Sisters are bitching for themselves

Noticed a little phenomenon the other day. I was having a meeting with some student thing I'm doing where we're trying to set up a small convention in may about Islam and how it's doing in Europe (not so well). But since I know nothing about Islam or about any of the great thinkers we're considering inviting I most of the time sit there make notes, and try to look even remotely pretty.

Anyhoo. One of the problems is that we were really trying to come up with at least ONE good female guest. But after going through all our options and picking our top 5 it turned out no women were even in our top 10. All the guys present thought it was a shame and we went through the list again trying to find a suitable candidate. One of the girls present (a lesbian I might add, not because it adds something to the story... though I think it should) then said "Let's not get a woman and certainly not one to talk about women's issues, that just narrows it all down so much". To his credit the guy who runs the group did earn feminist points by pointing out that women take up 50% of the population so we wouldn't be narrowing it down but we did let go of the idea of inviting women (and he later lost his feminist credits when he questioned the sexuality of Dutch MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali).

That thing reminded me of something that happened a few weeks before that; for my Academic English course we had to summarize an article that had appeared in the New York Times. The article was about comments made by someone at Harvard University who had said that "MAYBE" the reason why women aren't as succesful in science as men had to do PARTLY with biology. The man was, of course, lambasted.

In the article several points of view were pointed out including one from a female professor at Harvard who said that even though biological differences were present between male and female brains the biggest point was still discrimination against women. Part of the assignment was to check your article with someone else and I worked with an Israeli girl who studies Arabic. When checking eachothers work it turned out that I spent one paragraph pointing out the discrimination point while she used only one sentence (granted that one sentence was "Men are all pigs and should burn in hell"(1) but still only one sentence!).

THAT then reminded me of something a friend of mine said last year. We were having a class somewhere in one of the University of Amsterdam buildings but they double booked it and so a group of students with their teacher were standing outside demanding we'd leave. Since we all already sat down and didn't feel like moving we decided to mock them (starting with the teacher and then moving on to the students) though not too loudly because I've come to the conclusion that in the end everybody can kick my ass. My friend, also a 20 something girl, after a while said that "you just knew that the course these students were following HAD to be worthless" because there were only girls following it (which was true).

All of that (and this part needs to be spoken out loud in a Sarah Jessica Parker/ Sex in the City voice over sort of way) brought up some questions to me. Are 20 something girls losing interest in feminism? Is my generation of guys so politically correct that they don't need to be anymore? What kind of Turkish takeaway will I be buying tonight? (2)........













1) no it wasnt
2) no it didn't

Ipod

I've reached an absolute low toy wise.

...

No not THAT kind of toy you sick bastards, technical-play-thing-toys. As any normal music addict the thought of an MP3 player with between 4 to 20 GB is almost erotic to me. All the music I have ever loved in one little thing that I can carry with me everywhere I go... screw sex, gimme an I-pod!

Unfortunately money is a little tight right now so getting one of these thingies has been on the backseat for a moment which was fine really. That is, as long as people I know didn't have one and parade around with one.

Enter my mom.

That's right, my mom. The woman who many times told me that, and I quote, she finds my dad's computer "scary" sometimes, got an I-pod. Sure my dad bought it for her but that doesn't change anything. She. has. an. I-pod. before. I. have. one.

Of course I'm allowed to play with it so I walked around the house listening to Zucchero songs I uploaded for her (the "scary" computer is also the one she needs to upload stuff to her Ipod, see, SEE! I am a fairly ok son). So far the sound quality isn't that great, the computer programme you need to upload the songs only works on Windows XP which I don't have at home and most importantly her Ipod is pink.

God I want it.....

there we go

let's see if this blog is better than the horrible one I had before (borish.punt.nl... ignore the picture PLEASE).

anyhoo expect ramblings from a history student (so far succesful) with an unhealthy interest for music, (american) politics, tv, stand-up comedy and gay rights.