For those who have been fortunate enough to escape biotruth logic, I’ll start by giving a brief summation of the kinds of arguments that fall into that abyss. When it comes to discussions about gender, they take the following form explicitly, but there is always an implicit context to these arguments (which I will include in brackets as part of the quote): “Men are x, women are y. That’s just how humans are; it’s biology.

“Patriarchy” is a term that is often thrown around in feminist circles. Loosely speaking, it symbolizes the claim that we live in a male dominated society that condescends, controls, and diminishes women. This is a central tenet of feminism, but is a bit hard to swallow to the uninitiated because it makes it sound like there is some ominous, seemingly-conspiratorial group of men that sits in the upper echelons of society that enacts an anti-woman agenda.

When Elevatorgate blew up, I didn’t get it. It wasn’t that I was firmly in the camp of sexism deniers, but I argued a lot of irrelevent, tangential ideas and failed to understand the central objection that was being raised. I orbited around the issue for a long time before things really started to click into place, and even now I know I have some hard, mental work left to do.

I’m gonna let you guys in on a little secret today: science isn’t cheap. There’s a lot of fundraising that goes on to support the research which leads to the treatments that make life on planet earth longer and better. Unfortunately not everything gets the financial backing that it deserves. What causes do and don’t get funded? Well, it isn’t always as impartial as you’d hope. Helping men past their prime get it up obviously isn’t a very pressing concern, but the prevalence of 80 year olds with limp dicks and disposable income prompted the creation of Viagra over treatments for say… for Sickle Cell Anemia, which is actually life threatening (unlike erectile dysfunction) but tends to effect minority populations disproportionately.

###1) Make Skeptical Events Across the Country Less Alcohol Centric Imagine you’re a 20 year old who is passionately invested in skepticism. You really want to meet others who feel the same way you do and have enlightening conversations with them! You go online and do a quick look-up of skeptical events held in your area. “Oh hey, Skeptics in the Pub!” you exclaim to yourself. Then it hits you: in the pub… You’re not 21.