Snob

Featuring cum shots of rage, bellowing whimpers and angry mongoloid orgasms so intense they could dismantle your soul with their gooey brutal essence.

Map generated by sending an ICMP Echo request, collecting the responses and mapping the active IPs using Python.

By Reddit user xyuksr

In May, Harambe the Western lowland silverback gorilla was tragically shot after a young child fell into his enclosure, causing an enormous backlash online. Today, his legacy continues to live on in s**tposts and ironic meme communities across the entire internet.

Founded in 2003, Torrentz has been a stable factor in the torrent community for over 13 years.

With millions of visitors per day the site grew out to become one of the most visited torrent sites, but today this reign ends, as the popular meta-search engine has announced its shutdown.

A few hours ago and without warning, Torrentz disabled its search functionality. At first sight the main page looks normal but those who try to find links to torrents will notice that they’re no longer there.

Instead, the site is now referring to itself in the past tense, suggesting that after more than a decade the end has arrived.

“Torrentz was a free, fast and powerful meta-search engine combining results from dozens of search engines,” the text reads.

The site’s user are no longer able to login either. Instead, they see the following message: “Torrentz will always love you. Farewell.”

Torrentz.eu says farewell

TorrentFreak was contacted by one of the operators of Torrentz earlier today, who prefers not to comment at the moment. It’s clear, however, that another major torrent site is shutting down, leaving a gaping hole.

Torrentz itself never hosted any torrent files but did have a takedown procedure in place, allowing copyright holders to take down infringing links.

Not all rightsholders were happy with the site though. Both RIAA and MPAA have reported the site to the U.S. Government in recent years, which repeatedly placed it in its annual “Out-of-Cycle Review of Notorious Markets.”

With Torrentz.eu and KickassTorrents both shutting down, the torrent comunity lost two of the largest sites in a period of three weeks. This means that millions of users will have to find new homes.

Founded a few weeks before The Pirate Bay, Torrentz was one of the oldest torrent sites still around. When Torrentz first came online the site was hosting torrent files, but it swiftly reinvented itself as a meta-search engine, the biggest of its kind.

Breaking story, more updates will follow

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

El artículo Spotify lanza la playlist personalizada Radar de Novedades con nuevos lanzamientos se publicó en MovilZona.

Xuntos Podemos fala de “golpe de estado planificado” para disolver a marca podemita, plan no que sitúa a Xulio Ferreiro e os deputados de Podemos en En Marea, Gómez Reino e Ángela Rodríguez.

O Folión é identidade, é identidade galega. 

Investigaciones anteriores señalaban —erróneamente— que las personas con baja capacidad cognitiva eran más proclives a tener prejuicios. Sin embargo, un estudio realizado recientemente ha demostrado que el grado de inteligencia de un sujeto no determina su nivel de prejuicios, sino que establece hacia quién van dirigidos esos prejuicios.

En el experimento, titulado "Answering Unresolved Questions About the Relationship Between Cognitive Ability and Prejudice" y dirigido por los psicólogos sociales Mark Brandt y Jarret Crawford, se estudió a 5.914 sujetos. Prescindiendo de valoraciones sobre si determinados prejuicios son o no justificables, los investigadores determinaron en qué medida se mostraban prejuiciosos distintos grupos de personas divididas según su nivel de inteligencia. Asimismo, la capacidad cognitiva de los participantes se determinó mediante tests de palabras y sumas, ya que se considera que estas pruebas están relacionadas con el cociente intelectual de una persona. Brandt y Crawford hallaron que las personas con baja capacidad cognitiva tienden a mostrar un mayor nivel de prejuicio hacia colectivos no convencionales o liberales, así como hacia personas con "pocas opciones" debido a su estatus, ya sea por motivos raciales, de género o de orientación sexual. Esta tendencia, sin embargo, se invertía en el caso de las personas con alto nivel de capacidad cognitiva. En otras palabras, era más probable que los sujetos más inteligentes de su estudio tuvieran prejuicios contra grupos considerados convencionales o conservadores, personas "con muchas posibilidades".

"A la gente no le gustan las personas diferentes", explicaron Brandt y Crawford en una entrevista. "A veces rechazamos a aquellos que tienen una visión del mundo distinta a la nuestra porque de esa manera reforzamos la validez de nuestra propia perspectiva". Es decir: cuando ves las cosas de una forma, confías es tu perspectiva, y eso te ayuda a reforzar tu convicción de que tú tienes razón y los demás se equivocan.

El estudio también reveló un dato interesante: las personas con baja capacidad cognitiva mostraban prejuicios contra colectivos de los que sus miembros no habían escogido formar parte, como grupos étnicos o el colectivo LGBT.

Brandt y Crawford señalan que, en estudios anteriores, se demostró que las personas con una capacidad cognitiva inferior a menudo tendían a "esencializar", a percibir "diferencias claras" en otros colectivos.

"Marcar diferencias claras ayuda a distanciarse de un colectivo ajeno y a verlo menos como una amenaza", afirmaron, y mencionaron un estudio reciente en el que se analizaba este fenómeno de las fronteras en alusión al absurdo plan de Donald Trump de construir una gran muralla a lo largo de la frontera sur de los EUA, creando así una barrera física donde antes solo existía en la mente de las personas.

Las personas conservadoras que apoyan este plan están mostrando prejuicios hacia colectivos con "pocas posibilidades", en este caso, mexicanos que no escogieron nacer en México. "Por otro lado, las personas con mayor capacidad cognitiva tienen como objeto de sus prejuicios los grupos con "más oportunidades", como los conservadores. "Pueden mostrarse especialmente indignados contra los colectivos que ellos consideran que deberían ser capaces de cambiar de opinión".

Koreans love their hot food. According to the Chile Pepper Institute, Koreans consume 5.5 pounds of hot red pepper powder per person on an annual basis — and much of that goes into gochujang.

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As a person who loves to write recipes, Cake Magic! was a study in working with a master recipe and variations with some ratio work thrown in.

Here’s how it works: You make a big batch of mix comprised of flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt during a quiet moment and then scoop out what you need per recipe. (There is a separate, carefully balanced gluten-free mix that begins the same way, totally from scratch.)

The Cake Magic! cake mix:

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon table salt

That very mix works as a foundation for every cake—over one hundred—in my book. But even though each one starts out the same and shares the same base ingredients, the recipes diverge in flavor and application in a way that’s left up to the person who’s baking.

I think of the finished cakes almost as cocktails, taking a few different components that can be remixed in many ways to produce very different results. The recipes that are attached to this post show a small sample of how to work in this cake universe.

1. First, pick a cake batter—vanilla or chocolate, though in the book there are also Citrus, Brown Sugar, Fruit and Veggie, Nutty, Coconut and Mocha cakes, too.
2. And then choose where you want it to go by picking a soaking syrup and a frosting. (In the book, these assembly instructions are at the bottom of the photos of each cake, telling you how to assemble it.)

A few sample recipes:

Mix and match them to create these 5 cakes:

For a base of Vanilla Cake...

• Boozy Berry Cake = Vanilla Cake + Bourbon-Berry Syrup (make the Mixed Berry Syrup and stir in 1 tablespoon bourbon with the vanilla extract and cherry liqueur) + Malted Vanilla Frosting

• Confetti Cake = Vanilla Cake (with 1/2 cup sprinkles stirred into batter) + Vanilla Syrup + Malted Vanilla Frosting

• White Russian Cake = Vanilla Cake + Milky Vodka Syrup (follow Sweet Cream syrup, but add 2 tablespoons vodka along with the vanilla) + Malted Vanilla Frosting

If you feel like a Chocolate Cake, then…

• Hostess Cake: Darkest Chocolate Cake + Coconut Syrup (follow Sweet Cream syrup, but sub full-fat coconut milk for cream and add 1/4 cup unsweetened coconut to hot syrup and steep it together) + Malted Vanilla Frosting

• Soda Fountain Cake = Darkest Chocolate Cake + Cola Syrup (same as Vanilla Syrup, except sub non-diet cola for water) + Malted Vanilla Frosting

What's the most creative cake flavor combination you've tasted (or thought up)? Tell us in the comments!

President Barack Obama published an essay at Glamour on Thursday explaining why he’s a feminist — and why feminism is just as important for men as it is for women.

“It is absolutely men’s responsibility to fight sexism too,” Obama wrote. And he said it’s important that his daughters have a feminist dad, “because now that’s what they expect of all men.”

The piece is a lovely, personal reflection about how Obama’s feminism and his life have been shaped by his daughters, wife, mother, and grandmother, as well as public figures like the late Congress member Shirley Chisholm.

He talks about the “unique challenges women face” due to gender stereotypes in society. That’s one reason, he said, that the burden of childcare fell “disproportionately and unfairly on Michelle,” because she knew “few people would question my choices.”

He doesn’t shy away from intersectional issues: He talks about how Michelle had to worry about being seen as too “angry” or aggressive as a black woman; how they have taught their daughters to speak up when they see a double-standard based on either gender or race; how America has “never been just about the Benjamins; it’s about the Tubmans too.”

But most of all, Obama talks about how gender stereotypes “affect all of us, regardless of our gender, gender identity, or sexual orientation,” himself and other men included.

But I also have to admit that when you’re the father of two daughters, you become even more aware of how gender stereotypes pervade our society. You see the subtle and not-so-subtle social cues transmitted through culture. You feel the enormous pressure girls are under to look and behave and even think a certain way.

And those same stereotypes affected my own consciousness as a young man. Growing up without a dad, I spent a lot of time trying to figure out who I was, how the world perceived me, and what kind of man I wanted to be. It’s easy to absorb all kinds of messages from society about masculinity and come to believe that there’s a right way and a wrong way to be a man. But as I got older, I realized that my ideas about being a tough guy or cool guy just weren’t me. They were a manifestation of my youth and insecurity. Life became a lot easier when I simply started being myself.

Obama said we need to keep changing the attitude that “criticizes our daughters for speaking out and our sons for shedding a tear … that punishes women for their sexuality and rewards men for theirs … that congratulates men for changing a diaper, stigmatizes full-time dads, and penalizes working mothers.”

Obama is the first sitting president to identify as a feminist, which he did in June at a speech at the White House United State of Women Summit. And the Glamour essay, some of which is repurposed from that June speech, is a pretty on-point overview of major feminist themes.

Feminism is often stereotyped as being anti-male, or blind to the unique challenges that men face. But Obama points out that if you really understand feminism, that’s not what it’s about. Feminism gave us tools to understand how bias and gender stereotypes affect women, but it also uses those tools to show how these biases affect everyone — how misogyny and toxic masculinity go hand in hand, and how feminism won’t work unless people of all genders are working for it.

The biggest worry for Republicans isn’t that Donald Trump will lose. It’s that he’ll lose so badly that he’ll end up dragging down GOP candidates in other races, costing the party the Senate and maybe the House.

Lately it looks like those fears might come true. A new WBUR poll in New Hampshire shows Trump down 15 points to Hillary Clinton in the state. But more significantly, Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte is down 10 points in her bid for reelection against Maggie Hassan, the former Democratic governor.

For Republicans, this is an important race, and could be a key to Senate control. Democrats currently hold 46 seats and need to take just four from Republican incumbents to take back the Senate if Clinton wins (and five if she does not).

To be clear, this is just one poll, and it could be driven by a Democratic convention bounce that will fade over the next few weeks. But it highlights an important dynamic in the election: When Trump’s campaign starts going "off the rails," as it has in recent days, other Republicans get dragged down with him:

"There's a very close relationship between the votes for Kelly Ayotte and Donald Trump," said Steve Koczela, president of the MassINC Polling Group, which conducted the WBUR survey. "Their support is sort of locked together. And with the direction that Donald Trump seems to be heading in, Kelly Ayotte's task is to somehow decouple those two."

Ayotte has tried to distance herself from Trump — but it doesn’t seem to be working

Lately, Ayotte has tried to disavow Trump’s attacks on Khizr and Ghazala Khan. In a recent statement, she said:

The Khan family deserves nothing less than our deepest support, respect, and gratitude, and they have every right to express themselves in any way they choose. I am appalled that Donald Trump would disparage them and that he had the gall to compare his own sacrifices to those of a Gold Star family.

But separating herself entirely from Trump will be difficult. Though she hasn't endorsed Trump, Ayotte’s aides say she still backs him (à la her famous "support, but not endorse" statement) and plans to vote for the Republican presidential nominee.

One saving grace for Ayotte may be the fact that Trump has been distancing himself from her. In a recent interview with the Washington Post, Trump didn’t sound like he would endorse or support Ayotte.

I don’t know Kelly Ayotte. I know she’s given me no support — zero support — and yet I’m leading her in the polls. I’m doing very well in New Hampshire. We need loyal people in this country. We need fighters in this country. We don’t need weak people. We have enough of them. We need fighters in this country. But Kelly Ayotte has given me zero support, and I’m doing great in New Hampshire.

A rift with Trump could arguably be a good thing for Ayotte. Another option might be to do what Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL) did — last month he revoked his support for Trump and became the first Republican senator to run an anti-Trump ad. According to a Kirk campaign official, Kirk has seen "an uptick in donor and volunteer interest since the senator distanced himself from Trump."

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This election is about normal vs. abnormal

SL Glamour. "This Is What a Feminist Looks Like" by Barack Obama

David Huddleston, who portrayed the Big Lebowski as well as the mayor in Blazing Saddles and countless other character parts in movies and tv, passed away Tuesday in his Santa Fe home at 85.

The Big Lebowski

More Lebowski

Blazing Saddles authentic frontier gibberish

When I became pregnant four years ago, I was writing a book about 19th-century British poetry and war while teaching classes about the history of war literature. I began to think about the discrepancy between how we narrate these experiences. We have a rich, challenging, and complex canon of war literature...The same cannot be said about a literature of pregnancy or childbirth or parenting, though these are also extreme experiences that stretch our understanding and push us beyond comfort or even comprehension.

Lily Gurton-Wachter in the LARB:

So part of the problem is logistical, structural: how can you write about an experience that, by definition, prevents you from writing? How can you think about an experience that seems to prevent or frustrate thought? ...Galchen acknowledges the nascent genre of new motherhood, mentioning Manguso and Elena Ferrante, before concluding: "But among the mother writers of today probably two of the most celebrated are men: Karl Ove Knausgaard and, in his way, Louis C.K."

the new writers mentioned
Elisa Albert - After Birth
Eula Biss - On Immunity
Rivka Galchen - Little Labors
Sarah Manguso - Ongoingness: The End of a Diary
Maggie Nelson - The Argonauts
Rachel Cusk - A Life's Work: On Becoming a Mother

According to the BBC, the only other animals that have menstrual cycles—apart from humans and our close primate relatives—are the elephant shrews and certain bats, which certainly seems unfair.

As you probably learned in health class years ago, a menstrual cycle is the shedding of the uterine lining, which happens once a month or so. Every month, the uterus prepares a "fluffy and plush lining of blood vessels and stuff for the to implant into," Dr. Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz, an OB GYN, explains. "When this fails to happen and a female releases the egg but done not conceive, the lining of the uterus is shed—this is the period."

Read more: The Artist Turning Period Stains into Statement Jewelry

Lovely symptoms of this monthly process include blood pouring out of your vagina, cramps, PMS, and pimples. While humans bleed a lot for their body size, other animals, such as dogs, may have a small or moderate amount of discharge, and other animals, such a mice and mares, do not bleed at all.

There's no scientific consensus regarding why human menstruation is so damn bloody, but one idea suggests that the bleeding may be to prevent complications. "The tissue that is lost during menstruation is a mom's way of keeping the fetus in check—it's like an evolutionary balance," explains Dr. Elizabeth Rowe, an anthropologist from Perdue University who researches menstruation, the uterus, and genetics.

"In animals that bleed during pregnancy, the fetus digs deeply into a mom's uterus so it can have access to her blood supply," says Rowe.

While this allows nutrients for the growing little creatures, it can be bad news for mom. "The problem with that is, if you're a mother mammal—if you let a fetus just dig into your tissues willy-nilly, that could ultimately kill you," Rowe explains. A period acts as a preemptive strike of sorts to ensure this doesn't happen.

"The tissue that is lost during menstruation forms something of a shield between fetus and mom. I call it pre-gaming for pregnancy," says Rowe, who tested this hypothesis using data from primates. This notion explains why some mammals shed blood and others don't. "It turns out you don't see menstrual bleeding in species where they don't have an aggressive fetus," says Rowe.

To further her research, Rowe wants to compare brain size to blood loss. "What I want to look at is differences in brain size relative to body size, because one of the things that's really important about our species: We have really big brains compared to our body sizes. If you have big a brain, you have a big-brained fetus, and that big brain is greedy for nutrients and oxygen," Rowe says. "That's why they dig so deeply into mom's tissues."

With a solid notion in place as to why we're doomed to bleed, what about other less-than-luxurious period symptoms, like PMS and cramps? Do other animals experience them? In the 80s, biologists did report observing PMS symptoms in baboons; unfortunately, scientists still aren't sure to what extend most animals experience them. Today, there's even a debate over the legitimacy of PMS in humans. The uterus works in mysterious ways.

However, we do know that in some animals, like cats, are even known to actually act friendlier while bleeding. "Cats will be extremely friendly, where they will rub against objects, knead their paws on things, vocalize randomly, and even posture with their hind end in the air," when they're on the cat-rag, says Dr. Ashley, "the Southern Pet Vet."

Personally speaking, I'm more likely to spend my period with ice cream and cannabis suppositories, but now I can feel less aggrieved knowing my blood is just my body trying to protect me from the threat of an aggressive, greedy, large-brained fetus.

Secure

You’re the “wife material” girlfriend. You make the person you’re dating feel like you’re already their family. You take care of them, but you also offer them a degree of comfort that other people can’t and won’t. You aren’t afraid of commitment, and you aren’t afraid to show what commitment means to you. You care about people because of who they really are, and you’re willing to do whatever it takes to make the relationship work.

Avoidant

You’re the hard-to-get girlfriend. You’re on or you’re off, but either way, your partner knows that landing a relationship with you is a pretty big deal. You have extremely high standards, though at the same time, you often fall for (and date) people who are oddly beneath them. It’s not that you settle, it’s that you find love where you find it, and have to be able to overlook a lot of your tendency to worry.

Anxious

You’re the intense girlfriend. You don’t do “casual dating.” You need to know where you stand. Once you fall for someone, you fall hard, and you have a really hard time detaching. You fight for your relationships, and don’t give up easily. Despite being intense, you’re also cautious – you are super aware of micro-behaviors and nonverbal cues that could tell you whether or not someone is a good fit. You’re on your toes, but your heart is all the way in.

Disorganized

You’re the high standards girlfriend. You went through a lot when you were young, and from that, you learned. You’re not going to tolerate any bullshit, and you let people know that right off the bat. Though at times in the past you have lacked discernment in your relationships, you are that much more aware of what does and doesn’t work for you now. You’re independent and ready to live your best life, and you want to find someone to come along for the ride.

Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer, creators and stars of 'Broad City'

This post originally appeared on VICE UK.

Having spent a large amount of my youth at a Church of England all girls' school, I had decided drugs were evil. Take one toke on a spliff, and it would be a slippery slope toward your school portrait appearing on the front page of the Mail: "GCSE Student Tragically Dead at 16 from Doing Too Much Reefer."

Skip past my puritanical phase, though, and by 19, I was smoking weed pretty regularly, thanks to my boyfriend and my male housemate. No surprise there, really: Weed is the most commonly used drug in Britain, and 93 percent of those who use drugs (around 14 million people) have smoked cannabis.

I got stoned after work, before going to the movies, and with my friends after parties. Slowly, I bridged the gap between newbie and someone who knows what "indica" is, and I hoped to share the ritual I'd grown to love with some of my close female friends. Problem was, I barely knew any women who smoked. Unlike my male friends, who were all experienced weed smokers—and proud of that fact—my female friends avoided it. I realized I couldn't share my experience with women, and I was instead just having weed mansplained to me by all my male friends.

Men had always smoked weed. They knew how to do it. They always rolled the joints, they had bizarrely expensive grinders, they owned an unnecessary amount of paraphernalia. Men rapped about smoking weed, and men smoked weed onscreen in stoner comedies like Harold & Kumar and Pineapple Express. Men, like everything in my life, owned it. I could partake, but I would only ever be a guest in the bro-stoner house of bongs. Although women had been smoking weed as a natural painkiller in childbirth for hundreds of years, men had monopolized the culture around it.

"I think there are a lot of reasons for this," said Natalie Lyla Ginsberg, a policy and advocacy manager at the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS). "But the first thing that comes to mind is a matter of safety. You know, it's illegal, and men have a greater sense of safety—the feeling that they could do something and get away with it. Plus, culturally, men are encouraged to be more rebellious than women."

Safety is certainly an issue. Even female friends of mine who do smoke sometimes feel unsafe picking up from dealers who are almost always men, especially when those situations might require you to get in a car with a random guy. I've even heard of women being given worse quality stuff because their (male) dealers don't think they'll notice, before texting them and asking them if they've got a boyfriend, or if they fancy hopping in their Mazda for slightly longer next time.

And so, the authority men feel perpetuates. Even excluding the limited access, weed culture is just another example where regressive understanding about men and women's roles manifest. We are often wrongly stereotyped as highly strung control freaks, something that is only compounded by being still disproportionately responsible for unpaid domestic tasks as well as responsible for doing the bulk of emotional labor. That idea of the woman as the carer—as the responsible one who remembers birthdays and appointments—doesn't mesh well with perception of weed: its ability to relax you and focus you on yourself. Subsequently, women, when burdened with these tasks, may not feel they have time to use a drug that might affect those responsibilities.

These restrictions start young. Much like the way our society pushes women into caring roles that could leave them feeling at odds with smoking weed, young women—around the time that a lot of these norms are introduced—become burdened with insecurities. Insecurities that might prevent them from enjoying a drug that pushes them to self-analyze.

Jenny Slate on 'Getting Doug with High'

As Ginsberg put it, "I wonder if part of it is to do with the fact that girls are taught—especially in school—to be very self-conscious, and concerned about how they're viewed; all these things that cannabis culture is the opposite of. Yet, at the same time, while drinking can help you not think about those things, cannabis makes you think, which, sometimes, in the wrong setting, can amplify insecurity and inspire paranoid thoughts—Why is he looking at me? Why isn't he looking at me?"

Weed is a social drug, but it's also one that brings you into yourself. When society places so much scrutiny on you in the first place, no wonder it doesn't necessarily seem like a good choice. But things are changing.

Conversations around weed may have been historically male-dominated, but thanks to actresses like Jenny Slate and television shows like Broad City, a mainstream female weed culture is starting to emerge (or at least re-emerge). Broad City, which follows two stoners, Ilana and Abbi, living in New York has become a huge hit, having been renewed by Comedy Central for a fifth season, and it is testament to the normalization of women who smoke. Rihanna relentlessly Instagrams photos of herself smoking weed. Jenny Slate smokes "once a day" and also gets high on the internet. Women everywhere are reclaiming a culture, be it financially or conceptually.

So why now? As with many subcultures, the internet has allowed for the dissemination of information without that info having to filter through social constrictions. Broad City, for example, started as a web series, allowing anyone to access it, and a large female-stoner community can be found online in spaces like Tumblr. Usage has also increased: Whereas surveys of the UK in 2002 and 2008 showed women were less likely to take drugs than men, that gap has finally closed, as a 2014 survey found both genders equally likely to have taken drugs.

"I think it's a bubbling pot of things, including the intersection of the current state of US cannabis policy, general cannabis culture, and modern feminism," said Ginsberg. "Over half of US states have medical usage, over half of the US population supports legalization, so it's no longer as taboo and risky as a woman to talk about smoking cannabis."

Although attitudes toward marijuana are liberalizing, and women are gaining more access. Structural issues surrounding cannabis—how we legislate it and who our legislation affects—show wider issues with the drug. For example, in places like London, you're more likely to get arrested if you're from a lower socio-economic class and less likely to be let off, whereas the more affluent are three times more likely to be let off with a warning, when compared to the unemployed.

People enjoying themselves at a 4/20 rally in Hyde Park. Photo by Jake Lewis

Luckily, cannabis arrests are falling rapidly in the UK, with police officers opting for "cautions" instead, and some police bosses telling their staff to outright not bother with cannabis possession. Further to this, the intersection of oppression—being a black woman or a woman from a lower socio-economic background—is bound to increase your risk of incarceration, if not in the UK, then definitely in the US. The American Civil Liberties Union, a well-respected public interest law organization, published an in-depth report in 2013, finding that "on average, a black person is 3.73 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than a white person, even though use marijuana at similar rates."

Ginsberg shared the legal concerns: "Incarcerating people and giving people criminal records is one of the most damaging things you can do to someone. In the context of women, taking away your baby is not only horrific to the mother, but is literally the most harmful thing you could possibly do to a baby."

Structural issues might seem to engulf the problem of sexism within the culture, but the emergence of female stoners speaks to a societal normalization of the drug as a whole—something, hopefully, that will lead to legal change.

Follow Ruby Lott-Lavigna on Twitter.

Illustration by Dan Evans

A bitter old woman sat on her garden bench believes she is about to die. In a vision, an angelic girl walks over to her—her younger self. Slowly, she is joined by clones, each making a different soft gesture. "I'm you if you'd married the love of your life," one says wistfully. "I'm you if you'd laughed more," says another. "I'm you if you'd tipped waitresses," says another, poker-faced.


We're all going to be this cranky old person, sitting on a bench, thinking about all the lives we could have lived, the people we could have been. Todd Solondz's worlds are always unsettling because they show you how ugly and dark human existence is and then dig you in the ribs and force you to laugh along. His recently released film, Wiener-Dog, is no different. Whether it's rape, incest, or suicide, no subject is considered remotely taboo to Solondz. It's the reason he's utterly hated by many critics, brands won't allow him to place their product in his films, and his R-rated sex scenes have been covered with a red box for censorship in the past. He's—falsely—called evil, exploitative, and misanthropic, leaving no hope for his characters. Yet his brilliance has made him one of America's greatest living cult writer and directors.

When I go to meet him at the cinema, he's sitting in a booth overlooking Piccadilly Circus in all its horrible glory. He's wearing bright blue plastic glasses. They're incredible. He's said in the past that strangers make comments about him in the street or have shouted insults when he gets onstage before a screening. Reviewers and viewers frequently brand Solondz a weirdo by making personal, sometimes cruel comments in an attempt to explain his characters who are almost always conventionally unattractive, freaks, and dorks. "When I want to show the kind of meanness people are capable of, to make it believable I find I have to tone it down," he once said. "It's in real life that people are over the top."

Solondz grew up in the suburbs of New Jersey, an insulated existence he credits as his biggest influence. Consistently, his films satirize middle-class suburbia. "God, my family would be friends with either accountants or dentists or lawyers, and they weren't connected to anyone artistic, really," he drawls. He didn't want to be a filmmaker until college. "The only films I remember having a big impact when I was younger were Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music. I loved them both and sang all the songs and that was all I was exposed to." Once he escaped his beige life and went to NYU film school to study—where he now teaches—his creative education accelerated. "This was before VHS and college campuses had film societies that showed movies every night of the week, so you could see a good Goddard, followed by Henry Hathaway, followed by Maya Deren. It was always a fantasy, just the idea of living in New York. That's where I wanted to live, that was my Oz, so in that sense, I was and am living out my dream."

Unfortunately, the experience of making his first feature, Fear, Anxiety, and Depression, in 1989 was enough to turn him from filmmaking for years. "I'm asking you, as my friend, don't rent it, don't try to see it," he famously said. I told him I hadn't seen it on this basis, and he seemed satisfied. Five years after its release, an attorney friend urged him to make another film and offered to partially back it financially. The result was his 90s cult classic, the black comedy, Welcome to the Dollhouse.

Dawn Wiener in 'Welcome to the Dollhouse.' Image via YouTube

Main character Dawn Wiener was the bullied, degraded, flawed, and deeply irritating kid of the decade. Played by Heather Matarazzo, Wiener tried to survive school, getting picked on by her parents, hating her beautiful little sister, and crushing on an older band guy. Wiener is the every-preteen; we are her and so we laugh at her unrelenting misfortune.

"Everyone tells me they were Dawn Wiener," replies Solondz, when I tell him I am her. "Notably even supermodel Cindy Crawford said she was Dawn. 'That was me!' she said. Whether or not they were the pariah Dawn is, people have that connection." He is reluctant, of course, to make a specific link between him and Wiener. "The more you can transform your own experience and understanding of things, the more you can make it accessible to others, it frees you from the literalness of what your life was like. My life was a different nightmare. I went to a private prep school at that age, and Dawn's school was not. This girl's life, I could make more accessible. But I can say certainly, all of my movies are autobiographical in some way."

From Wiener to her bully, to awkward kids, perverts, and sex pests in later films, no one shows the liminal and the shunned like Solondz. "Everyone always thinks they're an outsider," he says. "And even when you talk to the most popular kids from their high school class, they'll say that they felt outside in some way. Even if you go from feeling that you're the outsider to the insider, then you'll still feel like you're on the outside of the outside. It's human nature that on the one hand you're part of the planet, but also we all have our own point of view that is irreducibly our own." That's what makes outsiders such a fascinating subject to return to.

The trailer for 'Wiener Dog,' via YouTube

No one is more outside, more despised, and condemned than the pedophile. His 1998 film, Happiness, features—besides Philip Seymour Hoffman ejaculating up a wall while prank sex calling women from the telephone book—a married man who wants to sleep with little boys. We witness the lead up to his rape of his son's friend who is sleeping over at the house in scenes uncomfortable enough to genuinely turn stomachs. Sundance refused to accept the film, and Solondz had problems getting it properly distributed and advertised. "People would feel much more comfortable having... I don't know, Osama Bin Laden or some other terrorist what-have-you sitting at the table with them, than someone who touched children," Solondz says matter-of-factly, gazing out over Piccadilly. "Pedophilia is not taboo in the sense that it cannot be discussed. The problem is, that unlike all these other movies with child molesters, I am not demonizing them. We live in times of hysteria, and it's reshaped the way we treat both children and adults. To me, the challenge was how could I make someone care for someone that we would all viscerally want to reject?"

It might have been hugely controversial, but critically, Happiness was a five-star success and retrospectively hailed as a work of genius. Far from being a "sympathetic portrayal of a pedophile," as critics said, it simply tells the character's story in the same nonjudgmental, blunt, black comic way as the innocent characters. "It's a tragic story because the pedophile father loves his son in the purist sense. The loss of that father, for that kid, is what makes it so moving and so horrible." The suggestion throughout the film is that this horror exists all around us in the mainstream. To think otherwise is naive.

As Solondz's career has developed, he's employed increasingly unusual ways of storytelling. In Palindromes, a 13-year-old girl Aviva starts to sleep around because she desperately wants to have a baby. If that weren't testing enough for an audience, Aviva is played by eight different actors of different races, ages, and genders.

With each film, the Solondz universe is being revealed; people in different families are interconnected, he develops storylines across titles and brings back entire groups of characters for spiritual sequels with a new batch of actors. A funeral was held for Dawn Wiener in Palindromes only for her to return, played by Greta Gerwig in new film Wiener-Dog, for example.

Solondz on the set of 'Wiener-Dog' with Greta Gerwig

There was never a grand plan behind this, or a desire to make it a Tarantino-type world of imaginary brands and related characters. "It just evolved that way," he explains. "I didn't calculate anything. There are characters I've established, and then it can be handy and interesting to revisit what they can bring to other kinds of stories, and I like this. When Heather Matarazzo told me she never wanted to reprise the role of Dawn, it kind of freed me up. I like the idea of the different possibilities other actresses can bring to a character. It opens up all kinds of possibilities that don't exist in real life, since in real life you only have one life to live."

Just like the dying old lady, we have to pick one. "There's a poignancy and something touching about the way film can transform these possibilities of life into something real," he says. "And as Wiener-Dog demonstrates, we see the dog at the end taking on a new kind of life through art, through the transformative magic of what art can do." Creating means legacy. Solondz has two children of his own—and they haven't seen his films yet. "The thing that made me wince was when people found out I'd become a father, there was always a kind of congratulations, but married to the sense that now at least, 'you're one of us,' like now at once, 'your life has meaning.' I didn't think I was lacking before, but that attitude creeps me out."

If there's one message to take from Wiener-dog, it's that we're all going to die. I pack up my things and tell Solondz that I found the film almost painfully depressing. "There's a shadow that hovers over all of these stories, and that's mortality," he says, standing up. "There's much to be cynical about—that's just our reality." I tell him I hate mortality. "I love that," he says. "That's a really good line." He smiles as if storing it away for his next bleak effort.

Follow Hannah Ewens on Twitter.

This is a story about Coleman Sweeney, a loud and proud douchebag who thought the whole world owed him something, that is, until he suddenly dropped dead one day.

1. Before you go anywhere near his cock, make sure you get him nice and hard. French kiss him, grab his hair to deepen that kiss, and stroke his thighs–but wait to touch that sweet spot.

2. Once you can see the bulge in his jeans, it’s time to start rubbing over the fabric. Lightly move your hand back and forth, just to tease him. It should make him even harder.

3. Now you can seductively remove his jeans. Make a show out of unzipping them and pulling them off. Think of it as a reverse strip tease.

4. If you want to use your body to your advantage, now would be a good time to remove a few items of clothing. Say something about how it’s not fair for him to be naked when you’re still fully clothed, and then take your top off so he can suck on your tits or run his thumbs across your nipples.

5. It’s finally time to grab his cock. Just make sure that there’s pre-cum dripping down his shaft. If there isn’t any in sight, you can either kiss him until it pops out or reach for the lube. You don’t want the handjob to hurt, so you have to make sure he’s sufficiently wet.

6. Don’t go hard and fast right from the get-go. Start out with light, slow strokes. When he gets closer to orgasm, then you can tighten your grasp and move at a quicker pace.

7. You could always start out by grabbing him with just your thumb and forefinger, moving up and down, and then gradually adding more fingers to increase the pressure.

8. Don’t forget to twist your wrist as you move your hand. Simple “up and down” movements aren’t going to cut it.

9. Don’t forget to explore his body, either. Instead of focusing all of your energy on his dick, try touching his balls, kissing his neck, and licking his nipples. Use whatever moves you know he’ll go crazy over.

10. Use a new toy every time. Try handcuffing him one day, trailing a feather across his shaft the next day, and running your vibrator over his balls the day after that. You never know what he’ll cum hard from.

11. If you want to be extra sexy, you can try straddling him while giving him a handjob. That way, he’ll be able to grab your waist and put your tits in his mouth. It’ll give him he illusion that you’re riding him. Just make sure you sit more toward his knees, so your hands actually have access to his cock.

12. If you don’t think one hand is going to do the job, then you can always use two. Just make sure that they’re moving in sync.

13. Even if you don’t want his dick in your mouth, you should put his index finger in your mouth. Make sure you suck it in and out while running your tongue around the entire thing. Then it’ll be easy for him to imagine that your lips are on his junk instead of your hands.

14. For the most part, your mouth won’t be busy, so you should use it to talk dirty. Tell him how sexy he sounds when he moans and how wet you get whenever you feel his cock twitch. 

15. If you have your heart set on giving him a handjob, make sure he knows it’s not leading to anything else. Otherwise, he’ll assume that it’s just foreplay, and he’ll try to keep himself from orgasming so he can have sex with you. So make your intentions clear.

16. Friendly reminder: Handjobs aren’t meant to be given when you’re in bed together. They work best when you’re casually watching TV, so he’ll feel like he got a special little surprise. (Of course, if you want to make him cum faster, you could always turn off the TV and put on a porno.)

17. Even if you’re not in the mood to lick and suck, you can still use your mouth to catch his cum when he’s all finished. Seeing you swallow is the perfect way to end the occasion. 

1. “She was very into me fingering her in public. Like if we were closer than normal in a booth somewhere, there’s a solid chance I was finger-banging her. Sorry to all of my friends who went to bars with us whose girlfriends I met and shook hands with during that time. My bad.” — Kyle, 27

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2. “Spontaneous anal. No clue how or why I let her go. Have you had anal on a random Tuesday? I have.” — Dalton, 24

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3. “She was pretty tame except for the fact that she really got up in there when going down on me. Like this chick was not afraid of going for the grundle, licking my ass, fingering my asshole, the works. Gotta admit, it felt amazing.” — Billy, 29

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4. “We had a threesome with my roommate who is a girl. Watching my girlfriend eat out another woman while I was fucking her from behind is a sight I’m literally never going to forget. God bless.” — Johnny, 26

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5. “I knew she was into like, BDSM stuff but I never thought I’d fuck a girl who wanted to wear a ball gag, nipple clamps, and be totally tied up spread-eagle on a bed. But…I have.” — Rylan, 25

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6. “We joined the mile high club together but not in a way you’d ‘expect.’ Instead of going to the bathroom like a civilized couple, we got a blanket and she sat on my lap and rode me until I came all over that complimentary Delta fleece. It was a red eye, no one knew. …Ok like maybe some people knew but whatever. It was awesome.” — Eli, 28

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7. “Two words. Water sports. Three more words. Not for me.” — Will, 29

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8. “She let me cum all over her chest while blowing me in the bathroom at her cousin’s engagement party. Then she just cleaned it off on one of their towels and we made it back in time for her uncle’s toast.” — Matt, 26

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9. “She was super into the idea of public sex and like, who am I to deny someone something like that? So we fucked on several lawns of various suburban households in our college town. I’m 99.9% some dad has seen me railing my girlfriend next to his manicured hedges.” — Garrett, 27

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10. “I choked her with my tie while banging her on my desk at work. Hottest thing I’ve done sexually so far.” — Nathan, 30

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11. “While we were breaking up we’d have really angry, volatile breakup sex. I’m talking bite marks, scratches everywhere, she slapped me across the face a bunch, I’d yank her hair so hard I’d momentarily panic. We kind of looked like we’d been mauled by tigers after but the sex was so hot neither of us would use a safe word or anything. I miss that sex.” — Andrew, 28

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12. “She loved having sex with a butt plug in. She has/had one that vibrates…and that feels crazy good.” — Jamie, 23

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13. “After I would finish inside of her (we were totally committed and monogamous while doing this by the way) I would either eat her out to get her off again, or finger her to get her off again and lick myself off of my fingers while doing so. Kinda weird, but she was so into it and would always cum like a train.” — Robert, 25

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14. “We went to a private sex club and I watched her get gang-banged by three guys in roughly their mid-40s (she was 22 at the time) while I jerked off in the same room. Basically I watch my girlfriend have a dick in her every possible way she could.” — Mark, 27

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15. “I let her peg me. She was really turned on which turned me on more than the actual pegging. It was fine but not really my cup of tea.” — Chase, 24

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16. “So the first time this ex of mine and I actually met, it was because we matched on Tinder and figured out we were in the same bar. We ended up getting pretty hammered, and fucking in the handicapped bathroom stall while other people were using the restroom. Great story, not so great relationship.” — Owen, 26

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17. “She blew my boss at the company Christmas party and let me watch before fucking me in his office after he came. We don’t really talk about it — we were all pretty wasted.” — Adam, 29

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18. “She was really into being dominated and humiliated, which was super out of character for her and me. I’m usually more passive, and she’s a total ball buster in her job. But once the lights were out and we were behind closed doors she’d crawl around on the floor, basically act like my little sex slave. It’s a secret that I still get hard thinking about.” — Peter, 28

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19. “Ever done a Craiglist bukaki with your girlfriend as the girl? It’s about as weird as you think it’d be.” — Benjamin, 25

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20. “She worked from home and would send me the DIRTIEST messages. Nudes, videos of herself masturbating, Snaps of her cleaning her house in nothing but heels, just really raunchy stuff. It would always get us both really worked up for when I’d come home and we’d have crazy sex in the living room or wherever was closest because we’d both be so horny.” — Dave, 27

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21. “We filmed a video for an amateur porn site. She didn’t want it to be ‘boring’ so we used dildos, a bullet in her ass and my ass, I gave her a facial, lots of different stuff to make us seem really adventurous. It was admittedly pretty hot. I still watch it when I’m alone sometimes…though I’d never admit that to her or my current girlfriend.” — Zack, 26

En la jungla. ¿Un día muy especial o un espectáculo bochornoso? Tres 'pinchas' seleccionan los temas que deberían evitarse.

El pontífice ha denunciado la colonización ideológica de las teorías de género y ha asegurado que el adoctrinamiento en las aulas está financiado por países muy influyentes. 

Durante la Jornada Mundial de la Juventud celebrada en Cracovia, el Papa Francisco mantuvo un encuentro privado con los obispos polacos en la Catedral de San Estanislao y San Wenceslao. En este encuentro, el Santo Padre respondió a las preguntas de los prelados y abordó diversos temas como la crisis de refugiados, las colonizaciones ideológicas o los retos de la evangelización en el país.

Uno de los puntos que el pontífice quiso tratar fue la imposición de la ideología de género en las escuelas, una realidad que afecta especialmente a los niños.

El Papa denunció ante los prelados congregados la colonización ideológica que supone la extensión e imposición de las teorías de género, que sostienen que una persona puede elegir su género con independencia del sexo con el que haya nacido.

El pontífice lamentó que esta ideología se extiende e impone en las escuelas a través de los libros de texto, financiados por ciertas instituciones y por países muy influyentes.

“Hoy en día, a los niños en la escuela –¡a los niños!–, se les enseña en la escuela: que cada uno puede elegir su sexo. ¿Y por qué se enseña? Porque los libros son de las personas e instituciones que te dan el dinero. Esta es la colonización ideológica, sostenida también por países muy influyentes. Esto es terrible”, denunció Francisco.

El pontífice recordó, asimismo, una conversación mantenida con Benedicto XVI sobre este tema. El Papa Emérito advirtió a Francisco: “Santidad, esta es la era del pecado contra Dios creador”. Francisco invitó a los obispos polacos a meditar sobre las palabras del Papa Emérito e hizo un llamamiento a no olvidar que  es Dios y no el hombre el creador del mundo.

La entrada Francisco: ‘A los niños en la escuela se les enseña que cada uno puede elegir su sexo, esto es terrible’ aparece primero en Infovaticana.

Welcome to the third and final installment of “Sexism and Season 6,” the essay series seeking to counter the distressingly abundant claim that Game of Thrones (GoT) overcame the charges of sexism previously levied at it and delivered a feminist season. This particular section tackles the misguided notion that violence as a path to empowerment is in any way feminist, especially when it’s the only path offered by showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss, and their creative team (D&D).

Those who listen to The Fanwankers podcast or follow me on social media have probably heard me mention the fact that I have an “Unsullied” (non-book reader) brother who is a fan of the show. I was at his house recently and GoT came up, along with the whole concept of its “women problem” and if Season 6 had successfully “fixed” it. I told him that I hated this season and found it pandering, and he threw up his arms in exasperation and said, “so the show can’t win!”

But see, this season was pandering, and not subtly so. For all D&D claimed that “not one word” of their scripts had changed as a result of criticism, it is very obvious that just about every plotline was shoved full of characters and moments that D&D thought would appeal to their female viewers. We had women sassing men, women declaring war on weak men/men who didn’t think women should rule, women being put in positions of power, women getting revenge… Even women “burning the patriarchy to the ground.”

Now, I explained in Part 1 of this series how the setting against which these women triumph was so meaningless that the idea they’ve been largely punished in the first place is nearly inexcusable, while Part 2 tackled the actual scripting of the female characters and how it was full of sexist tropes and assumptions. Still, I think the truly offensive element of this season to me is that what was presented to us—what I just described in the paragraph above—is what I was “supposed” to want. It was what women were supposed to want. And clearly it worked for a bunch of people; I’d never argue otherwise.

But what I would also argue is that the “empowerment” Season 6 offered was, at least in my opinion, utterly sexist at its core. However, before that can be expanded, it’s important to clarify what “empowerment” even is.

Simply put, to “empower” someone in a sociological sense means to enable a marginalized individual to combat the discrimination they face and to be in a position to achieve greater influence, (literally “to bestow power”) or to be involved in the decision making processes from which they were previously excluded. What does it mean when we talk about an “empowered woman” in literature and scripted media? A woman who displays qualities and/or acts in a manner that is challenging to the socially discriminatory processes/systems/institutions that oppress individuals based on gender identity, and/or a woman who has obtained power within said systems.

D&D’s version of female empowerment, however, was not in any way challenging to any social system, because it was rooted in their own privileged assumptions about how the world works. It’s what two white dudes with a pattern of not listening to criticism, of not bringing in a diversity of voices to the writers’ room, and of not making any noticeable effort to understand their own privilege conceive of as feminism. Don’t get me wrong: I truly believe that the men working on GoT are trying to do right by women. Sexists aren’t just those wacky old dudes talking about how a woman’s place is in the kitchen. Sometimes they’re very educated individuals who think of themselves as progressive, yet never allow a space for their worldviews be challenged, and are insistent on being allies by talking over everyone to put forth the story they believe is the most compelling/best for everyone. Which is sort of exactly how privilege works.

This issue isn’t just restricted to sexism, by the way, especially in Season 6. Look at how the story of Loras vs. the strawman homophobes was all about the straight people acting and reacting to the events. Loras was an object; a passive victim whose suffering was meant for us to voyeuristically consume, so we could shake our righteous fists at the Faith Militant.

Or do I need to remind you of the show’s treatment of disability and mental illness this year? Hodor’s condition was presented as a “whodunit” mystery, and Theon’s PTSD was screamed away when it inconvenienced Yara. She outright told him that he should kill himself or get on with it, and the narrative confirmed that it was apparently what he needed to hear in that moment, because that’s how trauma works.

And boy was Tyrion’s plotline perhaps the most meta of them all: he spent a full season explaining slavery and how to navigate the situation to Missandei and Grey Worm. He was proven wrong for a millisecond, but that was quickly fixed the next episode to show how once again, he was the only person with the ideas and answers that Slaver’s Bay the Bay of Dragons needed.

The story is so progressive when it comes to race, as long as white people are the ones triumphing or saving the day. It’s so progressive on LGBT+ issues when it’s straight people who are fighting the homophobes. And it’s so wonderful and inclusive when it comes to depicting mental difference by showing that there’s a reason/inception point for why everyone is the way they are, and that trauma should be treated as something to “overcome” so people can return to their “old” selves! There’s no other way to put this than to say: this is a story written by the privileged, for the privileged.

So of course when it comes to writing a “pro-woman” story, D&D are just as unsuccessful. These men (including writer-producer Bryan Cogman and staff writer Dave Hill) cloistered themselves away in a room, determined to “ignore criticism” to the point where they didn’t even attend SDCC last year, and then churned out a story that they thought would appeal to women without bothering to check with a single woman. Or have a woman serve as a director. It’s like they wanted to shut the critics up by “fixing” this problem, but had no interest in what the actual dialogue about said problem was. To this day their creative team doesn’t know what the actual complaints about last season even were.

And I’m in no way saying, by the way, that men can’t be feminists, or that any woman brought onto the creative team would have automatically been one herself. But what I am saying is that when you’re in a position of power like D&D, working on a show that has a proven track record of issues when it comes to the portrayal of women, having a writing and directing team of only other men is not too flattering. In fact, it might be what I’d call “faulty allyship.”

Just as we got a story about LGBT issues heavily rooted in the straight-gaze, Season 6 gave us a “feminist” story heavily rooted in patriarchal values.

I think it’s important to tackle the argument “well women have to behave in this way to gain power because that’s the setting.” Not to be too repetitive, but Part 1 of this series covered how “the setting” holds no meaning. However, even if we can somehow pretend that D&D managed to do a very good job in this department, there’s the issue of their confusion when it comes to depicting a toxically patriarchal world versus endorsing, through their narrative, the qualities valued in such a world. In the books (just hear me out), George R.R. Martin portrays some really awful things that happen to his characters as a result of the heavily misogynistic society that they live in, and that can be really upsetting to read about. But he bends over backwards to show that the society itself is completely unstable and untenable:

…[Martin] uses the setting of Westeros to really highlight the issues that arise from the characters navigating such a toxic patriarchy, as well as the inherent hypocrisy that comes with the worship at the altar of the “chivalrous knight” and the “maiden fair.” Chivalry, despite being all about “treating women right” and placing “virginal” women on a bizarre pedestal, is sexist. Benevolently so, yes, but still sexist.

D&D…do no such thing. There’s no examination of the toll that embracing these awful ideals has on their characters. How can there be any exploration of the way in which every highborn woman in society is groomed and utterly lacking in sexual agency, when The Reach is portrayed as the sexual liberation capital of the world where Olenna can poo-poo a betrothal to a prince, sleep with her sister’s betrothed, and the dude would find her assertions of her desires so endearing that he’d agree to screw over both of their Houses by marrying her? Sorry, I mentioned the inconsistent setting again, didn’t I? (It’s part and parcel, I promise.) Even if this was something that Olenna was supposed to have done behind everyone’s back because of how oppressed she is, the fact doing such a thing would even occur to her betrays, if nothing else, D&D’s complete lack of care when it comes to scripting how a woman would reasonably think and act in this setting.

And truthfully, this isn’t just about how women act. This is the fact that D&D seem to completely buy into the concept of “toxic masculinity.” As a quick review, this is the assumption that masculinity, viewed as the compulsory gender presentation for men, is unemotional, sexually aggressive, and violent. Men who present outside of these gender norms are emasculated, and thus not treated as “real men.” It’s not that there aren’t aggressive and violent men, or that anything is wrong with masculinity in and of itself. It’s just that this socially constructed gender expression is viewed as the only acceptable option for men, and that’s where the danger lies.

Needless to say the scripting of every male character buys into this notion. As I pointed out in an earlier piece about GoT’s sexism, D&D completely scripted away Jaime’s struggles with PTSD from the book because they thought it’d be more fun if he had a wacky fight where his golden hand stopped a sword (and apparently in their first draft they forgot entirely that losing his right hand would have been a handicap for him until George R.R. Martin pointed that out). Similarly, Tyrion’s alcoholism was made out to be a joke and his depression was magically fixed by spotting a dragon. Sam was “fixed” from the source material so that instead of devaluing his own skills despite proving his strength time and time again, he spent Season 5 walking around, bragging about getting laid and killing a Thenn. Men’s victimization at the hands of women was played for laughs, such as Tommen’s rape and Bronn’s torture. And of course, any man that did not present as traditionally “manly” in speech or actions was mocked for weakness, such as Hizdahr.

I suppose one could claim that it’s to a point, and that we’re supposed to be horrified by what the setting leads to in terms of this compulsory gender role, but…no! That’s not the show we’re watching at all. We’re meant to laugh at Tyrion’s drinking jokes, to cheer when Tormund kills the Lord of Bones because #nohomo, and to agree with Dany’s remark about that wuss Hizdahr. Men aren’t allowed to show weakness,  nor are they given the space to explore (or even understand) their own victimization… Heck! Jon barely seemed to remember his own death!

Perhaps what best exemplifies Benioff and Weiss’s perspectives on their scripting of men comes from a Scriptnotes Podcast episode they were on back in February. The host asked them to match up GoT characters to American politicians, and jokingly suggested Ramsay was a good choice for Ted Cruz. Benioff disagreed, saying:

“Ramsay is actually kind of a badass. Like Ramsay fights…yeah.”

I mean, yes, this was a joke aimed more at Ted Cruz’s proactivity than anything else, but clearly, D&D think they did something quite special with that character. That scripting scene after scene of a violent abusive asshole somehow made Ramsay “badass,” and what we should be in awe of him, or at least respect him, because “he fights.” And D&D have certainly bent over backwards to ensure that Ramsay was the perfect villain to the point where he is fits entirely the fanfiction trope of a Villain Sue: he’s a better tactician than Jon, he’s an amazing fighter to the point where he’ll be surrounded by a field of corpses, he’s a better politician than his dad given the way the Northern Lords fell over him this year. He would have won the Battle of the Bastards too if not for those meddling Vale Lords. Over and over again, the show sought to impress on us how much of a total threat Ramsay was. And apparently a badass as well.

Yes, I’m aware that Ramsay is a villain so it seems like it’s a depiction vs. endorsement kind of thing, but these are the skills that are valued and rewarded by the story at every turn. The skills that are the height of badassery, apparently, so any other character that we’re supposed to take seriously also commits acts of violence. Only difference? The good guys just use violence to gain revenge, and revenge is noble. Revenge on GoT is also inherently violent, because violence is what’s respected by the narrative, or at least taken seriously (see the “badass” quote again).

Stannis deciding to attack Winterfell was framed as his ambition, a “bad” thing, and one that he was ultimately punished for—punished so thoroughly that it bordered on ridiculous with his terrible, horrible, no good very bad day. On the other hand, Jon seeking to attack Winterfell to avenge his family was framed as noble and “good.” Jon’s revenge on the Night’s Watch mutineers was one of the primary things that earned him his Lord Commandership (at least that’s what Sam’s speech to the brothers seemed to imply). Olly stabbing Jon was bad, but Jon hanging Olly was justice.

And if it seems like I’m picking on Jon a lot…I am, because he’s more or less our Designated Protagonist™. So it’s not as if we can even try to pretend that there’s any grander commentary on the futility of revenge nor a condemnation of violent means to an end.

This all comes back to what “empowerment” means on GoT. Violence as empowerment is, as I’ve been saying, what’s clearly being endorsed here, and that’s a toxically masculine-coded path. Being a victim makes a man feel weak (and thus emasculated), so he regains his sense of power through violence since that’s what’s respected in a patriarchal culture. This is truly the harm of “toxic masculinity”: that Men are expected to Act from a place of physical strength, and can thereore be blamed for their own victimization if they lack the “skills” to gain power back. Real Men™ wouldn’t find themselves in such scrapes. It’s almost as if the sexism of GoT isn’t good for the male audience either.

However, this problem simply doubles down when it comes to the way that women find empowerment on GoT, because all D&D did was apply the same exact rubric to them. Women on the show get hurt/abused/killed, so they hurt/abuse/kill men in return, and this is how they end up being Women on Top™. The “feminist” message of the Season 6 was that violent women are empowered because violence is respected (and male-coded), and apparently feminism is when women demonstrate that they can be just like patriarchy-approved men. Which is an understanding feminism straight out of either the 80’s or an MRA meeting.

What’s particularly distressing is that quite a few women on GoT started out this season well on their way to being empowered without buying into this violent revenge-worship narrative. Or as I like to put it, “actually being empowered,” since such a path comes with an inherent challenge to the system in which they’re oppressed. I mean yes, the setting is so inconsistent across the board that challenging it is meaningless, but there was a chance for it not to be, at least in discrete storylines.

Yara is perhaps my favorite example, because for a hot minute I had a character I actually liked on the show. And I don’t mean Cersei, for whom my enjoyment of was due to a narrative D&D had no idea they were telling; I mean I liked Yara as a character within the story we were meant to enjoy. I legitimately found her conversation with Balon, where she pointed out the futility and utter bullshit of the reaving lifestyle, compelling. She refused to be cowed when he tried to shame her for attempting a rescue of Theon, and it seemed like she might actually be a person who could elicit positive change in such a world.

However, the next scene we saw her in was when she swore revenge on the man who murdered her father. Which was one hell of a guess for her.

“I’m going to find out who did this. I’m going to feed them to the sharks while they live.”

Reasonable. I already detailed in Part 2 how her scripting then went from bad to worse with her abuse of Theon, her passivity at the Kingsmoot, her purchasing and rape of a sex slave, and ultimately, her alliance with Daenerys to “murder an uncle or two.” Because Real Feminists will murder any guy who isn’t a good ally!

Lady Crane is another great example. The sheer ridiculousness of her randomly asking for acting advice from Arya just because she had “nice eyebrows” did distract a bit, but in general it was hard not to be a little won over by the way Lady Crane handled herself, how she dealt with sexism in the workplace, and her total compassion and willingness to help an injured Arya, despite not knowing her all that well and clearly understanding all the red flags following her around.

But two problems, of course: 1.) Lady Crane was purposely propped up to be a sympathetic and likable character for yet another “oh no they didn’t this show is sooo evil” shock death, and 2.) they felt they needed to explain her ability to stitch someone up, and the best option to do so was by giving her a history of mutilating her lovers that cheated on her. What. I guess that’s how we know she’s “badass.” And sure she can sew, but she can’t cook; she’s not too girly, amirite?

Arya, though, is actually the most interesting example this year. Stick-hitting complaints aside, you could really have read her arc as her utter refusal to turn towards violence anymore. If so, the implication would be that she had learned her lesson with the Trant situation last year, and perhaps the catharsis she may have felt in the moment had taken a toll on her.

For instance, in her training montage she tells The Waif about “Arya Stark’s” revenge list, and The Waif seems to beg for an invite onto it:

Which Arya doesn’t do. She seems to be determined not to get dragged down by the Waif’s pettiness. Secondly, we see her question the entire concept behind being an assassin, and deciding that this isn’t the career for her; killing someone as nice as Lady Crane (lover stabbings aside) didn’t sit right with Arya’s moral code; she did what she had to do in order to escape that assignment, and at least try to protect Lady Crane. Unfortunately, that meant seeing Lady Crane’s grisly demise, and being forced to kill The Waif (in what can only be seen as self-defense), but perhaps this could have been another part of her sharp lesson. Afterall, she joined the Faceless Men to kill everyone she wanted, and now she’s learning why that’s not a desirable thing.

The logical endpoint for her arc this year was when she quit the guild. Except that it didn’t stop there. Her storyline concluded with her warping to the riverlands, carving up two Freys off-screen, and feeding them to their father before murdering him in the name of revenge. This is one of the most extreme instances of violence on the show, and we were expected to enjoy it because it was a “good guy” committing it. And we were also probably meant to think of her as a Badass.

In past seasons, women could gain empowerment not just through violence, but also sexual manipulation…another sexist trope, for sure, but compared to this year it might have actually been refreshing. That’s the kind of show we’re dealing with. As such, Margaery Tyrell, the Sexual Liberation Pioneer was most certainly presented to us as a Woman on Top. Though I found her Season 5 scripting incredibly concerning, it might shock you to learn then that this year, I had very little issue with what they were going for with her, at least from a feminist perspective. She was going to do whatever it took to get her brother to safety, even if it was against her self-interest, her House’s interest, and actually the interest of the entire kingdom with this whole “new alliance between Faith and Crown” that looked none too promising.

There was a problem with its execution given that the deal she settled for was actually so destructive and horrible that she ended up looking entirely daft, but ignoring the details and looking just at the message, it was a story of sisterly love — the story of a woman who had no recourse (because perjury is a very serious crime) and did what she could to navigate her situation and squeak out as much agency as possible. She did it without violence. In fact, she put an end to the violence that probably would have made the most sense for her, her brother, and the kingdom. But Margaery broke the trope I’m complaining about, so that’s a good thing, right?

Well, what happened? The narrative punished her for it, fiercely. In fact the only silver lining of her storyline from this season is that she managed to convince Olenna to leave the city, putting her now in the position to seek violent revenge and get that power back for House Tyrell. Or just not the Lannisters. Which I’m pretty sure we’re supposed to want, as viewers.

It’s like the narrative bends over backwards to punish those who don’t choose a violent path and embrace toxically masculine ideals. Consider the examples I just gave: D&D shoved every person in one plotline into a room and exploded them, Arya outright warped to the riverlands and accomplished everything she needed to do to set up her full revenge on Walder Frey off-screen (she had to have taken over the kitchens to make those pies…), Lady Crane left a trail of mutilated exes and apparently harmed a colleague and no one seemed concerned, and Yara literally argued the opposite points to Dany that she had made to her father earlier in the season. This isn’t even going into the fact that The Waif had no motivation whatsoever for hating Arya as much as she did to the point where she delighted in the moments that she was able to inflict pain on her.

It’s not just that GoT endorses this violent badassery—it’s that it defies all logic to do so. That’s how desperate D&D are to push forth this world view. Though one needs look no further than Sansa’s storyline for the past two seasons to truly understand that.

As a crash course, last season at Littlefinger’s urging, Sansa agreed to marry Ramsay Bolton to get revenge on his family for murdering hers. But somehow this master plan went awry, especially because Ramsay was kind of a badass a cruel and sadistic person who ended up raping her on their wedding night, as well as subsequent nights afterwards, and keeping her locked up. Theon helped her to escape Winterfell, where she then proceeded to go North and find her brother, Jon. She convinced him to raise an army of Northern Lords to fight Ramsay and retake Winterfell from the Boltons for their family, while rejecting help from Littlefinger and his offer of the Vale troops. However, the Northern Lords weren’t really signing onto this effort, so Sansa decided to eat her words and accept Littlefinger’s help. Jon’s army won the battle (pretty much entirely as a result of this), and Jon himself left Ramsay alive for Sansa. She decided to lock him up in a basement and feed him to his own dogs. Then she sat quietly while Jon was elected King in the North and raised not a single objection, yet still closed the year with a slightly miffed expression on her face.

Now, “Sansa vs. Jon” was a tension definitely set-up this year, and promising to continue into Season 7. So I don’t want to act as if Sansa’s plotline was entirely one-note. However, there is no denying that the thematic climax of her arc was when she killed Ramsay, and killed him in a brutal fashion. Her story for the past two seasons was all about reaching that moment.

I don’t want to pretend that there aren’t survivors who wouldn’t do exactly what Sansa did in that position. That it wouldn’t be satisfying or even cathartic on some level to do horrible things to one’s abuser. For that reason, it’s not like feeling validated by Sansa’s actions is this awful thing, and I’m never one to say “she’s just as bad as Ramsay now!”; that’s simply a false equivalency which ignores the fact that many survivors lash back because it’s how they feel compelled/equipped to defend themselves. There is no one way any survivor looks, and though I’m about to be quite condemning of the narrative, it’s due to the messaging and presentation, not a desire to only accept certain responses to abuse.

However, there is a reason #BreakTheCycle exists. Because perpetuating violence in any form, even as means to achieving “noble” revenge, is damaging to one’s self. I mean, we can bring neuroscience and biology into this if we want, but I think it’d be missing the forest for the trees. The issue with Sansa’s story isn’t a simplistic “violence is bad” deal; it’s that this was her path to empowerment.

Which yeah, patriarchal values, the confusion of what feminism even is…everything I’ve been saying up until this point. But what mystifies me is that D&D felt that this path was even needed in the first place. Like, did they watch their own show? At the end of Season 4, Sansa claimed her agency for herself, and it was almost solely through the use of her intuition. However rushed that moment may have seemed given the trajectory of her arc leading up to it, and however ridiculous her Outfit of Empowerment was, there’s no denying that the moment she lied to and played the Vale Lords…she was getting what she wanted. She understood her hold over Littlefinger, she understood the value of her name, and she earned herself powerful allies in case anyone would think to take advantage of her.

In short, she was an empowered “player.” So why in seven hells did D&D dial back her character growth and have her blindly trust in Littlefinger again the next season? What did her going to Winterfell actually serve, especially in terms of her character? No…frankly, for anyone’s character? Because I’ve been running with the assumption that it was for the benefit of building up Ramsay’s villain-status, but in what universe would his treatment of Osha and Rickon this year not have accomplished that anyway?

The messaging of this creative decision is horrific: that Sansa thought she was a player in control of the situation, but when she faced her first real trial she learned she wasn’t ready and was horribly punished for it. Then, thanks to her brutalization she learned who she was truly dealing with and could face the grim reality of that world with a hardened attitude. Rape was her teacher; she became a player because of her rape, not despite it.

There’s no part of me that thinks anyone would willingly write a story to make that point, it’s just too awful. It’s actually more generous to assume that D&D didn’t even consider the messaging or Sansa’s past characterization, and instead focused solely on the fact that they knew she’d eventually triumph in this situation. In fact, her inevitable vicotry was something Bryan Cogman almost outright promised in the Season 5 DVD commentary:

“It’s an upsetting scene, it’s a horrifying scene, it’s meant to be … [But] the accusation that our motives were [that we] just threw in a rape for shock value, I personally don’t think the scene as shot, or as written, or as acted by our wonderful actors, supports that argument. Nor do I think the aftermath of the scene supports that argument. Not only in these episodes, but also in future episodes. This story is not over. This is a long ongoing story. Sansa has a journey ahead of her, and what happens to her in that room is a huge part of that journey, and one that we’ve thought through.”

This was aided by Sophie Turner’s remarks on Sansa’s character, since for some reason she was expected to defend the storyline during the 2015 SDCC panel.

“[If] there’s one thing that Sansa still is, despite what happened to her, [it’s] strong.”

Don’t worry, just stay tuned! They’d never make a story about a rape survivor who wasn’t strong! There’s going to be a TV-ready conclusion! And again, it’s not to say there aren’t survivors who would reach the same conclusion or project strength in the same way, but it’s the fact that it was the One Promised Path that makes it an issue. The immediate dialogue basically trampled over any survivor who doesn’t feel so strong. And that was never even given a chance to be viewed as a valid reaction for Sansa, because that’s not enjoyable to the TV-audience. Even if it’s kind of exactly the story George R.R. Martin told in the supposed source material with Jeyne Poole and Ramsay, who deals with her abuse by trying to avoid more harm, rather than acting in a “hardened” manner and fighting back. But the assumption was made long ago that the viewers couldn’t care about Jeyne.

In fact, another remark of Cogman’s from the DVD commentary really emphasizes their notion of marketable storytelling:

“Basically, when we decided to combine Sansa’s storyline with another character in the books it was done with the idea that it would be hugely dramatically satisfying to have Sansa back in her occupied childhood home and navigate this Gothic horror story she’s found herself in and, of course, to be reunited with Theon – setting her on the path to reclaiming her family home and becoming a major player in the big overall story.”

I’m sure you’ve seen me make ironic use of “dramatically satisfying” before, but need I remind you that Sansa’s rape was basically the only plot-point in Winterfell last year. Sansa’s rape made Myranda jealous. Sansa’s rape made Theon want to help her. Oh, and Stannis was coming and Ramsay wanted to prove himself a worthy heir to his father by handling this threat, but that had literally nothing to do with Sansa. So the above quote is Bryan Cogman straight up admitting that they found the idea of Sansa being raped and then getting violent revenge for that rape to be quality entertainment. We, as the audience, were expected to just consume this because Rape is Drama. But it’s only good drama when it also spurs the woman to become a major player and get her revenge.

Exploitative, sensationalist hogwash.

And not to beat a dead horse here, but D&D had every reason in the world, and in their own damned story, not to rape Sansa. There’s the fact that she already had the motivation to want to reclaim her home (or even if they felt the Red Wedding wasn’t enough, Rickon was about to turn up). There’s the fact that no matter how you spin it, marrying an enemy is not actually a path to revenge and no person with a working mind would agree to such an arrangement, especially knowing that said enemy was about to be attacked by a large host. Heck, there’s the fact that Sansa staying in the Vale this whole time actually would have made more sense with how her 11th hour save at the Battle of the Bastards played out, since sticking her in the North required her to withhold crucial tactical information from Jon.

Tell me one thing about where Sansa is now that couldn’t have been accomplished without her rape.

So we’re back to the fact that D&D felt *this story* was crucial to tell—this story with this particular endpoint where Sansa got a spectacularly gruesome, violent revenge on Ramsay. She could have sentenced him to death and had Jon behead him. She could have brought up any of his other victims to at the least give us a small sense of justice in the framing (I guess she mentioned his dogs, to be fair, but funny how Rickon, Theon, Lord Cerwyn, the “North Remembers” Lady, or the thousands of slaughtered Northmen didn’t come up). But no. This was the dramatically satisfying story that needed to be on our screens, and rape was the plot device that needed to spur Sansa to become a smarter, stronger woman.

Which…okay, it’s the story they wanted to tell, and like I said, there are survivors who respond violently to their abusers. But this is also the story they’re telling with every character in the show, which makes its inclusion just completely superfluous. Or sorry, Cogman, but “gratuitous.” We get it: violence and revenge is the path to empowerment. Women who are violent can be On Top, just like men! I guess it’s possible that there’s going to be an exploration in the toll this takes, but given that we’re six seasons in and so many moments of violent revenge were framed as a very strong positive… Let’s just say I’m not holding my breath.

Actually, case and point of this might be the fact that the few instances where someone committing an act of violence was framed as a negative were virtually indistinguishable from the moments we were meant to cheer with, a point Gretchen hammered on beautifully in her revisiting of “acedia” in current media.

As an example, I know that when Cersei “chose violence” in the hallway scene with the Faith Militant, we weren’t supposed to side with her. But why not, exactly? A bunch of destructive fanatics who oversaw her sexual humiliation wanted to drag her out of her home and present her to the man who ordered it in the first place without giving a single reason. Why isn’t it noble for Cersei to want revenge (or in that case just defend herself, really), but it’s okay for Sansa to feed Ramsay to dogs?

Even blowing up the sept or having Septa Unella tortured…yes, these were completely over-the-top acts of violence, but is it so very different than Arya killing two men, grinding them into pies, feeding them to Walder Frey, and then slitting his throat? With the sept, it’s almost more justifiable given that Cersei was backed into a corner and had no other recourse; it was clear the trial process was complete corrupt if Loras’s trial, or the inquisition hearing of last season, was anything to go by. So what was she supposed to do, exactly?

But no, any time Cersei wanted revenge, or tried to claim her own agency, we weren’t meant to side with her. The best example of this disconnect might be in a scene with Olenna. Cersei suggested combining forces and taking out the Faith (even though they just had done exactly that the episode prior and it failed), and Olenna refused, calling Cersei “the most vile person” she had ever met. I mean even ignoring that Olenna literally murdered her son so there’s a pot and a kettle situation here, why is it then that when Olenna decides to team up with Ellaria and Varys for revenge, we’re meant to agree with her, but when Cersei suggests basically the same exact thing, only for a threat that is quite a bit more present and actively harmful towards Olenna’s family, it’s unsympathetic? Because the only thing I can think is that Cersei is a designated “bad guy” and Olenna is a designated “good guy.” Which means that there’s actually nothing separating protagonists and antagonists but marketing. Or sometimes costumes.

This is because everyone needs to be motivated by violent revenge, or else they’re going to go the way of the hapless victims who weren’t Tough enough to survive, like Loras, Margaery, or Septon Ray.

Daenerys burning down a culture’s social structure and gaining followers = good. Cersei burning down a culture’s social structure and gaining followers = bad. I guess we can talk about the dark grey vs. grey nature of these social structures, but it’s not as though the Faith Militant’s homophobic crusade allowed for much more lightness in the palette. Though what’s truly mystifying to me is that good or bad, both of these actions apparently supported a very feminist message because the women ended up triumphing as a result. Like, the narrative has to completely contort itself so that they do, as I pointed out in Part 1.

To be perfectly honest, the only reason I didn’t fully mention Ellaria and the Sand Snakes murdering their own family is because I still have no idea if we’re meant to take it as a positive or negative. When the first episode aired, I immediately argued that these women are evil and not supposed to be gaining audience sympathy, but now I realize that perhaps I had been too generous, and that Ellaria’s “weak men will never rule Dorne again” remark was supposed to be taken at face value? That we were supposed to agree about how useless Doran and Trystane were for trying to bring about peace, and applaud these women for their initiative. Because as villainous as this seemed, they’re now teaming up with Daenerys and Olenna, who are unquestionably protagonists, though damn if I know why. It’s team #WomenOnTop defeating the patriarchy through violence! Even though said violence is upholding the very patriarchal values they supposedly object to.

Actions don’t matter, just who’s doing them. And that’s because actions on Game of Thrones are a foregone conclusion. It’s impossible for there to be a remotely feminist message when all characters are locked into a violent and revenge-worshipping mold. Because if actions don’t matter between protagonists and antagonists, they sure as hell don’t matter between men and women. It’s not women on top of this show; it’s David Benioff and Dan Weiss’s mold for the ideal hero — a mold of toxic masculinity that is utterly sexist no matter what gender is cast into it.

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The rest of the series can be found here:

• Part 1, Setting
• Part 2, Characters

Images courtesy of HBO

The post The Fallacy of GoT’s ‘Women on Top’ Part 3: Empowerment appeared first on Fandom Following.

Si analizamos la historia de los salarios de los trabajadores en Estados Unidos descubriremos, a simple golpe de ojo, que 1973 fue el año que dicho salario alcanzó su máximo nivel, y que a partir de entonces no ha dejado de descender. Casi la mitad de los trabajadores de ese año ganaba lo que hoy equivaldría a 767 dólares a la semana. Actualmente, ese mismo trabajador recibe 664 dólares semanales.

¿A qué se debe este descenso sostenido que ya ha alcanzado el 13%? Básicamente, a la tecnología.

Si bien es cierto que los ingresos medios de las familias no ha descendido de este modo, sino que incluso se ha incrementado, ese aumento se debe a la incorporación de la mujer al mercado laboral. Tal y como explica Martin Ford en El auge de los robots:

Si los salarios hubieran crecido al mismo ritmo que antes, una familia típica estaría percibiendo cerca de 90.000 dólares anuales, un 50% más de los 61.000 dólares que gana hoy.

Tecnología pero también mala política

El verdadero problema estriba en el hecho de que la productividad aumenta, pero que los beneficios que supone la innovación de hoy en día benefician más a los empresarios y a los inversores que a los trabajadores. Añade Ford:

La diferencia más significativa se observa entre los años 2000 y 2009: aunque en este periodo el crecimiento de la productividad fue casi el mismo que durante el periodo 1947-1973 (la edad de oro de los años de posguerra), la compensación se queda muy atrás. Es difícil ver esta gráfica y no tener la impresión de que el crecimiento productivo supera claramente los aumentos salariales de los trabajadores.

Es decir, a la tecnología hay que sumar otro factor al hecho de que cada vez se nos remunere peor: una política que ha hecho dejación de su compromiso de repartir mejor las rentas entre los ciudadanos, lo que finalmente desemboca en mayores desigualdades y menor prosperidad general (incluidos los más ricos).

En 2011, las grandes empresas generaron un promedio de 420.000 dólares de ingresos por empleado, un aumento de más del 11% desde 2007, cuando el promedio había sido de 378.000 dólares. El gasto en nuevas instalaciones y nuevos equipos, incluyendo la tecnología de la información, de las empresas del índice S&P 500, se ha doblado en tan solo un año, haciendo que la inversión de capital como porcentaje de los ingresos haya vuelto a niveles anteriores a la crisis.

Un problema que obviamente no se limita a Estados Unidos: los economistas Loukas Karabarbounis y Brent Neiman, de la Escuela de Negocios de la Universidad de Chicago, han analizado datos de 56 países diferentes, descubriendo que en 38 de ellos se había dado también una caída significativa de la participación de los trabajadores en la renta nacional, y que este desplome se debe a una "mayor eficiencia de los sectores que producen capital que cabe atraibuir a los avances en la informática y en la tecnología de la información".

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Libros que nos inspiran: 'Miserias y esplendores del trabajo', de Alain de Botton

¿Por qué nuestro cerebro no funciona igual frente al móvil que con un ordenador?

En diez años, la mitad de los trabajos los harán los robots, según un informe

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La noticia Cada vez ganamos menos dinero, y la tecnología tiene la culpa fue publicada originalmente en Xataka Ciencia por Sergio Parra .

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