Letters to the Editor
Rachael F.
Published Letters: 157 Editor's Choice: 17
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Erm
[Read the article: Adoption and abortion: Apples and blue]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The "male Pill" (which will likely take the form of some sort of testosterone-releasing implant, actually) is nearly a reality. Feminists are all for it. And some men have been getting (painful) testosterone injections for some time now. Mostly those whose wives can't tolerate the Pill.
MEN, however, tend to say, "I'd never take it". Not all men, no, but a very sizeable proportion in a recent survey published at MSNBC.com.
Men are much more likely to be cautious, even paranoid, about using any sort of drug to manipulate their physiologies.
And, as a woman, until recently, I never trusted a man enough to hand responsibility for the birth control over to him. For very practical reasons: I don't forget, 'cause it's ME who winds up pregnant if I do. And if I do get pregnant, it's my responsibility. My partner, on the other hand, might lack this compulsion to remember, because the consequences don't seem as dramatic to him.
Hypothetically. I'm married, now, and while I wouldn't trust my husband to remember to get his quarterly or monthly shot (I know how he is - not a criticism, just a fact - he doesn't remember things that happen infrequently very well), I would remember to remind him to go.
Women aren't going to trust men to handle the birth control if they really don't want to get pregnant. Just as men who don't want to be fathers should also not trust their partners to take a pill every day. People forget.
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Not sure what this is addressing, but:
[Read the article: No more "Asian bunnies"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]broadsheet is virtually the ONLY PLACE where feminist issues are discussed where women are present which doesn't IMMEDIATELY BAN ANYONE MALE WHO DOESN'T TOE THE PARTY LINE.
And thus men who would be banned from every other feminist forum punish the bloggers and readers of this one by coming to this place of tolerance (hey, you said it, I didn't) and spewing woman-hating trollery?
There's a difference between making an argument for or against a position and simply ranting about how all of "us women" have it in for men, have the real control in society, don't care about joint custody, hold our baby boys down and cut off the tips of their penises, won't sleep with you if you're not rich/gorgeous/lying through your teeth, etc., etc., ad nauseum.
Nope, Broadsheet doesn't ban any of that. Why was that, again?
Just kidding. Mostly.
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I'm all for....
[Read the article: Divorce: Tool of the devil?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Families in which only one parent (whichever one) works, and I'm all for trying to reduce divorce rates, but this is just another example of how your average social conservative thinks that the best way to do these things is just to make it legally harder to get divorced.
How about...paying people a wage that will allow a family of four to live on one income? Most two-income families really don't have a huge amount of choice in the matter. It's be poor on one income, or middle-class with two.
And how about reducing divorce rates by social programs that try to make marriage itself seem more like the committment it should be? Rather than repeal no-fault divorce (ugh), maybe more encouragement to get premarital counseling and take classes in marital conflict management?
Oh, and - discouraging premarital sex isn't the best way to forge marriages that last.
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*sigh*
[Read the article: A casualty of female hunters?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Okay, no. Just no.
Species do NOT go extinct because "a more evolved species" displaces them.
There are NO "more evolved species".
This is actually a huge thing. All extant species are EQUALLY evolved. Evolution began with a common ancestor, and since then, mutation, selection, drift, etc., have been leading to changes that are more, less, or equally adaptive. But we've all been at it for the same amount of time. It's not like some species just stop evolving once they've gotten where they were going. The E. coli in your gut are just as evolved as you are, and arguably better adapted to their life niche. "More complex" does not equal "more evolved".
Species go extinct for lots of reasons, and replacement by another species isn't even high on the list of common causes. Species die out because of sudden environmental changes (ice ages, which are sudden on an evolutionary scale, for example), catastrophes (meteor strikes, which also may fall into the "sudden environmental change" category, for example), population bottlenecks...and, occasionally, being outcompeted for the same niche by another species. Rarely.
And I really hope "devolution" is a joke, but just to be sure ('cause we geneticists, we have no senses of humor): There is no such thing as "devolution". Star Trek: The Next Generation notwithstanding.
And neanderthals were human, by anthropological standards. Not Homo sapiens, but, as others have said, a species of human nonetheless.