According to this Boing-Boing post

Researchers from the U. of Florida found that men who believe in what they call ‘traditional roles for women’ (a woman’s place is in the home, employing wives leads to more juvenile delinquency, etc.) earn more money than men who don’t. The same is not true for women.

notabene: I think by ‘employing wives’ the author does not mean ‘I’m a gonna go out there and hire me a wife’, they mean, ‘women who are married also having gainful employment’.

That’s right. Feminist ladies, you should be making more money then your traditional-minded counterparts, and if you’re not you are (still) not working hard enough. Dudes, drop that copy of the Feminine Mystique and start wearing Old Spice as if your life depended on it - or else you will be poor.

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About a month ago, I stopped taking the pill after about 2 years. September hit me like a ton of bricks and I just had so much on the go that I forgot to go and pick up my renewal. When it got to the point that would have to skip a month anyways, I decided to take a hormone vacation and see what happened.

Well, let me tell anyone who has been taking the pill long enough to have no clear memory of pre-pill time. It is groovalicious to go off the pill.

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Good morning to all you Saturday surfers :). Today I’d like to bring some attention to this troubling article from yesterday’s Globe and Mail - Faceless no more: Social networking comes with a price.

The basic premise is one we are familiar with: “Young Canadians share too much information online and they don’t understand the risks involved - or care about their privacy.”

“During a two month-long investigation, The Globe and Mail tracked more than a dozen Canadians through their open social networking profiles, and used freely available web tools to build detailed profiles of each individual user.”

This not just a speculative moral panic, the Globe actually went and stalked some young Canadians, all in the name of privacy? Whatever sells your paper, right?

The real problem however is not the data-mining (although as far as I am concerned that’s pretty creepy), it’s how the gender of the youth providing the data is framed. Let’s call it the “the naive sex kitten” versus “wild party animal” bias.

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From the National Center for lesbian Rights: Community Mourns The Loss of Beloved Civil Rights Leader Del Martin, 87.

Del Martin was instrumental in many civil rights struggles, from the founding of the first social group for lesbians, “Daughters of Bilitis”, in 1955 to her wedding two months ago to long-time partner Phyllis Lyon.

Photo Courtesy of the SFChronicle

For more photos visit: Lesbian rights pioneer Del Martin dies at 87
(SF Chronicle)

I think it is crucial to remember as we honor Del’s rich and wonderful life, that whether you identify as queer or not, the work these women did as Lesbian activists is of massive importance.

For more images visit the Sf Chronicle article photo page (Photo by Noah Berger)

Del and Phyllis struggled to live as they chose, and to be the people they wanted to be. They fought for the right to love one another as a matter of public record and without shame at a time when having rights related to intimacy and love was hardly even considered a feasible point of discussion for anyone, let alone members of North America’s nascent gay community.

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Christie Blatchford has an interesting piece in today’s Globe and Mail about the tendency for female athletes to appear in magazines, and sometimes on the cover, nekked. Or at least, naked but for a carefully placed volleyball.

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Mounties pinned me down in cell and tasered me, Manitoba girl says.

Yep you read that right: ‘tasered’. That means a machine named after a comic book hero and meant to be used as an alternative to deadly force when apprehending someone armed or otherwise dangerous was used on an un-armed 16 year old girl, in her cell, BY FOUR COPS WHILE THEY HELD HER DOWN.

Oh sorry, was I yelling?

Tasers are already getting enough bad press what with the alarming number of taser deaths in Canada to date. Why not add a few child-abusing cops with tasers to the mix?

The girl decided to report the incident following the death on Tuesday of a Métis youth who was also shot with a taser. In the Globe article she describes her experience at the hands of Manitoba’s finest:

“She was held down by four officers, one for each limb, while a taser was used on her legs and groin area. She said the third shock lasted between five and eight seconds and left her screaming in pain.”

I am going to let Jessica take a crack at dealing with the fact that both of the youth tasered in Manitoba were of Native descent, I feel I have said all I can say without resorting to more all-caps.

What if you lived by the largest body of fresh water in the world but could no longer afford to use it?

In Liz Miller’s video documentary, The Waterfront, residents of Highland Park, a struggling community on the shores of Lake Michigan are shown looking with distress at water bills totalling between 3 and 9,000 dollars.

One woman sits on a porch with her children and grandchildren and explains that on a fixed pension she will be unable to pay her bill, and since the city has decided to attach water bills to mortgages she faces eviction and foreclosure on her property.

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This being the last Wednesday before the iPhone’s (insanely over-hyped) release in Canada I thought I’d cover the issues that surround the sleek little 3G hockey puck.

First things first - what exactly is 3G and why is it so important?
3G refers to third generation wireless capability. The little cellfriend you have now is probably (unless you bought it somewhere in Asia where 3G enabled phones are the standard) a 2G machine, which is why when you hear ‘internet-enabled’ what you really get is ‘darn slow transfer rates’. 3G phones change all that because as Wikipediastates:

“3G technologies enable network operators to offer users a wider range of more advanced services while achieving greater network capacity through improved spectral efficiency. Services include wide-area wireless voice telephony, video calls, and broadband wireless data, all in a mobile environment. Additional features also include HSPA data transmission capabilities able to deliver speeds up to 14.4Mbit/s on the downlink and 5.8Mbit/s on the uplink.”

Wicked cool right? 3G iPhone users will literally have no down time away from the internets. That is, not if they carry their phone with them everywhere they go (and don’t we all?)

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Joanne Byfield, president of Life Canada, said many people will be offended and appalled if Dr. Morgentaler is honoured.

From: Outrage brews as Ottawa set to honour Morgentaler

Well jeez, many people will also be offended and appalled if they have to deal with abortions performed by shady types at midnight at the local laundromat. So I guess we’re at a bit of a stalemate here eh?

This is a sad story to read on Canada Day.

Comments are closed on the G & M article (oh I wonder why?). So register your feelings here or send a letter to the G & M editors. I am especially troubled that the piece ended with a quote from a pro-life group, and nothing from someone who supports the award. Judy Rebick is great, but she’s buried in the middle of the article.