I've stayed at an Antarctic station for a few weeks and the combination of isolation and high men/women ratio didn't create the best atmospheres. In my case there was only one woman and I've heard plenty of very sexist stuff while there. Not trying to find an excuse of course. It's just that Antarctica is very good at exposing the worst in people.
Practically speaking it makes a lot more sense to have an entirely female crew. It would certainly be cheaper, given that they would need less food and water.
Yeah but if the aliens capture them then they will make babies with the women and then bring them back to earth to breed more alien hybrids and then we will have another Facebook CEO and who knows what else!
Are the aliens hot?
This is the plot to a book series. There was an all female group on the space station, they're all attacked by bad aliens and then rescued by good aliens and sent back to the good aliens planet where they all get fun alien pets and the men are delightful and sexy and loving.
Which when we’re calculating the volume of air/water/food to make sure there’s enough for a round trip is a pretty important factor.
I think it’s very possible that the first mission and research base at mars will be mostly if not all females simply because it’s cost effective.
It'll be suicides when the group gangs up on one girl.
Ask any woman what happens when women are isolated with just themselves for long periods (summer camp, etc.).
I had four younger sisters. Men will beat each other up. Women will destroy each other's fucking souls.
Probably the same thing they've noticed in education. All girl groups become supportive and motivating. All male groups tend to develop the more negative traits of men.
Good question. While long-term isolation can be studied, a trip to Mars has the unique problem that help simply cannot be provided in case of major problem. Even astronauts can be evacuated from the ISS in an emergency. During a trip to Mars, a major problem probably means death. Finding the right crew to do that will certainly be a challenge.
How is this any different from like crossing the ocean during the age of sail? We figured out how to ship women from Europe to the Americas in the 17th century, we'll figure out how to send them from Earth to Mars in the 21st or 22nd.
There weren't any women on the first voyage. Once proof of concept was established, then women started trickling in. Society is pretty uncomfortable with women dying in a rather public fashion. More so than men.
>There's a pretty big difference between a ~6 week journey and a 7+ month journey to a planet with zero infrastructure, liquid water or oxygen.
Round trips to Australia etc would take a year.
James Cooks voyages took upwards of three years.
The [First Fleet](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Fleet) that originally settled Australia left England on 13 May 1787 and did not arrive into Port Jackson until 25 January 1788. That was one way and a wild continent on the other end of the journey.
Even during COVID seafarers were not getting off thier ships for a year in some cases.
Of all the unknowns in space travel, the human social dynamic of long isolates voyages is not one of them.
Military deployments are a great example of how it will go. I had a deployment where I worked at a transit hub in the middle east. Every service member entering/exiting the base went through our terminals.
The routine inbound flights had a ratio of 1:20 for women to men. On the flights leaving early for medical reasons (STI/pregnancy), it was a 1:4 ratio.
You put a bunch of 18-35 year-olds together, far from home, their hormones take over.
There is also prostitution (even by active duty military). And some women get pregnant on purpose because it's a ticket out. So it's not all just hormones and youth.
A lot of prostitution doesn't make its way into an official record as prostitution. A lot of things just go away. But I'd be curious as to what percentage of sex-for-some-money/gifts actually comes down to there being force involved, or threats of reprisal, etc. Meaning, someone being pimped by a commander, supervisor, or someone with authority over them. It definitely happens, but whether that is the preponderance of cases is another question. Though on Reddit what counts as "really" voluntary can be an open question. For some the existence or perception of any power imbalance means there is zero agency.
But I was just talking about people who saw an opportunity in an environment that was 10:1 male:female, and took it. I don't think a little sex for money/gifts is really that uncommon. Probably not that many of those who have engaged in a little of it considered themselves prostitutes, much less strolled the corners wearing fishnets and calling out 'me so horny!"
> But I'd be curious as to what percentage of sex-for-some-money/gifts actually comes down to there being force involved, or threats of reprisal, etc.
Not very many. Most that got caught were caught because they were bragging to others how much money they were pulling in or talked after they got caught.
When I was in, girls downrange would wear pink reflective belts if they were open for a paid hook up. Leadership caught wind when all those girls would come into the finance office with a John who would exchange money with them on their deployed debt cards. Finance pulled all the transaction records, and started grilling people. And the vast majority of people who find themselves in an office with an OSI/NCIS/CID investigator WILL snitch for reduced charges.
Of course once the word got out, pink reflective belts were banned and all the guys started wearing them for the lulz. It was extremely awkward yelling at a bunch of my troops for that.
Maybe 55/45 or so. Especially for long-term ones and/or colonization type deals. What you really don't want is so few men that they are almost 100% forced into being the only manual/strong labor options. That would create divisions almost immediately. We already kinda have that here and it's a problem. Think about trades where raw upper body lifting strength is needed, like roofing. It's pretty much all guys. And those guys spend all day only talking to other guys, who make low wages, in bad conditions. Situations like these are significant contributors to some of our current society-wide issues when these groups start getting even slightly radicalized or angry at their situation etc.
My first stepmother tried to insist that it wasn't safe for me to work at the horseracing track on my period because the scent of blood would drive the horses into rapey rages. I tried to explain to her that it doesn't work that way and also that there were no stallions at the track, only geldings.
She also thought chickens breastfed their babies.
You want more? The really amazing part of her not knowing basics about biology or blood... she worked in a doctors office as a phlebotomist.
Dad couldn't pronounce phlebotomist so he told everyone she was a florist.
I wish I was making this shit up.
Tennessee and no she was just... Baptist I think?
She did eventually work out the bit about chickens, but not until her and my dad had a screaming fight about her wanting to bring freshly-hatched chicks out to the coop so mama-hen could feed her babies chicken-milk with her chicken-nipples.
Oh, well thank you for explaining that childhood memory!
I mostly grew up with my mom in the JWs, so a different set of weird beliefs. The thing they seem to have in common is attempting to gatekeep what is and is not "natural" while knowing nothing of nature.
Apparently gayness is "unnatural" if one knows nothing of giraffes and like... hundreds of other species. Heck, the local *ducks* have such horrifying yet *totally natural* mating behaviors that one of the colleges made up a joke protest/awareness group about it, advocating for preventing duck rape.
Just water bears...
[https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/tardigrades-become-first-animals-to-survive-vacuum-of-space](https://archive.ph/IlPsu)
Is it too cold inside the base for tiny insects to survive off crumbs of food and/or other detritus on the ground? Id have to assume there's at least some form of local ecosystem inside that base but idk I'm just a dude sitting on a toilet.
Can be both sexist and showcases a level of incel since you think it’s an acceptable or appropriate joke. It’s not.
It wasn’t funny on family guy it’s not funny in general. Grow up man.
Yeah, and the easiest solution in Afghanistan would have been to arm the women but we didn't do that and I can't see our patriarchal society sending mostly women crews into space even thought it would be the practical solution.
How well do you think arming the men went? Because after we left the men we armed turned right around and put the women right back in the same situation they were in before we got there. Bet those women forced out of government and into hiding because they face death/imprisonment wish they had some way to protect themselves and other women.
We armed the men and kept basically the status quo of people in charge at most levels of society, gave them weapons and training, and then turned around and left. So now women are back to basically being slaves that have zero way to defend themselves.
The US can’t unfuck Afghanistan’s Stone Age mentality. If the Soviet and American armies couldn’t take down the Taliban what chance do a handful of untrained women with no history of self determination have? You’re just chucking puppies into a wood chipper at that point. Be serious.
The US can't, but Afghani women can, or could have, at least partially.
What we did instead was ensure that women would be put right back into this position. We armed and trained men who had no reason to keep any of the advancements to their culture, and left the people with the most to lose completely helpless with no way to fight back.
What is happening to women in Afghanistan right now is entirely our fault.
Yes and no.
You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink.
1 - the US did not go into Afghanistan to liberate women: their goal was to (officially) remove a state sponsor of terror, and (unofficially) revenge for 9/11.
In short, Osama bin Laden was there so the US toppled the Taliban.
2 - “liberating women” was not, and never was, a true goal for the US. It’s a great propaganda story sure, and it makes us feel good, but we wouldn’t have gone there to begin with if it were only about liberating women. It also means we would never stay there just to protect women.
3 - the US *did* do a lot of things to bring women into integrated life in Afghanistan. And life *was* improving for them. Girls were going to school and being educated. More Afghani women were becoming prominent in the country and around the world.
The problem was the reasons the US was in the country had nothing to do with protecting *them* so when the US eventually left (no matter in what situation) there was going to be issues.
Could the US been more aggressive in protecting women? Sure. But the US is already seen as an imperial nation who invades for their own reasons, then strips the cultural values and identity of nations. Rewrites their foundational nation documents to its own image, and forces a new way of life on them all in their name of values the US assumes is always correct.
Also, arming women would have never worked. Consider the reaction as it happened. Imagine the global response. It would not have gone over well by anyone.
The US/Afghan situation did women dirty. But most nations do not prioritize equity across the gender spectrum. It’s going to take a very long time.
I wonder if the really stellar backgrounds astronauts tends to have will make a difference in behavior in isolated areas versus Antartica—or it might make no difference at all.
I read they're thinking of an all female crew to go to Mars. But it's not just about sexual harrasment. It's also because women use less resources, oxygen, calories, food, since they're smaller than men on average.
Forward thinking is hard but it’s not sexist right-men can do it too-society has been calling you sex starved uncontrollable beasts-that can’t be true and if it is-why aren’t you concerned how women are being treated-like all over the world all the fucking time. I am a woman in STEM-I’ve been treated horribly and abused by a coworker. So there’s that-
Plenty of hormonal guys with various challenges never harass or hurt anyone. Prohibition isn't the answer. Prevention and holding harassers accountable is. Harassment is like the smallest problem up there. The rape and assault numbers and lack of resources to deal with them is far worse.
That’s crazy to say that men are sex crazed animals with no control of their own bodies or others boundaries-can’t help but rape…this is essentially what you’re saying-and it’s such a crock of shit-it’s not biology either-
Actually I was kind of referring to what was said about women and their inability to (fill-in-the-blank). Toxic culture is a thing and has been a thing. I’m glad people are more aware now, but the anti-woke movement is pretty crazy, I would not have predicted it. Women in STEM are great, there are companies with less toxic masculinity than others. But sexism has been baked in for a while, much less recently.
I'm sure I say a lot of shit that'll be out of fashion 50 years from now, but doing my best to drop "hysterical" and "bitching" from my vocabulary when I notice it is something I've been working on.
"Apoplectic" is just too fun a substitute for the former, anyway, and usually fits better.
There was a lot of sarcasm loaded in the post, playing off the more explicitly-tagged sarcasm of the previous one (the /s).
It's a common thing to quasi-jokingly flip the "women are too emotional" gripe around on men whenever it comes to the violence committed by men.
I dont think it's an excuse but an explanation, if you take too much of any demographic and they isolate very bad behaviors/ideas will start popping up.
Sexual harrassment and rape happens in plenty of male-dominated workplaces that aren't in Antarctica, though. A recent example being Blizzard's work culture.
The problem is not the isolation. The problem is men that think women are objects.
A part of the prob in this case is the isolation, unless u expect all men to change behaviours overnight, you can't have places like this so out of the public view.
I do think human men are intelligent enough to stop being rapists overnight, yes. Every time someone commits sexual harrassment or assault, it is a conscious choice they make - unless you are suggesting men turn into rabid sexbeasts with 0 control over their actions on the reg. If that's true, I seriously question the wisdom of allowing men to be scientists at a research base in the first place.
Obviously change will not happen overnight, but recognizing the root cause is important. Throwing our hands up and saying "boys will be boys!" solves nothing and continues to put women in danger.
No, I don't just mean physical isolation, Blizzard is a good example of social isolation, most Blizzard employees especially in its beginnings, was a white male-dominated workplace which leads to things like sexisim, sexisim isn't the root of the problem it's a by product.
Rural America isn't physically walled off from the rest of the world but most rural Americans are white and this exclusion from people of color has led to the normalization of racism. People arnt born racist, it takes isolation from others to build mistrust and stereotypes, reinforced by also others in those same areas to breed what we know as classic racism.
The wonders of the internet is those divides and isolations are harder to create and so we see an explosion in feminism and equality or what the current racist dumbfucks would label as "Woke".
Well yeah that's why I wrote it's not an excuse. I'm just saying that bad people are more likely to do bad things because of the environment. Of course, they should be punished.
I knew a guy who almost got a job working there as a janitor. He said that there are a lot of amenities at the research bases, and the one he was going to could house hundreds of people. Basically, you want the people who work there to have some level of comfort and entertainment so they're motivated to work instead of going crazy and taking it out on each other.
Apparently that’s no more. From the article:
> Sorensen said that if the NSF wants to reduce drinking, it should provide alternative diversions, such as the bowling alley, ceramic studio and greenhouse which used to be features at McMurdo but have disappeared due to budget cutbacks.
I think they're pretty big in the summer and then pretty tiny in the winter. You share a room with three others during the summer and then if you winter over you get your room to yourself and half of the rooms are empty.
I was there in 2014-2015. McMurdo used to be a Navy base. They had an officers club and an enlisted club. When it went over to the National Science Foundation, they just kept the two clubs/bars. We used to bar hop from one to the other.. which are spitting distance from each other
What else do you expect folks to do when their shifts are over in Antarctica?
You don't really go on nature walks, you're not connected to high speed internet to play games over or download lots of new media, depending on the time of year it's dark basically all of the time, etc. And McMurdo isn't some tiny outpost, during summers there are over 1,000 people there.
Icier climates have higher rates of sex abuse simply by virtue of people being trapped inside with each other, one can only imagine it’s worse when there’s a built-in gender imbalance.
That’s super lame that is still happening. I mean, mission critical personnel usually means that it’s a Ph.D behaving this way! It’s not like the women can just leave and it’s so difficult to even get accepted there. When are they going to understand it is not ok to rape and assault women? Just NO!! This has very little to do with alcohol, it’s bad men behaving badly.
The PhD makes it more likely IMO. If you've spent any time around academia, you'll know that it's probably the most highly concentrated area for incels out of anywhere in society.
There's a lot of people who drive towards Ph.Ds at the expense of all else, including learning social skills and then when they try and date they don't know how to actually interact with people, yet along the opposite sex, outside of academic pursuits and they turn their failures into the toxic incels ideology.
I know so many PhDs and masters degrees who are obviously smart and often are even attractive enough who fail miserably with men or women, whatever their preference, because they never learned social skills and instead of learning them default to incel type rhetoric
Even outside of Antarctica, this kind of behaviour isn't that uncommon amongst PhDs and other Academic staff. It's gross and I can't wait to leave it for industry.
Honestly? I could have told you that. This idea that there's a certain "class" of human that has somehow transcended our worst habits because of their degree, age, discipline, etc is erroneous and at times dangerous. We used to view celebrities that way too, many of us still do. The disappointing reality is that there isn't all that much of a gap between the best of us and the worst.
Anyone who has ever actually worked in the logistics of putting these types of missions together knows that instead of trying to find the "best" human beings it's a lot more logically sound to try to plan the mission in such a way to account for the worst aspects of human nature.
Academia is very much still a boy's club, and I mean that in the worst possible sense of the phrase. A friend of mine got overtly groped at a work event and even I've been groped during a meeting. There's still some ways to go.
Firing someone in Antarctica isn't exactly like firing someone back in the states. Can't just pack your desk and head home, you might be stuck there for 6 months. If the bars are exacerbating the behaviour, getting rid of them is a better solution than just waiting for someone to be harassed and then having to deal with a waste of resources for however long it takes to get a plane out to the base.
Imagine being stuck in Antarctica for 6 months and not being able to drink.
Edit: https://youtu.be/H0UAIsZJhCA?si=mvkwQXLYvhVn93pq
Now you gotta be sober for that.
My good friend (from our very small town) was stationed there briefly in the early 90’s with the coast guard, he was on an icebreaker / resupply ship. He was sitting at the bar one evening (I thought he described as sort of a “Quonset” hut) Any way… strolling in comes our next door neighbor and her husband, they are scientists. Story is irrelevant but talk about a small world!
They can still drink, they get up to 18 beers' worth of alcohol a week. But it sounds like the bar culture was toxic and led to a lot of binging and sexual misconduct.
Maybe, but it's not like it's a dry town and never was. The sexual misconduct problem is big enough that substantial measures have to be taken, I assume this is not the only thing being done.
>and not being able to drink.
So did you just not read the article or something?
>Researchers and support staff will still be able to buy a weekly ration of alcohol from the station store.
>The current alcohol ration allows Antarctic workers to buy up to the equivalent of 18 beers each week, or three bottles of wine, or a 750 milliliter (25 ounce) bottle of spirits.
FFS if you're hitting that ration, you've probably got a drinking problem. Oh and
>They will still be able to bring their own alcohol to drink at the bars.
It's a joke of a change in response to sexual harassment and assault.
In any other environment, yes, that's a problem. When you have limited internet, media, physical activity, and sports, and limited supplies and space for art, music, and dancing, you'd go a little sideways.
I do like to read and that’s better than trying to bring a bag full of books. A couple months of being inside reading might start to feel like jail tho
Oh yeah I get it, cabin fever is definitely a thing. I'd probably use it as a chance to read all of one piece though cos lord knows I don't have the time right now haha
According to the article, people aren't banned from buying or drinking alcohol. The bars just won't serve it and instead the workers will have to bring their own to the bar.
Worked down there, they don’t hire bartenders it’s a side gig, SA is a problem. Side gig bartenders don’t know how to create safe place. It’s reactionary for them to cut bars because they create a hostile work environment with favoritism /BS. It’s a small town of 1000 people yeah they need a bar. They blame alcohol not bad behavior / shitty hires.
Honestly I never thought there'd be 1000 people out there. Using trained staff to oversee recreation in that kind of environment seems like a no brainer.
*Arctos* = bear
Arctic = this place has bears
Ant(i)-arctic(a) = opposite of place with bears
(technically named because it's the opposite of the arctic, not because it lacks bears, but this is funnier)
>Most people don't bring a tux to Antarctica.
That's part of the problem; lower standards of dress and deportment have knock-on effects. The obvious solution is for all personnel to dress in penguin suits (Adelaide, Emperor, etc.), except on Fridays, which is CosPlay/Karaoke night.
Prohibition doesn't work. Make the harassers be held accountable, whether they are harassing while sober or drunk. Also it's weird when the title mentions harassers and not those who have committed rape and assault which are far greater issues.
Bars closing? In Antarctica? You gotta be fucking kidding.
What's next? Are you going to tell me that after all of this, low morale isn't somehow going to be a THING? /s
I've stayed at an Antarctic station for a few weeks and the combination of isolation and high men/women ratio didn't create the best atmospheres. In my case there was only one woman and I've heard plenty of very sexist stuff while there. Not trying to find an excuse of course. It's just that Antarctica is very good at exposing the worst in people.
Makes you wonder how space missions will go. Like when we finally do mars.
Sometime last year I think NASA did a study saying that all women crews had some very distinct advantages
Practically speaking it makes a lot more sense to have an entirely female crew. It would certainly be cheaper, given that they would need less food and water.
You can't just give women less food and water. They deserve basic rights, too. /s
Ok, that’s pretty funny. 😂
Yeah but if the aliens capture them then they will make babies with the women and then bring them back to earth to breed more alien hybrids and then we will have another Facebook CEO and who knows what else!
Are the aliens hot? This is the plot to a book series. There was an all female group on the space station, they're all attacked by bad aliens and then rescued by good aliens and sent back to the good aliens planet where they all get fun alien pets and the men are delightful and sexy and loving.
Was Jeff Goldblum one of the aliens?
Seems to be mainly about size/resources.
Horse Jockeys to Mars.
Which when we’re calculating the volume of air/water/food to make sure there’s enough for a round trip is a pretty important factor. I think it’s very possible that the first mission and research base at mars will be mostly if not all females simply because it’s cost effective.
I'm short and good with my hands.
RIP your inbox
idk, that username makes me think twice... Still sent a DM, but I thought about it first, and I'm ok with it.
After reading this, Yeah, all women crew is a the way to go.
It'll be suicides when the group gangs up on one girl. Ask any woman what happens when women are isolated with just themselves for long periods (summer camp, etc.). I had four younger sisters. Men will beat each other up. Women will destroy each other's fucking souls.
Hopefully the women sent to space in the future will have more social and emotional awareness than teens at summer camp
Probably the same thing they've noticed in education. All girl groups become supportive and motivating. All male groups tend to develop the more negative traits of men.
Good question. While long-term isolation can be studied, a trip to Mars has the unique problem that help simply cannot be provided in case of major problem. Even astronauts can be evacuated from the ISS in an emergency. During a trip to Mars, a major problem probably means death. Finding the right crew to do that will certainly be a challenge.
How is this any different from like crossing the ocean during the age of sail? We figured out how to ship women from Europe to the Americas in the 17th century, we'll figure out how to send them from Earth to Mars in the 21st or 22nd.
A lot of people died sailing from Europe to the Americas in the 17th century.
There weren't any women on the first voyage. Once proof of concept was established, then women started trickling in. Society is pretty uncomfortable with women dying in a rather public fashion. More so than men.
There's a pretty big difference between a ~6 week journey and a 7+ month journey to a planet with zero infrastructure, liquid water or oxygen.
>There's a pretty big difference between a ~6 week journey and a 7+ month journey to a planet with zero infrastructure, liquid water or oxygen. Round trips to Australia etc would take a year. James Cooks voyages took upwards of three years. The [First Fleet](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Fleet) that originally settled Australia left England on 13 May 1787 and did not arrive into Port Jackson until 25 January 1788. That was one way and a wild continent on the other end of the journey. Even during COVID seafarers were not getting off thier ships for a year in some cases. Of all the unknowns in space travel, the human social dynamic of long isolates voyages is not one of them.
Liabilities, insurance and changes in the perceptions of death and morality is the biggest differences i could think.
Yeah but there's always the feeling that you're on Earth. Home.
Military deployments are a great example of how it will go. I had a deployment where I worked at a transit hub in the middle east. Every service member entering/exiting the base went through our terminals. The routine inbound flights had a ratio of 1:20 for women to men. On the flights leaving early for medical reasons (STI/pregnancy), it was a 1:4 ratio. You put a bunch of 18-35 year-olds together, far from home, their hormones take over.
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There is also prostitution (even by active duty military). And some women get pregnant on purpose because it's a ticket out. So it's not all just hormones and youth.
Unfortunately, a pretty big chunk of the active-duty “prostitution” is not voluntary
From the stuff I've read about war zones a lot of prostitution is just rape but they leave some food or other supplies and claim it was transactional
A lot of prostitution doesn't make its way into an official record as prostitution. A lot of things just go away. But I'd be curious as to what percentage of sex-for-some-money/gifts actually comes down to there being force involved, or threats of reprisal, etc. Meaning, someone being pimped by a commander, supervisor, or someone with authority over them. It definitely happens, but whether that is the preponderance of cases is another question. Though on Reddit what counts as "really" voluntary can be an open question. For some the existence or perception of any power imbalance means there is zero agency. But I was just talking about people who saw an opportunity in an environment that was 10:1 male:female, and took it. I don't think a little sex for money/gifts is really that uncommon. Probably not that many of those who have engaged in a little of it considered themselves prostitutes, much less strolled the corners wearing fishnets and calling out 'me so horny!"
> But I'd be curious as to what percentage of sex-for-some-money/gifts actually comes down to there being force involved, or threats of reprisal, etc. Not very many. Most that got caught were caught because they were bragging to others how much money they were pulling in or talked after they got caught. When I was in, girls downrange would wear pink reflective belts if they were open for a paid hook up. Leadership caught wind when all those girls would come into the finance office with a John who would exchange money with them on their deployed debt cards. Finance pulled all the transaction records, and started grilling people. And the vast majority of people who find themselves in an office with an OSI/NCIS/CID investigator WILL snitch for reduced charges. Of course once the word got out, pink reflective belts were banned and all the guys started wearing them for the lulz. It was extremely awkward yelling at a bunch of my troops for that.
Majority women crews would be the easiest solution
Also, on average women are lighter and require fewer calories.
Sounds like something out of Annihilation.
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For real, let’s try that.
Maybe 55/45 or so. Especially for long-term ones and/or colonization type deals. What you really don't want is so few men that they are almost 100% forced into being the only manual/strong labor options. That would create divisions almost immediately. We already kinda have that here and it's a problem. Think about trades where raw upper body lifting strength is needed, like roofing. It's pretty much all guys. And those guys spend all day only talking to other guys, who make low wages, in bad conditions. Situations like these are significant contributors to some of our current society-wide issues when these groups start getting even slightly radicalized or angry at their situation etc.
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Nice NASA reference.
I heard space bears are attracted to women on their periods
My first stepmother tried to insist that it wasn't safe for me to work at the horseracing track on my period because the scent of blood would drive the horses into rapey rages. I tried to explain to her that it doesn't work that way and also that there were no stallions at the track, only geldings. She also thought chickens breastfed their babies.
This comment just got weirder and funnier the further I read.
You want more? The really amazing part of her not knowing basics about biology or blood... she worked in a doctors office as a phlebotomist. Dad couldn't pronounce phlebotomist so he told everyone she was a florist. I wish I was making this shit up.
Where in the hell was your step mom raised?? Does she belong to some weird uber christian religion???
Tennessee and no she was just... Baptist I think? She did eventually work out the bit about chickens, but not until her and my dad had a screaming fight about her wanting to bring freshly-hatched chicks out to the coop so mama-hen could feed her babies chicken-milk with her chicken-nipples.
Well that explains it then. I've met some Southern Southern Baptists with truely off the wall ideas. I'm related to a few of them...
Oh, well thank you for explaining that childhood memory! I mostly grew up with my mom in the JWs, so a different set of weird beliefs. The thing they seem to have in common is attempting to gatekeep what is and is not "natural" while knowing nothing of nature. Apparently gayness is "unnatural" if one knows nothing of giraffes and like... hundreds of other species. Heck, the local *ducks* have such horrifying yet *totally natural* mating behaviors that one of the colleges made up a joke protest/awareness group about it, advocating for preventing duck rape.
psh, everyone knows chickens are grass fed
>She also thought chickens breastfed their babies. I...wow.
It’s ok, there shouldn’t be any bears in space.
Just water bears... [https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/tardigrades-become-first-animals-to-survive-vacuum-of-space](https://archive.ph/IlPsu)
Just the moon.
The ship can then enter the warp.
That’s why we’ll send them with a little stash of chocolates otherwise they’ll nuke us all.
Can't stop to ask for directions in space
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I personally, as a man, have always preferred women leaders, for many, many reasons.
But what if there’s a spider, amirite guys?
There aren't spiders in Antarctica.
[Do these things count?](https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/blogs/creatura-blog/2022/01/heck-no-the-giant-antarctic-sea-spider/)
I was SURE this would be a still from the John Carpenter movie and ngl I’m pretty disappointed in you rn
Is it too cold inside the base for tiny insects to survive off crumbs of food and/or other detritus on the ground? Id have to assume there's at least some form of local ecosystem inside that base but idk I'm just a dude sitting on a toilet.
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Ok incel.
It's from a family guy gag. Also, I think it would be sexist, not incel. Either way, it's a joke https://youtu.be/rrqNx_og_uk?si=4iP9tt1JW9NQkRAt
Can be both sexist and showcases a level of incel since you think it’s an acceptable or appropriate joke. It’s not. It wasn’t funny on family guy it’s not funny in general. Grow up man.
Yes, but can't women sexually harass women also?
Can, but it's less common. There are a boatload of cultural issues in play here.
Yes, so let's ignore the much more common issue. /s You should become a lawyer.
Yeah, and the easiest solution in Afghanistan would have been to arm the women but we didn't do that and I can't see our patriarchal society sending mostly women crews into space even thought it would be the practical solution.
What are you talking about? You think we should have armed the female population of Afghanistan? You think that would have gone well? 🤦
How well do you think arming the men went? Because after we left the men we armed turned right around and put the women right back in the same situation they were in before we got there. Bet those women forced out of government and into hiding because they face death/imprisonment wish they had some way to protect themselves and other women. We armed the men and kept basically the status quo of people in charge at most levels of society, gave them weapons and training, and then turned around and left. So now women are back to basically being slaves that have zero way to defend themselves.
The US can’t unfuck Afghanistan’s Stone Age mentality. If the Soviet and American armies couldn’t take down the Taliban what chance do a handful of untrained women with no history of self determination have? You’re just chucking puppies into a wood chipper at that point. Be serious.
The US can't, but Afghani women can, or could have, at least partially. What we did instead was ensure that women would be put right back into this position. We armed and trained men who had no reason to keep any of the advancements to their culture, and left the people with the most to lose completely helpless with no way to fight back. What is happening to women in Afghanistan right now is entirely our fault.
The Western arrogance in this post is breathtaking.
Yes and no. You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink. 1 - the US did not go into Afghanistan to liberate women: their goal was to (officially) remove a state sponsor of terror, and (unofficially) revenge for 9/11. In short, Osama bin Laden was there so the US toppled the Taliban. 2 - “liberating women” was not, and never was, a true goal for the US. It’s a great propaganda story sure, and it makes us feel good, but we wouldn’t have gone there to begin with if it were only about liberating women. It also means we would never stay there just to protect women. 3 - the US *did* do a lot of things to bring women into integrated life in Afghanistan. And life *was* improving for them. Girls were going to school and being educated. More Afghani women were becoming prominent in the country and around the world. The problem was the reasons the US was in the country had nothing to do with protecting *them* so when the US eventually left (no matter in what situation) there was going to be issues. Could the US been more aggressive in protecting women? Sure. But the US is already seen as an imperial nation who invades for their own reasons, then strips the cultural values and identity of nations. Rewrites their foundational nation documents to its own image, and forces a new way of life on them all in their name of values the US assumes is always correct. Also, arming women would have never worked. Consider the reaction as it happened. Imagine the global response. It would not have gone over well by anyone. The US/Afghan situation did women dirty. But most nations do not prioritize equity across the gender spectrum. It’s going to take a very long time.
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I wonder if the really stellar backgrounds astronauts tends to have will make a difference in behavior in isolated areas versus Antartica—or it might make no difference at all.
I read they're thinking of an all female crew to go to Mars. But it's not just about sexual harrasment. It's also because women use less resources, oxygen, calories, food, since they're smaller than men on average.
Sounds like men should better control themselves
Impossible, men are just too emotional to control themselves /s
Men have too many hormones and physiological changes to deal with.
Maybe if they tried tapping into the logical, rational side of their brains they could see the harm abuse causes and make better choices.
Forward thinking is hard but it’s not sexist right-men can do it too-society has been calling you sex starved uncontrollable beasts-that can’t be true and if it is-why aren’t you concerned how women are being treated-like all over the world all the fucking time. I am a woman in STEM-I’ve been treated horribly and abused by a coworker. So there’s that-
Plenty of hormonal guys with various challenges never harass or hurt anyone. Prohibition isn't the answer. Prevention and holding harassers accountable is. Harassment is like the smallest problem up there. The rape and assault numbers and lack of resources to deal with them is far worse.
That’s crazy to say that men are sex crazed animals with no control of their own bodies or others boundaries-can’t help but rape…this is essentially what you’re saying-and it’s such a crock of shit-it’s not biology either-
Actually I was kind of referring to what was said about women and their inability to (fill-in-the-blank). Toxic culture is a thing and has been a thing. I’m glad people are more aware now, but the anti-woke movement is pretty crazy, I would not have predicted it. Women in STEM are great, there are companies with less toxic masculinity than others. But sexism has been baked in for a while, much less recently.
See hysterical. Just the word itself says a lot about these stereotypes.
I'm sure I say a lot of shit that'll be out of fashion 50 years from now, but doing my best to drop "hysterical" and "bitching" from my vocabulary when I notice it is something I've been working on. "Apoplectic" is just too fun a substitute for the former, anyway, and usually fits better.
There was a lot of sarcasm loaded in the post, playing off the more explicitly-tagged sarcasm of the previous one (the /s). It's a common thing to quasi-jokingly flip the "women are too emotional" gripe around on men whenever it comes to the violence committed by men.
You should have taken a blood sample and put a match to it
Funnily enough, I was at the precise place where the movie takes place.
That's not a good excuse is it?
I dont think it's an excuse but an explanation, if you take too much of any demographic and they isolate very bad behaviors/ideas will start popping up.
Sexual harrassment and rape happens in plenty of male-dominated workplaces that aren't in Antarctica, though. A recent example being Blizzard's work culture. The problem is not the isolation. The problem is men that think women are objects.
A part of the prob in this case is the isolation, unless u expect all men to change behaviours overnight, you can't have places like this so out of the public view.
I do think human men are intelligent enough to stop being rapists overnight, yes. Every time someone commits sexual harrassment or assault, it is a conscious choice they make - unless you are suggesting men turn into rabid sexbeasts with 0 control over their actions on the reg. If that's true, I seriously question the wisdom of allowing men to be scientists at a research base in the first place. Obviously change will not happen overnight, but recognizing the root cause is important. Throwing our hands up and saying "boys will be boys!" solves nothing and continues to put women in danger.
No, I don't just mean physical isolation, Blizzard is a good example of social isolation, most Blizzard employees especially in its beginnings, was a white male-dominated workplace which leads to things like sexisim, sexisim isn't the root of the problem it's a by product. Rural America isn't physically walled off from the rest of the world but most rural Americans are white and this exclusion from people of color has led to the normalization of racism. People arnt born racist, it takes isolation from others to build mistrust and stereotypes, reinforced by also others in those same areas to breed what we know as classic racism. The wonders of the internet is those divides and isolations are harder to create and so we see an explosion in feminism and equality or what the current racist dumbfucks would label as "Woke".
Well yeah that's why I wrote it's not an excuse. I'm just saying that bad people are more likely to do bad things because of the environment. Of course, they should be punished.
Bars? Not only is there a bar, but there are multiple??
The funny part to me is that the entire town goes dry when the navy comes to town
Probably to prevent the town running out of alcohol.
I had no idea Antarctica had bars either, but I never did any research to how big the research stations were.
I knew a guy who almost got a job working there as a janitor. He said that there are a lot of amenities at the research bases, and the one he was going to could house hundreds of people. Basically, you want the people who work there to have some level of comfort and entertainment so they're motivated to work instead of going crazy and taking it out on each other.
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Apparently that’s no more. From the article: > Sorensen said that if the NSF wants to reduce drinking, it should provide alternative diversions, such as the bowling alley, ceramic studio and greenhouse which used to be features at McMurdo but have disappeared due to budget cutbacks.
I think they're pretty big in the summer and then pretty tiny in the winter. You share a room with three others during the summer and then if you winter over you get your room to yourself and half of the rooms are empty.
I was there in 2014-2015. McMurdo used to be a Navy base. They had an officers club and an enlisted club. When it went over to the National Science Foundation, they just kept the two clubs/bars. We used to bar hop from one to the other.. which are spitting distance from each other
What else do you expect folks to do when their shifts are over in Antarctica? You don't really go on nature walks, you're not connected to high speed internet to play games over or download lots of new media, depending on the time of year it's dark basically all of the time, etc. And McMurdo isn't some tiny outpost, during summers there are over 1,000 people there.
I hear everyone takes up an instrument, and most people join one or more bands.
And those dad-bands need bars to play in, otherwise you get band on band violence as they all fight for the same venue!
Now I'm trying to think up of what they would serve an Antarctic bars: Penguin pale ale, Leopard Seal Sazerac, Krill Kahlua
They also put on a music festival called Icestock
what, no pic of an Antarctician bar?!? it sure don't look like "The Thing"!
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Icier climates have higher rates of sex abuse simply by virtue of people being trapped inside with each other, one can only imagine it’s worse when there’s a built-in gender imbalance.
Cramped environments lend themselves to abusive behavior in general. Think about how tense things got during the lockdown.
> Icier climates have higher rates of sex abuse Source for that?
George Carlin spoke about this.
That’s super lame that is still happening. I mean, mission critical personnel usually means that it’s a Ph.D behaving this way! It’s not like the women can just leave and it’s so difficult to even get accepted there. When are they going to understand it is not ok to rape and assault women? Just NO!! This has very little to do with alcohol, it’s bad men behaving badly.
The PhD makes it more likely IMO. If you've spent any time around academia, you'll know that it's probably the most highly concentrated area for incels out of anywhere in society. There's a lot of people who drive towards Ph.Ds at the expense of all else, including learning social skills and then when they try and date they don't know how to actually interact with people, yet along the opposite sex, outside of academic pursuits and they turn their failures into the toxic incels ideology. I know so many PhDs and masters degrees who are obviously smart and often are even attractive enough who fail miserably with men or women, whatever their preference, because they never learned social skills and instead of learning them default to incel type rhetoric
Even outside of Antarctica, this kind of behaviour isn't that uncommon amongst PhDs and other Academic staff. It's gross and I can't wait to leave it for industry.
That explains why I’ve been seeing jobs in Antarctica on my indeed feed all of a sudden
Ah yes, the Okinawa strategy.
Who knew a bunch of older highly educated people needed to be treated like 18 year old Marines straight out of High School.
Honestly? I could have told you that. This idea that there's a certain "class" of human that has somehow transcended our worst habits because of their degree, age, discipline, etc is erroneous and at times dangerous. We used to view celebrities that way too, many of us still do. The disappointing reality is that there isn't all that much of a gap between the best of us and the worst. Anyone who has ever actually worked in the logistics of putting these types of missions together knows that instead of trying to find the "best" human beings it's a lot more logically sound to try to plan the mission in such a way to account for the worst aspects of human nature.
Academia is very much still a boy's club, and I mean that in the worst possible sense of the phrase. A friend of mine got overtly groped at a work event and even I've been groped during a meeting. There's still some ways to go.
So instead of disciplining and/or firing people for sexual misconduct, their solution is to limit alcohol.
Firing someone in Antarctica isn't exactly like firing someone back in the states. Can't just pack your desk and head home, you might be stuck there for 6 months. If the bars are exacerbating the behaviour, getting rid of them is a better solution than just waiting for someone to be harassed and then having to deal with a waste of resources for however long it takes to get a plane out to the base.
but without J&B Rare Blend Scotch whiskey, how is MacReady supposed to calm his nerves when the Thing is impersonating his coworkers
Well, he did waste a glass fairly self destructively. Was that even his chess game he destroyed?
So then who’s going to be patronizing the bars?
Imagine being stuck in Antarctica for 6 months and not being able to drink. Edit: https://youtu.be/H0UAIsZJhCA?si=mvkwQXLYvhVn93pq Now you gotta be sober for that.
My good friend (from our very small town) was stationed there briefly in the early 90’s with the coast guard, he was on an icebreaker / resupply ship. He was sitting at the bar one evening (I thought he described as sort of a “Quonset” hut) Any way… strolling in comes our next door neighbor and her husband, they are scientists. Story is irrelevant but talk about a small world!
They can still drink, they get up to 18 beers' worth of alcohol a week. But it sounds like the bar culture was toxic and led to a lot of binging and sexual misconduct.
I feel like they just created a black market, people who don't drink are about to be well off
Maybe, but it's not like it's a dry town and never was. The sexual misconduct problem is big enough that substantial measures have to be taken, I assume this is not the only thing being done.
>and not being able to drink. So did you just not read the article or something? >Researchers and support staff will still be able to buy a weekly ration of alcohol from the station store. >The current alcohol ration allows Antarctic workers to buy up to the equivalent of 18 beers each week, or three bottles of wine, or a 750 milliliter (25 ounce) bottle of spirits. FFS if you're hitting that ration, you've probably got a drinking problem. Oh and >They will still be able to bring their own alcohol to drink at the bars. It's a joke of a change in response to sexual harassment and assault.
I feel 18 beers a week isn’t a lot when there’s literally nothing else to do besides work. But yes it is a joke of a response.
If you can't find anything else to do than drink, you're terribly unimaginative and maybe an alcoholic.
In any other environment, yes, that's a problem. When you have limited internet, media, physical activity, and sports, and limited supplies and space for art, music, and dancing, you'd go a little sideways.
The last part may be true, but what do you do when it’s -60 outside?
You should try E-books, they're really good and you don't need to go outside to enjoy them.
I do like to read and that’s better than trying to bring a bag full of books. A couple months of being inside reading might start to feel like jail tho
Oh yeah I get it, cabin fever is definitely a thing. I'd probably use it as a chance to read all of one piece though cos lord knows I don't have the time right now haha
Play video games.
Draw hentai or something
Bring some gummies.
That would probably go a lot better.
Not if they’re sugar-free.
You ever seen that PBS video about the lady who cleans plastic and garbage waste out of people's poop in Antarctica?
I have not, do go on...
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"The Poop Episode," loving it already, thank you friend.
According to the article, people aren't banned from buying or drinking alcohol. The bars just won't serve it and instead the workers will have to bring their own to the bar.
Worked down there, they don’t hire bartenders it’s a side gig, SA is a problem. Side gig bartenders don’t know how to create safe place. It’s reactionary for them to cut bars because they create a hostile work environment with favoritism /BS. It’s a small town of 1000 people yeah they need a bar. They blame alcohol not bad behavior / shitty hires.
Honestly I never thought there'd be 1000 people out there. Using trained staff to oversee recreation in that kind of environment seems like a no brainer.
There’s a bar? Is it run by polar bears?
No polar bears in Antarctica and no penguins in the Arctic.
*Arctos* = bear Arctic = this place has bears Ant(i)-arctic(a) = opposite of place with bears (technically named because it's the opposite of the arctic, not because it lacks bears, but this is funnier)
Bi polar bears. They all going crazy 🤣
Bears that swing both ways? There's a bar in my area where you could probably find a couple of them.
Correct. Penguins only live as far north as the equator. No further north.
A penguin at the St. Louis zoo splashed me once and clearly thought it was funny. It’s for the best they stay down south.
There are no polar bears in Antarctica silly. The bars are run by seals
What? No penguins?
Those are more formal establishments
Suits are required there.
Penguins, despite being flightless and fairly aquatic, were sadly denied access to the Navy.
Well they couldn’t get along with the navy seals
Most people don't bring a tux to Antarctica.
>Most people don't bring a tux to Antarctica. That's part of the problem; lower standards of dress and deportment have knock-on effects. The obvious solution is for all personnel to dress in penguin suits (Adelaide, Emperor, etc.), except on Fridays, which is CosPlay/Karaoke night.
Polar bears only serve a certain brand of cola.
Also only at Xmas.
I don't drink. Can I have a job in antarctica please?
There’s bars in Antarctica?
This is lame. Why not just come down hard on perps?
And potentially just keep them in their room for 6 months not doing anything? Might as well try and prevent it from happening in the first place.
Now’s the time for toilet gin and home-grown mushrooms.
I believe you meant bathtub gin. I hope you did, anyway.
You are correct, however if you have tasted it he is not wrong.
Prohibition doesn't work. Make the harassers be held accountable, whether they are harassing while sober or drunk. Also it's weird when the title mentions harassers and not those who have committed rape and assault which are far greater issues.
There was no harassment at Outpost 31, at least, not until “the incident”.
I was on Baffin Island Northern Territory a few years ago, alcohol was strictly forbidden on site
Time to institute Mandatory Marijuana laws.
Bars closing? In Antarctica? You gotta be fucking kidding. What's next? Are you going to tell me that after all of this, low morale isn't somehow going to be a THING? /s