National Post

nationalpostsports:

FINALLY: Condoleezza Rice shows off her green jacket ahead of the Masters.

The home of the Masters, under increasing criticism the last decade because of its all-male membership, invited the former secretary of state and South Carolina financier Darla Moore to become the first women in green jackets last August when the club opens for a new season in October.

A debate about membership intensified in 2002 when Martha Burk of the National Council of Women’s Organizations urged the club to include women among its members.

Former club chairman Hootie Johnson stood his ground, even at the cost of losing Masters television sponsors for two years, when he famously said Augusta National might one day have a woman in a green jacket, “but not at the point of a bayonet.” (Photo: Ron Williams/The Associated Press)

postarcadenp:

Special Guest Post: Why it’s important to talk about Anita Sarkeesian and Tropes vs. Women In Video Games

“Just like any other kind of media analysis — film, television, advertising, media — video game criticism can tell us a lot about ourselves.”

By Emma Woolley 

http://natpo.st/YSElc6

Sex-selective programs and the belief that ‘boys will be boys’ stigmatize students: study
The belief that “boys will be boys” could hurt their chances for academic success, new research says.

The study, published Tuesday in the journal Child Development, says experiments with predominantly white British schoolchildren revealed even young boys and girls believe girls are better students. When children were told this, boys’ academic performance dropped compared with those in a control group. Boys did better in a subsequent experiment when children were told both sexes were expected to perform equally well.

“Our findings emphasize the real importance of promoting positive gender expectations,” said Bonny Hartley, a PhD student at Britain’s University of Kent, who co-wrote the study with associate professor Robbie Sutton. (Fotolia)

vidpostarcadenp:

Today on Post Arcade, Chad Sapieha has a nice piece about how his daughter helped change the way he thinks about female video game characters.

“Becoming a father has made me painfully aware of how women are depicted in video games.

I’ve never been blind to the medium’s crass portrayal of the feminine form and psyche. It’s impossible not to notice, for example, how many female characters in fighting games these days are burdened with back-breaking breasts governed by their own special physics algorithms, nor how these grown women tend to titter like school girls rather than utter anything of interest.

I never had a taste for it, but I was more tolerant than I should have been. I’d write it off as parody or over-the-top humour. But parody, when taken too far and for too long, just ends up becoming systemic exploitation. I’m pretty sure video games, taken on a whole, crossed that line sometime between Duke Nukem and Dead or Alive Xtreme 2.

And then along came my kid…”

What do you think? Is it time to start changing the way women are depicted in video games? 

New Bic pens ‘for her’ spark online ridicule: “ask your husband for some extra pocket money so you can buy one today!”
Consumer product giant Bic, which has long differentiated its razors by gender, has discovered that marketing differently to men and women doesn’t necessarily go quite as smoothly when it comes to another signature product: Pens.

The company’s “Bic Cristal for Her” line of writing instruments — which boast a “sleek pen silhouette and jeweled accents [that] add style,” plus a thinner design “for a better handling for women,” and come in bright colours including pink and purple — are drawing criticism and ridicule from women who consider the campaign condescending and reliant on outdated concepts of femininity.

The products were introduced to the Canadian market in late 2011, but the growing number of derisive customer reviews of the gender-specific pens on Amazon.com are turning Bic’s marketing brainwave into a mockery.

Transgender father says breastfeeding support group rules unfairly bar him from becoming a leader
A Winnipeg transgender father says his bid to become leader of a breastfeeding support group was rejected because a man cannot take the role under La Leche League Canada policy.

Trevor MacDonald, who was born female and gave birth to his son, has been breastfeeding the child using a supplemental feeding tube.

Mr. MacDonald was told that “a man cannot become an LLLC Leader,” he wrote on his blog Milk Junkies, which chronicles his breastfeeding experience. He wrote that he understands that he doesn’t fit their parameters, but says their definition is poor and out of date.

“At the time the policy was written, the authors assumed that men wouldn’t/couldn’t breastfeed, so they defined a leader as a woman,” Mr. MacDonald wrote in a blog post on Thursday. “I kinda doubt that many people envisioned my own scenario. I think that the interpretation of the policy should evolve.” (Photo: Dr. Jack Newman)

Taking the lead: So you think you can challenge gender roles in dance?
A Toronto woman says she was kicked out of a modern jive class after trying to lead her male partner, in the latest sign of a push against the traditional gender roles that still dominate the ballroom dancefloor.

Andrea Seto, 25, tried to switch to a lead role during a recent class at Jive Nation Toronto, but said her instructor objected. After repeatedly pushing for an explanation, Ms. Seto says she was asked to leave. She had taken classes with the dance school since January.

“It just seemed like it was kind of sexist…. As a patron paying for a service, it seems I should be the one deciding what I’m learning,” Ms. Seto said. (Photo: Darren Calabrese/National Post)

Jenna Talackova allowed to compete in Miss Universe Canada if she meets ‘legal gender requirements’
Jenna Talackova, the transgender beauty queen who was kicked out the Miss Universe Canada competition last month, will be allowed to compete after all, the organization announced Monday — if she can prove she meets the “legal gender recognition requirements of Canada” and other international competitions.

The brief statement issued by the organization did not specify what such requirements entail. (Photo: ModelMayhem.com)

Miss Universe Canada disqualifies transsexual beauty queen Jenna Talackova
Vancouver’s Jenna Talackova was everything Miss Universe Canada was looking for when she was selected among 65 finalists for the 2012 competition, to be held in Toronto in May.

But the Donald Trump–owned beauty pageant confirmed Friday that the 23-year-old has been disqualified from the competition. (Photo: ModelMayhem.com)

The reason, Talackova claims, is she was born male.

“She did not meet the requirements to compete despite having stated otherwise on her entry form,” stated a Miss Universe Canada release.

Women as the breadwinners: Turning the traditional model of gender roles in marriage on its head
In the last few decades, women have come to gradually outpace men in education, with women making up 60% of university graduates in Canada, and in earnings growth, with the average total income for women in Canada increasing at nearly twice the pace of men’s. And as this outpacing across North America only seems to accelerate, working women are poised to eclipse men as the primary household breadwinners — a cultural shift that is changing the dynamics between husband and wife, turning the traditional model of gender roles in marriage on its head and even shaping the way younger generations view an institution at risk. (Illustration by Kagan McLeod/National Post)

Bearded and breastfeeding – the story of a pregnant man
As Neil Hope puts it, being pregnant is a bit of a public “spectacle,” prompting even complete strangers to comment on the expectant parent’s condition.

In his case, the inquiries in the street and on the bus came with an unusual degree of puzzlement. The combination of the 37-year-old’s protruding belly and beard might have explained that.

“People say, ‘Oh, you’re going to be a Mummy,’ then I’d say ‘Actually, I’m going to be a Dad,’ and then they suddenly give funny looks,” recalled Mr. Hope, whose son Derek is now seven months old.

“It’s sort of like a running joke, the idea of a pregnant man. There was a whole Arnold Schwarzenegger movie about it…. So when you say that you are one, it’s understandably a bit confusing for people.”

Yet the Toronto musician is among a growing number of transsexual men and women who use assisted-reproduction treatment to have children, with the Create Fertility Centre in Toronto handling about one such case every month. Despite having undergone gender-reassignment surgery in his 20s, Mr. Hope still had a working uterus and, with the aid of artificial insemination, was able to conceive and give birth last year. (Illustration by Andrew Barr)

Part one: Who decides the makings of a modern family?

Lego’s ‘pink ghetto’ draws fire over gender-specific marketing
The Lego backlash was perhaps inevitable. When the maker of countless little coloured bricks sold all over the world decided to create a line of products designed specifically with girls in mind, it was broaching a delicate subject.

Sure enough, as Lego Friends was being rolled out this month, sets in which the girls of Heartlake City can do things like visit the vet and hang out at an ice cream café, criticism descended upon the Danish toy giant.

“Lego’s pink ghetto,” read one headline. An advocacy group compiled 50,000 signatures on a petition that decried Lego for implying that “girls are not interested in their products unless they’re pink, cute, or romantic.” Among the thousands of critical messages on social media rallying around the “LiberateLego” hashtag was a typical post: “There’s already a type of Lego for girls. It’s called LEGO!!!”

Mess with the gender-neutral bull, you get the horns.

nationalpostsports:

Joe O’Connor: As girls’ hockey booms, are our attitudes stuck in the past?
Cassie Campbell used to cringe when she heard the word: “fun.” As in, girls’ minor hockey is all about going out and having some “fun.”

Not going out and competing. Not scoring goals. Not battling for pucks. Not making the perfect pass. Not taking a slap shot. Not honing your skills. Not winning.

But having fun.

Fun was a part of it, of course, an important part, and the former captain of the Canadian women’s team and two-time Olympic gold medalist understands that. What she didn’t understand, and didn’t want to accept, was how expectations were different for boys and girls at the hockey arena. (Photo: CJ Gunter for National Post)

Canadians want children of own gender to carry on legacy: study
Despite a cultural push to be neutral or even indifferent about the sex of their babies, university-educated Canadians overwhelmingly prefer to have a child of their own gender as they unconsciously try to create a “meme” of themselves to live on after they die, a new study suggests.

Fifty or even 20 years ago, the same study of evolutionary biology might have veered heavily in favour of boys — the traditional breadwinners, deemed to be physiologically stronger and with a greater capacity to produce more children and grandchildren. It’s a value that still exists in many parts of the world.

But the major strides made by women in modern Western society have meant there’s never been a better time to be born a girl —and women are keenly aware of it, said Lonnie Aarssen, a Queen’s University biology professor who co-authored the study with former undergraduate student Michael Higginson.

“It’s interesting to see this emergence just in my lifetime of opportunities for women to break free from that patriarchal subjugation,” he said. “And it’s being expressed as a flip now to actually favouring offspring that have potential to represent copies of themselves because they’re the same gender.”

This is particularly linked to women seeing themselves as able to leave some kind of role model legacy for their daughters because they see greater opportunities for them today, Dr. Aarssen added. (Photo: foltolia)