Category Archives: Sociolinguistics

“Woman President” v. “Female President”

Ann’s post yesterday of the Daily Show clip “Is the U.S. Ready for a Woman President?” reminded me of a pet peeve of mine – the use of “woman” as an adjective. It always seemed to me that when people … Continue reading

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“Nurture strikes back”

That’s the title of an article in the Economist that reports: Some sex differences that look biological are really cultural ONCE upon a time, the only ideologically acceptable explanations of mental differences between men and women were cultural. Any biologist … Continue reading

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Pink Solidarity Among Boys

The orginal story: ‘I’ve stood around too long’ Central Kings students wear pink to send bullies a message By IAN FAIRCLOUGH Valley Bureau CAMBRIDGE : Two students at Central Kings Rural High School fought back against bullying recently, unleashing a … Continue reading

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Sally Haslanger, “Changing the Ideology and Culture of Philosophy: Not by Reason (Alone)”

Haslanger writes in part: There is a deep well of rage inside of me. Rage about how I as an individual have been treated in philosophy; rage about how others I know have been treated; and rage about the conditions … Continue reading

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“On Shame”

This post at Oh No a WoC PhD will really make you think.

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“Sweetener wars reinterpreted as feminist history”

Via Rebecca Tushnet, who says: “From Overheard in New York (ignore the crass headline). Clever, and also up-to-date on the news…”

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Betting the Bippy

My father is a man whose vocabulary  tends toward the mainstream.   If  he hits his thumb with a hammer, he may let out a “goddammit” or two, but he is rarely more profane than that.   He does, however, … Continue reading

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“Sexual Harassment” at Ave Maria

Ave Maria School of Law appears to be an institution on the verge of a serious meltdown. Certainly there is evidence that the Catholic religion treats women as second class citizens.   A new manifestation of the tensions at Ave … Continue reading

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Divisive Dichotomies

This Situationist post describes a talk by Susan T. Fiske entitled”Venus and Mars, or Down to Earth?”Here is an excerpt: In her undergraduate courses in psychology, she couldn’t help noticing that”all the individual differences had a good end and a … Continue reading

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Economist article entitled: “Sex, shopping and thinking pink” reports alleged biologically based talent for shopping and preference for pink within “female brains.” Nope, I’m not buying it either.

I plan to obtain the actual data supposedly supporting what strikes me as completely preposterous conclusions in this article (chock full of evo-psych phrases like “the primordial bargain of human hunter-gatherer societies”), so that I can get a second opinion … Continue reading

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Amananta’s Feminism 101

Excerpt from her latest post at Screaming Into The Void: … If the thought of a man wearing high heels, shaving his body, wearing powder puff pink, eating nothing but tiny salads to try to look no bigger than a … Continue reading

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Anyone spot any possible ethical or impending career difficulties?

Follow the comments of the “Criminal Defense Lawyer” at the NY Robing Room and you will notice the trend to opine negatively regarding women judges. Here is a sample: Hon. Diane Kiesel (Bronx) The nicest thing I can say is … Continue reading

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Wonder What Might Give A Male Criminal Defense Attorney A Laugh?

This apparently did.

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Humorless Feminist Hygiene Around The World

From Mimi Smartypants: I accidentally purchased a maxi-pad instead of a tampon from The People’s Revolutionary Tampon Machine (stupid unlabeled vending knobs—but at least I got my quarter back to try again). The maxi-pad box was labeled in many languages … Continue reading

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Because Women and Men Need Different Kinds Of Diaper Bags

Daisy Gear versus Dad Gear

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Redefining “Peace” To Include Women

From Our Bodies Our Blog: Global Peace Index Fails to Account for Violence Against Women and Children: Describing the Global Peace Index, a ranking of countries according to their level of peacefulness published by the Economist Intelligence Unit, Riane Eisler, … Continue reading

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There Is Nothing Rebellious Or Countercultural About Being “Pro-Porn”

From a NYT article entitled “Federal Effort on Web Obscenity Shows Few Results” we learn about a Justice Department grant to a conservative religious group called “Morality in Media” that pays people to review “sexual Web sites and other Internet … Continue reading

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Are You An Othered Feminist?

Twisty deconstructs that Are You A Feminist? Quiz making the rounds in two parts: Are You A Fake Feminist?   and “My PMS Disaster Level”: High I particularly liked this excerpt from the post at the first link: … Where … Continue reading

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The Sex History Show

Podcasts “dedicated to uncovering how sex has shaped our history and our present.” Via the f-word where Jess McCabe notes: “Recent topics include the history of miscegenation in the US, and investigates who first coined”gay”words. Like, um,”gay”.” –Ann Bartow

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Is this Funny?

I don’t think so, but call me humorless. -Bridget Crawford (hat tip to Darren Rosenblum)

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“Hearing Women’s Voices: Digital Communities and Feminist Ethics”

Interesting (and well footnoted!) essay by blogger lauredhel that is accessible here. Below is an excerpt: A dilemma for the blog sociologist springs from the distributed, difficult-to-track nature of these ties between blogs. How can “community” be readily studied and … Continue reading

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The Four Basic Guidelines of Blogging…

Via Mary Dudziak, who writes: I was a little sheepish about mentioning to anyone at my press that I have a blog. I was afraid the reaction might be like that of my 16-year-old daughter, who, upon hearing that I … Continue reading

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“Study: Women don’t talk more than guys” (Plus Pithy Update On NYT Lies!)

From Yahoo News: Another stereotype : chatty gals and taciturn guys : bites the dust. Turns out, when you actually count the words, there isn’t much difference between the sexes when it comes to talking. A team led by Matthias … Continue reading

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Analytic Gap In U.S. Department of State’s Human Trafficking Report: Condoleeza Rice Doesn’t Seem To Care About Adults Forced Into Pornography

The DoS’s June 2007 “Trafficking In Persons” Report notes that trafficked women and children are victims of “commercial sexual exploitation,” reporting at page 10: Annually, according to U.S. Government-sponsored research completed in 2006, approximately 800,000 people are trafficked across national … Continue reading

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“A Nebraska judge bans the word rape from his courtroom.”

Read Dahlia Lithwick’s article, “Gag Order” at Slate for the details. Twisty has some related commentary at IBTP. And, see also.

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Harriette A. Page, “Female Blogging: Issues of Identity, Relations and Play”

Really interesting paper with lots of data and links accessible here.

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Carys Craig, “Reconstructing the Author-Self: Some Feminist Lessons for Copyright Law”

Here is the abstract: Copyright law currently forces all intellectual production into a doctrinal model shaped by individualistic assumptions about the authorial ideal. To the extent that the truly original author-owner is conceptualized as an individual (and not a function … Continue reading

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Gender and the “Fag” Discourse

Today the University of California Press released a new book by C.J. Pascoe, Dude, You’re a Fag Masculinity and Sexuality in High School.   Dr. Pascoe is a Postdoctoral Scholar with the Digital Youth Project at Berkeley’s Institute for the … Continue reading

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Soccer Harassment Rules Expanded, Thanks To Mills College

The Women’s Sports Foundation News reports: Thanks to the combined efforts of the Mills College Soccer Team, Athletic Department, Legal Counsel, College Senior Officers, and President Holmgren, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) has approved a soccer rule change that … Continue reading

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Inherent Racism in the Mainstream Use of “Ghetto”

Writing in the Boston Globe last month, reporter Vanessa Jones described “The Ghetto Culture Machine: What Goes Wrong When Stereotypes Become Part of the Mainstream:” College and high school students throw “ghetto parties,” at which white kids in blackface wear … Continue reading

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Judith Butler on Hannah Arendt

At the London Review of Books website, in an essay entitled “I merely belong to them.”

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What To Make Of This?

From Yahoo News: Pakistan’s Supreme Court has ordered a pop singer to change his lyrics after a college girl complained that male students teased her by singing the song when she passed by, a court official said on Tuesday. The … Continue reading

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“Bible drawn into sex publication controversy”

According to this story in Yahoo News: More than 800 Hong Kong residents have called on authorities to reclassify the Bible as “indecent” due to its sexual and violent content, following an uproar over a sex column in a university … Continue reading

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“The Hollywood Librarian”

“The Hollywood Librarian” is a documentary about librarians. You can watch the trailer here. Via Laura Quilter at Sivacracy.net.

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Patently Evil?

Discourse.net points out a Guardian article that reports: Internet giant Google has drawn up plans to compile psychological profiles of millions of web users by covertly monitoring the way they play online games. The company thinks it can glean information … Continue reading

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“The Sexual Politics of Google”

At Balkinization, Jack Balkin notes: When you type “she invented” into Google, it returns: Did you mean: “he invented” The same, by the way, also applies for Google searches for “she created,” “she succeeded,” and “she led.” Lest you think … Continue reading

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“CBS.com has to shut comments down on Obama stories”

Not surprisingly, in addition to sexual harassment, the dynamics of the Internet facilitate virulent online racism, as discussed by Pam Spaulding at Pandagon.

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The He/She Ratio

There is an online tool called the He/She Ratio that tallies the ratio of how many times the words “he” and “she” are employed on a website.   For this blog it found: Usage of “he” vs “she” on feministlawprofs.law.sc.edu/ … Continue reading

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Does The “Femininity” Of A Girl’s Name Affect Her Career Path?

According to this article in The Guardian: … [G]irls who are given very feminine names, such as Anna, Emma or Elizabeth, are less likely to study maths or physics after the age of 16, a remarkable study has found. Both … Continue reading

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Internet Harassment of Women

From today’s WaPo: A female freelance writer who blogged about the pornography industry was threatened with rape. A single mother who blogged about “the daily ins and outs of being a mom” was threatened by a cyber-stalker who claimed that … Continue reading

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“‘Ban abortion’ signs bewilder S.C.”

I repost without comment (but a little extra bolding) the article below, which appeared in my local newspaper today, in its entirety, given the possibility that it will mysteriously disappear from the paper’s website: ‘Ban abortion’ signs bewilder S.C. By … Continue reading

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Contemporary Horror

Today the NYT reports: Computer forensics are playing a key role in the probe of the Virginia Tech gunman, with investigators revealing he bought ammunition clips on eBay designed for one of two handguns used to kill 32 people and … Continue reading

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Study: Gendered constructions of power during discourse about sexual harassment

From News-Medical.net: Issues of power, workplace culture and the interpretation of verbal and non-verbal communication associated with sexual harassment were the focus of a study by Debbie Dougherty, assistant professor of communication in the College of Arts and Science at … Continue reading

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Antifeminist Bingo

Via Hoyden About Town.

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Where’s the Blank-word?

Is it just me, or is anyone else getting tired of the incessant replay and repetition of Don Imus’ insensitive remarks concerning the Rutgers Women’s Basketball team? Don’t get me wrong. He needs to be taken to task for what … Continue reading

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“In short, saying that Brizendine’s claims about sex differences in language are not exactly scientific gives “not exactly” a bad name.”

From Three Quarks Daily: … by a unanimous vote, this year’s Becky [awarded to the promulgater of the single most ridiculous or misleading bit of linguistic nonsense that somebody manages to put over in the media] goes to the psychiatrist … Continue reading

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Symbolic Moratorium in NYC

The New York City Council is scheduled to vote Wednesday on”a symbolic moratorium on the use of the n-word in New York City.”   New York Times coverage is here.   Columnist Clyde Haberman observes: “[M]oratorium”is arguably an odd word … Continue reading

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That Tricky First Amendment

From Romenesko: The article in the Central Connecticut State University Recorder describes rape as a “magical experience” that has been a blessing to “ugly women.” “If it weren’t for rape, how would they ever know the joy of intercourse with … Continue reading

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“Overzealous Big Pork Stomps on Breastfeeding Blogger”

READ THIS POST. Thank you. Okay, you don’t like getting bossed around? You refuse to click on that link without at least a hint about what you are getting into? Here is an excerpt of the linked post: …The Lactivist … Continue reading

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Want To Read Linda Hirshman’s Political Analysis?

You just know it’s going to include copious women bashing, based on her own special brand of “research” which included: “contact[ing] half a dozen members of the Wednesday Morning Group, a D.C. area organization that provides speakers and programs mostly … Continue reading

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