• Amanda Marcotte: The stupidity bar keeps getting lower (Pandagon) – “I don’t know if it’s just that I got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning or what, but it seems to me that misogyny levels in this country are getting perilously high lately. What the [bleep] is up with that? It isn’t just this stupid cartoonist and all his anti-choice ilk who literally do not understand that women have wills and that we make choices. This meme is spreading to ostensibly ‘pro-choice’ sexist asswipes, too, like Chris Matthews, who seems to have bought into the idea that there’s no difference between voluntary and mandatory contraception. Because, once again, to accept that there’s a difference is to accept that women have minds of our own, and we can’t have that.”
  • Amanda Marcotte: But this restores my faith in humanity (Pandagon) – “That the parody videos crop up within less than 24 hours of an incident like Dick Armey trying to shut up Joan Walsh with his sexist nonsense.” Video.
  • Melissa McEwan: Tool Academics and Their Plaintive Cry for Feminism (Even If They Don’t Know It) – Shakesville – “Now, here’s the thing about Tool Academy: It makes what is quite possibly the best case for feminism in broadcast history. And not in the way you might think…”Aside from the show being totally entertaining because of the finest collection of douchebags ever assembled on one reality show (which is really saying something), it’s also one of the most amazing exposés evah on how the patriarchy is just as bad for average straight men as it is for everyone else.

    “[These men] haven’t been taught or socialized in even the most rudimentary way how to have a functional relationship. And their lives are a total [bleep] because of it.”

  • Dday: Odierno’s Revolt (Hullabaloo) – “In addition to an extremist Republican Party that wants no part of bipartisanship, and a Blue Dog caucus whispering in his ear about fiscal responsibility in a time of economic meltdown, Barac Obama has to contend with elements of the military, who are not on board with his plans, particularly in Iraq…”
  • Lauren: The Republican Stragegy For Dealing With the Obama Administration So Far (Feministe) – Video.
  • Digby: “Ok, So What?” (Hullabaloo) – “One of the most distrubing aspects of the use of taser torture devices is its common use on the mentally ill. Here, you have schizophrenic man, in custody, tasered and pepper sprayed mercilessly because he woulodn’t come out of his cell.” Digby has potentially triggering details about how the man was denied psychiatric care and then tortured for behaving like a sick man.
  • Sunny Hundal: Funding u-turn will help women groups (F-Word Blog) – “Remember the controversy over Southall Black Sisters being threatened with a huge cut in funding last year by Ealing Council? That was because Ealing Council said groups like SBS were not inclusive enough and thus not spreading community cohesion.
    Thankfully…”
  • Louise Livesey: “It’s not sexist, it’s a statement against political correctness” aka don’t mess with my male privilege (F-Word Blog) – “…raving against “political correctness” is a tactic designed by those with privilege to deny the right to complain about demeaning behaviours.”
  • BGK: Just Not “Manly” Enough (Shakesville) – “The world of the American trading floor is a privileged world of privileged manly men. Ryan Pacifico, a rich, heterosexual, white, able-bodied, cisgender man, fit in well in this privileged manly man’s world—until the day his radical beliefs were revealed.”You see, Mr. Pacifico does not believe in eating animals, which led him to the extreme position of choosing for himself to not eat meat. As you can imagine, this drastic vegetarianism inevitably led to an utterly devastating occupational conflict: His manly boss wanted to eat at a steak house, dammit!

    “And because he is a manly man, his boss reacted to the untenable situation of being asked to accommodate a vegetarian employee not by suggesting going to a restaurant that would serve both steaks and a hearty portabella mushroom, nor by choosing to attend a spicy Indian Restaurant with epicurean delights to please even the most particular gourmet.

    “No, no, dear Shakers, his boss did the only logical thing to do in this situation. Allegedly, Robert Catalanello repeatedly referred to Mr. Pacifico as a ‘homo’, and trumped up charges for him to be fired.”

  • The Mahablog: Tone Deaf – “There has been criticism of Obama from the Left from people who think he should not have even attempted to negotiate with Republicans on the stimulus package. But I think he was right to make a public show of meeting with them and offering concessions. I think many people would like to see an end to petty partisan bickering. So Obama reached out a hand and the Republicans bit it. Did you catch that, America? Do you see who’s at fault here? [...]“Now that the House Republicans have demonstrated they want to be marginalized, I say they can be politely ignored from now on.”
  • Melissa McEwan: Women Transform Welsh Politics (Shakesville) – “I’ve frequently written (e.g. here) about the importance of diversity in government and the relationship between inclusion and the centering of minority and/or marginalized issues. There’s an interesting story at the BBC today that provides a brilliant real-life example of the effects of gender parity…”That list bit meaning, of course, that it’s not such an entrenched boys’ club that institutional misogyny can be disguised as ‘tradition.’

    “Maybe I’m reading something that isn’t really there, but it seems to me that the male assembly member quoted seems almost relived to be free from the obligation of beating his chest. If he were, I wouldn’t blame him. I’ve been the only woman working on an entire floor of men in an advertising firm, and that shit is exhausting even to watch.”

  • Annalee Newitz: The Most Awesome Science Video About DNA Ever Made [DNA Art] – io9 – “It’s hard to explain DNA replication, transcription, and protein building in an accessible but non-dumbed-down way. This quick, elegant video does it, though: You get the full story with helpful visualizations.”
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The Links for January 30th from 13:52 to 16:36 by Lee Salazar, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.