What I find especially hilarious is that there are so many people who complain about the patriarchy and then proceed to discuss the story about PyCon, SendGrid and  Adria Richards in terms of gender wars (“Men are to blame!” “Women are to blame!” “Men victimize women!” “Women victimize men!”).

Gender wars are a product of the patriarchy  It sets the victims of the oppressive gender roles against each other and sits there waiting for the poor losers to devour each other. Which is exactly what’s happening right now.

If you find an article or a blog post that puts the blame in this situation where it belongs, namely, on the stupid, unfair employers, please leave a link. I’m trying to find out how many people can see past the gender-blaming and notice that there are two poor unemployed schmucks in this story who lost their jobs over nothing. And there is a curious gender symmetry among these recently jobless people.

And if you don’t see that this is a story about nothing other than workers’ rights, I sincerely hope you never post anything on social networks and nobody posts anything about you on social networks that might be used to ruin your career.

Today I tried to put on a pair of pants and discovered that they barely close on me. The last time I wore them was two weeks ago, and they were a little loose. And now I wouldn’t be able to sit in them without ripping them. I had suspected that it was time for me to acquire a pregnant belly but my pregnancy app disagreed and said I shouldn’t expect it before mid-April. So this development was unexpected. The good news is that I bought three very good pregnant pieces of clothing at a store in Madrid called Pre-mama. If you’ve ever been pregnant or spent time with anybody who was pregnant, you probably know that maternity clothes in North America are made and distributed by fans of evo psych. I say this because these clothes practically scream, “You’ve found somebody to impregnate you, so there is no more reason for you to look good, you fat cow! And your sky-rocketing libido does not fit our theory, so we’ll pretend it doesn’t exist!” Besides being heart-breakingly ugly, these clothes are also invariably itchy. Pregnant women often find that their skin is very itchy as it is, so you can imagine how much joy a blouse that is as scratchy as a hedgehog brings into a woman’s life. In Pre-mama, however, I bought a pair of pants and two dresses that are beautiful and extremely gentle to the touch. The dresses can also be worn when one is not pregnant. Yes, they cost a packet, but in North America, you can’t buy good pregnant clothes even if you are willing to pay. Now I’m wondering why I didn’t buy more.

I have to run, so I don’t have time to comment on this in depth but make sure you read this piece on the recent voting in Canada’s House of Commons:

The second, vote 631, was of tremendous direct importance to the entire country. The vote was to assert the government’s belief that scientific research is fundamental to sound public policy-making. Now, it’s not terribly surprising to me that this motion was defeated, since it was being used as a pretext to renew funding for a fresh water research laboratory in Northern Ontario which Harper, for some reason, seems hell-bent-for-leather on killing. But what really stood out to me on this one was how it broke down on partisan lines. When asked to stand-up for the principle that public policy should be informed by real world data, every single Tory MP said no.

Every. Single. One.

This is something that everyone should really bear in mind the next time a federal election rolls around.

If anybody can comment on this in any way, please do. I’ve let my understanding of Canadian politics slip for a while, so this complete and utter pig-headedness seems very confusing to me.

This is the text of the bill in question:

That, in the opinion of the House: (a) public science, basic research and the free and open exchange of scientific information are essential to evidence-based policy-making; (b) federal government scientists must be enabled to discuss openly their findings with their colleagues and the public; and (c) the federal government should maintain support for its basic scientific capacity across Canada, including immediately extending funding, until a new operator is found, to the world-renowned Experimental Lakes Area Research Facility to pursue its unique research program.

How can anybody with a brain – even a stupid little one – be against this? I mean, every single Tory? Why? They must have some reason. Does anybody know?

What a scary story. Two people got fired because of a company’s hypocrisy and prissiness:

The strange saga began Sunday at the PyCon event in Santa Clara, CA, when Adria Richards, a developer evangelist for e-mail vendor SendGrid, overheard jokes being told by two developers sitting behind her during a session. The jokes were sexual in nature, she said. Richards proceeded to take a picture of the developers, then tweeted the photo and asked PyCon organizers to have a word with them.

The story ended with one of the developers getting fired, Richards getting fired, and an apparent denial of service attack against Richard’s personal blog and against SendGrid.

If anybody mentions the word “feminism” in the comments, they will be banned immediately. I’ve had my fill of arrant idiocy this week. This story is not about feminism and it has zero to do with anybody’s gender. It’s about puritanism and prissiness, qualities that know no gender.

If you read the entire article, you will see that the company fired one of the jokesters (not both, which is very curious) and the person who complained about them. This tells us that the real problem here is a corporation that wants its employees to be mindless, soulless robots who don’t have an existence outside of being productive for the company.

There is this hilarious list of tips for saving money from jobless bankers. Do check it out, it’s the best. Like this suggestion:

12. Have all your medical problems sorted out before you lose your job.

Of course, the bankers who still have jobs will read this and fire people in an even more unexpected manner to prevent them from following this advice.

And the one I especially liked is:

16. Ensure both adults are working

Putting your spouse to work may not save money, but it will at least bring more money in. The male bankers we spoke to were hesitant about insisting their wives got jobs (“There aren’t any out there,” said one). But wives themselves were more open to the idea.

Actually, it will save a ton of money currently spent on anti-depressants, useless parties, and clothes nobody ever wears. So good luck, bankers! You finally get a chance to live a full life, what’s with the chance to get healthy, learn to cook, connect with your kids, and even iron.

Male prof: Emma is a phenomenal student! So professional, well-organized, and dedicated! She works extremely hard, never misses class, always does the readings. . .

Female prof: What are you talking about? Emma is extremely disrespectful and lazy. She has an attitude from here to the Moon, misses most classes, never hands in the homework. Bill, on the other hand, is an amazing student. He works extremely hard, never misses class, always does the readings. . .

Male prof:  What are you talking about? Bill is extremely disrespectful and lazy. He has an attitude from here to the Moon, misses most classes, never hands in the homework. If you want to see a great student, take Natalia. She is fantastic! Bright, engaged,

Female prof: What?!? Natalia is horrible! She hates my courses and never pays attention to what I say. John, however, is fantastic.

Male prof: What?!? John is the worst. He hates my courses and never pays attention to what I say.

This is how we discovered that whether students like us has a lot less to do with how well we teach and a lot more to do with something quite different.

I tried so hard to teach students to avoid trivialities and generalizations that I completely forgot to tell them to avoid statements that combine both. Thus, I have nobody to blame if a student hands in a paper that starts with,

Marriage is a sacred thing.

Every blogger knows that early spring and late Fall are the most dangerous times because avitaminosis is making people go off their rocker massively. Today, the quiet, ultra-polite persona of a reader of this blog has perished as a result of this difficult season. The reader has decided that I’m “a threat to public health.” This is the freakiest comment since the time somebody wrote that I’m “the epitome of everything that is wrong in the world.”

Please, folks, don’t forget to eat fresh fruits and vegetables. They are important at any time of year, but especially so in early spring.

This need to make completely totally utterly sure what one’s gender is reminded me of recent discussions on this blog:

Just in case somebody suspects that these eggs have been laid by a one of those male hens, the seller insists they come from a female hen.

I’m experiencing a growing resentment towards the Department of English. They get most of the resources at our College of Arts and Sciences, they steal the right to teach World Literature in translation from us, they squeeze us out of the International Studies major, they see every single student pass through their courses as part of the general education program, they unilaterally decide their graduate students don’t need to be competent in a foreign language and slash the requirement, they have a bizillion faculty positions and keep getting more and more, nobody threatens them with getting rid of them or removing their funding, and they bully other departments around just because they can.

But I see no evidence that they are doing their job. A student who is finishing a Major in English has zero understanding of what a thesis statement of an essay is and what are the MLA guidelines for formatting bibliographies. Students who have passed through English Lit courses have no idea that essays should have meaningful titles (other than Essay #1, that is) and that a 10-page essay cannot be written in a single paragraph.

I just got my students in the advanced literature seminar to submit a thesis statement for the final essay, and the only ones who did a good job are those who took an advanced course with me last semester and learned how to do it. The rest think that a thesis statement means a list of “themes” they identify in the work of literature being analyzed. I swear, if I hear the word “themes” one more time, I will have a fit.

Given that we do exactly what English Lit does but “backwards and in heels” (i.e. in a foreign language) and we still manage to do a better job, I’m beginning to wonder what the problem is.