I have nothing really interesting to say about having attended the Reason Rally (I’m sure everything has already been said by people much better than me), but I wanted to air something that kinda bugged me on a completely different topic.
I came across the book, The IT Girl’s Guide to Becoming an Excel Diva. I sarcastically thought to myself, “I bet this has to do with buying designer shoes,” and son of a bitch, it did, according to the copy on the back.
I know this isn’t the worst thing in the world, but I found it pretty offensive that female stereotypes are perpetuated like this, especially in this day and age. The stereotype goes that women have a very finite and shallow set of interests, especially expensive ones like fashion and especially shoes. It’s something you see fairly often. You’d think it’s offensive enough not to get past the publisher.
I complained to my BFF Karl, who is a man and, while I wouldn’t really call him a feminist, is all-in-all very modern thinking when it comes to sexism. His response was that since there really are women like the book was describing, it wasn’t offensive. After all, the market is only supplying the demand.
True enough, but I still thought that perpetuation of such sexism crossed a line. Suppose that the book was selling racism, not sexism and you’ll better see my point of view. Can you imagine a book called, let’s say, “Excel for Cool Blacks”? What if its copy was about bling and rap music? See what I mean?
What do youse think?

I don’t typically hear about atheists who are as virulently homophobic as a fellow I met on Facebook. This discussion started when I posted on my wall about an anti-gay bill in Nigeria.
Royalist Humanist, an FB user, went on homophobic rants too numerous to repeat here but here are a few examples.
“I am an atheist, I have always stood for the equal basic right rights for all irrespective of any other qualifications. As a Humanist, I do not discriminate against anybody else on the basis of sexual orientation alone …! However, I have the liberty to socialize with a person of specific inclination or not, that is not discrimination…. that is my basic human right ….”
“Gay marriage is something new to Nigeria, therefore they are sticking to the already established moral code about sexual unions between adult and consenting male and female for sex through the vaginal route-called the natural or normal sex. Thoses who come with a new invention of homosexuality: Anal sex between men or anal-sex between a man and a woman on the name of gay-marriage has the burdern to prove their case….”
“Moreover, human anaal canal has not any defence mechanism against entery of sexual diseases through the male sex organ and the human male sex organ has not evolved any protection against the foul feces in the anal canal and therefore diseases like AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases like Gonorrea and Syphilis are 20-40 times commoner in the anal-sex practitioners like homosexuals and gays as well as in Bisexual men and women. The problems of Bisexuals: A Bisexual man is the one who pracrices vaginal as well as anal sex and thereby easily spreads diseases acquired through the anal route into women through vaginal route as he is a bisexual. A Bisexual woman is the one who allows men to have sex with her through vagina as well as through anal canal; she often gets sexual diseases from Biseual men and then other men get AIDS and other sex diseases through her….”

See if you know where to begin correcting Mr. Humanist. And ask: we might expect this sort of ignorant ranting from religiosi, but don’t we expect better of atheists?

Can you believe the above pic is a cake?!
Sex and the City brought it out of the (erm) closet, but I’m sick to death of hearing the stereotype that women love shoes, specifically expensive ones. OK, I get it: we’re the fair sex, and looking good is important to us, and we appreciate beauty in objects, but I think this shoe stereotype is particularly offensive. It perpetuates the idea that females are shallow and materialistic, and furthers the idea that we are gold-diggers so that we can use men’s money for material pursuits such as shopping. People seem to have the idea that women and girls are silly and do silly, useless things. The amassing of designer shoes seems to epitomize this.

I was more than once criticized as a writer trying to get more money: “You just want it to buy shoes.” I’ve heard the same thing about abortion: women just want to abort their pregnancies so that they can afford to buy shoes. I’m sure.

Girls are encouraged at a very early age to be into this stuff. I have seen at least one children’s book teaching girls how to love shopping for shoes. Just what we need, right?

Not all women are shoe-obsessed, or even shopping-obsessed. True, many are, and many of you might say, “Well, if the shoe fits…” True enough, maybe this is one of those times when the stereotype is accurate, but I’m still sick of seeing it everywhere. I’ve seen the shoe fetish (fetish in every sense of the word) in the form of cookies, umbrellas, Christmas tree ornaments, and tzotzkes. All hail the high heel!

Tangentially, I’ve heard of rich women getting surgery on their feet so that they can wear designer shoes better. Hello, Darwin Award in the making!