The Week: Most Recent from Emily Shire

Why Facebook makes breaking up even worse

The Week — Sat, 18 May 2013 13:30:00 -0400

Before you gleefully change your status to "in a relationship" and post photos with your new love for all of Facebook to see, consider this: A new study suggests that photos, posts on Facebook, and other digital reminders of an ex-love may prolong the pain of a break-up. Corina Sas of Lancaster University in the United Kingdom and Steve Whitaker of University of California Santa Cruz have researched how having to "dispos[e] of digital possessions" — posts, blog entries, videos, photos, even songs — hinders people's ability to move on after a relationship.

The authors interviewed 24...

Why is Jason Collins coming out a bigger deal than Brittney Griner?

The Week — Sun, 05 May 2013 12:45:00 -0400

With the nation's attention fixated for much of the last week on Jason Collins becoming the first active male athlete in a major team sport to come out as gay, you might be forgiven for forgetting — if you ever knew — that the number one WNBA draft pick, Brittney Griner, came out a few weeks ago. Or that Sheryl Swoopes did in 2005. Or that Martina Navratilova and Billie Jean King did in the 1980s (the latter was outed).

How do we explain the difference in media fanfare between Griner's announcement and Collins'? Why is Collins heralded over and over as a Jackie Robinson–type...

Gender stereotyping, sex guilting, and the problem with sweeping sexual conclusions

The Week — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 10:30:00 -0400

First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes a lot of arguments about how frequently a couple should have sex.

Last week — much to the delight of "sex-deprived" husbands and horny high school boys everywhere — Elizabeth Bernstein at the Wall Street Journal told the world how damaging it is for women to not have sex with the men in their lives. Focusing on the testimony of Chris Mower, a man who determined early on in his marriage that he and his wife were not having enough sex, Bernstein argued that "sex is a more emotional experience for men than for women."

... More

The newest dieting craze: Not eating

The Week — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 12:00:00 -0400

You've heard of the Scarsdale diet, the South Beach diet, and, of course, the almighty Atkins. But if you're tired of counting carbs and fats, why not just give up eating altogether?

That's the crux of the latest weight-loss fad: The Fast Diet. Dr. Michael Mosley of Britain has created a semi-starved army with his best-selling book of the same title. Also known as the 5:2 Diet, the gist is that you eat whatever you want five days a week, and then the other two days, you "fast" by consuming a quarter of your normal daily allotment of calories.

The theory is that you'll be "starving long enough...

Are bras bad for you?

The Week — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 09:43:00 -0400

Is it time to burn that bra? To the delight of adolescent boys across the globe, new research from France suggests that women would benefit from ditching the undergarment and going au naturel all the time. Professor Jean-Denis Rouillon, a specialist in sports medicine at the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Bensacon, recently published a study saying that women gained no health or shape advantage by wearing a bra. If anything, bras brought them down. Literally.

Over 15 years, Rouillon used a slide rule and calipers to measure the breasts of more than 300 female volunteers between the ages...

The celebrity sex tape craze: Is it finally dead?

The Week — Sun, 14 Apr 2013 09:20:00 -0400

In 1997, Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee unwittingly transformed celebrity pop culture when they filmed themselves having sex on a boat.

Of course, they didn't expect that the tape would be stolen and distributed as Pamela and Tommy Lee: Hardcore and Uncensored. But undeniably, "the modern, mass-market celebrity sex tape" was born, writes Maureen O'Connor at New York. Since then, the celebrity sex tape has flourished, with contributions from public figures as far-ranging as former vice presidential nominee John Edwards and McSteamy Eric Dane and wife Rebecca Gayheart. For some celebrities...

No more age restrictions on the morning-after pill: 4 takeaways

The Week — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 16:40:00 -0400

On Friday, Federal Judge Edward R. Korman ruled that the government must make the most common form of the morning-after pill, Plan B One-Step, available over-the-counter to women of all ages. This decision strikes down the current restriction that women 16 and under may only access the morning-after pill with a prescription. The Food and Drug Administration has 30 days to comply with orders to make the pill universally available. Here are four takeaways from the latest, politically fraught fight over contraception:

1. The government has blocked widespread access for more than a decade
It's been...

Is 'being yourself' enough to get into college?

The Week — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 18:17:00 -0400

With every April comes a fresh batch of disappointed high school seniors scorned by the increasingly competitive college admissions process. Some take this in quiet stride. Others take to the pages of a major national publication.

Pittsburgh high school senior Suzy Lee Weiss has written an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal lashing out at the colleges that rejected her. Though she admits she is suffering from "sour grapes," she feels it is necessary to call out colleges for not being more honest about their acceptance criteria. Their crime? Telling applicants to "just be yourself."

This advice...

Why is everyone shocked Victoria's Secret markets to teenagers?

The Week — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 17:26:00 -0400

It is a truth universally acknowledged that when teenage girls and anything remotely sexual are mentioned in the same sentence, there is bound to be controversy. People were already in a froth about the aggressive sexualization of teenage coeds in Harmony Korine’s Spring Breakers, and now Victoria’s Secret has inadvertently stirred the pot, with Chief Financial Officer Stuart Burgdoerfer admitting that the company markets to teenagers. "When somebody's 15 or 16 years old," he said, "they want to be older, and they want to be cool like the girl in college, and that's part of the magic...

World Down Syndrome Day: The pressing need to better understand mental disabilities

The Week — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 19:18:00 -0400

The United Nations has declared March 21 World Down Syndrome Day (WDSD), with the goal of "raising public awareness" of the intellectual disability. The U.N. hopes to spark discourse about Down Syndrome, starting with the Lots of Socks campaign to wear mismatched and brightly colored socks "to get people talking about WDSD."

However, many advocates believe that such campaigns are not enough, especially in light of the recent death of Robert Ethan Saylor. Saylor, a 26-year-old Maryland man with Down Syndrome, died of asphyxiation at the hands of local police. After seeing Zero Dark Thirty and being...

How to survive St. Patrick's Day

The Week — Sun, 17 Mar 2013 08:00:00 -0400

Everyone's Irish on St. Patrick's Day, or at least everyone who loves an excuse to drink during daylight hours. Indeed, the holiday has become synonymous with copious and joyful imbibing — but not everyone is well prepared for the holiday's many challenges. As Matthew Latkiewicz at New York warned last year, you need "proper training, forethought, and mental toughness to make it through in one piece." So: To make sure your Shamrock sunglasses are the only part of your face that turns green on Sunday, here are some tips to help you survive and enjoy St. Patrick's Day.

1. Honestly...

WATCH: Bar Mitzvah video invitations are a delightful new YouTube new trend

The Week — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 16:30:00 -0400

In much of America's Jewish community, bar mitzvahs are fondly and half-jokingly referred to as "the most uncomfortable day of your life." Think about it: Newly minted teens, often at the peak of their physical awkwardness, have to chant vowel-less Hebrew passages from the Torah in front of scores — sometimes hundreds! — of their friends and family members, then move on to a party where all eyes are on them as they palm-sweatingly try to work up the nerve to ask another awkward teen to dance. Not exactly YouTube material, right?

Well, okay, the Bar Mitzvah itself doesn't...