Avoid Poking Fun At Women

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Avoid Poking Fun At Women OLYMPIA, Wash. - An oral surgeon who temporarily implanted fake boar tusks in his assistant's mouth as a practical joke and got sued for it has ended up with the last laugh. Dr. Robert Woo of Auburn had put the phony tusks in while the woman was under anesthesia for a different procedure. He took them out before she awoke, but first he shot photos that eventually made it around the office.
The employee, Tina Alberts, felt so humiliated when she saw the pictures that she quit and sued her boss.
Woo's insurance company, Fireman's Fund, refused to cover the claim, saying the practical joke was intentional and not a normal business activity his insurance policy covered, so Woo settled out of court. He agreed to pay Alberts $250,000, then sued his insurers.
A King County Superior Court jury sided with Woo, ordering Fireman's Fund to pay him $750,000, plus the out-of-court settlement. The insurance company won the next round, with the state Court of Appeals saying the prank had nothing to do with Woo's practice of dentistry. On Thursday, the state Supreme Court restored Woo's award.
In a sprightly 5-4 decision, Supreme Court Justice Mary Fairhurst wrote that Woo's practical joke was an integral, if odd, part of the assistant's dental surgery and "conceivably" should trigger the professional liability coverage of his policy.
Dissenting Justice James Johnson said the prank wasn't a dental procedure at all and only "rewards Dr. Woo's obnoxious behavior and allows him to profit handsomely."
The backstory, the court wrote, is that Alberts' family raises potbellied pigs and that she frequently talked about them at the office where she worked for five years.
Woo said his jests about the pigs were part of "a friendly working environment" that he tried to foster.
The oral surgery on Alberts was intended to replace two of her teeth with implants, which Woo did. First, though, he installed temporary bridges that he had shaped to look like boar tusks, and while Alberts was still under anesthesia, he took photos, some with her eyes propped open. Before she woke up, he removed the "tusks" and put in the proper replacement teeth.
Woo says he didn't personally show her the pictures but staffers gave her copies at a birthday party.
Woo's lawyer, Richard Kilpatrick, described the surgeon as a kindhearted, fun-loving man who was chagrined that an office prank turned out so badly. He was delighted with the high court's decision, Kilpatrick said.
Attorneys for the insurance company did not immediately return calls for comment about the ruling.
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All Women Should Live In Sweden

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All Women Should Live In Sweden According to a new report, Sweden tops out as the #1 place for women to live. Is it the year-long maternity leave? The chance to date four men at once? The unisex public bathrooms?

The goal of equality starts young: "Anti-Sexism Awareness Training" begins in kindergarten, where male toddlers are encouraged to play with dolls, and females with toy tractors. In school, classes in cooking, sewing, metalworking, and woodworking are compulsory for both sexes. All education, including college, is free, and girls routinely outperform boys; in 2005, women made up more than 60 percent of all Swedish college students. All this adds up to more flexible gender roles later: As one Swedish Website puts it, "In our country, women drive the buses and men push the baby buggies."

Pewk.

While her boyfriend cleans house, Ebba focuses on being a role model for the 250,000 young female readers of her magazine.

Pewk x 3

Swedish couples — women and men — get 13 months paid leave and another three months at a fixed rate. Of that, 60 days must be taken by the mother, another 60 by the father, and the rest can be divided however they choose.

Goodness. Isn't the Swedish government generous! They can actually choose!

Wow!

This principle of equality extends to many other areas of life in Sweden. Women's sports are given as much TV airtime as men's, sometimes with higher ratings — 4 million Swedes watched the 2003 Women's World Cup soccer final.

Yawn.

But for all the benefits, how sweet are Swedish women's lives, really? A glaring inequality persists in the wage gap — women earn 83 percent of the average male salary. And Amnesty International recently criticized Sweden for not doing enough to tackle domestic violence and discrimination against ethnic minorities.

Yep. Not even the Swedes can do enough to tackle domestic violence.

I suggest killing all the men.

This could help to reduce the current holocaust of Swedish domestic violence - as well as save a few women's lives.

Some Swedish feminists have even more complaints. A new female-run political party, Feminist Initiative, was launched in 2005 on such platforms as abolishing marriage laws — thereby granting any two (or three, or four!) people cohabiting the same rights as a husband and wife — and legally requiring fathers to take as much time off for child care as mothers. While the party was initially touted as "the way for women's future," its support plummeted after its convention several months ago, during which members sang a rowdy song about "chopping men to bits."

Yes indeed. Chopping men to bits was a step too far - even for the Swedes.



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Women More Powerful In The Home

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Men might throw their weight around at the office, but at home, women are the bosses.
A study, which was just released, finds that wives have more power than their husbands in making decisions and dominating discussions.
"The study at least suggests that the marriage is a place where women can exert some power," said lead author David Vogel, a psychologist at Iowa State University (ISU). "Whether or not it's because of changing societal roles, we don't know.”
The results counter past research.
“Most of the research literature in psychology has suggested that women have less power,” Vogel told LiveScience. “They have largely based that on the fact that traditionally men earn more money and so therefore would have the ability to make big decisions in the relationship.” That wasn’t the case in this study.
Spouse survey says
Vogel, Megan Murphy, also of ISU, and their colleagues surveyed 72 married couples in which the spouses were an average of 33 years old and had been married for about seven years. Most of the participants (66 percent) were Caucasian, followed by Asian (22 percent), Hispanic (5 percent) and African American (4 percent). The final 3 percent represented “other” nationalities.
Each spouse answered questions about relationship satisfaction and overall decision-making ability. Then, each spouse noted a relationship problem that could not be resolved without the spouse’s cooperation. While money and housework were popular picks, sex didn’t come up much as a marital issue.
Topics chosen by husbands/wives included: Money—18 percent (husbands) / 13 percent (wives) Housework—15 percent / 15 percent Friends and family—10 percent / 19 percent Feelings and emotions—10 percent / 13 percent Time together—13 percent / 10 percent Making decisions—18 percent / 4 percent Sex—4 percent / 1percent Intimacy—1 percent / 1 percent Communication—3 percent / 4 percent Children—husbands never chose this topic; 3 percent of wives Other relationship changes—4 percent / 17 percent
The scientists videotaped the couples while they discussed each of the issues for 10 minutes.
Women power
Trained volunteers coded the videotapes using a scale that rated couples’ interactions based on words and behaviors associated with blame (blames, accuses and criticizes the partner); demand (nags, pressures for change, requests); withdrawal and avoidance (avoids discussion the problem by hesitating, changing topics, diverting attention or looking away); and discussion.
Wives were more demanding—asking for changes in the relationship or in their partner—and were more likely to get their way than the husbands. This held regardless of who had chosen the issue.
The women were not just talking more than their husbands.
"It wasn't just that the women were bringing up issues that weren't being responded to, but that the men were actually going along with what they said,” Vogel explained. “[Women] were communicating more powerful messages, and men were responding to those messages by agreeing or giving in.”
One reason for in-charge wives could be that they carry the weight of making sure the family farm is running smoothly.
"Women are responsible for overseeing the relationship, making sure the relationship runs, that everything gets done, and that everybody's happy," Murphy said.
Wife power could signal a harmonious couple. "There's been research that suggests that's a marker of a healthy marriage—that men accept influence from their wives," Murphy said.
The study, published in the April issue of the Journal of Counseling Psychology, was funded by the National Institute of Mental Health along with ISU

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