LilSugar

Wee Are the World: I Believe in Zero, Do You?

LilSugar — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 08:00:00 PST

As a mom, I take tucking my two safe and healthy kids into bed for granted. In the time it takes for us to go to work, to school, to the playground and run errands, laugh, eat, and make memories, 25,000 children around the world die of preventable causes. It's unfathomable - the pain their mothers endure and that this is happening in 2009. That's why I believe in zero. Join Caryl M. Stern, president and CEO of US Fund for UNICEF and mother of three in the movement to make that number zero. To find out how you can get involved,

Getting involved is easy. Advocate on behalf of the children by signing a Presidential Initiative to make child survival policy a priority, donate whatever you can, or recruit your family members and friends to get involved. Teach your children that they can make a difference.

There Is No Gender War

The Good Men Project — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 02:00:59 PDT

We're happy to present this story from one of our favorite sites, The Good Men Project. Noah Brand makes the case for a non-adversarial model of gender.

I get asked, from time to time, what I think about the “war between feminists and MRAs (Men's Rights Activists).”

I’ll be frank - I don’t think there’s any such thing. It’s like asking me what I think of the demolition of Toontown.

The Manichaean Fallacy is a very common trap in human cognition. It’s the constant temptation to reduce any situation of perceived conflict down to an absolute battle between two pure opposing forces, equal in strength and power, which can only end in absolute victory for one side and defeat for the other.

Why Do Married Men Watch Porn?

For whatever reason, our brains really, really like to frame things this way, to where we’ll hammer situations that don’t fit until we can make ‘em fit. There aren’t really two sides? We’ll mentally assign people to teams. The sides aren’t purely homogenous? We’ll just pretend they are. The two sides aren’t remotely equal? We’ll just talk as though they were. There, that only took three steps, and now we have a nice, comfortable model that doesn’t resemble reality at all.

There’s a secondary fallacy, where some folks like to tell themselves that ultimate truth is always at a midway point between the two perfectly opposed sides that they imagine. You’ve heard these guys, “Well, there are extremists on both sides, but I find the truth is usually somewhere in the middle. If only people were willing to compromise . . . ” In other words, they pick two imaginary points, derive a third imaginary point from them, and call the result objectivity. These folks are fun because you don’t have to torture them with rats to get them to truly believe that 2+2=5. You just have to get some of the pundits on TV saying that 2+2=6.

The “war” between feminists and MRAs is a creation of this fallacy, including the “well, maybe there’s a middle ground” corollary. It makes some folks feel like they’re in an intense, exciting struggle with the whole world at stake, which is a fun thing to pretend to believe.

Thing is, it just isn’t so. Feminists and MRAs are not pure and not equivalent, victory for one does not equal defeat for the other, and it certainly doesn’t map accurately to people’s real-life experiences of gender. I reject the entire silly model as a useless framing of gender roles in our society. It’s a lousy model with no predictive value and I’ll have no truck with it. A better model lies not in the middle, but outside the manichaean conflict entirely.

There’s a principle we discovered over at No Seriously, What About The Menz?, that we named Ozy’s Law. It is simply this: you cannot form a stereotype about either of the two major genders without simultaneously forming a concurrent stereotype about the other. Or, more simply: misandry mirrors misogyny.

Pick out whatever sexist stereotypes offend you, and you’ll find that every one of them has a corollary stereotype. Men always want sex; women never want sex. Men are slobs; women should do housework. Men are shallow and looks-obsessed; women are only valuable for their looks. Men are only valuable for their success and money; women are shallow gold-diggers. There is no end to these, no offensively wrong stereotype that doesn’t carry its offensively wrong twin.

Therefore, the entire asinine notion of gender liberation as a zero-sum game in which one gender must lose for the other to gain . . . simply doesn’t make sense. It cannot make sense. Men and women can only be liberated together, or not at all.
We cannot liberate men from the trap of the success myth without liberating women from the beauty myth. We cannot liberate women from being nothing but housewives without liberating men from being nothing but breadwinners. We cannot liberate everyone from repressive and outdated sexual roles if we’re only going to pick at the edges of the problem, trying to free this person’s penis or that person’s vagina. At this point in the game, we are either freeing everyone from repressive gender roles or we’re just fucking around.

That in mind, I think we should get to work, because the hour is late and we’ve left a lot undone.

More stories from The Good Men Project:

How Many People Should You Date Before Settling Down?

YourTango — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 03:30:30 PST

We're happy to present this excerpt from one of our favorite sites, YourTango.

Romantic comedies, fairy tales and Sex And The City have led us to believe that finding "The One" is the primary goal of a woman's life. Find that magical, elusive guy and you'll unlock a lifetime of love, affection and happiness, right? Uh huh . . .

But just how long does it take to find your one and only? Honestly, I don't think there should be any talk of a math formula to help you determine how many frogs you'll kiss before you find a prince. However, some experts believe there is indeed a magic number that leads to happiness - and it's 12.

Our friends over at eHarmony reported on this miraculous finding, which came from Peter Todd, a professor of informatics and cognitive science, and was first published in the December issue of Wired magazine. Todd believes that the best strategy for selecting an ideal mate is to date a few people, see what qualities you would like in a long-term partner, and then settle down once you've found them. Most people, he says, should settle down after dating 12 people.

Listen, Professor Todd. I think your logic is sound - we obviously need to learn what we value in a partner and what we'd prefer to pass on. But to claim that there's some sort of magic number? We're not buying it.

First of all, why should there be a negative stigma surrounding having dated more than 12 people? What if you were dating around and had no idea what you wanted? It doesn't necessarily mean you've missed out on your one and only. The same goes for anyone in a loving relationship who has only dated one, two or even zero other people; why upset your couplehood with the question of "should I keep looking?" when you're otherwise happy?

Not to mention that people who tend to settle in or are looking for long-term relationships don't really have time to date 12 different people! That's a lot of people!

To read the rest, check out How Many People Should You Date Before Settling Down?

Written by Kait Smith for YourTango.

Glee-Ful Highlights From Episode "Sexy"

Shannon Vestal — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 07:20:44 PST

After much anticipation, Gwyneth Paltrow is back as Holly Holliday on this week's episode of Glee. She's brought in as the sub for sex education, because apparently all of McKinley High, teachers included, needs it. Along with the sex ed, the focus expands to include love, relationships, and sexuality. The revelations are pretty explosive for some characters, who realize important things about themselves, and by the end, there are almost as many new connections as there are breakups.

While much of the dialogue gets very PSA-like, it's an interesting episode that pushes along lots of developments - and it's fun, of course, to see Paltrow back on the show. To discuss all the show's happenings with me, just

Holly's sex education skills turn out to be desperately needed when Brittany becomes worried that she's pregnant . . . because she saw a stork outside her window. Sigh. We get it. Brittany's dumb, but between this and her believing there's still a Santa, the writers are making her stupidity unbelievable. In any case, it's the contrivance that's needed to convince Will that he needs Holly's help to get all the glee kids informed (P.S. Why do we need to see Gwyneth as an aerobics instructor? She looks great, but the tangent makes zero sense). Holly shows up to the class clad in head-to-toe leather to perform "Do You Wanna Touch Me" and flinging zingers like "Sex: It's just like hugging, only wetter." While she sounds great, it doesn't seem to leave any of the kids any more informed than before. But if you loved the performance, watch it again now.

On the opposite spectrum of open sexuality is Emma, who oversees the return of the Celibacy Club. Pushing "chastity charms," celibacy is her own agenda because she's been married to Carl for months but has still retained her virginity. After she recruits Carl to perform "Afternoon Delight" with the club (because Emma naively believes the song is about an afternoon dessert of coconut, pineapple, and marshmallow fluff, not afternoon sex), Carl asks Holly if they can stop by for some sex therapy. When they announce they haven't slept together yet, Holly comes straight out and asks Emma if she's still in love with Will. When she can only say she's confused about her feelings, Carl informs her that he's moving out.
Holly is also a little confused about her feelings for Mr. Schue. After a cringe-inducing performance of "Kiss" (between the horrible tango and the screechy singing, it's the worst musical number of the night), Will takes a cue from the song title and plants one on Holly, and then asks her out. She declines, saying she's damaged goods. However, at the end of the episode, she stops by the school to tell Will that her over-the-top antics got her relieved of her sex ed duties - and that she might be ready for a relationship with him. I admit that Will and Holly have great chemistry, but realistically, it can't work. Well, unless Paltrow is made a series regular - which, if they toned down her character, I'd be OK with.
Santana and Brittany are still hooking up, but Brittany admits to Santana that she's confused about their relationship. They seek out Holly to help them determine what the nature of their connection is, and inexplicably, singing the song "Landslide" is the solution. I have no idea why this works, but the Holly/Brittany/Santana performance brings out Santana's serious side. She finds Brittany in the hall later, and tells her that she's a bitch all the time because she's angry. She's angry because she wants to be with Brittany but is afraid of all the implications, especially in light of how Kurt was treated as a gay student. When Santana says that she loves her, Brittany returns the feeling but says she loves Artie too and won't break up with him. Heartbroken and embarrassed, Santana storms off. Whoa. I don't know if I'm more surprised that Santana comes out or that she blames her meanness on her confusion.
Sue tries to feed Kurt and Blaine the "top secret intel" that New Directions is going sexy for Regionals, so Blaine tries to bring out the Warbler's sexy side by performing for the local all-girls school. Their Warblers's version of "Animal" isn't really sexy, but it is very cute. Post-performance, Blaine decides that Kurt's sexy faces are a cry for help. Feeling that Kurt must be closed off about sex, Blaine reaches out to Kurt's dad, urging him to talk to his son. He begrudgingly initiates a sex talk with Kurt, and despite their mutual distaste for the situation, the fact that the talk is more about the feelings sex can bring up makes it kind of touching.
Two other relationships move forward this week, but in different ways. First, Lauren's determination to make a sex tape with Puck is derailed by Holly telling them that it would be a crime. This somehow spurs Puck to do the least-Puck and least believable thing he could: join the Celibacy Club. There's just no way he believes what he tells Lauren about joining, but she still wants to keep seeing him (despite her belief that the club is for nerds). Meanwhile, there's another little reveal: Quinn and Finn have been secretly hooking up. I can't tell if Quinn is really into Finn or if she just wants her queen bee status back, so we'll just have to wait and see if they'll be the golden couple once again.

So, how did Gwyneth do in her second outing? I give her a mixed report card. While her character gets straight up obnoxious at some points (though it's not her fault that she has to say things like "Girlfriend, what is up with that?"), she sounds fantastic, especially on "Do You Wanna Touch Me." Besides her, were you surprised at anything, like Santana's realization or Carl and Emma's breakup? Comment below with your thoughts, and as always, don't forget to join the Glee Club in the Buzz community.

Photo courtesy of Fox

Away We Go: How to Travel (Better) With Friends

LearnVest — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 00:15:33 PDT

We're thrilled to present this smart LearnVest story here on Savvy!

You love your friends, imperfections and all, so the only thing better than a trip to Ibiza might be a trip to Ibiza … with them. After all, group travel affords you freedom to do the activities you want, with zero worries about loneliness: Someone will always be game to ski that double black diamond run or dance the night away at that tiki club.

But while traveling with a group can be fun, it can also be fraught. The little differences that might seem small at first-like extra-long showers or reckless spontaneity-can get blown out of proportion after a few days of being together 24/7. Remember that time you tried to split the hotel bill to account for your BFF’s room service? (“But you totally ate some of my calamari!” “Not $20 worth!”) What a headache.

But you can leave the Advil at home, ladies. With our tips on organizing a successful and stress-free group getaway, you’ll come home with both your friendships and your budget intact.

Know Thyself (And Your Friends)

No two friends travel alike, as one woman’s “high standards” can be another friend’s “being difficult.”

You might enjoy getting a manicure with your diva friend, but think twice about inviting her camping. Likewise, if you don’t enjoy drinking, be wary about inviting the party girl on your getaway. Small differences can blow up when deciding how to spend a whole week together.

So, think strategically when planning your trip: Suggest a weekend in Vegas with your diva girlfriend, plan a camping trip with your high school buddies and save up vacation days for that European getaway with your bilingual best friend.

Read on for more travel tips.

Emmy Nomination Snap Judgments: Your Take

BuzzSugar — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 10:56:19 PDT

We've already given our opinions on this year's Emmy nominations, but we've been really interested in reading what you guys have had to say. For every TV fan happy about a certain nod, there's another viewer who's upset that their favorite has gotten snubbed. Check out the most pleased - and enraged - comments about the Emmy nominees.

"Yay for Martha Plimpton and Cloris Leachman's nominations for Raising Hope! The show is hilarious and definitely deserving." - larisa5656
"Thank you for Louis C.K." - nickpirce
"So happy about FNL!" - ktc71
"Awesome to see Downtown Abbey and Game of Thrones getting some love." - Wild Magelet
"GLEE. GLEE. GLEE!" - spicyaroma

To see what shows and actors readers think were snubbed, just

"NO SEAN BEAN!??? ROBBED! Glad to see at least Peter Dinklage got one though, and he MUST win. Also pleasantly surprised to see Joan Cusack's work in Shameless being recognized - she plays an amazing character on a very underrated show." - jadenirvana
"Bleh! I will never understand the nominations here. I feel like they put zero thought into it. Johnny [Galecki] does not deserve a nomination. In my opinion he's the least funny person on the show. The same goes for Ed O'Neill, yeah he cracks a few jokes but that doesn't mean he deserves a nomination. I'm tired of seeing the entire cast of Modern Family get nominated." - awesomepants
"No True Blood?! What! Nothing! I can't believe that. Were they up for consideration or were they completely overlooked?" - masmith

Photo courtesy of Fox

FlashForward Breakdown, "Believe"

BuzzSugar — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:30:32 PST

The most central characters of FlashForward take a backseat this week, letting Bryce and Aaron take the spotlight. It's a nice relief from Mark and Demetri's constant agonizing over their own fates (though we still get a dose of that, too).

We learn that Bryce has been keeping a big secret, and Aaron's reunion with his daughter isn't all he had expected it to be. Ready to get into it? Just keep reading

Weekend Watching: Super-Skinny Me, the Race to Size Zero

FitSugar — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 02:00:00 PST

These days, so many activities are described as extreme, and unfortunately dieting is not exempt from this categorization. Two British journalists decided to explore the realities of extreme dieting by subjecting themselves to the techniques used by celebs, and they captured the highlights of their journey (or demise) on film for the BBC documentary Super-Skinny Me: The Race to Size Zero.

To read what this fascinating documentary is all about, just

The hour long program is the conceptual inverse of Super Size Me, instead of eating and eating these women diet, fast, and exercise, exercise, exercise. These women work so very hard to drop enough weight to fit into UK size zero, the equivalent of a US size four, and they have six weeks to reach their super-skinny goal. They try the Master Cleanse (aka lemonade diet), protein shakes, watercress soup with nothing else, and colonics (the scene is actually quite graphic and very unglamorous). This extreme relationship to food truly disrupts their lives and relationships, and one becomes borderline bulimic; although, I do believe the supervising physician does a good job of intervening.

Even more interesting than the actual dieting is the epilogue of the show when we catch up with the journalists two weeks and five weeks after their experiment is over. The pounds return quickly for one woman, perfectly illustrating the dangers of yo-yo dieting and the other journalist is still wrestling with her food issues. It is so sad to see.

This hour-long program really hammers home how unhealthy, both mentally and physically, extreme dieting truly is. I do fear some women will still find the final super-skinny results appealing and block out the dangers of this type of dieting.

This program is fascinating and totally worth an hour of your time. It airs tonight, Dec. 2, on BBC America at 10:00 p.m. EST/PST. Watch it and let me know what you think.

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