Need an abortion, Plan B or birth control? Don’t expect Siri to help you out

Siri, the iPhone 4S’s virtual assistant, has a puzzling new glitch — one with significant moral and political overtones.

If you ask Siri to direct you to a Planned Parenthood, you get the results you’d expect. But if you ask for an abortion clinic more generally, Siri will not return any results, even if they’re available. In some cases, Siri will even return results for “crisis pregnancy centers” that counsel women against abortions.

Similarly, if … Continue Reading

Aaron Sorkin: The Social Network's sexism comes from real life

Many fans of The Social Network, the new movie about the founding of Facebook, have one big problem with the film — its shabby treatment of women. See, for example, screenwriter Aaron Sorkin’s appearance on The Colbert Report, where news-comedian host Colbert asks why most of the movie’s female characters are “high, or drunk, or fucking guys in the bathroom. Why are there are no other women of any substance in the movie?”

Sorkin … Continue Reading