DREAMINGSPACE

This is an intelligent, clear-sighted article. It’s one of the few I’ve read that discusses cultural difference in a value-neutral way, pulling shit apart without falling into the traps of useless generalisation, essentialising, political correctness, or hysteria. There’s definitely an awareness of cultural capital, the significance of community as a value (and as something that drives values), and the problematics of assimilation.

“If it is true that they are collectively dominating in elite high schools and universities, is it also true that Asian-Americans are dominating in the real world? My strong suspicion was that this was not so, and that the reasons would not be hard to find. If we are a collective juggernaut that inspires such awe and fear, why does it seem that so many Asians are so readily perceived to be, as I myself have felt most of my life, the products of a timid culture, easily pushed around by more assertive people, and thus basically invisible?

The failure of Asian-Americans to become leaders in the white-collar workplace does not qualify as one of the burning social issues of our time. But it is a part of the bitter undercurrent of Asian-American life that so many Asian graduates of elite universities find that meritocracy as they have understood it comes to an abrupt end after graduation.”

The best break-up post I have ever read.

Other good articles on the defunding of Planned Parenthood, and the issues surrounding it, here, here, here, here, and here.

“Jasika Nicole, 28, an F.B.I. agent on “Fringe,” a new Fox drama, said that as bigger parts became available, her manager, John Essay, sat her down and asked how public she wanted to be about being a lesbian. Some roles could be lost, he told her, as would some fans.

Mr. Essay, who is gay, said he encouraged openness but warned clients of the risks.

“If it becomes exaggerated,” he said, “you just become the gay actress instead of a wonderful actress.”

Perhaps, he suggested, she didn’t want to be too vocal about it.

Ms. Nicole, who has a girlfriend, said she would just be herself. She has been open about her sexual orientation since she started dating women about 3 ½ years ago, while she was filming “Take the Lead” with Antonio Banderas in Toronto.

Now, as she becomes better known, “There’s no way I can keep quiet,” she said. “I want to be clear this is my partner. I don’t want to make that shameful in any kind of way.””

“As Cordelia Fine documents in Delusions of Gender, researchers change their focus, technology marches on, but sexism is eternal. Its latest incarnation is what she calls “neurosexism”, sexist bias disguised in the “neuroscientific finery” of claims about neurons, brains, hormones.”

I’d love to read this book.

notes to self:
- hierarchy is based in (false) valuation! Saussure etc.
- the tendency to focus on what should be/false values instead of on the complexities of what is.

AHAHAHAHA. I love when you don’t even have to comment and an article is so bad it satirises itself. this is fucking hilarious.

The findings suggest that being male or female is not a permanently fixed state but something that has to be continually maintained in the adult body by the constant interaction of genes to keep the status quo – and the gender war – from slipping in favour of the opposite sex.

sometimes this world makes me want to puke. fuck gender, fuck sexuality. why don’t you just take a good, long look at the person standing in front of you? (entangled in/overshadowed by the all of the depersonalising categories-for-objects that modern civilisation has cleverly invented.)