Links - 15th April 2015

Michael Buerk criticises TV presenters who 'cry ageism' - Telegraph - "Michael Buerk, the broadcaster, has criticised female news readers and television presenters who complain of ageism, arguing those given jobs “because they look nice” cannot protest when they later lose them. Buerk, 68, said he felt it was “fair enough” for television executives to get rid of older employees, in a process he likened to “pruning the raspberries to make way for new growth”... “'Presenter’, in any case, is a very recent job description dreamt up to describe somebody who fronts a programme without any special reason for being on it. “And if you got the job in the first place mainly because you look nice, I can’t see why you should keep it when you don’t”... In 2005, Buerk complained about “life being lived according to women’s rules”, with masculine traits marginalised and men “becoming more like women”. In 2011, he spoke out about perceived political correctness in television, arguing that “giving people jobs purely on the ground that we need another six Asians, or we need another six lesbians, or we need another six pensioners” is “almost worse” than age discrimination"

Beautiful actresses suffer more from ageism, says Angela Lansbury - Telegraph - "Beautiful actresses are more likely to struggle to find work as they grow older, Dame Angela Lansbury claimed as she discussed returning to the London stage aged 88. The veteran television star said she had not suffered from ageism when looking for work because she had never been considered a beauty... “For those women who were lovely, were known for their beauty and so on, it is darn difficult. “But I was playing older parts when I was terribly young because I wasn’t a big screen beauty, I am a character actress.” Her comments follow complaints from many female actors about the lack of roles for older women"

Would a Push to Hire More Women Reduce Gender Pay-Gap? Not Until We Fix the Pipeline - "Simply finding evidence that women on average are paid less than men at most organizations does not necessarily prove that there is gender-based discrimination. Trying to cure gender imbalance by pushing organizations to hire more women will not only fail overall -- more aggressive organizations will succeed at the expense of less aggressive ones -- but also  --  and this came as a surprise to me and many of my colleagues  --  it would make the salary imbalance between men and women appear worse  --  because average quality of women will fall -- at all organizations (even though there is no change in quality overall). The main culprit is the pipeline. If the percentage of qualified women remains lower than that of men, gender balance at all organizations is mathematically impossible. The cure then is to fix the pipeline. The gender balance in pay will follow. Moreover, as the Nobel Laureate Gary Becker pointed out, if women continue to get paid less than their male counterparts, profit-maximizing competitive firms can hire more women (if they are less expensive to hire) and fire men (if they are more expensive to hire) improving, and perhaps even reversing, not only gender balance but also their bottom lines at the peril of their competitors who continue to discriminate against women by hiring (more expensive) male labor force."

Wild West was tamed by MAIL-ORDER BRIDES

The least-cost low-carbohydrate diet is expensive - Nutrition Research - "The major finding is that the cheapest possible low-carbohydrate diet costs about triple the cost of the cheapest diet with no constraint on carbohydrate. Furthermore, the minimum cost of a diet low in both carbohydrate and fat is 5 to 10 times the cost of the cheapest diet, depending on the relative amounts of these nutrients. As carbohydrate and fat are constrained, cost increases dramatically and nonlinearly."

I Am A Mother Of Two Children And I Cannot (And Will Not) Support Feminism - "I’m a wife, mother, sister, daughter, business owner, sports nut and beer lover, but I am not a feminist. I may have been at one time, but then I became the mother of two boys and I realized that I cannot align with a message that has changed into something degrading, offensive, accusatory and opposed to the morals and messages I am teaching my kids... The FCKH8 Campaign would have girls tell my sons to “fuck off” if they called them pretty or reached for their hand without permission. Hollaback! sends the message that if my sons make eye contact with, or say “hello” to, a woman they don’t know, they are a predator, or at the very least, a “creepy douchebag.” #YesAllWomen wants my boys to know that the fact they have a penis makes them a threat. They cite the statistic that 1 in 5 women will be sexually assaulted, but seem to ignore that they are sending the message to little girls to assume 100% of all men are rapists. #FreeTheNipples preaches to end “slut shaming,” yet what they are really doing is flipping the shame of “sluttiness” from the girls who expose their breasts (and bellies and butt cheeks) to the boys who look at them. TakePart.com supports teen girls spin doctoring age-old terms like “boys will be boys,” which is more about farting, burping, and falling out of trees than it is sexual harassment. They make claims like “dress codes are the result of boys not being able to control their sexual urges,” but how about encouraging all students to simply dress with decency in a public institution designed for education and growth, instead of focusing on elevating social status and hooking up? Teaching my boys that they are somehow wrong, perverted or bad if they look at what is being flaunted in front of them is also making the job of parents a thousand times harder to have that conversation about steering clear of “easy” girls. And, let’s not assume for one second that there aren’t plenty of them. When the term feminism turned from being a message of empowerment and gender fairness to basically a list of rules, restrictions, idiosyncrasies, offenses and grievances directed at all things male, I tapped out.. I also believe that there is nothing wrong with many of the gender roles that have been honored throughout history... I support fairness for everyone, but as long as being feminist means suppressing masculinity, it cannot possibly be called a “quest for equality.”"

'World's sexiest criminal' Stéphanie Boudoin charged with 114 COUNTS

Carbs more harmful than saturated fats: study - "Long-derided saturated fats -- associated with an array of health problems such as heart disease -- caught a break Friday when research revealed their intake could be doubled or even nearly tripled without driving up their level in a person's blood. Carbohydrates, meanwhile, are associated with heightened levels of a fatty acid linked to increased risk for diabetes and heart disease, the same study showed. "The point is you don't necessarily save the saturated fat that you eat, and the primary regulator of what you save in terms of fat is the carbohydrate in your diet," senior author Jeff Volek of Ohio State University, said in the report... The scientists found that when carbs were reduced and saturated fat was increased, total saturated fat in the blood did not increase, and even went down in most people. The fatty acid called palmitoleic acid, which is associated with "unhealthy metabolism of carbohydrates that can promote disease," went down with low-carb diets and gradually increased as carbs were re-introduced, the study said."

"Drunk Girl" Video Is Latest Viral Hoax - "The viral video claiming to show a series of men plotting to take advantage of a drunk Los Angeles woman was staged by the clip’s creators, who fed lines to the purported predators, dupes who thought they were appearing in a student film... The video, “Drunk Girl In Public,” is described as a “social experiment” by creator Stephen Zhang, 20, who apparently sought to ride the coattails of the 35 milllion-view Hollaback! video showing a woman being peppered with catcalls as she walked across New York City."

IT HAPPENED TO ME: I Waited Until My Wedding Night to Lose My Virginity and I Wish I Hadn't - "Ten-year-old girls want to believe in fairy tales. Take this pledge and God will love you so much and be so proud of you, they told me. If you wait to have sex until marriage, God will bring you a wonderful Christian husband and you'll get married and live happily ever after, they said. Waiting didn't give me a happily ever after. Instead, it controlled my identity for over a decade, landed me in therapy, and left me a stranger in my own skin. I was so completely ashamed of my body and my sexuality that it made having sex a demoralizing experience. I don't go to church anymore, nor am I religious. As I started to heal, I realized that I couldn't figure out how to be both religious and sexual at the same time. I chose sex. Every single day is a battle to remember that my body belongs to me and not to the church of my childhood. I have to constantly remind myself that a pledge I took when I was only 10 doesn't define who I am today. When I have sex with my husband, I make sure it's because I have a sexual need and not because I feel I'm required to fulfill his desires"

A Classic Tune About Christian Girls Who Love Anal Sex (Video)

Sex tourism: Meet the middle-aged, middle-class women who are Britain's female sex tourists - "Barbara realised Chris viewed her as a sex tourist only when one day he told her, ‘No money, no sex’, after she refused to give him cash for a drug deal... Not one of the women used the phrase ‘sex tourism’, but most of them discussed how they had sent money to their ‘boyfriends’ to pay an urgent debt or to rent accommodation in time for their next visit. None would give me their full names, because their friends and family members are not aware they have been going abroad for sex... ‘I ended up paying for everything and once, when I refused, he told me he could pick up any white woman he wanted who would be happy to give him money.’ Despite this, she remained under the illusion until the end of her holiday that Chris was her boyfriend. She says now: ‘If he pretended to fancy me when we were together and just slept with me for money, does that make him a prostitute — or just a lying b*****d?’ The stereotypical image of the sex tourist is a Western man who travels to Thailand or the Philippines to pay for sex with young women and even children. But in the past three decades the numbers of women travelling primarily for sex with local men is thought to have increased significantly. The practice has become less stigmatised, and tour operators even add thinly veiled references to sex tourism for women as a marketing strategy. Phrases such as ‘fantasy island’ are bandied about, feeding off a mythology about male sexual prowess, perpetuated by the beach boys themselves because it’s good for business... Most of the beach bars advertise cocktails with names that are well-used euphemisms for a large penis, such as ‘Big Bamboo’, ‘Dirty Banana’ and ‘Jamaican Steel’... One young man told me the white women he had sex with made him feel sick. ‘They stink, have rough skin and look like old dogs. No wonder they have to pay for a man.’ A hotelier told me the women were ‘all ugly and fat’. ‘Men won’t touch them where they come from,’ he added. ‘I would be ashamed to be seen with any of them.’ Some female sex tourists who move to live permanently with Jamaican men are beaten or abused... Racial difference plays a significant role in the female sex tourist experience. White women who would never consider being openly involved with a young black man back home feel free to do so while travelling and often use this as an example of their ‘anti-racism’. However, the same women will often treat their ‘boyfriend’ as little more than a servant."