Welcome to the 57th edition of The Three Things, the weekly update of three links, podcasts, videos, or books you can’t miss – from Howie Goldfarb (Blue Star Strategic Marketing), Joe Cardillo (Visual.ly), and yours truly.
For those of you new to this series, The Three Things arrives in your inbox on Sunday mornings (unless you don’t subscribe, but that can easily be fixed if you hurry over and enter your email address or add to your RSS feed) so you have some extra time to spend perusing the obscure content we’ve curated for you (and one another) before your week begins and deadlines, meetings, and work takes over.
Today we explore freedom of the press, what it really means to be a man, and – almost like we planned it this way – women and how they hate each other (sorta)!
British Press Freedom Under Threat
Howie on Freedom of the Press.
If you want to be free, we need a free and independent press. In the UK and the US, the press is either owned by just a few companies or is under siege by the government. On top of that, plenty of those in the press want censorship. The Canadian Free Press has called Glenn Greenwald, who shared this article, a Muslim extremist who should be arrested and charged with treason. Glenn is just a journalist who became a conduit for a freedom fighter named Eric Snowden, to help shed light on US spying. Read the article. Champion a free and independent press. If you don’t, when I see you in the forced labor camps don’t ask me to share my bread ration with you. Please note my sarcasm…but not really.
The Meaning of ‘Football Tough’
Joe on Manliness.
I’m often subjected to arbitrary ideas and actions that either make me a “real man” or not. It’s one of my least favorite phrases (as is the phrase “real woman”) and I mostly avoid setting boundaries like that because to me exclusion is a useless technique. If you truly care about something (a business, a sports team, a family) then you’ll set the standard and the model for inclusion, and other people either meet you there, or not.
Maybe it’s because they’re lacking moral fiber, or maybe it’s just because they’re not ready ready yet. Either way it doesn’t change the outcome and isn’t useful information for being a better person (though let’s be clear, it’s knockout good stuff if you choose to be judgmental, hostile, and define yourself by other people’s misfortune or bad choices).
Jason Gay in this essay on the recent NFL scrap over hazing culture redefines toughness in a striking way: “Do you know what really makes someone tough? Seeing trouble, and rushing to help in any way possible.”
I read that and thought, now this is the way we are supposed to treat each other. Professional football is one of the most dangerous professions you can go into, and I’m not just talking about concussions. We send these gladiators out to battle each other in the name of higher concepts like Toughness, Bravery, and the American Way.
I actually like football, and although I’m not a fanatic I enjoy watching it. But it seems to me that when we limit the definitions of manhood and what it means to be tough, we are hurting everyone. Maybe a new definition of toughness should be: the ability and desire to dig deep into oneself, acknowledge progress and stumbling blocks, and constantly work to be better emotionally, intellectually, and physically.
Lindsay on Women Dissing Women
Ok. Here’s the deal. I can be a bit of a b*tch. It’s true. But most of the time, it comes from a place of wanting to push for change, or help someone become a better person. I also figure, at the ripe old age of (oh no I’m not telling you!) I’ve earned the right to be somewhat cranky and less tolerant of, I don’t know, idiots..??
But this study, by female researchers at Ontario’s McMaster University, takes the concept of women, friendships, and chick who diss chicks to a whole new level. Taking a group of female 20 somethings, and exposing them to other female 20 somethings – some sexed up in dress and hairstyle, and some not – was incredibly revealing!
According to the study’s authors, “The evidence favors the view that women have worked to stifle each other’s sexuality because sex is a limited resource that women use to negotiate with men, and scarcity gives women an advantage,” – wow, really? In 2013 almost ’14? The most interesting part of this article for me, was the actual fact that men will either stray, or they won’t. It really has nothing to do with whether a lady is wearing a mini-skirt or sweatpants. It’s evolution, baby.
Another part I found fascinating was how men do the exact same thing to other men. I really thought women had cornered the market on catty behavior, but oh NO! But men crack out the cattiness less about sexual attractiveness and more about….oh, never mind. Just go read the article. And let me know what you think.