cattmoth-blog

[cattmoth-blog]

when anticommunists tell u that “you havent paid attention to history” or “you need to study history” what theyre really saying is “why wont you take at face value the biased and often reductionist history you were taught by capitalists about why socialism is evil”. when they talk about “studying history” theyre not interested in talking about every coup the cia backed, every terrorist group the us funded in order to “fight communists”, every war that imperialist powers started over profit, or every innocent person killed in those wars. they dont want to talk about the history of violent racism and police brutality, or about every person the us government has tortured, or the history of suppression of leftists and the working class, or how companies fund right wing death squads, they just want to say “the ussr is why communism is bad”

[cattmoth-blog]

Caroline Knapp, Appetites 

[cattmoth-blog]

i really wish people would remember that like… being a woman is 100% a damned-if-you-do damned-if-you-dont scenario, always. like, as a basic example: women who do not adhere to cultural markers of femininity wrt to their physical appearance are socially punished for it, women who adhere to cultural markers of femininity are socially rewarded for it but adhering to cultural markers of femininity is not some sort of easy walk in the park either. because they are oppressive and time-consuming and at times physically damaging (eg high healed shoes). and while it is understandable as a response to the dumb “femmephobia” “red lipstick is empowering me” shit and also just the personal and often painful experiences of gnc women being scorned and ostracized by feminine women, it’s sort of essential if youre gonna do real feminist analysis not write these women off as vapid handmaiden enforcers of the patriarchy and to understand that the woman who is scared to leave her house without wearing makeup is suffering the same forced and systemic oppression as the woman who loses out on a job because she didnt wear makeup to the interview (which is an actual documented phenomenon, in case you were wondering)

this is, like i said, a basic example and also the way individual women experience this sort of thing will be heavily informed by race and class and sexuality but my main point is that trying to enforce a sort of privilege/oppression dynamic around women who confirm to gender roles/women who dont is shallow, single-faceted and frankly, requires a large amount of cognitive dissonance to make sense.

[cattmoth-blog]

[cattmoth-blog]

Evening cape by Emile Pingat, 1890s.

[cattmoth-blog]

just a heads up lads,

[cattmoth-blog]

Eastern screech owl

[cattmoth-blog]

There seems to be a lack of consciousness about housing in this country, and that makes building an effective tenants movement hard. Perhaps our ignorance stems from suburbanization and sprawl; it’s hard to build movements when people are kept far apart in separate houses on separate lots with few communal spaces except ones used for commerce—roads and malls and office parks. That suburban, individualistic mentality is now seeping into cities thanks to gentrification. With every new condo—and most now come outfitted with things like gyms and pools, day care centers, and bars in their lobby—it seems like cities become a bit more like vertical gated communities. Soon you’ll be able to live in a city without experiencing it at all. There’s also a deeper reason that will make it hard to challenge gentrification in the United States. This country was founded on displacement—on the idea that white men have a greater right to space, and even to people’s bodies, than anyone else. That’s taken the form of slavery, segregation, the genocide of Native Americans, and now, to a certain extent, gentrification. Gentrification is obviously very different from colonization, but they stem from the same mentality, which tells people that one person’s space is more valuable than another’s. The origin story that we tell ourselves over and over again in this country—that good, brave men came and settled a foreign, dangerous, and wild land and made it civilized—is essentially a gentrification narrative, and American development has always hinged on the idea of a conquered frontier. To fight gentrification is to fight American thinking. Gentrification is in our blood.

Peter Moskowitz, How to Kill a City

(via

lesbianrey

)

[cattmoth-blog]

Hiya tumblr, it’s me, Dennywise. Would you like your pancake back?

Take it.

[cattmoth-blog]

[cattmoth-blog]

Put dental implants in a fucking pumpkin you stupid fuck

[cattmoth-blog]

i think it’s very important to have a day where you pretend you’re from the middle ages and you’re just constantly astonished by everything like, all the spices and food available, books, music, running water, etc

[cattmoth-blog]

one of the more valuable things I’ve learned in life as a survivor of a mentally unstable parent is that it is likely that no one has thought through it as much as you have. 

no, your friend probably has not noticed they cut you off four times in this conversation. 

no, your brother didn’t realize his music was that loud while you were studying. 

no, your bff or S.O. doesn’t remember that you’re on a tight deadline right now.

no, no one else is paying attention to the four power dynamics at play in your friend group right now.  

a habit of abused kids, especially kids with unstable parents, is the tendency to notice every little detail. We magnify small nuances into major things, largely because small nuances quickly became breaking points for parents. Managing moods, reading the room, perceiving danger in the order of words, the shift of body weight….it’s all a natural outgrowth of trying to manage unstable parents from a young age. 

Here’s the thing: most people don’t do that. I’m not saying everyone else is oblivious, I’m saying the over analysis of minor nuances is a habit of abuse. 

I have a rule: I do not respond to subtext. This includes guilt tripping, silent treatments, passive aggressive behavior, etc. I see it. I notice it. I even sometimes have to analyze it and take a deep breath and CHOOSE not to respond. Because whether it’s really there or just me over-reading things that actually don’t mean anything, the habit of lending credence to the part of me that sees danger in the wrong shift of body weight…that’s toxic for me. And dangerous to my relationships. 

The best thing I ever did for myself and my relationships was insist upon frank communication and a categorical denial of subtext. For some people this is a moral stance. For survivors of mentally unstable parents this is a requirement of recovery. 

[cattmoth-blog]

Jin Akagi

[cattmoth-blog]

wouldn’t it be lit if physical beauty wasn’t the primary determinant of female worth? like idk I think it would just be fun lol

[cattmoth-blog]

Isabelle Huppert in Story of Women (1988), dir. Claude Chabrol

[cattmoth-blog]