Excuses aren’t apologies, and no men are monsters

I briefly covered Veitch’s apology in my criticism of the Herald, but I wanted to come back in more detail here and mention what really bothered me about the way he issued it. Veitch as a presenter ought to know about the power of words, and his apology was not the words of a man [...]

The Other Man

So, it’s been a while since I’ve talked about the masculinities. One of the really awesome things you gain from teh feminisms is the ability to critique masculine culture. Today I want to talk to you about what I like to think of as the other man. Or if you like, the Other man. He’s [...]

Male contraceptives

(No, they aren’t devices for making sure all your children are girls…) Male contraceptives is a bit of an interesting area. Right now, there’s essentially just the one mass-marketed male contraceptive, which we’re all familiar with, our friend the condom. And of course, there’s vasectomies, which are pretty much permanent. Lesser-known do-it-yourself methods like special [...]

Links

Apparently whatever I’ve got is somehow recurring. Instead of trying to think cogently tonight I’m just going to post some links to some totally cool feminist reading for today: Jille from Feministe points out that legalised abortion isn’t about allowing abortions, it’s about stopping dangerous abortions, and giving women the right to choose without risking [...]

Advanced Consent (2), and some libertarian philosophy

Firstly- a quick apology for not being able to get this up sooner. We’ve had some wiring problems with the electricity that have stopped me from internetting until today. Last time I covered why sex is risky and complicated, why there are excellent reasons to justify men saying no, and why arousal isn’t the same [...]

Plugging into feminists dicussing men

Samhita over at Feministing continues to be awesome, plugging an interesting video by Jay Smooth on the subject of homosexuality and hip-hop. My favourite bit was the conclusion: Because when we find ourselves believing that killing a man makes us more of a man, but loving a man makes us less of a man, it’s [...]

Advanced Consent (1)

Seeing as I’m having a bit of writer’s block on the issue of gender essentialism at the moment, I thought I’d depart from my plan and do some advanced work on other types of consent, (ie. male and gay/lesbian consent) as was suggested in an earlier comment, because hey, it couldn’t hurt to sneak in [...]

Sexual Choices (and the introduction of tooltips)

Before I start this very late friday/saturday post, I’m quickly going to share two new features I’m going to add at least to all upcoming posts- I’m going to add tooltips every time I introduce a piece of jargon to that post, allowing you to better understand what I’m saying in my essay posts just [...]

Why rules are awesome and exceptions suck

Deborah over at The Hand Mirror has an excellent post from a while back on how a tiny exception in Act’s proposed tax cuts devalues women’s labour, by hitting part-timers (who are disproportionately female) with extra tax. This hits on a vein that’s essential to my feelings about not only feminist thought, but also queer [...]

In which consent is clarified

I mentioned earlier when I covered social attitudes to rape that meaningful consent has to be “explicit and free”. Many a man interested in exploring the murky deeps of gender politics from a male perspective dives into the issue of consent in straight sex, which I find almost painfully simple, and comes out with some [...]