A friend made me aware of the Seasteding Institute, an organization that aspires to use modified oil-rig platforms as labs for experimenting with new governmental forms. My alarms went off when he said that some of the backers of the Institute are libertarians; concerns that were amplified by reading: Mr Thiel and his colleagues say their ocean state would have no welfare, looser building codes, no minimum wage, and few restrictions on weapons. It sounded way too similar to the arguments that those rights many of us fought so hard for are just in the way of making money. Still, … Continue reading »
Aug 202011
Aug 162011
When i was still working in corporate America, it was pretty clear to me that discussing how much i was being paid with my co-workers was a big taboo. And i understood why: If we don’t know each other’s pay, we don’t know if the pay we’re receiving is fair. A recent fact sheet from the Institute for Women’s Policy Research supports this contention: While there is no direct link between pay secrecy and pay inequality, some evidence suggests that pay transparency reduces the gender wage gap. The gender wage gap for all full-time workers, based on median annual earnings, … Continue reading »
Reading an article on the underlying framework that can help evaluate affirmative action, I realized why single women are viewed so much more negatively than single men. It’s the interaction of sexism and singlism. Wasserstrom wrote in 1977 describing the social reality of sexism: A woman’s success or failure in life is defined largely in terms of her activities within the family. It is important for her that she marry, and when she does she is expected to take responsibility for the wifely tasks: the housework, the child care, and the general emotional welfare of the husband and children. The … Continue reading »
Aug 142010
I finally watched The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. My reaction is mixed – between rejoicing at women fighting back against their abusers to being deeply disturbed and trying to avoid flashbacks. What would happen if all of us who have been deeply wounded through sexual abuse would fight back – maybe by withholding all sex in a twist on Lysistrata? Susan Brison has argued that rape and sexual abuse are not only crimes committed by individuals against individuals but they are group-based victimization (she presented this in a paper at the 2010 APA Pacific meeting). They reflect the general … Continue reading »
As I research how to best raise conciseness about singlism, I inevitably started to look at consciousness raising groups of radical feminists in the 1970s. Their goal was to leverage personal sharing for theory building and to further political action. One of my frustrations with my current path is that academia seems to be stuck in theory. I seek practical applications of theory or theory-informed activism. So, I am looking for historical inspiration of approaches who had similar goals. I found three chapters in three books assigned in a women’s studies course that address similar concerns from several different angles. … Continue reading »
Jul 042010
It feels weird to write about celibacy as an atheist because the first celibate people who come to my mind are monks. Yet, there is something rather attractive to me in the notion of celibacy, so I’ve started to read about it. I am not exactly sure why – maybe it’s because my hypothyroidism is finally under control – but my hormones have been raging, which is challenging while single. At first, I tried to ignore it. But I finally gave in and decided that this would be an opportunity to explore and then share what I found. I find … Continue reading »
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