TOP 100 SCIENCE SITES
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| Sluts and sweethearts Sexist language is on the rise, but now there is a new way to fight backWomen! Dare you approach the Pyramid of Egregiousness? This is the new chart that's been put together by women's groups in the US to classify the hate words used against us, from bad to worse to really quite stinkingly repulsive. Use your finger of defiance to log on and see it at NameItChangeIt.org. There, a reeking sewage system of sexist sideswipes has been organised into a colourful triangle. It's the latest project in contemporary feminism's use of the internet to network, campaign, critique and challenge, and it is spearheaded, among others, by renowned US feminist Gloria Steinem.Looking at the Pyramid I am impressed by men's creativity, tenacity, complexity, sincerity and commitment for the very first time. It's a bit like the Top 40 Smash Hits countdown – a few old faves peppered among the contemporary classics, novelty jingles and one-hit wonders. At the pinnacle are terms classed as Severe Misogyny – outright objectifying and dehumanising hate words such as bitch, whore, slut, cunt, feminazi, and new entries such as cougar and MILF. BTW, MILF means Mom I'd Like to Fuck. And FYI, the first time I heard it was in New York at an otherwise all-male meeting of advertising guys at a major women's magazine corporation. Oh, how those men laughed among themselves as I worked out the acronym. I couldn't protest, because I'd lose my job and be labelled – yep – a feminazi.Next down on the Pyramid are words classed as Really Damn Sexist. This is for all those backstabbing phrases, euphemisms and digs. Think ice queen, nag, shrill, difficult, cold. At the base of the Pyramid is Just Plain Sexist. This is your daily, standard, bread-and-butter misogyny. It includes commenting on a woman's appearance, calling her a girl, a babe, a sweetie or lightly saying she's bossy or flighty. The point of the pyramid, so to speak, is not to have every word filed in its rightful place. We are not 1950s librarians. All the terms are terms of hatred, originally invented (sometimes centuries ago) by men, now used by both sexes. The Pyramid is a symbol, a resource, a focal point, a concentration of their hate and our anger. You can add to it, and on the same site you can also testify about examples of media sexism.I'd like to add some words to the Pyramid myself. There's humourless, paranoid, selfish, prudish, unable to take a joke, hysterical, man-hating, aggressive, butch: these words essentially just mean "shut up, woman". They're for any woman who dares to get angry and, instead of letting the insults sink deep, asks the perpetrator just what the hell they think they're doing. Man-hater in particular makes me laugh. Women waste a lot of time submissively explaining to misogynists, like good schoolgirls, why they don't hate men, how feminism benefits both sexes and how misogyny must be recognised by all of society. I'll say this: I do indeed hate any man who hates women and expresses his hate in his language, his manner, his behaviour and his art.Then there are the so-called ironic seaside-postcard terms for women and our body parts. How about funbags? I think the Pyramid should proudly bear a rack of funbags. Or how about some casual infantilisation? In his last series Jamie Oliver made a meal for some inmates at a women's prison in Venice. He delivered it to them with a leer and the phrase: "Here you go, girlies."Like a square of shit-soaked toilet paper, the Pyramid is a repository for so much nasty matter. But much misogynist language is far subtler than one-word disses. There is the question of tone, which renders any word – even one as seemingly innocuous as "she" – totally malign. The cleverest, most belittling insult I ever heard against a woman was a posh man at the Tate Modern, talking about Rachel Whiteread's Turbine Hall installation: "Yeah," he said. "She's fun." Delivered with an infuriating, mocking grin.Then there was the radio network head I heard talking to a male producer about a globally famous pop star who came in and was professional, articulate and intelligent: "She's a funny one, isn't she?" "Yep," replied his flunky, "If you open her up you'll just find batteries and wires."Even seemingly nice words are often used against us, delivered with sizzling spite and patent enjoyment of the victim's discomfort. The hisses of "That's good, keep doing that" and "That's nice" whenever I go jogging. The homeless guy who said to a friend, "Got a light? No? Well, you're looking quite smoking to me, babe." One afternoon at a road crossing in Covent Garden a man turned around and began harassing the woman next to me: "Hello! How are you, darling? You are so pretty. You look like a supermodel. Where are you going?" She didn't reply, he didn't stop. All these arseholes would say they were "only" complimenting their victims.What are we going to do with our pyramid when it's all filled up, once we've exhausted ourselves typing our testimonies? Are we supposed to tote it, like a school art project, from pavilion to pavilion hoping to shame people into stopping? That won't work. Misogynists don't have any shame. They really enjoy attacking women. They are not afraid of us. They enjoy the sight of our anger and frustration.One of my qualms about online activism – particularly sites where we "out" harassers and other types of sex attacker, or anonymously post reports of the daily casual misogyny we all endure – is that, while we feel better afterwards, we have not changed anything in the outer world. We have just invented a coping mechanism, a way to squeeze out and siphon off our rage. We have set up an online sympathy group, a survivors' forum, a venting arena. But we have not fought the perpetrators.Much as I like and applaud it, I want to see the three-dimensional foldout version of the Pyramid of Egregiousness. I want a 3D glow-in-the-dark dodecahedron, a planet-sized Matrix of Misogyny, a Trillion-Faceted Dynamo of Jet Black Turbo Hate. Then I'd heave it aloft and hurl it into the sun, where it would set off a massive chain reaction and shoot out sky-scraping beams of feminist rage which kill anyone, male or female, who's ever used those words, wiping out (I'd say) 90% of human society, but leaving the non-woman-haters behind. Then we could all relax and be happy.• Which sexist terms and phrases do you find most annoying?WomenFeminismGenderInternetLanguageBidishaguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Bike Sharing Expands in Washington A plan for 100 sharing stations and 1,100 bicycles in Washington and in Arlington, Va. feeds.nytimes.com |
Today's Mystery Bird for you to identify | GrrlScientist In addition to identifying this mystery bird, can you tell me more about what aspect of this species' lifestyle has had such a profound effect upon the evolution of its feet, and (more challenging) can you tell me what is so special about its feet?Mystery Bird photographed at Quintana Neotropical Bird Sanctuary, Brazoria County, Texas, USA. [I will identify this bird for you in 48 hours]Image: Joseph Kennedy, 29 September 2010 [Would you like a look through a 'scope?] Nikon D200, Kowa 883 telescope with TSN-PZ camera eyepiece1/640s f/8.0 at 1000.0mm iso400. This daily mystery bird has a nearly cosmopolitan distribution, being found on every continent except Antarctica. Its feet are especially distinct, being specialised for its particular lifestyle. In addition to identifying this mystery bird, can you tell me more about what aspect of this species' lifestyle has had such a profound effect upon the evolution of its feet, and (more challenging) can you tell me what is so special about its feet?Daily Mystery Bird Rules: 1. Please name at least one field mark that supports your identification, keeping in mind that more than one field mark is often necessary to distinguish between species. IDs without any supporting information are not valid and may be deleted by the moderators. 2. Expert and intermediate level birders: do NOT try to be the first to blurt out the mystery bird's ID. Instead, please provide helpful hints, such as descriptions, literary references, puns, personal anecdotes, and other forms of discussion and assistance for beginning birders and for those following on their iPhones without naming the species. Expert and intermediate birders are free to name the bird species 24 or more hours after it was first published.3. Each mystery bird is usually accompanied by a question or two. These questions can be useful for identifying the pictured species, but may instead be used to illustrate an interesting aspect of avian biology, behaviour or evolution, or may be intended to generate conversation on other topics, such as conservation. 4. Each bird species will be demystified 48 hours after publication. If you have bird images, video or mp3 files that you'd like to share with a large and appreciate audience, feel free to email them to me for consideration.GrrlScientistguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
James Tanner obituary Pioneer in auxology, the study of growth in the human bodyThe human body has been studied for millennia, but it is only relatively recently that scientists have understood how much information can be derived from the analysis of physical growth. Auxology, the study of such change, is largely the creation of James Tanner, who has died aged 90. As he wrote: "A child's growth rate reflects, better than any other single index, his state of health and nutrition, and often indeed his psychological situation."Tanner's research and writings influenced not only paediatrics but also anthropology, development economics, nutrition and economic history. His influence stemmed initially from his work, shortly after the second world war, on the Harpenden growth study, one of the earliest longitudinal studies, in which successive generations at a children's home in Hertfordshire were measured and assessed from childhood through to early adulthood.Tanner, with his collaborator Reginald Whitehouse, became proficient in statistics and the analysis of longitudinal data, richer in information than the more usual cross-sectional data. Crucially, they demonstrated that the analysis of human physical growth – and the assessment of the health and progress of individuals – could be illuminated by charts. The simplest of these charts, now used routinely throughout the world, plot the child's height and weight against an expected average growth pattern. If growth deviates significantly from that pattern, it may indicate deprivation or abuse.Tanner developed more complex charts which reflect the fact that there is not one "normal" pattern of growth in adolescence, but that there are early and late maturers. He supplemented the charts with the Tanner scale, a pictorial representation of change in genitalia, breasts and pubic hair. It is still widely used.Based at Great Ormond Street hospital in London, Tanner became concerned, in the 1950s, with the very small group of children who show a significant delay in growth. He pioneered the use of human growth hormone (HGH) to treat such a delay. The hormone was initially extracted from donors post-mortem. When it was suggested, in the 1980s, that this risked the development of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, he suspended the treatment. It was resumed when genetically engineered HGH became available in the 1990s.With Phyllis Eveleth, Tanner published the book Worldwide Variation in Human Growth (1976), demonstrating the overwhelming importance of the environment in determining children's growth and development. He showed, for example, that although 90% of the adult height of an individual is inherited, changes in the average height of large groups of people are almost entirely caused by their environment. Immigrant communities, for example the Italian or Japanese in the US, rapidly acquire some of the physical proportions of the host population. The data shows the extent of differences in height by social class within many different cultures and the fact that height rises with per capita gross domestic product. The success of economic aid and food supplements in developing countries can be assessed by measuring changing heights. According to Tanner: "A well-designed growth study is a powerful tool with which to monitor the health of a population or to pinpoint subgroups of a population whose share in economic or social benefits is less than it might be."His work inspired research into the long-term consequences of changes in nutritional status – measured by height and weight – on life-chances of all kinds. It has been found that taller people, even within a social class, tend to earn more; that the very young children of unemployed parents are shorter than those of parents with jobs; that tall women tend to marry into a higher social class; that mortality from most diseases falls as height rises, even into old age; that the burden of chronic disease has lifted as nutrition has improved. The policy implications of such findings are profound. Early intervention through good maternal care and childcare can bring benefits decades later.Tanner was a great communicator. His most successful popular work, Foetus Into Man (1990), remains one of the best introductions to human biology and growth studies. He also helped to create a new field of historical study, that of anthropometric history, the study of the history of human height and weight. Always interested in the history of his own subject, in 1981 he published A History of the Study of Human Growth.He advised, over several decades, a growing group of historians, economists and statisticians. My book (with Kenneth Wachter and Annabel Gregory), Height, Health and History: Nutritional Status in the United Kingdom, 1750-1980, published in 1990, could not have been written without his help.Tanner was born in Camberley, Surrey, into a military family. His brother was killed in the second world war. James was a champion hurdler and might well have represented Britain at the cancelled Olympics of 1940. He attended Marlborough college and the University College of the South West of England (now Exeter University). He decided on a medical career, starting at the medical school of St Mary's hospital in Paddington, central London, before taking up a Rockefeller Foundation scholarship at the University of Pennsylvania and working at Johns Hopkins hospital in Baltimore. It was there that he met his first wife, Bernice Alture, with whom he had two children.He spent most of his career at Great Ormond Street and the Institute of Child Health in London. Bernice died in 1991. Tanner later found further happiness in his retirement in Devon with his second wife, Gunilla Lindgren, also an expert on auxology. She survives him, together with his daughter, a stepdaughter and stepson, and three granddaughters. His son predeceased him.• James Mourilyan Tanner, paediatrician, born 1 August 1920; died 11 August 2010Medical researchguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Space station shifts orbit to dodge junk Russia's space command has ordered the International Space Station to change its orbit slightly to avoid a collision with a piece of floating debris that could cause serious damage. abc.net.au |