The Boston Globe runs a piece arguing that the “gender gap” in the sciences may be attributable, not to institutional discrimination, but rather gendered differences in career interests.   Jessica Valenti replies that there are these three girls who are awesome at science, so there. In other words, the way to rebut the scurrilous stereotype […]

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Feministing’s Samitha fumes about the latest entry in the Grand Theft Auto series: What I can’t get down with is justifying blatant misogyny by calling it art. I know this is a crazy, crazy thought, but perhaps something can be both misogynistic and art. It can even be misogynistic and… good art. Now, maybe GTA-IV […]

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It’s a little depressing, on multiple levels, to see Jessica Valenti and Pam Spaulding celebrating because protesters at Smith College managed to shout down some bigoted halfwit who’d been invited to give a speech to the College Republican group on campus. Apparently, the “awesome feminists of Smith forced [anti-gay speaker Ryan] Sorba out after a […]

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A judge in Canada has ruled to sustain a sexual assault charge against a man whose wife says she consented to being choked to unconsciousness before sex. Apparently rough play of this sort was a routine part of the couple’s sex life. There is some question as to whether she actually consented or is only […]

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Here’s what ought to be a very simple question, inspired by Katherine Jean Lopez: If some scumbag is peddling the body of an exploited 14-year-old girl on the street, does he become more or less difficult to catch and punish in a world where prohibition has created a black market in prostitution. Think about it… […]

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I already Quick-Hits linked it in the sidebar, but this is easily the best thing I’ve read on all the Spitzer-inspired chin-stroking about prostitution, and I’d hate to deny those of you reading via RSS.

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The Spitzer scandal has prompted a lot of discussion of the legal status of prostitution. Andrew Sullivan quotes a commenter who asks: Why is it illegal to sell, what it is perfectly legal to give away? Indeed. But I always preferred George Carlin’s formulation:

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Hetracil, a drug that supposedly “cured” homosexuality, was an elaborate, clever joke. But apparently, researchers at the University of Illinois have discovered the real thing… at least for fruit flies. As John Tierney wryly notes, it will be interesting to see whether the Leon Kass types denounce such technology as “meddling with nature” or “playing […]

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Kerry Howley writes about handwringing in the UK over proposals to allow lesbian couples to more easily avail themselves of IVF technology, the putative objection being to the creation of kids who are “fatherless by design.” As Kerry points out, this sloppily conflates the situation of kids growing up in single parent homes (which are […]

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Stephanie Coontz, whose excellent history of marriage I reviewed a while back, makes the case for less state involvement in matrimony in today’s New York Times. She points out that the government’s central place in marriage is both relatively recent and has an unappealing history.

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