Month: October 2010

Ah, I loves me some insidious sexism.

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Mainsteam publications misuing science? Noooooo…

A commenter pointed out to me an “scientific” article claiming the bold title “Scientists say genetic variations show that men think differently“. They used this as “scientific” proof of how women are naturally more passive and cooperative than males, which of course has the implication that some jobs are better suited for females and that the traditional role of the woman in the house taking care of the children is not so out of place.

This kind of thing annoys me immensely, especially since when I actually took the time to read that article, it quickly became apparent that Science proves no such thing. In fact, the best the article could point out was that

While the two sexes have the same basic genes, many of these are more active in the brains of only one sex. These gender-specific patterns of gene expression could affect many aspects of behaviour, the researchers said.

That’s it. That’s the great evidence of what “Scientists say”. A mild discovery and a weak correlation.

However, since most people will barely bother to read more than the title of the headline, the idea of what “Scientists say” will stay in their brain, and they may link others to the same dubious claims as proof of how feminists are going against female nature or some other nonsense.

Why does mainstream media do this? More importantly, why have they not been taken to task for this nonsense? How can such a misleading article stay online? It’s like reading an article which boldly claims that Scientists say that “Skin colour affects intelligence”. How come insidious sexism gets a free pass while people have wizened up enough to counter insidious racism?

Of course for me, further annoyment was caused when I linked this article to reddit, assuming that people in /r/feminisms can see the obvious, and immediately I was asked to explain what’s wrong with it. When I did that and pointed out that it’s annoying I had to do it, I am then told that I’m being rude. FFS people! We are allowed to be annoyed when we’re asked to explain the obvious again and again and again. Being annoyed at it gives out a clear signal that people should start using their own head for once, instead of asking for Cliff’s Notes.

So, I got married…

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And no, before you ask, I don’t feel any different 😉

Yep, as strange as it may be, I am now a  husband. I wasn’t really planning to as I’m not a fan of the marriage tradition and the pratriarchical things it stands for, but I am only mildly opposed to to the idea so when my girlfriend insisted upon it, I didn’t care enough to oppose it so much.

We were planning for the marriage to happen in summer but due to various circumstances, this didn’t manifest. Thus we decided to just have a civil wedding this year and do the ceremony stuff next year, where we’d have more time for planning. The civil wedding was going to be kept very short and sweet, with only a few people invited.

And then came the subject of the clothes. My soon-to-be-wife categorically objected in me going to the civil service on anything casual and I stedfastly refused to use a suit & tie setup. As we were thinking of a compromise, an idea came to me and I was delighted that she found it exciting as well: A Steampunk theme. This way, I would both be wearing something that wasn’t casual or conforming.

So we set about trying to create an outfit for this day. Unfortunately I couldn’t find a lot for the actual steampunk stuff other than the victorian-era clothes and the goggles, but even so, I think the end result was good.

So without further ado, here’s some pics that I found very good. You can see the whole album here (If you get 500 errors, use the slideshow option from the drop-down menu on the top right. Should be more stable)

Here we are in front of the Romer city hall. This is the place where the German kings were crowned. As you can see, we’re a…diverse bunch 🙂

Here’s the two of us close up. I think the attire was a success.

This is in the “ceremony” and the actual signing of papers and stuff. In the first pic, you can see me giving this decision some thought.

This is after the wedding, outside of the building. Given the amount of marriages that happen there daily (about one per 30 mins) throwing rice to the couple is forbidden, or else by the end of the day, the entrance would be covered in it. So as an alternative, our crazy Russian friend, throw intra-cook rice bags at us as we were coming out. In the last pic, you can see a bunch of children which were completely surprised by the way we looked. One asked us “Why do you look so bad?”.

We were quite the attraction that day in fact. The Japanese tourists probably thought we were part of the setting.

These are from the breakfast and lunch times. We went for both one after the other so there wasn’t enough time to digest. However we did leave out some space for the cake, which as you can see, we tried to build to the theme as well. There was so much left of it, that I brought practically half of it to work for the people there to eat 🙂

So there you have it. Next year, we’ll have one more 🙂

Do we need traffic lights or rules of the road?

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Empirical Evidence once more points to the naturalness of Anarchy.

In a new installment of Things About “Human Nature” That Are Counter-Intuitive, we now see that far from avoiding chaos, accidents, delays, and congestion, traffic lights and other handed-down-from-above rules are actually facilitating them. This video in two parts gives you the rundown Read more “Do we need traffic lights or rules of the road?”