Culture in the Blender

The two classes I’m auditing intersected in an interesting way recently. In Judy Wajcman’s book Feminism Confronts Technology, there is a chapter on technology as masculine culture. One of the subsections is on engineering. Wajcman argues that
“central to the social construction of the engineer is the polarity between science and sensuality, the hard and the [...]

Recently, I came across an article entitled Loving Those Who Justify Inequality: The Effects of System Threat on Attraction to Women Who Embody Benevolent Sexist Ideals. It found that when men felt like their country was being criticized by a foreigner, they were more attracted to women who clearly had incorporated belevolent sexism than to [...]

Although by all standards I should be in bed, I’m procrastrinating my trolling the blogosphere. I found a very interesting interview with Aida Seif el-Dawla and Rabab el-Mahdi in the Guardian Unlimited. Both are corageous activists and feminists in Egypt, and in the article provide just the kind of explanation of context and feminist analysis [...]

I haven’t posted much lately because I’ve been very busy with my research, trying to really get somewhere. However, it’s difficult not to be reminded that not only do I live in a country that doesn’t take feminism for granted, I am in an atmosphere where discrimination can’t be discussed – a major research university [...]

Most of my mental capacity at the moment is going into being mad about and trying to understand the sexist behavior of someone at work. A fact that I think is highly relevant – and is currently being suppressed – is that the man in question is from a society that is generally known to [...]

Interactions with people have made me think about patterns and deep-seated problems with sexism and very destructive ideas of masculinity. All but one of the deshi men I have had to work with or otherwise be in close proximity to have had obvious sexist opinions, ideas, and concepts, which they have not hesitated to express [...]

I just really realized something that I’ve heard said many times while writing a paper about deposition of thin ruthenium films using atomic layer deposition: gender relations really are much more relaxed in the Nordic countries than in the United States. Here, people make things so much more difficult in a very subtle way. And [...]

Dear Foreigners From Non-Egalitarian Countries,
I have heard many people say that you shouldn’t be allowed to come here. I have heard regular people – not just the extremists on the far right – say that you don’t try to fit in here and you create your own communities within our community and don’t understand the [...]

The equality of men and women is universal and not culture-dependent. Therefore, any attempt to legitimize sexism or oppression of women, especially violent attacks on women because of their sex, through cultural norms is illegitimate. Being sexist is universally immoral.