Even within the batty realms of North Korea's propaganda, the invective thrown at South Korean President Park Geun-hye is remarkable.

In perhaps its lengthiest and harshest verbal attack on Park since she took office in 2013, the North's official Korean Central News Agency on Saturday called her a "tailless, old, insane bitch," a "senile old woman" and a "murderous demon" destined to meet "a sudden and violent death."… North Korea previously called Park a "prostitute" and said she lives on the "groin of her American boss." It has frequently questioned her womanhood because she has no children, which the North labels as an "obligation" for women. North Korea also frequently refers to the "swish of her skirts," a Korean phrase used to describe women seen as overly aggressive.

"The swishes of Park Geun-hye's skirt, created by her American boss, are so unpredictable they're dumbfounding," an unnamed spokesman of the North's Joint National Organization of Working People said in a statement last year published by the KCNA. "This is all because the United States' black, hairy hands reach deep into Park Geun-hye's skirt."

Apart from the absurd sexism, there's a more politically unnerving aspect to it. For all its apparent insanity, North Korea's propaganda traditionally tried to appeal to South Korean leftists. This messaging indicates a new level of ignorance of the world outside, a turning-inwards of its paranoia. Read the rest

Be sure to read Adrian Chen's gripping profile of former Westboro Baptist Church twitterer Megan Phelps-Roper, who left the church after coming to realize the futility of its hate gospel.

Megan Phelps-Roper, picketing with Westboro when she was still an active member of the family hate cult.

On December 20, 2009, Phelps-Roper was in the basement of her house, for a church function, when she checked Twitter on her phone and saw that Brittany Murphy, the thirty-two-year-old actress, had died. When she read the tweet aloud, other church members reacted with glee, celebrating another righteous judgment from God… But Phelps-Roper had loved Murphy in “Clueless,” and she felt an unexpected pang—not quite sadness, but something close—over her death. As she continued scrolling through Twitter, she saw that it was full of people mourning Murphy. The contrast between the grief on Twitter and the buoyant mood in the basement unsettled her. She couldn’t bring herself to post a tweet thanking God for Murphy’s death.

If you're been wondering why Westboro's been kind of boring lately, it turns out that there was a coup of sorts within the church: day-to-day troll in chief Shirley Phelps-Roper (Megan's mother) was denounced, and a bunch of stodgy old men took over. Since then, women have been marginalized within the church and it has lost much of its media savvy.

Read Adrian's piece to the last sentence: there is an absolutely amazing ending to the life and mind of the church's founder, Fred Phelps.

[Image, top: Megan Phelps-Roper. Read the rest

It is sometimes asked whether or not women wearing makeup is "deceitful" or "unfair" to heterosexual men—a way of "lying" about their beauty, rather than a personal aesthetic choice not so different from deciding to wear flattering clothes. In a wonderful series of comics on Tumblr, Megan Nicole Dong examines what it would really look like for men to be "deceived" by makeup. Read the rest

A sheriff's deputy from La Plata County, Colorado left a voicemail message for Durango Herald reporter Chase Olivarius-McAllister before chatting like a jackass with his co-worker about her breast size. Thing is, he hadn't actually hung up.

“Not hot. I means she’s got an okay body,” the deputy said on the recording.

“Giant boobs,” another deputy responded.

“Fucking giant, dude,” the first deputy said. “I mean not like quadruple Ds or anything, but at least a solid set of Ds, probably double Ds.”

Top sheriff Sean Smith apologized to the reporter and says he "will use this as an opportunity to address all of my staff and reinforce the professional conduct that is expected from members of this agency."

(CBS Local) Read the rest

"Do you ever see a super-old guy…with a super-young girl…and wonder, how the hell did that happen?" Here's what we're calling it now. Read the rest

The Sigma Nu fraternity at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia has been suspended in connection with these asinine signs displayed at a private residence where members of the frat live. The brilliant individuals hung the banners during move-in week when parents were dropping new students at campus. Read the rest

"No matter what we at Ranger School say the non-believers will still be non-believers. We could have invited each of you to guest walk the entire course, and you would still not believe."

70 of the worst: "Men should be able to veto women's abortions", "Know your role and shut your mouth", "Women are victims of violence all the time-maybe they should make better decisions", etc.

Read the rest

This ad for Bic didn't go well, and Bic is very, very sorry.

"Look like a girl, Act like a lady, Think like a man, Work like a boss." Ridiculous. Everyone knows bosses are terrible workers. Read the rest

After Engineer Isis Wenger at OneLogin appeared in a recruiting ad, sexist comments about her appearance (e.g., "you don't look like an engineer") inspired the hashtag #iLookLikeAnEngineer. Read the rest

You don't need the Bechdel test to call this movie a boy's club dud. Read the rest

No one, except delusional sexist men, will be surprised to learn that men who harass women online are "low-status, non-dominant men" according to a study published in the journal PLOS One, titled "Insights into Sexism: Male Status and Performance Moderates Female-Directed Hostile and Amicable Behaviour." The Washington Post reports:

Michael Kasumovic and Jeffrey Kuznekoff, researchers at the University of New South Wales and Miami University, respectively ... watched how men treated women during 163 plays of the video game Halo 3. As they watched the games play out and tracked the comments that players made to each other, the researchers observed that — no matter their skill level, or how the game went — men tended to be pretty cordial to each other. Male players who were good at the game also tended to pay compliments to other male and female players.

Some male players, however — the ones who were less-skilled at the game, and performing worse relative their peers — made frequent, nasty comments to the female gamers. In other words, sexist dudes are literally losers.

...

In each of these environments, Kasumovic suggests, a recent influx of female participants has disrupted a pre-existing social hierarchy. That’s okay for the guys at the top — but for the guys at the bottom, who stand to lose more status, that’s very threatening. (It’s also in keeping with the evolutionary framework on anti-lady hostility, which suggests sexism is a kind of Neanderthal defense mechanism for low-status, non-dominant men trying to maintain a shaky grip on their particular cave’s supply of women.)

"A chart from the Halo study that shows how nice male gamers were to other males (dotted line) and females (solid line) during gameplay. Read the rest

Tatyana Fazlalizadeh is a Brooklyn artist who tried something new to speak up for herself—and address street harassment—through art. Read the rest

Instagram doesn't allow women to show their nipples, but they allow men to show their nipples. So here's a man's nipple to cut, resize, and paste over a women's nipple. Problem solved! Read the rest

“This is a watershed moment for civil rights that finally brings the dream of living in an equitable society one tiny fraction of a step closer to reality,” said civil rights lawyer Helene Najjar, adding that the country could now turn its attention to closing the income gap, ending racial discrimination in law enforcement, and providing equal educational opportunities for all children, among tens of thousands of other issues." Read the rest

"I'm already in so much pain," he says, leaving the house in the morning. "It's astounding."

After mocking women for complaining about the shoes they feel expected to wear, Brandon Cohen, a video correspondent for BroBible, agreed to find out for himself what it was like. He made it through the workday, but quit before dinner: "it was the worst day of my life."

"I literally can't stand anymore. My legs are shaking," he says.

"This is Chinese foot binding but in modern form."

And by 7:15 pm, he throws in the towel and is walking barefoot, just like the "disgusting girls" he criticises in his article who walk without shoes on grimy pavements.

Brandon admits that he had plans to go dance at a bar and "do a bunch of other stupid sh*t" but says he is "in way too much pain".

"I am going to go take some Advil and go to sleep," he adds.

Read the rest

It's a nice place, if you have a white penis: "It doesn't just affect women in gaming." Read the rest