I remember the first time I heard about people donating pads/tampons to allow poor girls to continue attending school during their periods. It was one of those needs that was so obvious once someone brought it up, but which privilege protected me from ever having to think of. When that happens, there's this split…

Exactly this. As a shy, awkward nerdy girl I remember endless conversations with other shy awkward nerdy girls about how our male counterparts were tearing themselves apart chasing after girls that didn't know they existed and didn't have nearly as much in common with them as we did. The frustration of that is…

Your explanation assumes that "correctness" is determined by the letter rather than the associated answer but this isn't how we normally think of multiple choice and nothing in the setup suggests it here. If you choose A or D you must be wrong because there was a 50% chance of choosing 25%. If you choose B you must be…

Ah was wondering the same. Meanwhile, NYC transportation costs seem ridiculously high. I'm guessing they're assuming a car rather than a metro card and the occasional split cab.

Yeah, the causation seems weirdly reversed here.

It's not often that I read all the way through a thread this long, but great conversation—thanks for getting it going.

Don't think we're disagreeing—think it's more a question of emphasis.

I don't disagree with any of that—and it's hard to speak fully on these issues in this setting as I feel as though every clause needs a list of caveats and clarifications—but what I was responding to was the fact that your characterization of sexism does the opposite of what you seem to intend it to do: you talk…

I think the point is that women are never allowed to be anything but. If you have a job interview or a date then most of us will put in some effort to look our best (in a way appropriate to the circumstances) but it's the idea that you have to be hot—not even just average but hot—at all times, going to the corner…

I think that might be taking things a bit far to the other extreme. As written in the original post, everyone wants to be attractive. We all talk about and think about the appearance of people of both sexes. If someone looks nice, I don't think paying a compliment is a sign of a lack of respect or a lack of…

Funny, if you had talked to me about this growing up I would have thought this was a problem for WOC more than WW. There is (or was when I was growing up) a fairly well-defined set of standards for what was beautiful within my community and while it was of course influenced by Euro beauty standards (light-skin, light…

I agree with this and I think it goes both ways. If a woman is conventionally beautiful there is a belief that she's being beautiful AT YOU—so if you go for her and get rejected, it's like she tricked you and the response is a similar level of crazed rage. A woman's appearance isn't just the most important thing…

You paint a picture of boys and girls just being born into the world and hit with the sexism bomb, but society is not a supernatural force that imposes itself on us. It is being created and perpetuated by each of us every day. I don't think anyone (well, never say never but very few people) would argue that men…

I get the question a lot as well, and have never understood why because it seems pretty obvious to me what my background is. But I've never found the question itself offensive, unless it came loaded with the implication that I must be something *more* than what I am. But friends and I have talked at length about…

Fair point. I'll note we never see River in her cell, just see her breaking in and setting off the alarm, but own up to the fact that that's a weak save and go back to being bothered by her response to Rory.

Do you remember when? I didn't catch that part. It doesn't change things for me if it is, because we still don't know when they went and how old they were, but it does put limits on when they could have gone back to since they can't be older than upper 30s in the beginning.

For the record, as someone who grew up in NY, I have never thought twice about leaving my borough, let alone my neighborhood, for whatever service/good I needed. Back when I was straightening my hair, I remember a period when every black woman I spoke to told me to go to Washington Heights where "the Dominicans"…

I know Moffat hasn't been so popular in these parts lately, but one of the ways he's earned my trust is by picking up what looked like loose ends/discrepancies ages after you've forgotten about them. Case in point, something that's always bothered me about A Good Man Goes to War: when Rory tries to recruit River,…

I agree. Each episode just feels like they're marking time until we can have our big, sentimental goodbye to the Ponds and get started with the development of a new complex arc with the new companion. It's as if, having decided that they were for some reason not allowed to have the Ponds' story resolved by the end…

Thought this episode had a lot of potential, but the work went into setting up later storylines, rather than developing the best parts of this one. I like the idea of the Daleks coming up with a way to go undercover—part of the reason they were neither scary nor interesting to me before is that you see them coming a…