Are You F—ing Kidding Me?

Posted on March 22, 2016 by wellsdc

I am a bit too angry to see straight, but need to share the utter, reprehensible ridiculousness of this:

An ex-stripper who went on to law school and later was elected a judge was found dead inside her Nevada home Sunday, The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.

Her body was discovered during a welfare check, the report said, and authorities do not suspect foul play.

Municipal Judge Diana Hampton, who was 50, was known by colleagues as a hard worker and appeared to be the perfect picture of health. Her death shocked colleagues, one of whom told the paper he planned to have lunch with the judge this week.

Hampton, who served as a municipal judge for more than a decade, worked with youth in the community to discourage them from crime.

Hampton took an unusual route to her judgeship. She was criticized during her 2005 run for Henderson Department 3 for working as a stripper in Las Vegas prior to pursuing law school. It was a part of her past she did not disavow and reaffirmed that her past had nothing to do with how she would rule from the bench.

“From the very beginning, she decided she was going to be a judge,” said Joe Sciscento, a justice of the peace who knew Hampton for more than 20 years. “She was dedicated to that. She was focused on that, and she wouldn’t let things get in her way.”

[Emphasis added] Continue reading →

America’s First Female Lawyer

Posted on May 26, 2015 by wellsdc

Saturday, May 23 was the birthday of Arabella Mansfield (1846-1911), who, in 1869, became the first female attorney in the United States.

Via National Women’s History Museum / Facebook

Via the National Women’s History Museum on Facebook:

In 1869 she became the first female lawyer in the United States. Mansfield passed the bar despite the fact that the test was only supposed to be administered to men at that time. She challenged the legality of the restriction in Iowa and won her appeal, making Iowa the first state to admit women to its bar.

(h/t Georgette)

From the Iowa Organization of Women Attorneys: Continue reading →

“Your Low Self-Esteem Is Sexy to Me”

Posted on January 20, 2015 by wellsdc

A social experiment involving online compliments from men to women yielded interesting, if disappointing and unsurprising, results (h/t Ragen):

The next time someone sends you a “you’re so hot” opening line on a dating app, try simply saying “Yeah I am.” That’s exactly what one college student started doing, and she got some… interesting reactions.

Claire Boniface, a 20-year-old student, began conducting a social experiment she called “agreeing with boys when they compliment you.” Rather than profess thanks and gratitude to suitors offering compliments via online dating sites, Boniface politely agreed with them.”I was curious to see how the people that messaged me would respond,” Boniface told The Huffington Post. “Often when I get messages on that site simply complimenting me I just ignore them because the compliments are never sincere and I see no reason to respond, so I thought I would try out a simple response of ‘yes’ and see what would happen” She quickly found out that most dudes did not like this.

This is not the first such experiment but the results do not seem to have changed at all.

Now, you might be saying that these are “just compliments,” and/or that she shouldn’t be so egotistical as to agree with the people sending her these messages.

To use a non-appearance or gender based example to address the “ego” question, I present the following hypothetical exchange between two men:

Continue reading →

Ironic Sexism

Posted on August 27, 2014 by wellsdc

I guess it’s the new “ironic racism” or something:

Sofia Vergara has been nominated for an Emmy four times for her work on “Modern Family.” But to the TV academy, she’s a good-looking object to put on display.

Vergara introduced television academy CEO Bruce Rosenblum, who delivered a speech about the state of television, or something — it was frankly hard to pay attention, as Vergara had stepped onto a rotating pedestal so that the audience could view her from 360 degrees. The actress is game for anything and usually makes fun of herself first (as when she made a strange joke about her unfamiliarity with American TV customs, as “Modern Family” prepares for its sixth season). Maybe she shouldn’t!

What I’m Reading, April 28, 2014

Posted on April 28, 2014 by wellsdc

klsgfx [Public domain, CC0 1.0 (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)], via Openclipart Please, Please, Please: Do Not Make Your Kid The Center Of Your Universe, Cassie Murdoch, Jezebel, July 6, 2012

It’s impossible to say for sure that intensive parenting leads to depression and stress and being dissatisfied, but the links don’t really make sense if you flip them around. It’s also not clear whether intensive parenting has any great impact on the children, but Liss concludes that anything that makes moms depressed probably doesn’t benefit children in the long run. Plus, anecdotally some of us have observed that making your child the center of the universe tends to result in rather obnoxious offspring.

Justice Sotomayor accuses colleagues of thinking they can ‘wish away’ racial inequality, Robyn Pennacchia, Death and Taxes, April 23, 2014

Just yesterday, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the people of Michigan had the right, via mob rule, to ban the practice of Affirmative Action at state institutions such as the University of Michigan. It wasn’t a good ruling. Ever since the state voted to ban it, minority enrollment has declined significantly. Which is not surprising, because when you ignore unearned privileged and advantages, it’s hardly shocking when the priviledg and advantaged pull ahead. Obviously the person who starts the race in the middle of a marathon is going to have a better chance at winning.

Continue reading →

What I’m Reading, April 18, 2014

Posted on April 18, 2014 by wellsdc

"MEGAMAN X STAGE 1" by fanboy-supermegaman [CC BY 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/)], via deviantART The angry fanboys, Ophelia Benson, Butterflies & Wheels, April 14, 2014

Feminism isn’t going away. Also? The last thing that would make it go away is condescending assholes calling it feminazi bullshit and threatening to rape all the feminists. All that does is show how desperately it’s needed.

Ron Paul Wants Tax-Exempt Status, But Doesn’t Want To Obey The Rules, karoli, Crooks and Liars, April 16, 2014

I just love the way conservatives want to have their cake and eat it too. Ron Paul’s organization, Campaign for Liberty, is being fined by the IRS because they insist on filing incomplete reports, but if you listen to him whine on Fox News, you’d think he was being persecuted, and horribly so. Continue reading →

When Are Orcs More Plausible than Women?

Posted on February 22, 2014 by wellsdc

By anonymous (modified image: http://freywild.ch/i33/i33en.html) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons The short answer is “never,” but bear with me.

Some guy who goes by the name Vox Day on the internet has announced plans to create a medieval combat video game. The game will allow players to manage the combat of a variety of characters, including humans, elves, and dwarves. The game will also have goblins, orcs, and trolls, but I don’t know if those are playable characters or enemies. (I don’t play much of this style of game, so I don’t know exactly how it works.)

What the game will not have is female characters. At all. Because as far as Vox Day is concerned, women don’t fight in combat, and to claim otherwise would require him to “throw out historical verisimilitude.” (Also, he figures “whiny women” won’t be playing his game anyway.)

As David Futrelle (linked above), Ophelia Benson, Jason Thibeault, and PZ Myers have all pointed out, women have in fact served in combat throughout human history, including in the European Middle Ages (PDF file). I will describe another woman warrior below, but first, I have an observation about Vox Day’s game.

He will include goblins, trolls, orcs, elves, and dwarves in his game, but he considers women to be implausible.

Forget historical accuracy for a second. If you have difficulty even imagining a woman in a combat role alongside actual mythical characters, well, you may have issues.

By U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Keith Brown [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Women in the military? That’s unpossible!

Now then, let me tell you a bit about Milunka Savić. Continue reading →

Lululemon’s Founder on “How Lululemon Came Into Being”

Posted on December 5, 2013 by wellsdc

I’m unclear on how someone who seems to have such a low opinion of living, breathing women (or “females,” as he might call them) came to found a successful company that sells yoga clothing to women. Lululemon’s CEO and founder has been in the news here and there for saying this or that inane (at best), sexist (at worst) drivel, but it doesn’t appear to be anything new. He wrote a blog post on the company’s blog dated March 30, 2009, that details the company’s origins through a, shall we say, creative interpretation of the last forty years of history—starting with “the pill” and culminating in a surge of breast cancer among “cigarette-smoking Power Women who were on the pill.” Here is his conclusion, and you can decide if it piques your interest enough to learn how the events of the 1970’s through the 1990’s shaped the company:

Ultimately, lululemon was formed because female education levels, breast cancer, yoga/athletics and the desire to dress feminine came together all at one time. lululemon saw the opportunity to make the best technologically advanced components for the Super Girl market.

I, uh, um…..ugh. Continue reading →

Test Your Sexism!

Posted on June 22, 2013 by wellsdc

The Ambivalent Sexism Inventory (h/t Shannon) measures “hostile” and “benevolent” sexism, and is sure to prompt defensive reactions from dudes who, like, respect women, man. I scored a 0.45 on hostile sexism, and a 1.00 on benevolent sexism, which apparently makes me a very below-average sexist. I can live with that.

How Not to Improve a Political Party’s Public Image

Posted on May 17, 2013 by wellsdc

The UK Independence Party (UKIP) seems to be having some PR problems. I’m not much up on British politics, but UKIP is, according to Wikipedia,

a Eurosceptic right-wing populist political party in the United Kingdom, founded in 1993. The party describes itself in its constitution as a “democratic, libertarian party” and, as of May 2013, has a membership of 27,000.

UKIP currently has 11 of the 73 UK seats in the European Parliament, three members in the House of Lords, one seat in the Northern Ireland Assembly and 147 local councillors. The UKIP performance in the 2013 local election was the best result for a party outside the big three in British politics since the Second World War, coming fourth in the number of council seats won and third in terms of projected nationwide votes. UKIP has not won a seat in the House of Commons to date.

Stock photo found in a search for “trousers.”

The British media describes the party as “anti-EU.” The party seems to be having a problem with protests, including one in Scotland in which an angry mob shouting “racist, Nazi scum” led to police escorting the party’s leader to safety. What intrigues me are the views of its top contributor, “Greek shipping tycoon”^* Demetri Marchessini. They are quite intriguing in their outspokenness:

Greek tycoon Demetri Marchessini, who believes not wearing a skirt is ‘hostile behaviour’, gave UKIP £10,000 this year – a fifth of all its cash donations.

***

He is the author of a book entitled Women In Trousers: A Rear View in which he photographed women from behind and then commented on their clothes. In it he claimed that the ratio Britain of women wearing trousers to skirts is 10 to 1. Continue reading →

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