Hi. I'm an insomniac.

It's fun, but I don't recommend it.

153 notes

Mental rotation is a skill that men typically perform better than women (for a review, see Valian, 1999). However, when researchers described a mental rotation task as predictive of success in interior design, women actually performed better than men. Men outscored women only when the task ostensibly predicted success in aviation engineering….Because men typically outscore women on mental rotation, the reversed effect in the feminine condition testifies to the power of gender conformity to release the motivational brakes (for women) and to apply them (for men). It also signals the extent to which people inhibit themselves to avoid crossing gender bounds.

Laurie A. Rudman and Peter Glick, The Social Psychology of Gender (via brute-reason)

That awkward moment when one of The Main Reasons Men and Women Are Just Differently Skilled at Stuff, You Guys actually turns out to be more complicated than you thought.

(via gruntledandhinged)

Friendly reminder that this is probably caused by the fact that we don’t teach girls math well enough to begin with and generally discourage girls and women from studying math and science through various forms of harassment.

(via sanityscraps)

even though i just reblogged this reblogging again because guys, the brain is so plastic. what toys do little boys get? legos, erector sets, tinkertoys—toys that use object rotation in the way that it’s typically tested in IQ tests. their brains get practice rotating blocks and making 3-d figures out of 2-d instructions. what do little girls get? dolls, barbies, dollhouses. so we also get practice in object rotation, but we get it less and we get it in a very different form than it’s tested for in IQ tests. So many “differences” between men and women (because studies have found such conflicting evidence about these differences) that are “found” to be in the brain are found by looking at adult brain scans—yeah, no duh that after different lifetimes men and women’s’ brains look different. neuroplasticity, dude.

(via alwaysfaithfulterriblelizard)

(via alwaysfaithfulterriblelizard)

2 notes

crouchingtigerhiddenwhiteman:

Mike gives a very convincing argument on why it’s good to not be a Chinese college student… In gross detail.

I was expecting more stories about how awesome China is, but instead I’m getting poop stories. I suppose I should expect no less from Mike.

10,339 notes

Yes, false rape accusations happen. Run the protocol anyway. I’ve heard that perhaps the military has the highest number of ‘em. True or not, RUN THE PROTOCOL ANYWAY. Because in 15 years of investigating rape accusations, I can count those that panned out as false on one hand. Meanwhile, the one time I almost skipped the protocol, the one time I almost didn’t believe a petty officer, because I was naive as an investigator and a young woman, because her commanding officer described her as “a party girl, always late, always out drinking, don’t bother with this one”, she turned out to be the victim of one of the most brutal assaults I’ve ever investigated. She shouldn’t have still been -alive-, let alone up and making the accusation. So let me repeat: five false accounts in fifteen years. And one time I almost failed a woman ‘cause of the bullshit way it’s normal to talk about us. Take your shipmates’ word, and then run the protocol. Every. Single. Time.
 - JAG lawyer, speaking to my husband’s plant during Sexual Assault Prevention Month. (via circusbones)

(via alwaysfaithfulterriblelizard)