Before an hour ago, I couldn’t have named one good thing to come out of Alabama off the top of my head, except maybe Helen Keller. But good news! Now I have one more thing: Last week, Judge Myron H. Thompson, a federal judge in that state, ruled that a new law requiring abortion doctors […]
Cienna Madrid
Posted inPolitics
Dissecting the Life of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford
Last week, Canadian courts released a 500-page dossier on Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, detailing all of his alleged illegal activities—including interviews with staff on his alleged drug use and his alleged offers/threats to eat out various women’s boxes, right down to more harmless stuff, like routinely pocket dialing his coworkers while pissing. Talking Points Memo, […]
Posted inGirls Only!
The Photographer Who Captures Images of Her Catcallers
Photographer Hannah Price lives in Philadelphia where she takes photos of men who catcall her in public places. Her work is thoughtful and noticeably un-angry: … she says she doesn’t know how the project will affect the behavior of the men depicted: “I don’t think it makes them re-think catcalling. ‘Cause I’m just one person […]
Posted inSex
Teens Can Text Message Planned Parenthood for Birth Control Advice (And You Can Too)
Conservatives can, and have, shut down abortion clinics. They can, and have, cut funding to reproductive rights organizations like Planned Parenthood and blocked sex education from being taught in schools. BUT THEY CANNOT TAKE AWAY OUR PHONES: One goal of the national Planned Parenthood organization is to be there for those young people—to, as Leslie […]
Posted inGeek
Scientists Invent Lightsabers
While most of America is busy shitting their pants in anger over the government shutdown, today Star Wars fanatics have a reason to cream their pants in delight, for scientists now have the technology to create an actual motherfucking lightsaber. More via the Guardian: Harvard and MIT physicists writing in the new edition of Nature […]
Posted inOh, You Kids!
“I’m Gen Y, and I Don’t Feel Special or Entitled, Just Poor.”
In smacking down a mocking Gen Y meme today, Adam Weinstein pretty eloquently sums up what it’s like to be a) a Gen Y-er struggling to pay for basic living expenses on stagnant wages, and b) a struggling modern-day journalist (otherwise known as a successful modern-day journalist). His message is depressing and if you’re young, […]
Posted inScience!
Meet Your Average, Everyday Sadists
In a study published in the journal Psychological Science, Dr. Delroy L. Paulhus explains the results of experiments designed to identify people predisposed to revel in others’ suffering—like those who cheer at sports games when people get injured. People he calls “everyday sadists.” The experiments involve crushing bugs and white noise: In the study’s first […]
Posted inGirls Only!
Texas Women Now Have to Drive Hours for Non-Shamey Healthcare
A Texas A&M student says she was lectured by her doctor for having a hickey and asking for birth control. >:( Now, thanks to the implementation of the state’s new anti-abortion laws, her only recourse is to drive hours out of her way to acquire birth control and non-shamey healthcare: Athena Mason’s first doctor’s visit […]
Posted inNews
Four Men Sentenced to Death for India Rape
Via the New York Times: NEW DELHI — Four men convicted of a brutal gang rape were sentenced Friday to die by hanging, a decision met with satisfaction on the part of the victim’s parents and triumphant cheers from the crowd outside the courthouse, where some held up makeshift nooses and pictures of hanging bodies. […]
Posted in$$$
Activists Protest Scrubbing Women from English Currency
Activists dressed as suffragettes rallied outside of the Bank of England today, protesting the bank’s recent decision to replace the only woman currently featured on the country’s banknotes—social (and prison) reformer Elizabeth Fry—with a man. Via Rawstory: A row erupted over the representation of women on banknotes when Carney’s predecessor, Sir Mervyn King, announced as […]
Posted inGeneral
Street Harassment
Two Can Play at This Game!
Some men think of creeping on women as a game. Here’s how to beat them at their favorite summer pastime.
Posted inComedy
Go Read This Loooong, Gooood Patton Oswalt Piece on Joke Theft, Rape Jokes, and Heckling
Patton Oswalt has written a very long, very measured, and very interesting thought piece that explores several very touchy aspects of comedy, including joke thievery among comedians, the public’s dismissive attitude towards humor as intellectual property, the nature of rape jokes, and heckling. Here’s an example: The comedians I’ve known who joke about rape—and genocide, […]