How is asking the question “Why are there no fat elves in Dungeons and Dragons?” offensive to feminists?

It’s the idea that women’s attractiveness has any sort of inherent value or importance. Beauty as a value is a product of and a contributor to objectification. It doesn’t matter whether you say “thin women are beautiful” or “fat women are beautiful”, you’re still valuing them based on appearance.

Online interaction and free speech

What John Scalzi said, after noting that despite the opinion of some people, not everywhere in the world is covered by the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America:
this person is just absolutely, completely, ice-pick-to the-eyeballs wrong in their understanding of the First Amendment, how it applies to my site, [...]

FAQ: if “gender is a social construct”, aren’t feminists saying that gender doesn’t really exist at all?

Updated 21 August 2008
A: NO. Social constructs are human conceptions, invented but not therefore imaginary (unless one thinks that social consequences are imaginary). Social constructs are human systems of social interaction organised around shared ideas. The shared ideas may be true, false or inaccurate, but the socially constructed systems that have developed [...]

You feminists just want to tell women to do what you want, instead of letting them CHOOSE (and we all know girls *choose* the girly stuff)

Bumped from the Open Suggestion thread, so that we can have a general discussion about the various issues surrounding how choices can be constrained by socialised expectations:
lala, on June 15th, 2008 at 1:53 am Said

I’m an engineer and pretty much always the only woman (or occasionally, one of two women) in any workplace setting. I [...]

Feminism Friday – “Feminists Look for Stuff to Get Mad About”

originally posted on Shakesville by Melissa McEwan | Monday, February 25, 2008 as Feminism 101: “Feminists Look for Stuff to Get Mad About”

[This is a new series in which I'll be addressing misconceptions or answering questions about feminism and/or feminists. There are certainly old posts that would naturally fall into a Feminism 101 series, like [...]

FAQ: if women like sex just as much as men do, then why is rape so bad? It’s just rougher sex, right?

AKA: Women like it, really! They say they don’t, but they do!
A: I’m not joking, some people still do use this argument. Even if most of them are just trolls looking to stir up outrage, this trope is still out there needing some debunking.
Potential PTSD Trigger Warning
OK, let’s go through this step by [...]

Feminism Friday: Popularity of long-debunked rape myths: talk about disheartening

Originally posted at Hoyden About Town
The top link offered to me on Stumble-Upon for Women’s Issues is this: Through a Rapists Eyes, a page on a rape-prevention site. Unfortunately, they are propagating misinformation, pure and simple.
Some of you may recognise the opening paragraphs as one of those emails that gets forwarded around the place. [...]