Various Gits the World should know more about

Article written by tigtog

tigtog (aka Viv) lives in Sydney, Australia: husband, 2 kids, cat, house, garden, just enough wine-racks and (sigh) far too few bookshelves. You can read more about Viv on her bio page.

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10 responses to “Various Gits the World should know more about”

Mindy
June 3, 2008 at 1:02 pm | Permalink

Two things – What Rachel Moss did – some people are so crap. Shame on you Rachel.

Two: Feminist scificon. Wow. That’s hardcore.
annaham
June 3, 2008 at 1:45 pm | Permalink

rachel moss is my pick for git-of-the-week.
tigtog
June 3, 2008 at 4:19 pm | Permalink

She certainly seems to have gone there with preconceptions that she merely wanted confirmed, such as that there wouldn’t be any gaming panels at a conference with girls. Having read several posts from women who organised or attended the very popular gaming and comics panels at WisCon, one can only assume that she just didn’t bother to actually look.
Rachel
June 3, 2008 at 5:50 pm | Permalink

Where have all the real men gone? (The Age, Elizabeth Farrelly)

My pick for complete git, as I have never seen so much woman hating / homophobia in one article. The Age are gits for publishing it.

(link edited – ~tigtog)
Helen
June 3, 2008 at 6:13 pm | Permalink

Thanks for mentioning that one, Rachel – I’ve been meaning to blog it myself but haven’t had time. My jaw, to borrow a metaphor from another blog commenter somewhere, was sore from hitting the floor so many times after I’d finished it.
tigtog
June 3, 2008 at 6:22 pm | Permalink

Sheesh – apart from the essentialist, traditionalist gender role yearning, she doesn’t understand biology either.

despite disagreement over causes, scientists generally agree that sperm count and sperm fitness are in decline, and have been for perhaps a century.

Whether this trend is strictly Western is not clear. But either way, in view of developing countries’ eagerness to emulate the West, it’s a worry.

Suggested causes are many, but mostly environmental: mobile phones, smoking, alcohol, caffeine, pesticides, ozone, environmental estrogen, even HIV. But one interesting branch of research suggests that low sperm count can be caused by exposure to toxins by a man’s mother, grandmother or great-grandmother during pregnancy and the disorder can be passed to successive generations without damage to the DNA.

In classical Darwinian theory, such heritable infertility should be quickly selected out. Then again, the inheritance of acquired traits without genetic mutation is so counter-Darwinian that perhaps natural selection itself is now either flawed or patchy, due to the combined counter-evolutionary effects of modern medicine, reproductive science and the welfare state.

(The history of war offers a similar hypothesis: that since the advent of the machine-gun, with its random kill-power, war has stopped selecting for valour and lost its evolutionary effect.

Add to this women’s apparent preference for caveman lovers but bank manager husbands and it seems possible to construct a theory that civilisation is selecting against maleness.)

Say what?

Honestly, on what planet does Elizabeth Farrelly think that genetic mutation is the only way that genetic traits evolve due to natural selection? Genetic drift? Transcription errors? Sexual selection, anyone? Just how quickly does she think that disadvantageous traits are “quickly selected out” anyway – just a few generations, or just maybe perhaps somewhat longer? On a planet where we are poisoning the ecosphere, are inherited lower fertility rates actually a disadvantage in the long run for not only our species but for all other species?

What a git.
tigtog
June 3, 2008 at 6:26 pm | Permalink

P.S. since when is an inheritable change in the genetic structure not a mutation simply because it doesn’t “damage” the DNA? What does she mean by “damage” here anyway?

A little more precision when slinging around scientific concepts, please, Ms Farrelly.
Lauredhel
June 3, 2008 at 7:28 pm | Permalink

Farrelly:

… except for the obvious and unexplained feminisation of contemporary men. [...] Today, men examine maleness with the same vanity and delight that women have always brought to self-absorption. Fashion mags and goss-groups, body waxing and eyebrow plucking, pink shirts, perfume, a rising suicide rate, falling sperm counts.

I present a single-image rebuttal:
Helen
June 3, 2008 at 9:33 pm | Permalink

What Centrelink did: Breached my friend, a single mother, who is struggling with the work conditions in her profession (lighting technician) and the cost and (un) availability of child care, especially for people intermittently employed in non-business hours. This is the second time they’ve breached her; the first time she was caring for her mother in her mother’s last weeks. She is about to lose her house.

I’m writing letters.
Unknown Troper
June 3, 2008 at 10:14 pm | Permalink

I only hope that the un-hidden racism of Camden is not upheld in the courts