Some notes on gender

If you saw her in Santa Monica, even in her Mex red apron, you would assume she was an actress. She could easily fill in for a bad blonde in a Mexican telenovela. Yet she shows little animation in her work, and falls short even in the conventional friendliness that I?ve received from checkers at other stores here. Even her colleague at the Mex meat and cheese counter gets a kick out of my fractured attempts at communication (and I‘m just going to mention the counter-girls at the bakery who treat my visits like a game). But the check-out movie star offers little more than ?izvolite? when she hands over my change.

I had a chance to explore this with several of my students. After my the last lecture of my course, a few of them joined me for drinks at the Atrium. Three of the young women considered my question about the difference in optimism between young men and women.

?I am not a pessimist,? said Tatiana Metiko?.

Ana Pono? agrees in rejecting pessimism. ?I am a realist,? she said. —John Spurlock —Some notes on gender (The Blue Monkey Review)

Very interesting observations about deeply-embedded masculine privilege in Montenegro.

Spurlock writes: “Ironing probably remains a novel, one-time experience for most of American manhood, or else it is like bungee-jumping, something that they have nothing against but will probably never try.”

I’ve ironed, usually in hotel rooms.

But here’s a man’s way of ironing. Pointlessly complex, amazingly geeky. Put your shirt over an inflatable parachute-silk form, that heats up and irons your shirt from the inside. (Via BoingBoing.)

Awesome! Now if we could just somehow get an open flame involved, or more moving parts that make a lot of noise…

Of course, if you take your shirts out of the dryer when they are still a bit damp, and hang them up while they are still hot, you don’t have to iron them at all. You can also just throw a shirt into the dryer along with a wet handkerchief, go brush your teeth, and when you’re done, both the shirt and hanky are wrinkle-free.