6 Articles About Women You Have to Read Right Now

It's International Women's Day -- a day to fight injustices and celebrate the wonderful women in our lives. 

In honor of this special occasion, I wanted to share __ of my favorite posts about women -- in case you missed them. Learn, and enjoy!

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1. Advantages of Traveling While Female.

A while back, Salon published an article called Dangers of traveling while female. While it sucks that women are sometimes harassed or threatened, I thought the article was complete bullshit. Because:

1) If you get raped, there's something like an 80% chance it's by a friend, boyfriend or acquaintance.
2) Traveling alone isn't scary. It's empowering. 
3) Overall, people are awesome. They love meeting new people -- especially women, who are less threatening than men -- and exchanging cultures and stories. (Pro tip: bring along some pictures of your home and family. People ALWAYS ask to see them.)
4) You ever slept in the back of one of these:

2. 3 Things I Wish All Girls (And Women) Knew.

Women, you are amazing just the way you are. Stop apologizing. Stop doing things because you think people think you "should." Stop feeling like men are only interested in you for sex -- remember, they're not sex machines. They're people. And except for the sociopaths, meaningful emotional and life experiences are a lot more important than random hookups. Read more >

3. What Women Can Learn From Scottie Pippen, The Greatest Chicago Bulls Player of All Time.

Words of wisdom from Footlocker and Scottie Pippen: "All the greats have short memories."

They say women think about their mistakes a lot longer than men. This post will tell you why that's a horrible thought pattern to fall into, and how to dig yourself out of it. 

4. The 8 Most Amazing, Educational Gifts for Girls.

Did you know that kids have about 12 times more neural connections than we do? Meaning that, when we're young, we have a short window of opportunity to learn better, faster and more intuitively than we ever will again. Exposed to the right lessons, games and learning materials, we can gain a deep, innate understanding of how things work.

Stop shortchanging girls with bullshit toys. Check out some of these amazing, fun, and STEM-based ones instead. 

5. The Secret Catcalls of Educated White Men (and my problem with "Pickup Artists"). 

Following the viral release of the video, "10 Hours of walking through NYC as a woman," I wanted to address something:

Highly educated/high SES men harass in bars, at work, at professional events and parties. They harass by learning little psychological manipulations that make women feel vulnerable, insecure or obligated to accept unwanted advances. They learn the ways to violate a woman's physical space -- in just such a way that, should the woman say something, people would think, "Calm down, lady! All he did was touch your hair/neck/hand/arm/whatever! It's not a big deal!"

They learn to position their bodies in ways that make it difficult for the woman to create more space for herself when the guy gets too close (with her back against the wall, with him in the middle and her against the arm of the couch, etc.). They learn clever ways to ignore or refute her when she says she doesn't want them to walk her home/walk her to her door/enter her home. 

They invite women out to coffee as friends, or to discuss a job opportunity... only to act all date-ly and make weird advances day-of. (If your intentions are romantic/sexual, you need to make that clear. Otherwise, you have no right to complain when the woman rejects you or gets offended by your hidden intentions.)

They learn how to get women to submit to unwanted sexual contact... and then make her feel guilty, like she somehow deserved it or consented to it or wanted it. Read more >

Don't catcall. Don't harass. Be a decent human being. If you try to hit on a woman and she doesn't show any interest, you are no different from the creepy dude in the catcalling video who followed the girl for five minutes.

6. The Stanford Kink Club Has The Healthiest Sex on Campus. Here's Why.


In the words on one guy I know and admire, "The sexiest word is 'yes.'" Do you really want to try to guilt, force, pressure and manipulate women into sexual contact? Or would you rather establish clear consent? Trust me: it will be better for both of you in the long run. 

Sounds like common sense, right? Wrong. There's still a lot of hate out there. Fight it. 

And finally - if you see something, say something. Don't film it -- STOP it. Be a hero. Like these guys. 

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Thanks for reading -- and feel free to share any of your favorite posts in the comments below. Happy International Women's Day!