First, I hosted a guest post by Nancy McCrea Iannone on the troubles of the Pro-Information law in Louisiana, where anti-abortion activists have hijacked what was an unusual, important, coalition.
- I wrote about my own thoughts here in Pro-choice, Pro-Information, Anti-Eugenics.
- Mark Leach has a key followup. Like the bill, the comment thread was hijacked by an anti-choice radical. It's precisely why I am skeptical the pro-information coalition can sustain.
- One more thought: I suspect making a discussion it illegal to discuss termination, will cause MORE eugenic abortions. It's analogous to me the way that anti-abortion radicals fight birth control and sex ed. Education is the way forward, not silencing.
Second, I reacted to a terrible Scientific American blog post in Girls and Science - Makers vs a Scientific American blogger.
- Here's a good blog post on the ensuing kerfuffle, where Lee Billings, a very famous science journalist, told the women in the thread to stop "whining" on Twitter and take it to the comment thread. Which they had, in fact. And whoever controls the SciAm Blogs "favorited" Billings' tweet.
- I thought the irony of the video to which I link appearing the same day as I became aware of the SciAm blog (it was published in April) was interesting, but am not really a science writer or in that community. Still, the notion that some famous male writer can try to control female discourse by using the "whining" word is appalling. Pro tip: Avoid whining and hysteria words when talking about gender.
Third, I wrote a new piece in the Chronicle on counting public engagement and offered a few thoughts on it here and here. In that second one, I ask whether it would be reasonable to take a sustained effort of successful, "impactful" public engagement and exchange it for one piece of peer-reviewed writing in a tenure and promotion portfolio?
Thanks for reading and sharing this week. Next week, I expect, will be more on violence against people with disabilities (sigh. It never stops).
