Catherine R. Hofmann

I read a few articles in the New York Times using a Chrome extension called Jailbreak the Patriarchy and found it empowering and revealing. It functions to swaps gender-specific words on any webpage to it’s opposite. For example, “he used his sister’s computer” is switched to “she used her brother’s computer”. From a gender-swapped perspective, never have so many women, worldwide, run the most powerful economies, businesses and laboratories, nor had they resorted to such violence.

Here are a few (swapped) observations and headlines: women were dunking in the NBA without fanfare; a group of armed women killed 7 peacekeepers in the Ivory Coast; men are very concerned about their looks; the Venezuelan government is a one-woman show; Mrs. Taylor, former president of Liberia, was sentenced to 50 years in prison for war crimes including rape, use of child soldiers and mutilation; women dominate the Fortune 500 and move a lot of money.

Certain themes seemed to be more predominant with one gender than the other but hopefully this will not always be so and some themes would be best as a thing of the past.

Be aware.