Just in case you had any doubts: π (pi) is a deeply weird number. (via lnhammer.)
jimhines on why pop culture should be subject to the same–maybe even more–critiquing about race and gender issues that more “serious” entertainment is.
jimhines again, on why he’s tired of the way women are treated in SF/fantasy art, and tired of the excuses that are made for said treatment, too.
Dear Pixar, can we please have a story about a girl who isn’t a princess? Please? (Via ASorensen.)
Harry Potter vs. Twilight: The Debate. I found the question about the role of women in both books (starting around 2:35) especially interesting, because it brings out something I’ve noticed, too: that many teen readers–even teen readers who adore Twilight–know perfectly well that Bella is problematic, and don’t see her as a role model for who they should be. I think sometimes adults, in worrying about teen reading, fear teens are mindless consumers who simply accept all they read–when of course teens think about and engage with and even argue with their reading. (Via reader-meg.)
freerngekidfeed on a Mom who was arrested for letting two 12-year-olds take some younger siblings to the mall:
We live in safe times that are represented as very UNsafe in the media, because that’s what drives ratings. We are squandering the incredible gift we have of living in 21st century America, where all crime has been declining for the last 15 years, and four times more children make it to their first birthday now than did the year that I was born. We are not in a famine, we are not engaged in a war at home, our children do not have to dodge bullets, militias and malaria-bearing mosquitoes to drag water home from a brackish well. Free-Range Kids does not say there is no evil in the world. But our movement believes our children are more competent and more safe than the worst-case-scenario chorus. We believe children don’t have to do everything exactly right – and neither do parents – for them to still be extremely safe.makinglight on the need to give ourselves permission to suck at things before we get good at them, and also on why this can be especially challenging for women, especially women in male-dominated fields. I was especially struck by K.G. Anderson’s comment #7:
Back in the days of hand-coding HTML, I had to hire a junior-level website programmer for a corporate communications department. I put an ad in the paper and got back two types of responses: Men who said they had heard about HTML and could easily learn it in a couple of days and women who apologized at length in their cover letters for “only” having two or three years of experience doing HTML and web design.Finally, xkcd nails the problematic way in which we generalize female incompetence, transient or otherwise.