This December, the TED series of conferences will launch TEDWomen, a two-day meeting in Washington, D.C. that will discuss "women as powerful change agents: In developing nations, women and girls hold the vital link to economic growth, public health, political stability." The slate of speakers hasn't been released yet, but the TEDWomen website says the line-up will include: "The women who redesigned their country’s financial system in the wake of near-catastrophe"; "The physician who discovered the life-saving importance of treating men and women differently"; "A world leader bringing peace to her conflict-ridden nation"; "The teen-age filmmaker whose stories changed how a community saw itself"; "The sports champion who defies convention with her ability and her appearance"; and "The anthropologist who traces altruism to the mother-child bond." [Via Huffington Post].

The Washington Area Women's Foundation has a round-up of new laws affecting women and girls in Maryland and Virginia. Two highlights: In Virginia, "Domestic violence victims will be able to extend protective orders obtained in cases of family abuse or stalking" for two years, with no limit on the number of extensions. And in Maryland, the “Kids First Express Lane Eligibility Act” will use tax records to "identify families with children who may be eligible for Medicaid or the Maryland Children’s Health Program," in an effort to encourage eligible families to apply for those benefits.

Photo via steakpinball, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

* A new sex blogger writing for THE LINE asks: Does writing about your sexual experiences veer into non-consensual territory?

how could I write on a blog, about consent of all things, personal details about MY sex life, which of course involve other people? That I’d share without their knowledge or consent? Or course I won’t use their names, but a hookup is (or should be) built on a foundation of trust and communication. Part of that is the assumption (and hope) that one party won’t share private details with everyone they know or go bragging to a vast amount of people—which is essentially what I would be doing by sharing it here. Outside of writing on a blog, in my real life, I want to be open with the people around me – especially the ones I’m sleeping with.

How can I talk about my sexual experiences and not cross the line?

I suppose the obvious question is why the only option presented is to share these details without first obtaining the "knowledge or consent" of his sex partners?

* Emily Nagoski argues that men have higher sexual motivation than women. Commenters get into it on the nature v. nurture tip.

* Amanda Marcotte submits an abbreviated history of anti-feminists who call themselves feminists. From the "'Independent Feminism' Anti-Feminism" section:

Iconic Leader: Camille Paglia

Other examples: Christina Hoff-Summers, Wendy McElroy, Kathleen Parker, Heather MacDonald.

Basic argument: The important work of feminism is over, and whatever movement is left exists primarily to demonize men and the awe-inspiring male sexual spirit.

Classic quote: From Camille Paglia: "You have to accept the fact that part of the sizzle of sex comes from the danger of sex. You can be overpowered."

* The Chicago Tribune thinks Philadelphia Flyers defenseman Chris Pronger plays hockey like a girl. So they gave him a girlie name and put a little girlie skirt on him. GIRLS. THERE IS NO WORSE FATE.

Photo via the Library of Congress

This one's for the tweens. Say you're a typical seventh-grade girl. And so, as is typical for a girl your age, a good deal of your existence is devoted to self-loathing. You hate everything about yourself—your skin, your weight, your clothes, your hair, the way you eat, the way you talk, the way you walk, the way you look in a swimsuit, the way you look in shorts, the way you look in pants, the way you look to boys, the way you look to other girls.

Perhaps you are wondering when this hell on Earth is going to end? When you're going to gain a little bit of confidence in yourself? When you'll be able to do things humans do—eat, walk, talk, dress, swim—without hating yourself for it? Eight grade, maybe? Ho ho, not so fast, girl who doesn't want to hate herself anymore! As Sady Doyle of Tiger Beatdown and I discover in this edition of Sexist Beatdown, insecurity is all part of the social hierarchy of girl culture. Sure, a little bit of confidence might help you live a full, human life—but it just might make all the other girls in school hate you.

Sady has already laid the groundwork on this pervasive negativity of girlhood, in which  a social order is built upon this delicate balance between feeling like shit and making other girls feel like shit, too. Fast fact: according to Rachel Simmons' Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls, the no. 1 way to put yourself on the fast track to social hell is to be a confident girl. In order to avoid appearing too confident—while keeping other girls self-loathing as well!—passive-aggressive social strategies develop. Sady points to two particularly odious rituals of girl culture:

a. The Complinsult. Sady on the "complinsult":

Here’s one of the best I have ever received, which I keep close to my heart: “Your outfit is amazing! I think it’s so great that you can wear that out in public. I’d never have the nerve.” The words are saying “I suck and you are awesome,” and yet? That is EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE of what it means.

b. The Fat Talk. Sady on the "Fat Talk":

For years, I thought this was some grody stereotype that you only found in male stand-up comedians’ routines about how women are awful. But then I met women who actually did it: the thing where, before ordering dinner at a restaurant, you all talk about how you should order this and you absolutely cannot order that, because you are so disgusting and you cannot stick to your diet and eating a cheeseburger will literally send you right straight to hell, and if you are the girl who straight-up says she wants some nachos so covered in cheese and guacamole and various meats that they might as well not even have any chips involved – just a big mess of meats and milk fat and squished-up avocados, that is the experience for which you are aiming, and also it would help if the entire thing had sour cream all over it – well, you just might have earned yourself a Complinsult about how brave you are with your dietary habits, young lady.

Any social order which denies girls the most delicious nachos of all simply cannot stand. So: How do we get out of this mess?

AMANDA: Before we begin this conversation, I should inform you that I am fat, and also that I think it's so great that you're the type of girl who could post a long, introspective essay on self-esteem and female relationships, because I would never have had the nerve to say such a thing in public.

SADY: I think it's really brave of you to admit that in public, Amanda, considering the sort of backlash you are likely to get from people who think it is stupid! Although I, myself, have a hard time concentrating on what you are saying, because mostly I am thinking about how ugly I am at the moment. Have we done the rounds yet? Do we need more backhanding?

AMANDA: I think we're fine for now. Until you start to get too confident! Then, I will commence with the outright shaming.

SADY: HA. This is something I have been thinking a lot about, the shaming! And it had two causes: one, the Clay Shirky piece I read [Quick plot overview: Dude thinks women just need to act more confident, and all the problems of women will be solved. -Ed.] and then used as a platform for my particular dive off the Deep End. And, two, the fact that I Googled myself.

AMANDA: Oh continue!

SADY: And the first thing I thought, after commencing the Googling, was—not that there weren't nice things and bad things and one bad thing from a guy who wrote a bad thing about me before and then had to list it in his top-trafficked blog posts of the year, I think because I read it 9,000 times—the FACT THAT I HAD A GOOGLE PRESENCE sent me into this weird shame spiral. I was like, "Oh, no! For every person that knows about me, there is ONE MORE CHANCE for someone to HATE MY ASS SEVERELY!" And this led a very strange series of reflections. Which I will not dominate the discussion with, because they are boring.

AMANDA: I'll reflect on something: I feel like for much of my adolescence, I was both repulsed by and unable to ignore the self-shaming hallmarks of female bonding. I hated myself, for sure, most furiously during the 7th-8th grade years, but I was also extremely uncomfortable with other girls expressing their own imaginary failures—the "I'm too fats" or the "I'm too uglies" or the "I'm too dumbs." I think I did realize at the time that this was an odd form of bonding that had to be engaged with in order to prove your friendship to the other person—"you're not fat! you're not ugly!"—but I never felt comfortable engaging in those kinds of proclamations.

SADY: Right. And I think this is something that I actually ran up against when I started to engage with other feminists: like, people would point out that I apologized for something trivial ninety thousand times over the course of the discussion, or couldn't have a conversation without being like, "By the way, have I pointed out that my outfit is horrible?" But it was very hard to get over, even though I could notice it when other women did it and provide support for them in that respect. And I think that it's interesting, in that those things can become social currency among girls—you have to apologize for taking up whatever space you take up—and is pretty clearly part of the Patriarchy deal which is that women aren't supposed to take up space. But it gathers a new level of nuance. Like, somehow, we're so caught up in this that it exists even when no dudes are present in the room, and we self-lacerate and lacerate each other to the same degree.

AMANDA: I agree, and now thinking back on it, I think part of me, as a kid, just wanted my friends to deal with all that horrible shit silently. I didn't want to talk about that stuff, so when my friend in the 8th grade who was stick-thin repeatedly complained about how fat she was, I got annoyed at her, instead of understanding what a fucked-up situation she was in and talking about THAT. I didn't have that kind of awareness then however, and I wonder where those kinds of conversations would have situated me in the female social group I was in.

SADY: Right. Like, allow me to present you with two ways I have handled this conversation in the past: "What are you talking about?! YOU WEIGH LESS THAN I DO." Which amounts to, basically: shut up, your body insecurities are not worth my time. Or: "What are you talking about?! THAT IS SO SELF-LOATHING." Which, while engaged in with a slightly purer intent, still translated to: shut up, your bodily insecurities are not worth my time. Like, instead of engaging women on their insecurities, I would try to shut them down. Which is clearly super feminist, right?

AMANDA: Right? I think the way that I handled those situations was to, again, put it in the perspective of this hierarchy where a) someone skinnier than me was saying she was fat, which b) implied that i was fat, which c) made me lash out at this person in some way. It's certainly interesting to see how boys in our culture at least have defined their social hierarchies by boasting, while girls have done it by passive-aggressively cutting themselves down in order to lift themselves up in another way.

SADY: Right. And I think that this is where "Odd Girl Out," the book I have been reading that I think everyone should read, and also the "Trashing" essay from forever ago [Quick plot overview: This shit that little girls do? Grown feminist women do it, too. -Ed.] comes into play. Because, the thing is, we are dealing with this excessively complex hierarchy wherein (A) Women aren't supposed to value themselves over and above the people around them, (B) Women, to demonstrate how not-selfish they are, are supposed to be nice all the time, and (C) Women find it easier to lash out at OTHER WOMEN for violating these tenets than to examine the fucked-up rules in the first place, but (D) You still have to win the Nicest Person in America trophy, so you can never express the lashing-out in a direct way. It has to look like something else.

AMANDA: The trick for me has always been staying out of that horrific, horrific structure without shunning other women.

SADY: Yeah, exactly. Like, shaming women for DOING this isn't exactly breaking away from the overall structure of women-shaming, you know?

AMANDA: that's one of the main complaints about the Rant About Women, which that it explicitly tells women that the way out of this trap is just to act like dudes. When the point is that we don't get to choose, actually. The pull-yourself-out-of-your-gender-by-your-own-bootstraps argument doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

SADY: Right. And I think we can agree that this is perhaps overly simplistic.

AMANDA: this is where we come up with a better solution. :-/

SADY: HA! Um, carousel rides for everyone? Overthrow the capitalist system? For me, I guess I'm situated at a weird place with this argument, which is the place I always wind up in with structure/agency arguments. Which is: YOU, by yourself, cannot singlehandedly escape the system. Your bootstraps are NOT THAT POWERFUL. However, you cannot say that there is no way to RESIST the system, in your own personal life. Like, even if I acknowledge that registering www.sadydoyleisthebestever.com will have more negative consequences than positive ones, being freaked out and self-sabotaging and constantly downplaying everything are ALSO not likely to have the most positive consequences. Does that make sense? Am I point-missing, here?

AMANDA: That makes sense to me. But I mean, I also haven't had significant issues with the typically feminine self-esteem stuff since I left high school, so maybe I'm one of the lucky ones. [OK, actually, in retrospect, this is totally not true! I think what has actually happened is that I have become so accustomed to the casual and absurd self-loathing that women experience (i.e. "I'm fat") that I don't even recognize it anymore, I just consider it a constant fixture of my life. Fuck! -Ed.]

SADY: I am building an escape pod from this whole deal where I basically surround myself with ladies who tell each other how great they are all the time, and are cool about ladies! That's what I'm doing. JOIN THE LADIES ARE GREAT PARTY, EVERYONE. That's my shitty little personal solution that doesn't fix everything! YAY LADIES WOOOOO.

AMANDA: Maybe we can all pitch in for a cruise ship or something.

SADY: HA! If there are any super-rich ladies, maybe they can help us build Self-Esteem Island. That seems like a solution! Yes, I think we've just fixed it. ALL BY OURSELVES. RIGHT HERE. YOU SAW IT HAPPEN.

AMANDA: well great! I'm going to have a nap then.

SADY: Okay! I'm eating a cheeseburger. Like, THREE of them. RIGHT NOW.

AMANDA: Oh shit I forgot. I REALLY want those nachos you spoke of.

SADY: Extra guacamole is a feminist act, dude. Enjoy!

Photo by bugeaters, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

Sweden, a nation that has managed to avoid war for over 200 years, has nevertheless been quick to condone overseas agression in one recent conflict: Stockholm-born Elin Nordegren's reportedly golf-club assisted assault on her philandering husband, Tiger Woods. Today on the Daily Beast, Katarina Andersson noted how some prominent Swedish media types have reacted to the Nordegren-Woods affair. Namely, "Swing it again, Elin!":

Swing it again, Elin!” wrote Jan Helin, editor in chief of Aftonbladet, the country's biggest newspaper, on his personal blog. One of the paper's top reporters, Ann Söderlund, proclaimed, “Thank God for girls like Elin. Next time, I hope she uses a bigger club."

Britta Svensson, a well-known columnist at the tabloid Expressen and a former U.S.-based correspondent, commented, “Our Swedish hearts are overwhelmed with pride, because our very own Elin didn’t take any s—. Just like a tough Swedish girl shouldn't. Elin is our heroine.”

The American media, too, has been quick to excuse Nordegren's alleged assault on Woods, which left him lying bewildered in the middle of the road, next to a busted car, with scratches on his face and possibly a broken tooth. Stateside, Tiger's cheating has been deemed far more scandalous that Nordegren's physical assault—commenters have labored to paint Nordegren as the victim to Woods' web of affairs, but have hesitated to recognize Woods as a victim of domestic violence. Still, I've yet to hear from anyone actually endorsing Nordegren's outburst as an act of girl-power. Until now. Writes Andersson:

The culture of child-rearing in Sweden makes sure that girls have a strong sense of self. "Swedish women like Elin are brought up to be independent and strong,” explains Karin Magnusson, the op-ed editor for Aftonbladet, "and you can only stand for just so much humiliation. We're excited about this. We're hoping Elin will file for divorce and show Tiger—and the world—what Swedish women stand for."

If Swedish cultural commentators want the world to know that Swedish women stand for divorcing cheaters, I think that's fine—if a bit odd. If they want the world to know that Swedish women stand for beating the cheaters and then divorcing them, I think that's a fucked up standard to set for an entire country of girls and boys. Plenty of Swedish girls will grow up to be cheaters, too—do we want their future spouses to grow up thinking it's empowering to physically assault them for screwing around?

Perhaps I'm working against a bit of a cultural "girl power" divide here, but I'm afraid that Nordegen's domestic violence role-reversal has gotten some feminist signals crossed. I don't know too much about the culture of Swedish child-rearing, but I do know some girl power universals: Girl power is about having a strong sense of self, standing up for yourself, and not taking peoples's shit. Sometimes, girl power is about being empowered physically—for purposes of self-esteem and self-defense. It's not about beating the shit out of people! And it's certainly not about encouraging domestic abusers to keep up the good work. I know that male abusers have been beating the shit out of their spouses for a long time now, but domestic violence is one male-dominated field where inviting more female participation does not help promote gender equality.

Image via Wikipedia Commons

The Weight Loss Doll, 1991

Perfect for: The girl who's just entering the "I'm fat" phase, but hasn't yet abandoned the "plays with dolls" phase.

How it works: This doll provides dieters "a friend, a companion in the weight-loss process" who gains and loses weight along with you. Or, more accurately, loses its skin. "Layers of 'skin' made of stretchable synthetic material, such as vinyl, are added or removed from the doll each time the doll's owner gains or loses one weight increment, respectively. Each layer represents a particular predetermined weight increment, which may be determined by the doll's owner. The doll may be male or female, preferably includes jointed body parts, and may be dressed, such as in a running suit which fits over the layers of skin."

The Magical Boob Growth Doll, 1976.

Perfect for: The prepubescent girl who wishes she could lose her baby-fat belly and magically grow a rack, all in one upward motion!

How it works: You crank the weight from your stomach to your boobs. "Lower torso member includes a waist member having a lower portion of a first girth and an upper portion of a second, lesser girth so that pliable, rubber-like upper torso waist member may be slid from lower portion of lower torso waist member where it simulates waist of pudgy pre-teenager to upper portion of lower torso waist member where it simulates trim waist of a teenager while simulated breasts are simultaneously pressed outwardly against upper torso member causing bulging of the rubber-like material to form a simulated bustline."

The Pregnant Doll, 1989

Perfect For: Little girls who yearn to play act an "attractively svelte" baby-maker, without all the icky scientific accuracy.

How it works: "When the baby is in the pocket of the mother, it bulges the pocket and the mother appears pregnant; when the baby is removed the mother appears attractively svelte . . . The baby is preferably placed upside down in the pouch; but the pouch may be sized to receive the baby doll in other positions since young children are not likely to be biologically precise about this."

The Breastfeeding Doll, 1981.

Perfect for: The little girl who is into all that icky scientific accuracy.

How it works: "the mouth of the baby doll can be fastened to the breast pf the mother doll to simulate breastfeeding." But why? "It is old and well known in the art to produce dolls resembling a mature woman as well as to produce baby dolls. It is also old and well known to provide humanoid dolls which are capable of simulating certin human functions such as crying, taking nourishment from a bottle, wetting and the like. [But] with respect to a simulated nursing operation between a mother and her young, the only known representations involve animals."

The Diet Aid Doll, 1990.

Perfect For: Any kid who eats food. This human-pig hybrid doll is not made specifically for the children. But the fat-shaming figure sticks right on the family refrigerator, so your growing girl will get the hint every time she descends to the kitchen for a midnight snack.

How it works: "When a person presses the nose of the pig doll, a portion of the doll is inflated to a greater size. This expansion of the pig doll is to visually remind people that their own bodys will expand in size when they continually over-eat. . . . When the person sees that the body of the doll has expanded, this reminds the person that his or her , own body can expand by over eating and look unappealing."

Last week, New York Times theater reviewer Charles McGrath penned a piece on Sienna Miller's Broadway debut. The piece has been roundly criticized for overstating Miller's affairs with famous men. The story begins by reviewing Miller's "long and well-documented romantic history," which includes "flings" with "Jude Law, Daniel Craig, James Franco and most recently the married oil heir Balthazar Getty, with whom she was photographed topless and in a sailor hat."

Originally, McGrath had grouped Heath Ledger and Puff Daddy in with the bunch. A correction appended to the story later clarified that the"misstates the nature of the relationships that she had with Heath Ledger and Sean Combs. She was friends with both of them; she did not have romantic flings with either of them." But the problems with McGrath's piece go far beyond the inflated slut-shaming.

Take the paragraph that follows up the topless sailor incident:

Ms. Miller is opening on Thursday in the Roundabout Theater production of “After Miss Julie,” Patrick Marber’s adaptation of the Strindberg play “Miss Julie.” The audience at previews has included Sienna lookalikes, blond fashionistas in miniskirts and heavy makeup, and scholars less of Scandinavian theater, perhaps, than of her Vogue cover appearances. That some people have trouble taking Ms. Miller seriously as an actress—or don’t even know she is one—is because she has so frequently been her own worst enemy.

According to McGrath, Miller's fanbase is a group of shallow "fashionistas" who are so dumb they don't even know that Miller is an actress. Boy, I bet they were confused when they showed up at a Broadway theater to see Miller in a play, and ended up having to sit through hours of acting.

McGrath is concerned that nobody is taking Miller "seriously as an actress." Perhaps the problem is that McGrath refuses to take Miller's fans seriously. Apparently, the people who are willing to shell out the cash to see Miller on Broadway are not "serious" because they read Vogue, wear skirts, and apply make-up. In short, they're girls. Worse, they're girls who look like Sienna Miller. The fact that McGrath instantly discredits entire groups of people who happen to resemble his interview subject says a lot about his own bias in writing this profile.

McGrath spends the remainder of the piece attempting to convince his readers that Miller is capable of "charming" and "sensitive" performances, as if he is the only one who can see past Miller's beauty and relationship history. "Not a great many people have actually seen what she can do," McGrath writes—as if the women lining up to see Miller on Broadway have somehow failed to complete the simpler task of watching one of her films. And despite McGrath's presumably unique appreciation of Miller's talent, he continually refuses to focus strictly on her work throughout the piece. Miller, he writes, is "smaller" and "prettier" in person. She manages to be a good actress despite being "beautiful."

After all this—the rehashing of her former "flings," the snarking on her female fans, the constant protestations of Miller's beauty, and the condescending admission that the girl can actually act in addition to fucking dudes and looking hot, McGrath concludes that Miller is not taken seriously because she has "so frequently been her own worst enemy." I think it's time Miller transfer the "worst enemy" title on over to Charles McGrath.

Photo by Caroline Bonarde Uni via Wikipedia Commons

This Week In Sexist History:

Good 'Ol Day: July 22, 1893

Dateline: Long Branch, N.J.

Subject: The summer of 1893 is nearly ruined for this sad sack New Jersey scene reporter—until the sexiest underage bather this side of puberty catches his roving eye!

What's lifting these male vacationers from the depths of their pathetic existences? If you've been studying your Sexist History, you'd know that the answer probably starts with Pretty and ends with Girls:

Oh, it makes no difference what shape you are in the freewheeling social scene of the Jersey surf! Unless, of course, you're "pretty girl" shaped, in which case your body will likely be obsessively detailed in the pages of the New York Times. Proceed:

Euugh! How old is the young lady in the red swimsuit, anyway? One the one hand, it's great that this girl is still in her spluttering-around-in-the-water bathing suit phase, and not yet in her crippled-by-body-issues bathing suit phase. On the other hand, I'm willing to bet the girl's sexy childhood innocence was shattered riiiiiight arrroooound July 23, 1893—the day this Skeevy Turn-Of-The-Century Reporter's ruminations on her sexy childhood innocence was printed in the pages of the New York Times.

How can Skeevy Turn-of-the-Century Reporter possibly redeem himself from the true skeeviness of ogling bathing children? By turning next to an even sleazier specimen: The Skeevy Turn-Of-The-Century Sketch Artist.

Done and done.

Watch out, Washington-area adults, children, teenagers, and male tweens: The tween girls are taking over the District of Columbia. This October, the "leading tween girl research firm" will team up with the nation's largest "tween girl social networking site" to host the first "National Tween Girl Summit"—ever. Details!

Washington's Capital Hilton Hotel will play host to 250 female tweens along with several notable non-tween "policy makers, marketers, experts, celebrities and other persons of note." Areas of discussion include "community service and activism, personal safety online and off, tween pressure and self-image," and some insider-baseball type tween stuff: "what’s hot and what’s not in the world of tweens."

'Tween policy-making sessions, the hundreds of tween girls will also have the chance for some down-time. What better place for a tween to relax than at the "Tween Video Game Lounge," where tween-friendly titles like "LITTLEST PET SHOP™ FRIENDS, LITTLEST PET SHOP™ ONLINE and CHARM GIRLS CLUB™." There's also going to be an Ice Cream Social. And Michelle Obama is invited! Needless to say, this is going to be awesome.

Where do I sign up?

Wait—what the fuck? A tween has to be "9 to 14 years old"? But wait—it says here that The First Ever National Tween Summit is planning a special treat for post-tweens, as well: it's going to be called tweensummit.com, and it promises to be "a place for parents, press, marketers—adults."

As if. Tweensummit.com is totally going to be a thinly-veiled containment area to keep the worst kind of grown-ups from totally ruining everything for the tweens. Whatever.

Bethesda's Holton-Arms School is one of four schools across the country that will offer single-sex Internet courses through the new "Online School For Girls" this year, the Washington Post reports. The single-sex online education experiment is meant to cater to female students who "learn differently with technology than boys," proponents say. The reasoning behind the online school is similar to that of classroom-based initiatives which claim to serve the sexes better separately:

Backers of girls' schools say there are benefits to having no boys in the classroom: Girls prosper when teaching methods are designed just for them, they can pursue interests free from gender stereotyping and their hands shoot up more often when boys aren't around.

I don't begrudge Bethesda's prep-school set from exploring all its educational options. But personally, I find this particular solution to gender inequality in education to be utter bullshit. Tailoring teaching methods to girls, eliminating gender stereotypes in the classroom, and encouraging girls to participate? These goals ought to be no-brainers in every classroom, and teachers ought to be instructed to teach to the whole class. Why not put our resources toward addressing these issues together?

Girls and boys will be collaborating and competing with each other well past prep school. Learning to collaborate and compete as equals is important, and not just in the interest of everyone getting along. If the sexes have different educational needs, as these segregated programs suggest, why see it as a liability? Why not, instead, see difference as a huge asset to both boys and girls, who can learn valuable tactics from each other? Equality-minded co-ed education won't just help girls achieve future success in a co-ed world. Boys, too, will learn to respect a diversity of learning styles in place of an institutionalized respect of male competititive style. And they may just learn a few things from their hot-shot female classmates, too.

The Sexist will be out for the holiday weekend tomorrow, so I leave you with last week's greatest hits. What better way to celebrate America's birthday than reading a bunch of random shit about sex on the Internet?

1. This Week in Sexist History: Girls, Girls, Girls Edition, an indulgence in olde-tyme sports writing. I say it's sexist! Commenter says it isn't! Steve Silver says it's "interesting how it has to be explained to some readers 100 years later that an article published 100 years ago describing women purely as objects for men’s pleasure is sexist."

2. Teen Sex Scandal!, in which I put the feminist linkbait-and-switch theory to work.

3. Big Penis Site Reveals Inches Before First Date, in which 7orbetter.com has more longevity than I gave it credit for.

4. Disney's Closeted Gay Agenda, in which High School Musical debunks all theories about Disney promoting heterosexuality.

5. Sex Tips From Drunk People, in which I pledge to do more research in this area over the holiday, and I encourage you to do the same! E-mail your drunk sex insights to ahess@washingtoncitypaper.com.

Photo by Misserion

This Week in Sexist History:

Good Ol' Day: June 23, 1909

Dateline: New York, NY

Subject: Reporter at Yale-Harvard rivalry baseball game fluffs up his flowery play-by-play with a rhapsodic account of the glorious array of girls in attendance. Collect one in every ethnicity!

First, let us immerse ourself in the peculiar style of turn-of-the-century Ivy League baseball reporting:

The "real old Jamake," guy? Whatever—this man has clearly got column inches to fill. And then:

Who has a baseball game to report on when there are girls to scrupulously detail?

At this point, you might be thinking that this guy should get back to the game at hand instead of ranking the glorious blossoms of the rose garden that is female college baseball enthusiasts. No? Okay. What were they wearing?

That explains it: He fancies himself a novelist. Say what you will about this reporter's choice to obscure the whole ballgame with testimony on gowns "such as made Paris a memory" and excuses for his own lechery—it beats his baseball reporting:

Yeah, where are the girls again?

So, R. Kelly has pulled the vocoder out of the closet and recorded a remix to Lil' Wayne's "Every Girl." The original track declares, "I wish I could fuck every girl in the world." Wayne doesn't get into the logistics, but that's gotta be a scenario that involves some nonconsensual sex. The original song, at least, sidesteps outright rape by inserting "in about 3 years" before the line "holla at me, Miley Cyrus."

But now that the lyrics have been taken from Wayne's mouth and into the hands of noted teen enthusiast R. Kelly, the use of the world "girl" seems a whole lot fuckin' creepier. Let's recap:

1995: R. Kelly, 27, marries 15-year-old Aaliyah while working with her on her debut album titled, strangely enough, "Age Ain't Nothing But A Number."

2002: R. Kelly, 35, is "indicted on 21 counts of having sexual intercourse with a minor." He is later acquitted.

2008: R. Kelly, 41, tells BET:

BET: Let me ask you something real that millions of Americans are thinking about and wondering about you. Do you like teenage girls?

Kelly: When you say teenage, how old are we talking?

BET: Girls who are teenagers.

Kelly: 19?

BET: 19 and younger.

Kelly: I have some 19-year-old friends, but I don’t like anybody illegal if that’s what we’re talking about, underage.

2009: R. Kelly, 42, releases a song in which he declares, "I want to fuck every girl in the world." Among them: a girl, her friend, her sister, her cousin, her mom, and "the Statue of Liberty."

I suppose this song could be good PR for R. Kelly. See, he likes older women too—the Statue of Liberty is like over 100 years old! But I have to believe that the repetition, over and over, of wanting to fuck girls  can't be doing him any favors. Add to that the fact that this song is absolutely terrible, and we might havethe—but can it be true? Hath the Gods of Nonconsensual Sex Tracks finally revealed to us the most worthless date rape jam ever: A song that sounds completely terribly, and is also super sexually creepy? I think we've got him!

Bored magazine columnists have debated for years as to why women are, or are not, funny.  Inspired by Tiger Beatdown's post yesterday on another drop in the unfunny girl barrel—a study that found that women do not immediately react to the sight of a unicycle with humor (I fucking wonder why)—I believe it's time to rephrase the question.

Why are those who argue that women are not funny so unfunny?

First, let us review:

Funny women are not sexy. According to a 2006 study by Eric Bressler and Sigal Balshine, women rated "funny" men as more sexually attractive than men they didn't find funny. The opposite was not true. "And women, don't start trying to tell jokes to attract men," writes Tom Siegfried of the study. "The study found that men rated 'funny' women as no more desirable than the others."

Women don't have enough testosterone to be funny, concluded Professor Sam Shuste, after riding around a lot on his unicycle and noting that only men made fun of him. "The sex difference was striking. 95% of adult women were praising, encouraging or showed concern. There were very few comic or snide remarks. In contrast, only 25% of adult men responded as did the women, for example, by praise or encouragement; instead 75% attempted comedy, often snide or combative as an intended put-down."

Women are too concerned with having babies to be funny, according to this classic Vanity Fair piece by Christopher Hitchens. "Those who risk agony and death to bring children into this fiasco simply can't afford to be too frivolous," he writes. "One tiny snuffle that turns into a wheeze, one little cut that goes septic, one pathetically small coffin, and the woman's universe is left in ashes and ruin. Try being funny about that, if you like."

Women are not funny because Germaine Greer needs to explain why she said women were not funny. Reasons include: They focus too much on bras and weight loss, cut down other women, are bad at improvisation, aren't competetive enough, would prefer to marry than work, and they're not desperate enough to be funny to get laid.

Those tasked with defending women in comedy have their own explanations for why women are not funny.

Women write their own stuff now. Alessandra Stanley begins her Vanity Fair response, "Who Says Women Aren't Funny?" strangely: "There are people who lament that no women now are as funny as Carole Lombard or Barbara Stanwyck in the screwball comedies of Lubitsch, Sturges, and Hawks. They are missing the point: today’s comediennes are on television, where they are often responsible for their own material." So, women aren't as funny as they were before, but at least they write their own material now, which is less funny than the male material they used to do.

The comedy environment is too hostile for women. In a response to Greer, Lynne Parker writes: "Moreover, there has been a common perception that comedy is a hostile environment for women. We are compliant in creating this image. The practicalities of life on the circuit are not for the faint-hearted—many hours on the road and antisocial hours do not engender a traditional home life. Many a promising female act has given up the juggling of career, marriage and motherhood, even temporarily, for the sake of an easier life."

Women are not socialized to be funny, as men are. On Broadsheet, Kate Harding responds to Greer: "Throughout the essay, Greer keeps offering great setups for an analysis of why women are culturally discouraged from developing and displaying robust senses of humor, then following them up with conclusions that amount to, 'We're from Venus — whaddaya gonna do?'"

Since all these arguements as to why women aren't funny—or why they're not allowed to be funny—are based on half-baked speculation and anecdotal evidence anyway, let's float a new theory: Why are people who argue that women aren't funny so unfunny?

The study by Bressler and Bashine showing that women are more attracted to funny men used the following statement as an example of humor: "Birthday cake is the only food you can blow on and spit on and everybody rushes to get a piece." The researchers themselves acknowledged that their funny statements were not very funny. "Given the sophomoric nature of some of our humorous statements, it is not surprising that participants did not ascribe 'intelligence' to our humorous individuals," they wrote. Perhaps women are actually more attracted to men who are not funny, and also stupid?

And those unicycle quips? "Equally striking [said Shuste] was the repetitive and predictable nature of the comments from men; two thirds of their 'comic' responses referred to the number of wheels—'Lost your wheel?,' for example." Hilarious.

Germaine Greer is humorless, but she gets a pass because she has a body that can produce children, and is without a good handle on the inherent comedy of the unicycle. (Christopher Hitchens, actually, is pretty funny).

So, we're not funny, the birthday cake and unicycle comedians of the world claim, because we're girls. What's their excuse?

The United Arab Emirates has launched a campaign to raise awareness among girls of "the dangers of appearing as men," and "emphasizing the virtues of being female." The campaign is titled "Pardon me, I'm a girl."

Why does the UAE need to encourage girls to be girls? Well, "Locals attest to a growing trend of Emirati girls who cut their hair short, dress and talk like men."

It doesn't sound to me like these girls want to be like men—it sounds like they want to be like American girls. But experts remain confused:

Muna Al-Bahar, senior executive adviser of the social program at the Emirates Foundation, which is helping finance research on this topic, said she has seen this quite often among her female university students.

"Some of the girls I taught in my classes were like this; they behaved like boys but they denied they were like boys," she said.

"From a brief discussion and reading the proposal for the research, I get the sense they see it as gender identity confusion, because after they finish school, these girls get married, have kids and settle down," Al-Bahar said.

"Sometimes it's a gender identity crisis, and maybe they feel that if they're like boys they will be more powerful," she told The Media Line.

Since research is still in its initial stages it is difficult to pinpoint the reason for this growing trend of female cross dressing in the UAE.

Al-Bahar said it could be a matter of hormonal imbalance, a psychological problem or even just a matter of peer pressure that will vanish by itself when the girls graduate and start a new life elsewhere.

Or, cutting your hair, wearing pants, and speaking out is not, in fact, a "problem," and doesn't have anything to do with a desire to get married and have kids. Somehow, American women manage to balance their short hair and their childrearing at the same time, while consuming hamburgers and drinking Coca Cola soft drinks. Join us!