April Reign

Speak your mind even if your voice shakes

feminism

Happy Mother’s Day

by

This Mother’s Day I want to give a gift to my daughters, the gift of a voice.

Throughout history those who seek to reign despotically first seek to silence and disenfranchise the women, this current PM scrabbling after a majority like a junkie jonesing for a fix is no different. He started by all but completely destroying SWC and has continued to show disdain for women with quotes about “left-wing fringe groups” and Bush style gag laws on abortion for women in war-torn countries, and of course he continues to defund women’s groups and programs.

Senator Nancy Ruth caused a furor when she told aid groups “to “shut the fuck up” about abortion funding, or risk a government backlash.” She speaks the truth. Harper wants nothing more than for women to shut the fuck up and let him get on with destroying healthcare, social housing, women’s groups/shelters, eroding human rights, forwarding a right-wing fundamental christian agenda, and creating a climate of war, building prisons in place of social programs and spending all our tax dollars on funding corporate welfare payments.

My Canada is not a place where women shut up and do as they are told. My daughters are not incubators. We will continue to work for a Canadian society where all are valued and cared for and welcomed.

We will not Shut the Fuck Up!

Computer Tech Barbie – Pink Meets Tech

by

Mashable has a great article on women/Barbie and tech. Mattel has introduced Computer Tech Barbie and some are upset that she has her usual pink accessories, but for women and girls who like pink or pretty does fashion preference automatically rule out career choice?

This false dichotomy — that you have to choose between being feminine and “looking the part” of a mathematician or scientist — might be part of what turns girls off from math and science in the first place.

Or maybe girls don’t aim for careers in math and science because they don’t see role models. Even Ada Lovelace had role models. Her mom, the “Princess of Parallelograms,” loved math and gave Lovelace a very intensive math education. And Lovelace was also mentored by legendary female science writer and polymath Mary Somerville.

Or maybe girls are afraid of being the only woman in their technology courses or workplaces. If that’s the case, their concerns are certainly warranted. Not only are fewer women entering the information technology field, but more women are leaving the field mid-career.

A recent Harvard Business Review report, The Athena Factor, notes that “52% of highly qualified females working for SET [science, engineering, and technology] companies quit their jobs, driven out by hostile work environments and extreme job pressures.” These women report that they lack mentors and feel intense isolation in the workplace.

The article also points to a great female role model Ada Lovelace;

In 1842 Charles Babbage was invited to give a seminar at the University of Turin about his analytical engine. Luigi Menabrea, a young Italian engineer, and future prime minister of Italy, wrote up Babbage’s lecture in French, and this transcript was subsequently published in the Bibliothèque Universelle de Genève in October 1842.

Babbage asked Ada Lovelace to translate Menabrea’s paper into English, subsequently requesting that she augment the notes she had added to the translation. Ada spent most of a year doing this. These notes, which are more extensive than Menabrea’s paper, were then published in The Ladies Diary and Taylor’s Scientific Memoirs under the initialism “A.A.L.”.

In 1953, over one hundred years after her death, Lovelace’s notes on Babbage’s Analytical Engine were republished. The engine has now been recognized as an early model for a computer and Lovelace’s notes as a description of a computer and software.[26]

Her notes were labeled alphabetically from A to G. Note G is the longest of the seven. In note G, Ada describes an algorithm for the analytical engine to compute Bernoulli numbers. It is generally considered the first algorithm ever specifically tailored for implementation on a computer, and for this reason she is considered by many to be the first computer programmer.

The computer language Ada, created on behalf of the United States Department of Defense, was named after Lovelace. The reference manual for the language was approved on 10 December 1980, and the Department of Defense Military Standard for the language, “MIL-STD-1815”, was given the number of the year of her birth. In addition Lovelace’s image can be seen on the Microsoft product authenticity hologram stickers.[citation needed] Since 1998, the British Computer Society has awarded a medal in her name[27] and in 2008 initiated an annual competition for women students of computer science.[28]

Pill Goggles

by

You’ve heard of beer googles, which wiki defines as

The term is often humorously applied when an individual is observed making advances towards, later regretting sexual contact with, a partner that is deemed unattractive, unacceptably scandalous, or repulsive when the prospect of sex is considered while sober. The “beer goggles” are considered to have distorted the “wearer’s” vision, making unattractive people appear beautiful, or at least passably attractive.

But did you know that “some people” claim there is such a thing as Pill Goggles? I kid you not. The very knowledgeable [no I couldn’t keep a straight face while typing that] at the pill kills campaign have glommed on to a study that claims

hormones in the pill and other hormonal contraceptives suppress a woman’s interest in masculine men and make boyish men more attractive

“We’ve gone from 1940s and 50s manly heroes Charlton Heston and Sean Connery to today’s baby-faced heartthrobs like Zac Efron and Johnny Depp,” said Katie Walker, American Life League’s communications director. “More reasons to never, ever go on the pill.”

Now remember how everyone thought Rock Hudson was a big old manly man but really he literally was a man’s man?

Well good ole boy Heston has a different love interest also

and Sean Connery while I love many things about him has also condoned domestic abuse, of course so do the type of misogynists who support orgainizations such as ALL and the Pill Kills.

Now for some sense

Firstly, it’s important to point out that this is a non-systemic review. A non-systemic review is one that doesn’t describe the methods used to choose the papers which are included in it. The authors say that 75% of the studies performed in the past decade support their conclusions. But how did they choose the 72 studies included in their review? How exhaustive was their search? Without explaining these methods, it’s entirely possible that the review is biased, focusing on research which supports the writers’ preformed conclusion. Small, non-random samples aren’t fit mathematically to be expanded to populationsBut even assuming that the choices were comprehensive when it comes to the literature, there are flaws in those, too. Most of these studies have incredibly low, non-random sample sizes (i.e. Furthermore, when comparing women who are on the pill to those who are not, the treatment group the women are in isn’t double blind or random. The two groups are self selected – aka women who are on the pill already versus those that aren’t. There is no control, no group that takes a placebo or, at least, goes from not taking the pill to taking it (with one exception – kind of. I’ll explain in a minute). No clinical studies into side effects – like those done on various pharmaceuticals – would be tolerated without these kinds of controls. It goes back to the underlying scientific question of the chicken or the egg. It’s possible that taking birth control affects one’s mate preferences. It’s also possible that those with certain mate preferences are more interested in taking birth control, particularly those interested in the pill over other contraceptive methods like condoms. The studies examined in this review lack the power and structure to determine the difference. After all, studies have shown that there are differences in contraceptive use between political, religious, and age groups. Is it not entirely likely that underlying factor might stimulate a woman to be attracted to ‘boyish’ men and take birth control, like her religious preferences? The only study covered in the review which did, at least, compare women before and after taking the pill, did not randomly select women for each group. The women elected to take the pill or not, which means it does not rule out all of these issues.

Full ALL email which I post for your viewing snark

Washington, DC (08 October 2009) – A British researcher has added to the growing body of evidence showing the link between the birth control pill and the rise of the effeminate heartthrob.

Dr Alexandra Alvergne, of the University of Sheffield, says the hormones in the pill and other hormonal contraceptives suppress a woman’s interest in masculine men and make boyish men more attractive, reports the UK’s Daily Mail.

According to the theory, the Pill could contribute to the rising popularity of effeminate men in the last 40 years.

“We’ve gone from 1940s and 50s manly heroes Charlton Heston and Sean Connery to today’s baby-faced heartthrobs like Zac Efron and Johnny Depp,” said Katie Walker, American Life League’s communications director. “More reasons to never, ever go on the pill.”

The research confirms an August 2008 study from scientists at the University of Liverpool showing that “when the women started taking the pill, their preferences shifted towards the scent of men with more similar genes to their own.”

ALL’s project director for “The Pill Kills Day,” Marie Hahnenberg, reported on the potential hazards this places on relationships.

“There is mounting evidence that the pill can seriously disturb a woman’s healthy, natural tendency to be drawn toward a mate with different immune system genes. This, in turn, can lead to having a genetically similar mate, which increases the risk of infertility and miscarriages. It also means that the pill can change a woman’s love interest so much that she could end up in a relationship with someone to whom she normally wouldn’t be attracted.”

American Life League’s “Pill Kills” project is dedicated to exposing the hidden emotional and physical ramifications of the birth control pill. In August 2008 ALL’s Michael Hichborn also released a video

reporting on the hormonal phenomenon of “Pill Googles.”

“While previous generations of women dreamt about rugged intellectuals carrying them off into the sunset, today’s women are expected to pine over break-dancers who own hair dryers and wear skinny jeans,” Walker said. “Give me Charlton Heston any day.”

Her Sight is Worth It!

by

Imagine losing your site to a preventable or treatable cause simply because your are poor or simply because you are female.

“We know her sight is worth it. The ripple effect of providing eye care to a single person is life-changing. You not only give that person their sight and life back, you also free their caregivers. Consider that 75 per cent of blindness is preventable or treatable, often with no more than a 15 minute cataract surgery costing $50 or less”
[snip]
Of the estimated 45 million blind worldwide, 90% live in developing countries. Of these, 2 out of 3 blind are girls and women, because they receive only half the access to eye care that men do.

To raise awareness SEVA Canada is holding a video contest

You are invited to create a compelling video on the topic of Gender and Blindness. The top three winning short films will be used to inspire and educate the world about the importance of sight and raise awareness of the 30 million blind women and girls.

Basic rules are:

* Videos cannot be longer than 3 minutes.
* You must be 13 or older to enter.
* Contest is open to Canadian citizens or permanent residents.
* Deadline for submissions is 12:00 pm PST, December 15th, 2009. All videos submitted after this time will be disqualified.
* All videos must contain the Seva logo either at the beginning, end or both.
* Three winners will be determined through a combination of audience choice (45%) and our celebrity jury (55%).

So all you budding film makers and YouTube junkies have a chance to showcase your talents for a good cause. And best of all,
The the top three winners will also be honoured by having sight restored to one girl and one woman in their name.

Click here for further information.

Feminists Less Hostile Toward Men than Non-Feminists

by

A small study conducted at the University of Houston has found what I have found from anecdotal research for years, non-feminist women actually harbour more animosity toward men than feminists do.

Our work finds that, indeed, non-feminists believe in traditional gender roles such as men being breadwinners and women being caregivers. At the same time, these non-feminists actually appear to resent the confines of the traditional roles they advocate, which presents a paradox for women and men in traditional heterosexual relationships.

more on the study here and lots of info in the comments