Here’s the thing, I don’t know what a “truly feminist world” would look like. I kind of figure that it would depend on who you ask. If it’s one where glass ceilings have been removed, women occupy 40%-60% of top management, 40% to 60% of STEM majors are women, and government provides high quality childcare; [...]

Thanks for getting what I wrote; even though you probably deal with way more than I do and could use the understanding more.

First, Samhita, you do this all day every day, and you’ve accidentally perpetuated able-ist oppression through your language. Beyond the language and the concepts that you toss around, your brand of feminism is really hard to do. I think that you hook people at “Hey, this woman is getting paid less for doing the same [...]

1. I agree that the police are better for enforcing the law. I wanted people to be able to reach their friends so that they could call them before there’s an actual crime. Your friends will accept that you might be creeped out by a situation, and help extract you from it. The police may [...]

Actually I built it for the acquaintance rape situation. Some nameless and faceless stranger isn’t tied into the victim’s social world, and can consequently escape. Someone the victim knows has enough social overlap for a recording of the incident to be devastating. I figured that so many rapists rely on the high chance that the [...]

Just a thought… I’ve always wondered if there’s a “perceived willingness to find a new job” factor that affects salary. Are men more likely to find a new job if they don’t feel like their current job values them enough, or are they more likely to be perceived as willing to find a new job [...]

I feel your pain. The problem is that everything that you do with your appearance broadcasts something about you, and you may have just painted yourself into a particular group. My Tevas and Chacos make me look kind of crunchy yuppy hippy, but I can’t resist all terrain sandals that I can hike 10 miles [...]

I’m not arguing that those reasons I gave are somehow noble, but they are the reasons that I would hesitate, or that it would simply not occur to me to attend such an event.

I’m going to wade into this with all the grace of a water buffalo, and I expect that things will not go well. For the sake of encouraging positive discourse, I’ll take some condemnation. Reasons I wouldn’t attend a racially oriented panel: 1. Feeling like a tourist: I feel avoid churchy style environments because there [...]

I agree with you on food addiction. I’d venture though that a lot of food is made to be addictive as possible. So much food is packed with refined starches, sugars, fats, and msg to give people the kind of little high that they’ll want again. I agree with you entirely. Also, I have to [...]

That got weird. Your belief in female superiority sounds like something that would be more at home on Fetlife. Seriously, search groups for “female superiority” on there. It sounds like you’re questioning feminism because you don’t like how women behave sometimes? I’d comment on that being contradictory to feminism, but I’m not clear on whether [...]

I had a close male friend who hated his job and was eager to leave struggle greatly with the extra burden his leaving would put on his coworkers. He also wanted to make sure that he left on good terms even though he hadn’t received a raise in years while dealing with progressively more responsibility [...]

You can never know everything about someone’s experience. Everyone has different valuations on different aspects of life.
I think that the job market differs greatly depending on your skill set. Some fields have vast gluts of applicants and some have shortages. More just have gluts right now though.

The current economy does cut down on choices and opportunities, and it is hard to ask this question when you’re willing to settle for anything. I would think that cultural attitudes would still be evident. There are also a lot of very employable people in this economy, and I’ve seen some people trading up to [...]

It feels like the the populist theme that Republicans have embarked on is all about blaming lazy poor people and rewarding the rich. It works because on a broad level people like to have someone below them. I think that liberal institutions have broadly discredited themselves by sticking to rhetoric and refusing to deal with [...]

For a long time I’ve assumed that whenever I look back a few years at myself I’ll think “How could I be so young, naive, and foolish?” When I look back five years and don’t roll my eyes at at least some of my past thoughts and values, I’ll get worried. You could have broken [...]

Jenny, I’ve got to admit that I’m really not good at anger. I get angry rarely enough that I’m not sure I know what it’s like to be truly angry. So it’s not a tool that I’ve got at my disposal. So I tend to view emotional outbursts as an unfair tactic for getting one’s [...]

I tend to think of anger as a power play seeking capitulation rather than the opening of a discussion. There’s the threat the person will make a scene or become violent. Rewarding that by capitulating feels like it rewards and reinforces the threatening behavior. I’ve tried to keep from setting off the “will get angry [...]