Feminist biology professor Anne Fausto-Sterling of Brown University contacted me recently about a research note about gendered colors in  that struck her as weak on evidence. I had the same reaction, and was mulling over how to respond to the article, but felt competent only to address the author's approach to historical evidence, not his science. (The original piece is behind a paywall, but described in this post at Life's Little Mysteries.) 

Fausto-Sterling and I reached across the disciplinary divide to co-authored a response that was just posted on her blog at the Huffington Post. Frankly, we need lots more of this in gender studies. Gender formation and the creative and transmission of gender signifiers are complex, multidisciplinary topics, and the more disciplines enter the conversation, the better we will understand them. And someday, I will even meet Anne Fausto-Sterling in real life! In the meantime, thank heaven for the Internet.

Lovely story from Germany. If men were really smart, they'd ditch the neckties and discover the joy of wearing a skirt when the weather gets hot!

I had a blast talking with Jay Ackroyd last Thursday night. Can't tell which was more fun: chatting with Jay via Skype or with the studio audience in Second Life afterwards. The entire interview is archived for your enjoyment. Listen below or on iTunes. It runs about an hour.

I'll be on BlogTalkRadio's Virtually Speaking tonight, talking about gender and clothing with host Jay Ackroyd. You can tune in (and chime in) beginning at 9 pm EDT. If you can't join us live, you can catch the show later online.

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/virtuallyspeaking/2012/08/24/jo-paoletti-virtually-speaking-with-jay-ackroyd

While listening to a live program on BlogTalkRadio, type comments and questions into the text field. Read what others write. Begin your question with 'QUESTION' so it's easy for the host to spot.

To join the conversation via Twitter, tweet #AskVS

I promise to post the recorded interview here, as well.

First, my deepest apologies for being so silent this summer. I'm deep in the research on my next book, Sex and Unisex, and feeling so overwhelmed by the amount of new information and ideas to share that the result has been blogger's block.

So here, to make it up, is a post from genealogist Dawn, who unearthed not only some baby pictures of a boy born in 1916, but a birth announcement, complete with pink ribbon. From the photos, little George was a blue-eyed blonde, so his parents weren't following the prevailing complexion rules. In Bridgeport, Illinois, was pink a boy color or just a baby color? Intriguing question, but the sample size is too small.