@@ forever at MRA people. Also, men who tell me I don't have to wear makeup and heels and that I'm enabling my own oppression when I do, so I must not really be a feminist.

derailing perfectly cromulent conversations with, like, purity tests, and some kind of sexist nonsense Some Other Guy pulled on his wife, or the chronic trauma of being told to "man up" on the playground. To understand what it's like being a woman most of the time? It helps to play second banana.

There are many things about how women have been (and are) treated that just have baffled me from even when I was a kid. I remember reading as a kid and finding out that women had only had the vote for around 50 years at that time. I basically went "wait, what?"

As far as "Some Other Guy" syndrome, I've always considered myself something of a male feminist, but even I know that there's times I do stupid sexist stuff reflexivly. It's sort of akin to being a recovering alcoholic (metaphorically, at least), its situational conditioning and will probably never be completely gone.

I don't think I'll ever totally understand the female perspective, but that doesn't mean I'll stop trying.

It's sort of akin to being a recovering alcoholic (metaphorically, at least), its situational conditioning and will probably never be completely gone.

Some of my female friends make it a point to try to break me of that conditioning. Sometimes with success -- "A gentleman always holds a door for a lady" has become "Whoever gets to the door first makes sure it doesn't close in anyone's face." Sometimes taking advantage of other circumstances -- "When walking down the street with a lady who's nearly deaf in her left ear, a gentleman walks on her right and doesn't worry about who's next to the curb."

DCJ, you are definitely part of the solution.

As others have said, the problem is not the concept but the motivation and implementation. I looked at the FAQ and this sentence stood out to me - "The effects of sophisticated technologies (birth control medications, sexual surrogacy) on reproduction are also of primary interest in Male Studies."

Looking at the wiki entry on Paul Nathanson [link] , who seems to be at the center of this symposium, brings up that he's been a court witness against same sex marriages and that In Varnum v. Brien Nathanson's testimony concerning purported social effects of recognizing same-sex marriages was stricken by the trial court, which explained that the opinions Nathanson expressed were "not based on observation supported by scientific methodology or . . . on empirical research in any sense."

Even better, check out the wiki entry on his books which provides this nugget [link] :

Nathanson and Young argue that all schools of feminism are "gynocentric" (i.e. centered on the needs and concerns of women),[11] but that "being woman-centered, by definition, gynocentrism ignores the needs and problems of men."[12] In their view, gynocentrism doesn't necessarily to lead to misandry on its own, but "even though misandry is not an inherent feature of gynocentrism, it is an inherent possibility."[13] Nathanson and Young believe that gynocentrism can easily lead to misandry: "all it takes to produce misandry is the ideological proposition that 'they' are not merely irrelevant but inadequate or evil."[13]

You can draw your own conclusions, but I'm going to go with "boo hoo, let me wipe away the tears with my plastic hand."

On a completely different subject:

Over 30,000 classic book titles will be available for free in Apple's iBookstore when the iPad arrives on April 3, according to a report from AppAdvice. The e-books will come from Project Gutenberg's free digital library, alongside paid titles from most major publishers.

Anything that makes it easier for people to READ without going through all the problems importing and checking formats, etc. is a win for ease of use.

Kindle and Book Nook owners, how does that compare? I really have no experience yet with these devices.

You can draw your own conclusions, but I'm going to go with "boo hoo, let me wipe away the tears with my plastic hand."

Oh yeah, blind assholes, in this case.

Just not in every case.

Over 30,000 classic book titles will be available for free in Apple's iBookstore when the iPad arrives on April 3, according to a report from AppAdvice. The e-books will come from Project Gutenberg's free digital library, alongside paid titles from most major publishers.

The things that Apple is trying to do in order to distract my mind away from Eleven. Ha!

I'm starting to wonder if I shouldn't just chuck high tech and find a summer job running a resort again.

t looks at mortgage and bills

Oh yeah.

"The effects of sophisticated technologies (birth control medications, sexual surrogacy) on reproduction are also of primary interest in Male Studies."

Oh HELL NO.

This is classic MRA stuff - birth control exists, therefore I shouldn't have to pay child support. PLASTIC HAND TEARS.

has anyone read Keith Olbermann's commentary from Monday blasting the republicans? Whew. [link]

I have a couple of conservative friends from college that are getting tired of that party, too.

Kindle and Book Nook owners, how does that compare? I really have no experience yet with these devices.

I've been intrigued by that Kobo Reader that tommyrot linked to in technology.

[link]

$150 is the kind of price point I think dedicated e-readers should be at. The problem is that the other thing I'd like is be able to buy e-books from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Borders, & check out e-books from the Library and have them all work on the same e-reader. Not too likely. I'm sure Apple will have a completely closed ecosystem just like Amazon, but one can hope there might be a standard DRM one day.