Joe Coscarelli

Slipped through the cracks

A new men's group fights reverse sexism on campus. Plus: A gay male prom queen and facials with ... human sperm?

  • more
    • All Share Services

This week, we met our new Supreme Court nominee and watched as the California Supreme Court upheld Prop 8. We learned about New York Times columnist Ross Douhat’s weird take on unhappy liberated women and memoirist Elizabeth Wurtzel’s weird take on losing her looks. Maybe we spent too long wrapped in dangerous hugs, because here are a few stories that we missed:

Is reverse sexism running rampant?: A new University of Chicago organization, Men in Power, thinks so. The group will be the first men’s advocacy group on campus (there are nine for women) and hopes to bring in speakers, make ties with alumni and even mentor children for their Little Men in Power program. Critics, often pointing to its name, feel the collective is promoting not-so-subtle misogyny and that such a club is unnecessary due to men’s longstanding strength in the workplace. But one defender puts it this way: “It’s like saying ‘is it OK for the Yankees to keep recruiting new players because the Chicago Cubs have not won as often?’” To be sure, men are feeling the pinch of the recession, with an unemployment rate of 10 percent as compared to women at 7.6, and it’s issues like these the group hopes to address. “If we have good men in our society, everyone benefits,” said founder Steve Saltarelli.

A queer kind of prom queen: Fairfax High School crowned an openly gay male student, Sergio Garcia, as prom queen last weekend. In a speech that struck a chord of both tolerance and novelty, Garcia promoted his candidacy by admitting he wasn’t the typical candidate: “I will be wearing a suit,” he confidently stated. “But don’t be fooled, deep down I am a queen.”

Priest breaks celibacy, ditches Catholic Church: After photos surfaced of Father Alberto Cutie canoodling with a female on the beach, he was removed from his position in a Miami Catholic Church and has admitted to breaking his celibacy vow. “Father Oprah” has since been received into the Episcopal Church, raising questions about the practice of celibacy and straining relations between the two church groups.

Jessica Simpson loves her body (or at least the money it makes): Capitalizing on what might be her last fumes of relevance, the pop star is shopping a new road trippin’ reality show about body image to networks, entitled “The Price of Beauty.”

It puts the spermine on its skin!: A new anti-oxidant discovered in (that’s right!) human sperm is being used for facials. The skin-smoothing process will run you $250 at New York City’s Townhouse Spa, but we’ve heard eternal beauty is priceless.

Slipped through the cracks

Do daughters make dads more liberal? Plus: Sexual harassment at the UN, Michelle Obama and more.

  • more
    • All Share Services

Because we can’t get to everything, here are a few stories we missed this week:

Daddy’s little girl: On stats guru Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight, Andrew Gelman addresses a new sociological study (by AndrewJ.  Oswald and Nattavudh Powdthavee) that finds parents of daughters are more likely to support policies working toward gender equity, with an exceptionally strong correlation showing up for fathers. Specifically in Washington, congressmen with girls tend to vote more liberally in regards to issues like reproductive rights and working families’ flexibility. In short, parents of only daughters are “more likely to hold feminist views.”

UNfit for work: A rash of sexual harassment cases at the United Nations has left some worried that the internal complaint process is “arbitrary, unfair and mired in bureaucracy.” As an overhaul of the entire employee dispute system looms, both accusers and defendants are raising doubts about the updates, calling into question the investigative and appeals processes, as well as the diplomatic immunity held by many U.N. managers.

Standing up for the surrogate: Sarah Jessica Parker, who recently announced that a surrogate would carry her twins, unloaded to “Access Hollywood” in equal parts about the excitement of adding to her family and the ire inspired by the paparazzi’s treatment of her babies’ carrier. According to Parker, the surrogate mother has experience everything from having her phone hacked to threats directed toward friends and family. “I am incredibly outraged by the sort of extraordinary and unprecedented invasion of her privacy,” she said.

“Time” for more Michelle: The First Lady graced the cover of Time magazine this week (with no biceps in sight!) as the subject of a profile, “The Meaning of Michelle,” and an interview, in which she talks about family, the girls’ soccer games and her public persona. “I’m pretty much who I’ve been for a long time,” she said.

Female golfer escort service?: A Las Vegas-based group promises that their enthusiasm “rubs off on you.”

Continue Reading Close

Page 6 of 6 in Joe Coscarelli