So, I have a question for my female friends and female-presenting non-binary friends ( Read more... )

So there's this guy I know. I've known him most of my life: I'll call him Alfie, for now, though that's not his name. He's a nice bloke: good company, smart, funny, kind and reliable. For a while, we worked at the same place, and he was good at his job and, by and large, a nice colleague. I was at school with him, and we ended up at the same ( Read more... )

I'm looking at my hands on the keyboard, the hands that are, so much, the way I speak. Words written down, with pens and pencils; school work and university work, childhood stories and poems, the Star Trek fanfics I wrote as a teen, and the files and pages of the research that built my PhD -- and the drafts of the final work. The chapters and ( Read more... )

First of all, I'd like to thank everyone who has commented, and is still commenting, on my piece yesterday about sfnal futures and women. I'm reading. I'm nodding and thinking. I'm finding it hard to reply, but I am listening ( Read more... )

When I was 8, I wanted more than anything to be a member of the crew of the starship Enterprise. I wanted so much to share in their adventures, going to new worlds, meeting aliens, having adventures. And that future I watched on tv every week was filled with women. I was 8: I didn't really think about the coding of their costumes or the roles they ( Read more... )

You taught us: girls should be seen (prettily) and not heard, and we learnt to listen and be polite and nice and charming ( Read more... )

I am signatory to this:

http://feministsfightingtransphobia.wordpress.com/2013/09/16/a-statement-of-trans-inclusive-feminism/

Ten Reasons Why the Three Musketeers have girl cooties ( Read more... )

I've just seen yet another man, in a comment thread, say that the men who harass women at cons are 'clueless' and possibly on the Autistic Spectrum and, well, what can you do? He see it going on, but these poor guys don't know any better, it's a shame, what can you do ( Read more... )

Not everyone on the internet agrees with each other. Not everyone is kind or nice or decent. Some people are controversial, for good or for bad. It's part of how we are as a species -- we argue, we confront, we question. Some people are painful to know, to read. Some people speak frightening truths ( Read more... )