Friday, October 24, 2014

Weekend Reading: The I Am So Tired of This Edition

I am heartbroken by the news of the school shooting in Seattle. Early reports include a quote from a classmate saying that the boy who shot people was upset at a girl who would not date him, and that the girl was one of the people shot.

This is obviously hearsay at this point, but if it is true, it adds this school shooting to a growing list of violence committed because a girl or woman dared to say no to a boy or man. I feel so helpless about this entire situation. It seems like we as a society won't take this cultural feeling of entitlement seriously nor will we do anything about the easy access to guns that makes this culture so damn deadly. I don't know how we fix it. No doubt people are already writing smart pieces about it, but I don't have the fortitude to go find them right now. I just want to look at pictures of cute bunnies and hug my kids and try to forget how screwed up we are.

But I do have some links I saved about Gamergate, which is part and parcel of that same misogynistic culture.

Arthur Chu's  piece connecting Gamergate to an anti disco riot is a tour de force. For the record, I'll confess that I was completely unaware of the anti-disco movement he references.

Jessica Valenti puts the Gamergate mess into the broader framework: "This angry male mob has been building for the better part of a decade."

Chris Kluwe's profanity-laced takedown of Gamergate is a thing of beauty. He later noted of Twitter that even after he posted that article, no one tried to doxx him, whereas Felicia Day's thoughtful piece about why she's been silent on the topic brought an almost immediate doxx.

Moving on to more garden variety sexism and its effects...

A lawyer in Georgia had a baby, and a judge denied her request for an extension on a court date... so she brought the baby to court and he had a fit.

Ellen Chisa wrote a thoughtful post about not reading too much into one bad job, and how job problems are treated differently for men and women.

This founder who was at Y combinator right after having a baby tries to put a positive spin on their policies... but yeah, this is part of the problem with the venture capital world.
Bricks and Mortar: http://bradfrostweb.com/blog/post/job-title-its-complicated/

People who follow me on Twitter probably saw me rant a bit about the new benefit offered by Apple and Facebook- they'll pay for you to freeze your eggs. It isn't that I am opposed to the benefit. Actually, it is an awesome boon for female employees who want to have this procedure. I'm opposed to the fact that this benefit seems to be in lieu of working on the culture of overwork that is endemic in the tech industry. Give employees time to live full lives now, not benefits to help them postpone aspects of their lives until later.

One of my Twitter/blog friends wrote a slightly different perspective in Slate, which I think you should read, too.

Moving on to totally random other things...

This post from Sara Benincasa about how you have to do it anyway is awesome.

This story about what it is like to have a really rare blood type is fascinating.

This is a rather nice idea for what to do with your body after you die. Awhile back I read Stiff,by Mary Roach, and it included discussion a Swedish company that did this sort of thing. I wonder if it is the same company?

Speaking of books, two reviews of Petunia, the Girl Who Was NOT a Princess posted on Wednesday, one from Anandi at The Papercraft Lab and one from Marcia at the 123 Blog.

I have absolutely no idea how the book is doing- since I'm not the publisher, I don't see up to the minute sales numbers like I do for Navigating the Path to Industry. But I can tell you that the raffle in my release post is pretty lightly subscribed, so if you're tempted to enter... do it! You have a fairly good chance to win.

Staying on books... The We Need Diverse Books movement is running an IndieGoGo campaign to do things like send authors into classrooms and fund a grant for writers. Consider contributing to it! (I'm currently deciding on what level I'll contribute at... but I will definitely contribute.)

Your ending funny: XKCD points out that the Apollo program was weird.

I'm still recovering from the cold that flattened me last Thursday. I basically run out of energy at about 3 p.m. everyday, almost as if I have a battery pack that is draining. Sadly, my days don't actually end at 3, so this is a bit of a problem. I'm hoping to get some actual rest this weekend. Everyone who has children is now laughing uproariously. But a girl can dream....

2 comments:

  1. Anonymous12:52 PM

    Hope you get lots of rest and recharge this weekend!

    One of my second cousins has a rare blood type (K, IIRC) and has to be on a registry and stuff.

    ReplyDelete
  2. A colleague and I just said the same thing last week - weekends when you have young kids are bad because you get no rest :)

    Hope you got some!

    ReplyDelete

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