20140321

Risky word choices

I was listening to the last ATP episode (originally had that as 'ATP podcast', similar to an 'ATM Machine'), and found it generally interesting.  But when it got to talking about sexism (and I must admit to having no expectation of that part being interesting when it was starting), it actually got better.

Starting when Marco mentioned his review of Vesper talking about having 'balls', and really going through the rest of the show, it had me thinking about the Freakanomics gender differences episode.  That one wasn't talking about sexism, per se, but talked a lot about how men and women are different.  What was particularly interesting was when they talked about risk-taking behavior in societies with (extremely) different gender norms.  In the Maori (whose men basically treat women like chattel) society, men and women had pretty similar levels of comfort with risk as we see in first world, western societies.  But a matrilineal society in India (I've already forgotten the name) had risk-taking levels that were reversed (in fact, the women there were even more likely to take risk than the Maori men).  Neat stuff.

I need to do some thinking about whether my own word choices are sexist.  I tend to mostly think not, but I'll need to keep my eyes open about it.

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