Posts Written by James

I tried to do something about rape. (Built an App) Now I need help.

Trigger Warning: I don’t mean for this to be triggering, but I can see how it might be.

So a few year’s back I read that “400,000 campus rapes a year” statistic somewhere in the feminist internet. Finding it to represent more suffering than I could comprehend, I gave some thought to what I could do. In the end I hired a team to build an iPhone app, RealHelp. The idea was to be able to involve everyone who might possibly care about you in your current situation with the touch of a button. I reasoned that every potential rape or abuse victim has friends and family who would happily intervene if given the chance, and I intended for RealHelp to give them that chance.   The end result was an app that can stream audio and location to dozens of pre-selected contacts in real time. You can open the app, slide a button, and know that dozens of people who you trust just got a message on their phones telling them how worried they should be and how they should respond. Anyone who tapped through into the current session will see where you are on a map, and will be able to hear what’s happening around you. Anyone who slept through the alert will have a link to the archived web version of the event. You can even choose to post it to all of your friends’ Facebook pages if you want to get ...

Does risk aversion and confidence hold women back?

I recently witnessed a female friend on Facebook trying to figure out whether to accept a job from a small but growing start-up company or a more certain and stable job with an established organization. My first thought was that “Hey, it’s a gamble, but you’ve got a lot more to gain if the start-up takes off. So that might be worthwhile even if it doesn’t pay as well.” Then it turned out that the start-up paid better, but the question was how stable they might be for the long run. Interpret it as you like, but to me it lo0ked like someone’s preference for security holding them back. I’d like to know how others see it, and how they ...

I recently witnessed a female friend on Facebook trying to figure out whether to accept a job from a small but growing start-up company or a more certain and stable job with an established organization. My first ...

How does gay male society impact Feminist views on sexual objectification?

How do you reconcile a thriving gay male community with thriving porn, sex work, and naked bodies used to sell products; with Feminist views on sexual objectification that would seek to eliminate those same aspects of heterosexual society?

This is a question, not a challenge, and not a conclusion of any kind. I’m just curious as to how Feminism takes into account what an all-male society would look like, since we do have a well developed example.

How do you reconcile a thriving gay male community with thriving porn, sex work, and naked bodies used to sell products; with Feminist views on sexual objectification that would seek to eliminate those same aspects of heterosexual ...