Blog Archives
Women Are Passive? Think Again
Rosie the Riveter
Most of us think women are more passive than men. It’s natural, right? Men’s testosterone makes them tough and assertive.
Think again.
Actually, it’s hard to untangle the effects of biology and society.
In fact, it’s hard to untangle the effects of biology, alone.
Testosterone makes men aggressive?
Yes, men have more testosterone. But: Read the rest of this entry
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Cross-Dressing’s Erotic Side
Grayson Perry, in drag
Being a transvestite is a complex cocktail of motivations. It’s different for everyone, but there’s often a strong sexual component to cross-dressing, although trannies sometimes find it hard to admit this. I feel it’s like the elephant in the room. I feel it’s really there, but nobody’s talking about it.
Maybe it’s this erotic dimension which is the hardest part for others to accept.
That’s what artist and cross-dresser, Grayson Perry thinks.
“Vivienne,” over at Bluestocking Blue began blogging to better understand why “she” feels compelled to cross-dress male-to-female. Read the rest of this entry
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Shrinking Women, Hulking Men
The Hulk
Today’s woman may be a CEO, legislator, minister, action hero…
But as the sexes grow more similar, their bodies — at least in media — are diverging.
Men are getting bigger and women are getting smaller — except for their busts. Read the rest of this entry
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Men & Women React to Male & Female Nudity
Women and men showing skin
By Lisa Wade @ Sociological Images
We’ve all heard the truism “sex sells.”
But whose sex is sold? And to who?
If it was simply that sex sold,
…we’d see men and women equally sexually objectified in popular culture. Instead, we see, primarily, women sold to (presumably heterosexual) men. So what are we selling, exactly, if not “sex”?
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How I’m Seen Differently in a Female Body
Joelle Circé, “Waving Pride”
No aspect of my existence, no moment of the day, no contact, no arrangement, no response is not different for men and for women. The very tone of voice in which I was now addressed, the very posture of the person next in the line.
And if others’ responses shifted, so did my own. The more I was treated as a woman, the more woman I became. I adapted willy-nilly. If I was assumed to be incompetent at reversing cars, or opening bottles, oddly incompetent I found myself becoming. If the case was too heavy for me, inexplicably I found it so myself.
Women treated me with a frankness which was one of the happiest discoveries of my metamorphosis. But I also found men treating me more and more as junior. I discovered that even now men prefer women to be less informed, less able, less talkative, and certainly less self-centered than they are themselves; so I generally obliged.
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Purse Turns Brave Men into Scaredy-Cats
Men can act pretty courageous, but ask them to hold a purse and they become scaredy-cats.
A while back I tossed my handbag onto the back seat as I gave a couple of friends a ride. After parking I asked Mike to hand me my purse.
His hands sheepishly approached the worrisome object — and impulsively pulled away.
“How to grasp it?” he wondered. He considered the purse from different angles. Read the rest of this entry
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Women Want Casual Sex? Yes and No
Women want casual sex as much as men, says one study. No they don’t, says another.
Which is it?
Maybe you’ve heard of this project: strangers approach students on college campuses and propose a one night stand or a short-term fling. Women almost always decline, but a lot of men accept.
Standard conclusion: evidence supports evolutionary psychology which claims women are picky, wanting faithful men with good genes, who will provide for their children. Men, on the other hand, will have sex with as many women as possible to better “spread their seed.”
But wait. Another study found that women were as likely to accept casual offers as men. So long as the possible partners were Brad Pitt or Johnny Depp. Read the rest of this entry
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Why Dating Resists Gender Equality
How to ask a girl out
Gender equality has grown by leaps and bounds. We now have women CEOs, heads of state, religious leaders, media pros, doctors, lawyers and accountants…
But dating — at least the early stages — has remained resistant.
In the early stages of relationship, most men take the lead and most women passively wait. Read the rest of this entry
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Sometimes Long Hair Is For Boys
Anne Hathaway
Andre Agassi
Women may wear their hair short because it’s chic or easy to care for. And some guys favor long, sexy locks, a la Andrea Agassi — before he went bald.
But some women cut it short to express a more masculine sense of themselves. Just as some men — cross-dressers — don girlish wigs to bring out their feminine side.
So hair holds symbolic meaning: Long is feminine; it’s for girls. Short is masculine; it’s for boys.
Except when it’s not. Read the rest of this entry
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Man as Object: Reversing the Gaze
Della Calfee. Ass Like That
Men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at.
That’s what art critic John Berger famously observed.
But some feminist artists have turned the tables in the exhibit, Man as Object: Reversing the Gaze:
With a gallery filled with men stripped naked this body of work exposes women’s cheeky, provocative and sometimes shocking commentaries on the opposite sex (which) may make the viewer squirm a little. But that is precisely the point.
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