Math ability, in some societies, is gendered. That is, many people believe that boys and men are better at math than girls and women and, further, that this difference is biological (hormonal, neurological, or somehow encoded on the Y chromosome).
But actual data about gender differences in math ability tell a very different story. Natalie Angier and Kenneth Chang reviewed these differences in the New York Times. They report the following (based on the US unless otherwise noted):
• There is no difference in math aptitude before age 7. Starting in adolescence, some differences appear (boys score approximately 30-35 points higher than girls on the math portion of the SAT). But, scores on different subcategories of math vary tremendously (often with girls outperforming boys consistently).
• When boys do better, they are usually also doing worse. Boys are also more likely than girls to get nearly all the answers wrong. So they overpopulate both tails of the bell curve; boys are both better, and worse, than girls at math.
• That means that how we test for math ability is a political choice. If you report who is best at math, the answer is boys. If you report average math ability, it’s about the same.
• How you decide to test math ability is also political. Even though boys outperform girls on the SAT, it turns out those scores do not predict math performance in classes. Girls frequently outperform boys in the classroom.
• And, since girls often outperform boys in a practical setting, math aptitude (even measured at the levels of outstanding instead of average performance) doesn’t explain sex disparities in science careers (most of which, incidentally, only require you to be pretty good at math, as opposed to wildly genius at it). In any case, scoring high in math is only loosely related to who opts for a scientific career, especially for girls. Many high scoring girls don’t go into science, and many poor scoring boys do.Math ability, in some societies, is gendered. That is, many people believe that boys... more
The mortality rate of California women who die from causes directly related to pregnancy has nearly tripled in the past decade, prompting doctors to worry about the dangers of obesity in expectant mothers and about medical complication of cesarean sections.
For the past seven months, the state Department of Public Health declined to release a report outlining the trend.
California Watch spoke with investigators who wrote the report and they confirmed the most significant spike in pregnancy-related deaths since the 1930s. Although the number of deaths is relatively small, it’s more dangerous to give birth in California than it is in Kuwait or Bosnia.
“The issue is how rapidly this rate has worsened,” said Debra Bingham, executive director of the California Maternal Quality Care Collaborative, the public-private task force investigating the problem for the state. “That’s what’s shocking.”Interesting post from Tony Infanti:
The mortality rate of California women who die... more
Rainbow Brite gets a make-over. She's older, thinner and more stylish...let's add one more unrealistic female icon for our girls!! Baaah.
Here's a dynamo post by the folks at Feministe:
So, Rainbow Brite, that little girl icon of the 80s, received a makeover. (h/t). While the redesign was revealed a few months back, Hallmark is expected to release the dolls this month, and as the above image shows, they are going to look very different from how they once did. Rainbow Brite is older, she is thinner, and she is more stylish. Like many female characters over the years, there were clearly many fundamental, and very human, aspects of her that were found to be gravely flawed.
There were a couple of years of my own childhood where Rainbow Brite was my life.
I had a Rainbow Brite bedroom, and a collection of all the dolls. I tortured my mother endlessly with a live-action half hour film called Rainbow Brite at the San Diego Zoo, to the point where she can still recite much of it from memory. When choosing clothes, I purposely sought out ones with rainbow patterns and designs, and eagerly requested brightly colored hair ties with dangling stars to pull back my ponytail, so that I could more closely resemble her.
I not only worshiped Rainbow Brite, I also wanted to be just like her. I would wear my rainbow belt and dance around the living room with a little rainbow pouch, and throw around the multi-colored star confetti that my mom had found for me somewhere. I think that somewhere in my very young mind, I thought that maybe, just maybe, I could be her.
And it is for all of these reasons that this particular makeover hits me hard.
I could understand perfectly well — be sad and stick my nose up at the redesign still, but understand all the same — if Hallmark decided to simply restyle her outfit and haircut. After all, both of these aspects of the original Rainbow Brite are devastatingly 80s. While I imagine that lots of little girls still like big poofy outfits and bright colors (and a part of the charm of Rainbow Brite’s outfit was that she looked like she probably designed it herself), and while I’m not wild about the new hair and outfit styles they chose for her, her overall look could be a little bit more modern — and when the goal is to sell a product, I can see how that kind of makeover could be seen as a dire necessity.
So no, what upsets me is to not just see my childhood hero look different, but how she looks different.
What they’ve done here is changed a round-faced, pug-nosed little girl with baby fat — the kind of role model girls have less and less these days — into a svelte and fashionable young woman who appears to be wearing makeup. It wasn’t enough for Rainbow Brite to be in charge of all the colors in the entire universe, in spite of being only somewhere between the ages of 6 and 10. Apparently she can only be considered marketable if she is older, acceptably thin, image-conscious, and conventionally pretty. As we know, for women professional success, while still a requirement for any sort of personal worth, is absolutely nothing unless you look hot while having it.
Click the link for more of the post.Rainbow Brite gets a make-over. She's older, thinner and more... more
Last year Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act into law, legislation that made sure workers can go to court to protest pay discrimination.
AlterNet reflects on where it is now:
For almost twenty years, I got paid less than my co-workers. I was a woman doing the same work as the men on my team — and apparently, my gender was all the excuse my employers at a Goodyear tire plant needed to cut my paychecks. My salary was far lower, and I got lower raises – over and over again.
But one year ago today, to my amazement, the President signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act into law, which restored the law to make sure workers can go to court to protest pay discrimination.
And now it’s time for the next step. The right to go to court is important, but it isn’t enough. We need to do more to keep women from being discriminated against in the first place.
We need to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act. This bill gives teeth to the protections against pay discrimination. And women, who are still shortchanged in the workplace, deserve just that. The bill would empower women to negotiate for equal pay, create stronger incentives for employers to follow the law, and strengthen federal outreach and enforcement efforts. It would also strengthen penalties for equal pay violations.
But from where I sit, one of the most important aspects of the Paycheck Fairness Act is a provision that would prohibit retaliation against workers who ask about employers’ wage practices or disclose their own wages to co-workers. This would have been particularly helpful to me, because Goodyear prohibited my colleagues and me from talking about our wages. This policy delayed my discovery of the pay inequities between my male counterparts and me by — literally — decades.
For the past year, I’ve been speaking out to build up support of this bill, with the help of my friends at the National Women’s Law Center.
The bill has already passed the House, and now it’s up to the Senate. It is time to improve the law, not just restore it. You can count on my continued commitment to passing this Act and to ensuring that women will some day, as the President called for in his State of the Union, truly have equal pay for equal work.;€™s_next_for_fair_pay_for_women?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBli... more
a book written in 99 by the tiqqunsters of france, attacking the "cookie cutter" pseudo-persons created in accordance with the so called "YoungGirl," a "blueprint-person" which acts as a universal model in human relationships, lifestyles, body image, etc., and brings the empire ever closer to full physical domination over every human being ...even to their very genitals!
an attempt to describe the war zone's contours, the work, has been translated for an amerikan audience. The 'YoungGirl' FIGURE is a non-gendered one, not a sexualized concept but a chilling, disembodied ghost haunting the ruins of sexuality.
The back cover:
Concepts made for war don't need to be unanimous. And it's only natural that they'd be reproached for those aspects of them in which they are slanderous of the realities that they make visible. And as for those who have successfully blinded themselves to the nonetheless massive fact of the YoungGirl, that's not all they're blind to. It's not the theory of the YoungGirl that is the product of misogyny, but the YoungGirl herself. Open any women's magazine and you'll see. The YoungGirl's not always young, and she's not always a girl; she is but the figure of total integration into a social totality that's disintegrating. When fools protest against the evidence that "the world isn't a commodity" and by the way that they aren't either, they're feigning a virginity that only justifies their powerlessness. We want none of that virginity nor of that powerlessness. We propose a different emotional education.
HAMPTON - After beating him with a frying pan and stabbing him with a kitchen knife, a Rothesay woman avoided jailtime and returned home with her victim/boyfriend.
Judge Henrik Tonning couldn't deny if the male/female roles were reversed, the penalty would likely be harsher.
Instead, he followed the joint recommendation of Crown prosecutor Kelly Winchester and defence lawyer Al Levine by sentencing Mary Lisa Joyce Carrier to a six-month conditional sentence, followed by one year's probation for assault causing bodily harm.
Carrier, 21, sat next to the boyfriend she assaulted and still lives with during her sentencing in Hampton provincial court. When she stood to be sentenced, he stood with her and often put his arm around her.
Winchester explained it was on the night of Nov. 15, 2009 when the Rothesay Regional Police Force was called to a domestic disturbance on Scott Avenue by a witness who said a man was being stabbed outside.
Winchester said an argument began inside the apartment the couple shares, during which time Carrier struck him several times with a frying pan. He grabbed her cell phone and ran outside to call his father to pick him up when she charged after him, taking a kitchen knife with her. She stabbed her boyfriend several times in the right shoulder area, the Crown explained.
She said witnesses heard him yell "don't stab me."
Winchester said after the incident the victim wanted to drop the charges because their relationship is going well and they are seeking counselling together. She said because of the seriousness of the assault, ignoring the incident was not an option.
Carrier is also going to counselling with members of her family, as well as individual counselling. Among the issues is her struggle with anger management, both the Crown and defense said.
There is evidence of drug and alcohol use that contributed to the violence, the Crown added.
Levine said his client works full-time for a fast-food restaurant and said on the night of the attack, she had taken some sleeping pills and alcohol. She has a history of depression and has been on medications in the past to help, and has since been prescribed more effective medications by her family doctor, he pointed out.
"We've learned ways to come together and respect each other more. We're just getting along a lot better than we were," Carrier told the judge, wiping her eyes.
Tonning said domestic violence is a big problem that cannot be tolerated.
"Domestic violence is problematic," he said. "This is a situation that's fraught with danger. These situations can, in fact, turn into fatalities."
He said if the role was revered and it was a man who beat his girlfriend with a frying pan and then stabbed her repeatedly, he is "doubtful" the sentence would be as light.
"More likely he would be incarcerated for a significant period of time," Tonning said. "(But) I don't intend to rock the boat today."
He told Carrier to accept the support she has and get help for her issues.
"Everyone needs a little help now and then," Tonning said.
Under the conditional sentence she must abstain from alcohol and non-prescription drugs and take programs recommended by her probation officer.http://Upondel.icio.us
HAMPTON - After beating him with a frying pan and stabbing... more
The former England captain, who is on loan to AC Milan from the Los Angeles Galaxy, was giving an interview outside a hotel when Elena Di Cioccio bent down and squeezed him between the legs.
The stunt was a “test” to see whether the football star measured up to his photo in Armani billboards, in which he shows off his impressive physique in a pair of tight-fitting underpants.
Beckham looked shocked and immediately backed away after being touched by the blonde-haired TV reporter, a star of the satirical show Le Iene (The Hyenas).
As security guards closed ranks around the 34-year-old midfielder, Miss Di Cioccio was chased down the street yelling “E piccolo, Beckham” (“Beckham is small”), while being filmed by the show’s cameraman.
Beckham climbed into a black car but she ran around to the driver’s seat in which he was sitting, shouting: “You’ve taken us for a ride! How could you? David!”
The Hyenas is broadcast on Italia1, a channel owned by Mediaset, Silvio Berlusconi’s media empire. The Italian prime minister also owns AC Milan.
Beckham was being interviewed by a second blonde television presenter when the stunt took place.
Asked what he liked about Milan, he said in English: “Everything. People have been incredible to me around the city.”The former England captain, who is on loan to AC Milan from the Los Angeles Galaxy,... more
About a quarter of the way around the “Life” board game, the solo driver must pause at a mandatory red light to marry. As a kid, I distinctly remember putting my little blue lemming groom in the driver’s seat while plugging my pink one in shotgun. Why? My miniature alter ego wanted to look out the window, of course! Besides, the guy always drives.
I didn’t think anything of the social brainwashing at the heart of my innocuous driver switch-a-roo. But, as it turns out, the heroic male driver is somewhat of a phenomena. The New York Times today reports that the Department of Labor’s American Time Use Survey showed that, “women do indeed spend a disproportionate share of their in-car time as passengers — 29 percent. This is more than twice the share of men, who only spend 14 percent as passengers. This certainly suggests that when men and women ride together, men are behind the wheel.”
Is this a remnant from the cult of domesticity, or maybe a residual chivalrous custom? Probably so, those buggers are hard to shake. But according to sociologist Pepper Schwartz, even in self-declared feminist households, men are far more likely to drive when the couple hops in the car together. As it turns out, upper class folks spend relatively less time as passengers while immigrants, especially Hispanics, carpool more. Is driving a rich, white guy thing? No, it can’t be this easy.
Our transportation scholar and NYT reporter Eric A. Morris brilliantly points out that the gap between men and women is explained by the fact that men tend to work more hours, which in turn causes them to spend more of their in-car time driving. Morris’ post hits a PING! when he asks the question we’ve all been wondering: “is this state of affairs due to men’s preferences, women’s, or both?”
That a little feminist in training (that would be 9 year-old me) put the blue pin in the driving seat, even though the pink one was doing the job just fine, indicates that these gender norms are instilled early and instilled compulsively. I’m not gonna go to that dark place and say men’s insecure egos need coaxing only a joy stick can provide because we all know that’s not fair. And is it really that productive? Let’s just put this little driving factoid on our collective radars and think a bit more about what compels us to do the things we think we’re supposed to doAbout a quarter of the way around the “Life” board game, the solo driver... more
This week’s devastating earthquake in Haiti, which struck near Port au Prince, has led to countless tragedies on the impoverished island, and is a disaster that may rival the recent Sichuan quake in China. The damage struck indiscriminately, killing young and old, rich and poor, and man and woman alike.
However, some relief groups have decided that women deserve more aid, and have come up with a number of reasons why men should be left to die from injuries and disease while women get preferential treatment.
Quoted in Salon.com in an article titled Why “women and children first” persists, Elaine Enarson (probably a Swedish woman), cofounder of the Gender and Disaster Network (“Calling for a gendered approach in disaster risk reduction”), explains why men are to be excluded:
Women in general will be in need of “hygiene supplies, continued access to birth control/reproductive health services”
[...]
Women “are central actors in family and community life,” says Enarson, and are more likely to know “who in the neighborhood most needs help — where the single mothers, women with disabilities, widows and the poorest of the poor live.”
Another women’s relief program, MADRE, has joined the relief effort to help women only, and is employing a similar rationale for doing so, stating:
“Women are often more integrated and more aware of the vulnerabilities of their communities.”
Besides these questionable assumptions, and leaving out the fact that a large number of men are bound to become single fathers as a result of their wives dying in the quake, Enarson takes it a step further, saying that providing relief to women only is a means to prevent rape and domestic violence:
They are “at increased risk of gender-based violence, especially domestic violence and rape but also forced marriage at earlier ages” due to their increased dependence on men for protection and support…
So now when men provide women with protection and support they are suspected rapists, child molesters and batterers? Are these strange, foreign women more trustworthy than Haitian girls’ fathers, brothers and grandfathers? I try to refrain from inserting my opinion when I am writing these news pieces, but Ms. Enarson is making one of the most offensive insinuations possible with the above statement, and she is dead wrong. It is matriarchal societies where women cannot rely on men for support in which women face the most danger.
Women's groups: this man endangers daughter by supporting her
That these women’s groups are heading to a disaster area with the same anti-male agenda with which we are so familiar should be cause for outrage.
It is not clear whether such discrimination in the wake of disaster is legal in Haiti. In any event, if men are needlessly dying because these women’s groups are hoarding supplies for women only, the Haitian government should send troops in to seize the supplies and distribute them equally to needy men and women alike. That would be a true act of mercy.
Mirko Fischer claims BA brand all men as potential sex offenders
A businessman is suing British Airways over a policy that bans children from sitting next to male passengers they don't know - even if their parents are on the same flight.
Mirko Fischer has accused the airline of branding all men as potential sex offenders and says innocent travellers are being publicly humiliated.
Mr Fischer, a 33-year-old hedge fund manager, became aware of the policy while he was flying from Gatwick with his wife Stephanie, 30.
He was in the middle seat between her and a 12-year-old boy.
After all passengers had sat down a male steward asked Mr Fischer to change his seat.
Mr Fischer refused, explaining that his wife was pregnant, at which point the steward raised his voice, causing several passengers to turn round.
He warned that the aircraft could not take off unless Mr Fischer obeyed.
Mr Fischer eventually moved but felt so humiliated that he is taking the airline to court on the grounds of sex discrimination.
If he wins at the hearing next month at Slough County Court, BA will have to change its policy.
Mr Fischer, who lives in Luxembourg with his wife and their daughter Sophia, said: 'I was made to feel like a criminal in front of other passengers. It was totally humiliating.'
BA declined to comment.
Following a request from his parents, a 16-year-old Spanish boy has been allowed by a judge to undergo a sex change operation.
The unnamed teen had been taking hormones to change his body since the age of 15 and had been seeing doctors and psychiatrists for even longer.
The Guardian explains that, though the normal age for this kind of operation is 18-years-old in Spain, the teenager was granted special permission after his parents made the request. They go on to say "the boy had reportedly tried to commit suicide on several occasions. As a child he was convinced that he was really female, but had been born in the wrong body.
Gina Serra, president of the Catalan Association of Transsexuals, said it was possible from an early age for a child to be conscious that they were in the wrong body.
"An eight-year-old child knows already what they want to be and what they do not want to be," she said.
"In the end, everything depends on the support that they find within their own family."
"It is a condition that one is born with but which you cannot operate for until they are 18 years old," said Mañero.
"That, for a doctor, is something of a shock. No one could imagine that if your child was born with, say, leukaemia, we would say we must wait until 18 before operating."
An interesting article i found....
Their face is their fortune. Caked in cheap rouge, kajal, powder and lipstick, they dress in ill-fitting blouses and colourful saris in a grotesque parody of womanhood as they roam the busy marketplaces in groups, terrorizing pedestrians, hustling for ten or a hundred rupees. These are not your average beggars on the street. With male voices shouting expletives, palms meeting crossways in a trademark clap, they prey on susceptible passersby, who will part with their cash sooner than be treated to the sight of the group collectively lifting up their saris and flashing castrated genital areas right in their faces.
"...some colleagues and I devised a series of experiments inspired by "costly signalling theory" - the idea that animals, including humans, use costly, intricate and hard-to-fake signals to flaunt their biological fitness to potential mates and social partners. Our goal was to see how thinking about mating influences people's decisions about spending and giving..." http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427392.700-sex-and-shopping--its-a-guy-thing.html?full=true
and the paper is here: http://psycnet.apa.org/?fa=main.doiLanding&doi=10.1037/0022-3514.93.1.85"...some colleagues and I devised a series of experiments inspired by... more
(CNN) -- Genetic screening techniques that allow parents to choose their children's gender are now more accurate than ever and are becoming increasingly mainstream, but experts are divided over whether the technology should be used in this way.
A technique called pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) was originally developed two decades ago to allow embryos to be tested for genetic disease. It requires parents to use in vitro fertilization, where eggs are fertilized outside the womb.
With PGD, the embryos are tested for genetic disorders and only those that are free of disease are transferred to the mother's uterus. It means that parents who carry genetic defects can ensure they don't pass on a genetic illness to their children.
But PGD also can also be used to allow people undergoing in-vitro fertilization to select the gender of the embryo implanted in the mother's uterus.
Using PGD for gender selection is banned in most countries, but it is legal in the U.S., where the procedure costs around $18,000, including in-vitro fertilization.
Earlier this year, the National Alliance to End Homelessness estimated that 1.5 million people would be made homeless over the next two years as a result of the recession. In this series of profiles, DailyFinance speaks with some of the people who have fallen victim to layoffs, foreclosure, unforgiving creditors and plain old bad financial luck. Here are their stories.
The descent into homelessness can occur with terrifying speed. For Mike, a 33-year-old aspiring Web developer, it happened after an emergency loan from a relative suddenly fell through, driving his family out of a motel and onto the streets of San Francisco in September.
His wife and two kids were lucky to get a bed at a shelter, but there was no room for Mike (he asked us not to disclose his last name). So he ended up spending four nights in Golden Gate Park, a sprawling urban greenscape that, while popular with tourists and locals alike during the day, can be dangerous after dark.
"I couldn't believe it," says the former Seattle resident. "I wasn't technically well off, but I could keep a job, and I was thinking, 'How the hell did I get here?'"
Just one year ago, everything seemed possible. Mike was living with his family in the pleasant beach-side community of West Seattle and was in the middle of an exciting career change. After a decade of working as a chef, he was looking forward to finding a job as a Web developer. To make ends meet while he was finishing up a bachelor of science degree in software engineering at Eastern Washington University, he was working for a company that did catering for private jets.
A Sobering Reality
In February, the catering company Mike worked for dramatically cut his hours. Thanks to the Great Recession, people just weren't flying in private jets much anymore. Mike was no longer able to pay the bills and started collecting unemployment, which he viewed as a stopgap measure until he could graduate in June and get a job working for one of Seattle's technology firms.
By the time graduation came, however, Mike was confronted with a sobering reality: "I was looking for tech jobs all over the place, but no one would hire a guy fresh out of college," he says. "I was even looking for restaurant jobs, but restaurants had all cut back as no one was going out to eat."
Mike and his family decided to make a bold, if risky, move. In the beginning of September, they scraped together what little money they had left and relocated to the San Francisco Bay area, the nation's tech mecca, where Mike was certain he would find a job. For weeks, the family stayed in cheap hotel rooms booked on Priceline.com while Mike looked for work, cold-calling recruiters and sending out resumes.
The Money Dries Up
Toward the end of September, the unemployment money that was supposed to last them through the entire month ran out. Making matters worse, a relative who'd promised to give them a loan changed her mind at the last minute. Their only option was to try to get beds in one of San Francisco's shelters, already maxed-out with all of the other newly homeless looking for places to sleep.
Mike and his family ended up at Hamilton Family Center, one of the largest providers of homeless shelter and support services in San Francisco. The city has the highest per capita rate of homelessness -- nearly 1 for every 100 residents -- of any major U.S. city, and Hamilton and other nonprofit agencies like it have their work cut out for them. Even more disturbing is that homelessness is increasingly a family affair here. As many as 40% of homeless people in San Francisco are part of a homeless family.
"It's organizations like ours that are the last safety nets for this community," says Hamilton's Executive Director Beth Stokes, adding that funding cuts are leaving this net increasingly frayed. "We're all worried about what's going to happen next year."
According to Mike, Hamilton only had enough space for his wife and their children, ages 6 and 4. That's when he headed to Golden Gate Park.
Help in the Nick of Time
"I found a little private bush and made sure nobody saw me," Mike says. "I chose a part that wasn't very popular since I know there are areas where the homeless like to congregate."
After four nights sleeping outside, another unemployment check came through. The money allowed Mike and his family to move back into a cheap motel in early November. A few weeks later, they finally caught a break. Thanks to money made available through the federal economic stimulus program, Hamilton was able to enroll the family in its First Avenues program, which helps families keep or find homes, depending on their situation. Since it started in 2006, First Avenues has prevented 375 families from getting evicted and helped another 500 homeless families get permanent housing.
Through the program, which will last 18 months, the family has received money for a deposit on an apartment in Oakland, Calif., as well as assistance paying the $875 rent. Mike says the neighborhood is much grittier than their old community in Seattle, but he's grateful for the roof over his family's head.
"It's a really nice unit," he says. "The kids are less stressed out."
Staying Positive
The one-year anniversary of Mike's unemployment is approaching in February. He is trying to stay positive, but sometimes it's hard to remain upbeat. He's sent out more than 75 resumes for tech and cooking jobs and has gone on a few interviews. One potential tech employer told Mike that he didn't have enough experience. A recruiter at another firm said he would like to hire him, but would wait to see if he had the money to do so in next year's budget.
If that's not overwhelming enough, Mike's family lost its eligibility for food stamps when they moved to Oakland. Mike says nobody ever told them they would have to reapply. To boot, their car died, making it harder to get over to the county office to drop off the application.
Mike finds what little solace he can in the kind gestures of others -- the landlord back up in Seattle who's letting them pay off their last month's rent owed bit-by-bit at $25 a month, or the folks at the First Avenues program who helped them get their apartment. "They've been really nice," he says.Earlier this year, the National Alliance to End Homelessness estimated that 1.5... more
The Dockers 'Man-ifesto,' part of the new ad campaign for its khakis brand, implores men to 'wear the pants' once again.
Real men are set to wear the pants again - at least if you believe the new Dockers ads for khakis. But some are seeing subtle sexist overtones in the costly new ad campaign.
One of the new ads says, "It's time to answer the call of manhood," and the company's Web site exhorts men to "wear the pants."
A "Man-ifesto" posted on Dockers.com begins, "Once upon a time, men wore the pants, and wore them well. Women rarely had to open doors ... Men took charge because that's what they did."
"Disco by disco, latte by foamy non-fat latte, men were stripped of their khakis and left stranded on the road between boyhood and androgyny," the ad continues.
"Just because the Dockers ads are tongue in cheek does not mean that they're not sexist," wrote WalletPop.com blogger Jami Bernard in a recent post. "It's one thing to encourage men to man up, another to tell them to wear the pants' - an expression that taps directly into the old question, Who wears the pants in the family?'"
Dockers is reintroducing the brand - which, according to The New York Times, many young men associate with the 1990s and "casual" Fridays - with a big-budget blast including radio, print, poster and online advertising. Social media like Facebook and Twitter will be used in the ambitious ad campaign, which debuted earlier in December, and TV commercials will begin in February, with Dockers ads returning to the Super Bowl after an eight-year hiatus, according to The Times.
But just whom are they hoping to attract with the ads? Jennifer Sey, Dockers' vice president of global marketing, said in an interview in Brandweek that "sensitivity, chivalry, ambition and decisiveness" are on her wish list for the traits of "the modern idea of a man." The new promos hopefully will "inspire today's men to be men," she said in the interview.
Walletpop.com's Bernard feels the Dockers' ads "take an unnecessary snipe at gay men through the use of common wink-wink stereotypes. According to Dockers, a real man doesn't eat at salad bars or order nonfat lattes."
The new ad campaign may succeed at making 25- to 35-year-olds khaki-conscious. Jim Calhoun, president for the Dockers brand at Levi Strauss, told The Times, "I don't think that we, as leaders of the category, have done much to keep the khaki category fresh and exciting, to give the consumers a reason to buy."
Whether or not younger men will fall for soft slacks in muted shades remains to be seen. But one thing Dockers has going in its favor: an attractive price. The khakis generally sell for $25 to $55.HTTP://WWW.NYDAILYNEWS.COM/LIFESTYLE/2009/12/09/2009-12-09_NEW_DOCKERS_AD_CAMPAIGN_FOR_... more
Boys are slipping further behind girls after just two years of schooling, official figures have revealed. They are behind girls in English, maths and science by the age of seven and the gender gap is widening, it emerged.
A report last month warned that the failure to teach the three Rs properly in primary schools drove 'angry and resentful boys out of school and into trouble'.
Yesterday's statistics reveal how the gender gap at seven is widest in writing, with 86.7 per cent of girls reaching 'level two' - the standard expected for their age - compared to 75.3 per cent of boys.
This gives a gap of 11.4 per cent - an increase on 11 per cent in 2006.Boys are slipping further behind girls after just two years of schooling, official... more
