We’ve already heard from the so-called Thinking Housewife on the subject of Sally Ride. Meanwhile, over on The Spearhead, the regulars also have opinions about Ride. Regular commenter Keyster has this to say about Ride’s work in promoting science and technology education for girls:
She was supposed to have inspired a generation of girls to take science and math. While she may have inspired the “Grrl Esteem” movement, very few girls went on to get degrees in math and science as a result of Sally Ride … .
She was frustrated by the fact young girls were very interested in math and science initially, “…but for some reason we lose them around the age of 13.” MMmmm…I wonder why that would be. Because they discovered an interest in boys? Not surprisingly, Sally was able to keep her interest.
That’s right: girls are incapable of thinking about both math and boys. Lesbians are the only women who can sustain an interest in math, because their brains aren’t cluttered with thoughts of Justin Bieber. (Ok, bad example.)
In another comment, Keyster expresses his annoyance at the fact that Ride turned out to be capable of astronautery despite being a woman.
Sally Ride proved that a woman can have “the right stuff”, like Amelia Earheart proved a woman can fly long distances.
OK so now that we know she won’t become hysterical during her period while in outerspace and allow her used tampons to clog the toilet, what do we do with this information? Just because a woman accomplishes something normally associated with men, is this inspiring young girls to spontaneously excel en masse and compete against men in male dominated arenas? Or are women like Sally Ride the exceptions that prove the rule?
You know, “exceptions that prove the rule” aren’t actually a thing. The fact that Ride was a capable astronaut doesn’t actually “prove the rule” that women aren’t capable as astronauts, but instead suggests that this particular rule is not a real rule. You would think that Keyster, as a logical male, would understand this.
@Nanasha As a vegan who lives in the UK* and hates sweet food**, I can confirm that is my nightmare, but it’s more due to the latter two reasons than the first.
(*salt/sweet is just Not A Thing here)
(**I know, I’m weird)
@PsychoDan
Ugh…really? sadly doesn’t surprise me though. Have you heard any of those assholes complain about Samuel L Jackson as Nick Fury? because Samuel L Jackson is Nick Fury now forever in my eyes!
And don’t forget all the people who freaked out that Rue is black in the Hunger Games. They supposedly read the book, but when they saw the film…
I don’t like having to link Jezebel on this, but gotta admit, their coverage was comprehensive:
http://jezebel.com/5896408/racist-hunger-games-fans-dont-care-how-much-money-the-movie-made
You figured wrong. I stated explicitly that pedophilia is a category all by itself. Please learn to read.
Which is why large women have been the apex of beauty since Reubens discovered the form.
“Everyone values the same traits, therefore, genetic diversity”
Methinks you don’t know what at least one of these words means.
As a sideline to the, “innate beauty standard of shape”, I offer the other side of the corset coin.
Flappers. The ideal was to appear that one had a “boyish/manly” figure. Breast-binding, and loose dresses to hide the hips, over slim legs and delicate ankles; accentuated with heels and straps.
Nomless: What you are talking about is homosexual BEHAVIOR, not homosexuality itself. A person who experiments with gay sex is not automatically gay or bisexual! Do you have any stats about how common this behavior is? It is true, however, that straights will become de facto homosexuals when deprived of any sexual contact from members of the opposite sex. Like prison for example.
A very convoluted non-Scotsman.
Shorter: Sexuality is TOTES hardwired, and when it isn’t that’s just people playing silly buggers, or forced to it.
Rigidity cannot fail, it can only be failed.
And the veiled rape joke… not funny. You could have chosen other milieux e.g. monasteries, sailing ships.
Hey Slavey, have I got a book for you! It gets sex entirely wrong and it doesn’t use any sources since the Second World War, despite being published recently.
You’d love it, you big prude.
Argenti: Does that also apply to the geeks playing non-rock-band instruments? I’m truly curious as to when the oboe became sexy.
Are there oboists who have partners? QED it was sexy.
Same for bagpipes, harmonica (look at all the women who swooned for Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan), penny whistle, the pedal harp, the oud.
I know that when I’m noodling on a whistle the women just line up, waiting for my attention.
Or not.
So, Nommie said he don’t think the human race is redeemable.
And I am all, ‘hey, some days I get depressed about humans too.’
Which is actually true. But that is not actually because the human race is objectively bad, it is because I am prone to getting depressed and stuff on account of personal things, and projecting it out at the world. (I am not suggesting the same is true of our friend Nommie… I suspecth his problems are much worse than depression. Like being an asshole.)
One of the biggest cures is people, actually.
Go join a volunteer fire department. Like, immediately.
Yeah, there’s evil in this world. But you show me one Colorado shooter and I’ll show you a hundred thousand men and women putting their lives on the line every night for no reward and damn little recognition. People who will risk their own lives to save others.
Not just to save folks in your group, or good folks. I’ve seen snarly cynical old men risk their lives to save people they didn’t even like.
If you really believe the human race isn’t redeemable, then you have to write off the casual heroics of most of it.
And if you’re enough of an asshole that you can just ignore them… well. Supreme assholery at its finest.
Will your machine overlords have half that humanity, Nommie? Can they?
Nomless: Certain people(with certain traits) will ALWAYS be more attractive than others,
This is lacking in content. Define your terms. As it is you have built a tautology (this not new).
Based on the way the world works… the standard of beauty seems to be: Black hair, dark eyes, non-white skin.
But… since “beauty” isn’t hardwired, there are places where pale skin with freckles is attractive. Where oddities like red-hair thrive.
Where slim hipped women get lots of dudes.
And the male standards, also variable.
But, when it comes to the dominant look, it’s dark.
I’m surprised nobody has mentioned the word symmetrical in all this.
I think that humans find beauty in symmetry to be a compelling argument.
New sci-fi hypotheses; you’re not dealing with a transhumanist, you’re dealing with a Vulcan. It’s all that “emotion gets in the way of my purity of thought” doggerel….
Bad luck Surak fan, “The Singularity” is a long way off.
Think that because we’ve got electricity licked (sort of…a bit) we can recreate the impulses in brain matter and everything will be okay online?
No f**cking way. We’re only just noticing the incredibly complex interactions of biochemical hormones and receptors that govern a brain and sadly for you, “emotional” responses are totally a part of that.
But if you wanna blame something rational, try blaming the invention of agriculture before righting off the species…Go on, look into how it might have effected our ongoing evolution – dare you.
Errr…why not let Jared Diamond look into it for you for some inspiration first-
http://www.ditext.com/diamond/mistake.html
And “Woman’s Intuition” doesn’t exist. What we do have is capacity to observe our surroundings, the interactions of everything within in it and respond accordingly. (It’s a skill that served our ancestors far better than anything the evo-psch goons like to come up with… ).
@MGNW: yeah; calling what women know ‘women’s intuition’ is just more men writing off anything women had to say. But Nommie is happy to piggyback on that fine tradition.
I love Jared Diamond, because now I can quote a respectable scholar who demonstrates the lie that the hunter-gatherer lifestyle was ‘nasty, short and bruttish’ instead of having to quote John Zerzan (who references solid research but has taken them to such far out political conclusions that it discredits the research by association).
Oh, ugh.
Fannie of fanniesroom.blogspot.com posted a thoughtful examination of the unfair burden MRAs put on feminists to condemn/do the work of deconstructing shows like Snapped!.
So now some very familiar faces are crawling out of the woodwork to accuse her and all feminists of misandry.
Here.
And we went through another such trend in the 60’s (???) with Twiggy. That seems to fluctuate. There are people who argue that there is some perfect “waist/hip” ratio that stays constant, but otherwise we do have trends in fashion and body types that are certainly not constant. You can find ads from the late 19th century for “fat farms” that were aimed at helping women GAIN weight, because at that time the popular silhouette was the hourglass.
You know why the show Snapped exists? Because female murderers are a minority of murderers, and “man bites dog” is what leads in our media, so this show sensationalizes it. 89% of murders are committed by men. And before any of our resident trolls chime in, I also realize that most murder victims are men. In the majority of cases, men are murdering men.
http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/homicide/gender.cfm
There is a bacon chocolate bar: http://www.vosgeschocolate.com/product/bacon_exotic_candy_bar/exotic_candy_bars
This is a thing that exists.
Emphasis mine. Ya know what I find creepy? The fact that you continually write “I believe Ella did too” not “and Ella did too” or “and Ella told me she also thought xyz ridiculous thing as well” no, it’s always “and I believe Ella would too” or “I believe Ella did too”.
This says to me that at the very least, you aren’t actually actively seeking out her opinions on things, you’re just assuming she agrees with you. Which, yeah, is fucking creepy dude. Maybe try talking to her, asking her opinion. My calling you creepy is not a gendered slur, it’s an assessment of what I see to be demonstrated creepy behavior.
I really like chocolate-covered bacon, and I’m craving it now.
@ostara:
Yeah, I noticed that too. What, you didn’t bother discussing it with her?
It’s hard to have a conversation with your imaginary friend in public.
Good point about symmetry, indifferentsky. I wouldn’t be surprised if that was universally (or near universally) considered beautiful. Mind you, I haven’t examined a whole lot of cultures to see if this holds true, and I don’t want to fall into the evo psych trap of declaring something is biological when I haven’t done the research.
Also, I think my eyes kind of glazed over when I read Owly’s last comment, so it could be that I completely misunderstood what he wrote, but did Owly just imply that the desire for money and power weren’t emotions? Because I would have thought that even Owly would understand that greed is an emotion.
ostara321: Now that you mention it, I thought something like that too when he first started talking about her. Though it quickly got buried and forgotten under the apathy I feel every time I see the name “Steele” at the top of a post.
Makes you wonder, if she exists, how much she’s like him. Like if she’s as much of an asshat as he is, or if she just puts up with his shit, or if she even knows how much of an asshat he is (he may just hide it, or at least try to, off-internet). Sucks to think that the first of those three options is actually, marginally, the “better” one.