#income inequality tw

[allthecanadianpolitics]

Jacquie Holyoak is considering accessing medical assistance in dying (MAID) due to the debilitating pain of living with fibromyalgia. But she says it's a choice she might not even contemplate if her disability benefits didn't leave her struggling to make ends meet.

"I'm just really exhausted ... I need someone to help me, and I've been asking everywhere. And unless you have money, you're just not going to get the help," said Holyoak, who lives in Fergus, Ont.

The former medical assistant is on the Ontario Disability Support Program [ODSP], but says it's not enough to live off.

"If I wasn't on ODSP, would I be seeking MAID? I don't know that answer, but I'm leaning towards no, because my quality of life would be so much better," she told The Current's Matt Galloway.

Continue Reading.

Tagging: @politicsofcanada

[bubbles-the-banshee]

Happy WBW!

"What's the harshest part of your world? Be it a place, a law, something character-created or otherwise, what is just HARSH?"

Thank you @toribookworm22 for sustaining me! <3

The most consistently harsh part of Goddess Dead—in Hervaskor, specifically—is income inequality and the divide between the wealthy, upper class and those living below the poverty line.

The income inequality is so severe in Hervaskor that it kills people, regularly. They die from curable diseases, starve to death—are born and die in gutters because there is no ladder out. They make doomed deals just for a chance at survival. They steal, lie, and cheat—risk life and limb—for stale bread and the possibility of tomorrow.

As I mentioned in one of my other world-building posts, Eliott didn't attend a magick school, and they grew up in a dilapidated theater underground. From birth, their lack of money and status affected how they saw the world—what they could achieve and how. What saved them was luck, running into the right person with the right connections and desires at the right time.

They've lost so many loved one's, and the worst part is that each death was entirely preventable—a matter of money and resources, not will.

“She was right,” I muttered. “The only reason you helped me is because I can do magick.” My laughter grew ragged—my hands scrambling between my ears and mouth. My eyes welled with tears. “I’m just a tool to you, aren’t I?”

[he-is-lightning-in-a-bottle]

2023 Year in Review

In celebration of the coming New Year, I decided to do a re-watch of every drama I gave 3 or more stars in 2023. Only 15 made the cut, which given the number of dramas I watched (I started well over 200, although I dropped at least a third of those) is not that many.

(My rating system is pretty simple: 1 ⭐ = terrible/don't recommend/waste of time, 2 ⭐⭐ = pretty good/enjoyable/would recommend to others but probably never re-watch, 3 ⭐⭐⭐ = good/likely to re-watch, 4 ⭐⭐⭐⭐ = practically perfect/would re-watch frequently. As you can see, it's more about what I personally enjoy than what's objectively great. So some objectively good shows aren't on this list, like La Pluie or Wedding Plan or Our Dating Sim or Doctor Cha or King the Land or Call it Love, because they got a lower score from me because I'm not that likely to ever re-watch them even though I'm glad I watched them and I'll happily recommend them to others. Of course, my ratings are subject to change over time too because I often surprise myself with what I re-watch. Some shows that I originally gave 2.5 stars have eeked out 3.5 stars over the following year or two just because they grew on me and I kept re-watching them.)

As such, my plan to ring in the New Year is to re-watch:

Lost/Human Disqualification - ⭐⭐⭐/⭐ - (IQIYI/Amazon Prime, kdrama, slice of life, healing journey, slight romance, a 42yo woman pushed to the breaking point by life crosses paths with a 27yo man who is mourning the loss of his friend, outstanding dialog, killer A+ acting, tw: infidelity, miscarriage, and suicide BUT DON'T LET THAT SCARE YOU AWAY)

Hit The Spot ⭐⭐⭐ (Viki, kdrama, romcom, 2 women begin hosting a sex advice podcast, funny, sex positive education, extraordinarily relatable, high heat, 8 30min eps)

The Glory ⭐⭐⭐/⭐ (Netflix, kdrama, 36yo woman patiently takes revenge on her childhood bullies, slight romance, incredible dialog, A+ acting, excellent pacing and powerful reveals, tw: the highschool bullies are evil little sociopaths who do some extremely horrific shit)

The Eighth Sense ⭐⭐⭐/⭐ (Viki, gay romance, kdrama, incoming freshman who is a rural-transplant to Seoul meets exiting senior and joins his surf club, gorgeous production, healing past trauma, A+ acting and insanely believable physical chemistry, good OST)

Love Tractor ⭐⭐⭐ (IQIYI, gay, short kbl, big city law student with musical ambitions hides from his responsibilities in the countryside and meets a younger himbo farmer with a heart of gold)

Sing My Crush ⭐⭐⭐/⭐ (IQIYI, kBL, a talented but heartbroken young man is about to give up on his musical dreams when he is adopted by an eager wannabe manager, best friends to lovers, cohabitation, pining, good plot and chemistry)

Moonlight Chicken ⭐⭐⭐⭐ (YouTube, Thai, gay romance + BL, one night stand between a struggling chicken diner owner and a recently promoted office worker turns into more, HS student and lonely deaf boy become the cutest couple to ever cute, A+ writing and acting, themes of: found family, making a home, love matters even when it doesn't end well, class inequality, queer generational divides, letting go of the past, a radically compassionate look at first love, last love, lost love, and unrequited love)

Bed Friend ⭐⭐⭐ (IQIYI, Thai, gay office romance, enemies to FWB to lovers, healing past trauma done right, ridiculously pretty leads, consent kings, high heat, A+ lead chemistry and acting, soft landing in the final 2 eps, tw: sexual assault)

My School President ⭐⭐⭐/⭐ (Viki, Thai, BL, high school boys singing their feelings [well!], wholesome, gentle, sweet and funny, A+ production values, peak low-heat BL with well-executed tropes)

Be My Favorite ⭐⭐⭐ (Youtube, Thai, BL, repressed and fearful boy travels back in time to his college days to woo his crush and falls in love with his supposed rival instead, themes: living each moment to the fullest so you won't have regrets, kindness as a catalyst for character growth and positive change, bravery in the face of uncertainty, telling people you love them can only be a good thing)

Laws of Attraction ⭐⭐⭐ (IQIYI, Thai, gay, mystery/romance lakorn, evil unhinged babygirl lawyer and the heroic idealistic taekwondo instructor who falls for him work together to solve the mystery of his niece's death, loveable granny, A+ lesbians, happy endings all around, great acting and lead chemistry)

Jack O'Frost ⭐⭐⭐ (Viki, Japan, gay, amnesiac young man and his co-habitating ex begin their relationship again, short 6 ep, A+ acting, excellent production values)

Hold my Hand at Twilight ⭐⭐⭐ (Viki, jdrama, twenty-something city mouse meets country mouse and they begin the journey towards making their dreams come true, cohabitation, warm-hearted, angsty 3rd act, A+ acting, excellent banter, post-credit epilogue)

Kiseki: Dear to Me ⭐⭐⭐ (Viki, Taiwan, gay, hardworking med student falls for the gang member he secretly treats, insane plot includes time skip and amnesia [2 tropes I usually hate, but actually done well in this case and not annoying], domesticity, cohabitation, hurt/comfort, friends to lovers, short total runtime)

Fake It Till You Make It ⭐⭐⭐/⭐ (Viki, China, romance, 🔥 lead chemistry, snappy banter, disarmingly honest and vulnerable leads, this couple wants to eat each other for dinner AND dessert but constantly chooses not to because of other life priorities and fears, friends with killer UST to lovers who communicate shockingly well, all the characters feel like real people instead of caricatures)

[crystalis]

^ link to the report

(continuation of tweet and excerpt from the report under Read More)

"The human rights situation in the United States continued to deteriorate in 2023. In the United States, human rights are becoming increasingly polarized. While a ruling minority holds political, economic, and social dominance, the majority of ordinary people are increasingly marginalized, with their basic rights and freedoms being disregarded. A staggering 76 percent of Americans believe that their nation is in the wrong direction.

Political infighting, government dysfunction, and governance failure in the United States have failed to protect civil and political rights. Bipartisan consensus on gun control remains elusive, contributing to a continued surge in mass shootings. Approximately 43,000 people were killed by gun violence in 2023, averaging 117 deaths per day. Police brutality persists and at least 1247 deaths were attributed to police violence, marking a new high since 2013, yet the law enforcement accountability system remains virtually nonexistent. Taking up less than 5 percent of the global population, the United States accounts for 25 percent of global prison population, earning the title of a "carceral state." Political infighting intensifies as parties manipulate elections through gerrymandering, leading to "Speaker crisis "for twice in the House of Representatives, further diminishing the government's credibility, with only 16 percent of Americans trusting the federal government.

Deep-rooted racism persists in the United States, with cases of severe racial discrimination. United Nations experts point out that systemic racism against African Americans has permeated the U.S. police force and criminal justice system. Due to significant racial discrimination in the healthcare sector, the maternal mortality rate for African American women is nearly three times that of white women. Nearly 60 percent of Asians report facing racial discrimination, with the "China Initiative" targeting Chinese scientists having far-reaching consequences. Racist ideologies proliferate across multiple sectors such as social media, music, and gaming, and spill over across borders, making the United States a major exporter of extreme racism internationally.

The United States is witnessing intensified wealth inequality, with the phenomenon of "Working poor" becoming more pronounced, and the economic and social rights protection system is seen as ineffective. Long-standing disparities in the distribution of income between labor and capital have resulted in the most severe wealth gap since the Great Depression of 1929. There are 11.5 million low-income working families in the United States, but the federal minimum wage has not been raised since 2009. As of 2023, the purchasing power of one U.S. dollar has declined to 70 percent of its value in 2009. Low-income families struggle to afford basic necessities such as food, rent, and energy, leading to over 650,000 people experiencing homelessness, reaching a new high in 16 years. "Working poor" has shattered the "American Dream" for hardworking individuals, contributing to the broadest wave of strikes since the beginning of the 21st century, occurring in 2023.

Women and children's rights in the United States have long been systematically violated, with constitutional provisions for gender equality remaining absent. The United States remains the only UN member state that has not ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. In April 2023, the U.S. Senate rejected a constitutional amendment to guarantee gender equality. In the United States, approximately 54,000 women lose their jobs annually due to pregnancy discrimination. Over 2.2 million women of childbearing age cannot access maternity care. At least 21 states have enacted bans or strict restrictions on abortion. Maternal mortality has more than doubled in the past two decades. Sexual violence is rampant in workplaces, schools, and homes. Children's rights to survival and development are in jeopardy, with many children excluded from healthcare assistance programs. Gun violence remains a leading cause of child deaths, and drug abuse is rampant among youth. Forty-six states have been found to underreport around 34,800 cases of missing foster children.

The United States, a country that has historically and presently benefited from immigration, faces severe issues of exclusion and discrimination against immigrants. Practices of exclusion and discrimination against immigrants have been deeply ingrained in the U.S. institutional structure, from the infamous Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 to the internationally condemned “Muslim Ban” in 2017. Today, the immigration issue has become a tool for partisan gain and political blame-shifting, with politicians disregarding the individual rights and welfare of immigrants. Immigration policies are simplified into partisan positions of "If you support, I oppose," ultimately becoming political theatrics to manipulate voters. The immigration crisis falls into a vicious cycle, with immigrants and children subjected to widespread arrests, human trafficking, and exploitation. The hypocrisy of political polarization and the hypocritical nature of American human rights are glaringly evident in the immigration issue.

The United States has long pursued hegemonism, practiced power politics, and abused force and unilateral sanctions. Continuous delivery of weapons such as cluster munitions to other countries exacerbates regional tensions and armed conflicts, resulting in a large number of civilian casualties and severe humanitarian crises. Extensive "proxy forces" operations undermine social stability and violate the human rights of other nations. Guantanamo Bay prison remains open to this day."

[gravitasmalfunction]

tl;dr - my personal nightmare scenario where the free market invents new forms of human trafficking to profit off social assistance already exists

I am very much for universal basic income or negative taxation but not in the uncritical techbro utopian sense that robots are coming for all our jobs and therefore techbros ought to qualify for a pension instead of unemployment when they get laid off for good (and non-techbros can also have the pension, aren't they generous, not supporting them is illogical).

But I worry that reducing the social problem of inequality and it's solution down to "everyone gets cash money by default" and nothing else about society changes brings about all sorts of horrible foreseeable consequences where bad actors decide to profit by using people as a source of revenue.

For example: rents go up, especially the lowest rents. Housing is still scarce and landlords know even the worst-off people have access to a certain amount of cash per week, and they put the rent up accordingly. Without universal housing, the private market can simply siphon off UBI from individuals.

Perhaps then the law intervenes and rent is capped. Housing is still scarce and options are still limited at the lower end of affordability. Landlords work out how to charge for extras, lure tenants in with what seem like really good deals, then the tenants discover nothing is as promised and they're still on the hook for lease break fees and other penalties if they try to complain or move out.

The point is, UBI is just one part of the system of living standards and it can't and won't solve inequality on its own. It's not a complete solution for people who are already at a systemic disadvantage.

The nightmare scenario for UBI is that it unintentionally incentivises new forms of human trafficking. We're already seeing this in Australia with NDIS. TW: abuse, human trafficking.

Australia is a wealthy country with social support systems in place. But those systems aren't robust enough to prevent bad actors farming cash off people who suddenly have money in their budget for living expenses.

I don't think it's possible for a UBI to work in a system where basic needs are allowed to be supplied for profit. UBI ought to be one component in a broader system of guaranteed living standards that includes housing, health and personal care, education, transit, communications, energy and safety.

I am still pro-UBI but I want it to be part of a system that works as intended, to benefit people rather than making it possible to take advantage of them. Protecting NDIS participants is inherently important right now and seems like a great test case for reshaping social support systems that will be useful if/when UBI ever becomes reality.

[liberaljane]

🦇

Art by Liberal Jane

[allthecanadianpolitics]

A total of 216 people experiencing homelessness died in Toronto last year, according to new data from the city.

Figures released on Friday by Toronto Public Health (TPH) indicate that there was an average of 4.2 deaths per week of unhoused people last year.

The city says the number of deaths in 2021 rose significantly from 2020. Seventy-two more people died last year than in the previous year, when 144 unhoused people died. The number of deaths has more than doubled since 2017 — the first year that the city collected such statistics — when 101 people died.

A full 55 per cent of the deaths in 2021 were due to drug toxicity, the data shows. Other causes of death include heart disease, accidents, complications from diabetes, hypothermia, liver and lung disease, organ failure, suicide and cancer.

The city says 132 out of the 216 people who died were residents of homeless shelters.

Continue Reading.

Tagging: @politicsofcanada

[recoveryisrough]

I feel like I'm constantly pulled between

"Everything is awful and there's nothing I alone can do about it"

"Don't get discouraged that's what they want to happen! Don't be complacent!"

"It's okay to ignore all the bad stuff that's happening if that's what it takes for you to survive"

Like yall gotta choose whether you want me to care and fight for stuff or whether you want me to live :/

[illnessfaker]

( tw: discussion of systemic antiblack violence, discrimination, and resulting death )

America has a death problem.

No, I’m not just talking about the past year and a half, during which COVID-19 deaths per capita in the United States outpaced those in similarly rich countries, such as Canada, Japan, and France. And I’m not just talking about the past decade, during which drug overdoses skyrocketed in the U.S., creating a social epidemic of what are often called “deaths of despair.”

I’m talking about the past 30 years. Before the 1990s, average life expectancy in the U.S. was not much different than it was in Germany, the United Kingdom, or France. But since the 1990s, American life spans started falling significantly behind those in similarly wealthy European countries.

According to a new working paper released by the National Bureau of Economic Research, Americans now die earlier than their European counterparts, no matter what age you’re looking at. Compared with Europeans, American babies are more likely to die before they turn 5, American teens are more likely to die before they turn 20, and American adults are more likely to die before they turn 65. At every age, living in the United States carries a higher risk of mortality. This is America’s unsung death penalty, and it adds up. Average life expectancy surged above 80 years old in just about every Western European country in the 2010s, including Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, Germany, the U.K., Denmark, and Switzerland. In the U.S., by contrast, the average life span has never exceeded 79—and now it’s just taken a historic tumble.

Why is the U.S. so much worse than other developed countries at performing the most basic function of civilization: keeping people alive?

“Europe has better life outcomes than the United States across the board, for white and Black people, in high-poverty areas and low-poverty areas,” Hannes Schwandt, a Northwestern University professor who co-wrote the paper, told me. “It’s important that we collect this data, so that people can ask the right questions, but the data alone does not tell us what the cause of this longevity gap is.”

Finding a straightforward explanation is hard, because there are so many differences between life in the U.S. and Europe. Americans are more likely to kill one another with guns, in large part because Americans have more guns than residents of other countries do. Americans die more from car accidents, not because our fatality rate per mile driven is unusually high but because we simply drive so much more than people in other countries. Americans also have higher rates of death from infectious disease and pregnancy complications. But what has that got to do with guns, or commuting?

By collecting data on American life spans by ethnicity and by income at the county level—and by comparing them with those of European countries, locality by locality—Schwandt and the other researchers made three important findings.

First, Europe’s mortality rates are shockingly similar between rich and poor communities. Residents of the poorest parts of France live about as long as people in the rich areas around Paris do. “Health improvements among infants, children, and youth have been disseminated within European countries in a way that includes even the poorest areas,” the paper’s authors write.

But in the U.S., which has the highest poverty and inequality of just about any country in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, where you live is much more likely to determine when you’ll die. Infants in the U.S. are considerably more likely to die in the poorest counties than in the richest counties, and this is true for both Black and white babies. Black teenagers in the poorest U.S. areas are roughly twice as likely to die before they turn 20, compared with those in the richest U.S. counties. In Europe, by contrast, the mortality rate for teenagers in the richest and poorest areas is exactly the same—12 deaths per 100,000. In America, the problem is not just that poverty is higher; it’s that the effect of poverty on longevity is greater too.

Second, even rich Europeans are outliving rich Americans. “There is an American view that egalitarian societies have more equality, but it’s all one big mediocre middle, whereas the best outcomes in the U.S. are the best outcomes in the world,” Schwandt said. But this just doesn’t seem to be the case for longevity. White Americans living in the richest 5 percent of counties still die earlier than Europeans in similarly low-poverty areas; life spans for Black Americans were shorter still. (The study did not examine other American racial groups.) “It says something negative about the overall health system of the United States that even after we grouped counties by poverty and looked at the richest 10th percentile, and even the richest fifth percentile, we still saw this longevity gap between Americans and Europeans,” he added. In fact, Europeans in extremely impoverished areas seem to live longer than Black or white Americans in the richest 10 percent of counties.

Third, Americans have a lot to learn about a surprising success story in U.S. longevity. In the three decades before COVID-19, average life spans for Black Americans surged, in rich and poor areas and across all ages. As a result, the Black-white life-expectancy gap decreased by almost half, from seven years to 3.6 years. “This is a really important story that we ought to move to the forefront of public debate,” Schwandt said. “What happened here? And how do we continue this improvement and learn from it?”

One explanation begins with science and technology. Researchers found that nothing played bigger roles in reducing mortality than improvements in treating cardiovascular disease and cancer. New drugs and therapies for high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and various treatable cancers are adding years or decades to the lives of millions of Americans of all ethnicities.

Policy also plays a starring role. Schwandt credits the Medicaid expansion in the 1990s, which covered pregnant women and children and likely improved Black Americans’ access to medical treatments. He cites the expansion of the earned-income tax credit and other financial assistance, which have gradually reduced poverty. He also points to reductions in air pollution. “Black Americans have been more likely than white Americans to live in more-polluted areas,” he said. But air pollution has declined more than 70 percent since the 1970s, according to the EPA, and most of that decline happened during the 30-year period of this mortality research.

Other factors that have reduced the Black-white life-expectancy gap include the increase in deaths of despair, which disproportionately kill white Americans, and—up until 2018—a decline in homicides, which disproportionately kill Black Americans. (The recent rise in homicides, along with the disproportionate number of nonwhite Americans who have died of COVID-19, will likely reduce Black life spans.)

Even then, Black infants in high-poverty U.S. counties are three times more likely to die before the age of 5 than white infants in low-poverty counties. But Schwandt insists that highlighting our progress is important in helping us solve the larger American death problem. “We are wired to care more about bad news than about good news,” he said. “When life expectancy rises slightly, nobody cares. But when life expectancy declines, suddenly we’re up in arms. I think that’s a tragedy, because to improve the health and well-being of our populations, and especially of our disadvantaged populations, we have to give attention to positive achievements so that we can learn from them.”

We’re a long way from a complete understanding of the American mortality penalty. But these three facts—the superior outcomes of European countries with lower poverty and universal insurance, the equality of European life spans between rich and poor areas, and the decline of the Black-white longevity gap in America coinciding with greater insurance protection and anti-poverty spending—all point to the same conclusion: Our lives and our life spans are more interconnected than you might think.

For decades, U.S. politicians on the right have resisted calls for income redistribution and universal insurance under the theory that inequality was a fair price to pay for freedom. But now we know that the price of inequality is paid in early death—for Americans of all races, ages, and income levels. With or without a pandemic, when it comes to keeping Americans alive, we really are all in this together.

[ecstasyisbadforyou]

Lord Alan Sugar knows exactly how to close the gender wage gap.

[justsomeantifas]

Okay but y’all that foot drawing was bad? Wait hear this guy in class write about how we should reduce problems related income inequality. 

Firstly, he connects crime with social status and explains it by saying that people don’t want to work for things but they still “want to look good and live the good life.” His solution? The government needs to start “amputating extremities for theft,” and start stoning people for crimes - oddly he uses adultery as one example of who we should be stoning. We also need to start thinking of dealing with other “extreme punishments,” to deal with crime. 

Next he referenced a video in class that showed the correlation between infant mortality and income status. Okay yeah, so naturally he took this upon himself to blame the parents for being poor. His suggestion is that parents should be required to attend educational parenting classes after pregnancy occurs and that they need to qualify for formula. 

Please let this semester end already.

[lightningbisexual]

"cHECK YoUr LiBerAL PNW pRivilEge"

ah yes, seattle, a gay haven. also home to:

1. japanese internment camp history w the Remember the Pearl Harbor League (RPHL) and the Japanese Exclusion League

neo-nazi/racist skinhead hate groups like American Front, American Patriot Brigade, Aryan Skins Kindred, Atomwaffen Division, Crew 38, The Daily Stormer, Firm 22, Northwest Hammerskins, Pacific Coast KKK, Pacific Northwest Wolfpack Kindred, Patriot Front, Proud Boys, Respect Washington, Vinlanders Social Club, and Wolves of Vinland

Proud Boys and Respect Washington explicitly have chapters in Seattle while the rest are statewide

 neighborhood/school segregation. Note that, among some other neighborhoods, white people of Seattle’s very expensive gay neighborhood Capitol Hill would explicitly ban african and asian american homeowners in the early 20th century

2016′s top 20% of income earners receiving 50+% of total city income

the US's 3rd biggest homeless population

denial of federal recognition/funding/human services to Duwamish tribal programs

one of the biggest black-white student achievement gaps in the US

a lawsuit by youth of color against state governor’s inaction on environmental justice being thrown out by state judge on basis of climate change politicization

police attending seattle pride 2018 just weeks after shooting black mother of four Charleena Lyles and 20yo Asian-American Tommy Le; protesting poc harassed (x, x, x)

TLDR; stop erasing the struggles of POC in majority white liberal areas. Especially LGBT POC!

[meddling-in-antiquity]

We Love One (1) Lady Detective in This House

Hello time to yell about Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries.

Brief tw: issues in episode listing include mentions of violence against women, children, and people of color, so please be mindful of your own mental and emotional state if you decide to read!!

So if you’re a 20s fan, love fashion, or really love women, then you should be watching this show.

Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries is based on a series of novels written by Ms Kerry Greenwood that began publication in 1989. The show began running in 2012 on The Australian Broadcasting Corporation and continued airing until 2014, when the show was unfortunately cancelled due to budgeting issues. However, there was a crowdfunding effort by the cast and crew to attempt to give the series a better ending, and the fans a sense of closure. This was extremely successful, and led to Miss Fisher and the Crypt of Tears, which was released in the US via the AcornTV app in mid-April.

The characters created by Greenwood are consistently engaging, and their development done well. The lead, Phryne Fisher (played flawlessly by Essie Davis), is a complex character who never takes herself too seriously and loves flouting authority and skirting the law as fashionably as possible. DI Jack Robinson (played by Nathan Page) is extremely serious about trying to halt Phryne’s involvement in his investigations, but eventually warms to her constant “interference” with his duties. Their companions, Hugh and Dot (Hugo Johnstone-Burt and Ashleigh Cummings respectively), are both young and trying to find their way in life, and watching them grow and change throughout the show is extremely pleasing to see. Phryne’s sometimes associates Cec and Bert (Anthony Sharpe and Travis McMahon) add an element of comedy to the situations they are involved in, usually stemming from their devotion to the Communist Party. Rounding everything out, we have Mac (played with great care and enthusiasm by Tammy MacIntosh), a red-headed masculine presenting lesbian doctor with a strong will who does not shy away from her wlw ways.

In regards to the show’s production, the show is crewed primarily by women, and it shows. The show is filmed with the female gaze, meaning that the characters who are sexualized most overtly are the men that Phryne sleeps with. Phryne is never seen in a state of undress that shows off her body is a hypersexual way, which is honestly one of the most refreshing things about viewing the show.

The show itself tackles tons of socio-political issues that vary from sexism, racism, homophobia, xenophobia, and many more. What follows is a brief breakdown of the most relevant episodes in regards to this, along with the issues involved:

1.1- abortion

1.3- racism, fetishism of women of color, homophobia/anti-sodomy laws

1.7- intimate partner abuse

1.9- pedophilia/coercion

1.10- income inequality, homophobia (specific lesbophobia)

1.11- discrimination, corrupt law enforcement, transphobia (intersected character)

2.1- sex worker’s rights, sexual blackmail

2.3- alcoholism/addiction, prohibition

2.4- anti-aboriginal sentiment, separation of white passing children from dark skinned family

2.7- sexism and driving, wealth and adoption/fostering

2.8- women’s education rights, racism

2.10- xenophobia (specifically against Germans post WW-II)

2.12- sex trafficking, police/church corruption

3.2- women in the military (focus on Royal Air Force)

3.5- women’s mental health, bodily autonomy, unhealthy coping mechanisms, incestuous sexual coercion

3.7- women in sports/athletics, gender based pay gap, unwanted pregnancy

Overall, the show is visually stunning, well-casted, and able to tackle difficult issues with grace and tact. It’s totally worth the watch, and definitely worth the binge. It’s no longer on Netflix, but is available through AcornTV’s streaming service independently or via an additional subscription fee on Amazon Prime. With each episode being about an hour, and the movie now available as well, it’s the ideal repeat quarantine binge.

Happy watching!

[menalez]

Unrelated to the drama, but how do you trans women experience pay inequality, when we’ve seen time after time trans women get jobs over actual woman simply because they are trans. I mean didn’t that UK trans political who’s dad literally kidnapped and sexually assaulted a child in the house he was staying in and has been oddly connected to a lot of Paedophilic stuff literally get a job at Reddit after? And Reddit even went as far as censoring any mention of his name before public outcry force them to fire him. If anything I would think The issue of pay inequality does exist in the trans community but it affects trans men a lot more than it affects trans women.

i think the tw themselves got it removed from Reddit using their power but yeah + let’s not forget the women’s officer in the UK where it’s apparently soooo dangerously transphobic is a trans woman who’s also pretty shitty. or the fact that trans men are less frequently in positions of power compared to tw. i haven’t seen anything about income inequality for trans women but anon’s information seems dodgy at best

[antoine-roquentin]

it’s rarely talked about in mainstream press, but the growth of incomes in the first world alongside the destruction of most third world developmentalist policies under the guise of the washington consensus has shifted the priorities of governments across the world, especially those of smaller nations. the high incomes for even menial labour in the first world means that a single family member sending money back to their family in a poor nation can boost living standards tremendously. countries like lebanon, nepal, honduras, jamaica, moldova, and timor-leste have over 15% of their total gdp supplied entirely by workers outside of the country. eastern european countries, especially the baltics, have lost significant percentages of their populations as low wage workers in western european nations. the governments of these countries tend to encourage this by expediting emigration to the first world and allowing recruiters from first world nations, even those who are immensely abusive, to operate openly in their countries. their tax bases and economies are ultimately becoming reliant on these practices for growth. this is overwhelming many poorer nations with social dislocation while leading to millions of easily-abusable workers putting downward pressure on wages in the west, with little chance of direct labour organizing.

this is the context that is denied in the only relevant part of this new york times article:

A recent study looking at inequality in Cuba revealed a segregated society: 70 percent of black and mixed-race Cubans said they didn’t have access to the internet, compared with 25 percent of white Cubans. The racial wealth gap was also vast: While 50 percent of white Cubans had a banking account, only 11 percent of black Cubans said they had one. Moreover, white Cubans received 78 percent of remittances to Cuba, and they controlled 98 percent of private companies. 

american immigration policies towards cuba are heavily biased towards allowing tons of expats who made up the whiter, richer upper classes prior to the revolution into the country. as a result, it’s no wonder that in the context of cuban loosening of market control, the people who got rich would be those who have family in the united states making lots of money to send back, ie the whiter ones.

[peanutsandbitterstep]

Possible Causes of Adam’s Scar

tw for fantasy racism

Scenario 1: Adam’s scar was a random act. A bunch of racist humans who work for the SDC/have access to SDC equipment used an SDC brand made to stamp wood in order to do it. But it isn’t something that regularly happens.

I think this is the most likely, given that RWBY characterizes Adam as being driven by spite. That way, the argument can be made that Adam took what was done to him and lashed out at all humans because of it.

Scenario 2: The SDC regularly tortures and brands Faunus and then kills them. Adam was branded on his face because he wasn’t meant to survive. The SDC felt confident enough to cover up his and the others’ deaths, perhaps chalking them up to ‘mining accidents’. No one would care enough or have enough power to really look into it and find out why Faunus are disappearing.

Scenario 3: The SDC brands Faunus and everyone knows it. Adam’s burn is obvious for anyone to see and recognize. If they didn’t plan to kill him, that meant that, like the above, they knew no one would care or have the power to stop them from doing it.

We know systematic racism exists, given the ‘No Faunus’ sign and the mention of income inequality. Also, racism in individuals isn’t rooted out and punished by the system. Cordovin is a high-ranking member of the Atlas military. Jacques is the president of one of, if not the, most powerful companies in the world. Cardin and his team were called out and confronted by the teachers, staff, or other students for their racism and potentially could have graduated Beacon and become Huntsmen, a position with a lot of authority. And if that was the case for them, who knows how many like them already graduated and are/were active Huntsman/Huntresses?

I don’t think the last two scenarios are likely because I don’t think the writers of RWBY really want to delve into the systematic racism of that world and they would have to, especially with Scenario 3. It seems beyond the scope of the story they’re trying to tell, as far as I can see, but i could always be wrong.

Or, they could always be like, Jacques is no longer President and everyone involved with the branding was killed/arrested/fired. Problem solved, racism is over. i hope they don’t do that.