Double Standards in Media and Society between Racism and Sexism: The Naked Truth

 - Vancouver, British Columbia - This past week, Virgin Atlantic Airlines boss Richard Branson stopped by Vancouver for the announcement of regular service to and from the Vancouver International Airport by Virgin Airlines. In the process, he did a few interviews and met with a few people of influence (read: politicians and business leaders). An invitation was extended to British Columbian Premier, Christy Clark, to go kite boarding with Richard Branson, but later, Branson made a blog post in which he stated that he had forgotten to mention what the required dress code was: that his female passenger be nude on his back, demonstrated by a cheesy photo with the woman's nudity being "covered" by her limbs.

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Women in Video Games: From Fairytale Princesses to Playboy Bunny Warriors

 - Vancouver, British Columbia - As a young gamer, I remember perusing the aisles of video games, looking for some new and exciting title for my Amiga, and later my Super Nintendo and PC. Yup, I used to use an Amiga computer. If you don't know what that is, let's just say that it was a computer that has long been forgotten by most. I played video games all the time growing up and games like Police Quest and Super Mario Bros. rank among my favourites of all time. However, I do remember there being a series of games known as Leisure Suit Larry, which was made by the makers of Police Quest, but it was strictly off-limits due to adult content. To this day, I don't even know to what extent the adult sexual content exists in the original game.

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Sexualizing our Female Athletes: How Media Holds Back Women's Sports Leagues

 - Vancouver, British Columbia - In the sporting world outside of synchronized swimming and gymnastics, women have continually been trying to catch up to their male counterparts, since sadly sports has traditionally been viewed as a male area of expertise. Even back at the original Olympic games in Athens in 1896, the first Olympics Games President and Founder, Pierre de Coubertin, discounted the idea of women competing in such events as "impractical, uninteresting, unaesthetic, and incorrect." Even when women were allowed to compete in lawn tennis and golfing in the 1900 Olympic games, de Courbertin stated his displeasure in 1910 that "if a woman wishes to pilot an airplane, no policeman has a right to stop her...but when it comes to public sports competitions, women's participation should be absolutely prohibited." In de Coubertin's mind, the Olympic games were "the solemn and periodic exaltation of male athleticism...with the applause of women as a reward." While many great advancements have been made towards equality in sport, there is still a significant amount of work to be done, as a prevalent sexism still exists and shows little signs of going away on its own any time soon.

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The Lingerie Football League and Society's Passive Acceptance of the Degradation of Women

 - Vancouver, British Columbia - The other day, much to my chagrin, I learned that Vancouver had recently been awarded the rights to a franchise in the Lingerie Football League (LFL). If you're like me and this week was the first time that you've heard of this supposed league, allow me to inform you that no, it is no joke, but instead it is a league that parades around attempting to convince others to take itself seriously. It takes no great imagination or description to figure out what this league is all about, as the league's title gives most of it away. Nonetheless, when I heard the news about the league coming to Vancouver, I couldn't help but feel disappointed about yet another example of society's passive acceptance of the degradation of women by even some of my friends welcoming this news item.

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If Women Ruled the World...

- Vancouver, British Columbia - In the history of our world, we have witnessed countless wars, extensive death, suffering, and poverty. It would seem as though the people running the world are simply incompetent, or worse, they run the world in such a fashion that only suits them and ignores the plight of the rest of us peons in the world. It has been argued that the reason for this horrific history of the world is the result of men ruling the world throughout history. The thinking goes that if women ruled the world, things would've been much more peaceful, harmonious, and equal. Right.

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