privilege links

Health

Here's how cellulite came to be the most endemic and untreatable “invented disease” of all time.

Emotional support of others can take the form of surface-level consolation. But compassion means being willing to listen and feel, even when it's uncomfortable.

Ultimately, the driving force behind the “power of positive thinking” meme is the word “power.” But what about those whose bodies are not powerful? What about those who are vulnerable? What about those who are tired, isolated, and struggling? What about those who are ill? What about those who lack

I have often been dismissive or unhelpful when someone close to me was dealing with painful circumstances, having learned to “accentuate the positive.” In the more recent past, I have recognized these behavioral patterns as part of what some mental health professionals term, “toxic positivity.”

Toxic positivity is the overgeneralization of a happy, optimistic state resulting in the denial & invalidation of the authentic human emotional experience.

Politics

“That which we do not bring to consciousness appears in our lives as fate.” — Carl Jung

A glass ceiling is a metaphor used to represent an invisible barrier that keeps a given demographic (typically applied to minorities) from rising beyond a certain level in a hierarchy.[1]

The glass cliff is the phenomenon of women in leadership roles, such as executives in the corporate world and female political election candidates, being likelier than men to achieve leadership roles during periods of crisis or downturn, when the chance of failure is highest.

Silicon Valley’s elite are hatching plans to escape disaster – and when it comes, they’ll leave the rest of us behind

Quando milioni di poveracci sono convinti che i propri problemi dipendano da chi sta peggio di loro, siamo di fronte al capolavoro delle classi dominanti

Al netto dei fuori di zucca che arrivano a razionalizzare le cause del femminicidio, la vera questione posta dal colpo di coda cattointegralista di sabato scorso a Roma è probabilmente quella della cosiddetta famiglia naturale, formula che sta entran

Faccio molta fatica a credere che nel 2017 un maschio - sia esso carabiniere o immigrato o capo del Fondo monetario - se violenta una donna lo fa solo per sfogare la sua

«There's no telling how many guns we have in America—and when one gets used in a crime, no way for the cops to connect it to its owner. The only place the police can turn for help is a Kafkaesque agency in West Virginia, where, thanks to the gun lobby, computers are illegal and detective work is absurdly antiquated. On purpose. Thing is, the geniuses who work there are quietly inventing ways to do the impossible.»

Privilege

«“Why don’t you report it?” It’s up there on every list I’ve seen of things you shouldn’t say to sexual assault survivors, yet I keep hearing it…»

For the first time in years, I find myself feeling ugly. What changed was that I started dating men.

There’s this thing that happens whenever I speak about or write about women’s issues—things like dress codes, rape culture, and sexism. I get the comments: Aren’t there more important things to worry about? Is this really that big of a deal? Aren’t you being overly sensitive? Are you sure you’re being rational about this? Every. Single. Time. And every single time I get frustrated. Why don’t they get it? I think I’ve figured out why. They don’t know.

Many people are calling for long-term solutions to stop and prevent similar abuse. The authors of this post have recommendations, based on our combined 40+ years of community management experience in the fields of computer security, hackerspaces, free and open source software, and non-profits. In four words, our recommendation is: No more rock stars.

Have you ever wondered why you sometimes feel inferior to or put down by a someone, and then notice that another time they are reacting to you as though you were superior to them or putting them down? Rank differences are the key contributor to conflicts and their escalation. Having rank awareness gives you an insight into what is happening in a conflict.

As a 20-year veteran of the tech industry, I’m familiar with calls for “civility” in discourse — and the harm they often do to diversity and inclusion.

Sealioning (also spelled sea-lioning and sea lioning) is a type of trolling or harassment which consists of pursuing people with persistent requests for evidence or repeated questions, while maintaining a pretense of civility and sincerity.[1][2][3][4] It may take the form of "incessant, bad-faith invitations to engage in debate".[5]

Tone policing (also tone trolling, tone argument, and tone fallacy) is an ad hominem (personal attack) and antidebate tactic based on criticizing a person for expressing emotion. Tone policing detracts from the validity of a statement by attacking the tone in which it was presented rather than the message itself.

It’s no secret that times are changing. It used to be that men were men, jokes were jokes, and all facts came from one white guy in a suit who you trusted because he looked like your dad. Now I know I could get in a lot of trouble for just saying this, but I don’t care because someone has to tell the truth: These days, you can’t say anything racist at all without being called a racist.

Las Vegas, Nevada has come under criticism after reportedly setting up a temporary homeless shelter in a parking lot complete with social distancing barriers.

There’s a fine line between a partner requesting personal responsibility and manipulation.

So you want to keep your lover or your employee close. Bound to you, even. You have a few options. You could be the best lover they've ever had, kind, charming, thoughtful, competent, witty, and a tiger in bed. You could be the best workplace they've ever had, with challenging work, rewards for talent, initiative, and professional development, an excellent work/life balance, and good pay. But both of those options demand a lot from you. Besides, your lover (or employee) will stay only as long as she wants to under those systems, and you want to keep her even when she doesn't want to stay. How do you pin her to your side, irrevocably, permanently, and perfectly legally? You create a sick system. […]

Jacob Kaplan-Moss is known for his work on Django but, as he would describe in his keynote, many think he had more to do with its creation than he actually did. While his talk ranged quite a bit, the theme covered something that software development organizations—and open source projects—may be grappling with: a myth about developer performance and how it impacts the industry. It was a thought-provoking talk that was frequently punctuated by applause; these are the kinds of issues that the Python community tries to confront head on, so the talk was aimed well.

«This book is about helping us to focus on good people creating good things, to preserve that spirit of sharing, and to protect against those whose primary contribution is obstruction and disrespect»