There is a strange contradiction in contemporary discussions of women and responsibility. Women are rightly treated as capable adults when the subject is independence, equality, professional achievement, sexual autonomy, political participation, or personal freedom. Yet when circumstances become sufficiently tragic or disturbing, the language can change dramatically. Suddenly the emphasis shifts toward vulnerability, psychological forces, social circumstances, hormones, trauma, or victimhood.
Where exactly should that line be drawn?
 None of this requires pretending that mental illness isn't real. Severe psychiatric illness can dramatically affect human behavior, perception, and judgment. The difficult question is what follows from that fact. Does explaining why someone acted remove responsibility for what they did? Does compassion require us to minimize accountability? And why do these questions become particularly emotionally charged when the accused person is a woman and a mother? 
Out later today, and as always, thanks so much for sticking with me. It is very much appreciated and I hope your weekend goes well. 

South Park could once end a teacher-student episode with the word “Nice.” The laugh only works if the audience already knows the old assumption. Most people under 25 have never lived inside that assumption. 
We live in the most sexualized environment in history and simultaneously treat a teenage boy’s desire as something that primarily needs protection rather than direction. 
Biology did not receive a software update in 2014. Culture did.
The “hot teacher” did not vanish. She became one of the largest categories in pornography while disappearing from acceptable comedy. 
Out later today, and as always, thanks so much for sticking with me. It is very much appreciated and I hope your week goes well.  

For years, Grand Theft Auto built its reputation by making fun of almost everyone. Politicians, corporations, celebrities, criminals, police officers and ordinary Americans could all become targets. But GTA VI is arriving at a time when audiences are increasingly sensitive to questions of representation and ideology. That creates a fascinating question: can Rockstar still make the same kind of satire it made twenty years ago?

Moreover,  Grand Theft Auto VI hasn't even arrived, yet it has already become the center of a surprisingly intense cultural argument. Before players have explored Leonida, completed missions or even met many of its characters, people are debating what the game supposedly represents. Is Rockstar simply continuing its tradition of social satire, or has GTA entered an entirely different cultural era?
Out now, and as always, thanks so much for sticking with me. It is very much appreciated and I hope your weekend goes well.