I was sitting at a table sipping tea when I heard a man say to another, “You know he’s a little b**tch, right?” Um, gee what was he trying to say? That the man was gay? That the man expressed feelings? Perhaps the person in question was on the rag, metaphorically speaking. Not the first time I’ve heard men using the B-word to refer to another man in such a manner. Dyslogistic speech is a word or group of words used to express disapproval or intended as an insult. Now any word could be a pejorative term so context is extremely important. Here is an example:

Perhaps after the sexism in media coverage of Hillary Clinton's campaign or the nasty attacks on Michelle Obama, my ears perked up more eagerly this morning at the BBC Radio interview of Cherie Blair, wife of Great Britain's former Prime Minister Tony Blair. She considers herself an advocate of women's rights and didn't realize until she became a member of the Bar in Great Britain that being a woman could hold her back.

I remember, back in the day in the early 80’s, when I first saw the picture of Patti Smith on the album cover for Horses. That narrow white face, that long dark hair—and the lanky body in boy’s clothes—Patti was breaking all the rules I’d grown up with and it simultaneously thrilled and scared me half to death.

In last week's New York Times Magazine article 16 Ways of Looking at a Female Voter, controversial author Linda Hirshman pointed to many studies and analyses that supposedly support the premise that, even though there have been many attempts to rally and organize women as a voting bloc, there has been little success.

Over at the USA Today blogs, professor of women's studies and religion Mary Zeiss Stange reminds us that last spring, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas announced it was offering a new concentration to accompany its Bachelor of Arts degree in humanities: homemaking. The concentration is open only to women.

If you just casually glance around tech departments in companies and tech-oriented conferences, it's easy to get the impression that there aren't many women in technology these days. Yet it's undeniable that women are making a big impact on the technology world. (If you think it is deniable, then please keep reading.) Exploring this subject is a special series this month on O'Reilly: Women in Technology. Every day this month, an accomplished woman in technology shares her thoughts.*

During grad school, I earned extra cash by serving as an educational outreach specialist for a local science center. I was studying the humanities, but my research concerned the intersection of gender, science, and museums. On several occasions, as I unpacked my hands-on science kits in front of a classroom, a girl--it was always a girl--whispered to me, "Are you a real scientist?"