One of my high school teachers gave us, her girl students, a great tip for responding to street harassment. No cleverness or thinking-on-your-feet required. Just yell at the top of your lungs, "FUCK YOU!" She pointed out that the smaller and more stereotypically feminine you look, the more shocking and effective it…

lagomorphs. :)

"I'm a guy so I don't know what it's like for women... then again, most of my female friends are strong, badass, outdoorsy types, so who knows."

Do you not understand that there is a medium between living in a constant state of terrorized paranoia, and living completely without fear? Lots of women, myself included, live without fear 99.9% of the time, but occasionally, we may catch some sketchy-looking person glancing at us as we walk to our car at night and…

Awwwwww... warm fuzzies!

You probably think you are joking, but that guardian thingy in Monty Python was an exaggeration based on truth. :)

Not if you don't have the internet at home. Just sayin'.

"I don't dust it because THEN IT WINS."

Is "Virginia" a variant on this? What about "Chastity"? When's the last time a child was named that?

Okay, ask any lower-income person whether they'd like to own less stuff, and tell me what they answer.

Enjoy it! I still remember my first "real job" paychecks. I was not by any stretch wealthy, but I bought TWO (2) bunches of cilantro with my groceries, so my bunny could have his very own!

Let me illustrate with a story. My friend K, when she was a (white, upper middle class) teenager, used to go about in dirty jeans, sweatshirts, and sneakers. One day, her sister's boyfriend, who was a (black, lower income) dude, scoffed at her for being "pretentious". She was horrified. "HOW can I possibly be…

What about people who don't watch TV and therefore don't own one because they don't want another thing to dust? Look, we all have our priorities, and you can easily put me into this reverse snob category by pointing out that I live in a 16x20 foot log cabin with neither TV nor running water (yup, for reals), but I…

Two motivations to minimize:

Price goes up with education, up through master's degree. It goes down with PhD. :) However, it seems to go up with income and influence in the job market. On the whole, I think it's tongue-in-cheek and more respectful than I'd have guessed. It doesn't value women who stay firmly in the kitchen and pop out babies.…

Oh I knew that... I had thought you were referring to the latest internet meme of which I was unaware. :) Yeah, I know firsthand that biology does not necessarily equal baby love, but I have observed people get unintentionally knocked up and proceed to fall in love with the baby. I have observed zero people who were…

Fair point. And not all people crave sex, either, for that matter.

Sorry, but our methods of reproduction (fucking—>babies) evolved long before our brains were complicated enough to make the connection. Our natural craving is to have sex, not have babies. Hormones make us fall in love with our children once we have them, but we can circumvent this process with artificial means, i.e.…

Not always, but usually. There are exceptions, obviously, but if humans didn't normally form a natural bond with their offspring, we'd either be born independent, or be born in very large litters, which increases our odds of survival even as dozens of our siblings get picked off (like baby sea turtles).