I was barely a moment inside Walmart, studying the cucumbers and avocados, when a middle-aged man came up to say hi.

We started talking about the oil boom sweeping Williston, North Dakota. He said his coworkers were losing it out here in the middle of nowhere. Maybe he would lose it too.

"You gotta really be focused on your shit," he said. "And it's hard. And on that note, that's why you should let me take you to dinner."

I declined. He called later that evening to ask me on a date. He said he'd take me to Pizza Hut. I was not pining for a rendezvous with a roustabout [...]

Ladies! You are doing it wrong, reports a lady who has been working as a man, on the Internet, for the last three years: "Taking a man's name opened up a new world. It helped me earn double and triple the income of my true name, with the same work and service. No hassles. Higher acceptance. And gratifying respect for my talents and round-the-clock work ethic. Business opportunities fell into my lap. People asked for my advice, and they thanked me for it, too." It's totally true! I get totally different sorts of emails (and email response rates) from people who think my name is a lady-name. Then they [...]

"An article on Feb. 17 about a decline in field trips for students because of the New York City school bus drivers’ strike referred incorrectly to the 280-pound albino Burmese python at the Brooklyn Children’s Museum. The python, a favorite of schoolchildren, is a 'she' (Fantasia), not a 'he.'" —The NYT is taking this accountability thing very seriously, when it comes to enormous albino zoo animals that are a favorite of children.

Photo by edenpictures.

I always considered David Letterman a sort of father figure. With two baby boomer parents, I basically have two moms: first, my dad who blogs and reads Sufi poetry and cooks with ghee and wears bright colors, and second, my mom, who is saint for signing up for this. And so, growing up I depended on late night talk shows for the little genderizing that actually happened to me. Letterman, his shoulder as cold as the notoriously freezing Ed Sullivan Theater, represented for me a sort of fucked-up machismo. Where you come to work hammered and laugh at your own jokes and swallow your ailments and anxieties and hurt so [...]

Anonymous ladies at Slate crunch the number of book reviews by gender at the New York Times over the last two years (throwing their data-gathering "associate editor Chris Wilson" under the bus as they do so-no Times reviews in your future, buddy!). So: "Of the 545 books reviewed between June 29, 2008 and Aug. 27, 2010, 338 were written by men (62 percent of the total) [and] 207 were written by women (38 percent of the total)…. Of the 101 books that received two reviews in that period: 72 were written by men (71 percent)."

"Things men do: drive cars, take people on dates, open doors, pay for dinner, pay for a movie, voice their desire for sex, pour liquor, force people into bed. Things women do: ride in cars, go on dates, eat dinner, watch movies, get propositioned, drink liquor, go to bed."

Amanda Hess examines the inherent gender assumptions of Usher's "stealth anal sex anthem" 'Trading Places.'