fashioned banking experience."

"Imagine a lot of men, many of them older, wearing suits," said Jenn, who asked to be identified by only her first name so she wouldn't be identified by co-workers.

"I have to sit in meetings surrounded by men and deal with cramps, headaches, backaches and sudden rushes of blood coming out of me," she said. "Dealing with your period isn't fun even when you're home on your couch. Sitting in a conference room in a dress with stocking and four-inch heels on? Well, it's just like hell on earth."

Jenn said her company "does nothing" to make the experience any easier.

"We don't even have machines in the ladies room to buy pads or tampons if we're unprepared," she said. "I understand speaking openly about my cycle is not something men want to hear. But I can dream of a world where I can comfortably excuse myself from a meeting because I feel I just went through a pad and blood is going to go through my dress. I can dream that I won't be seen as weak because my cramps hurt so much that I want to take a day off."

"The amount of side-eye, eye-rolling, disbelief and outright shaming I've received throughout my career and academic years is ridiculous."

Monica, who also asked that her last name not be published, said she had a particularly unfortunate experience while visiting her company's corporate headquarters for a big interview.

"I look like a crime scene happened," said Monica, 48, recalling what had happened. "I'm trying to clean it up as best I can and to keep blood off the floor. I finish inserting a tampon and it's covered in blood ― and slippery. I drop it, it rolls out of my stall and onto the woman in the next stall's shoe. I tried to grab it as fast as I could, but was mortified. All I could do was apologize profusely."

D., a 38-year-old in New York City who did not want her name to be published for privacy reasons, said her struggle with endometriosis, a disorder in which the tissue that is supposed to line the inside of the uterus grows instead outside of it, has made getting her period at work even worse. Pain ― one of the disease's many symptoms ― is especially prevalent during menstruation.

"The amount of side-eye, eye-rolling, disbelief and outright shaming I've received throughout my career and academic years is ridiculous," said D., who works in media. "Everything from 'it's just cramps, get over it' to 'ugh, you have your period again?' would be laughable if it wasn't so painful and traumatizing."

She said she also worries that taking off days as a result of endometriosis could impact her job status, and she's concerned people think she is faking the pain.

"It's emotionally, physically and mentally exhausting to have to explain that it's a disease, it's real and it's every month," she said.

Embarrassment and discomfort are just two of the potential downsides of getting your period at work.

In 2016, Alisha Coleman was working as a 911 call taker in Fort Benning, Georgia, when she unexpectedly got a heavy period. She leaked onto her chair twice and alleged she was fired as a result. The American Civil Liberties Union stepped in when Coleman's case was dismissed by a district court, and it was eventually settled.

The ACLU told HuffPost it couldn't comment on the particulars of the case, but its website says Coleman experienced "unlawful workplace discrimination."

Alisha Coleman, a 911 dispatcher who was fired for getting her period at work, successfully settled in the case we brought against her former employer. Our fight to ensure that no one is fired for sex discrimination goes on. pic.twitter.com/G8JtSqmSAZ
- ACLU (@ACLU) November 13, 2017

Destigmatizing Bleeding On The Job

Unsurprisingly, it seems like one of the best places to work if you have a period is at a company that sells period products.

Natalie Lam, a social media manager for U.K.-based brand Natracare said her office supplies menstrual products, hot water bottles and fruit that combats cramps ― and that there's no stigma or embarrassment when it comes to talking about it.

At Knix, an intimates brand that sells leakproof underwear, there is a desire to have a similarly open culture.

"It's a topic that comes up almost daily and we look to everyone to contribute," founder and CEO Joanna Griffiths told HuffPost.

She said she got plenty of confused looks when she launched the brand in 2013.

"There is still a large set of people who are very uncomfortable with the concept of underwear that blocks leaks," she said. "When I was trying to find capital for the company, I often heard that it was a 'niche' category, as if to say that periods and stress incontinence, which affects 1 in 3 women, was niche?!"

"A lot of people say, 'Do we need to offer condoms if we offer pads and tampons?' and I'm like, 'No!' Sexual intercourse is a choice. Getting your period is not."

- Nancy Kramer, founder of Free The Tampons

Griffiths said openly talking about periods is a great step toward destigmatizing the issue.

"Acknowledging that periods are different for everyone, and for some they can be painful to a debilitating degree is important, especially for people with [polycystic ovary syndrome] or another medical syndrome," she said, adding that support at work ― potentially including the ability to take time off ― is crucial.

But the idea of menstrual leave, which would enable people with periods to take time off during menstruation without using sick days, is controversial to some, as one Australian company learned firsthand when it fully implemented such a policy in 2017.

Stocking bathrooms with menstrual products is the extent to which many companies currently seem to accommodate periods. A few people who wrote in to HuffPost about their experiences praised their workplaces for providing menstrual products.

Nancy Kramer hopes that will someday stop being something that seems worthy of praise. Kramer is the founder of Free The Tampons, a nonprofit that says "every bathroom outside the home should provide freely accessible items."

Kramer became interested in the idea when she visited Apple's headquarters in 1982.

"It was the first time I walked into a restroom with tampons and pads freely accessible," she said. "It really struck me in the moment to think 'Why doesn't every restroom have this?' I immediately instituted it at my own business and advocated for a number of others to do the same."

Kramer said plenty of naysayers have pushed back, and often complain that supplying menstrual products would be a major cost for businesses to be expected to take on.

"We found in our business it costs the business $4.67 per female associate per year," she said. "It's nothing. When people say, 'Who is going to pay for this?' I say, 'Whoever pays for toilet paper.'"

She said others argue companies will have to start offering employees other products if they pay for tampons and pads.

"A lot of people say, 'Do we need to offer condoms if we offer pads and tampons?' and I'm like, 'No!' Sexual intercourse is a choice. Getting your period is not," she said. "If men got periods, we wouldn't even be having this conversation."

Working Toward More Than Just Acceptance

Then there's the fact that tampons and pads aren't considered essential products covered by flex spending, the employee benefit that lets people buy certain approved health items ― including bandages, pain medication and, ahem, condoms ― pretax.

Looking at covered HSA/FSA expenses...

Can someone explain how tampons/pads/etc. aren't covered?

Especially considering condoms and viagra are...
- Ian Fuchs ☕️🦊 (@IanFuchs) January 1, 2019

"A regular menstrual cycle indicates a normal, healthy function of the body, meaning the IRS doesn't see hygiene products as 'treatment,'" reads a July 2018 blog post on the governmental FSA website that explains why menstrual products aren't deemed "necessary."

If you're screaming "that's BS," you're not alone.

Rep. Grace Meng (D-N.Y.) has been fighting menstrual-related inequities for years, and is currently working to get pads and tampons qualified for coverage under FSA ― something she told HuffPost was a "no-brainer."

The House passed a version of her bill last year, but it wasn't taken up by the Senate. Meng plans to reintroduce the legislation as part of a broader bill soon.

"These are essential and necessary items that are critical to the health and well-being of women," she said. "If people can use FSA funds for items such as bandages and crutches, they should also be allowed to use the money for purchasing menstrual hygiene products. It's time for this to happen."

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health menstruation feminine hygiene what women want now

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It's 2019 And Women Are Still Hiding Tampons Up Their Sleeves At Work

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What Women Want Now is a program by HuffPost and her sister sites dedicated to creating content about the issues and stories that matter most to women. Read more here. Join the conversation with #WhatWomenWantNow. The road to the period revolution is lined with pads. And tampons. When they're available, that is.

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Gamer Samantha Schwemm Shows How Others Treat Her Online for Being A Woman

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Gamer Samantha Schwemm Shows How Others Treat Her Online for Being A Woman

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This professional gamer recorded the gender-based harassment she receives from other players and posted it online to show what women gamers go through

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This professional gamer recorded the gender-based harassment she receives from other players and posted it online to show what women gamers go through (via NowThis Her)

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Post by NowThisNews.

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The End of ‘Ladies First’ Restaurant Service

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The End of ‘Ladies First’ Restaurant Service

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In scrapping certain customs, restaurants are redefining what “good manners” means for a new generation

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You may not think you know classic service standards, but you probably do. Even if you've never worked in a restaurant, spend enough time in upscale establishments and you know the deal: Women are served first, going clockwise around the table, then men are served clockwise. That goes for every step of the service, from how the water is poured to the order in which orders are taken to how plates arrive to (and are set down on) the table. The same goes for wine, though the host (the diner who receives the "taste" pour from the bottle) is served last, regardless of gender. That's according to the Court of Master Sommeliers, the training most beverage professionals undergo to learn the social graces of good service, which was founded in 1969. (Incidentally, that's also the era in which women increasingly pushed back on restaurants' discriminatory practices - in some American cities, women weren't allowed to enter restaurants, or specific sections of restaurants, unaccompanied by a man until the 1970s.)

But at Chicago's Tied House, which opened in February 2018, general manager Meredith Rush says there's a way to provide thoughtful service without relying on those measures of old-school etiquette: Essentially, it's omitted the idea of "ladies first." The staff has eliminated language like "ladies and gentleman" from its vocabulary, and no longer serves guests in order of gender performance. "We'll do our service as elegantly as we would if we were adhering to the classic standards," Rush says.

Tied House is the latest in the trend of upscale restaurants implementing gender-neutral service standards, joining Chicago favorites Bad Hunter and Lula Cafe, among many more. Bad Hunter waitstaff is trained to pour wine and water clockwise around the table, regardless of guests' gender, and both restaurants have removed gendered titles from their service vocabulary. You might notice these changes as a guest, or you might not. But in scrapping certain customs, these restaurant staffs - among many nationwide - are both reacting to and redefining what having "good manners" means for a new generation.

Of course, dining etiquette has differed from region to region, century to century, just like any set of socialized niceties. In Medieval Europe, it's said the host and hostess were served first to prove the meal isn't poisoned. Belching can mean anything from "I loved it!" to "I have no respect for you!" in any given time and place. Once a common courtesy, handing the male guest the check is now widely deemed archaic and sexist in most spheres of the United States.

In fact, only in the past few decades has the "ladies menu" - a menu identical to the men's menu, with prices omitted - fallen from fine dining custom. The European practice was adopted by upscale American restaurants, including West Hollywood French eatery L'Orangerie, whose owners argued it was "a tradition done in the same spirit as lighting a cigarette or standing up when she enters a room." (Critics would argue the practice, which assumes the male patron is always paying for the meal, was sexist, particularly as baby boomer women entered the workforce.) In 1980, the Parisian-inspired spot became the subject of a high-profile lawsuit that swayed public opinion against the ladies' menu, at the hand of feminist attorney Gloria Allred. Still, though, the ladies menu remains in the most old-school corners of fine dining: Michael's Gourmet Room at South Point in Las Vegas continues to adopt the obviously gendered custom. Which is to say, etiquette evolves with the times, but not at a rapid-fire pace.

Etiquette evolves with the times, but not at a rapid-fire pace.

Tied House's chef, James Beard award-winner Debbie Gold, witnessed a relaxation of old-school service standards while helming the American Restaurant in Kansas City. "The restaurant was open over 40 years," says Gold, "so we went from servers in black tie tuxedos with gueridons, and had to evolve into today's world." Just as the ladies menu -seen by many as "just good manners" in its time - is in hindsight ridiculous, it appears the practice of serving a guests "ladies first" is on a similar trajectory.

So how does service work at Tied House, if not ladies first? Easy: by seat number.

To understand gender's role in wait service, a quick primer for those without restaurant experience: Each seat at a table is assigned a seat number - classically, seat one's back faces the kitchen or the front door. When waiters take an order, they assign a dish to a seat number. At many upscale restaurants, an F (for "female") will be attached to the seat number, as an indicator to the food runners the order in which dishes need to be placed. When serving ladies first, that F can eliminate the cumbersome nightmare of juggling dishes at the table. It makes things a little more graceful; it betters the service.

That F doesn't exist at Tied House, but the seat numbers remain. "Now we'll just be serving seat one first," says Rush. "If seat one happens to be a woman, that's fine." Dishes are served clockwise from there.

Shaking that classic training is no easy feat. Rush's previous experience as a sommelier at Lincoln Restaurante in New York City's Lincoln Center and with Chicago's Boka Restaurant Group have ingrained gender-based service standards into her bones; ditching those feels like a betrayal to what she's been taught. "When I serve a gentleman first - especially when it's two guests, one man and one woman - I do feel self-conscious," she says, even using formal service titles as she speaks casually. "I think, 'Do they think I don't know what I'm doing, or I'm being rude or not paying attention?'" So far, Tied House hasn't received any complaints about this - as some restaurants reported experiencing when they adopted gender-neutral service - but it's a small source of anxiety nonetheless.

Tied House boasts women in multiple decision-making positions: Gold, of Top Chef: Masters fame, commands the kitchen, and Rush helms the front of house and the beverage program. This is Rush's first GM gig (though she's worked in restaurants for two decades), and thus her first real opportunity to shape the culture and service standards of her team. But the decision to go gender-neutral wasn't a top-down one. Indeed, the overwhelming support of Tied House's front-of-house team made the transition an easy one. "The fact that they were really excited and passionate about it made me feel the same way," Rush says. Plus, servers are the ones engaging with guests most. "Sure, you can implement anything, but your staff are the ones on the front lines greeting literally every single guest."

In the post-#MeToo era, folks of all genders are increasingly considering the sexism in seemingly innocuous happenings in their own lives. Tied House's core team came together in January 2018, just three months after many of Harvey Weinstein's victims came out in droves. Rush credits the discourse surrounding the #MeToo movement for prompting her to consider the day-to-day goings-on in her restaurants, for staff and guests alike, under harsher light. Adding up the little things that happen on a daily basis, Rush came to reconsider the service standards she'd been raised meeting throughout her career.

"Sometimes it's just a small thing that can trigger a larger feeling in someone," she says. While she doesn't mind having the door held for her, she knows that her clientele could. In a worst-case scenario, "it could open up old wounds or remind someone they are 'other' in a way they never asked for." And if Rush is more attuned than ever to gender-based inequalities, her guests probably are, too, she surmises. That means more opportunity to make guests feel "other"; she'd be failing to provide the finest service possible.

In order words, if you're not serving women first, why bother evaluating your diners' gender performance? It's a simple decision, but one whose implications reach far beyond a runner's dish load.

"What ever happened to being polite?" dissenters will inevitably say. "Good manners never hurt anybody." Sure - and good manners are integral to good restaurant service. But the world is changing so that gender-based etiquette, in some circles, can be read anywhere from impolite to downright insulting.

While the rise of gender-neutral language is often chalked up to political correctness, a wealth of research suggests neutralization promotes gender equality in society at large. The role of gender in a language is often associated with a culture's adoption of gender biases: Some argue there are more displays of sexism in cultures with grammatical gender languages (like Romance languages, Russian, German), than in English, in which most nouns are gender-neutral; genderless languages (like Finnish) show less gender bias than English. Gender-neutral language may not yet be mainstream worldwide, but there's both space and precedence for it. In 2012, Sweden made history by becoming the first country to formally adopt a third, gender-neutral pronoun, hen. Though it was disliked at first, studies show the new word was viewed positively by a majority of Swedes by 2014. While challenging the gender binary often elicits hostile reactions, human language is malleable and our attitudes toward such changes are too.

Outstanding service means meeting every one of your guests' wants and needs, even those they didn't know they have. With the near-ubiquity of feminist discourse comes the shifting of priorities from people of all genders in public spaces. More women find it silly to be treated like a "lady" in public spaces; women aren't always out to eat with their husbands and boyfriends (was that ever really the case?); a male-female two-top could be coworkers or friends, both straight or not.

Manners can often become an issue of recognizing a person's humanity.

And for transgender and non-binary patrons, the stakes are higher; manners can often become an issue of recognizing a person's humanity. While pouring a person a server perceives as female first may seem like a polite, safe choice - innocuous, at worst - misgendering is a very real occurrence for many trans people, and can happen in far more ways than addressing a person using incorrect pronouns. Simply being served second or having a door opened can constitute passive misgendering, a surefire way to ruin someone's day - and for the restaurant to potentially lose a customer. From a strictly service perspective, relying on perceived gender performance offers front-of-house staff more opportunities for more social faux pas.

"We're here to ensure our guests are comfortable in every way possible," says Rush. "If eliminating 'classic' parts of service can make it even more comfortable for our guests, then that means we've done what we can for right now."

As the zeitgeist changes, so do the things that comfort us. In a world where folks are increasingly disassociating from traditional gender roles - and from the essentialist binary itself - scrapping such conventions isn't just an opportunity for a restaurant to make a social statement, but a way to make patrons feel at ease. As transgender issues become more widely discussed and understood, gender-neutral bathrooms have become a common feature in upscale public establishments. Will gender-neutral service standards be next?

For Gold, the decision came down to a simple, universal value. "It's about basic respect for people," says Gold. "[The decision] wasn't really a discussion, it was more about proper service than it is about female/male. It really doesn't matter to me how people dress or what their preferences are, it's just about basic, proper service."

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The End of 'Ladies First' Restaurant Service

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You may not think you know classic service standards, but you probably do. Even if you've never worked in a restaurant, spend enough time in upscale establishments and you know the deal: Women are served first, going clockwise around the table, then men are served clockwise.

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How is it like to be a disabled women in STEM – WomenHistoryMonth

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How is it like to be a disabled women in STEM – WomenHistoryMonth

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According to the World Health Organisation, disabilities is an umbrella term, covering impairments, activity limitations, and participation restrictions. This is quite a hard sentence to digest with loads of jargon and technicalities. So, let me be a bit more clear! Impairments refer to the dysfunction of one or more parts of your body and also includes malformations. Activity limitations refer to the inability to carry out normal daily activities. Participation restrictions include all the conditions that prevent people from living life to the fullest. Often, we recognise disabilities as physical disabilities, for example, a person in a wheelchair or missing a limb, deafness or blindness. But, actually, you might be surprised to know that people affected by cancer, diabetes, HIV and even mental illness are included in this umbrella term. [1]

Society didn't make a great scene here. Loads of labels have been put on folks with disabilities. "Monsters", "Freaks", "Demons" are just a few. Scientists are usually men of their time and some of them started a sort of classification to define what's the average man should look like. [2] Hence, the claims whereby body-abled people with some traits and characteristics were "normal" and all the rest was labelled as "abnormal/non-normal". This led to the idea of eugenics, which literally means good genes, that classified disabled people as having a pool of genes which deviated from the norm and set the basis for the claim that a superior race must be existing. [3] In the early 1970s, disability activists began to challenge how society treated disabled people and the medical approach to disability.

Mike Oliver, in 1983, set up the differences between the physical impairments that needed to be treated medically (medical model of disability) and the social model of disability. The latter identifies systemic barriers, negative attitudes and exclusion by society (purposely or inadvertently) that mean society is the main contributory factor in disabling people. [4] I personally think that I gave enough data, statistics and reference to talk about this topic. There's no science or piece of evidence that can tell how it is like to live with disabilities. So, I decided to give voice to the people who didn't give up and decided to do science despite the struggle of living in a society which isn't really disability-friendly.
"Nobody embarks on a PhD thinking it's going to be easy, but disability and illness can make researching a thesis that little bit more daunting, exhausting or isolating".
I will start by sharing my own story. My depression and anxiety started well before I enrolled in a PhD programme. When I started my PhD, I wasn't even aware of having a problem. I thought that my mood swings, aggressiveness and bad attitude were "normal". In Italy, the country where I come from, people don't really talk about this and there's a profound misunderstanding of mental illness and the different types of conditions (depression anxiety, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder etc.). everyone is the same and you are just a freak! Coming to the UK was mind-opening because loads of people are open about their struggle here. It's okay not to be okay, it's okay to be on "depression tablets", it's okay to be down. Fast forwards, I have been on medications for almost a year and with the help of cognitive therapy, my mood and perception of the world significantly improved. Looking back at the person I was 2 years ago, I can totally tell that leaving with disabilities does prevent you from living your life to the fullest. Pain in the brain is a disability and the fact that it's invisible doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. Plus, it is equally daunting as physical disability. To wrap up my story, I registered myself as a disabled woman in STEM to show that you can do a PhD, become a scientist, being successful and glorious (yes, I am bragging about myself!) even when the struggle of going through even little things in everyday life is real!

Pain in the brain is a disability and the fact that it's invisible doesn't mean that it doesn't exist.

I do not know to what extent I can call ADHD is disability. At least in the USA, ADHD can be considered a disability under the Equality Act 2010. In the case of science, it requires careful planning and meticulous execution, things that people with ADHD struggle tremendously with. I had always struggled with making sloppy mistakes, forgetting the timeline of projects, forgetting projects, missing deadlines, etc, but somehow with a very humble and apologetic personality, I was always given a chance. That's how I finished a Master's degree and later became a PhD student. When I finally found out I had ADHD it didn't come as a surprise. Upon diagnosis, I immediately started therapy to come up with strategies to manage my symptoms in both the professional and the personal scenarios. Medication a year after also helped greatly. It turns out, there is a large community of scientists out there with ADHD. It also comes with its perks. For example, we're likely to think outside the box, we can be very energetic when starting new projects, and our ability to hyperfocus on something we're passionate about comes as a great asset. I encourage those with ADHD to explore their strengths and to look for strategies to manage our issues with executive function. Employers and mentors can do so much to accommodate for our needs including more flexibility, regular meetings, reminders, and spaces free of distractions. When managed properly, ADHD is not an obstacle to pursue science. Shakira recently started an Instagram page called The Scatter Academic to raise awareness of ADHD in graduate school.

Daisy's story: I have always loved science right from when I was very young. I studied hard at school but found it difficult to socialise and fell into a deep depression around the age of 16. In hindsight, my lack of social skills probably stems from my autism which I was diagnosed with when I was 21. Moving to uni exacerbated both my anxiety and depression as I was away from home and my familiar routine. I was also constantly frustrated with my examination results as they did not reflect my academic ability. This was because I routinely had panic attacks in exams due to my anxiety and sensory overload. Although I didn't know it at the time, my autism means that I experience environments very differently to neurotypical people. Essentially I can't filter out any sensory inputs so my brain goes into overdrive trying to process all of that information at once. This makes it incredibly difficult to concentrate in lectures and exams. When I was finally diagnosed with autism in my final semester I was given 'reasonable adjustments' which meant I could take exams in a separate room away from all the additional sensory inputs that come from being in a room of other students. Now, I am a postgraduate researcher in physics studying ways to control the spin of electrons to create semiconductor spin qubits for quantum computing. Although I have developed many coping strategies for managing both my anxiety and autism, I still struggle to cope with communicating effectively with co-workers, 'office politics' and suppressing my urges to 'stim' in public. Alongside this, it is incredibly fatiguing to socialise and exist out in the world so I often have to retreat to a safe space away from too many stimuli in order to 'recharge'. Although being autistic poses a lot of additional hurdles that I have to process every day, it's also one of the reasons why I am a good scientist! The autistic brain is very logical, disciplined and good at recognising patterns and I wouldn't ever want to change the way I think.

Hey Everyone, I'm beyond honoured to be able to share my story and hopefully inspire others to do the same and fulfil their dreams. My name is Wilma.

I'm a 1st-year student in biology. I have always been interested in science and as a kid I questioned EVERYTHING. It was not until 7th grade I knew what I wanted to research on: spinal cord injuries. The main reason I want to focus on spinal cord injuries is that I was born with a malformation on my spine. It caused paralysis and I am mostly bounded to a wheelchair but I am able to walk with leg braces for short periods of time. When I meet people and tell them I am studying science and want to become a cell biologist, I get a lot of weird faces. That's because, as a disabled person, you are very often underestimated. There is a preconception about us that we are stupid, aren't capable of anything. The list goes on. But we are not any of those things. We are worthy, We are smart and, above all, we are capable to achieve great things as long as we believe that we can. Its time for the world to see us, believe in us and INCLUDE US.

For those out there who are struggling with accepting themself as they are, you are not alone. Get out there. Raise your voice. Fullfill your dream. I believe in You. Lots of love.

I'm Autumn Gavora and I am a Microbiology Instructor at a university. I also have cancer. I was first diagnosed my first semester of graduate school. I thought that by staying in school while going through treatments and surgery would should how strong my character was. I graduated in December of 2018. I was given my instructor position the day I graduated. The schedule worked out perfect for me with still having to go to doctor's appointments all the time. Right now, I am considered living with cancer because it's under control, but they cannot pinpoint the exact location. Which means, I'm stuck for the time being. It's so small they cannot see it so every six months I have to go through a week's worth of scans. I have two doctor's appointments every month on top of that. Going through one of the hardest parts of my life, I honestly thought getting my dream job would be a little easier. Less emotional, less straining, less making me feel like I'm nothing. I was very very wrong. I have applied for almost 200 positions. I have gotten up to the third interview on multiple jobs. I get down to the part about my availability.... all the years of schooling, my 3.8 GPA, my years of research, my years of teaching a subject I'm applying for, come down to "we cannot accommodate the time off you need as a new hire". It's one of those feelings of everything you worked so hard for ended up being for absolutely nothing. The last rejection was last week. This one hurt pretty hard as the lab director was so interested that they rushed everything only to come to a screeching halt. My dreams shattered again. This time they were so close that I got so excited I could see myself in the lab. I could see myself doing the research that I applied for.
I took a few days off from applying. Then I saw Lady Gaga's acceptance speech at The Oscar's. It was exactly what I needed to start applying again. Seventeen more applications are in. By the time the balls get rolling on most of these my scan will be done and over with. My husband wants me to not say anything until I need the time off in November and I think that's exactly what I'm going to do. Try and get hired first and then ask for the time off. You'd think getting the cancer diagnosis was the hard part. Nope, it's just a never-ending fight to try and make your dreams come true after your world was shattered. But I know, one day, my application will be successful, and I can guarantee you that I'll be the happiest person on the planet that day. I cannot wait.

My applications are constantly rejected because I have cancer and taking a week off to see the doctor is too much time away from research.

I am a physicist and a science teacher, and I am also disabled. The type of science I specialise in is particle physics - specifically neutrinos! - and my disability is of the mental health variety. I also like to get involved in science communication. I've been involved in the academic science world for seven-ish years, and whilst I have loved that time, it has also been a very difficult period, and often incredibly isolating. Being a disabled woman in physics, I'm a part of at least two STEM minorities, but as a woman there is at least a lot of action going on there and many movements to increase the visibility and power of women in science. Being disabled, however, has been a lot more isolating. I can easily count on the fingers of one hand the number of people I actually personally know who are working in science with a disability. Even when you take the whole community into account, there is still very little visibility: one time I took part in the Wiki-thon with the intention of trying to add a disabled scientist to Wikipedia, but failed because after searching for 45 minutes I couldn't find anyone with the right level of "noteworthiness". My journey to complete my science degree and graduate felt like - and often was - a constant fight, to the point that I switched from getting a MSc to a BSc just because I was so scared of just not getting any qualification at all. Now I'm doing teacher training (which is still quite stressful!) it's so different because the people in power actually really want me to become a teacher, and so, instead of me constantly fighting, they actually offer solutions and suggest adjustments and I'm not constantly having to prove that I'm disabled. Saying all this, I still do love science so much, and I am planning to return to academia to continue my studies, but probably on a part-time basis. It still feels to me, to an extent, that the scientific academic world is not prepared to accommodate and support me in the ways I need and to look after myself I need to distance myself from that. However, I do just love particle physics and neutrinos so much that I doubt I'll be able to stay away for very long - I'm already looking into where I would want to do my Master's degree - especially since there are some really exciting experiments in the works!

I switched my career from research to teaching because I don't think academia will accept someone with mental illness.

This is article is nowhere near to be a detailed description of how it is like to be a disabled woman in STEM but I hope it'tt give food for thought! Finally thanks to my friends and their contribution to this article. I wouldn't have made it on wmy own! Their support has been immense.

[1] https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2011/03/25/2011-6056/regulations-to-implement-the-equal-employment-provisions-of-the-americans-with-disabilities-act-as

[2] Eiseley, Loren (1961). Darwin's Century. Anchor Books (Doubleday). p. 227.

[3] Eugenics; Its Definition, Scope and Aims, Nature volume 70, page 82, 26 May 1904.[4] Shakespeare, Tom. "The Social Model of Disability." In
The Disability Studies Reader, ed. Lennard Davis (New York: Routledge, 2006, 2d ed.), 197-204 (

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How is it like to be a disabled women in STEM - WomenHistoryMonth

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According to the World Health Organisation, disabilities is an umbrella term, covering impairments, activity limitations, and participation restrictions. This is quite a hard sentence to digest with loads of jargon and technicalities. So, let me be a bit more clear! Impairments refer to the dysfunction of one or more parts of your body and also...

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I Got 99 Problems But a Skrull Ain’t One: The Many Faces of Misogyny in Captain Marvel

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I Got 99 Problems But a Skrull Ain’t One: The Many Faces of Misogyny in Captain Marvel

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This post contains spoilers.

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by Dr. Samantha Langsdale
SPOILERS: the following post DOES contain spoilers, so if you prefer not to have various plot points of the film revealed, read no further.
For those of us who enjoy superhero films, the last couple of years have been game changing. True, Hollywood has been producing superheroic blockbusters for decades, but the last two years in particular have given us a lot of firsts. Wonder Woman (2017), Black Panther (2018), Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018), they all gave us something groundbreaking and put heroes on our screens that we had only caught glimpses of before (if ever). Captain Marvel (2019), starring Brie Larson, is the newest entry in this "Whoa! What was that!?" hall of fame. As Marvel's first full-length feature with a solo female lead, and as a film that uses an unprecedented level of de-aging technology, Captain Marvel (CM) is definitely novel. But what really struck me, and I imagine, a lot of other women, was how intensely relatable the film was-not only because, for only the second time ever, the main superhero protagonist was a woman, but also because her greatest enemy was one that I too fight on a regular basis. And I'm not talking about Skrulls.

As the film unfolds, we as the audience follow Vers on her journey to complete her first mission as a Kree warrior, and also to truly gain a sense of who she is. Her memories of her early life are patchy, and even though she is confronted by the Supreme Intelligence in a form that she is meant to recognize, Vers has very little sense of her past. It is not until Vers is captured by the Skrulls-the alien race we are led to believe are the "bad guys"-and then crash-lands on Earth that she starts to understand the complexity of her own identity. Vers, it turns out, is not her true name, and while she does indeed have Kree blood running through her veins, Carol Danvers is from Earth. With the help of SHIELD agents Nick Fury and Phil Coulson, one deceptively cute Flerken (watch out, they bite), and the clan Rambeau, Carol née Vers, discovers more about who she was, how she became who she is, and that her mission to hunt Skrulls is based on a lie. Skrulls, it turns out, are not the prime enemy; rather, they have been colonized by the Kree and are under threat of extinction. So if it isn't the Skrulls that Carol must fight, then who, or what, is it?

Misogyny. That's right, I said it. Captain Marvel teaches us that it isn't the Skrulls we need to be worried about, it's the misogyny.

For most folks, the meaning of misogyny is fairly straightforward-it is the hatred of women because they are women, right? If that's the case, then my claim may seem a bit extreme. There isn't anyone in the film who hates Carol (even Minn-Erva stops at saying she "never liked" Carol), and even if there was, we really don't have any evidence that that kind of hatred is rooted in Carol's gender identity. So what in the worlds am I thinking? Well, what if I told you that you've got the meaning of misogyny all wrong? What if we thought about it not in terms of a handful of people who are exceptionally hateful, but instead in relation to the ways most people are invested in propping up the patriarchal status quo?
Defining Misogyny
In her recent book, Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny (2018), philosopher Kate Manne argues that the "naïve conception" of misogyny (i.e. hatred of women as women) fails us on a number of levels: first, it suggests that misogyny is a virtually nonexistent phenomenon which, may seem to make sense to those who believe that gender justice has been fully realized, but for those of us aware of the persistence of vast inequalities, and who experience hostility or exclusion on a regular basis, this suggestion belies reality. Second, if misogyny is believed to be about hatred of women as women, and it is understood as being relatively rare, than it is immensely unhelpful for victims because it becomes "inscrutable" and thus, any claim that something is misogynist becomes "very difficult to justify" (19). Finally, if we continue to insist on this "naïve conception," those who are accused of misogynist behavior have only to say that they don't hate women and then point to the women in their lives whom they love or care for. Again, for those of us who have experienced harassment or abuse in ways that we are certain relate to our gender identities, it hardly helps to know that there are others like us in the lives of our abusers. Manne argues that another definition of misogyny is necessary, one that does not lapse into psychological explanations, or that makes the coexistence of care for, and hostility towards, women impossible.

Manne proposes instead that misogyny be understood as "a property of social environments in which women are liable to encounter hostility due to the enforcement and policing of patriarchal norms and expectations". In other words, misogyny is "a name for whatever hostile force field forms part of the backdrop of [a woman's] actions, in ways that differentiate her from a male counterpart (with all else being held equal)" (19). This alternative definition ameliorates the difficulties outlined above because "misogyny's essence lies in its social function, not its psychological nature" (20). A person may be enacting misogyny not because they "feel" hatred, but rather because they are upholding what they believe is right, i.e. the patriarchal norms, ideals, and practices that have been privileged by dominant social structures. The conversation then is less about what misogyny is and instead more about what it does. More specifically, Manne outlines the operations of misogyny in the following steps:

Misogyny takes a girl or a woman belonging to a specific social class (of a more or less fully specified kind, based on race, class, age, body type, disability, sexuality, being cis/trans, etc.). It then threatens hostile consequences if she violates or challenges the relevant norms or expectations as a member of this gendered class of persons. These norms include (supposed) entitlements on his part and obligations on hers. She may also be positioned as the type of woman who is representative of those who are not playing their assigned parts properly or are trespassing on his territory (20).

There are a number of things to take note of here: one, we are no longer beholden to a definition that presumes that all misogynist behavior looks the same and instead, this alternative definition allows us to understand misogyny in more intersectional ways. Two, this type of behavior can be performed by anyone who believes that there is a proper "place" for women in patriarchal society and that men are justified in laying claim to disproportionate amounts of power and control. Three, misogyny may be directed at particular women even if they have not specifically behaved in ways that defy "patriarchal law and order" simply because they are perceived to be the type of woman who does not perform her role properly. In short, Manne writes, "sexism [is] the branch of patriarchal ideology that justifies and rationalizes a patriarchal social order, and misogyny [is] the system that polices and enforces its governing norms and expectations" (20).

So, what's this got to do with Captain Marvel?
The Many Faces of Misogyny
Through the frequent flashbacks Carol experiences in the film, we learn that there were many points in her life where she was told to stay "down girl," and we see that these directives came from different types of people. The first person, of course, is Carol's Kree mentor Yon-Rogg (played by Jude Law). Although their relationship seems to be one of mutual respect, and good-natured snark, the interactions between Yon-Rogg and Carol are unquestionably misogynist. In their opening fight scene, Yon-Rogg insists time and time again that Carol must not let anger and emotion be a part of her combat, that she must remain calm and rational at all costs. This kind of psychological policing has a long history in our patriarchal society where it is assumed that to participate in a "man's world" all emotion must be erased, and further, that if women in particular want to be taken seriously, they must control their anger which is always assumed to be irrational. When Carol asks why she was given the power she has if they expect her not to use it, Yon-Rogg again insists that she must learn to use it right, or, in other words, she must learn to use the power according to what he says is right. Manne reminds us that "misogyny is primarily a property of social systems or environments as a whole, in which women will tend to face hostility of various kinds because they are women in a man's world (i.e., a patriarchy), who are held to be failing to live up to patriarchal standards" (33). Again, while Yon-Rogg and Carol verbally banter throughout the opening scenes, giving it a more playful feel, Yon-Rogg consistently emphasizes Carol's failure to live up to (his) Kree standards.

Yon-Rogg also threatens Carol a number of times, a key component of the mechanisms of misogyny according to Manne. As stated above, misogyny "threatens hostile consequences if she violates or challenges the relevant norms or expectations as a member of this gendered class of persons" (20). As Carol continues to fight in her own unique ways, Yon-Rogg warns her that what has been given, can always be taken away, alluding to the Kree technology embedded in Carol's neck that we are led to believe is the source of her power.

We hear this same threat echoed by the Supreme Intelligence who, in Carol's visit, takes the form of a woman, Dr. Wendy Lawson (aka Mar-Vell, played by Annette Benning), and who makes the threat when Carol refuses to give up her mission to help the Skrulls. This too is a powerful lesson in recognizing misogyny; it can come in many forms, including in the behavior of some women. As Manne writes, patriarchal ideology "enlists a long list of mechanisms" in service of policing women's behavior, "including women's internalization of the relevant social norms, narratives about women's distinctive proclivities and preferences, and valorizing depictions of the relevant forms of care work as personally rewarding, socially necessary, morally valuable, [etc]" (47). The particularly insidious aspect of these social roles is that they are "supposed to look as natural or freely chosen as possible" such that it can be difficult to distinguish how they prop up patriarchy. Of course the Supreme Intelligence's adoption of Lawson's image does not mean that the character Lawson herself was guilty of adhering to patriarchal social norms (in fact we know she absolutely was not!) but instead, what I find important here is the reminder that misogyny-as a system that polices women's behavior via hostilities and threats-does not always wear a man's face.

That said, Yon-Rogg also gives himself away (as perpetuating misogyny) at the conclusion of the film. When he finally reaches Maria's house on Earth, and encounters a person who appears to be Carol, Yon-Rogg follows custom by asking questions only Carol would know the answers to. The Skrull who has shape-shifted to resemble Carol does relatively well until Yon-Rogg asks whose blood was used to give Carol a transfusion in order to keep her alive after an explosion. The Skrull cannot answer and so after shooting him, Yon-Rogg says bitterly, " my blood. It was my blood." Later, when he is fighting Carol, he reminds her of this fact and again threatens to take away her powers, claiming that she would be nothing without him, or without the Kree. Manne writes that misogyny involves "(supposed) entitlements on his part and obligations on hers," which in this case, manifests in Yon-Rogg's implication that Carol owes her allegiance to the Kree and to him, because she was given some of what was his. In other words, Yon-Rogg believes he is entitled to Carol's obedience.

And of course there are more familiar misogynist faces in the film as well. Flashbacks reveal a fellow Air force cadet who attempts to put Carol in her place by arguing that being a fighter pilot is a "man's territory" and asking, "you know why they call it a cockpit, don't you?" In military training scenes, we see Carol clinging to a rope, trying to fling herself forward and all around her, male cadets are laughing and shouting "you'll never make it." Standing outside a biker bar, Carol is told to smile by a man who arrives on his motorcycle just moments before. We are also shown a scene from Carol's childhood where, after she crashes a go-cart, her angry father rushes over, not to ensure her safety, but to chastise her for daring to participate in a boy's activity that he forbade her to try. A recent Captain Marvel comic develops this paternal anger into physical and emotional abuse, again resonating with Manne's suggestion that women's and girls' behaviors are often policed via violent means.

In all of these examples, women in the audience will have undoubtedly recognized themselves in Carol's experiences and for so many of us, these parallels made the "stand up" scene all the more powerful. Carol isn't just getting up after falling down, being knocked down, being thrown out, she's getting up time and time again after misogyny tells her to stay "down girl." A meme currently on social media shows a quote from Kelly Sue Deconnick, the writer who is credited with revitalizing and retconning Carol's story in ways that ameliorate her deeply sexist origins, stating "Carol falls down all the time, but she always gets back up-we say that about Captain America as well, but Captain America gets back up because it's the right thing to do. Carol gets back up because 'F- you'." A better understanding of misogyny, and the ways it constantly shapes women's lives, makes it easier to understand the kind of people who are implicated in this "you."
Misogyny Before and After
The lessons CM can teach us about misogyny are not limited to the film itself. In fact, for months leading up to the film's release, and in the days since, we have learned again and again how very entitled certain folks feel to controlling superhero narratives, box office results, media discourses, and representations of women. Recall, for example, the scandal that erupted upon the debut of the first CM trailer. Rather than focus on the content, or the aesthetics of the fictional world depicted, a disproportionately loud group of fans (largely male) lodged complaints about the unpleasantness of Brie Larson's appearance, demanding that she "smile more." A well worn trick of misogyny, men's persistent suggestion that women should smile is solidly rooted in beliefs that women should, first and foremost, be pleasing to the men around them, and thus, their behavior should always adhere to patriarchal preferences for women's embodiment. Of course many men still fail to recognize the prevalence of this problem, and so at a recent press conference, a reporter asked Larson if the "smile" scene in the film was a response to this criticism. Larson firmly assured the reporter that the scene was a part of the script far before the fan controversy went viral, "that's just a depiction of the female experience. That's just what it's like," she stated.

These types of fans also set about creating a campaign to review-bomb the film because of the trailers (which heavily indicated a strong female lead who makes a habit of doing precisely what mean tell her not to), in response to Brie Larson's critiques of sexist fan culture, and in order to "prove" that female-led films cannot succeed. This kind of reaction is not unprecedented, however. Ghostbusters (2016) was similarly targeted and resulted in weeks of online abuse and harassment of the cast, the worst of which was directed at Leslie Jones. While this may strike some as rather ridiculous, it is important to observe how emphatically misogynist these campaigns are. The (mostly) men who run them and engage in online abuse are demonstrating their entitlement to controlling certain types of films such that the films in question should only be made in their own images and according to their own desires. That women are encroaching on what these men perceive to be their territory is characterized as disruptive, destructive, and entirely unjust, thus resulting in hostility and threats designed to police women's behavior and to put them back into their relatively marginalized, invisible, or objectified places.

This pattern of misogynist behavior has also manifested in the press coverage of the film. Larson, echoing observations made previously by actresses like Sandra Bullock and Mindy Kaling, suggested that the press coverage of the film should be done by more than just white men who, like in so many arenas of our culture, are overrepresented in film criticism and media. Moreover, Larson has highlighted that women and men will come to certain films with different perspectives and so will find different aspects meaningful; the call for more diverse reviews therefore is not rooted in a desire to exclude, but rather to be more inclusive. But in a world where certain territories (like film criticism) are assumed to be the sole remit of one gender, Larson's comments have been treated as threatening and met with vitriol. As popular journalist Melissa Leon has said, "To them, a call for expanded access to opportunities for women and people of color in a space traditionally dominated by white men (like a Marvel film's press junket) is not only an insult-it amounts to a threat to take away what they consider theirs." As Manne suggests about the operation of misogyny more generally, Larson's statements were perceived to be threatening to what men are supposedly entitled to such that even though she did not explicitly say that white men should not cover the film, she was met with hostility as if she had. She became a representative of the type of woman (read: a feminist) who is perceived as desiring to supplant men, and so treated to backlash deemed proportionate to her imagined crime.

Thankfully, Captain Marvel can teach us about more than just misogyny. Carol is a strong, yet complex female character who embraces her vulnerabilities, who loves the women in her life, and who can deliver as powerful a verbal jab as she can a punch. As more and more folks go to see the film, and as scholars and popular writers invest time and thought into analyzing CM as a text, I expect that we will be treated to many more lessons from our Captain. I, for one, can't wait! Let's take the feminism higher, further, faster baby!

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I Got 99 Problems But a Skrull Ain't One: The Many Faces of Misogyny in Captain Marvel

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by Dr. Samantha Langsdale SPOILERS: the following post DOES contain spoilers, so if you prefer not to have various plot points of the film revealed, read no further. For those of us who enjoy superhero films, the last couple of years have been game changing.

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2 Men Cleared Of Rape After Italian Court Ruled Woman ‘Too Masculine’ To Be Attacked

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2 Men Cleared Of Rape After Italian Court Ruled Woman ‘Too Masculine’ To Be Attacked

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New details in a 2017 case show that three female judges cited a photo as proof the woman wasn’t pretty enough to be raped.

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Two Italian men were cleared of rape charges in 2017 partly because an Italian appeals court, consisting of three female judges, thought the alleged female victim looked "too masculine" to be sexually assaulted.

Although the ruling was handed down two years ago, the reasoning for it wasn't made public until this past Friday, when Italy's highest court rejected that decision and ordered a retrial, The Guardian reports. Hundreds of people gathered outside the Ancona, Italy, courtroom on Monday to protest the lower court's dismissal of the charges, according to The Local Italy.

In 2015, a 22-year-old Peruvian woman who had gone to a bar with friends accused one man of raping her while the other watched. According to doctors, her injuries were consistent with rape and her blood contained high levels of benzodiazepines, a type of tranquilizer often used as a date rape drug. Both men were convicted of rape in 2016.

The appeals court in Ancona overturned the convictions the following year, finding that the woman was not credible in part because of her looks, according to documents published Friday.

Oggi ad #Ancona flashmob #siamotuttiVikingo contro la sentenza della Corte di Appello che ha assolto due stupratori perché la vittima sarebbe troppo mascolina #vergogna #indignate #bastaviolenzasulledonne pic.twitter.com/65IHZJtdDf
- stefynews (@StefaniaBenatti) March 11, 2019

The judges wrote that one of the accused "didn't even like the girl, to the point of having stored her number in his phone under the nickname 'Viking,' an allusion to an anything but feminine figure, rather a masculine one," according to The Local Italy.

The court pointed to a photograph of the woman as evidence to "confirm" that she was too unattractive to be a target of sexual assault.

"I read this sentence in 2017 and that's why we referred it to the supreme court," the woman's attorney, Cinzia Molinaro, told the Guardian.

"It was disgusting to read. The judges expressed various reasons for deciding to acquit them, but one was because the [defendants] said they didn't even like her, because she was ugly," the lawyer said.

The case is set to be retried in a court in Perugia, which lies in a different province from Ancona, at an undetermined future date.

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2 Men Cleared Of Rape After Italian Court Ruled Woman 'Too Masculine' To Be Attacked

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Two Italian men were cleared of rape charges in 2017 partly because an Italian appeals court, consisting of three female judges, thought the alleged female victim looked "too masculine" to be sexually assaulted. Although the ruling was handed down two years ago, the reasoning for it wasn't made public until this past Friday, when Italy's highest court rejected that decision and ordered a retrial, The Guardian reports.

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Why Everyone Loves Fierce Little Girls (But Hates The Strong Women We Grow Up To Be)

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Why Everyone Loves Fierce Little Girls (But Hates The Strong Women We Grow Up To Be)

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The world-famous statue of the Fearless Girl could have been a statue of a younger me.

The statue was placed in front of the Charging Bull sculpture in Lower Manhattan just before International Women's Day in 2017. Given the timing of the installation of Fearless Girl, the statue seemed a power statement about gender equality in the traditionally-male financial industry.
Turns out, it wasn't that simple.
International Women's Day (IWD) has a long history, starting in 1909. According to the United Nations website, it was started to honor the 1908 garment workers' strike in New York City.

Over time, the focus of IWD has shifted to adapt to the changing roles of women. Every year, International Women's Day adopts a different theme to shine focus on women's needs across the globe. This year, International Women's Day is on Friday, March 8th and the theme is "Think Equal, Build Smart, Innovate for Change".
The rising popularity around IWD, including ad campaigns from companies like Walmart, has me thinking about the ways in which the promotion of equality for women does - and does not - translate into change for real-life women in the workplace.
I went to an all-girls school for 13 years. As a student, I was confident, proud, and just a bit defiant. How could I not be?

From the time I was four, I was taught girls could - and should - do everything.

Not "anything" ... "everything."
RELATED: 50 Best Quotes For Strong Women, In Celebration Of Women's History Month
Our goal, as it was presented to us in the form of GenX-female-empowerment/ third-wave-feminism, was to grow up to be the women who "had it all and did it all." Each girl in my class was some combination of smart, artistic, passionate, and driven. We were taught to "lean in" during middle school.

I thrived in an environment that rewarded effort and encouraged me to say anything I wanted, as long as I could back it up with research and facts. No one tried to stifle me, in fact, I was expected to be my best, truest self at a very early age.

After graduation, I went to a large, co-ed state university. My time there was, in most ways, unremarkable. I had good friends, I dated, and after the first day of class, I got over my fear of a classroom with boys in it and claimed a seat in the front row. I also worked more than one job each semester, mostly for male bosses, all of whom told me I'd go far.

I didn't realize until I was in my thirties where this was headed.
"Having it all" was one thing, "doing it all" was another.
Not only was I going to have to make the hard choices women in the workplace have to make every single day, but they were choices the men on my career path didn't have to make.
Society loves feisty girls ... but the women we turn into are a different matter.
In my early thirties, I was living in LA and had a job I loved. At certain points during the year, it required me to be at the office for long hours, but the work was interesting and I was helping people. But my relationship to my job changed when I got pregnant.

At my 38-week check up, my midwife ordered me to take immediate maternity leave. I told her I couldn't possibly leave work before completing a project that was due the following week. She told me I couldn't possibly not leave work that day.
All of a sudden, the life growing inside of me had to be my primary concern, and my stellar education had done nothing to prepare me for that.
Things remained complicated when I returned to work. My daughter wasn't sleeping and neither was I. She cried a lot, and so did I, often at work. My very kind boss (a father of four) expressed concern not only for my work, but more importantly for my health and well-being.

I appreciated that, and while there was a lot to navigate, I assured him I had everything under control. I didn't - but eventually, I would. I was a nursing, pumping, sleep-deprived mom, but I was supported by increasingly progressive laws (thanks ACA!).

Shortly after my daughter turned one, I took a trip to visit my all-girls school where I spoke with a former teacher who had never had kids. As my daughter toddled between us, I told my teacher I found it difficult to manage my career aspirations and being a mom.
RELATED: Happy International Women's Day! 8 Reasons To Celebrate
I asked if anything could be added to the curriculum to help the students understand the choices they would have to make later in life. She was remarkably unsympathetic, sharing with me that her niece was a partner at a top tier law firm in a major city. Of course, she had to make choices, like someone else picking up her kid from daycare, but, she told me, her niece had never complained about it once.

I don't know this teacher's niece, but I know countless working moms who have cut back their work hours to be with their children or hired additional help so that they could work longer hours.
These are never easy decisions, even if we don't complain about them.
A 2014 article in The New York Times highlighted the research of Michelle Budig, a UMass researcher who studied the gender pay gap. The article explains why and how women's careers are affected differently from men's when they have children:
"Employers read fathers as more stable and committed to their work; they have a family to provide for, so they're less likely to be flaky. That is the opposite of how parenthood by women is interpreted by employers. The conventional story is they work less and they're more distractible when on the job." Budig also found that men's salaries rose more than 6 percent when they became fathers, while women's earnings decreased 4 percent for every child they had.
But it wasn't just the decisions I had to make as a working mom that caught me off guard. The problem with being raised to speak your mind in a challenging-but-fair environment is that the working world is frequently more challenging and less fair, especially for women.
RELATED: 5 Ways To Get It All Done As A Working Mom
The need for likability in the workplace may seem obvious to those educated in co-ed schools, but I wasn't prepared for what I would be asked to sacrifice in order to be liked.

Back on the east coast, with kids finally out of diapers, I was in another job I loved. But it was in that job I was labeled a "problem employee." I had never been anyone's problem anything.
It turns out, the real world requires more than hard work - it requires you to make that hard work look easy, and, if you're a woman, to smile while you do it.
A few years in, I wasn't fairing well under a new boss who either didn't know how to run standard reports, or was purposefully manipulating them. When asked why he couldn't present our department's data the way he wanted to, I replied, "Because that's not how math works!" I was smiling at the time, but apparently, I was smiling for the wrong reason.

His boss was equally problematic. He willfully confused correlation with causation to push through a decision that fundamentality changed my department's mandate and set us up for failure.
All of that was bad, but it was the moment I was told to "smile" that pushed me out the door.
In that workplace I had two roles - one was forward-facing with high customer contact and the other involved spreadsheets. I loved both roles and did well at each. I received uniformly positive reviews from the customers and had a history of positive performance reviews.

But, as it turned out, my acumen wasn't enough because I didn't smile while I was squinting at rows and rows of data that needed to be cleaned, scrubbed and formatted just-so. At the end of a relatively good feedback session with my new boss, he asked me if there was anything I needed from him.
I told him if he wanted to seem less sexist, he could stop telling me to smile.
He went to HR and told them I had accused him of sexual harassment. The idea that no one in the organization seemed to understand the difference between sexism and sexual harassment was just one reason I knew I had to leave.
Rather than stay in a job where I had been undermined and undervalued, I left a career that I loved, took a 35% pay cut, and found work at an organization that appreciates me.
But that change meant I had to step off a career ladder I was imminently qualified to climb.

I didn't expect that being an educated, outspoken woman would disqualify me from my chosen career - one I had studied for, have an advanced degree in, and more than 15 years experience. Sadly, I know I'm not alone.
RELATED: 6 Times It's Totally OK For Strong Women To Give Up And Quit (Yes, Really!)
When Fearless Girl was originally unveiled in 2017, people flocked to Lower Manhattan to take their picture standing next to her, mimicking her defiant stance.

It was a celebratory moment. She was said to promote inclusion for women in hiring practices in the financial fields, but it was later learned that the firm that paid for the work of art was accused of wage discrimination by its female and otherwise marginalized employees. The firm reportedly settled the suit for $5 million.
Holding up symbolic girls at the literal expense of real women is unconscionable, but not uncommon. In fact, it exactly mirrors my experience moving from an all-girls educational setting to the co-ed work world.
I have nothing but love for all-girls education. I just wish the rest of the world would take a cue from its focus on even-handed meritocracy and begin rewarding women's hard work - regardless of whether she smiles while she does it.
RELATED: Why 'Having It All' Kind Of Sucks (For Women, At Least) Jamie Beth Cohen's debut novel, "Wasted Pretty," will be published in April 2019. It's a coming-of-age story about a sixteen-year-old girl who faces wanted and unwanted attention when she inadvertently goes from blending in to standing out. She tweets @Jamie_Beth_S

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Why Everyone Loves Fierce Little Girls (But Hates The Strong Women We Grow Up To Be)

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International Women's Day is March 8, 2019, but not all strong women in the workplace are being honored. One feminist working mom explains how her career goals were undermined by trying to "have it all" while being told to smile by her boss.

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Michael Sheen in #Pads4Dads Helps Fathers Get Comfortable Talking About Periods With Their Daughters

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Michael Sheen in #Pads4Dads Helps Fathers Get Comfortable Talking About Periods With Their Daughters

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Let's not leave Dads out of the bloody conversation.

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Michael Sheen, a one-time vampire, is teaming up with the U.K. group Hey Girls to help fathers get more comfortable with talking with their teenage daughters about menstruation.

Hey Girls is an organization that creates "no leak, super comfy, chlorine and bleach free, environmentally friendly products" that tackles period poverty in the U.K. by donating sanitary equipment to those in need. The term "period poverty" came from a survey by the charity Plan International U.K. found that "one in 10 girls or women aged 14 to 21 in Britain cannot afford sanitary towels or tampons."

While most of the children in America are being raised in a two-parent household, single-parent households are the second most common, with single mothers being the majority, and with the rise of more same-sex adoptions, there are a lot of dads as full-time or part-time custodial guardians of young, cis teenage girls.

Periods can sometimes be really difficult for fathers. Speaking for my own dear papa, despite often using the fact that he was raised with three older sisters as shorthand for his knowledge about young women, even now, when I talk about my period casually, I am quickly cut off with an "alright!"

Sheen says in the video, "If you're out shopping for your daughter, you know what food they like, right? But when it comes to pads and tampons, you don't have a clue. I have a daughter. I get it. It can feel hard to start the conversation. But that's okay. 'Hey Girls' [...] is here to help us Dads end the stigma of talking about periods and buying period products for the young women in your life."

According to the statistics from the Hey Girls:

"45% of Dads are unsure what the signs are that a girl might be about to start her period."

"41% of Dads say they feel comfortable talking about periods with their kids and nearly half haven't chatted to their daughters about them," and "one in 3 dads have never purchased period products."

These are statistics based on a survey of men in the U.K., but I can say that my father has never once brought me pads, nor could even recall a brand name. The site also contains a handy cheat sheet for dads out there who are looking to better educate themselves about menstruation.

Men, especially fathers, knowing about menstruation better can also help them be better advocates for not just their daughters, but women and all people with uteruses. A lot of the time, doctors talk down to women and trans men with uteruses, dismissing everything as a cramp. Dads can use this information to be better advocates for their daughters' needs and health, especially since there are times a doctor will trust a male guardian over a female one.

Not only is this a great initiative, but with this and the documentary Period. End of Sentence, I'm glad there is more mainstream attention the way menstruation affects the lives of young girls and others.

(image: Screengrab)
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Michael Sheen in #Pads4Dads Helps Fathers Get Comfortable Talking About Periods With Their Daughters

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Michael Sheen, a one-time vampire, is teaming up with the U.K. group Hey Girls to help fathers get more comfortable with talking with their teenage daughters about menstruation. Hey Girls is an organization that creates "no leak, super comfy, chlorine and bleach free, environmentally friendly products" that tackles period poverty in the U.K.

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Dear Daughters, Please Don’t Get Married

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Dear Daughters, Please Don’t Get Married

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Marriage has nothing exceptional to offer a woman in the 21st century.

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I must be the only Indian mother in the world to advise her daughters never to get married. EVER. Everyone laughs when I say this. Indian mothers are notoriously obsessed with the nuptials of their sons and daughters. I must be joking when I advise against it. I must have had a fight with my husband, you all snicker.

But I say it in earnest. Marriage has nothing exceptional to offer a woman in the 21st century. Even today, the institution continues to follow age-old patriarchal values that place the financial, physical, emotional and social needs of the husband above the wife's.

It's still the woman who changes her name, leaves her home, adapts to a new family, becomes the default in-charge of the housekeeping, social relationship-building, elderly care and childcare, and gives up her job when the babies are born. Indian girls have new aspirations to step out of the home, work and fly, but Indian boys still expect someone to make them tea and ensure that their clothes are laundered.

Essentially, marriage reduces a woman's power and increases her responsibilities.

If you're lucky, you find a husband who is loving, caring and mindful of your needs, though he has no special obligation to. People urge you to be thankful for your blessings as if it's a precious gift only a few can possess. If you're unlucky, you're insulted, criticised, disregarded and ignored, or beaten, raped and treated like a punching bag. People say it's a domestic issue and tell you to 'adjust'.

Most Indian marriages, however, are somewhere in the middle. How good or bad they are is irrelevant. Marriage is a prerequisite to living, like roti-kapda-makaan-shaadi.

Till a few decades ago, marriage - for women especially - meant security, social acceptability, a source of income, children, and a companion in old age, all of which were worth the effort. These days, however, women can very well have all of these while single. So what do they need the burden of a husband for?

As someone who's been twice married, you may consider me an authority on this matter. Both my marriages were poles apart. One was arranged; the other is of my own choice. One was a prison sentence; the other was liberation. One was a hell of fear and hate; the other was a paradise of love and desire. One left me broken, bruised and powerless; the other has given me wings, healed and nurtured me. Both led to my spiritual development. Both helped me to introspect and find myself.

But here's the thing: you don't need marriage to do that. Not anymore.

Yes, my husband today is a good man and my best friend. But we both agree that being married has not added anything to our relationship except for social sanction, which was a big deal for my generation. But it doesn't have to be for yours.

What I've learnt about marriage (a happy one or an unhappy one) is that it's never about the other person, it's about you. Every day is a new journey into yourself, your own insecurities, fears, social anxieties, and suppressed pains and triggers. Marriage certainly isn't going to cure them. You still have to do the spiritual self-work yourself - in addition to someone else's housekeeping and laundry.

Men can be amazing lovers, wonderful companions and they are very useful for sex. But you don't need to marry them to enjoy them. Claim your freedom, respect and desires. Let the guy earn you every single day. Men are best behaved on their toes.

I secretly long for the day when a whole generation of Indian women will reject this outmoded institution in favour of meaningful, equal relationships. That's when entitled Indian men will change. That's when society will evolve and we will #SmashThePatriarchy. Till then, have one lover or several, have kids, have pets, run a house, run a company, follow your dreams, fall in love. Just don't get married.
Lead photo: At the airport, sending my firstborn off for higher studies Update, 2.24 pm: My husband says he has nothing to do with this article. Please stop messaging him your condolences. (But he does hope all boys who planned to propose to our daughters read this.) First published in eShe's March 2019 issue. Read this article in Hindi here.

Editor and Publisher of eShe magazine. Lifestyle journalist and editorial consultant.

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Dear Daughters, Please Don't Get Married

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I must be the only Indian mother in the world to advise her daughters never to get married. EVER. Everyone laughs when I say this. Indian mothers are notoriously obsessed with the nuptials of their sons and daughters. I must be joking when I advise against it.

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Desmond Is Amazing Is A Drag Kid Changing The World

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Desmond Is Amazing Is A Drag Kid Changing The World

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Desmond is Amazing is the 11-year-old drag kid changing how the world looks at gender expression

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Post by NowThisSeen.

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Sex biology redefined: Article suggests that genes don’t indicate binary sexes

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Sex biology redefined: Article suggests that genes don’t indicate binary sexes

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The scenario many of us learned in school is that two X chromosomes make someone female, and an X and a Y chromosome make someone male. These are simplistic ways of thinking about what is scientifically very complex.

Imagine being a forty-six-year-old woman pregnant with her third child, whose amniocentesis follow-up shows that half her cells carry male chromosomes. Or a seventy-year-old father of three who learns during a hernia repair that he has a uterus. A recent news feature in Nature mentioned these cases as it elaborated on the spectrum of sex biology. People can be sexed in a non-straightforward way and not even be aware of it; in fact, most probably aren't. As many as 1 person in 100 has some form of "DSD," a difference/disorder of sex development.

The simple scenario many of us learned in school is that two X chromosomes make someone female, and an X and a Y chromosome make someone male. These are simplistic ways of thinking about what is scientifically very complex. Anatomy, hormones, cells, and chromosomes (not to mention personal identity convictions) are actually not usually aligned with one binary classification.

The Nature feature collects research that has changed the way biologists understand sex. New technologies in DNA sequencing and cell biology are revealing that chromosomal sex is a process, not an assignation.

As quoted in the article, Eric Vilain, MD, PhD, director of the Center for Gender-Based Biology at UCLA, explains that sex determination is a contest between two opposing networks of gene activity. Changes in the activity or amounts of molecules in the networks can sway the embryo towards or away from the sex seemingly spelled out by the chromosomes. "It has been, in a sense, a philosophical change in our way of looking at sex; that it's a balance."

What's more, studies in mice are showing that the balance of sex manifestation can be shifted even after birth; in fact, it is something actively maintained during the mouse's whole life.

According to the Nature feature, true intersex disorders, such as those from divergent genes or the inability of cellular receptors to respond to hormones, yield conflicting chromosomal and anatomical sex. But these are rare, about 1 in 4,500. For the 1/100 figure, they used a more inclusive definition of DSDs. More than 25 genes that affect sex development have now been identified, and they have a wide range of variations that affect people in subtle ways. Many differences aren't even noticed until incidental medical encounters, such as in the opening scenarios (the first was probably caused by twin embryos fusing in the woman's mother's womb; the second by a hormonal disorder).

Furthermore, scientists now understand that everyone's body is made up of a patchwork of genetically distinct cells, some of which may have a different sex than the rest. This "mosaicism" can have effects ranging from undetectable to extraordinary, such as "identical" twins of different sexes. An extremely common instance of mosaicism comes from cells passing over the placental barrier during pregnancy. Men often carry female cells from their mothers, and women carry male cells from their sons. Research has shown that these cells remain present for decades, but what effects they have on disease and behavior is an essentially unstudied question.

This is an uneasy way to think about bodies in a social world where sex is still defined in binary terms. Legal frameworks rely on being able to classify someone as male or female, and social status is often determined by the sex on a birth certificate. Parents and doctors of intersex infants face thorny ethical questions about potential surgeries, therapies, and how to raise the child. The implications of better understanding and socially recognizing DSDs are huge.

As our understanding of biology continues to advance, our social, legal, and medical systems will have to evolve as well. Check out the Nature feature for a discussion of these problems, as well as more interesting research into the biology of sex.

Photo by Hey Paul Studios

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Sex biology redefined: Genes don't indicate binary sexes - Scope

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The scenario many of us learned in school is that two X chromosomes make someone female, and an X and a Y chromosome make someone male. These are simplistic ways of thinking about what is scientifically very complex. Imagine being a forty-six-year-old woman pregnant with her third child, whose amniocentesis follow-up shows that half her cells carry male chromosomes.

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Sex in Our Strange World | Why Matriarchy Means Better Sex and a Better Society

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Sex in Our Strange World | Why Matriarchy Means Better Sex and a Better Society

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In this column, Sex in Our Strange World, sex historian Dr. Kate Lister of Leeds Trinity University, explores the ways in which people from around the globe approach love, sex, and marriage.
According to Greek mythology, the Amazons were a race of warrior women who refused to live with men. So far, so sensible. In order to continue their survival, once a year the Amazons would visit the neighbouring tribe, the Gargareans, to have sex with the male inhabitants.

Once the Amazons had got what they wanted, they would discard their lover like a soggy tissue, and return to their homeland - hopefully, pregnant. Nine months later, the Amazons would keep all the girl babies and either return the boys to their fathers or just leave them to die on a hillside somewhere. Brutal.

"When women are in the driving seat, everyone lives a better life - and of course the sex is much, much better"

For most of us, the phrase 'matriarchal society' conjures images akin to the mythical sperm stealing, spear snapping, man-walloping world of the Amazons. But, anthropologists are keen to stress that matriarchy is not the opposite of patriarchy. It does not mean a world where women rule over men.

Simply put, a matriarchal society is one where women are not disadvantaged by virtue of being women, where power is shared between the genders, and where mothers are placed at the centre of the culture. And, believe it or not, there are a still number of matriarchal societies around the world today.

Heide Göttner-Abendroth is the leading world authority on matriarchal societies, having founded the International Academy for Modem Matriarchal Studies and Matriarchal Spirituality in 1986. She defines a matriarchal society as operating on four levels: economic, social, political, and cultural.

Economically, matriarchal societies do not pass wealth through patrilineal lines. Rather, they share and the matriarch of a group is responsible for distributing resources amongst the clan. Socially, these groups place motherhood at their centre - even the men embrace what it means to be a mother. Children are raised collectively in matriarchal groups, as everyone is their mother.

Women are not excluded from politics in matriarchal societies, instead men and women collectively make any decisions that affect the group. And culturally, these groups worship female deities, and view the natural world as Female.

But, what about the sex? Well, I'm glad you asked. In patriarchal societies, wealth has historically been passed down the paternal line. In order to make sure power and wealth are being passed directly from father to son, women's sexuality and reproductive systems are rigidly controlled to ensure legitimate offspring, and female sexuality is shamed as a bad thing.

In a matriarchal society, there are no paternal lines, and as children are raised collectively it doesn't matter who the biological father is. So, as you can imagine, sex and attitudes to women enjoying sex are vastly different from our own.

The Mosuo tribe live in the Yunnan and Sichuan provinces of South West China, and are often referred to as China's last matrilineal society. Although their numbers are dwindling today, records of the Mosuo stretch back to at least 750BC when the Chinese chronicles named their homeland as 'nu kuo', or 'the realm of women'.

Mosuo women do not marry, take as many lovers as they wish, and they have no word for 'husband' or 'father'. Lovers do not live together, but the women invite men to visit them in their dormitories at night. This arrangement is referred to as a 'walking marriage', and is regarded as no one's business but the couple involved. Walking marriages can be long term or may last just one night, but nobody would expect to only have just one such arrangement over their lifetimes.

Breaking up is equally fuss free - either the women stops letting her lover come over or he just stops coming to see her. A significant initiation rite is a mother giving her daughter a key to her own dormitory, so she can begin inviting lovers over - which certainly beats being given a copy of the Usborne Facts of Life and told to put a condom on a cucumber.

The Khasi live in North East India and number around 1 million. 'Kha-si' means 'born from a mother', and they have practiced matriarchy for thousands of years. The clan's property passes from mother to daughter, children take their mother's name, and a married man will either live with his own wife in her mother's house, or he will just visit her at night to have sex. Divorce is as simple as both parties stating they don't want to be with one another any longer. Khasi women will get through a number of husbands this way.

Although many matriarchal societies are ancient ones, there are more recent examples. In Southeast Brazil, for example, the small town of Noiva do Cordeiro is home to about 300 people, and women run everything. The town was established in 1891 when its founder, Maria Senhorinha de Lima, was exiled from her home and the church for leaving her husband to be with her lover. Branded a whore and an adulteress, Maria founded a community of women with the local sex workers who had been similarly shunned by the church. Today, the women continue to live as a commune and sell vegetables and crafts, rather than sex. Although some of the women are married, their husbands work away from the town.

The Alapine Village in Alabama is a female only society that was founded in 1997 as a lesbian commune. Alapine was one of several lesbian communities that started life in the 1970s when a group of revolutionary women founded a camp on the beach in St Augustine, Florida. Today, Alapine Village stretches across approximately 108 acres and is home to seventeen women.
Dr Kate Lister is a sex historian, author and lecturer at Leeds Trinity University. She also runs the blog Whores of Yore. Keep up with her on Twitter.
The residents farm the land in the day and hold regular communal activities, such as poetry readings, and 'full moon circles' at night. If anyone is interested, the Alapine Village is always keen for more recruits to swell their ranks - as long as they don't have Y chromosome, of course.

Beyoncé once sang that girls 'rule the world', and whilst that is not quite true just yet, these matriarchal societies show us that women can and do rule around the world in certain places. It is possible to build communities around maternal values that are based on need, rather than power and domination. What's more, when women are in the driving seat, everyone lives a better life - and of course the sex is much, much better.

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For Better Sex and a Better Society, Let Women Rule the World

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In this column, Sex in Our Strange World, sex historian Dr. Kate Lister of Leeds Trinity University , explores the ways in which people from around the globe approach love, sex, and marriage. According to Greek mythology, the Amazons were a race of warrior women who refused to live with men.

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Post by mamamia.

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Explosive rage, statements of persecution, and an appeal to male viewers: The singer’s CBS interview about sexual-abuse allegations seemed familiar.

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On CBS This Morning, Kelly continued to contest his innocence-not with evidence but with emotion. Though he had made mistakes in personal relationships with women, those who spoke publicly against him were lying, he said. Social media had allowed the defamation of innocent celebrities, in his telling, and the notion of him keeping women hostage was plainly preposterous. "If you really look at that documentary ... they were describing Lucifer," Kelly said of the Lifetime movie about him. "I'm not Lucifer. I'm a man. I make mistakes, but I'm not a devil, and by no means am I a monster."
Read: 'Surviving R. Kelly' is a powerful visual testimony
With details, he was fuzzy. King asked him whether he could really say he'd never been with underage girls. He replied by referencing the "two cases" in his past that he could not talk about for legal reasons, adding, "People are going back to my past ... They're trying to add all of this stuff now to that." Elsewhere in the interview, though, he more forthrightly denied ever sleeping with anyone under 17. When King suggested that he had a thing for women much younger than he, Kelly replied, "I don't look at 'much younger than me,'" before brandishing a line that it's hard to imagine an accused pedophile's PR team would ever approve of: "I just look at 'legal.'"

Though sitting for an interview, Kelly appeared to be mostly interested in using CBS's platform to directly reach the public, or at least some portion of it. He turned from King and spoke into the camera numerous times, even asking during a makeup break whether they were still filming and then whimpering, "This is not true." He peppered his remarks with guys and man, slangy tics that also ask for solidarity from male viewers. Women such as Joycelyn Savage and Azriel Clary, who live with Kelly and whose parents say have been brainwashed (their interview with CBS airs Thursday), are "like girlfriends," he said. "I've known guys all my life that have five or six women, so don't go there on me."
Read: Why some women still support R. Kelly
In the ranks of men who have defended themselves against allegations raised during the #MeToo wave, Kelly's stands out for its anger. He has not tried to perform contrition for vague missteps while denying criminal wrongdoing, paths taken by Russell Simmons and Harvey Weinstein. Rather, with his self-pitying 19-minute song "I Admit," and now with the King interview, he's asserted himself as persecuted in the loudest and most public terms possible. "I need somebody to help me not have a big heart," he told King. "Because my heart is so big, people betray me and I keep forgiving them."

WATCH: R. Kelly addressed his current relationship with the two young women who live with him at his home in Chicago, 23-year-old Joycelyn Savage and 21-year-old Azriel Clary. Their parents believe Kelly has brainwashed their daughters. https://t.co/pPZcw2pbmc pic.twitter.com/IbH3PjbSVx
- CBS This Morning (@CBSThisMorning) March 6, 2019

The closest comparison here might be to the #MeToo target now on the Supreme Court. The substance of what the two men have been accused of differs vastly, but their responses-and the cultural scripts they draw upon-rhyme. Brett Kavanaugh shouted about Christine Blasey Ford's allegations as being unfair given the life he's lived, while Kelly argued that his previous acquittal meant the present allegations were also "unfair." Boys-will-be-boys logic-whether about drunken tomfoolery or sexual conquest-play in both's defense. Most strikingly, the force and fury of the tactics used by both men make the same dare. For those inclined to believe the accused, passion in the face of prosecution could read as innocence. For those who aren't, it might look like a predator's brutality coming out.

Either way, King's equanimity in the face of a meltdown made a pointed contrast to Kelly's very male performance of righteousness through rage. King told Kelly she didn't want him ranting at the cameras, but he did so anyway; after the segment aired, her co-anchors asked whether she feared for her safety in the interview, and she said she didn't. She also offered why she kept her cool: "It wouldn't do any good if we both got hysterical."

We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.

Spencer Kornhaber is a staff writer at The Atlantic, where he covers pop culture and music.

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lifetime’s documentary surviving r. kelly

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kelly of allegations of child pornography

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On CBS This Morning, Kelly continued to contest his innocence-not with evidence but with emotion. Though he had made mistakes in personal relationships with women, those who spoke publicly against him were lying, he said. Social media had allowed the defamation of innocent celebrities, in his telling, and the notion of him keeping women hostage was plainly preposterous.

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The year women became eligible to vote in each country

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The year women became eligible to vote in each country

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Suffrage happened in 1920 in the United States, three years behind Russia and Canada but 91 years ahead of Saudi Arabia, as noted by this map depicting the year women became eligible to vote in each country. Countries began joining the fray en masse by the mid-twentieth century, but the leader of the pack comes from far down under - women in New Zealand obtained voting rights in 1893. This map was uploaded to Reddit and shows the year women became eligible to vote in each country.

A quick glance at the map tells only part of the story, however. Pay close attention to the asterisks, as the year noted for some countries signifies only limited suffrage, often only for white women or in conjunction with specific requirements such as homeownership or marriage. Belgium's 1919 suffrage granted widows and the mothers of servicemen killed in World War I, or widows and mothers of servicemen "shot and killed by the enemy" the vote but didn't extend the same rights to all women until 1948. Australia granted women excluding Aboriginals the right to vote in 1902. For a more complete list of exclusions, view the notes at the far bottom of the infographic.

Matador Network is celebrating Women's History Month throughout March. Join us as we tell incredible stories and highlight vibrant personalities through our content including original video production and in-depth editorial.

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The year women became eligible to vote in each country

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Suffrage happened in 1920 in the United States, three years behind Russia and Canada but 91 years ahead of Saudi Arabia, as noted by this map depicting the year women became eligible to vote in each country.

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It's more than just not being in the mood.

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Women Are Having Unwanted Sex to Maintain Their Relationships

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Women Are Having Unwanted Sex to Maintain Their Relationships

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"It's something people are agreeing to," one expert says. "There's a willingness there, but there's not sexual desire."

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Women Are Having Unwanted Sex to Maintain Their Relationships

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"It's something people are agreeing to," one expert says. "There's a willingness there, but there's not sexual desire."

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Female Cyclist Forced To Stop When She Nearly Catches Male Racers After Their Head Start

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Female Cyclist Forced To Stop When She Nearly Catches Male Racers After Their Head Start

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As Swiss rider Nicole Hanselmann closed in on the men in a Belgian race, officials halted the women to let the men surge ahead — again.

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A woman leading the pack of female cyclists in an annual daylong race in Belgium was ordered by competition officials to pull up when she neared the male racers - who had been given a 10-minute head start.

The frustrating near-tangle of the sexes occurred as 27-year-old Swiss cyclist Nicole Hanselmann of the Bigla Pro team came up on the support vehicles for the men 22 miles into the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad race, her team said.

Hanselmann was ordered to stop as the female cyclists were "neutralized," in race lingo, so that the men could restore an interval ahead of them.

🇧🇪 #OHNwomen

The race has been neutralised and come to a stop after 35km of racing, with @NicoleHanselmaa out in front. pic.twitter.com/YVgQN2K0uo
- Bigla (@BiglaTeam) March 2, 2019

Hanselmann, a former national road champion of Switzerland, had surged into an early lead over the rest of the female competitors of almost two minutes. When the 76-mile race from Ghent to Ninove restarted for the women, Hanselmann was given a head start but soon lost her edge. She finished 74th in the race after the frustrating stop-over.

"It was a bit sad for me because I was in a good mood," she told Cycling News.

She added that "when the bunch sees you stopping, they just get a new motivation to catch you. We could just see the ambulances of the men's race. I think we stopped for five or seven minutes and then it just kills your chances."

She referred in an Instagram post later to the forced delay as "awkward." She added, "Maybe the other women and me were too fast or the men too slow."

The race was won by Dutch cyclist Chantal Blaak. The men's race was won by Czech rider﻿ Zdenek Stybar.

People responding to Hanselmann's Instagram - and on Twitter - complained that she should have been allowed to ride her race and not ordered to stop.

Quit discriminating against the women's racers. https://t.co/RsEiWSc8T2
- Clive Baker (@CliveBakerKLG) March 4, 2019

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Female Cyclist Forced To Stop When She Nearly Catches Male Racers After Their Head Start

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A woman leading the pack of female cyclists in an annual daylong race in Belgium was ordered by competition officials to pull up when she neared the male racers - who had been given a 10-minute head start.

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The history of gendered baby clothing | Elise Gravel

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Only six countries in the world give women and men equal legal work rights

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Only six countries in the world give women and men equal legal work rights

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Sweden and France among states found by the World Bank to enshrine gender equality in laws, but implementation haphazard

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If you're a woman and want to be on an equal footing with men, it's best to live and work in Belgium, Denmark, France, Latvia, Luxembourg or Sweden. The World Bank, which has tracked legal changes for the past decade, found these were the only countries in the world to enshrine gender equality in laws affecting work.

The bank's women, business and the law 2019 report, published this week, measured gender discrimination in 187 countries. It found that, a decade ago, no country gave women and men equal legal rights.

The index assessed eight indicators that influence economic decisions women make during their working lives - from freedom of movement to getting a pension - tracking legal blocks to either employment or entrepreneurship. Each country was scored and ranked, with a score of 100 indicating the most equal. Only six were given full marks.

Research found that, globally, average scores had risen from 70 to 75. Of the 39 countries with scores of 90 or above, 26 were high-income. Eight (including the UK) came from the bank's Europe and central Asia category, with parental leave a key European trend. Two, Paraguay and Peru, were from the Latin America and Caribbean grouping. Taiwan was also among the 39 top scorers.

South Asia had the biggest improvement in average regional score, recording a figure of 58.36 - up from 50 a decade ago. Sub-Saharan Africa increased from 64.04 to 69.63 over the same period, led by progress in Mauritius. Half the changes were related to work and marriage.

Countries in the Middle East and North Africa made the least progress, with an average increase of just 2.86, to 47.37.

The report was launched by the bank's interim president, Kristalina Georgieva, who took over from Jim Yong Kim.

"Gender equality is a critical component of economic growth," she said. "Women are half of the world's population and we have our role to play in creating a more prosperous world. But we won't succeed in playing it if the laws are holding us back."

The report found that women's rights advocacy groups had played a key role in driving reforms.

While the report noted significant progress overall, there remained much to be done to level the playing field. Instituting legal reforms did not necessarily lead to changes on the ground, and a score of 100 did not automatically mean 100% equality. Unequal pay is a major stumbling block. Women in Sweden earn 5% less than their male peers (in the UK they earn 8% less).

This represents a missed opportunity, said Georgieva. The global economy could be enriched by about $160tn (£120tn) if women earned as much as men.

"It is clear that giving space to women leads to richer societies," she says.

* This article was amended on 4 March 2019 to make clear - in a paragraph about the 39 top scorers - the World Bank report's grouping together of Europe and central Asia.

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Only six countries in the world give women and men equal legal work rights

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If you're a woman and want to be on an equal footing with men, it's best to live and work in Belgium, Denmark, France, Latvia, Luxembourg or Sweden. The World Bank, which has tracked legal changes for the past decade, found these were the only countries in the world to enshrine gender equality in laws affecting work.

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Meet the neuroscientist shattering the myth of the gendered brain

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Meet the neuroscientist shattering the myth of the gendered brain

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Why asking whether your brain is male or female is the wrong question

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ou receive an invitation, emblazoned with a question: "A bouncing little 'he' or a pretty little 'she'?" The question is your teaser for the "gender reveal party" to which you are being invited by an expectant mother who, at more than 20 weeks into her pregnancy, knows what you don't: the sex of her child. After you arrive, explains cognitive neuroscientist Gina Rippon in her riveting new book, The Gendered Brain, the big reveal will be hidden within some novelty item, such as a white iced cake, and will be colour-coded. Cut the cake and you'll see either blue or pink filling. If it is blue, it is a...

Yes, you've guessed it. Whatever its sex, this baby's future is predetermined by the entrenched belief that males and females do all kinds of things differently, better or worse, because they have different brains.

"Hang on a minute!" chuckles Rippon, who has been interested in the human brain since childhood, "the science has moved on. We're in the 21st century now!" Her measured delivery is at odds with the image created by her detractors, who decry her as a "neuronazi" and a "grumpy old harridan" with an "equality fetish". For my part, I was braced for an encounter with an egghead, who would talk at me and over me. Rippon is patient, though there is an urgency in her voice as she explains how vital it is, how life-changing, that we finally unpack - and discard - the sexist stereotypes and binary coding that limit and harm us.

For Rippon, a twin, the effects of stereotyping kicked in early. Her "under-achieving" brother was sent to a boys' academic Catholic boarding school, aged 11. "It's difficult to say this. I was clearly academically bright. I was top in the country for the 11+." This gave her a scholarship to a grammar school. Her parents sent her to a girls' non-academic Catholic convent instead. The school did not teach science. Pupils were brought up to be nuns or a diplomatic wife or mother. "Psychology," she points out, "was the nearest I could get to studying the brain. I didn't have the A levels to do medicine. I had wanted to be a doctor."

'We are now at the point where we need to say, forget the male and female brain - it's a distraction': neuroscientist Gina Rippon. Photograph: Jonathan Cherry/The Observer

A PhD in physiological psychology and a focus on brain processes and schizophrenia followed. Today, the Essex-born scientist is a professor emeritus of cognitive neuroimaging at Aston University, Birmingham. Her brother is an artist. When she is not in the lab using state-of-the-art brain imaging techniques to study developmental disorders such as autism, she is out in the world, debunking the "pernicious" sex differences myth: the idea that you can "sex" a brain or that there is such a thing as a male brain and a female brain. It is a scientific argument that has gathered momentum, unchallenged, since the 18th century "when people were happy to spout off about what men and women's brains were like - before you could even look at them. They came up with these nice ideas and metaphors that fitted the status quo and society, and gave rise to different education for men and women."

Rippon has analysed the data on sex differences in the brain. She admits that she, like many others, initially sought out these differences. But she couldn't find any beyond the negligible, and other research was also starting to question the very existence of such differences. For example, once any differences in brain size were accounted for, "well-known" sex differences in key structures disappeared. Which is when the penny dropped: perhaps it was time to abandon the age-old search for the differences between brains from men and brains from women. Are there any significant differences based on sex alone? The answer, she says, is no. To suggest otherwise is "neurofoolishness".

Plasticity is now a scientific given - the brain is moulded from birth onwards until old age

"The idea of the male brain and the female brain suggests that each is a characteristically homogenous thing and that whoever has got a male brain, say, will have the same kind of aptitudes, preferences and personalities as everyone else with that 'type' of brain. We now know that is not the case. We are at the point where we need to say, 'Forget the male and female brain; it's a distraction, it's inaccurate.' It's possibly harmful, too, because it's used as a hook to say, well, there's no point girls doing science because they haven't got a science brain, or boys shouldn't be emotional or should want to lead."

The next question was, what then is driving the differences in behaviour between girls and boys, men and women? Our "gendered world", she says, shapes everything, from educational policy and social hierarchies to relationships, self-identity, wellbeing and mental health. If that sounds like a familiar 20th-century social conditioning argument, it is - except that it is now coupled with knowledge of the brain's plasticity, which we have only been aware of in the past 30 years.

"It is now a scientific given," says Rippon, "that the brain is moulded from birth onwards and continues to be moulded through to the 'cognitive cliff' in old age when our grey cells start disappearing. So out goes the old 'biology is destiny' argument: effectively, that you get the brain you are born with - yes, it gets a bit bigger and better connected but you've got your developmental endpoint, determined by a biological blueprint unfolding along the way. With brain plasticity, the brain is much more a function of experiences. If you learn a skill your brain will change, and it will carry on changing." This is shown to be the case in studies of black cab drivers learning the Knowledge, for example. "The brain is waxing and waning much more than we ever realised. So if you haven't had particular experiences - if as a girl you weren't given Lego, you don't have the same spatial training that other people in the world have.

If, on the other hand, you were given those spatial tasks again and again, you would get better at them. "The neural paths change; they become automatic pathways. The task really does become easier."

Colour definition: the idea that you can 'sex' a brain is 'neurofoolishness', says Rippon. Illustration: Kyle Bean/The Observer

Neural plasticity throws the nature/nurture polarity out of the lab window. "Nature is entangled with nature," says Rippon. Added to this, "being part of a social cooperative group is one of the prime drives of our brain." The brain is also predictive and forward-thinking in a way we had never previously realised. Like a satnav, it follows rules, is hungry for them. "The brain is a rule scavenger," explains Rippon, "and it picks up its rules from the outside world. The rules will change how the brain works and how someone behaves." The upshot of gendered rules? "The 'gender gap' becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy."

Rippon regularly talks in schools. She wants girls to have leading scientists as role models, and she wants all children to know that their identity, abilities, achievements and behaviour are not prescribed by their biological sex. "Gender bombardment" makes us think otherwise. Male babies dressed in blue romper suits, female ones in pink is a binary coding that belies a status quo that resists the scientific evidence. "Pinkification", as Rippon calls it, has to go. Parents don't always like what they hear.

The brain is a rule scavenger and it picks up its rules from the outside world

"They say, 'I have a son and a daughter, and they are different.' And I say, 'I have two daughters, and they are very different.' When you talk about male and female identity, people are very wedded to the idea that men and women are different. People like me are not sex-difference deniers," continues Rippon. "Of course there are sex differences. Anatomically, men and women are different. The brain is a biological organ. Sex is a biological factor. But it is not the sole factor; it intersects with so many variables."

I ask her for a comparable watershed moment in the history of scientific understanding, in order to gauge the significance of her own. "The idea of the Earth circling around the sun," she bats back.

Letting go of age-old certainties is frightening, concedes Rippon, who is both optimistic about the future, and fearful for it. "I am concerned about what the 21st century is doing, the way it's making gender more relevant. We need to look at what we are plunging our children's brains into."

Ours may be the age of the self-image, yet we aren't ready to let the individual self emerge, unfettered by cultural expectations of one's biological sex. That disconnect, says Rippon, is writ large, for example, in men. "It suggests there is something wrong in their self-image." The social brain wants to fit in. The satnav recalibrates, according to expectations. "If they are being driven down a route that leads to self-harm or even suicide or violence, what is taking them there?"

On the plus side, our plastic brains are good learners. All we need to do is change the life lessons.
Research so far has failed to challenge deep prejudice, says Gina Rippon
Several things went wrong in the early days of sex differences and brain imaging research. With respect to sex differences, there was a frustrating backward focus on historical beliefs in stereotypes (termed "neurosexism" by psychologist Cordelia Fine). Studies were designed based on the go-to list of the "robust" differences between females and males, generated over the centuries, or the data were interpreted in terms of stereotypical female/male characteristics which may not have even been measured in the scanner. If a difference was found, it was much more likely to be published than a finding of no difference, and it would also breathlessly be hailed as an "at last the truth" moment by an enthusiastic media. Finally the evidence that women are hard-wired to be rubbish at map reading and that men can't multi-task! So the advent of brain imaging at the end of the 20th century did not do much to advance our understanding of alleged links between sex and the brain. Here in the 21st century, are we doing any better?

One major breakthrough in recent years has been the realisation that, even in adulthood, our brains are continually being changed, not just by the education we receive, but also by the jobs we do, the hobbies we have, the sports we play. The brain of a working London taxi driver will be different from that of a trainee and from that of a retired taxi driver; we can track differences among people who play videogames or are learning origami or to play the violin. Supposing these brain-changing experiences are different for different people, or groups of people? If, for example, being male means that you have much greater experience of constructing things or manipulating complex 3D representations (such as playing with Lego), it is very likely that this will be shown in your brain. Brains reflect the lives they have lived, not just the sex of their owners.

Seeing the life-long impressions made on our plastic brains by the experiences and attitudes they encounter makes us realise that we need to take a really close look at what is going on outside our heads as well as inside. We can no longer cast the sex differences debate as nature versus nurture - we need to acknowledge that the relationship between a brain and its world is not a one-way street, but a constant two-way flow of traffic.

Once we acknowledge that our brains are plastic and mouldable, then the power of gender stereotypes becomes evident. If we could follow the brain journey of a baby girl or a baby boy, we could see that right from the moment of birth, or even before, these brains may be set on different roads. Toys, clothes, books, parents, families, teachers, schools, universities, employers, social and cultural norms - and, of course, gender stereotypes - all can signpost different directions for different brains.

Resolving arguments about differences in the brain really matters. Understanding where such differences come from is important for everyone who has a brain and everyone who has a sex or a gender of some kind. Beliefs about sex differences (even if ill-founded) inform stereotypes, which commonly provide just two labels - girl or boy, female or male - which, in turn, historically carry with them huge amounts of "contents assured" information and save us having to judge each individual on their own merits or idiosyncrasies.

With input from exciting breakthroughs in neuroscience, the neat, binary distinctiveness of these labels is being challenged - we are coming to realise that nature is inextricably entangled with nurture. What used to be thought fixed and inevitable is being shown to be plastic and flexible; the powerful biology-changing effects of our physical and our social worlds are being revealed.

The 21st century is not just challenging the old answers - it is challenging the question itself.
An extract from The Gendered Brain by Gina Rippon, published by Vintage on 28 February for £20. To buy a copy for £15 go to guardianbookshop.com

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Meet the neuroscientist shattering the myth of the gendered brain

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ou receive an invitation, emblazoned with a question: "A bouncing little 'he' or a pretty little 'she'?" The question is your teaser for the "gender reveal party" to which you are being invited by an expectant mother who, at more than 20 weeks into her pregnancy, knows what you don't: the sex of her child.

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Nike & Serena Williams Celebrate 'Crazy' Women In This Powerful Oscars Ad

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Nike & Serena Williams Celebrate 'Crazy' Women In This Powerful Oscars Ad

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Nike and Serena Williams sent a powerful message about 'crazy' women during the 2019 #Oscars - Watch the full video here (via NowThis Entertainment)

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Post by NowThisPolitics.

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Viagra Might Relieve Period Cramps, but Male Pharmaceutical Execs Don't Care 

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Viagra Might Relieve Period Cramps, but Male Pharmaceutical Execs Don't Care 

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A new book called Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado Perez explores all the hidden ways women are screwed over by the fact male bodies are considered standard in designing everything from seat belts to smartphone speakers.

For example, a review of the book for The Times of London offers this interesting maddening tidbit about the history of Viagra:

When Viagra - sildenafil citrate - was tested initially as heart medication, its well-known properties for men were discovered. "Hallelujah," said Big Pharma, and research ceased. However, in subsequent tests the same drug was found to offer total relief for serious period pain over four hours. This didn't impress the male review panel, who refused further funding, remarking that cramps were not a public health priority.

And these biases can be deadly, according to Criado Perez's research. Female heart attacks don't present like the "Hollywood heart attack" with a lot of chest clutching and sudden pain. Instead, women might have stomach aches and nausea along with fatigue and shortness of breath, which doctors often fail to recognize.

The perils of chemical exposure are also primarily tested on men without regards to the fact that women are, on average, smaller and weigh less with thinner skin and more body fat. Different hormones and immune systems also haven't been considered in research, leading Criado Perez to liken female nail techs to "canaries in the mine."

Another infuriating fact: forcing female members of the military to match men's stride length actually broke their pelvises.

Until 2013 women in the British armed forces, who suffered ten times more hip and pelvic stress fractures than male colleagues, had to match men's stride length on parade. Only court action forced change. A similar shortening of stride length in the Australian army decreased such fractures.

And it would seem that technology is making gender biases worse instead of better, since Silicon Valley is overwhelmingly male. From algorithms that disregard resumes with female names to smart speakers that are designed to hear men's voices, forcing women to lower their pitch in order to be understood, women apparently can't even catch a break with robots.

I'm going to scream into the void now. Good thing Siri can't hear me.

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Viagra Might Relieve Period Cramps, but Male Pharmaceutical Execs Don't Care

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A new book called Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado Perez explores all the hidden ways women are screwed over by the fact male bodies are considered standard in designing everything from seat belts to smartphone speakers.

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The deadly truth about a world built for men – from stab vests to car crashes

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The deadly truth about a world built for men – from stab vests to car crashes

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Crash-test dummies based on the ‘average’ male are just one example of design that forgets about women – and puts lives at risk

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WHEN YOUTUBE RED-PILLS THE LOVE OF YOUR LIFE

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WHEN YOUTUBE RED-PILLS THE LOVE OF YOUR LIFE

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What it's like to watch, terrified and helpless, as your partner becomes radicalized by hate on the fringe right

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What it's like to watch, terrified and helpless, as your partner becomes radicalized by hate on the fringe right

Sarah clearly remembers the moment she lost the love of her life to the "Red Pill."

She was sitting inside a dark closet next to the bedroom where she and her partner had slept for close to four years, as he shouted at her through the wall. "You don't listen to me!" he screamed at her. "You've never listened to me!" The closet was a place to be alone, to think, to figure out how to bring back the man she'd once fallen in love with.

Sarah (a pseudonym), 30, had met Craig while she was studying for her master's degree in psychology. He worked at her local pub near in Holborn, West London . Craig, who had voted for the Conservative Party in 2010 but "wasn't interested in politics" worked odd jobs - as a bartender, as a bouncer at a nightclub, on contract at a recruiting firm - earning just enough to pay his rent and bills. They bonded over their unwavering support for the Chelsea Football Club , Al Pacino movies and late-night runs to McDonald's for Chicken McNuggets and barbecue sauce. On the nights when she studied late, Craig would meet her outside the university library to walk her home. When she was sick, he'd bring her spicy dumpling soup from her favorite Chinese restaurant.

"He was a really chilled-out guy for the first couple of years we were together," Sarah tells me when we meet at a cafe near her place of work. Small and slender, with bright blue eyes and dyed blonde hair, Sarah looks down at her cup of tea as she recalls the best moments of her relationship, the ones she tried to fixate on during those nights when Craig would shout at her, claim she was a "bitch" and a "whore" and send her text messages calling her an "anti-English," "dumb liberal."

"Our relationship started normally: We went for walks, saw films, went out for dinner. Most of the 'arguments' we'd have would be where to go out on a date. When I moved in with him after graduation, the arguments were about who would do the washing up or the cooking that night," she says. By the end of their relationship in September, though, she found herself having to not only try to get Craig to do his share of the laundry, but to justify why people should be allowed to speak languages other than English in public, why removing taxes for tampons isn't unfair, and more bizarrely, why being a feminist isn't the same as being a Nazi.

With each, he'd ask what her view on it was. Sometimes, she'd say she didn't know, and he'd "send me more videos, or explain why they were correct." Other times, when she'd disagree - for example, when it came to whether abortion should be legal - he'd get angry. "He would start off by saying I was wrong, demanding I explain my view - during a work day! When I wouldn't respond to him immediately, he'd tell me that my view was stupid and idiotic and that I was just another 'dumb leftie' who didn't know what they were talking about."

Other times, when Sarah would ignore his messages, he'd get erratic and angry. "He would shout at me for not being interested in the things he was, that I wouldn't take any of it seriously," she recalls, her eyes tearing up. "He would tell me that I wasn't smart enough for him, that what I learned at [university] was 'pointless left-wing nonsense,' that I only stayed with him because I was afraid to be alone."

In the year leading up to their breakup, Sarah tells me she desperately tried to help him stop watching the videos he was slowly becoming obsessed with. "I tried to take him to parties I was invited to, to be around him more. I sent him messages every hour while I was at work to say that I loved him. I thought that having human contact, to know that he didn't have to be so angry all the time, that he was loved by so many people, would be enough to get him away from all that material."

She also compromised her own values "to get him to open up to me," as she tried to "find a middle ground" between his radical right-wing views, and her liberal positions on issues like immigration, religion and Brexit. "When he said that Brexit would be good for the U.K. because there would be fewer immigrants that would erode White English culture - a statement that truly shocked me - I remember nodding and saying that it would be a good thing for more people to be taught English."
* * * * *
Still: "It wasn't enough for him," she says. "That was the moment I knew I wouldn't get through to him."

The term refers to the internet's "manosphere," a collection of male-dominated subcultures that ranges from " " (involuntarily celibate men who believe that Western liberalism and feminism prevents them from having sex or securing long-term relationships) to " men's rights activists " (who believe that liberal, left-wing politics have waged an all-out war on white, heterosexual men by "promoting" abortion, immigration and LGBTQ issues). In 2016, communities as a network of groups that collectively envisioned "a reality that women run the world without taking responsibility for it, and that their male victims aren't permitted to complain." Popular mantras used on Red Pill message boards include "Feminism Is Cancer ," the same phrase used by right-wing provocateurs like Milo Yiannopoulos and Infowars' Paul Joseph Watson .

"The 'manosphere' consists of a large number of groups - whether it's incels, ' Men Going Their Own Way ' or ' pick-up artists ' - that all push the same kind of message, that the men who go to their pages are being hard done by women and society at large," says Annie Kelly , a PhD student at the University of East Anglia who researches the impact of digital culture on the far right.
* * * * *
She adds that while there isn't a single reason why men would be attracted to Red Pill communities, as a hyper-networked online subculture, it's able to transmit its messages and philosophies to a much wider audience. All of which means that "grievances related to lack of sexual and romantic partners are located in the same spaces as right-wing propaganda around the refugee crisis and trans issues. When they're reinforced in these groups, as well as by mainstream media outlets on Facebook and YouTube, people are more exposed to them, and they end up buying into some of the maxims without realizing it. The online world becomes part of their lived world."

Last week, the Huffington Post ran a feature about Nina Kouprianova , the wife of U.S. neo-Nazi and alt-right leader Richard Spencer, detailing instances of verbal, psychological and physical abuse she endured while married to him and assisting him in his goal of establishing an all-white ethnostate in the age of Trump . Kouprianova claims that she denounces Spencer's ideology and was simply providing assistance to her ex-husband out of love and care for him, rather than his movement.

As the article made its way around the internet, many people found themselves asking the same question: How much sympathy should we have toward women whose partners lurch further to extremism during the course of their relationship - especially if these women tend to be the ones held responsible for bringing the men back from the brink? Indeed, in knowing the views and attitudes of social conservatives in regard to issues like immigration, rights for minority groups and LGBTQ issues, should these women have avoided dating such men entirely

it's interesting that most of the people responding to this with "so i'm supposed to feel sorry for a nazi??" or "it's her fault for marrying richard spencer" are, uh, men

- Sophie Weiner (@sophcw) January 13, 2019

Yeah, I feel sorry for his wife no women deserves to be abused. That being said, she is definitely a racist she's probably more racist than Richard Spencer b/c his bigotry doesn't phase her at all. She's not a good person now just because she suing her ex husband.

- Sayyid Bernard (@SayyidBernard) January 13, 2019

Nina Kouprianova reveals being abused by Richard Spencer.

I do not condone abuse of any kind but I do not feel sorry for this woman. She is complicit in spreading the hateful ideologies of white supremacy.

I really don't care, do you? https://t.co/UvbfBGbp38

- Trinity Arya Joan (@trinityaryajoan) January 13, 2019

This is the situation Ellen, 24, found herself in as she watched her boyfriend, 30-year-old Steven (his name has been changed at Ellen's request), become more and more entrenched in right-wing online content. Speaking over the phone, Ellen tells me that at times, she felt "hypocritical" being in a relationship with Steven. (As a long-time socialist, Ellen uses her social media accounts to post anti-Conservative Party messages, memes about the failures of capitalism and support of anti-racist organizations.) Her and Steven, however, had been childhood friends, having grown up in the same small town in the south of England, the kind of place where families all know each other, drink at the same pub and play soccer on Sundays. "I knew he had some controversial views before we started going out," Ellen explains. "Maybe that should have been a warning. But we also had a family history. He worked in my mom's office. And to me, he was always the attractive guy next door."

Nor did Ellen pay much attention to Steven's views when they first started dating in early 2017. At the time, she was a university student, and he was between jobs with aspirations to work in finance. "He was interested in conspiracy theories - the kind of thing that most guys are into - and I actually felt that most of his 'anti-establishment' persona leant more to the left." Steven enjoyed talking about these theories with Ellen, and Ellen was happy to discuss them with him. "I enjoyed the intellectual side of the relationship," she says.

Things changed quickly, however, when, according to Ellen, Steven returned to their hometown after losing his job in London. With few friends around him and Ellen at university, he spent the majority of his time online, learning how to trade foreign currency via obscure blogs and YouTube tutorials before wading into more political waters. "It started off fairly mild," Ellen says, with a slight laugh. "He would WhatsApp me Jordan Peterson lectures about 'social justice warriors' on university campuses. Sometimes I'd just ignore them, or say that I didn't agree with what they were saying. Eventually, he moved on to more extreme material. He would send me videos by Stefan Molyneux about the links between race and IQ, or how it was scientifically proven that Conservative women were more attractive and left-wing women like me were fat and ugly."

Still, she hoped that he could at least see some of her perspective - that they could compromise, even when it came to her most deeply held convictions. "I was spending hours a day trying to get him to see other people's views. But the more he would watch these videos, the more he reinforced his opinions. If I said something, he'd just send another video to 'prove' his point. He'd shut down conversations if I didn't relent and agree with him. He wanted to debate things with me - but only up to a point. Eventually, he'd expect me to side with him."

"While most Red Pill groups tend to focus on single men, there are sub-groups like Married Red Pill where men who are married are trying to get their wives to see the world in the way they do," says Julia Ebner , a research fellow at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue and author of The Rage: The Vicious Circle of Islamist and Far-Right Extremism . "A lot of the time that will be influenced by things the men see on social media, but also the images that these kinds of groups [conjure] up. They use a lot of iconography from the 1950s to advocate for 'traditional' families and 'traditional' gender roles, and they're using new technologies to try achieve that."

Similarly, they provide guides on how to better convince skeptical or unwilling partners of the husband or boyfriend's newfound beliefs. " These guides provide resources and subjects designed to help ease their partners into Red Pill ideologies," Ebner explains. "Some of the tips employ techniques like neuro-linguistic programming to achieve this, or other aggressive 'psychological techniques' that are common in pick-up artist communities."
* * * * *
Though the various techniques differ, Ebner suggests that the goal is the same: By recruiting women to the movement, they gain more legitimacy.

Ellen and Steven have now broken up. She has blocked him across all her social media accounts, and goes back home much less than she used to. Surprisingly, though, it wasn't Ellen who broke up with Steven. After another fight over right-wing YouTube videos he sent her, he ended the relationship, claiming that Ellen was no longer intellectually stimulating for him. In fact, she was an "idiot" who was incapable of understanding the "facts" that are right in front of her.

She was left heartbroken. "I gave my whole self to him, to try help him, to support him. I compromised so much of my convictions and beliefs to help HIM. And he rejected all of it for these YouTube people. He rejected one of the only genuine relationships he had."

For Sarah, similar feelings remain. Though she hasn't been in contact with Craig for several months, reminders of him are everywhere, especially when she works on the computer they once shared. "I was listening to Coldplay when I was cleaning the other day," she laughs. "And the next video YouTube had scheduled for me was one of these right-wing talk shows in America about how abortion clinics are being secretly funded by George Soros. I see these kind of videos on my recommended pages all the time."

It turns out she can't seem to escape them either.

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When YouTube Red-Pills the Love of Your Life - MEL Magazine

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What it's like to watch, terrified and helpless, as your partner becomes radicalized by hate on the fringe right Sarah clearly remembers the moment she lost the love of her life to the "Red Pill."

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I stayed with my abusive girlfriend out of fear she would kill me

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I stayed with my abusive girlfriend out of fear she would kill me

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Alex's partner was the first woman jailed for coercive and controlling behaviour in the UK. Now he's trying to fight the stigma around male domestic abuse

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I'll never forget the moment that my girlfriend, Jordan, first poured scalding water over me. She'd backed me into the corner of a room in the home we shared in Bedfordshire, holding a boiling kettle. We'd been together for three years, and what had started with small things - her telling me not to wear the colour grey or that she didn't like my hairstyle - had turned into a nine-month campaign of physical abuse. I was very scared of her.

I can still see that first tiny drop of water falling onto my skin. It all happened in slow motion. Afterwards, my skin was curdling. The pain was like nothing I'd ever experienced. I begged her to let me get in a bath filled with cold water - it was the only thing I could think of that would stop the burning. She allowed me to get in, and the relief was instant. You can't imagine how incredible it feels to sink your body into freezing water after that. It's the nicest feeling in the world. Then she told me I had to get out - or she'd do it all over again.

If I started moaning, saying that it hurt, she'd say, "Get back in the bath, then." Then she'd do exactly the same thing and make me get out. It was all about the mind games with her. She wanted control over all aspects of my life. I remember lying in the bath with no clothes on. It looked like I was in an oven, cooking. My skin was peeling off. It was absolutely horrible.

The latest figures from the Crime Survey for England and Wales show that, in the year ending March 2018, an estimated two million adults aged 16-59 years had experienced domestic abuse in the last year - of that number, over one-third were estimated to be men.

It's also estimated that one in five teenagers have been physically abused by their girlfriend or boyfriend. And it's happening to men much more than most people are aware of. Police in England and Wales recorded almost 150,000 incidents of domestic abuse against men in 2017 - more than double the number reported in 2012. According to one charity, fewer than 1% of domestic abuse refuge beds in England are allocated to men, with none at all in London.

Jordan Worth and I were 16 when we met at college in 2012. She did really well at school and she got a place at the University of Hertfordshire to study fine art. She wanted to become a teacher. In those first months, everything was fine. We had a really nice time together and did normal things, like watch films and go for walks together. It was new for me to tell my friends I had a girlfriend. They'd say, "Oh, what did you do at the weekend?" and I'd be able to say that I'd been with her.

Then, a few months in, a couple of strange things happened. At the time, it just seemed like attention-seeking behaviour. My mum and dad had paid for us to go to London to watch The Lion King and, out of nowhere, Jordan just disappeared. We were all looking for her for quite a while, and then, much later, we found her in the reception area, laughing her head off. It was all a bit weird. In hindsight, I think it was her way of getting me to panic and worry about her, in order to get a hold of me.

But before long, Jordan had completely isolated me from my friends and family - she stopped me from seeing them and even took over my Facebook account - a classic tactic of domestic abuse. I had nobody to turn to.

She started to deny me food, which meant I lost a lot of weight. I'd try and challenge her behaviour, but she'd turn it on me and find a way to make me the problem. I'd know it wasn't my fault, but she'd keep convincing me. You end up thinking, 'What am I doing wrong?' Then you do something differently and they moan at you for being different. When she was telling me, "I don't like the colour grey," or "I don't like those shoes," I'd think, "Okay, I won't wear them," because I wanted to impress her. But, in reality, she was moulding me into who she wanted me to be. It undermines your confidence. And you're fighting a battle that you'll never win. It's so frustrating.

We had two kids together and I just kept hoping that something would change. The children were babies, but, of course, they must have seen what was happening and, while she didn't hurt them directly, my fear was always that if I left, she'd turn her abuse on them. So I stayed.

Of course, there were some genuinely good times with Jordan - moments when I felt happy, when we laughed and had fun together. It wasn't a nightmare all the time. And I really wanted to try and make a go of the relationship. I loved her, after all.

It took 18 months for the mental abuse to turn physical. It began when she started sleeping with a glass bottle next to her. She was accusing me of doing things with other girls, talking to them or messaging, which was completely untrue. She kept saying that she'd had messages from people but, much later, I found out that she'd been making it up. Then she'd wait until I'd fallen asleep and smack me on the head with the bottle. She'd demand, "What are you thinking about?"

After a while, it got to the point where it didn't hurt anymore. I was so used to the pain, I didn't even feel it. So she'd ramp it up to the next level and find a worse way of hurting me. After the bottle, it was a hammer. After that, it was anything she could find to smack me with.

One time, it was a laptop charger. She wrapped the cord around her wrist but with a bit of slack, and swung the metal plug end at my head. Blood started gushing out. It was pouring onto the floor. I cried, "Please will you help me?" and watched Jordan as she walked up the stairs, laughing. She said, "Why don't you just go and die? No one cares about you."

Eventually, Jordan started with knives. She'd slash at me. One time, she just missed a major artery in my wrist. After that, it was boiling water. I had third-degree burns. Whenever I got used to the pain, she'd go a level up. The level after boiling water would have been death.

Of course, I was scared of Jordan and what she would do. I felt that, if I'd said anything, she could have killed me. I'd go to hospital and say I'd tripped and hit my head or that very hot water from the shower burned me. A neighbour called the police a few times when they heard shouting, and I'd make excuses for Jordan and lie. It wasn't nice, but I did it to save my life. I had black eyes and all sorts. She'd put her makeup on me, because she wanted to cover up what she'd done.

I could feel my body shutting down. I'd lost five stone in weight. Afterwards, doctors told me that I'd been 10 days from death because I'd been denied food for so long and my injuries were so bad. It all came to an end in 2018, when a police officer came round to the house to follow up their previous visit and questioned me. All the horrible truth came out. My injuries were so severe by that point, and I was so gaunt after all the weight loss. I'd denied everything up until that point. But I couldn't go on any longer.

If the police hadn't intervened at that precise moment, I'd be in the ground. There's no doubt about it. I was fortunate enough - I say fortunate - that I had so many injuries and the evidence was really strong, so it tied everything together, which helped put her away.

Jordan's motivation, I think, was pure jealousy. I'd been very close to my family, and had brilliant friends, and she distanced me from all that. She took me away from everything I ever had. I remember once she said to me, "I want to ruin your life."

While one in six men will experience domestic abuse at some point in their lives, only one in 20 will ever seek any help.

Jordan was never sorry. Even when the police came round to question her. She looks as guilty as anything in the police footage, but I think she cared more about being caught than what she'd done to me. She pleaded guilty in court, I believe, to get a lighter sentence.

I don't know how Jordan justified this kind of behaviour to herself. I think people who commit domestic abuse do it because they get a kick out of it. It's like a drug, an addiction. And the more they do it, the more they think they can get away with it - and it gets worse and worse and worse. It's like they're in heaven and you're in hell. They're getting what they really, really want. That complete control. And you're getting everything you never wanted in your life and worse. Until they get found out. And then it's a massive shock to them.

I'd heard of male domestic abuse before I met Jordan. I knew what she was doing. I knew it was really, really bad. But I didn't know what to do. During it all, I wouldn't have been able to name a charge she could be arrested for, because I didn't have a clue, ever.

I never hurried to get out of this situation, as funny as that sounds. There was no way I was going to be able to get out of it. I literally had nothing. And, obviously, we had two children together. I just hoped it would stop. If I got hit one time less it was a great day. It was that simple.

My concern was with the kids, that they were alright. You can never tell someone to leave that kind of situation. That's the worst thing. You need to just say, "Look, if you ever need to talk with me, I'm here."

Jordan was sentenced to seven-and-a-half years in prison in April 2018. She admitted to controlling or coercive behaviour in an intimate relationship, wounding with intent and causing grievous bodily harm. When I heard the news, I didn't even react. I don't tend to get bothered by things now. If my football team wins, I used to go crazy, but now I'm more or less 'job done'. I think that's because of the trauma I went through. When the verdict came, I was like, "That's justice then." Afterwards, I felt a lot of relief - a massive weight off my shoulders. As soon as I knew she was in that van on her way to prison, for the first time in five years, I could look over my shoulder and not have a single worry cross my mind.

The children don't really know what's going on. I've kept a lot of the information, the court documents etc, for them to read when they're older. When they're mature enough to understand it, I'll explain it to them. As long as they say to me one day, "You've done a good job, Dad," that's all I care about.

Jordan was the first woman in the UK to go to prison for coercive and controlling behaviour. It shows it's being taken seriously. There's a lot of stigma that prevents men from speaking out and often police don't take violence against men seriously. Men are often left out of domestic abuse campaigns. It's wrong. What has gender got to do with it?

I'm not stupid enough to think that everyone's going to be like Jordan. But I'm not ready for another relationship right now. I just want to enjoy the things I used to enjoy as a child, because Jordan took everything away from me and destroyed it, like football trophies, tickets for football matches, possessions, all ruined. I've got to try to build that back up, which I have done, with the help of male domestic abuse charities. In the future, I'd like to open a refuge for men who've been abused.

I sometimes think the main reason I'm alive is to raise awareness. Why didn't the knife go in the wrong place? Why wasn't I hit in the wrong place? I never had a fractured skull and I was hit thousands of times. That just amazes me. Why not? There must be a reason for it. The reason is to help people. I only hope that things get better for other victims.

If you have been affected by any of the issues raised in this article, information about help and support is available here.

This article was originally published on 15 February 2019.

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Abused By My Girlfriend: Alex Skeel feared his partner Jordan Worth would kill him - BBC Three

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I'll never forget the moment that my girlfriend, Jordan, first poured scalding water over me. She'd backed me into the corner of a room in the home we shared in Bedfordshire, holding a boiling kettle.

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All Men Benefit from Women's Reinforced Fear of Being Hurt for Saying No.

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All Men Benefit from Women's Reinforced Fear of Being Hurt for Saying No.

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Terry Crews says toxic masculinity is a 'cult': Men 'need deprogramming'

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Terry Crews says toxic masculinity is a 'cult': Men 'need deprogramming'

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Terry Crews may be making big moves as the newest host of America's Got Talent, but the actor and activist is still committed to stemming the tide of toxic masculinity. Ahead of a powerful speech at the 2019 Makers Conference on Friday, the 50-year-old former NFL linebacker sat down with Yahoo Lifestyle to talk about what it's like to be one of the most public-facing male survivors in this movement.

"It feels scary, there's no other way to really describe," Crews tells Yahoo Lifestyle. "I've had a lot of men who are very, very angry." Crews initially went public with his own #MeToo story in 2017 and has since remained a public face of the movement, even testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee in June 2018. But he says his message - that men need to look inward - has infuriated some males.

"They're angry at me because I've changed the narrative. The only way I can describe it is that there's a movie that everybody's playing in their head and the movie doesn't end up the way they want it," he says. "They're like, 'Wait a minute, you're supposed to beat up everybody you're supposed to get revenge and everybody is supposed to ride off on their horse. And I'm like, nope. In fact, I'm a survivor, and the truth is sometimes you don't get justice. You get freedom, that's the difference."

"Survivor" is a title that Crews began identifying with after coming forward with assault allegations on Twitter. "This whole thing with Harvey Weinstein is giving me PTSD," Crews tweeted on Oct. 10, 2017, five days after the New York Times published an explosive report (suggesting that Weinstein "paid off" his victims). "Why?" Crews continued. "Because this kind of thing happened to ME."

This whole thing with Harvey Weinstein is giving me PTSD. Why? Because this kind of thing happened to ME. (1/Cont.)

- terry crews (@terrycrews) October 10, 2017

The actor went on to detail how, at a party in 2016, a Hollywood executive grabbed his genitals, in front of his wife, while grinning. The actor initially stayed silent about the event, evidently to avoid being "ostracized," but he later identified the alleged abuser as Adam Venit, a talent agent at William Morris Endeavor. Venit, who reportedly settled a lawsuit with Crews, in September 2018.

"Accountability," Crews tweeted in response to that news.

Although Crews was the one being objectified in that scenario, he says he relates deeply to the culture that likely fueled it. "When you're talking about toxic masculinity, I was raised in it. I watched my mother getting punched in the face and beaten and intimidated nonstop," he tells Yahoo Lifestyle. "I was a part of it because I thought, if you can't beat 'em, join em. I believed that I was more valuable than the women in my life, because everything in my life told me that."

On the Makers stage, Crews said toxic masculinity centers around strength. "The rules of the toxic gang is literally the bench press, it's ridiculous," he says. "It's like determining whoever gets to run everything, you bench-press the most, you get to run the world." Crews said dominance is seen as a point of pride. "It was like you weren't a man until you slept with at least 10 women, used them, abuse them and throw them away," Crews said on the Makers stage. "Lie to them ... and walk away."

Crews took it a step further backstage, implying toxic masculinity is religion-like. "It's a cult," he says. "I love being a man. But people have taken this thing and warped it and twisted it ... what we're talking about is an abuse of power. There are men who really believe if you win, I lose. Everything becomes opposites: men are strong, women are weak. I was a card-carrying member of that."

The moment that Crews says he stopped think that way was when his wife walked out. "I was like what in the world is going on? I got all the trappings: I played in the NFL, I beat somebody's ass," he says. " But then a little voice came to me and said, 'Terry, what if it's you?' And I said no, I have everything - I'm strong, rich, successful, I'm the man, I never beat her. You justify and rationalize."

But after reflecting on what went wrong, Crews realized his wife was right, and he elicited professional help for pornography addiction. Even then, he says, it took years of therapy to unravel his thinking. "It forced me to have a moment of introspection. It was almost like a dark room and a piercing light cracked through, I call it the egg crack. You can't seal it," he says. "I was forced to look at myself as I really was, just for a blink. I had made all these excuses as to why I'm a victim. Because when you're talking about toxic masculinity - pity rules that. Pity is the number one emotion. Feel sorry for me."

Crews says he found his way out of this toxic thinking by being vulnerable - which he realizes is particularly difficult for men. But that's the point. "I'm asking guys to look at yourself. That's it. Don't look out there. Get alone and examine why you think the way you think," he says. "It's scary. But when you're in a cult, you need deprogramming. That's the whole thing about being in a cult - you believe the lie."

Read more from Yahoo Lifestyle:

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Terry Crews says toxic masculinity is a 'cult': Men 'need deprogramming'

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Terry Crews may be making big moves as the newest host of America's Got Talent, but the actor and activist is still committed to stemming the tide of toxic masculinity. Ahead of a powerful speech at the 2019 Makers Conference on Friday, the 50-year-old former NFL linebacker sat down with Yahoo Lifestyle to talk about what it's like to be one of the most public-facing male survivors in this movement.

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Having Multiple Devoted Boyfriends Is Wonderful, Polyandrous Women Confirm

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Having Multiple Devoted Boyfriends Is Wonderful, Polyandrous Women Confirm

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In polyandry, women have multiple male partners, all of whom are totally devoted to them. We spoke to several women in polyandrous relationships to find out what it's like.

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Photo by Alejandro Moreno de Carlos via Stocksy

Many women may casually date multiple guys, but some modern-day women are practicing polyandry: having multiple husbands (or, in a contemporary, repurposed definition, several serious or life-long partners).

Polyandry, the female-focused version of polygamy, is technically illegal in the United States; thus, those who practice it do so without literally getting married. "I would say [polyandry] is when a woman has many male partners," says Dr. Denise Renye, a San Francisco-based psychologist who specializes in sex and intimacy.

Read more: How Dating Came to Suck So Much

But that doesn't mean a woman can't dream of putting a ring on those many male partners. "Having multiple husbands was something I had thought about since early adolescence. I even asked my mother about it, and she laughed said it would be way too much work," a 44-year-old woman from Boulder, Colorado, who goes by Jislaaik tells Broadly. Very active in her local kink community as a mistress, Jislaaik is currently seeking three husbands in a scenario she likens to Big Love, only with "a higher level of control and authority on my part, and way better sex."

While some women like Jislaaik relish the chance to celebrate polyandry, other women in polyamorous communities view having multiple male partners as simply an inherent facet of the general polyamorous lifestyle. "Polyandry is polygamy for women. In either case, marriage is the key component that differs it from polyamory. It's not something that is widely discussed in the polyamorous community, unless someone is correcting a misunderstanding," says Effy Blue, a New York City-based life coach who specializes in unconventional relationships.

Blue has multiple male partners herself and says more men offer more emotional support-not to mention the sexual benefits. "My partners have different strengths, styles, points of views, all coming together to be an amazing support network for me. It also provides me different sexual experiences, somewhat eliminating monotony that inevitably happens in all long-term relationships. The variety ultimately keeps all of our sex lives exciting."

Those who are specifically seeking a modern American version of polyandry view the distinction between polyandry and polyamory as one that stems from differing power dynamics. These women want to have multiple male partners, but their men must be completely devoted to them, a different relationship structure than what Blue practices.

Having multiple husbands was something I had thought about since early adolescence.

"I tried polyamory first but found that to not work for me at all. The poly world wants you to be completely open. The mono[gamous] world, well, we already know what they want," says a 38-year-old Colorado woman who asked to be called Goddess Andromeda.

"My ex tried really hard to give his power to me. One day he came to me and declared, 'I've lost that subbie feeling,'" says Andromeda, referring to a dominant/submissive relationship. "We tried to work on it until one day he called me late at night and told me that he wanted to be full-on polyamorous for a while. I told him, 'Fine, but it would be without me.' He did not appreciate that and decided that it was too late at night to communicate about it. The next day I gave him his wings to explore."

Like Jislaaik, Andromeda's ideal relationship scenario would be with three husbands. As Andromeda's name suggests, polyandry can contain elements of goddess worship, as well as men's rights activists' worst fear: female superiority. "There is a couple I worked with in couple's therapy. They had a set-up where it was a man and a woman. The woman had other male lovers, and they did a lot of worshipping to Lakshmi," says Dr. Renye. Lakshmi is a Hindu goddess associated with wealth and fortune. "There was an element of in their relationship where it was almost the expression of abundance of wealth through the devotion to Lakshmi, which was symbolized through the devotion to this woman."

Dr. Renye works in San Francisco, and most of the other women spoken to for this article either live in New York City or Colorado. Some women in less progressive areas of the country report difficulties finding men to enter their desired relationship model. "I haven't had the privilege to find my two or three men," says Rachel, a 28-year-old from Georgia, adding that she's been called a slut and whore for bringing the idea up. "I really haven't had too many experiences with [polyandry], as it is very difficult to find a man or men who are open-minded [and] can also deal with the idea of being involved with a woman who has more then one man."
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If you're a woman looking for multiple men to devote themselves entirely to you, established communities of polyamory or kink may be your way in, as both promote the communication skills and the open-minded attitude necessary for polyandrous relationships. "Honestly, in the kink community, it might be easier for women to have multiple male partners," says Jislaaik. "I had been hearing from cuckolds and other men who had no problem with the idea of women with multiple partners, while they remained exclusive to her. It's possible, after all."

When asked if she's seen female clients have success at polyandry, Dr. Renye, like Jislaaik, says that most of them had come to the relationship structure through established polyamorous communities. When asked what advice she would give to women seeking polyandrous relationships, Dr. Renye responds, "If that's what's desired, create it-because it's possible, but no matter which people are seeking in love and sex, there is inevitably somebody else out there who is also seeking that."

And what about the men? "To the man, I would call it as a psycho-spiritual development exercise. It would be a practice," she says. "[Observe] his feelings and experience and communicate about it."

And of course, remember to worship your goddess.

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Having Multiple Devoted Boyfriends Is Wonderful, Polyandrous Women Confirm

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Photo by Alejandro Moreno de Carlos via Stocksy Many women may casually date multiple guys, but some modern-day women are practicing polyandry: having multiple husbands (or, in a contemporary, repurposed definition, several serious or life-long partners). Polyandry, the female-focused version of polygamy, is technically illegal in the United States; thus, those who practice it do so without literally getting married.

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Native Americans Acknowledged 5 Genders Before European Christians Forced Gender Roles

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Native Americans Acknowledged 5 Genders Before European Christians Forced Gender Roles

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Native Americans Acknowledged 5 Genders Before European Christians Forced Gender Roles

Gender is seen as a binary concept for most societes, with two rigidly fixed options: male or female, both based on a person's reproductive functions.

However, as research shows, the relationship between a person's gender and their body goes beyond one's reproductive functions.

People tend to use the term "gender" interchangeably, and we assign a newborn's gender as either male or female based on their genitals. Thus, once it's assigned, we presume the child's gender.

However, there are societies that had more than 2 gender roles way before the 19th century when the gender binary system was introduced, and Native Americans are being one of them.

The was no 'normal' in their tribes and it wasn't until Europeans came to America that Natives adopted their 2 gender roles.

Actually, according to Indian Country Today, all native communities acknowledged these following gender roles: "female, male, Two Spirit female, Two Spirit male and transgendered."

Native American did not assign genders to newborn babies and even their clothes were neutral. A person was only judged by their contribution to the tribe, and not their 'femininity' or 'masculinity'.

There was no stigma revolving around Two Spirited people, how they live or who they love, and it was accepted as a normal occurrence.

In fact, The Two Spirit people in pre-contact Native America were greatly admired, and families that included them were considered lucky.

"Native Americans believed that a person who was able to see the world through the eyes of both genders at the same time was a gift from The Creator."

The 'Two Spirit' term, was constructed to be used in the English language as a universal term, and it is not always translatable with the same meaning, giving the fact that many Native American tribes have their own specific term for it.

For example, in the Lakota tribe is Winkté (indicative of a male who has a compulsion to behave as a female), Navajo refer to it as Nádleehí (one who is transformed), the Cheyenne as Hemaneh (half man, half woman) etc.

The "Two Spirit" culture of Native Americans was one of the first things that Europeans worked to destroy and cover up. According to people like American artist George Catlin, the Two Spirit tradition had to be eradicated before it could go into history books.

One of the most known Two Spirits in recorded history was a warrior named Hunts Them And Kills Them. He was born as a male and married a female but proceeded to live his life as a female.

Soon enough, religion's prejudice over gender was brought upon, and these people were forced to make one of the two choices or live their life hiding and in fear.

Many of them, also, tragically ended their lives.

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Native Americans Acknowledged 5 Genders Before European Christians Forced Gender Roles

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Native Americans Acknowledged 5 Genders Before European Christians Forced Gender Roles Gender is seen as a binary concept for most societes, with two rigidly fixed options: male or female, both based on a person's reproductive functions. However, as research shows, the relationship between a person's gender and their body goes beyond one's reproductive functions.

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Ms., Mr. or Mx.? Nonbinary teachers embrace gender-neutral honorific

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Ms., Mr. or Mx.? Nonbinary teachers embrace gender-neutral honorific

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Educators who identify as neither exclusively male nor female have found “Mx.” to be a more fitting classroom honorific.

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When Maddie Luebbert, 25, returned after a week away from the classroom, their students were complaining about the substitute teacher.

Luebbert dismissed the student complaints at first. "My students said 'The substitute was awful.' I was like 'Yeah right, everyone says that,'" Luebbert told NBC News.

But then the students started explaining why they didn't like the substitute. "My students said to me, 'The substitute was really disrespectful. She wouldn't use your pronouns or your name.'"

Luebbert is a nonbinary, 9th grade English teacher in a Philadelphia public school. Luebbert uses they/them pronouns and has their students address them with honorific Mx. - a gender-neutral alternative to the gendered Mr., Ms., Miss and Mrs. that most of us grew up using for our teachers.

Mx., generally pronounced as "mix," has grown in popularity over the past few years, as more people outwardly and openly identify as transgender, gender-nonconforming and nonbinary - and have rejected the idea that only two options, male and female, exist.

But as honorifics fade in popularity and people work to avoid gendered assumptions, schools are among the last places where Mr., Ms., Miss and Mrs. are routinely used. For trans and nonbinary educators, like Luebbert, this poses challenges, but also opportunities for learning, education and affirmation.

"I didn't like that I had to pick an honorific when I went into teaching," said Isti Fuller, a 28-year-old nonbinary high school science teacher in the Greater Sacramento Area. "But I used Ms. because it felt like it was as generic as it could get."

For nonbinary people - those who identify as neither exclusively male nor female - gendered terms, like honorifics, can feel invalidating and ignite gender dysphoria. "It's jarring when I hear someone call me Ms.," Fuller said.

When Fuller's mother found an article about the honorific "Mx.," they decided to adopt the term. For Fuller, using Mx. is "a lot more comfortable."

Tai Tran, a 24-year-old transgender 7th grade math and science teacher in Richmond, California, feels similarly. Describing her first year as a teacher, Tran told NBC News that "Going by Mr. Tran was not a very good year for me." Switching to Mx., she said, "made me a lot happier."

"I feel like it's very validating of my own gender identity," Tran explained.

For Tran, using Mx. goes beyond feeling affirmed in the classroom. "Not only am I teaching these students that a queer educator of color is in their space and giving them a quality education, but also that it does not detract from or take away from their education at all," Tran added.

"The earliest example that we know of 'Mx.' is a 1977 article published in the United States, in an American magazine called Single Parent," Emily Brewster, an associate editor at Merriam-Webster, told NBC News.

Brewster was the editor at Merriam-Webster who submitted Mx. to be added to the dictionary.

"I noticed that this word was being used, so I did some research and determined it was eligible for entry," she said.

Merriam-Webster added Mx. to its unabridged dictionary in 2016 and to its website in 2017. Brewster explained that words are added if they're being used, and if they've been published in edited text.

"All the content of our dictionary is based on evidence of words in use," she said. "Mx. met our criteria." To her, adding it was a no-brainer.

Although Mx.'s formal addition to the English language was largely uneventful, all the teachers who spoke to NBC News about using Mx. described challenges like invalidation and difficulties with implementation when they adopted the term.

When Beck Watt, a 25-year-old nonbinary music teacher at a middle school in Winnipeg, Canada, told their school over the summer they were going to start using Mx., they asked that all their information be updated in the school systems by the time the new semester began.

"I started my job in September and found that nothing had been done," Watt told NBC News. "My name was wrong on all my paperwork, my students were getting information about me that's saying I'm 'Ms. Watt.' I was like, 'That's not my name. That's not gonna work.'"

In addition to issues getting their schools to align their personal information with their identity, many of the teachers who use Mx. described problems with misgendering - when someone calls a person by pronouns or honorifics different than the ones that person prefers - from colleagues.

"My students just take me at face value and haven't had any questions," Watt added. "They just go with it, but it's been a bit more challenging with staff."

Shani Kartanė, a 28-year-old nonbinary high school English teacher in an industrial Bay Area suburb, agreed, telling NBC News, "I would say it's worse with my colleagues than it is with my students."

Many teachers told stories of leading workshops and sessions among faculty to get their colleagues up to speed on pronouns and gender diversity. While some colleagues made it clear they were allies, others were resistant.

"Not everyone jumped on board," Marvin Shelton, a 25-year-old, black nonbinary middle school teacher in the New York City metro area, said. Shelton starting using Mx. and they/them pronouns in the beginning of the spring semester.

"It wasn't until June, the end of the school year, that people really started to be like, 'Oh, Marvin is seriously going by they/them and Mx.'"

For Kartanė, the challenges came with self-doubt. "I had moments where I thought: I'm too much work, I'm asking too much of my colleagues and students, and that as a teacher I'm there to serve, and part of serving others is not always putting yourself first."

Shelton felt similarly. "There is a population at my school who think I'm a joke, who joke about my honorifics or the way I carry my body," they told NBC News. "When there are images in society that say who you are as a person seems to be made up, people think, 'Why should I change what I know to respect who you are?,'" Shelton said.

One student-teacher in the Southeast, who asked not to be named for fear of retribution and professional impediments, told NBC News, "My professors told me indirectly that my gender and sexuality were a 'political agenda' I needed to leave at home."

When this teacher casually corrected people about their pronouns, and requested not to be called "Miss," they were labeled "aggressive." They felt like they had to choose between being themselves and being a teacher. Eventually, they left their student-teaching program, graduating with a different degree instead.

This story is not unique to the student-teacher who spoke to NBC News. In 2017, a public elementary school in Florida removed a transgender teacher from their classroom who asked student to address them with "Mx." and use "they/them" pronouns. The school succumbed to parent complaints about the teacher's request, and transferred the transgender teacher to a classroom with adults.

However, Watt, Kartanė and Shelton emphasized they were grateful to be in schools where such extreme reactions have never occurred, and they were able to eventually integrate their identity into the classroom.

"In order to serve my students, I have to be who I am, and if I'm not, then I can't serve," Kartanė said.

Shelton said they were able to tune out the noise and focus on what matters.

"I went into education because it's a holistic job. I'm not just in the classroom to teach grammar and writing and reading," Shelton said. Teaching people about their identity, they added, is 'part of the job.'"

"I'm an educator," Shelton stressed.

Harper Keenan, a trans educator who works in teacher education, knew firsthand the challenges that face trans, gender-nonconforming and nonbinary educators. After a trans friend of his died by suicide, Keenan was determined to help his own community. Then a Ph.D. student in education, he knew the education world well, so he founded the Trans Educators Network.

"What I hoped to do was try to find someway to help my community, trans people, feel less isolated in a world that is often isolating for us," he told NBC News.

Keenan started posting on Facebook and emailing different education listservs. "I thought I would maybe find 20 people," he said. "It just ballooned quite quickly, and now, three years later, there's more than 400 people in the network, and we have members all over North America, from Hawaii to Toronto."

The network has been a crucial place of support for educators who often lack trans colleagues, and are the first one at their school to come out.

For Watt, this rings especially true. "A lot of my friends are teachers, I know a lot of people who understand the job. But I don't know a lot of people who understand, 'Yes it's a tough job, but it's also tough to also be fighting everyday for your identity to be recognized.'"

The network provides a space to talk about the issues specific to trans, gender-nonconforming and nonbinary educators.

"I would say with some frequency folks in the network ask around about what is a non-gendered title that they can use." Keenan said. "Folks have all different ideas, but Mx. is one that regularly comes up as a potential option."

Some people opt for students to say "teacher" before their last name, others come up with completely new honorifics, but in the network, discussions around Mx., according to Keenan, "happen frequently."

While it's difficult to measure how many people use "Mx.," Keenan suspects knowledge of the term is regionally dependent. "In places where there is a strongly visible trans, nonbinary and nonconforming community, people are more likely to have some awareness of and familiarity with the term," he said.

Despite the challenges, nearly every teacher who spoke to NBC News said they were glad they decided to start using Mx.

"A lot of my students have been really passionate about advocating for me and my pronouns," Luebbert said. "It feels like there's a really healthy back and forth of empathy and respect. We might not know everything about each other, but we're going to explain ourselves in a way that's fair and that we both understand."

Shelton added that using Mx. has helped them find "a lot of energy and comfort in the classroom," telling NBC News that "as a black, queer, first generation teacher, I offer a lot of representation to my students."

Tran agrees. "I'm making it clear I'm open, I'm out, and it's nothing to ever be ashamed of. I am owning my own narrative so that others cannot fill in the gaps for me."

For Fuller, the answer is simpler: "Mostly, it's just my name," they said. "I appreciate that I'm in a place where it doesn't draw attention."
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Ms., Mr., or Mx.? Nonbinary teachers embrace gender-neutral honorific

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When Maddie Luebbert, 25, returned after a week away from the classroom, their students were complaining about the substitute teacher. Luebbert dismissed the student complaints at first. "My students said 'The substitute was awful.' I was like 'Yeah right, everyone says that,'" Luebbert told NBC News.

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A new study shows that gender-nonconforming kids who go on to transition already have a strong sense of their true identity—one that differs from their assigned gender.

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This is a topic for which long-term data are scarce. And as transgender identities have gained more social acceptance, more parents are faced with questions about whether and how to support their young gender-nonconforming children.

"There's a lot of public writing focused on the idea that we have no idea which of these gender-nonconforming kids will or will not eventually identify as trans," says Olson. And if only small proportions do, as some studies have suggested, the argument goes that "they shouldn't be transitioning." She disputes that idea. "Our study suggests that it's not random," she says. "We can't say this kid will be trans and this one won't be, but it's not that we have no idea!"

"This study provides further credence to guidance that practitioners and other professionals should affirm-rather than question-a child's assertion of their gender, particularly for those who more strongly identify with their gender," says Russell Toomey from the University of Arizona, who studies LGBTQ youth and is himself transgender.

(A brief note on terms, since there's a lot of confusion about them: Some people think that kids who show any kind of gender nonconformity are transgender, while others equate the term with medical treatments such as hormone blockers or reassignment surgeries. Neither definition is right, and medical interventions aren't even in the cards for young children of the age Olson studied. That's why, in her study, she uses pronouns as the centerpiece marker of a social transition. Changing them is a significant statement of identity and is often accompanied by a change in hairstyle, clothing, and even names.)

When the 85 gender-nonconforming children first enrolled in Olson's study, her team administered a series of five tests that asked what toys and clothes they preferred; whether they preferred hanging out with girls or boys; how similar they felt to girls or boys; and which genders they felt they currently were or would be. Together, these markers of identity gave the team a way to quantify each kid's sense of gender.

The team, including James Rae, now at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, found that children who showed stronger gender nonconformity at this point were more likely to socially transition. So, for example, assigned boys who had the most extreme feminine identities were most likely to be living as girls two years later. This link couldn't be explained by other factors, such as how liberal the children's parents were. Instead, the children's gender identity predicted their social transitions. "I think this wouldn't surprise parents of trans kids, and my findings are often 'duh' findings for them," says Olson. "It seems pretty intuitive."

Read: Why is the media so worried about the parents of trans kids?

Charlotte Tate, a psychologist from San Francisco State University, says that this quantitative research supports what she and other transgender scholars have long noted through qualitative work: There really is something distinctive and different about the kids who eventually go on to transition. From interviews with trans people, "one of the most consistent themes is that at some early point, sometimes as early as age 3 to 5, there's this feeling that the individual is part of another gender group," Tate says. When told that they're part of their assigned gender, "they'll say, 'No, that's not right. That doesn't fit me.' They have self-knowledge that's private and that they're trying to communicate."

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centerpiece marker of a social transition

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This is a topic for which long-term data are scarce. And as transgender identities have gained more social acceptance, more parents are faced with questions about whether and how to support their young gender-nonconforming children. "There's a lot of public writing focused on the idea that we have no idea which of these gender-nonconforming kids will or will not eventually identify as trans," says Olson.

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Terry Crews Says Black Women Were The Only Group Who Supported Him After He Shared His Sexual Assault Story

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Terry Crews Says Black Women Were The Only Group Who Supported Him After He Shared His Sexual Assault Story

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When Terry Crews went public with his experience with sexual assault, at the hands of Hollywood agent Adam Venit, he expected that Black men, people who looked like him, people who were his audience and had supported his career, would hear his story and respect it. But that wasn't the case.

Instead, Black men clowned Crews. They wondered why he didn't fight back, they insinuated that he was soft because he didn't do so.

The people who did support him? Black women.

During a recent appearance on "Watch What Happens Live," Crews shared why he was surprised by this phenomenon after a caller asked "Whose support surprised him the most?"

"You know what, to be honest with you, when it first happened, there was none for a long time. But the people that surprised me the most were Black women. Black men did not want any part of it. All my support came from Black women, straight up. And that's kind of wild. It shocked me, it shocked my family. It shocked everybody. Because I thought, here I am as a Black man saying some things that we've all been through and a lot of guys were like, 'Man, you're weak. You're sorry. You should have hit him. You should have knocked him out.' And Black women were like, 'No, no. It doesn't work like that.' And I was shocked at the split within my own community. It was deep."

Deep but also predictable.

Black women tend to show up for community, specifically Black men. Now, we have more than enough work to do when it comes to trans women, and other members of the LGBTQ community. Riding for Black men, we've got down. I don't know why Crews was surprised.

You can check out his full comments in the video below.

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Terry Crews Says Black Women Were The Only Group Who Supported Him After He Shared His Sexual Assault Story

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When Terry Crews went public with his experience with sexual assault, at the hands of Hollywood agent Adam Venit, he expected that Black men, people who looked like him, people who were his audience and had supported his career, would hear his story and respect it. But that wasn't the case.

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Gillette’s inspiring new toxic masculinity ad asks: “Is this the best a man can get?”

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Gillette’s inspiring new toxic masculinity ad asks: “Is this the best a man can get?”

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Even if you don't remember ever seeing a Gillette razor commercial, you've almost certainly heard or seen their iconic catchphrase, "The best a man can get."

The company flipped the script in a new advertisement that addresses the #MeToo movement and the role toxic masculinity plays in it, asking, "Is this the best a man can get?"

The nearly two-minute digital ad opens with a montage of news reports on bullying, #MeToo and toxic masculinity as the reversed question is asked by a narrator over images of men self-reflecting while staring into their bathroom mirrors.

"It's been going on far too long," the narrator continues. "We can't laugh it off."

A series of disturbing images play out while a literal formation of men standing in front of grills deadpan, "Boys will be boys," until the narrator declares, "Something finally changed and there will be no going back."

But rather than focusing exclusively on a negative, shaming note like so many other attempts at moving beyond toxic masculinity, the Gillette ad smartly transitions into framing the #MeToo movement as a chance for men to be better while still being men. As the narrator says: "Because we believe in the best of men."

Men are encouraged to self-police amongst themselves as images play out of men intervening to discourage other men from engaging in acts of harassment or blatant sexism: "To say the right thing, to act the right way. Some already are, in ways big and small. But some is not enough because the boys watching today will be the men of tomorrow."

"This is an important conversation happening, and as a company that encourages men to be their best, we feel compelled to both address it and take action of our own," Gillette brand director for North America Pankaj Bhalla said to the Wall Street Journal. "We are taking a realistic look at what's happening today, and aiming to inspire change by acknowledging that the old saying 'Boys Will Be Boys' is not an excuse. We want to hold ourselves to a higher standard, and hope all the men we serve will come along on that journey to find our 'best' together."

Gillette has set up a site on countering toxic masculinity that is also driving contributions to the Boys and Girls Club of America.

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Gillette's inspiring new toxic masculinity ad asks: "Is this the best a man can get?"

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Even if you don't remember ever seeing a Gillette razor commercial, you've almost certainly heard or seen their iconic catchphrase, "The best a man can get." The company flipped the script in a new advertisement that addresses the #MeToo movement and the role toxic masculinity plays in it, asking, "Is this the best a man can get?"

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MEN ARE KILLING THOUSANDS OF WOMEN A YEAR FOR SAYING NO

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MEN ARE KILLING THOUSANDS OF WOMEN A YEAR FOR SAYING NO

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Three weeks before the deadliest mass shooting in American history-in which Steven Paddock murdered 58 people from his Las Vegas hotel room-another deadly mass shooting took place in a backyard in Plano, Texas. On September 10, a 32-year-old man went to his estranged wife's Sunday cookout, reportedly the first social event she'd organized since filing for divorce. He shot her and seven other adults to death before he was killed by police. That tragedy was tied for second-deadliest mass shooting of the year with another killing spree on May 27 in Brookhaven, Mississippi, in which a 35-year-old man, also angry at his "estranged" wife, allegedly killed five of her relatives, as well as a sheriff's deputy and two children. He told the local media on-camera that he was hoping police would kill him.

Surprisingly, these two incidents, with 16 victims between them, were not the most infamous domestic violence murders to make national news in the past six months. Several other intimate partner killings received more widespread attention, likely because of their unusual nature. In July, a man stabbed his wife to death aboard a cruise ship, reportedly later telling a witness, "She would not stop laughing at me." (The statement calls to mind the famous quote attributed to Margaret Atwood about domestic violence: "Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.") Six months earlier, in April 10, a 53-year-old man walked into a San Bernardino, California, elementary-school classroom and shot to death his wife, who was a special-ed teacher there, and her 8-year-old student, before turning the gun on himself. Six days later, a 37-year-old man named Steve Stephens, apparently distraught over difficulties with his "estranged" girlfriend, shot a random older man to death on the streets of Cleveland, live-streaming it on Facebook. Before killing him, Stephens made the victim say his ex's name.

Those two murderous incidents in April particularly resonated with me because, nearly two weeks later, at the small newspaper chain where I work in New Jersey, a local story came across my desk: The body of a 51-year-old woman was found wrapped in blankets in Jersey City-the town just next to mine. Police arrested and charged the woman's 56-year-old ex-boyfriend in her death. Five days later, a 23-year-old woman was killed by a 29-year-man who then turned the gun on himself-also in Jersey City. Police told the press that the two of them had had a "dating relationship."

The upshot: It's safe to say that for every domestic-violent murder that makes national news-whether because of its brutal nature, victim tally, school setting, or something else-there are hundreds of small incidents in our own backyards that barely receive coverage. Often, when a domestic incident or murder-suicide occurs in a community, officials reassure the public that no one else is in danger and the matter quickly fades. But what are the dangers of ignoring a national conversation about the high number of murders of "estranged" wives and girlfriends each year, especially when federally funded agencies and organizations estimate that more than 1,000 women are killed annually by someone they know? That total doesn't include the children, relatives, and bystanders who suffer or are killed as well. (A Dallas Morning News story about the Plano mass shooting in September noted that in 2015, 158 women in Texas were murdered by an intimate partner, climbing steadily from 102 women in 2011. And those 158 murders claimed 19 collateral victims.)

It's hard to get an exact number of "estranged" spouses and girlfriends murdered each year by partners or ex-partners in this country, as the FBI and CDC collect data in different ways and don't always label the relationship between victim and perpetrator for public consumption. And a woman who's been on several dates with someone doesn't always qualify as a girlfriend or "intimate partner." But data made available in recent years tells a dark story: In 2015, according to the non-profit Violence Policy Center, which relies on FBI homicide numbers, 1,450 women were killed by a man they knew. To break the data down more specifically in terms of relationships: A searchable online database funded by the Justice Department says that in 2013-the most recent year available-in 36 states reporting information, 322 men killed a wife, current girlfriend, or ex-wife. (This database does not include ex-girlfriends or people who were dating, numbers that would surely drive up the totals.) For comparison's sake, that same year, according to the database, 83 women killed their current husbands, ex-husbands, or boyfriends.

As far as murder-suicides go, the American Psychological Association reports that 74 percent of all murder-suicides in the United States involve an intimate partner, and of those, 96 percent are women killed by their partners.

And this past July, the Centers for Disease Control finally made the results public of a long-term study of murders of women. According to that report, from 2003 through 2014, out of 10,018 adult women killed in 18 states, approximately 50 percent were murdered by an intimate partner. (The study did not look at murders of men.) While the number would put intimate partner murders of women at only 417 per year, the study, again, drew from 18 states.

The CDC study noted that at least 1 in 10 of the tragedies was preceded by a prior incident and thus, some may have been preventable. While the statistic could imply that 90 percent of the murders didn't have a precedent on record, it actually begs a question: if 10 percent of these incidents are forewarned, how many can be forestalled? In other words, what can be done within our culture to combat the problem of intimate partner violence before it reaches a breaking point?

Of the many important issues that should be at the center of national consciousness right now-and not just because October is National Domestic Awareness Month-finding new ways to anticipate or head off domestic violence killings should be a priority. There are so many issues that could be woven into the discussion, putting aside for a moment the hot-button topic of gun access: What's the best way to counsel someone who wants to leave an increasingly dangerous relationship? How can restraining orders and domestic violence laws be adjusted and improved? (The San Bernardino school shooter had two prior relationships in which restraining orders were taken out, according to media reports, and had been arrested four times between 1982 and 2013 - but without being convicted.) Perhaps more underdiscussed: How can girls and boys be taught from a young age to respect their partners and accept their relationship decisions? How many parents and educators, right now, are having those discussions before college and even before high school? Are men encouraged to get mental health counseling in the same way women are? Is there enough funding for domestic violence shelters and counseling?

Clearly there could be many sorts of discussions around domestic abuse, and just like with gun access, the answers won't be a cure-all, particularly since each tragedy has different roots - but that doesn't mean anyone should give up completely, either.

This year, it's been difficult to decide which tragedy to prioritize. Important issues have been shoved to the back burner, not just-of course-by natural disasters, but also by White House snafus and political wrangling, to start. On the April morning of the San Bernardino school shooting, social media users were hotly debating a Texas rally against Donald Trump's crackdown on immigrants, the controversial Supreme Court confirmation of Neil Gorsuch, and a doctor being dragged off a United Airlines flight the day before.

Fast-forward six months to Domestic Violence Awareness Month and the majority of social media conversation in October has focused on the Harvey Weinstein harassment and assault allegations, displacing attention from hurricane-recovery efforts, health care issues, and the Las Vegas mass shooting. The Weinstein issue, of course, is a very worthy issue that has prompted necessary conversations, but it also has something in common with the "estranged" partner murders this year: The incidents indicate a need to look at how men respond when a woman says no. (Even the Paddock issue has relevance to domestic abuse, as Starbucks workers told the media early this month that they saw Paddock verbally abuse his girlfriend when he was in public with her. More attention to all types of domestic abuse might help quell violence against women.)

One thing the small and large domestic violence killings should make clear-besides an urgent need for conversation about how to prevent these tragedies-is a continued need for a strong women's movement that calls attention to life-or-death issues affecting our sisters, mothers, daughters, and friends. Unfortunately, it seems that in the last year, various publications and individuals (particularly on the internet) have questioned the need for women's activism, suggesting that there's no need for modern feminism because women have more opportunities now. Since the election I've seen and heard almost every mocking statement that could be made about women's activism, and I'm guessing it's true of most women who pay even a little attention to the news. Right after the election, I received a gleeful, belittling email from an older relative, a former Democrat who now watches only conservative news media, who wrote, "I've recently heard many modern women's activists say that Susan B. Anthony and others sought equal treatment for females, not preferential." He later criticized the women's march by sarcastically citing Madonna as a "shining star to emulate," as if women are so flighty that we take guidance from one celebrity on what to do, or that one person's comment represents what all 128 million of us want or think. A different relative pointed out that when TV reporters interviewed random participants in the January women's march, the marchers didn't have an explanation ready for their goals (it's not that easy to have domestic violence and rape statistics on the tip of one's tongue or to condense a raft of complex issues into a five-second soundbite).

A gentleman on Twitter recently responded to my encouragement of a new women's publication by complaining about feminism and saying "I'm all for equal rights, and I don't think women receive any unequal treatment." Perhaps he hasn't seen the Justice Department statistics about intimate partner violence or was only thinking of the office where he works, which may be the problem.

Anyone who believes women are treated equally these days, or don't need vocal advocates, should be reminded how many women are killed each year for saying "no." Modern women's groups have made domestic violence a major plank in their platform while simultaneously attempting to smash stereotypes about feminism that distract from critical issues. Caroline Dorey-Stein wrote on the website for the group Progressive Women's Leadership, which trains women for leadership positions, "We are working to end violence against women in our nation as well as others. We are still fighting for acceptance and a true understanding of the term 'feminism,' ... It is a term that has been unfairly associated first, with ladies in hoop skirts and ringlet curls, then followed by man-hating women."

Domestic violence murders are, of course, not only a women's issue, particularly since-whether the number of victims is one or eight-the killings affect generations of loved ones and friends.

Three years ago, after 22-year-old Elliot Rodger shot two California sorority girls to death, thousands of women across the country began sharing their stories of being harassed, assaulted, or intimidated. In light of the recent revived national discussion on sexual harassment and assault, we also need to revive the discussion about violence against women, particularly intimate partner violence. If first-wave feminism is remembered as focusing on voting rights, and second-wave was concerned primarily with the workplace, it's clear that today's women need the right to make relationship decisions without fear they'll receive a death sentence because they said "no."

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Men Are Killing Thousands of Women a Year for Saying No | Dame Magazine

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Three weeks before the deadliest mass shooting in American history-in which Steven Paddock murdered 58 people from his Las Vegas hotel room-another deadly mass shooting took place in a backyard in Plano, Texas. On September 10, a 32-year-old man went to his estranged wife's Sunday cookout, reportedly the first social event she'd organized since filing for divorce.

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No man should be shamed for wearing makeup.

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No man should be shamed for wearing makeup.

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Post by attn.

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Millions Of Women In India Join Hands To Form A 385-Mile Wall Of Protest

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Millions Of Women In India Join Hands To Form A 385-Mile Wall Of Protest

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It was 3 p.m. on New Year's Day when Rakhee Madhavan, a 39-year-old teacher living in Kochi in the southern Indian state of Kerala, decided that she wanted to begin 2019 by doing something meaningful.

So Madhavan, who was visiting her hometown of Mullukkara 60 miles away for the holidays, boarded a bus there that was brimming with women. One hour later, she was part of what is reportedly the largest public gathering of women for the cause of gender equality in India.

They called it the "women's wall" - vanitha mathil in the local language of Malayalam.

According to government estimates published in the Indian press, somewhere between 3.5 million and 5 million women lined up on National Highway 66, a long stretch of road that runs along the country's western coast. The "wall" stretched out 385 miles. Organizers said it was a continuous chain from one end of the state to the other, but some critics say there were gaps.

Kerala is roughly the size of Switzerland and has a population of about 35 million.

The demonstration was planned to create awareness of gender equality - and to protest a religious ban that prevented women of menstruating age from entering one of the country's sacred Hindu temples even after the Supreme Court ruled in favor of their entry onSept. 28 last year.

The proposal for the demonstration was announced by the government in early December, after the threat of violence from male devotees forced several women to abandon their attempt to enter the Sabarimala temple. The event was organized by the Left Democratic Front, a coalition of political parties in Kerala led by the chief minister of the state, Pinarayi Vijayan, but no state money was used. The demonstration was funded by several independent women's organizations and by political parties in Kerala.

Volunteers from more than 176 social and political organizations joined forces with the Kerala government to make the event happen. It was discussed for weeks on news channels and on social media. Word spread in small towns and in rural areas through word of mouth. On New Year's Day, the organizers arranged for private buses to transport women to points along the highway. Transportation appears to have been one of the main expenses.

At 3:30 p.m., organizers helped women find a place along the highway. At 4 p.m., they were asked to join hands and take a pledge for equality. They held this pose for 15 minutes.

For Madhavan, as for many other women who participated, the motive was not a political or religious issue but a deeply personal one that transcended the temple ban.

"I've heard so many older women say that they're impure when they're menstruating and it's disturbing," she says. "I didn't want the impressionable young girls I teach to imbibe the same message. I wanted to be a part of this because I believe it's time for awareness and for change."

When Madhavan uploaded the pictures of protest on her Facebook page, she says it initiated a great deal of interest and sparked discussions on gender equality among her students.

People felt the same way on Twitter:

The era of women folding hands and submitting to patriarchy is beginning to end from here. They will throw their fists on the air and demand for their rights. Women's wall is just a beginning, a baby step of the impending cultural revolution. #WomensWall #VanithaMathil pic.twitter.com/cK1QpXQBk2
- Pishu Mon | فرمان (@PishuMon) January 1, 2019

Even as women of all ages lined up on one side of the highway, many of their menfolk - husbands, friends and relatives - lined up on the other side to show their support.

For Vigi Ninan, 46, a lawyer practicing in the family courts of Thiruvalla who was part of the protest, the huge turnout of men, women and children was an indication of how the country is gradually awakening to a woman's right to be treated as an equal.

"After all, it is our constitutional right," she says. "But it's significant that many men supported the protest as well; we weren't alone in this." Her husband, a local administrative officer, attended. Men took to social media to tweet their support:

After the gathering, the chief minister's office tweeted:

CM Pinarayi Vijayan warmly congratulates all who made Kerala's #WomensWall a great success. The 620 KM long gathering, organized to uphold the values of Kerala Renaissance, saw huge participation of women from all walks of life. This is a momentous occasion in our social life. pic.twitter.com/DiJlgzgSUO
- CMO Kerala (@CMOKerala) January 1, 2019

On Wednesday, the day after the gender wall demonstration, Indian media reports emerged of two women under the age of 50 finally managing to visit the sacred shrine. The women were escorted by police into the temple in complete secrecy in the wee hours of the dawn. They were given police protection to avoid the mobs that had kept women at bay previously. They have since been taken to an undisclosed location.

On Thursday, right-wing groups declared a hartal - a strike involving the closure of shops, usually following a sorrowful event. Violent protests erupted in the state as mobs took to the streets hurling stones and crude bombs. One person was killed and 14 others were injured. State police arrested 745 people.

That same day, a third woman visited the temple amid the protests.

For Madhavan, the violence was distressing but did not dampen her spirit.

"Social change doesn't happen in a day," she says. "It needs time. But with these small steps, we've made it easier for the next generation to embrace it. In this way, the wall of women marks a new dawn for feminism in India."

Kamala Thiagarajan is a freelance journalist based in Madurai, India, who has written for The International New York Times, BBC Travel and Forbes India. You can follow her @kamal_t.

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Millions Of Women In India Join Hands To Form A 385-Mile Wall Of Protest

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It was 3 p.m. on New Year's Day when Rakhee Madhavan, a 39-year-old teacher living in Kochi in the southern Indian state of Kerala, decided that she wanted to begin 2019 by doing something meaningful. So Madhavan, who was visiting her hometown of Mullukkara 60 miles away for the holidays, boarded a bus there that was brimming with women.

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Why You Should Stop Giving This "Compliment"

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Why You Should Stop Giving This "Compliment"

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You may be talking about age in a way that could be offensive. This might be the wake-up call you to need to help change the conversation... #DisruptAging

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Post by soulpancakepresents.

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I Have a Son Now, Which Means I Can Finally Start Respecting Men as People

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I Have a Son Now, Which Means I Can Finally Start Respecting Men as People

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Last week, my wife gave birth to a beautiful, healthy, bouncing baby boy. He is all the things that you hope new babies are. A blessing. Loud. Adorable. Soft. Precious. Gassy. Alert. Moderately bemused. Perpetually hangry. Vaguely human. Somewhat reminiscent of Fred Sanford.

He is also life-changing. He's our second child, but our first boy- my first son-and there are myriad reasons why this first son status is so crucial. I look forward to people asking if I plan to dress him like a miniature replica of me, just so I can respond, " Why would I do that? He's his own person, not a miniature replica of me, " and walk away. I'm anticipating the day I'm able to teach him how to catch, because then his big sister-who's practically a catching maven now-will have someone to play with while I'm crafting clever Facebook statuses about fatherhood. And I'm more than anxious at the thought of our first trip to the barbershop, because if it's anything like my first trip to the barber, I might have to fight a barber-like my dad almost had to-and I've never done that before. Mostly though, I'm beyond grateful for this boy person in my life because holding him in my arms and looking into his eyes will finally teach me to do something I've never done, which is respect and honor men.

Although I am 39 years old, and although I've encountered tens of thousands of men in those 39 years (the vast majority of whom, I think, were human beings) and although I am a man, treating men with kindness and compassion is something that I just never learned to do. When I'd see men and boys-and this includes when I'd look in the mirror-and I'd ponder whether to have any empathy for them, I'd just think "Nah."

Of course, I've grown to respect men and think of them as equals worthy of protection and care. I was-and still am!-aware of all of the statistics about how boys are more likely than girls to drop out of school and how men are more likely than women to be incarcerated and how males (in general) are more likely than females (in general) to be Kappas. And these things mattered to me, but in theory. They mattered mattered. But none of it mattered mattered mattered-it wasn't real -until that boy was born, and I held that boy against my manly chest. And then, and only then, did I start to really get it.

Now, because of this male child that I'm legally and morally obligated to care for, I am more sensitive to the unique challenges facing men. I'm more cognizant of the language I use, the images I consume, the music I listen to, the people I surround myself with, and the sports teams I root for. I'm more mindful and respectful of my dad and my uncles and my cousins and my homies and my barber and my favorite male barista and the rest of the men currently in my life, and I even find myself thinking back on past relationships I've had with men and wishing I'd regarded them with more empathy. I now shudder at the thought of all the times I was on the basketball court and guarded by men shorter than me, and how boorish and vulgar I was when I'd post them up and dunk on them. I'm ashamed of myself.

Just think, for a moment, about how much better men would be to men if more men had boys. That should be a requirement, actually. Vague eugenics aside, how else can you expect men to have any sort of compassion for a gender comprising half of Earth's population if we don't literally create one of them with our own sperm? Where else are we going to find that? How else will we learn to respect them?

This transformation hasn't happened overnight. I still have considerable biases and blind spots about men that need rectified. But now, when I look in my son's sleepy eyes and he stares back at me, wondering when this awkwardly bearded man is going to hand him back to his mother, I know that I have an investment. A stake. Some skin in the game. (It's his skin, but still.)

Thank you, son.

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I Have a Son Now, Which Means I Can Finally Start Respecting Men as People

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Last week, my wife gave birth to a beautiful, healthy, bouncing baby boy. He is all the things that you hope new babies are. A blessing. Loud. Adorable. Soft. Precious. Gassy. Alert. Moderately bemused. Perpetually hangry. Vaguely human. Somewhat reminiscent of Fred Sanford.

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Vic Mensa Says Reading bell hooks Taught Him About Toxic Black Masculinity.

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Vic Mensa Says Reading bell hooks Taught Him About Toxic Black Masculinity.

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Mensa also talked about the controversy surrounding his 2018 BET Hip-Hop Awards cypher.

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Excessive violence and aggression are staples of toxic masculinity - a topic Vic Mensa rapped about when challenging the posthumous idolization of XXXTentacion by his fans. During the 2018 BET Hip-Hop Awards cypher, Mensa caught a wave of controversy with the lyrics, "We all know you won't live that long/ I don't respect s**t posthumously, homicide ain't new to me/ catch up with Akademiks at your eulogy."

Supporters called out Mensa for lacking consideration of the deceased rapper's friends and family, especially XXXTentacion's mother who was in attendance.

"I had no idea a grieving mother would be in the audience to honor her lost son," Pitchfork reported Mensa said in a clip. "However, I vehemently reject the trend in hip-hop of championing abusers, and I will not hold my tongue about it."

"Sometimes it can be hard to have empathy for someone else, until you need God to have empathy for you...When I first said the s**t in the rap, I wasn't having any empathy for the man because I was seeing no humanity in him," he said.

The late rapper was accused of -- and later heard admitting to -- horrendous acts of domestic violence against his girlfriend.

"I was seeing things that the young man had did were wild. I wasn't seeing no humanity in him until I needed God to have empathy for me."

While Mensa doesn't regret his lyrics, he does a have an enlightened perspective on violence, and he attributes his new ideology to feminist writer bell hooks.

The rapper said growing up in Chicago made him "numb to death."

"Death is very normalized to us, and it's f**ked up, but we see death so much, we make jokes about that s**t," Mensa said.

"My whole life, I was programmed in that way," Vic Mensa said during an interview on The Breakfast Club. "When I started to read bell hooks, that's when I peeped game and started to break down why I was so violent."

Her essays highlight the world's need for feminism and confront the mechanics of gender.

"My whole life, I was programmed in that way. When I started to read bell hooks, that's when I peeped game and started to break down why I was so violent." - @VicMensa https://t.co/OFYeOLBHdT- Ivie Ani (@ivieani) December 11, 2018

Mensa references hook's We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity during the interview.

"Hearing her talk about black masculinity, male masculinity and how the traditional avenues of being a man were taken from the black man in America all the way back from the boat in slavery, then through Reconstruction and it was only black women working. Black men had to find their own new ways of feeling masculine or being a man because they weren't able to be the breadwinner - start playing jazz music, and also being very aggressive and violent. A couple years back, I really started to dissect that. I'm still growing and trying to grow out of those things."

View the full interview below:
Now, check these out: Vic Mensa Comes Under Fire For Condemning XXXTentacion's Alleged History Of Domestic Abuse During Rap Cypher Vic Mensa Launches New Nonprofit To Help The Kids Of Chicago Process Their Trauma Due To Violence In Their Communities Vic Mensa To Give Away Thousands Of Shoes In Response To Reports Of Cops Setting Up 'Bait Trucks' In Poor Chicago Neighborhoods

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Vic Mensa Says Reading bell hooks Taught Him About Toxic Black Masculinity

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Excessive violence and aggression are staples of toxic masculinity - a topic Vic Mensa rapped about when challenging the posthumous idolization of XXXTentacion by his fans. During the 2018 BET Hip-Hop Awards cypher, Mensa caught a wave of controversy with the lyrics, "We all know you won't live that long/ I don't respect s**t posthumously, homicide ain't new to me/ catch up with Akademiks at your eulogy."

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Vic Mensa Says Reading bell hooks Taught Him About Toxic Black MasculinityMensa also talked about the controversy surrounding his 2018 BET Hip-Hop Awards cypher.

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Vic Mensa Says Reading bell hooks Taught Him About Toxic Black MasculinityMensa also talked about the controversy surrounding his 2018 BET Hip-Hop Awards cypher.

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What Are Reasonable Expectations to Have of Rappers?

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What Are Reasonable Expectations to Have of Rappers?

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I have a theory that because of the way we curate our social media circles nowadays, I believe most of us think our circles are representative of reality. This is my story, this is my song. I also think it's pure bullshit.

We all know most of the people who inhabit America are absolutely dumb, at worst, or entirely unconcerned or unconsumed with the shit we fight about on Facebook every day in the Woke Olympics, at best. That last fact is why I get so baffled at people (and myself sometimes) who like to hold rappers to an interesting, unreasonable standard. If we take into account who they are and the music they create, it often makes SO little sense. I think being well-read, or reading at all, and engaging in intellectual debate has almost rendered us incapable of placing realistic expectations on many of our favorite artists.

To be clear, I'm a firm believer that if you know better, you should do better. I don't think intentionally making problematic art of any stripe is OK. I also think, though, that if you're going to engage with problematic figures and art, you should expect problems, and picking apart the issues you don't like seems counterproductive and futile.

You'd like an "for instance," wouldn't you? Glad to oblige. Meek Mill just released his latest album, Championships, complete with all of the trimmings and discussion about his recent issues with the criminal justice system, of which he's had himself a hell of a past few years. This has landed him on national talk shows, such as Smerconish, to defend his positioning. I find that curious, because while I think it's good that Meek uses his platform for good, his bread and butter is still bitches, guns, sex, money, and murder, like it's always been and very much on display throughout the entire album. Is it because that's just who he is so we're good with it, much like we are with almost all hip-hop that only has room for mothers (and sometimes wives) in the respect circle?

Misogyny is alive and well in hip-hop, and despite the protestations from various corners of the Niggas That Read Community, if it hasn't started to change, I'm not sure that's ever going to change. As they say, all your faves are problematic, right? Smarty art rappers from Common to J. Cole to Kendrick, and on down the line, struggle with their discussions of women in their music. Very few women are more than a bar away from being referred to as a bitch or a ho, and very few rappers seem to give even the slightest fuck about that or how it comes across. And even women rappers like Remy Ma could be considered rape apologists.

I bring up Meek's album (and will now get to the 'for instance') because the most vaunted track on the album is "What's Free" because of Jay's verse. But before you get there, you have to listen to Rick Ross and Meek do their things. Rick Ross' verse is pretty standard fare for him. We got stuntin', enemies, and poverty tales alleviated by drugs. Towards the end of the verse, he takes shots at who I can only imagine is rapper Tekashi 6ix9ine, who is in the midst of some issues with the law and the gang he was allegedly claiming ties to. Ross closes out his verse (and shots at 6ix9ine) with: "purple hair got them faggots on your back."

As soon as I heard that line, my Spidey sense started tingling. Why in the hell would he use such a term? That term is a slur and off-limits. He's calling out Tekashi for being a fake gang member (the irony of Ross calling anybody fake is delicious) and then decides to make mention of prison rape by using a homophobic slur for no reason at all. He didn't have to use that term. It is entirely unnecessary. And I knew that some people were going to zero in on that and require, oddly, Ross to be called to some carpet for such blatant homophobic rhetoric. Except, this is the same nigga who JUST said that, "Mona Lisa to me ain't nothin' but a bitch..." The language of disrespect and disregard is present just a few bars prior, but that doesn't set off any alarms. Or if it does, that line would never get thinkpieced to death. And maybe his f-word line won't either, but of all the criticism I read in my corner of social media, that line apparently offended the sensibilities of some. It jumped out to me, of course, until I self-corrected and asked myself why I expected anything more of Rick Ross.

Rick Ross is a problematic rapper. He always has been and always will be. Nobody listens to Rick Ross for community upliftment. You listen to Ross for drug tales over lush production, and drug tales over lush production typically come with all of the standard issue problematic language. That's his bag. Because a certain segment of society has less of a tolerance for such language now, hearing hurtful language used so blatantly stands out like a sore thumb. But because we're (arguably) better, should Ross be better, too? I don't know. It would be nice, but realistic? Eh.

But here's the main issue: I'm not sure how many people actually care, either. I mean, it stood out to me, but there are huge swaths of the listening populace who literally couldn't care less and use that term on a daily basis. I may be enlightened, but I can't reasonably expect artists who have shown no desire to "see the light," so to speak, to come along on my own personal journey towards being a better human.

This is why I've personally struggled with a lot of the music I grew up with. I spoke previously about how it's hard for me to listen to Dr. Dre's 1992 classic, The Chronic, now. As much as I loved it, the whole album (and much of the Death Row catalog I loved so much) is problematic as fuck, because I've grown. That growth has borne unreasonable expectations towards artists, making certain language and ideologies very noticeable and off-putting. Thing is, if I'm going to listen to a lot of the hip-hop I love, I'm going to have to engage with problematic ideologies.

Either that or I'll just have to listen to gospel....

...where the problems are the artists.

Le sigh.

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What Are Reasonable Expectations to Have of Rappers?

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I have a theory that because of the way we curate our social media circles nowadays, I believe most of us think our circles are representative of reality. This is my story, this is my song. I also think it's pure bullshit.

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After Years of Fighting for Trans Kids, Lawyer Mia Yamamoto Came Out Herself

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After Years of Fighting for Trans Kids, Lawyer Mia Yamamoto Came Out Herself

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Photo by Bethany Mollenkof.
Read more from our Trans Legends oral history project, a growing archive of interviews with transgender icons and pioneers.
Mia Yamamoto, in her own words, was "born doing time." She started her life in a Japanese internment camp in Arizona in 1946-a circumstance that eventually moved her to dedicate her life to social and economic justice as a poverty lawyer and criminal defender.

Mia identified as trans long before she began presenting as feminine in her 50s. She recalls finding herself while reading about transgender pioneer Christine Jorgensen in the newspaper as a child, but keeping her identity a secret while later serving in the Vietnam war, and eventually, when she began working with homeless trans youth as a lawyer, covertly going out at night to discover bars catering to trans women on Hollywood Boulevard.

Being exposed to the dangers of trans life in the 20th century and enduring the toxic masculinity of the military may have slowed Mia's personal coming out, but it did not prevent her from supporting trans people in her capacity as a leading criminal defense attorney. For years, holding her transness deep within, she selflessly sacrificed her own authenticity to better serve marginalized individuals navigating the legal system and the prison industrial complex. Her fierce fighting words for the President ("You're just a punk politician, I'm not afraid of you"), and her deep commitment to dismantling structures of oppression, are a rallying cry-encouraging us to push through fear to discover our courage and potential for resilience.

Interview has been edited and condensed. ZACKARY DRUCKER: Tell me about your personal journey around transness.
MIA YAMAMOTO: I was in the closet in terms of being trans until my actual coming out transition, when I I had already been a lawyer for a while. It's different for me. I came up, though, around trans people who were kicked out of their homes as teenagers. It's common, at 12 or 13; the family is outraged at your gender expression, they throw you out of your house, and you have to fend for yourself out there. I was always around folks like that; those were the only people that I could possibly identify with-especially coming up as a poverty lawyer working with oppressed and marginalized communities in many colors and different origins. The trans folks were excluded from almost every minority group. I remember my therapist saying that he had various queer clients, but that trans people were the queerest of the queer.
Tell me about what kind of law you practice.
I'm a criminal lawyer now, I started off in legal aid. I always wanted to be a lawyer for poor people; they got an unfair shake from society. I started off at the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles working in impoverished communities. I had an initial resistance to practicing criminal law. I think there's a certain level of elitism when you're a law student thinking, Oh, you're this smart person. You know, why would you give your best to the worst people? But when I went to go work at the public defender's office, I realized it's just poor people. It was the same clients I represented at legal aid that were there in the tank that had a different set of legal problems, but it was the same people. [It was] good people making reckless, stupid decisions about their lives-with consequences. Helping them still seems, to me, like a great way for me to spend my life.

[During this time] I saw a lot of the exclusion aspect of being trans. When you're deeply closeted, it's hard for people to see that, I think. You actually get very good at male impersonation. It's the only way to survive in the locker room and in the army. It's a form of toxic masculinity, but you buy into it wholesale when you have extreme questions about your own gender identity and you feel a need to express [masculinity], at least for the people around you and their comfort.

Coming up in the 60s and 70s, the amount of oppression that was directed at gay and trans people... maybe even most directly at trans people. It was illegal back in those days to wear clothing of the opposite sex. The police would raid gay bars and the gay guys would grab a lesbian, trying to look straight. They would actually do things like, if you had your zipper on the side or in the back, you go to jail because you're crossdressing; and that [also] means a woman with the fly in the front. Imagine that is their criteria for taking you to go to jail!

When I was a lawyer, the treatment of trans people in jail was particularly bad because they were seen as likely victims. The cops the way they are, they're laissez-faire about the prison population; people are going to do what they're going to do, and they're going to pretend not to notice. The thing that always struck me was [the] trans people who were brave enough and honest enough and came to court dressed, and having the judge use all of these male pronouns used on the queens, that was particularly infuriating. "Do you accept that disposition Mr. so-and-so," with that kind of contempt. The ones that had enough guts to do that were defiant in return, "That's not my name, sir." They would stand right up to these guys. At some point, I think I sort of admired the idea that you got nothing left to lose. You know, I'm gonna stand up for myself.
Were there any particular people that really touched you?
Trans people generally would avoid me like poison because I [was] trying to learn something about myself by talking to them. I got a lot of hostility. I guess because they're so used to people asking questions, it must be irritating. These were street queens, usually young teenagers struggling to stay alive. In the tanks-in the jails and the courts-there's a lot of disrespect out there; ridicule and rejection. And people are openly contemptuous. It takes you a while before you are able to shed that mantle of toxic masculinity which is imposed upon you by peers, media, other people around you.

Today is Veteran's Day, and I am a Vietnam veteran, and those of us who have seen war have seen the absolute most extreme of male toxicity. There's a glorification of the violence of war and a glamorization of the military, and that, to me, contributes to violent solutions, to conflicts. The embrace of the trans community that I would see within certain enlightened enclaves of our society is a welcome relief from the almost total universal exclusion of my community. Especially from my point of view, the idea that they're trying to exclude trans people from service in the military shows that our contributions to the military and to the advancement of our military interests in history have been erased. It's always been illegal to either be trans or gay in the military, and they would throw your butt out for admitting that you are. They were trying to exclude and deny the existence of the contributions, the sacrifices, and the courage of LGBT people in the military to try to erase them any place where they demonstrated their contributions to society and their community. They would like to pretend that we don't exist.
It sounds like you've stood in multiple positions. You inhabited this extreme space of toxic masculinity, being in the military, being an ally working towards racial and economic justice...
I've always been somebody who believes in human rights and believes that it was my obligation, my privilege, to fight for human rights not just for for my clients, but for the world-for everybody. One of the organizations that I work with, International Bridges to Justice, we defend prisoners, basically. I'm not talking about political prisoners, just people that are locked up. We do defender training and put together little agencies in each of the places where we work. We do legal aid to the people in jail.

"They would like to pretend that we don't exist."

We realized over the last 20 years that what we'd really like to focus on is investigative torture. When they first get ahold of somebody, in order to get confessions out of them, to get evidence out of them, governments resort to torture. Most governments, the vast majority of them have rules against torture. They find them to be the cheapest and most available means of resolving criminal accusations - they can beat something out of somebody. In any event, the human rights element of everything that I've worked on has been the most important component of the work. [If] you donate your time and work towards something, then international human rights seems to be a pretty valid goal or ideal.
It's a noble choice. You're living an ethical life.
We're given the choice of living that way. So I've taken it, and I feel lucky to do so.
Would you tell me, Mia, about your origin story and how that has influenced and impacted your trajectory as an adult?
The fact that I was born in (an internment) camp, right? I was born doing time. I always talk to my clients about, you know, I understand people are thrown in jail because of their race. I was born doing time because I was Japanese.

I was born in Arizona in September 1943 after my family had already been imprisoned and... my dad was a lawyer actually, class of 1929 Loyola Law School here in LA. And he's going around the camp saying, "tThey can't do this to us, they can't put people in jail because of their race!" My first lesson about race. I don't remember camp, but I do remember growing up in post-war America-California. The level of hatred that people still had towards the Japanese was palpable. I was pretty careful about not speaking Japanese. I didn't want to advertise that. It was just not cool. And, of course, this is something at that age you're definitely striving for.

You always think about resiliency and the things that you experience that allow you some resilience. It seems to me, starting off with racial prejudice, that's always pretty interesting. And I think it is life-altering in a sense: your experience is basically altered, and thereby your perspective-looking at things from the point of view of the underdog, of an oppressed class.
I would love to hear more about your experience of transness through all those filters. How do you survive so many years not being able to express yourself authentically?
You resort to all kinds of expressions, both artistically and athletically. There's all kinds of things you can do to be an extreme outlet for what feels like an extreme constriction. Trans people are so underground, or certainly they were. I remember being in the military and seeing a piece of trans literature about that and I was stunned. I had never seen anything like that before in my life.
What exactly did you find?
Advertisements for a magazine. They were trans-related and drag, female impersonator magazines.

One of them. I remember being enthralled by this amazing cut of this culture that's so elusive for me to find.
Did you know trans folks existed before that?
I was growing up when Christine Jorgensen hit the front pages of the newspapers. I read that as a kid. It was the most amazing relief to me that there was someone else like me in the world.
What did you think when you saw her?
Well, I thought, That's amazing that something like that is even possible! Knowing that someone felt the same way as I did felt exhilarating. It gave me a sense of euphoria knowing there was somebody else out there.
When did you discover that there were more people like Christine Jorgensen out there?
I was in college when I first came across trans sex workers. On Hollywood Boulevard, there was a smattering of trans bars right there by Hollywood and Vine. In the 60s, that's when I started seeing them.

"Trans folks were not just a subculture, but a sub-sub culture. Because it was a part of gay society, but it was the abandoned stepchild."
What were they like?
Most of them had female impersonator shows. There was usually a smattering of trans people in the audience. Some of the performers had friends who hung out at the clubs. There was a place I remember that had a show in the front room and a bar in the backroom, which is where the trans clientele were-pretty much straight clientele in the front room. It was very interesting. Trans folks were not just a subculture, but a sub-sub culture. Because it was a part of gay society, but it was the abandoned stepchild. Gay men didn't like drag queens. They had their own prejudices towards them. [When] you find your way to enlightened people, both trans and not trans, it gives you hope because there are people that empathize, sympathize, and are willing to fight for your cause. Something I learned was an important component about the entire struggle is that we need to convince others that there's justice in your cause and it is a righteous thing to stand with us.
What did you think when you were in that room? Did you feel like you were disappearing into the wall, or what was the feeling in your body?
You're afraid you'll spend your whole evening looking out for yourself. And then after a while, you meet people, you have friends, and they show you how to enjoy the life and how to live it. It's kind of like, it's a dangerous life, and you need support and people who can actually give you the warnings about certain people in certain situations.
Did you tell people you were trans back then, when you were coming into it as a total loner and you had nothing to lose?
There were people that I came out to as trans. But they never had to see the evidence of it because I never transitioned around them. Yeah, but the people in my band knew. I was with that band for 25 years. I would speak to my most close friends. I would reveal to them this curse that I felt I had.
That's so interesting because we hear these stories all the time, but it's pretty rare, I think, that folks in your position are honest with the people around them.
But that's the way it was for most of my life. It was a secret life. I started dressing and was going out myself. I've been doing that pretty much my whole life. When I was a very small child, after the Christine Jorgenson revelation in the 1950s. I was just dressing up in my sister's dress and going out at night, like at 2:00 in the morning.
Were you in Arizona still?
We were living in East LA. We left there in '54 or '55. We lived in the Pico Union area around Olympic and Union [during] my teen years. I dressed a lot in those days. I went into the army and then went to law school, and that's when I saw the full-blown community on Hollywood Boulevard-drag clubs and that type of thing. It was a revelation.
What what do you think prevented you from transitioning back then?
A lot of us get killed out there. It's common danger, you know, for people on the streets to get killed. The police, too, would not hesitate-because of their contempt for us-to engage in police brutality. They'd hit us.

Also, it's a sense of duty. I've been driven by that. A sense of obligation. Especially when I started practicing law and I had clients and they were counting on me. Their lives, their futures, were on my shoulders. If I transitioned, it would just pull the rug out from all of them. Especially when I started doing death penalty cases. I started doing them in the 80s. My transition was probably imminent back then, but I couldn't do it. I felt like I had taken on the greatest challenge of my life. I felt an enormous sense of responsibility and felt I couldn't do it. And then, at some point, I felt like, I refuse to die like this. I would tell people: "I'm coming out to you as trans, I'm going to be going through a sex change, I understand that you hired a dude. You didn't get one."

I'd say, "If you don't want to stick with me, I know some of the best lawyers in LA, I guarantee that you'll be well represented." They all said, "No, I'll stick with you." It kind of blew me away, actually. I thought somebody someplace would not because I was trans. It was amazing how they stuck with me, matter of fact; amazing how the entire legal and professional community stuck with me. Didn't expect that either! Think about it for a second, no lawyer had ever been trans in the criminal courts of California.
What year was it when you came out?
2003. 15 years ago.
So you were meeting these trans youth primarily as a public defender, and did you ever disclose to them that you were also trans?
Yeah, but to them, I was a coward for not coming out right then and there. I told them, "I have the same feelings about myself that you do." They were like, "Then why don't you do something about it?" And the answer was, "Because I'm fearful. You are not, but I am." I was a coward, I respect that. But I can help you more as Michael than I can as Mia.
So what was life like when you came in to the community as Mia?
It was interesting, I came out and then I came out in court. I came to court dressed and, you can imagine, eyes popping and jaws dropping. I did it anyway, the first district attorney 's question was, "So what do we call you now?" I said, "That's a perfect question, I call myself Mia now. Thank you for asking." When I started this, I got some interesting responses from people. I expected a certain level of ridicule and rejection, but it wasn't as bad as you might think.

"Every trans person should aspire to everything. "

There's a legal paper in the community called the Daily Journalist -it's a daily legal paper here. They wanted to do a profile on me as a lawyer. I said, "Listen, I got this one issue that's going to overwhelm your profile." They said, "That's even better, we'll make that a feature article." So they put it on the front page of the daily legal paper.

That was the best thing that could happen, because I didn't have to come out to 10,000 people. It all came out at once. From my point of view, it was amazing because I'd go to court after that article is published and people then expected me to come to court dressed, which was perfect. But when the article came out, people literally would be lined up at the bar in the courtroom that that delineates the bench from the audience to give me a hug and a kiss and congratulate me. I never expected that, it was amazing! The guys were like, "We got your back homie," and the girls were saying, "Welcome to the club."
What are your feelings now, in the Trump era? I mean, you've been living your life as Mia for 15 years and witnessed immense changes within your time as an out trans person.
I feel like what I have to do is be as visible as possible, because I represent a community that's being targeted not just by bigots but by the president of the United States. I've been in solidarity with all the people he's been targeting, since he's been targeting them. I always say, I am Muslim, I am a Jew, I'm Black, I'm a woman-I am all the people that he wants to come down on. It's not like I'm late to this party. He's been coming after trans people lately, but he's been going after other people I identify with a lot longer. I've been in opposition to him and in solidarity with people who are oppressed. Those are the people I have to care about, because they don't get cared about enough by people who are privileged, who, you know, are able to make a living. They are struggling and they are reliant on people like me to care about them and have the ability to advocate for them. Even this article is a place where I can say, "they need us, they're our brothers and sisters in need." Like even any refugee that ends up at our border, they are our brothers and sisters in need. They are our responsibility and our obligation. Everyone of us who enjoys the benefits of citizenship should be paying heed to the moral aspect of what it means to be American. We have to reach out to migrants, immigrants, all kinds. We've got to treat each other better, care more about each other.

I feel like [in] the transgender community, there's a lot of fear and there's a lot of disappointment and despair going on right now. But I've always been the type that says: "Okay, the challenge is great. We have to rise to it." I always say this: There is no real great courage without great fear.

Okay, if you're going after transgender people-bring it on, fuck you! I've been on the side of all the people you've been oppressing this whole time, so I'm glad you got around to me by now. You know, if I'm your enemy, you might as well know it. I'm not afraid of you. You're just a punk politician. I'm not afraid of you.
Yeah, we are a bunch of tough cookies. I mean, we're a group of people who have been bullied, humiliated, pushed to the edges of society, and who have lived our lives maneuvering around a status quo that has little conception of our existence and no care of it. We're ready to fight. We're tough by nature.
Yeah we're pretty fierce by nature. We've had to survive and that's an important priority. You grow up as a very feminine boy, believe me, you learn how to fight. I had to learn I couldn't win all these fights but I could hurt 'em. Then, they'd think twice about going after me again.
Mia, this has been such an incredible conversation. Your words are so galvanizing in a time when people feel very defeated.
We need each other, we need to love each other. Especially, when you speak about infighting - we need to be kind to each other, to the people within our group, our movement. I'm not advocating for trying to engage some of the Trump supporters, but we need to listen to each other and we need to listen to those people with whom we disagree. We have to put our differences aside for the sake of community. We can't retake the positions that we've given up without it. We've seen what happens when we're not united. It's really important not to cede power to the fascists, because we know what they will do with it-they'll misuse power. It's important to understand: We can't give it up to them. It's so lazy for people to not vote, not be engaged, and to look out the window one day and say, "Oh, it's a war outside. My god, I never saw this coming."
For More Stories Like This, Sign Up for Our Newsletter Do you have any thoughts on disenfranchised people who don't know where to put there energy, could be putting their energy?
Every trans person should aspire to everything. Be the greatest lead singer in a band, be the best politician, be the greatest lawyer you can be. All those things are going to be available because people fought for us, people advocated for us, people opened doors and made space for us. And you're gonna have to return that favor and pay it forward for the next generation. Nothing good happens without all of us doing it together. This is one movement that you have to get active in, not just for yourself, but for the world; for us to experience a measure of justice, equality, inclusion.

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After Years of Fighting for Trans Kids, Lawyer Mia Yamamoto Came Out Herself

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Photo by Bethany Mollenkof. Read more from our Trans Legends oral history project, a growing archive of interviews with transgender icons and pioneers. Mia Yamamoto, in her own words, was "born doing time." She started her life in a Japanese internment camp in Arizona in 1946-a circumstance that eventually moved her to dedicate her life to social and economic justice as a poverty lawyer and criminal defender.

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This Powerful Analogy Clarifies For Men Why Women Are So Upset With Kavanaugh

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This Powerful Analogy Clarifies For Men Why Women Are So Upset With Kavanaugh

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Writer A.R. Moxon took to Twitter last week to lay out a detailed analogy, hoping to illustrate to other men what it feels like to be a woman in the current climate.

In a series of tweets that have resonated with thousands, Moxon compares rape culture and the female plight to a world in which men frequently have to fear a real threat of being kicked in the testicles - and have little recourse to stop it.

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This Powerful Analogy Clarifies For Men Why Women Are So Upset With Kavanaugh

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Writer A.R. Moxon took to Twitter last week to lay out a detailed analogy, hoping to illustrate to other men what it feels like to be a woman in the current climate. In a series of tweets that have resonated with thousands, Moxon compares rape culture and the female plight to a world in which ...

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'Smart Dress' Records When Wearer Is Touched Without Consent

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'Smart Dress' Records When Wearer Is Touched Without Consent

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3 women wore this 'smart dress' to a club to record how many times they were touched without their consent

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3 women wore this 'smart dress' to a club to record how many times they were touched without their consent

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Post by NowThisHer.

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Rwanda has the highest representation of women in politics in the world. But some women in Rwanda say the country still has a long way to go when it comes to gender equality in daily life.

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Rwanda has the highest representation of women in politics in the world. But some women in Rwanda say the country still has a long way to go when it comes to gender equality in daily life.

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Post by NowThisWorld.

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My mom taught me to never say the "F" word, but this time, I hope she'll APPROVE!

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My mom taught me to never say the "F" word, but this time, I hope she'll APPROVE! INSTAGRAM @Dearalyne Join 70k+ women in our FB group, Girls Gone Global (by Dear Alyne) , to discuss this video and...

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Post by dearalyne.