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Most of the time, life is a kiwi

But today, life is a coconut

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“they” (1 word) is shorter than “he or she” (3 words)

“they” is more inclusive than “he/she”

“themself” flows more naturally than “him or herself”

“they” is less clunky than “(s)he”

it’s time to replace the awkward “she or he”

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This is utter and absolute bullshit and Caster Semenya and all the other women who will find themselves in her position in the future due to this absurd, discriminatory ruling deserve so much better. I am so angry and so sad for her.

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is it possible that plants have consciousness?

this is actually a small sub branch of botany thats been growing and gaining some recognition in the past 5 years or so called plant cognition! we’ve been thinking about if plants can possibly be intelligent to any degree for centuries, but the main paper that started up this huge discussion in the modern era was one called Experience Teaches Plants to Learn Faster and Forget Slower in Environments Where It Matters by Monica Gagliano, a plant researcher in Australia who specializes in it. because the results indicated that plants were possible of learning and retaining information in a kind of memory in response to environmental changes, it received a lot of backlash and denial- generally in science, that kind of intelligent reaction to an organism’s environment is a good indicator of cognitive behavior in the organism. it got rejected by 10 different journals before being published in 2014. 

the experiment worked like this. i’ve talked before about mimosa pudica, a tropical plant that curls its leaves back when touched (they go back to normal in a few minutes):

this is to help deter predators among other things. but in this experiment, Gagliano used it as an indicator of stimulus and to test cognitive function. It’s well known that pudica has a rudimentary nervous system that can even be temporarily inhibited using anesthetics (just like ours can!). she hooked up a ton of these plants in pots to identical rail systems that allowed them to be lightly dropped in an identical way, juuuuust heavy enough to trigger the stimulus so all the leaves drop down when they hit the bottom (a piece of foam so they wouldn’t actually hurt the plants). every time the plants would be dropped, they would close up. 

but after the plants were dropped about 60 times each, they stopped responding to the drop. 

they remembered that no harm was coming from this action and decided that it was against their best interests to keep expending energy closing their leaves. they 200% learned to stop. 

she decided to test it further. she put some of the plants in a shaker and let them receive a more jarring response; the plants closed up as usual. then, she put them back in the droppers and dropped them again. they didn’t close up. they had remembered that response. this dispels the obvious rebuttal to this experiment of the plants just being tired; they still closed up when stimulated differently.

they just chose not to close up when they hit a stimulus they remembered. 

it turns out that not only could they remember to keep their leaves open when dropped on the apparatus, but they remembered after 28 days when she kept testing it!! apparently by the end of the experiment, all the plants had decided to keep their leaves open when dropped!!!!

how do they do this?? we literally dont know. they have no central brain, only a basic nervous system. can other plants do this??? 

well, adding onto that, venus fly traps can count! like. they have three hairs inside their traps, and all three must be touched within 20 seconds for the trap to close. once closed, those three trigger hairs must continue to be stimulated by thrashing prey, or the trap will reopen. 

so yeah like. basically ‘are they sentient’: apparently to an extent???? we dont know exactly why or how but they are??? maybe???? sort of????? at least some of them are?? but they dont have a brain so everyones like????????????????????? maybe its through a signaling network????????????????? but like how would that even work?????????

plant consciousness is still new enough to be dismissed as crazy by a lot of biologists but like. the evidence is there. we don’t know a whole lot and its clearly a radically different kind of intelligence than we know in animals, but it’s there and we 200% dont know how it works yet or even the full extent of how plants use this intelligence (for example: does a redwood have the same intelligence as a venus fly trap?? how does it learn things and use that knowledge???) 

national geographic wrote an awesome article visualizing the experiment here if you want to read more!

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On this day, 25 March 1911, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York took place, which killed 147 workers. The victims were mostly women and young girls aged 13 to 23 working in sweatshop conditions. Some were burned, others were trampled to death, desperately trying to escape via stairway exits illegally locked to prevent “the interruption of work.” 50 died leaping from the high-rise building to escape the flames. The company owners were charged with seven counts of manslaughter - but found not guilty. https://ift.tt/2UQDRWg

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Women protecting girls.

Girl code

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I Ship It

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This is our future and I have to say they are doing amazing! This is revolutionary I also love how all colors are banding together! They are brave & doing what needs to be done  ✊🏿                                                             

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Marsha and several other gay liberation activists, c. 1970

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“MY ARROGANCE KNOWS NO BOUNDS AND I WILL MAKE NO PEACE TODAY, AND YOU SHOULD BE SO LUCKY TO FIND A WOMAN LIKE ME” | Jenny Holzer, “Projections”

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i also need white feminist to realize that many woc find being mothers empowering because in more ways than one our ancestors had the right to be mothers taken away from them by white governments.

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Elle avait promis de témoigner à la barre en soutien pour Sandrine Rousseau : «Je m’y étais engagée auprès d’elle, je lui ai dit que si elle portait plainte, je dirais tout ce que je sais à la justice en tant qu’ancienne secrétaire nationale, mais aussi en tant qu’individu victime des agissements de Denis Baupin.» Jeudi matin, Cécile Duflot, ex-ministre du Logement, actuelle présidente d’Oxfam, est la première à se présenter devant la 17echambre du tribunal de grande instance (TGI) de Paris, où se déroule depuis lundi le procès en diffamation de l’affaire Baupin. Après l’avoir raconté aux policiers, elle raconte ce congrès mondial des Verts à São Paulo et ce soir de mai 2008. Denis Baupin qui lui demande par SMS son numéro de chambre d’hôtel «car il doit [la] voir», qui débarque devant sa porte quelques instants plus tard, qui lui caresse la nuque en lui disant : «Je suis sûr que tu en as autant envie que moi, laisse-toi faire.» Puis elle qui parvient à le repousser, à lui donner un coup de pied dans le tibia, avant de s’enfermer dans sa chambre.

La voix de Cécile Duflot tremble. A l’époque des faits, elle a un bébé de deux mois qu’elle a laissé en France pour le congrès. «Lorsque j’ai vu son regard en ouvrant la porte, j’ai paniqué instantanément. J’étais d’une vulnérabilité totale, je ne sais même pas comment j’ai réussi à refermer la porte de ma chambre», relate Cécile Duflot. Un épisode que la secrétaire nationale des Verts de l’époque refoulera pendant des années, sans jamais en parler au sein de son parti. «Je me suis menti à moi-même. C’est une agression sexuelle, simplement moi j’avais nié, dit-elle aujourd’hui. Jamais ça ne m’avait traversé l’esprit que cet évènement pouvait relever d’une plainte. J’étais une femme solide, très solide, avec une grosse capacité à encaisser. A cette époque, il y avait une différence entre la réalité et la manière dont j’avais vécu ces faits.»

En 2016, lorsque les journalistes de Mediapart et de France Inter qui enquêtent sur le comportement de Denis Baupin la sollicitent, elle refuse de raconter l’épisode : «Je me prépare à être candidate à la présidentielle, c’est bientôt les primaires, je ne veux pas leur parler. J’ai un grand sens du collectif, je pensais au parti, je voulais me taire pour l’intérêt général.» Puis, très émue : «Je regrette de ne pas m’être engagée, je m’en veux beaucoup. C’est une abdication en rase campagne et je n’en avais pas conscience. Aujourd’hui, je remercie sincèrement les journalistes. Sans cette enquête, Denis Baupin aurait continué. Car dans notre parti, sous couvert de comportement libertaire, de parité et tout ça, nous étions finalement très complaisants avec la violence [sexuelle].» Elle n’a aucun doute sur le fait que les femmes qui accusent Denis Baupin, et qui se retrouvent aujourd’hui sur le banc des prévenus, disent la vérité.

«Soulagée»

Et malgré tout ce que ce procès réveille et charrie pour sa famille politique, Cécile Duflot juge que cela vaut le coup : «Maintenant que c’est dit, les filles après nous, non seulement elles auront des responsabilités [politiques] mais, en plus, elles sauront qu’elles ne sont pas obligées de subir ça.» Me Emmanuel Pierrat, avocat de Denis Baupin, interroge Cécile Duflot sur les ramifications politiques au sein des Verts puis sa proximité avec Emmanuelle Cosse. Compagne de Denis Baupin, elle était entrée au gouvernement en 2016, deux ans après le départ de Cécile Duflot et de Pascal Canfin qui contestaient la ligne politique de Manuel Valls, nouveau Premier ministre. Duflot et Cosse, c’était «une immense amitié», qui s’est terminée en 2016. Ce jeudi après-midi, c’est Emmanuelle Cosse qui sera à la barre, pour prendre la défense de son compagnon.

Après son témoignage, Cécile Duflot récupère sa pièce d’identité. Elle quitte la salle. Elle marche la tête baissée. Certains de ses proches se lèvent pour la suivre. Dans le hall, elle craque. L’ancienne ministre du Logement tombe dans les bras de Elen Debost, l’une des six femmes aujourd’hui accusées de diffamation par Denis Baupin, puis de Marine Tondelier et Julien Bayou. Ils se regardent. Aucun mot. Des regards seulement. Cécile Duflot nous glisse : «C’était dur, j’angoissais depuis des jours mais ça fait du bien, je me sens beaucoup mieux. Aujourd’hui, je suis une femme soulagée.»

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Interview with Ursula K. Le Guin

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there’s a certain type of sexism u only see if u have brothers…even if it’s not stated, it’s always expected for daughters to be a caregiver and do more housework than the boys in the home. and when sons DO step up and do half as much they’re automatically given praise for things we don’t even get a simple thank you for. they’re also given a thousand times more freedom…it’s truly incredible to witness lmao