I don't know for sure but I believe he talked about it with my niece because they came to the grudging conclusion that she would join (and she is happy that she did) since, in that University at least, if you aren't a cheerleader or in a sorority, you are pretty much a social pariah.

I really disagree. I think you can make those arguments about a lot of cultural institutions (and I do myself, all the time!), but when it comes to something where the very premise is the public appraisal of women, I don't think that's a salvageable tradition. Unless we're talking about transforming pageants so much…

Oh, lots of "bird lovers" think cats should be killed. It's the conventional wisdom among bird-centric organizations. The Audubon Society magazine's editor called Tylenol an "excellent cat specific poison." So-called wildlife "conservationists" have been blindly supporting trap and kill policies for cats for…

YOU'RE a punishment for unprotected sex.

Your example makes me even more sure of what I suspect: conservatives really just have a problem with teaching girl children anything. Period. I can't imagine a less objectionable, more heteronormative charity for young girls to participate in. It's all "babies yay" and "responsibility yay" without being overbearing…

I have lived through this during my teenage years in India. I have had close friends, albeit from financially unstable households, sold off to child marriage, become pregnant young, face domestic violence, even die to dowry (the last two were common in the middle class as well as upper class). Absolutely nothing is…

I have/had family members for whom "Yankee" is to be used as a bad word, sure. But New York uses that moniker for pride and ownership (obligatory YANKEES SUCK here). Whereas the "Redskins" thing comes from trying to look powerful by associating yourselves with a racial group you deem "savage." It's fucked.

Thank you all for the nice comments. I am very surprised to have received a positive response after all of the commotion out there on "teh interwebz." While I do see the point of the comments that essentially say that her sign is risque, if it started a debate that helped everyone see the type of protesting that was…

I know the suggestion of gynecologist office was a joke, but wouldn't that make a great attack ad? Put a Republican candidate look-alike in stirrups, and have him grin and address the camera directly, "Hi, I'm Richard Mourdock, and I'll never have to sit here in real life, but I still think I'm entitled to decide…

I have a friend who works for the Xbox division, and he also does not have time to play video games in a serious manner.

So I hate me? I'm not trying to be deceptive at all, I'm just smart enough to understand that if you build in systemic disadvantages for minority groups and then act like a "meritocracy" will somehow allow them to overcome those systemic disadvantages, you're full of shit. Chipping away at white privilege is not…

Is this the guy who likes to clutter up any discussion about feminism by demanding that:

I wasn't sure whether you are a troll or not, but I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt.

Outside of a couple of degrees in the subject, I have the same right anyone else has to judge, since it's a very subjective thing. For some the criteria is that it enriches or reflects life, that it needs to be aesthetically pleasing as well as functional, or that all it has to do is fall under the umbrella of…

Not everything that purports to be edgy and artistic actually is, and that shoot was a perfect example - not least because it was shallow and crassly commercial while posing as "art". FYI, there truly was a reason why the people who created it were deceptive in describing it to others: if you aren't ashamed at heart…

So former SEAL here (retired over 15 years). Of course they will alter the standards and they should alter the standards. First off there are levels of SEALs. Obviously one has to reach the first level and then can progress. The value of the SEALs is that AS A TEAM they can accomplish a goal. It is never…

I'm not entirely sure if you saw the video before the trolls took it down or not, but if you had, you would have seen that she DID have counter examples.

I've got to really hand it to Anita Sarkeesian that she is doing, from my perspective, a very good job with these videos. It helps showcase certain repetitive narrative actions where the same thing keeps happening again, and again, and again, and again in modern video games.

For my part, I don't think it's about being a jerk, but about noticing and realizing the prejudices we didn't even know we had. We can be perfectly lovely people and then say things like, "It's not that I don't think black people should be doctors or dentists, they're just naturally better-suited to sex and…