Sociology

Speaking of family vacation, I'm staying with my cousins, a household that includes girls of ages 3 and 6 1/2 year old twins. Reading material scattered around includes Wimpy Kid (the new one purchased...

Amiright or amiright?

A few people sent this to me last night, but out of respect for Tony Harris's great art, I couldn't bring myself to post it, but now that he's asked people to retweet it,...

Outrage erupted on Twitter and Facebook over the weekend when writer/journalist Dirk Manning posted a still from Ted with an "anti fake geek girl" message on it implying that fake geek girls were whores....

In light of recent stalkerish stories, two incidents from last weekend's PAX video game show, make for disturbing readings. While it occurred at an event that wasn't officially affiliated with PAX, the incident recalled by female video game blogger Kyle is perhaps given away by her blog post title: Boundaries and The Penis Incident:

The recent, latest online activism against an online idiot encouraged me to write something which I had been thinking about for awhile. The philosophical musing began when I discovered the following on Wikipedia: Eternal September From Wikipedia,...

Afternoon diversion: Well, well, talk about tying up all our themes in one handy image, while tooling round we spotted the cover to the new edition of Women, Art, and Society by Whitney Chadwick, which covers:

This acclaimed study challenges the assumption that great women artists are exceptions to the rule who “transcended” their sex to produce major works of art. While acknowledging the many women whose contributions to visual culture have often been neglected, Whitney Chadwick’s survey reexamines the works themselves and the ways in which they have been perceived as marginal, often in direct reference to gender.

And you thought comics had it bad. It's been a banner year for video game sexual harassment—or at least video game sexual harassment awareness. The Anita Sarkeesian Kickstarter and subsequent online abuse has been well documented, and it's been discussed so much that the Times is ON it with a piece that nonetheless serves as a good round-up. This is the last frontier, as anonymity and youth add up to a culture of harassment—which spills over into the real world as when a female gamer was harassed by the captain of her own team IRL (above.) The Times says it's gone so far even video game makers are trying to do something:

As an addendum to the previous post, and for further reading, there's currently a Women Write About Comics roundtable going on, with interviews with lots of smart people. The most recent is with Alexa Dickman of the Ladies Making Comics tumblr and her indispensable Women in Comics wiki which is doing an amazing job of bringing to light tons of forgotten women in the comics industry. Lots of smart talk, including this gem:

My essay on Marvel and DC as dedicated safe spaces for male-focused entertainment got quite a bit of talk going, which is the best possible reaction to any essay. Several very smart people wrote rebuttals, and these posts also generated very thoughtful comment sections.

It would almost be self-aggrandizing to praise Noelene Clark's recent women in comics piece in the LA Times, since I"m quoted so extensively in it, but I'm happy to say that the bulk of the cartoonists she spoke with were also proponents of the idea that I often promote here: women have already had massive, historic success in the comics industry, and at this point those outlets that aren't adapting to the wave of female readers and creators are truly out of step with the times, and not the trendsetters.

Anyone who has been to the San Diego Comic Con can tell you that a large number of the attendees require a little extra help moving around, as there is a small but significant portion of disabled con-goers.  And as demonstrated by the recent Comic Con Talk-Back panel, working to ensure that disabled patrons can enjoy their Con experience as the able-bodied can be a big challenge for organizers, even with the best intentions.