The root of the "gentle" in gentleman is "gentil", as in noble birth. The word and concept of gentleman has had privilege, entitlement, and structural sexism built in from the get-go. Men who respect women as people and equals, and there are tons of them, are not gentlemen, they are just men and good people.

HAH! When I first got on the internet, I somehow ran across some crap about the Necronomicon, and couldn't figure out what it was. This was way before google, and web-searching was still pretty spotty (and I was very new at it; this was back when boolean search terms was basically required knowledge), so I didn't…

I grew up in a place where drinking isn't regulated like here, and as a kid, I did drink (sometimes) at parties with my friends, but really, we weren't that interested in it. It just wasn't that much of a big deal. Only the rare ones that would drink too much and really misbehave would get in trouble (like for the…

Kicking someone's skull in is just as primal and evil as raping someone- fixing the system and using it in these cases will be the only way to affect change.

I am going to take this response to all of my colleagues tomorrow and you will have won more fans than you'd ever know. ( I teach in Dubai.) I truly appreciate the enormous compliments but honestly, this is all I know how to do! Maybe you have chosen the " safe route" but you have a hell of a head on your shoulders…

supremely well written, again. Manufactured and reactionary outrage is the lowest level of intellectual discourse. That's why I loved mark Cubans honest answers on race. Black people in America respect that kind of honesty because it opens up a respectful and well intentioned discussion. I have been a special…

It is sort of a brave new world for parenting in terms of sheer volume and variety of information (which I am thankfully a few years away from fully confronting, as my daughter is only 3, so all her access is mediated through me currently), but the underlying principles of oversight and engagement are still relatively…

holy Christ you are a breath of fresh air! Beautifully written, fearless and just enough anger in all the right places.

There's a reason we have different standards for adults and children. We don't say a twelve year old should be treated as an adult if she has sex with an adult — no matter how much she "wanted" it, because we have decided that young children don't have the capacity to consent, or to sign contracts, or to rationalize…

This is what the school's dress code actually says:

While it sounds like this was enforced in a totally inappropriate manner, the idea that boys and/or girls should be allowed to wear whatever to school is silly and doesn't teach them needed life skills, like say, dressing appropriately for different environments. Honestly, our school spends more time trying to get…

Well, the school has to draw the line somewhere. Sucks that it affects tall girls the way that it does, but it's better to be a little too careful than too careless.

If you had a historically accurate understanding of the waves of antisemitism that preceded WWI by centuries all over Europe but especially in Germany, you'd really want to find a different example, as the Holocaust is a perfect, if much larger scale, example of how widespread social attitudes contribute to mass…

It also leads to heat stroke, because you every time you drive a British car, you have to be wearing a rain poncho to stay dry, and have a fire extinguisher resting in your lap in case it catches fire. If neither of those things happens, the constant fear of drowning and burning to death at the same time will…

Oh, let me add on to this one.

Thank you for the respectful dialogue, because that is what moves us all forward.