Hahaha that's awesome.

Hilarious. He can take his patriarchal bullshit and put it right back where it came from.

1965 Lord help the man who gets caught using one of these...

West Point is investigating whether 16 female cadets broke military rules by taking this photo

Attachment 56378

Looking at the picture two questions;
1- Why are they wearing confederate uniforms?

2- Where is a sign or caption saying the raised fist is anything but an expression of victory for these 16 people about to graduate from West Point, which is pretty fucking awesome.

Everything I read at your link, and the link in the link, is construed interpretation by people looking to be offended. Much ado about nothing. :rolleyes:

It's elementary my dear xoB,

The clenched fist can be a symbol or a salute; but, that's not how cadets are trained to salute.

It's a symbol of solidarity or support. People are asking with or for whom; because, the cadets aren't facing each other in the picture: they're facing the viewer. Who is the intended viewer they're using their military credentials to support by raising a clenched fist?

I've read the Wikipedia List of gestures (which includes Single handed gestures - Clenched fist); also, the linked article Raised fist and I don't see anywhere that the raised fist is a an "expression of victory" as you propose.

Of course you know a picture can be worth a thousand words, with no sign or caption needed, in which case the historical use of the gesture is what resonates. The cadets will have the opportunity to explain whether or not they were using their military credentials to express solidarity or support in a prohibited way. That's what it's about. Your contention that it's about people being offended is a red herring.

But so far these future military leaders aren't talking, go figure. ;)

WTF, you've never seen athletes punch the air when they are victorious?
Even the mild mannered, like chess players and pro wrestlers celebrate a victory.
But say you're right, and it's solidarity. Is it unusual for a military unit to express solidarity, be it basic training, a battle, or West Point? They certainly have something to celebrate after four years of pressure.
Why would these future military leaders say anything, nobody is asking them anything yet. Right now they are being tried by press in absentia.

But that doesn't explain why the leadership of this august institution requires black women to wear confederate uniforms.

The picture doesn't show them punching the air. There's a difference between punching the air and holding it:

The uniforms don't have to be politically correct; but, military personnel do and West Point cadets are considered part of the military. Perhaps you'd like to see all battleship gray military hardware painted chartreuse so as not to offend anyone. Feel free to write the Dept. of Heraldry which regulates these things. Another red herring. Watch out for mercury toxicity, it can make you do crazy things like trying to play the race card to deflect attention from an issue.

That's what's expected of LEADERS. When their actions create controversy, the onus is on them to take the initiative and (situation permitting) explain themselves in the interest of organizational cohesion. Otherwise they're just followers which raises the question of which special interest group they're following and does their action represent prohibited political endorsement.

I pay for the military academy with my taxes and I would like it to be arbitrarily racist.

Military academies and the conventional military reflect society in general. It's not until you get into elite units that those who make it to that level see each other as the same color...olive drab.

Wrong, raised BLACK GLOVED fist salute.
You're confused, it's John Burk playing the race card, saying because these cadets are black, they must be giving a black power or black lives matter salute.Respond to every shit stirrer outside the organization(Burk), for cohesion within the organization? If that were true the chiefs in the Pentagon wouldn't have time for anything else. There is absolutely nothing any person can do that can't be twisted into a controversy.Piss poor example of leadership. :p:

The new US $20 bill.

Yes dear.

Real leadership...

Real leadership is holding everyone to the same standard and not making exceptions for small groups of the same race, religion, gender...etc. because it becomes politically incorrect.

In your depiction of real leadership, everyone who needs to have their thoughts about race changed is white. You probably didn't even notice because ...

You're brainwashed.

Probably pussywhipped too; but, that's OK 'cause you're a short-timer. :D

Of course they're white, the black, brown, yellow, beige, plaid, and red people can't be prejudice, they told me so.
But when that was drawn, it was white people keeping black people out of the military.
Brainwashed? Yes, I have a clean mind.
Pussywhipped? Not a chance, that's why there's none in my life.

Menstrual Panties from Bloody Mary's have a detachable heating pouch, and a large selection of faces in the crotch you can bleed on.

That's a genius idea

That's kind of, um, disgusting and offensive. imho

Oh, absolutely. But also genius.

From the home of a giant porn industry.
link

From the country that brought you restaurants where food is eaten from the naked body of a woman, and where the most sexualised imagery is of childlike teens.

The other side of the gender coin...

We talk an awful lot about, and indeed society has historically been very interested in defining, femininity, both in terms of setting and policing those definitions, and breaking down and challenging them. In recent years, there has been an increase in the conversation around defiing masculinity, or more properly, masculinities. Certainly as an area for historical and sociological study, it is a rapidly growing and developing field.

I really love the study of masculinities - having first encountered it via the historical study of gender and femininity, it really struck a chord with me. When 'women's studies' first started to take hold, and then 'gender studies' grew out of that, there was a tendency to see masculinity as somehow natural and unchanging, with femininity differentiated and imposed. Likewise, in the period I study (18th and early 19th centuries) there was a huge amount of discourse about 'the Sex', i.e women. Hundreds of thousands of words were published attempting to define womanhood, often in direct counterpoint to manliness. And historians for a long time, took as read that manliness had always been more or less the same, with only minor distinctions between one period and another. Men were the constant against which the shifting face of woman was measured. In recent decades that has changed and more and more academic discourse focused on how men conceive of their own masculinity, and how masculinity is perfomed and understood. The contextual and often contested nature of gender has now been expanded to include masculinity. I find it utterly fascinating.

So, I was quite excited to see Grayson Perry's new documentary series exploring modern masculinities. I highly recommend it, if you can find it. It's called Grayson Perry: All Man.

Here's a nice interview with Perry about his new series: (am hoping this plays outside the uk)

It does, I watched it, very interesting stuff.

On the things that our cultures are different on, it's interesting how they are damn near identical on how age 13-14 goes for boys. A biology that somehow you need relief from. Yes you have to be a level of macho, yes it's practically policed. I don't know anywhere this doesn't happen, does anyone else?

It's like, y'ever watch animals fight, for no particular reason? It's always when the rut begins.



BTW this is also why men can fuck each other up and then say good game at the end of it. Hey we had to get into it. It's the rut. But you're a good guy. That was some good antler spiking you got in.

It seem we have failure to communicate. :facepalm:

..the fuck?

At the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor...
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Mercy! Send the EPA in to straighten this situation out.

A recent story in the news caught my attention.

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2...c-nicola-thorp

Now, I don't know about anyone else, but I personally never wear heels - I gave them up as a teenager because they were fucking uncomfortable and I tended to end up twisting my ankle a lot. I'm really glad I did, because regular wearing of heels can damage your feet and your spine. I know plenty of women like wearing heels, but the idea of enforcing them as a dress code for work I find ridiculous. I get the idea of a dress code - nothing wrong with insisting that your workforce look smart, or dress according to a particular style - but there is no reason why a woman can't look perfecly smart in flat shoes. There are however, compelling reasons for not wearing heels - particularly given that part of this woman's role would have been to escort guests around the office complex, meaning she would be on her feet and walking for much of the day.

Heels are not a pre-requisite for loking smart. They do however increase the sexual attractiveness of women. So - apparently, for a receptionist it is not enough that they look smart and presentable, they also have to look sexy.


Another columnist comments:

So - wearing lipstick was not enough - she had to wear enough lipstick. Guess she wasn;t looking sexy enough to do her job?

(for the sexual attraction aspect of heels see: http://www.ehbonline.org/article/S10...122-5/abstract)

The columnist continues with an acknowledgement that heels can feel empowering, adding height and stature, but only when you are wearing them by choice.

Read the rest here:

http://www.theguardian.com/women-in-...rkplace-sexism

The reality for receptionists is they are in the same boat with actors, salespeople, and TV talking heads, appearance is primary. But If heels are a requirement, she should argue the company should provide them, like hard hats, earplugs and safety glasses.

Difference being that alll those items promote safety and well being, where heels actively damage health.

It is perfectly acceptable for an employer to demand a particular dress code. It is not acceptable that they demand a dress code that could damage the health and well-being of their employee.

Employers have a duty of care to their employees, to ensure that their employees are as safe as practically possible. That means, according to law (in this country) that every effort be made to mitigate risks associated with work and the workplace - so, for example, desks and computer set-up are supposed to take account of the risks to health and employees given training on posture and proper usage in order to minimise risk of RSI and eye strain. Workers in dangerous environments are to be provided with appropriate safety wear, such as hard hats and steel toecap boots. Nurses are not supposed to try and lift paralysed patients on their own, they're supposed to work in twos when lifting.

Insisting that an employee wear a smart suit, or that they only dress in black or navy is acceptable - insisting that they wear an item of footwear which could cause long term damage to their feet, when it is not necessary for them to take such risks in order to perform their jobs is not acceptable.

Ffs. Here we go again:


http://www.digitalspy.com/movies/iro...-wouldnt-sell/

This is such utter bollocks, it makes my blood boil. I cannot believe we are still having this debate now. I'm guessing their 'consultation' wasn't with the kids or parents who might buy the toys. And I'm guessing they just assume all the toys bought would be for boys anyway.

I wonder whether it originated* with Marvel corporate, or Disney corporate.

Because Disney is already pretty bad on this front.


* The article says it came from Marvel corporate, but it could have been passed down from the parent company.

They are probably basing it on past performance of action figures in the market place, but I suspect much of that is self fulfilling. Girls are to be saved, not save.

Listen, it's like everything else--the girls will play with the boy toys, but the boys* simply won't go for the girl toys. The parents might even say they would buy them in interviews, because they would feel like it's the right answer. But they absolutely wouldn't buy it when they're standing alone in the toy store. And maybe that's society's fault, or the parents' fault, or whatever... but I have children, and I know a ridiculous number of children, and I have been to countless birthday parties in a very liberal city with a healthy rejection of gender norms and the highest gay percentage second only to San Francisco, and I am telling you: the girl-villain action figure would not sell even a fraction as well as the boy-villain.

Honestly, I think the bigger crime here is dictating the plot of a movie based on toy sales. Like Marvel doesn't have enough money already?


*as they currently exist today, not some inherent biological programming. But Marvel is selling toys to boys as they currently exist today. You can argue that they should make a girl toy because it's the right thing to do, but you can't claim that the girl toy would sell as well.

Maybe many of the boys won't buy a female villain figure - I suspect they might though if that is just a figure in a range of toys from a movie. It's different to expecting boys to play with the toys that are aimed at girls. I wouldn't expect hordes of prepubescent boys to buy Frozen characters - but I bet a fair few of them have alll the Star Wars figures, including the female characters

Also - if Marvel have more and better female characters in their movies, then maybe more girls will get into them and want to buy those figures. If they play the long game they could increase sales of their toys by nurturing the girl market which they have hitherto ignored. Girls are a rapidly growing demographic for comicbook and sci fi films.



You're right though - the sales of toys should not be dictating plot of film.


But as an aside here's what happened when the toymakers decided to stop being dicks and include the main female character in their toylines (having at first pretty much left her out, despite her being one of the key heroes of the film)

http://www.mtv.com/news/2688307/fema...s-selling-out/

Yes, but don't forget Star Wars relies heavily on adult nostalgia. Grown men who aren't afraid of their sexuality are buying the Ray dolls. Iron Man 3 is still only being bought by/for children. It will change, it IS changing, but we're not there yet, and getting there requires companies doing the right thing rather than the monetary thing.

I think they may find that if they market to the girls as well, they can increase their sales overall. They just have to do it in a way that doesn't put the boys off.

Course it's the frickin' parents doing the buying part... the kids will probably be fine with whatever the parents are fine with!

Nope nope nope nope. We've never bothered with gendered anything (more because we're lazy than any kind of active choice,) but each of my kids came home one day (Kinder for the boy, first grade for the girl) declaring, quite emphatically, that they didn't want girly/boyly (yes, that's the word she uses) things.

The kids are fine with what their friends are fine with. It takes all the parents being okay with it at once, which is a shift that takes more than one movie's product tie-ins.

A lotof this stuff is based on assumptions that don;t bear out in the real world. For instance, when the compute game, The Last of Us was about to go live, the publishers and distributers didn't want the female character to be shown on the box, despite her being a lead character, because they said, according to their consultations, boys and young men would be put off from buying the game i fthey thought it was a 'girl's game' and the presence of a female main character (as opposed to female set dressing) would give that impression. The makers stuck to their guns, she was shown on the box, and the game broke sales records and became a massive hit, with both male and female gamers.

It is absolutely the case that girls are often a lot more comfortable with, and subject to a lot less stigma for, playing with 'boys' toys than are the boys playing with girls' toys. But - kids of both gender seem perfectly fine playing with neutral toys that aren't specifically marketed at one or the other gender. The problem is that toy makers routinely market film tie-ins and action figures in a highly gendered way, whereas if they marketed them simply as toys, rather than as boys toys, they could bring in both boys and girls.


That may be so - but that may just mean that we are coding toys too strongly, so that they do sit firmly in one of those camps. Boys may not want a pink bike, and girls may not want a blue bike - but they both want bikes.

Boys may not want a doll and girls may not want an action man, but there's no reason why they might not both want lego. And there's no reason why theymight not both want figures from the most popular movie on the cinema screen, if it's being watched by both girls and boys and has both male and female characters.

And it may well end up with the boys mainly playing with the male characters, and the girls mainly playing with the female characters - but if they're both playing with characters from that movie then the toymaker will make money.

Bloody hell, you're not kidding.

The Disney Store have been selling Iron Man 3 tshirts for boys/men and girls/women - the boys tshirts have the slogan 'Be a Hero' whilst the girl's tshirts say 'I Need a Hero' and 'I Only Kiss Heroes'. In light of a bunch of negative feedback they've removed the 'I Only Kiss Heroes' one, but are still only selling 'I Need a Hero' for the girls and 'Be a Hero' for the boys.



And in other Superhero toy news ....

In Age of Ultron, there is one truly kickass female character - Black Widow. There is an iconic scene in the movie in which Black Widow exits the Quinjet on a black Harley.

Having previously left Black Widow out of the toy line for the Avengers movies, the toy makers have now included both the Quinjet and the Harley, which comes out f the the bottom of the jet just ;like it does in the film, so that kids can recreate that iconic scene - except with either Captain America or Iron Man riding it.

So they have erased Black Widow from her own iconic scene.

I get that boys might not want to buy girl toys. But there is no reason at all, why boys would not want a complete set of characters, including the female character. And there is no reason at all to assume that only boys will be playing with these toys. The fact that Disney made a tshirt for girls and women at all is a tacit acceptance that girls and women are wanting superhero film merchandise.

Time and again, the toymakers remove the female characters from their line up. They did not include Rey initially in their Star Wars Force Awakens line up, despite her being one of the central characters - they replaced her with minor characters and characters from previous films.

They did not do this in the 70s! The Princess Leia figure was there in the line up for the original Star Wars toys - my best friend, David had them all (including the Millenium Falcon and one of those things with the giant legs). Nobody thouight it would be a good idea to remove the only key female character - they just sold all the characters, and they all sold just fine. I remember the Princess Leia figure - she was done in exactly the same style as Luke and Solo - with a gun in her hand (the later figure sets granted, did opt more for the Leia in a gold bikini sex slave figure). It wasn't an issue. And that was back before anybody thought about girls wanting to buy the toys - they just put out the key characters for the film. And boys bougth and played with them (and so did some girls as it happens)

This kind of over the top gendering of toys is a new thing.


Here are the Disney tees

Seattle Pride
 

We're waaaay gayer than you. . .







Um, that kinda came out wrong. . :p:

The men who designer safety measures for war workers were determined to save the TaTas.

That looks uncomfortable to work in.

I saw a comment once about cosplay "breast armor" that if someone falls down while wearing it, the cleavage bit (which is, of course, a ridge on the inside) can crush your ribcage, and they wince whenever they see a costume like that.

Customer Review

40,940 of 41,398 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars FINALLY!, August 24, 2012
By Tracy Hamilton
This review is from: BIC Cristal For Her Ball Pen, 1.0mm, Black, 16ct (MSLP16-Blk) (Office Product)
Someone has answered my gentle prayers and FINALLY designed a pen that I can use all month long! I use it when I'm swimming, riding a horse, walking on the beach and doing yoga. It's comfortable, leak-proof, non-slip and it makes me feel so feminine and pretty! Since I've begun using these pens, men have found me more attractive and approchable. It has given me soft skin and manageable hair and it has really given me the self-esteem I needed to start a book club and flirt with the bag-boy at my local market. My drawings of kittens and ponies have improved, and now that I'm writing my last name hyphenated with the Robert Pattinson's last name, I really believe he may some day marry me! I'm positively giddy. Those smart men in marketing have come up with a pen that my lady parts can really identify with.

Where has this pen been all my life???

hahahah. That's frikkin brilliant

OOPS! I forgot the critical reviews.

1.0 out of 5 stars Missing the batteries
ByM.on August 28, 2012
I can't find a switch to turn it on, and it didn't come with batteries. This is not the "for her" product I was expecting. At all.

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Margaret Knight invented the first machine to make square bottom paper bags, and it only took a few months, along and a $100 a day(1871) patent lawyer, to get her credit.

Bechdel-Turing Test

http://assets.amuniversal.com/3637db...20005056a9545d

Victorian Villains
http://www.smbc-comics.com/comics/14...7-20160608.png

Please choose your gender:

Attachment 57131

Could go here, could go in the Orlando thread....

Wow. That was very moving.

Vi Hart's videos are usually fun, but always interesting.

Sufferagetto, the game.

About Print Rules

Sadly true...

And stick him with the check... :lol: