She left less than an hour later under arrest as a "trouser girl" - humiliated in front of hundreds of people, then beaten around the head in a police van before being hauled before a court to face a likely sentence of 40 lashes for the "sin" of not wearing traditional Islamic dress.
The officials who tried to humiliate her expected her to beg for mercy, as most of their victims do.
Instead she turned the tables on them - and in court on Tuesday Mrs Hussein will dare judges to have her flogged, as she makes a brave stand for women's rights in one of Africa's most conservative nations.
...Although the goal in many public places and in much of public life is to treat men and women equally, most upscale restaurants haven't reached that point.
Then again they haven't really tried all that hard. They've learned that ignoring gender is risky, and often foolish, because men and women approach and respond to restaurants in different ways, looking for different things.
A broad generalization? Absolutely. It's also nowhere near as true as it once was.
For Marriage, the Honeymoon's Over - ChronicleReview.com
If professional philosophers did their jobs, analyzed concrete philosophical problems, and won media attention for their conclusions, we wouldn't be sentenced to the cable simplicities of right-wing marriage pundits, or the often ahistorical rights-focused arguments of same-sex-marriage champions. We'd be forced to think hard about what marriage has been, is, and should be, before deciding to whom we're willing to sell tickets.
Study: No gender differences in math performance -- Phsyorg.com
We've all heard it. Many of us in fact believe it. Girls just aren't as good at math as boys. But is it true? After sifting through mountains of data - including SAT results and math scores from 7 million students who were tested in accordance with the No Child Left Behind Act - a team of scientists says the answer is no. Whether they looked at average performance, the scores of the most gifted children or students' ability to solve complex math problems, girls measured up to boys.
Girls are no less competitive than boys, they simply employ more subtle tactics, a study of pre-schoolers suggests. While boys use head-on aggression to get what they want, girls rely on the pain of social exclusion.
THE BERTRAND RUSSELL SOCIETY
Writings by Russell on the Web
A list of electronic texts of Russell's books and essays.
See also: Another excellent resource for texts east and west:
The Philosophy Pages at www.davemckay.co.uk
...a chronological list of Russell's books and essays.
Gay brains structured like those of the opposite sex 16 June 2008 - New Scientist
Brain scans have provided the most compelling evidence yet that being gay or straight is a biologically fixed trait.
The scans reveal that in gay people, key structures of the brain governing emotion, mood, anxiety and aggressiveness resemble those in straight people of the opposite sex.
The differences are likely to have been forged in the womb or in early infancy, says Ivanka Savic, who conducted the study at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden.
DNA explodes Greek myth about women | Science | The Observer
Women in Ancient Greece were major power brokers in their own right, researchers have discovered, and often played key roles in running affairs of state. Until now it was thought they were treated little better than servants.
The discovery is part of an investigation by Manchester researchers into the founders of Mycenae, Europe's first great city-state and capital of King Agamemnon's domains.
'It was thought that in those days women were rated as little more than chattels in Ancient Greece,' said Professor Terry Brown, of the faculty of life sciences at Manchester University. 'Our work now suggests that notion is wrong.'
ABC News: Girls in Sexist Societies Worse at Math
For decades, researchers and educators have debated why boys tend to perform better than girls in math. Are men naturally more logical creatures and thus better at scientific endeavors? Are girls not encouraged by their families, their friends or society at large to pursue scientific careers?
Researchers in Chicago believe they may have found at least one answer: where girls live. Girls living in countries where there is more gender equality perform better in math, sometimes outpacing boys, than girls who live in countries with more male-dominated societies.
"In societies which are more gender equal, there is a lower gender gap in mathematics," said Paola Sapienza, an associate finance professor at Northwestern University's Kellogg School and co-author of the study published Thursday in the journal Science. Also, "there is a much higher gender gap in reading. Girls become much better in reading" in these countries.
A man is walking past a hospital when he sees a physician in a white coat and a little girl coming toward him. As they come closer, he realizes the physician is an old friend whom he has not seen since their college days. They greet each other warmly and the friend says, "Since we last saw each other in college, I went on to medical school and I am now a surgeon at this hospital. I also married someone whom you don't know and have never met, and this is our daughter, Nancy." The man says to the little girl, "Nancy, you not only have your mother's name but you also have her brown eyes."
How did he know?
The Sexual Paradox: Troubled Boys, Gifted Girls and the Real Difference Between the Sexes
This is a fascinating and complex book, highly controversial and often infuriating, in which the Canadian developmental psychologist Susan Pinker attempts to draw together all the evidence proving that there are vast gender differences. Pinker's premise can be misread in various ways, but it is not quite as bad as it initially sounds. She argues that men and women have been sold short in recent decades thanks to the feminist movement's assertion that the sexes are basically the same.
Of course, we'd be loath to admit it in this day and age, but ask any soul-baring 40-year-old single heterosexual woman what she most longs for in life, and she probably won't tell you it's a better career or a smaller waistline or a bigger apartment. Most likely, she'll say that what she really wants is a husband (and, by extension, a child).
Only in the early 19th century did the success of a marriage begin to be defined by how well it cared for its members, both adults and children... These new marital ideals appalled many social conservatives of the day. "How will we get the right people to marry each other, if they can refuse on such trivial grounds as lack of love?" they asked. "Just as important, how will we prevent the wrong ones, such as paupers and servants, from marrying?" What would compel people to stay in marriages where love had died? What would prevent wives from challenging their husbands' authority?
They were right to worry. In the late 18th century, new ideas about the "pursuit of happiness" led many countries to make divorce more accessible, and some even repealed the penalties for homosexual love.
Is There Anything Good About Men? By Roy F. Baumeister -- Denisdutton.com
You're probably thinking that a talk called "Is there anything good about men" will be a short talk! Recent writings have not had much good to say about men. Titles like Men Are Not Cost Effective speak for themselves. Maureen Dowd's book was called Are Men Necessary? and although she never gave an explicit answer, anyone reading the book knows her answer was no. Louann Brizendine's book, The Female Brain, introduces itself by saying, "Men, get ready to experience brain envy." Imagine a book advertising itself by saying that women will soon be envying the superior male brain!
Nor are these isolated examples. Alice Eagly's research has compiled mountains of data on the stereotypes people have about men and women, which the researchers summarized as "The WAW effect." WAW stands for "Women Are Wonderful." Both men and women hold much more favorable views of women than of men. Almost everybody likes women better than men. I certainly do.
Mom's Genes or Dad's? Map Can Tell --Washington Post By Rick Weiss
Scientists have for the first time determined the order of virtually every letter of DNA code in an individual, offering an unprecedented readout of the separate genetic contributions made by that person's mother and father.
By providing a detailed look at maternal and paternal DNA strands, rather than the blended composite that was yielded by the 2001 Human Genome Project, the work offers the clearest snapshot yet of just how different those two contributions can be. Assuming the newly decoded sequence is typical, as scientists presume it is, there are five times as many differences between individuals' DNA as was previously thought.
Controversy surrounds several of this year's entries for Australia's Blake Prize for Religious Art. Luke Sullivan's statue "The Fourth Secret of Fatima," depicts the Virgin Mary in a blue Taliban-era burqa. Priscilla Brack's entry, "Bearded Orientals: Making the Empire Cross," is a holographic image that juxtaposes Osama bin Laden and Jesus by having one morph into the other as the angle of view changes. The two have been accused of blasphemy and worse. PM John Howard admits he has not seen the pieces, but has roundly condemned them as "gratuitously offensive to the religious beliefs of many Australians."
Read brief comments from Rev. Rod Pattenden, Chair of the Blake Prize, and Rev Dr Jione Havea, one of the judges of this year's Prize, here. Priscilla Bracks' comment on her entry and the controversy is here.
Sex, shopping and thinking pink | Economist.com
The brains of men and women are, indeed, different. WOMEN really are better than men at shopping. And they really do prefer pink. And, surprisingly, it is possible that these facts are connected. The first conclusion was drawn by Joshua New of Yale University and his colleagues. The second was drawn by Anya Hurlbert and Yazhu Ling of Newcastle University in England. The connecting theme is that in the division of labour that forms the primordial bargain of human hunter-gatherer societies, it is the men who do the hunting and the women who do the gathering.
Men and Women Really Do Think Differently | LiveScience
"These findings suggest that human evolution has created two different types of brains designed for equally intelligent behavior," said Haier, adding that, "by pinpointing these gender-based intelligence areas, the study has the potential to aid research on dementia and other cognitive-impairment diseases in the brain."
In Praise of Skinned Knees and Grubby Faces - washingtonpost.com
LONDON When I was 10, I founded an international organization known as the Black Cat Club. My friend Richard was the only other member. My younger brother, Hal, had "provisional status," which meant that he had to try out for full membership every other week. We told him we would consider his application if he jumped off the garage roof -- about eight feet from the ground. He had a moment of doubt as he looked over the edge, but we said it wouldn't hurt if he shouted the words "Fly like an eagle!" When he jumped, his knees came up so fast that he knocked himself out. I think the lesson he learned that day was not to trust his brother, which is a pretty valuable one for a growing lad.
Many Colleges Reject Women at Higher Rates Than for Men -- US News and World Reports
The reason for these lower admissions rates for female students is simple, if bitterly ironic: From the early grades on up, girls tend to be better students. By the time college admissions come into the picture, many watchers of the "boy gap" agree, it's too late for the lads to catch up on their own. Indeed, beginning in those formative K-12 years, girls watch less television, spend less time playing sports, and are far less likely to find themselves in detention. They are more likely to participate in drama, art, and music classes—extracurriculars that are catnip for admissions officers. Across the board, girls study more, score better, and are less likely to find themselves in special education classes.
