I sat through a slightly boozy dinner with my mother-in-law who was going on and on about how the first time she had a meal with my father-in-law’s family, she was appalled by the way the children were allowed to run around and do what they like. My mother-in-law is French and my father-in-law is French/English. She…

I don’t plan to have children, but I have nieces and a nephew - this is brilliant information that I will put to use with the littlest one. Granted, its going to make me look like the aunt who doesn’t want kids and don’t know how to deal with them - which I am - but its straight up genius.

That’s pretty much my interpretation. Which is part of what makes me pretty torn, really. On the one hand, I want a candidate that stands by their beliefs. On the other hand, like it or not a huge part of the country believes very differently on a number of issues. Sometimes principled disagreements result in…

So, I’ve seen one of these with the current candidates and Obama mapped out and she doesn’t appear far off from Obama and is relatively close to Bernie. Granted, that’s obviously someone answering with their interpretation so, grain of salt. I’m a Bernie fan, but wanted to understand exactly how screwed we were going…

Um, yes. This. I had one doctor figure this out when I was living in the states. However, since moving to the UK - impossible to get. They all feel that since I’m doing well in my Doctorate I must be coping. What they don’t realize/believe is that I can’t sleep at night because I’m jumping from anxious thought to…

What about debating the nature of religious ideas is non-theological?

That’s a theological argument that is by no means universally settled or agreed. Hint: there are many who argue that this line of thinking is apologist, rather than factual. That two monks guide their followers to believe this way is good, I think as a woman, but it is not the guiding principle by which the majority…

This new law will make it so that women will need to gain permission from their families and the community at large if they want to marry outside of their religion. So what women have done historically in regards to Buddhism is made moot in this instance. The law, as I understand it, does not make any similar…

That’s exactly what its about - protecting the religious community, but veiled in language around protecting Buddhist women.

So, my frame of reference is Burma, which is technically Theravada. I work there as an anthropologist and my informants (mostly nuns and monks, but also some laity) are very clear that women cannot be enlightened until they are reincarnated as men.

Nope. Also Bodu Bala Sena in Sri Lanka (they’ve been meeting with U Wirathu from MaBaTha) are violent Buddhist extremists, and there are similar issues with the monks in Thailand. Michael Jerryson’s book called Buddhist Fury looks at Thailand, but he’s also written a compendium which examines 8 or so different…

It’s also worth differentiating between different forms of Buddhism. Theravada (the Buddhism of Myanmar, Thailand, Sri Lanka, etc.) is very different from the Mahayana you get in Japan, etc. Theravada seems to have retained a fair bit of intensity and hierarchy - for starters, women can’t ever reach enlightenment.…

Anthropologists can’t even agree on a definition of religion - so I think basically ‘ideology’ of any kind can be used for ill purpose, because humans are the worst.

Yeah, I’m actually writing my dissertation on women’s support for MaBaTha as we speak. This is one of 4 similarly controversial laws. For example, there is another law to limit childbirth, particularly when there are “a high number of migrants in the area, a high population growth rate and a high birth rate” - its…

I can’t be the only person to say this but I can’t seem to scroll through all the comments - the title says ‘Sudanese’ and the first line says ‘South Sudanese’ - I realize I’m sensitive to this as I’ve lived and worked in South Sudan, but South Sudan is a country, not a region (4 years of independence) so unless you…

I was there too. I have to say, overall I was sort of disappointed by all of the “Barclays diversity team!” -type groups. It felt so corporate and very staid. Loads of people but it felt really sort of bland.

I’ve been saying this for a while now. I would love Bernie to be president. That said, I want to watch the polls. If I see consistent polling to indicate that Bernie would do better than Hilz in the general than great. If he can’t pull it out, I’m not risking it. He is amazing, but 6 years of amazing (nothing major is…

I finish my final exam of grad school tomorrow and I have nothing planned but to binge watch season three with absolutely no shame.

Now is the perfect time to remind everyone that Stewart stole my ex boyfriend’s, ex girlfriend (before me) away. I never met her, but boy oh boy did she trade up. And our ex wasn’t half bad.

I’m kind of amazed by these two commenters going out of their way to try to make you feel insecure. Speaking of high school shit - I’m pretty sure I’ve seen this before and it was immature then, too. You keep doing you, Jia, you are great and I like that you make snarky comments when people try to make themselves into…