In a guest post over at TNC‘s place, Adam Serwer points to a problematic little paragraph tucked in the middle of Tracy Clark-Flory‘s takedown of John Mayer‘s assholery. And what of Meyer calling his Johnson a racist? (Insert here: Tasteless joke about hooded Klansman.) Look, as a general idea, I don’t object to people having Read More
A good rule to follow if you want to avoid getting caught out there having said shit that you haven’t much considered is to keep quiet on those things. Like how someone who is a newbie to football should probably refrain from offering up an opinion on revamping the 3-4. So it takes a special Read More
Cross-posted from TAPPED. A University of Chicago study has found that girls may be learning math anxiety from female teachers who have qualms about their own math skills. Sian L. Beilock, an associate professor in psychology, and her colleagues studied students of both sexes in the classes of 17 different teachers, most of whom were Read More
Cross-posted from TAPPED. The Washington Post has a great story today about the rise of female ambassadors in the past several years, a phenomenon called “the Hillary Effect.” The end of the piece covers a sad truth I’ve written about before. Women who advance to such high levels in their careers often leave their husbands Read More
Ta-Nehisi posts a video of Gene Siskel (still deeply missed) and Roger Ebert critiquing Clueless when it came out: He adds: “Poorly drawn movies tend to depend on poorly drawn characters. And poorly drawn black characters almost always descend into stereotype and cartoon. Not that I’m an expert on Teen Movies, but I can’t really Read More
In graduate school, I had to attend a series of talks from magazine editors and one* of them, from Harper’s, faced a tough question from a friend of mine who asked a lot of tough questions of our guests. She read through the masthead’s list of all-male, mostly Anglo-sounding names and asked, “Where’s the diversity?” Read More
The new Morehouse College dress code — or rather, attire policy, since a dress code tells people what to wear, not what not to wear — includes the following provisions, according to Kay Steiger at Campus Progress: • Caps, do-rags and hoods are banned in classrooms, the cafeteria and other indoor venues. Do-rags may not Read More
A few days ago, I lamented that South African runner Caster Semenya was forced to perform gender to allay the public’s suspicions that she was a man. I still lament that fact. But right now, having read unofficial reports that Semenya is intersex, I feel very sad for the 18-year-old, who is discovering something life-changing Read More
I suppose this was inevitable. Caster Semenya, South African runner we’ve talked about here and here, got her nails painted and donned a sequined tunic in SA glossy You magazine. According to Tracy at Salon: Instead of her yellow-and-green tracksuit, she dons a sleek black dress that covers up her washboard abs; gold jewelry, not Read More
The Duggars are having their 19th child. I told two people at work about this, and both independently responded, “ew.” I grew up in Arkansas, where the Duggars live, and have had my share of encounters with, shall we say, non-mainstream Christians. The Quiverfull movement is its own special brand of weird, but I’m not Read More
