#sexism

See tagged statuses in the local BookWyrm community

I'm feeling a little depressed, but not at all surprised by how many of the lists featured only male authors, while I only saw one list that had only female ones. Of the remainder, most had mostly male authors with only one or two women. Sigh. On the other hand, it was nice to see quite a few male-presenting people posting lists that were fairly rich in female authors. More than you might find on a different platform.

Contrary to the "self-evident" and "common sense" arguments pundits and politicians continue to make about how the school closures early in the pandemic were detrimental to children's mental health, studies actually show that teen suicide rates, which usually peak each year in October, coincidental with the start of the school year, actually held steady and similar to summer rates, or even dropped, during the beginning of the "lock down" school year. Why? Most likely because those suicides are in response to bullying, homophobia, transphobia, sexism, racism. ableism that the kids experience when they return to school each year.

I'm not saying the school closures weren't detrimental in many ways. As a science teacher, it was impossible to run real lab activities over zoom. Social interactions suffered. Many kids had low or no bandwidth and couldn't tune in (generally low income kids). Many lost access to social services schools provide.

But …

THEIR EXPERIENCE OF REJECTION IS THE ARTWORK

For the last 4 years, the Tasmanian Museum of Old and New Art has been running an installation called The Ladies Lounge. Only people who identify as ladies are allowed to enter. In the lounge, they can sit in luxury and look at famous artworks by Picasso etc, which are not available elsewhere in the museum. They are served champagne and pampered by male butlers. It was meant as a comment on exclusionary men's clubs (which still exist in Australia and elsewhere).

Some dude got upset about it and sued the gallery for entry at the anti-discrimination tribunal. The artist, Kirsha Kaechele, said she was "absolutely delighted" that the exhibit had been taken to court. “The men are experiencing Ladies Lounge, their experience of rejection is the artwork,” she said.

She then turned the tribunal hearing into part of the art as well, …

Amid all the very troubling political & legal news, this was a tiny sliver of light:

"In a scathing ruling... a three-judge panel of the 11th circuit appeals court in Atlanta blasted DeSantis’s 2022 Stop Woke Act... as “the greatest first amendment sin”."

I esp liked this part of the article which cited the judicial ruling from 2022 that DeSantis was appealing:

"In a separate ruling three months later, Walker halted part of the Stop Woke Act limiting what Florida’s colleges and universities could teach about racism and sexism. Calling the law “positively dystopian”, Walker invoked George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four in his injunction: “‘It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking 13,’ and the powers in charge of Florida’s public university system have declared the state has unfettered authority to muzzle its professors in the name of ‘freedom,’” he wrote."

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/05/florida-stop-woke-act-court-ruling-desantis

Content warning contains bad words. growing list of bullshit, some written by reality, others inspired by reality

Content warning Economists and commentators are out of touch with a rapidly feminising workforce